Think of Rome.

All sorts of images may flash into your mind. You might first think of religion, or perhaps of the Italian glamor captured by Fellini in the sixties. Maybe you think of the history, the architecture, the art.

Whatever it is, you’ll likely find it in La Grande Bellezza, the latest film from Italian director Paolo Sorrentino. The title translates to The Great Beauty, and it’s true — the film is utterly gorgeous and breathtaking to behold, in part because of the showy cinematography, and in part because Rome itself is so aesthetically beautiful.

But the title is perhaps an irony, because The Great Beauty isn’t about prettiness at all. There are many beautiful things in it, but it’s a film about ugliness and waste and excess, about too much of a good thing. The film is drenched in death — the glorious opening scene comes to a halt with the sudden demise of a random tourist, and several other characters will expire before it’s over. These deaths make little impact — life just goes on.

Yes, these deaths are accompanied by beautiful images and beautiful music. They look great, but it’s all surface. Life is beautiful, La Grande Bellezza proclaims, and death even moreso. Sorrentino depicts ugliness in a very beautiful way, but The Great Beauty constantly reminds us that what we’re seeing is superficial and hollow and ultimately unsatisfying. Life is a non-stop party for these fabulous beautiful people; it only ends when they die. That sounds great at first, but then it goes on… and on… and eventually the parties seem more like punishment. What good is cutting loose when there’s nothing to be cut loose from? When all of life is one big party, how do you take a break? You can live la dolce vita for as long as you like, The Great Beauty says, but there comes a point where it ceases to be so sweet. And by then, it’ll be too late to do anything about it.

The Great Beauty is not a film that is easily summed up. It’s not as elusive as many movies that favor style over substance, for it states its themes fairly openly in several bits of dialogue — but there are also many curiosities to be found within. The film takes on a dream-like effect, especially in the outrageous final third. In many ways, The Great Beauty is a love letter to Rome — “love” being a rather strong word for it, since our protagonist Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo) has mixed feelings on the life he lives there.

Jep is a somewhat successful novelist, but he quit after his first book. He claims he was too busy partying to finish another, and that seems to be true — he’s up late every night, drinking and dancing and talking at length with a group of friends who are as superficially successful as he is. He goes to bed when the sun comes up, just when an average man would be waking up to go to work. He has no children, and we get the sense that he hasn’t had a serious relationship in the recent past. He lives the life of a young bachelor, even though he’s now getting to be an old man.

The film begins with a busload of Asian tourists taking in the glories of Rome; we, too, are tourists in Sorrentino’s magnificent vision of this ancient city. Then the tourist dies. Sorrentino jumps from there into a long party scene, featuring several delightful minutes of dancing, drinking, and debauchery. Later, there will be talk about how Rome is not what it used to be; it is, essentially, dying. Art is dying, religion is dying, these glamorous parties are dying. There is a lively band of socialites still living it up until the wee hours of morning, but they’re aging fast now. There will come a point when none of these people are left, and who will replace them? We don’t meet many characters of a younger generation, and when we do, they don’t wind up too well off, either. (Witness the strange and heartbreaking sequence of a young girl furiously painting on a huge canvas for an audience of rich observers.) Everything is dying.

Jep, like the film, is preoccupied with aging. He still lives like his younger self, but feels old while doing it. He begins an unlikely romance with a stripper past her prime named Ramona (Sabrina Ferilli), the daughter of an old friend he hasn’t seen in thirty years. She’s younger than Jep but too old to continue taking her clothes off for money, and she has a dark disposition that gradually reveals itself to us and explains, at least partially, why she’s stuck in a rut. There’s not much hope for Ramona, either, in this decaying Rome.

As in many European films, there is much intellectual discourse on the decline of society, particularly from Jep at these party scenes. The film is episodic, some episodes more surreal than others, though I suppose we are meant to take most of it at face value. We accompany Jep, now a journalist, on an interview with a pretentious young artist; we observe as he learns that his first love has recently passed away (another death!); we attend the funeral of another character with Jep and Ramona, which Jep is initially glib about until he breaks down in very real tears once actually confronted with the experience; we attend a dinner Jep hosts for a decrepit old holy woman who is revered by many — but not by Jep. Mostly, we party.

The film takes an odd turn when it focuses on religion in the third act, or at least on religious characters. Religion feels a little off-topic for these characters, since there’s very little talk of religion before this point. (Though there are a lot of nuns scurrying about throughout.) I’ll admit, The Great Beauty lost me for a little while — but it makes sense for an older man grappling with his mortality to flirt with religion near the end.

The Great Beauty is populated by unforgettable images and energetic editing; we encounter a drunk midget and a toothless nun along the way, for example. (Okay, actually, the nun does have one tooth left.) It’s a dazzling film, and also a rambling and rather pretentious one, but there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s fun.

On the one hand, The Great Beauty evokes older Italian cinema — Fellini in particular — but rather than serve as a mere pastiche, it’s all about the death of what Rome used to be. Out with the old, and in with… well, The Great Beauty doesn’t seem to have anything new to replace them with.

Art, religion, tradition, and tourism will die — and the parties will, too. But they will be the last to go, raging on as the rest of the world decays around them.

*

Hollywood is obsessed with money, I say.

Duh, you think in response.

But hear me out.

In 2013, Hollywood was particularly obsessed with money. Not just with making money, but with telling stories about making — and losing — money. In my Top Ten list last year, I named Zero Dark Thirty my favorite film of the year; it’s a movie that serves as a symbol of America’s search for catharsis after 9/11.

And now, in 2013, we have Hollywood’s response to a very different national crisis — the recession from several years back that’s still taking its toll on our economy. It’s a subject that has woven its way into the fabric of many, many films this year — so many that explore what America stands for, strives to be, fails to be, and is.

Of course, lots of films from any era use money as a major motivator for its characters — particularly action and drama. Yet in examining my ten favorite films from the past year, as well as several others, I couldn’t help but notice a connective tissue. It’s like all the filmmakers in the world got together and decided to make on giant meta-movie that was all about the cracks and crevices marring our American dream.

Not all of them are good. Not even close. The past year gave us two very similar stories of our nation’s leaders in crisis — Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. Neither set the world on fire — just Washington, D.C., har har — but they’re emblematic of 2013′s cinematic mood. Escape From Tomorrow is a nightmare vision of the Happiest Place On Earth. Gangster Squad depicts the senseless violence, greed, and corruption of some of Los Angeles’ darkest days. Parkland is another take on the assassination of one of our most beloved presidents. Even Lone Survivor, a mostly rah-rah tale of American bravado, perhaps accidentally sheds light on questions about the wisdom of what we’ve been doing over in the Middle East.

Oz The Great And Powerful is the story of an American man who swindles the denizens of a fairyland and convinces them he’s a worthy leader. We’re The Millers is a comedy about a bunch of misfits mimicking a perfect American nuclear family. Identity Thief is a comedy about a very sad woman taking money that doesn’t belong to her in hopes of filling the void in her soul. The East is about an extremist group that takes revenge on American corporations guilty of actions that they’ll never be punished for in a court of law.

These are not the best movies of the year. Some of them are very bad, actually. They’re just a handful of titles that had such themes on their minds, though the better films I’ll discuss below are more provocative. Ask many film fans, and they’ll claim that 2013 was a very good year, cinematically; awards season is an embarrassment of riches, with the focus actually placed on very good, very deserving films for once.

So. Here are 2013′s best films, y’all.

(Click on the film title to read my original review.)

10. THE GREAT BEAUTY (LA GRANDE BELLEZZA)

While my list this year is largely America-centric, one foreign film I saw late in the game did manage to find its way into my year-end kudos, and that’s La Grande Bellezza, released as The Great Beauty here in the U.S.

Last year’s list had the brilliantly bizarre Holy Motors in the mix, and The Great Beauty is a worthy successor — though a slightly more cohesive one. Whereas Holy Motors was essentially a series of loosely connected vignettes, The Great Beauty does tell a singular story — though it, too, is vividly heightened with only a tenuous attempt at an anchoring plot.

Though The Great Beauty is specifically about life in Rome, it also bears many similarities to 2013′s crop of American movies. It’s about life as a non-stop party, even if several of these partygoers are starting to feel like they’re too old for this shit. There’s a scene in which our protagonist Jep encounters a less-privileged man, asking him what his plans for the night are. A little dinner and TV with his spouse, the man replies. Jep thinks that sounds nice — luxurious, even. But that’s not Jep’s life. Jep wouldn’t know an ordinary existence if it slapped him across the face.

Co-writer and director Paolo Sorrentino delivers the year’s most purely cinematic effort, with breathtaking images that are simultaneously dazzling and disorienting. It’s an overabundance of arresting scenes, so that days after seeing it, you might suddenly remember a mesmerizing moment you’d forgotten merely because there were already so many others caught in your brain. The Great Beauty is best viewed as a wild ride through Roman decline with a host of tantalizing surprises along the way. It took me some time to figure out just how to respond to The Great Beauty; now I’m certain that it’s one of the year’s most striking films, one I’m eager to revisit to take it all in again.

The Great Beauty isn’t an American movie, but like many domestic films this year, it taps into “rich people problems” — the boredom and blase attitude that can arise out of a too-easy life. Clocking in at well over two hours, the film is as much about excess as Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street, with similarly exhilarating sequences of raunchy behavior. (It’s not quite as sordid as what Jordan Belfort did, though — The Great Beauty actually makes a lot of this look fun.) We’re not the only ones dealing with a troubled economy, societal decline, and the questionable priorities of religious leaders — and we’re definitely not the only ones drinking and dancing the night away to forget it all.

9. FRANCES HA

The only way you’d catch Frances Halladay occupying Wall Street is if someone else convinced her to — probably her best friend Sophie. (“We’re the same person with different hair,” Frances says.) But Frances is very much a product of Right Now in America. She’s yet another broke twentysomething who expected things to fall much more easily into her lap, and now has no idea how to reconcile her broken dreams with her less-than-ideal reality.

Frances bounces around between a number of different apartments, paying less and less rent each time. She dreams of being a dancer, but everyone around Frances seems aware that she just isn’t cut out for that. (Frances, of course, is entirely unaware.) Frances thinks she’s poor, even though she is reminded at one point that she’s still a lot more privileged than an actual poor person; but that doesn’t matter much when you’re barely scraping by in New York City. At one point, she decides to blow her remaining cash on a spontaneous weekend getaway to Paris, just because — and then sleeps through half the trip. Frances watches as her best friend Sophie drifts away in favor of a better life with a stable job and a doting, well-to-do fiance; meanwhile, Frances is a twenty-seven-year-old still stuck in that awkward post-college lurch, living paycheck to paycheck when she can even get a paycheck, which isn’t always.

Nearly every scene has money on its mind, but Frances Ha doesn’t strive to be topical — it’s only about post-recession America if you choose to view it that way. The film is shot in black-and-white, and that, along with its ease and charm, evoke old school Woody Allen; it’s a delightful throwback while at the same time feeling very contemporary, which is an odd but enchanting mix. Inside Llewyn Davis and (to a lesser extent) Her also depict creative misfits struggling to find their place in a world that doesn’t seem to need them. Both are very good, but in the end, Frances Ha won me over because I found its down-on-her-luck outcast so very endearing — thanks in large part to co-writer Greta Gerwig’s alluring performance.

I’m not sure you’d really want to spend time in the company of grumpy, self-righteous Llewyn Davis (unless he agreed to sing for you), but how can you not want to hang out with Frances Halladay? Often praised for her warm and approachable indie naturalism, Gerwig makes Frances wholly relatable to millennials. By the end of her journey, I had the feeling that Frances and I were practically the same person — just with different hair.

8. THE BLING RING

The kids aren’t all right. That much is obvious in Sophia Coppola’s adaptation of a crazy-but-true tale of the Calabasas teenagers who easily robbed celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom, and Paris Hilton for months before being caught. And in case it isn’t immediately obvious: these kids weren’t exactly criminal masterminds.

This past year saw several different films about unlikely, unlucky lawbreakers, from the bodybuilders who kidnap one of their personal training clients for extortion in Pain And Gain to the foursome of bikini babe college girls who go on a crime spree in the surreal Spring Breakers. Sofia Coppola is a more capable director than either Michael Bay or Harmony Korine, however; those films dealt more explicitly with the American dream, the obsession with staying young and hot (and, hopefully, rich) forever. Coppola’s focus is on celebrity culture and social media; it may, in fact, have been too savvy in depicting how obsessed they are with gossip rags and Facebook selfies. Is it too soon for a send-up of such things? Some audiences were underwhelmed; these are likely the same people who tweeted about how they didn’t “get” The Bling Ring before clicking over to Perez Hilton.

What makes The Bling Ring so fascinating is how little separation there is between the stars and the kids who are obsessed with them. Lindsay Lohan got in trouble for drunk driving and stealing, just as these kids do; Audrina Partridge’s fame is a byproduct of her wealth and privilege, not something she earned with talent and hard work. It’s not like the Bling Ring targeted Meryl Streep and Al Pacino — they want after the flashy, accessible stars whose whereabouts could be traced on the internet, the celebrities who leave a wake of senseless buzz and chatter wherever they go. On the BluRay, there’s a special feature of Paris Hilton chiding these kids for their vanity and materialism as she takes us through a tour of her house, showing off her excessive goods. It’s hard to feel sorry for the “victims” of these crimes when they’ve barely earned this stuff themselves.

Anyone who claims to believe Spring Breakers is one of the year’s best films totally mystifies me — Korine’s film beats you over the head with repetitive scenes and voice-over dialogue, then James Franco arrives as a character based on a minor celebrity, imploring us to “look at his shit.” That’s fine, I guess, but I’d rather look at Paris Hilton’s shit than Riff Raff’s (though I do give the edge to Spring Breakers’ Britney Spears sing-alongs over The Bling Ring‘s M.I.A.). This is one of the best modern movies about celebrity, because the real stars are in the periphery. It’s actually about the people who obsess over stars, without whom there would be no stars at all.

Like several of my favorite films from 2013, this one is very much of this time. In its own way, The Bling Ring is every bit as astute as The Social Network in depicting how young people live now; it’s also a lot of fucking fun, as we are taken “shopping” in celebrity homes, with plenty of time spent ogling the merchandise. Coppola makes us complicit in these crimes — we get off on the vicarious thrill of ransacking celebrity cribs, wishing we were there ourselves. It’s like an extra-naughty reality show, and our schadenfreude toward a certain brand of celebrity allows us not to feel any guilt about it. We’re voyeurs, too — but in this day and age, it’s all but impossible not to be.

7. AMERICAN HUSTLE

This film is bullshit. Normally that’d be an insult, but bullshit is all American Hustle is trying to be. The original title of the script was American Bullshit, after all, and in this film, everybody’s a hustler. David O. Russell collects an all-star cast of the hottest actors working right now, most of whom have worked with him before. Between them, Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence, and Bradley Cooper have been nominated for… well, more Oscars than I currently care to count. (Add Robert De Niro, who makes a cameo here to the mix, and it’s definitely too many to count.) And surely there will be a few more nods added to the list once this year’s nominations are announced.

In addition to movies about the financial portion of the American dream, 2013 has also been a big year for scorned wives. Two other movies that were in contention for my Top 10 were Blue Jasmine and Side Effects — movies that, on the surface, have little in common, but both Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara played wives of swindlers whose lives of luxury came to a crashing halt when their hubby got busted. And both of these women sought a particularly nasty form of revenge. Margot Robbie’s Naomi, the gorgeous Long Island housewife in The Wolf Of Wall Street, could be American Hustle‘s Rosalyn’s best friend. Jennifer Lawrence plays the kooky spouse of Bale’s Irving Rosenfeld, a seemingly dim-witted housewife who reveals more complicated layers late in the film. Love her or hate her, Lawrence is a total scene-stealer in this film with some of the film’s funniest lines, particularly a riff about a “science oven.” But every character is given a moment to shine — an absolute must in a film stuffed with this much red-hot talent.

American Hustle has met its share of critics, to which I say, To each their own. They complain that the film is overlong and more interested in splashy dialogue and showy costumes than an overarching plot, and I don’t necessarily disagree. American Hustle is like GoodFellas in drag, with Russell heating up Martin Scorsese’s leftovers in his science oven. It’s kind of funny coming in the same year that Scorsese himself released GoodFellas‘ younger, fatter, wealthier cousin. It’s like American Hustle and The Wolf Of Wall Street went shopping and discovered a really great thrift store together.

Both films have been dubbed as comedies, yet neither of them really is one; they’re both quite funny in parts, and both seemingly celebrate scandal and ultimately reward their characters’ bad behavior. But not really. They’re both satires of the American way, and while The Wolf Of Wall Street has taken the brunt of the flack, American Hustle presents even less of a downside to being a swindling douche bag. Irving Rosenfeld and Jordan Belfort both think their victims are stupid losers and “bad people” who deserve to be hustled away from their money; the lawbreakers and law-enforcers are presented as equally corrupt, so why take sides at all? Both films leave our final judgments of these characters up to us. If you think bad guys in America are always punished for lying, cheating, stealing, and so on, then I’m sorry, but you’ve been hustled.

In the end, American Hustle is less interested in storytelling than movie-making. It’s like a bunch of talented, attractive people got together just to play together — and when it’s this much fun to watch, I’m totally on board with that.

6. NEBRASKA

Pretty much everyone in America dreams of being a millionaire — that very dream is ingrained in our culture, even (or especially) in the most rundown town in Nebraska. And if you don’t even have to work to earn your massive fortune, all the better!

Movies like American Hustle, The Bling Ring, Pain And Gain, Spring Breakers, and so on depict people stealing to advance themselves to the good life. Nebraska‘s Woody Grant isn’t so unscrupulous, but when he gets a piece of mail informing him that he’s got a million dollars waiting for him in the Cornhusker State, he jumps at the opportunity to finally upgrade to the realization of the American dream.

Woody’s an old codger who’s probably spent more of his life drinking than working; he’s showing signs of dementia, though he’s not yet lost every one of his marbles. He’s got a squawking wife who’s probably right to constantly complain about him, and he definitely hasn’t been the ideal father to his two grown sons. Winning a million dollars is Woody’s last chance to prove himself to all the people who have long since stopped paying attention — he’s got a handful of years, at best, and he wants to go out on a high note. Woody really only needs a fraction of a million dollars to fulfill his modest dreams of owning a brand new truck, but of course, his journey to Nebraska is not really about that — something his son David knows, too. Woody and David are embroiled in a fight for Woody’s dignity, which isn’t easy when the old man is only half-there half the time.

Woody’s dreams are decidedly smaller than the lavish longings of the kids from The Bling Ring or Spring Breakers, but at the core is the same desire to “better than.” It’s just that the folks he’s trying to be better than aren’t that well-off to begin with. Nebraska is filmed in black-and-white to reflect the lack of variety and options where Woody hails from and where he is now — a shiny new truck is the only way to introduce a little pizzazz to his existence, and when news of Woody’s supposed good fortune spread, greed roils within many of Woody’s old friends and family members, proving that no American life is too squalid to resist the siren’s call of a dollar sign. (And who would have guessed that in the year 2013, two of my year-end picks would be in black-and-white?)

Like the Coen brothers, Alexander Payne has been accused of a condescending attitude toward his characters, and there are a few members of Woody’s family that come off as more cartoonish than complicated. (I wouldn’t argue that they’re unrealistic, though.) This could be a problem, except Payne and screenwriter Bob Nelson imbue Woody with such depth and humanity, never once allowing us to pity him even when everyone else is ridiculing him. This is thanks in large part to Bruce Dern’s career-capping performance, a truly remarkable achievement that easily could have been overplayed. Even if early scenes play Woody’s pain more for laughs than tears, ultimately it all leads to one of the most emotionally rich and satisfying payoffs of the year. It’s Payne’s best film in ages.

5. THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES

Alongside Nebraska, here’s a story about fathers and sons that received far less attention this year. This one isn’t about one particular father or one particular son, though — there are several sets of fathers, biological and otherwise, focused upon in Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond The Pines, and the scope is even wider than that. You could say that this is a film about all fathers and all sons.

Though there are a few plum roles for women, including Eva Mendes and Rose Byrne as mothers in duress, The Place Beyond The Pines is clearly focused on multiple generations of males in a story that spans nearly two decades. In the opening, we meet a stunt motorcyclist aptly named Handsome Luke (played by handsome Ryan Gosling) who learns that a casual sex relationship has spawned a young son, who is now being provided for by the mother’s new beau; Luke himself doesn’t have the means to do so, but feels compelled to try anyway.

Unfortunately, in his eyes that means turning to a life of crime, a choice that has lengthy repercussions for multiple characters in this story — some of whom he hasn’t even met. There’s a police officer named Avery (played by Bradley Cooper) who happens to be the officer on duty when one of Luke’s bank robberies goes awry — what happens that day will change each man’s life in very drastic ways and continue to impact them and their families for years to come. The Place Beyond The Pines has a novelistic structure that may, upon first viewing, be jarring to some viewers, focusing on different characters at different times. But as both Avery and Luke’s sons approach adulthood late in the film, we see the cyclical nature of fatherhood and how one man’s actions can shape the destiny of his loved ones for years to come. A shot of Luke’s son at age 17 riding his bike is one of the most telling and poignant cinematic moments of the year, in my humble opinion.

Handsome Luke is another American in the movies this year trying to make a living he didn’t earn; his intentions are noble, but his methods are obviously flawed. Unlike many of this year’s cinematic swindlers, he and his loved ones are punished when he tries to take a shortcut to a financially secure happy ending. Luke himself never had a father; he strikes up a vaguely paternal relationship with an auto mechanic who first introduces him to the idea of robbing banks. He’s trying to provide for his infant son, not realizing that this very decision will lead his own son to grow up without him. And thus the cycle continues. Sometimes what we think is the answer to all our troubles is really just where the trouble begins…

4. BEFORE MIDNIGHT

Like Nebraska and The Place Beyond The Pines, the third entry in the most unlikely trilogy of all time also has a father-son conflict driving the movie, though it takes a while for that to surface in this one. Before Midnight opens with Jesse, now in his forties, dropping son Hank off at a Greek airport. It’s hard for Jesse to see Hank go, because while Jesse is living it up in France with his longtime partner Celine (they’re not married), his son has to return to his ex-wife in Chicago and grow up largely fatherless. You can have love or family, Before Midnight posits, but not both at once.

Before Sunrise was a romantic fantasy about strangers meeting cute in Vienna and developing red-hot passionate feelings for one another. Before Sunset was about their somewhat unlikely reunion almost a decade later, and how old flames can be rekindled quickly because, perhaps, they never really burn out in the first place. Before Midnight takes kismet out of the equation — there’s no chance meeting here. Jesse and Celine have been together for nine years now, raising adorable twin girls. They’re summering in Greece with their daughters, Jesse’s son, and friends representing several generations. But now summer is nearly over.

As the title suggests, Before Midnight grows darker than its predecessors. Jesse has realized his dream, falling in love with a European beauty and writing novels for a living. He may not live in America anymore, but it is a pretty perfect approximation of the American dream (minus the bitter ex-wife, of course). For Celine, though, life is not quite so dream-like — she loves her daughters and Jesse’s son, and she still loves Jesse, but she’s also nowhere near the place she thought she’d be, and Jesse’s domestic paradise means a sacrifice of her individuality and career aspirations, which Celine is slowly growing to resent. As in the prior two films, Jesse and Celine walk-and-talk about a wide variety of topics relating to gender politics, their feelings for one another, and life itself; but then they argue.

The film’s final act is a show-stopping fight scene that perfectly encapsulates a real lovers’ quarrel; they bicker and makeup and then bicker again. They say things they don’t mean, or maybe they really do mean them. They question whether or not their love is worth the struggle and sacrifice. In short, the honeymoon is over.

Before Midnight is the perfect movie for anyone who ever questioned two characters riding off into the sunset toward a supposed happily-ever-after — and asked, “Yeah, but then what?” Jesse and Celine were once perfect romantic foils for one another, but no two people can sustain such harmony and bliss forever. Richard Linklater, along with his co-writers Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, who put much of themselves into these scripts, explore and challenge the idea that two people would, could, and should spend their whole lives together. They have just about everything they could want, and yet it still isn’t quite enough. Still they yearn for more. When Jesse first hints that he’d be happier if Celine picked up her life and moved to America so they could be closer to Hank, she posits that this is the day that will break them apart, the beginning of the end for them.

Is it? Before Midnight may or may not be the final chapter for one of our favorite on-screen couples, and we watch in suspense to see whether or not these two will kiss and make up before midnight strikes and finds them starting a new day away from each other for the first time in nine years. Linklater forces us to confront a number of tough questions, starting with: If not even these two can make it work, how is there any hope for the rest of us?

3. GRAVITY

If movies had a common thread in 2013 besides money and the American dream, they were all about survival.

Yes, okay, lots of movies from lots of years also hit on this basic theme, but this year especially. From the biggest moneymaker of the year, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, to Best Actor hopefuls like Captain Phillips and All Is Lost and Dallas Buyers Club, there were so many films about people trying to get by on their own, facing obstacles large and small (mostly large, though). There’s even one called Lone Survivor.

Spoiler alert: Gravity could also have been called Lone Survivor, since Sandra Bullock’s only real co-star abandons her early in the movie. Gravity wasn’t the highest-grossing film of the year, or even in the Top 5, but it’s probably the movie 2013 will be remembered by. It’s the buzziest event movie since Avatar, with a similar emphasis on spectacle; the Best Picture race this year will echo 2009′s, when the 3D behemoth from outer space squared off against a lesser-seen but much more grounded story of earthly duress, The Hurt Locker. (In this case, Steve McQueen was never married to Alfonso Curaon, though.) Following that formula, 12 Years A Slave is a slightly more likely victor, but Gravity will likely hold up far better than Avatar did, because for all the razzle and dazzle, it’s a simple story about death and rebirth and survival. And, you know, trying not to float off into space.

Instead of another story about fathers and sons, Alfonso Cuaron delivers a story about mother and daughter, even though we never meet that daughter (she dies before the movie even begins). Perhaps his unconventional approach to filmmaking gave Cuaron the freedom to do whatever the hell he wanted with this story — how else to explain a big studio action film carried almost solely by one actress? (She is, at least, a very bankable actress.)

Cuaron has proven himself one of Hollywood’s most innovative visionaries, delivering that rare perfect blend of art and commerce. (Inception was the most recent.) Gravity is a one-of-a-kind immersive experience, a rare beacon of hope in a year that delivered dud after dud in the blockbuster department. Hollywood is certainly paying attention, though it remains to be seen whether or not it will learn any lessons. Unlike most of my other favorites from this year, Gravity is not really about money or the American dream, except on a meta level — it sure made a lot of money, so we can only hope that, like Ryan Stone, movies like this one will fight and beat the odds and survive the dark wasteland that normally sucks up well-intentioned gems like this. Because I’d rather float off and die in space myself than sit through most of the films that were released last summer. Studios should stop wasting money on the big, expensive junk no one wants and spend a little less on stories people actually want to tell, stories we want to be told.

But that’s not a free pass to go and make Gravity 2, you guys. Just… don’t go there.

2. 12 YEARS A SLAVE

Thanks in large part to Gravity, it’s been a decent year for women on the big screen — though the Best Actress race is still pretty lackluster compared to the boys’ club. It’s also been a very strong year for black filmmakers, with the release of buzzy dramas like Fruitvale Station (directed by Ryan Coogler) and Lee Daniels’ The Butler (directed by Lee Daniels, if you couldn’t tell).

The Butler is a massive hit, raking in over $167 million worldwide. Fruitvale Station is a more modest success (but a better film). The year’s ultimate triumph, however, could be likely Best Picture winner 12 Years A Slave, which has received about as unanimously positive critical response as you can get (there will always be a handful of naysayers). It hasn’t earned nearly as much as The Butler (around $50 million worldwide to date), but it’s already been heralded as the definitive movie on American slavery, Oscar or no. Already it has made its mark.

Here’s where it all began, more or less. We are a capitalist nation. The American dream has always piggybacked on someone else’s nightmares — in this case, Africans and their descendants who were shipped over to do the bidding of white men. More than 150 years ago, a real man named Solomon Northup was drugged and woke up to an unimaginably horrifying reality — he was now the property of a slave trader, and as their property, he could be beaten, tormented, and even killed without consequence. We all know all about slavery, and have since we were very young — but at a distance. 12 Years A Slave puts those injustices front and center, in our faces, and leaves them there for uncomfortably long moments. We are not allowed to look away, because director Steve McQueen knows: if we could, we would.

But 12 Years A Slave is no mere parlor trick. It’s not supposed to be punishment. And it certainly doesn’t provide any catharsis. It’s a potent reminder of where we came from. If The Place Beyond The Pines depicts how a father’s actions can have devastating effects on his son, then 12 Years A Slave is about how our founding fathers’ actions can carry over multiple centuries, creating problems we’re still dealing with as a nation. (The Butler and Fruitvale Station both address such problems in different eras.) America’s first black president is in office, something that would have been unthinkable in Solomon Northup’s time, and that’s progress. Maybe someday we’ll be free of the shackles of the past, but we’re not there yet. 12 Years A Slave is only partially about how far we’ve come; it’s also about how far we have yet to go.

I didn’t enjoy 12 Years A Slave because it was a didactic history lesson, though, or because it made me think about slavery in a new light. (It’s unlikely to make you think about slavery in a new way; the point is for audiences to think about it at all.)  I liked it because it was a good story — a great story, very well-told. Every aspect of the filmmaking is vital and beautiful, from the propulsive score by Hans Zimmer to the astounding cinematography by Sean Bobbitt and, of course, McQueen’s distinctive directorial flourishes, decried as too artsy by some. For me, they’re just artsy enough. 12 Years A Slave has some of the year’s boldest scenes, some of which can be hard to watch — an extended whipping scene, and Solomon hanging from a noose while daily life at the plantation goes on around him indifferently. But McQueen is no sadist. 12 Years A Slave does not take the Michael Haneke approach to “entertainment.” There are also many quietly beautiful moments; and though much of the discourse 12 Years A Slave inspires is made very obvious, there’s also a lot to think about that isn’t so blatant.

There is also no film this year with so many magnificent performances. Lupita Nyong’o is a revelation as the unforgettable Patsey, who almost threatens to steal the movie from Solomon. (Another suffering slave woman, played by Adepero Oduye, also makes quite an impact.) Michael Fassbender, Sarah Paulson, and Benedict Cumberbatch play slave owners with varying degrees of evil in their hearts; none of them are mere monsters, though Fassbender gets damn close. Of course, it’s Chiwetel Ejiofor who carries the movie with a largely understated performance; Solomon is an intelligent, thoughtful, and educated man who must hide both of these qualities in order to survive, but we can read his thought process on Ejiofor’s expressive face. When first realizing his terrifying reversal of fortune, we experience his personal horror vicariously as he thinks, I’m not supposed to be here. It’s only later that he thinks: But then again, nobody is. 

We, the audience, identify with Solomon the everyman, and thus undergo the same thought process. It’s not necessarily a pleasant journey, but it is a beautiful one. Should a movie about slavery be so pretty? I, for one, didn’t mind at all, because McQueen is so honest about the ugliness of it. There are moments in this film that already feel like a part of cinematic history. Solomon Northup probably never thought his story would resonate 160 years after it was first published, just as his enslavers likely never considered the impact their actions might have after a century or more. Slavery may be a thing of the past, but exploiting the weak so the wealthy can prosper? Yeah, about that…

1. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

In a year during which so many movies were about America’s relationship to wealth and power, here is the movie that is most about that — if only because it is the longest.

Martin Scorsese is not fucking around with The Wolf Of Wall Street. The man is in his seventies, and he has chosen this movie to deliver some of the most explicit scenes of his career. Here we have a candlestick poking out of a major movie star’s anus; here we have that same major movie star blowing drugs into an attractive naked woman’s rectum. So, it’s settled then: this is in every way a movie about assholes. (You could also say it’s a movie about dicks, since there’s a prosthetic penis on display as well.) We also have quaaludes galore. Capitalism… it isn’t for pussies, that’s for sure.

America is still hurting from the recession, even though we’re pretending it’s fine. It’s not fine. Frances Halladay can’t pay her rent, strapping young lads have turned to robbing banks to provide for their families, elderly men are attempting to walk from Montana to Nebraska to claim a bogus prize — even Paris Hilton isn’t safe from criminals who want a taste of how the 1% lives. And then here’s this jerk Jordan Belfort, wrecking his yacht, his Lamborghini, and his helicopter. What a fucking asshole.

It’s a wonder, then, that as played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Jordan Belfort still comes across as so winning. And even after all that, you almost, almost, almost want to hang out with him. (But you’d be sure and have a DD.) The self-proclaimed “Wolf Of Wall Street” lives up to his name, with modest beginnings in penny stocks that eventually have him making nearly a million dollars a week. (Fucker.)

Jordan has a hot wife — no, yeah, duh, but I mean, she’s like, extremely hot — and a ginormous house, and he has a horde of followers who would all fall on their swords for him. He bangs hot ladies all over town, drops thousands of dollars on every meal, and throws the wildest parties since Jay Gatsby. (Who, coincidentally, was also portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio this year.) So, do you want to help me strangle this motherfucker or what?

If you’re one of The Wolf Of Wall Street‘s many critics, the answer is probably yes. The film has proven surprisingly controversial, mostly thanks to people that seem to need a tidy moral literally spelled out for them at the end of the movie. (How about an end title card that reads: “The makers of this movie do not endorse drug use, prostitution, or screwing innocent people out of their hard-earned income, okay?”)

And that is, in large part, why The Wolf Of Wall Street is my favorite movie of 2013. I tend to root for the underdog, which often means taking a hard stance in favor of divisive films. (See also my previous #1s, which include Crash, United 93, and Zero Dark Thirty.) Last year, Zero Dark Thirty was trumped by Argo — fucking Argo, of all movies!! — mostly because of a stupid debate about whether or not the film endorsed torture. In truth, the film depicted torture, without anyone wagging their finger directly to camera and explaining, “This is bad!” Much in the same way, some people are all up in arms about how The Wolf Of Wall Street glorifies the illegal doings of stock brokers merely because the film itself doesn’t declare a judgment on them. The Wolf Of Wall Street endorses such behavior in the same way that Taxi Driver endorses assassinations, Cape Fear endorses biting people’s faces off during sex, and The Aviator endorses dating Katherine Hepburn. Which is to say: not at all.

Don’t like The Wolf Of Wall Street because it’s an overlong, excessive mess of a movie? Fine by me. It’s not for everyone. But to condemn the film because it doesn’t condemn its characters is just madness. The story may take place in the late eighties and nineties, but the film is very much about the here and now — the enormous greed of a small number of people that eventually proved toxic to every single American. How dare anyone expect Martin Scorsese to punish these people in his movie, when in real life, these people have not been punished? It would be dishonest — and though this movie is by and large about dishonesty, it is not dishonest.

The Wolf Of Wall Street is one big, crazy movie — the kind of movie many of us doubted Scorsese still had in him. It replaces his trademark violence with wild substance abuse and raunchy sex, but it’s the same ol’ Scorsese. God bless him. The movie is so much fun it’s almost too much fun, by design — certain scenes go on and on, but they’re magnetic. Leonardo DiCaprio gives the performance of his career (and let me remind you, it’s a hell of a career); he’s supported by solid work from Kyle Chandler, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, and plenty more, but it’s basically DiCaprio’s show, and he owns it.

This is the movie that put the theme of the year into focus for me — and once I saw it, it was impossible to unsee how many other films dealt with these ideas. And get this: the best movie of the year is also the perfect companion piece to the year’s best TV show Breaking Bad, which also bowed out in 2013. That’s a series about a man whose greed got the better of him, and cost so many people so much; both The Wolf Of Wall Street and Breaking Bad‘s best episode, “Ozymandias,” use the big bad dad grabbing his tiny tot and rushing off to the car while mom screams in agony as their climactic moment.

The Wolf Of Wall Street gives us barely a glimpse at anyone who isn’t living the high life. We don’t meet any of Jordan Belfort’s victims — but presumably, neither does he. And we don’t need to see any of that, because look around — we see it every day, everywhere we go. The American dream has gotten out of hand, and caused a lot of damage in its wake. That’s how we live in now, and it’s silly to expect that a movie will provide catharsis when the real world has not.

In its own way, The Wolf Of Wall Street is as much about the post-millennial strife we’ve faced as United 93 and Zero Dark Thirty; neither of those films sugar-coated the hard truth, and this doesn’t either. Good for you, Scorsese. Bad for us. It’s not a filmmaker’s job to punish Wall Street for its sins; it was ours. If we wanted it done, we should’ve done it ourselves. Some tried, but most of us did nothing.

So stop expecting a movie to do what you cannot. If you don’t like the world The Wolf Of Wall Street depicts, that’s too bad, because it’s the one you live in. This is America in 2013, exaggerated ever-so-slightly to fit the big screen. It is, unfortunately, not just a movie.

*

It’s the morning of the Oscar nominations, and I’m not upset.

This is weird. All the films I wanted to see nominated for Best Picture are. All the actors I hoped to see receive nominations for this year’s performances were. Compare and contrast to last year’s fatal omission of Kathryn Bigelow as Best Director, or 2011′s Oscar season, in which none of my ten favorite films were nominated for Best Picture — but Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close was. This year, on the other hand, five of my own picks for Best Picture overlap with Academy’s. Three of my four favorite performances were recognized. All of the films from the Best Director nominees were in my Top 10.

What the fuck is going on here?

Yeah, it was a good year for movies, and thankfully, it’s a good year at the Oscars. It’s only natural that some of my favorite films aren’t represented as much as I may like, and you know what? I’m pretty okay with that.

Still, I think I can do the Academy a little better. So now it’s time for the really important awards — my picks for the films and performances that deserve more recognition than they got. Here are 2013′s Not-Oscars!

(As usual, I pick a winner and then list my four other “nominees” in descending order based on how much I liked them. Check out last year’s Not-Oscars here.)

BEST ACTRESS

Julie Delpy, Before Midnight
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Adele Exarchopoulos, Blue Is The Warmest Color
Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

Honorable Mentions: Brie Larson, Short Term 12; Amy Adams, American Hustle

Cate Blanchett is the favorite to win and has been ever since the release of Blue Jasmine, and deservedly so — the role of a broken, vodka-guzzling socialite grieving for her dearly departed husband and dearly departed lifestyle (not necessarily in that order) is a perfect showcase for a performer, blending comedy and tragedy expertly, and it’s hard to imagine anyone doing a better job with the part. It’s one of the roles she’ll be remembered for.

Meanwhile, young Adele Exarchopoulos carries Blue Is The Warmest Color, as the film’s French title The Life Of Adele suggests. The movie is about every aspect of this young girl’s life, and she eats, showers, and has sex with equal gusto in an incredibly natural performance. She’s remarkably expressive for such a young actress, and if the rumors are to be believed, she put up with quite a lot of duress thanks to the film’s director, including some very long sex scenes.

If Blue Is The Warmest Color rests almost entirely on Exarchopoulos’ shoulders, Gravity rests even moreso on Sandra Bullock’s; the screenplay lets her down with a clunky bit of dialogue or two, but that doesn’t undermine Sandy’s remarkable feat as an action heroine who’s still as capable, with a mix of strength and vulnerability, as she was in Speed almost two decades ago. One of the year’s most beautiful scenes is her Ryan Stone howling along with a Chinese stranger via radio — and despite the massive amount of visual effects, Bullock had a lot of physical work to do to master this part.

And how about indie darling Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the perfect part for her winsome indie charms in Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha? She may not exactly be the millennial female Woody Allen yet, but Lena Dunham better watch her back all the same.

My 2013 winner, though, is easy — Before Midnight‘s Julie Delpy, stepping into the role of Celine for the third (and final?) time. In the past two films, Celine was a smart, thoughtful, independent woman; she’s too fully realized to be written off as a mere manic pixie dream girl, but she was in many ways the perfect woman. It was to see why Ethan Hawke’s Jesse fell for her. Before Midnight presents a new challenge for the actress — Celine is less secure, revealing a fragility and bitterness that were only hinted at in earlier incarnations. Delpy deftly shifts from the “old” Celine we (and Jesse) know and love to reveal a darker shade to the character that is still so relatable. (And she performs a large part of the third act topless, so there’s that.)

BEST ACTOR

Bruce Dern, Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf Of Wall Street
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years A Slave
Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

Honorable Mentions: Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station; Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips

It’s by far the best year for Best Actor in recent memory, with at least ten performances that deserve Academy recognition. The biggest performance of the year has to be Leonardo DiCaprio’s in The Wolf Of Wall Street — he’s brash and bold like we’ve never seen him before, and funnier, too. His quaalude overdose is a masterpiece of excruciating physical comedy, and he delivers some of the year’s best monologues to boot. After plenty of solid performances over the past couple decades, it’s maybe the performance that finally signals him as one of his generation’s best actors.

Then there’s Chiwetel Ejiofor, who guides us through the hell of a free man finding himself suddenly enslaved. In a big, brash drama, this is a surprisingly understated performance, since Solomon knows he can’t give away the fact that he’s smarter than his masters without suffering even worse consequences. This was the toughest category by far for me to pick a winner in, since Dern, DiCaprio, and Ejiofor were all about equal in my eyes.

Oscar Isaac has the advantage of singing beautiful folk music to win audiences over, and his voice is indeed lovely; his turn as the titular Llewyn Davis is prickly enough that we’re never allowed to feel sorry for the down-trodden musician — instead, we realize that his bad luck is a mixture of misfortune and bad behavior. Hopefully, enough people took notice of this largely unknown actor for us to see much more of him in the future.

And, of course, there’s Matthew McConaughey, in the midst of a massive career renaissance that no one saw coming, turning in unforgettable performances in a wide array of movies over the past two years. Dallas Buyers Club is the centerpiece, as he portrays a straight man afflicted with the last disease he’d ever admit to having. McConaughey lost a ton of weight in the role (and has been uncomfortably skinny-looking in a number of his other appearances over the past year), but he also resists the urge to sentimentalize Ron Woodruff as some actors may have; like Isaac, he doesn’t give a damn if he’s likable in the role or not.

But my favorite is Bruce Dern’s crazy old coot in Nebraska, because he is the movie. It’s a tribute to Dern as well as the screenplay that we can never tell just how “with it” Woody Grant is — he seems to simultaneously believe that he won his phony millions while somewhere, at the back of his mind, knowing it’s too good to be true. It’s a role that could have been cutesy or precious, but instead it’s just pitch-perfect all the way through, allowing us to laugh at, critique, and feel for Woody all at once. DiCaprio and Ejiofor hopefully still have many great performances in them, but this one feels like Dern’s crowning achievement after a long career.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years A Slave
Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
Joanna Scanlan, The Invisible Woman
June Squibb, Nebraska
Margot Robbie, The Wolf Of Wall Street

Honorable Mentions: Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine; Sarah Paulson, 12 Years A Slave

The Jennifer Lawrence backlash is beginning. She can ask her fellow Oscar-winner from last year, Anne Hathaway, how to deal with that. Some are calling her scene-stealing performance in American Hustle the best part of the movie; some think she was just plain awful. It’s pretty obvious which side of the fence I’m on — I found every moment Lawrence was on screen a delight. Yes, it’s the sort of big, brassy, ditsy performance that award-givers love to honor — see Oscar-winners like Marissa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny or Mira Sorino in Mighty Aphrodite, both of which were controversial picks. But there are two scenes that show Lawrence is more than just a hairdo — when Rosalyn tears up and claims that change is hard for her while, under the surface, implying that her new beau should go rough up her old one — and ohhh, lordy, that bathroom scene.

Next there’s Joanna Scanlan, who beefs up an underserved part in The Invisible Woman with her expressive face. She’s the plump, put-upon wife of Charles Dickens, who gradually realizes her famous hubby is in love with a younger, prettier woman. We’re left to guess how she feels about it until the film’s best scene, when Mrs. Dickens confronts the young woman and presents her with a birthday gift. It’s the kind of supporting performance that makes you wish the movie was all about her.

And how about June Squibb, who played Jack Nicholson’s dumpy wife in Alexander Payne’s About Schmidt a decade ago, and now shows up in a much livelier part in his Nebraska? While Will Forte plays the serious straight man and Bruce Dern touches our hearts with his senility, Squibb injects a welcome dose of energetic comedy to lighten the mood — she even flashes the grave of a deceased paramour at one point. Yeah, these may be cheap laughs in a way, but they’re still good ones.

Last in this lineup of scene-stealing wives is Margot Robbie of The Wolf Of Wall Street. Like Lawrence, she’s aided greatly by a fabulous wardrobe and a juicy script, and some may think she’s just a pretty face. But in a largely amoral film, she’s the closest thing to a sympathetic character we get, and over time we really do feel for her, particularly in her dramatic final confrontation with DiCaprio. Really, though, she’s here because she’s in what might be my favorite scene in a movie this year — yep, the “no panties” scene.

But none of these supporting actresses had quite the impact Lupita N’yongo did in 12 Years A Slave. Like them, she’s a scene-stealer, but she’s far from comic relief. Solomon Northup is such a dignified and reserved character, Steve McQueen’s film needs Patsey to be his counterpoint — and as much sympathy as we have for Solomon, it ends up being Patsey who we really feel for. We see Patsey suffer more than any other character, and Nyong’o sells every moment with fear, fury, despair, or whatever the scene calls for. It’s impossible to take your eyes off her for a moment, even when she’s being brutally whipped and you really want to look away. In a film populated by well-known actors like Brad Pitt, Alfre Woodard, Michael Fassbender, Paul Giamatti, and Benedict Cumberbatch, the largely unknown Lupita Nyong’o gives the performance that’s burned in our brains.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
James Gandolfini, Enough Said
Michael Fassbender, 12 Years A Slave
Keith Stanfield, Short Term 12
Ryan Gosling, The Place Beyond The Pines

Honorable Mentions: Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips; Bradley Cooper, American Hustle

Best Supporting Actor is the weakest race this year, yet somehow the Oscars still overlooked the marvelous James Gandolfini, who passed away last year, leaving behind a legacy as Tony Soprano. Given the tough-guy roles he’s ordinarily known for, Gandolfini is an unlikely romantic comedy hero, but he sure as hell pulls it off in Nicole Holofcener’s Enough Said, which finds the burly actor courting Julia Louis-Dreyfus in a comedy about taking a second stab at love in middle age. The Sopranos allowed Gandolfini to show off all kinds of gifts, though menace is certainly at the forefront of our minds. So his warmth and charm in this role is a nice way to cap off his career, though it’s a shame we won’t get to see more of him in movies like this.

Meanwhile, Michael Fassbender takes a page from Tony Soprano by playing the villain of 12 Years A Slave. He’s a drunk, he’s a rapist, and he’s a slave owner — so, yeah, not a very nice guy. Edwin Epps is outsmarted by Solomon Northup because Edwin can’t fathom that a slave could be smarter than him; together with his spiteful wife (played by an equally good Sarah Paulson), these two rain down an almost unbearable level of fear and torment on their human property. Yet what makes Fassbender’s performance so special is that there’s a hint of humanity buried underneath it, so we can’t merely write off Epps as a bad guy. He’s a coward and a bully and a brute, but he’s not uncomplicated. Through Fassbender, we understand how these people justified their atrocious actions, even if by modern standards they are nowhere near justifiable anymore.

A lesser-seen and lesser-known performance comes from Keith Stanfield, the young actor who plays Marcus in Short Term 12. It’s a film filled with terrific, understated performances, but Stanfield might have the trickiest role in Marcus, an angry young teenager with no place else to go. We can sense the rage within, as well as a deep well of sadness and betrayal, but Stanfield keeps us on edge wondering if — or when — Marcus will finally snap and do someone in this movie harm. One moment, we’re crying for him, the next we’re afraid he’s done something terrible. There are many poignant moments in Short Term 12, but the unlikely tearjerker is Marcus’ haircut scene.

And then there’s Ryan Gosling, who in 2013 starred in the overblown Gangster Squad and Nicholas Winding Refn’s surprisingly underwhelming Drive follow-up Only God Forgives. At least one of his roles lived up to its potential — the motorcycle-riding bank robber Handsome Luke in The Place Beyond The Pines. Like Margot Robbie, Gosling’s performance is helped by his character’s sense of style. His clothes are a moody hipster’s wet dream, and let’s face it — this is Ryan Gosling, bleached blonde and tatted up on a motorcycle. How could he not be cool? We’ve seen Gosling play the stoic type with rage and violence bubbling just under the surface in several previous roles, so his turn in The Place Beyond The Pines isn’t exactly a revelation. But in a lackluster year for supporting males, Handsome Luke is one of the characters who stayed with me.

This year, Best Supporting Actor the only one of these categories in which my pick will likely line up with the Academy’s. That will almost surely be Jared Leto, whose turn in Dallas Buyers Club is a total transformation within and without. To play the transgender Rayon, Leto doesn’t just put on a wig and some lipstick and call it a day, as many other actors might have. We believe that he believes he’s a woman, and Let fully commits to the femininity without ever winking at the audience. Rayon is a larger-than-life character both in the movie and outside of it, so yes, this is the kind of performance that the Academy likes to reward even when it isn’t done well. In this case, it is. Dallas Buyers Club is more notable for its two towering male performances than it is as a stand-alone movie; it’s a movie about the AIDS epidemic of the eighties that quite possibly under-represents the gay end of the equation, so that point of view is almost entirely up to Leto. Fortunately for us (and him), he nails it.

BEST DIRECTOR

Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
Steve McQueen, 12 Years A Slave
Martin Scorsese, The Wolf Of Wall Street
Richard Linklater, Before Midnight
Derek Cianfrance, The Place Beyond The Pines

My five favorite directors line up exactly with my five favorite films — but not exactly in the same order. Alfonso Cuaron’s triumph with Gravity was innovative in so many ways — it was a pretty big risk that fortunately paid off. And Steve McQueen had quite a task ahead of him when he set out to make a slave epic that dealt so brutally with those horrors, which gives him the edge over an old pro like Martin Scorsese, whose bloated (but fabulous) The Wolf Of Wall Street cost a lot of money and looks like it. I have to give props to Richard Linklater, who films walk-and-talks so expertly, using incredibly long takes that must’ve been a major challenge. And Derek Cianfrance manages to lend an epic scope to The Place Beyond The Pines, a story that in other hands could feel much smaller.BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

12 Years A Slave — John Ridley
The Wolf Of Wall Street — Terrence Winter
Before Midnight — Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, & Julie Delpy
Short Term 12 — Destin Cretton
Blue Is The Warmest Color — Ghalia Lacroix and Abdellatif Kechiche

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Frances Ha — Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig
The Place Beyond The Pines — Derek Cianfrance & Ben Coccio and Darius Marder
American Hustle — David O. Russell and Eric Singer
Side Effects — Scott Z. Burns
Nebraska — Bob Nelson

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Great Beauty
12 Years A Slave
The Wolf Of Wall Street
Gravity
Her

BEST SCORE

All Is Lost — Alexander Ebert
The Place Beyond The Pines — Mike Patton
Only God Forgives — Cliff Martinez
Gravity — Steven Price
12 Years A Slave — Hans Zimmer

BEST DRIVING

Ryan Gosling, The Place Beyond The Pines

WORST DRIVING

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf Of Wall Street

BEST FIGHT (VERBAL)

Julie Delpy & Ethan Hawke, Before Midnight

BEST FIGHT (PHYSICAL)

Ryan Gosling & Vithaya Pansringarm, Only God Forgives

BEST TWIST

Side Effects

BEST MUSICAL NUMBER

I’m So Excited

WEIRDEST MUSICAL NUMBER

Spring Breakers

BEST KISS

Jennifer Lawrence & Amy Adams, American Hustle

BEST DRUNK

Bruce Dern, Nebraska & Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

WORST DRUNK

Colin Ferrell, Saving Mr. Banks

BEST STRUGGLING ARTIST

Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha
Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis
Lea Seydoux, Blue Is The Warmest Color
Keith Stanfield, Short Term 12
Ernst Umhauer, In The House

BEST SCENE-STEALING WIFE

Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
Margot Robbie, The Wolf Of Wall Street
June Squibb, Nebraska
Joanna Scanlan, The Invisible Woman
Oprah Winfrey, Lee Daniels’ The Butler

BEST HUSTLER

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf Of Wall Street
Christian Bale, American Hustle
Alec Baldwin, Blue Jasmine
Channing Tatum, Side Effects
Tom Hanks, Saving Mr. Banks

BEST LONER

Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Robert Redford, All Is Lost
Joaquin Phoenix, Her
Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis
Mark Wahlberg, Lone Survivor

BIGGEST BITCH

Kristin Scott Thomas, Only God Forgives
Sarah Paulson, 12 Years A Slave
Meryl Streep, August Osage County
Julia Roberts, August Osage County
Emma Thompson, Saving Mr. Banks

BEST DOUBLE FEATURE

Blue Jasmine & Side Effects
The Wolf Of Wall Street & The Great Beauty
Frances Ha & Inside Llewyn Davis
Captain Phillips & All Is Lost
Saving Mr. Banks & Escape From Tomorrow

*

2013 ROSTER

1. The Wolf Of Wall Street
2. 12 Years A Slave
3. Gravity
4. Before Midnight
5. The Place Beyond The Pines
6. Nebraska
7. American Hustle
8. The Bling Ring
Frances Ha
10.The Great Beauty
11.Side Effects
12.Short Term 12
13.Her
14.Blue Jasmine
15.Blue Is The Warmest Color
16.The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
17.Inside Llewyn Davis
18.Drinking Buddies
19.Captain Phillips
20.All Is Lost
21.Dallas Buyers Club
22.Enough Said
23.Mud
24.Stories We Tell
25.Fruitvale Station
26.The Past
27.The East
28.The Invisible Woman
29.The Spectacular Now
30.The World’s End
31.This Is The End
32.In The House
33.Much Ado About Nothing
34.Stoker
35.Prisoners
36.I’m So Excited
37.The English Teacher
38.Disconnect
39.August Osage County
40.Lone Survivor
41.Gimme The Loot
42.The Way Way Back
43.The Call
44.The Conjuring
45.Lovelace
46.Lee Daniels’ The Butler
47.Thor: The Dark World
48.Philomena
49.Saving Mr. Banks
50.Upstream Color
51.Only God Forgives
52.Pain and Gain
53.C.O.G.
54.Iron Man 3
55.Trance
56.We’re The Millers
57.Prince Avalanche
58.White House Down
59.Identity Thief
60.The Kings Of Summer
61.Oz The Great And Powerful
62.The Great Gatsby
63.Spring Breakers
64.Jobs
65.Computer Chess
66.Parkland
67.Post Tenebras Lux
68.The Canyons
69.Gangster Squad
70.Escape From Tomorrow

*

Hey dude.

Sup?

Looking?

That’s the 21st century equivalent of wandering into a bathhouse or the obfuscating brush of a city park at night. Most gay men I know have never gone to either of these places trolling for sex — the word “cruising” is more likely to bring to mind poolside piña coladas and possibly a host of costumed Disney princess than it is a sexual encounter. It’s 2014 now, and gay life isn’t relegated only to the dankest, shadiest corners of the world anymore — nobody has to go “looking” in such places anymore, though some small segment of the population still chooses to (mostly leftovers from previous generations).

HBO’s Looking begins with its protagonist, Patrick, fumbling through the beginnings of a hookup in a public park, which is a winking method of making its audience roll their eyes and murmur, “Ohhh, dear.” Moments later, without fanfare, the encounter ends, and Patrick is laughing it off as a joke, an experiment, and we can relax. At least Looking is smart enough to know that this brand of dalliance is a thing of the past.

The show focuses on a trio of gay men in San Francisco — yes, San Francisco, which already feels a little on-the-nose. But so would New York, and so would Los Angeles, so let’s set that aside for now. Patrick is a level designer for video games whose longest relationship clocked in at under six months; Agustín (Frankie J. Avarez) is an artist who is about to move in with his boyfriend Frank (O-T Fagbenle); Dom (Murray Bartlett) is a server rapidly approaching his forties who still lives with his ex-girlfriend Doris (Lauren Weedman) and is still hung up on his psycho ex-boyfriend, so clearly he has issues with moving on. The pilot, “Looking For Now,” introduces minor complications for each of them, but mostly it’s just a slice of gay life in San Francisco, without aspiring to make any grand, sweeping statements or bold revelations. It’s apolitical, which is the shrewdest political stance to take at this moment in time.

Looking has an understandably high level of buzz, given that it’s premiering on HBO, which is still the cream of the crop as TV networks go. It’s no sudden miracle that the premium cable outlet that brought us The Sopranos and The Wire is gay-friendly; HBO has had a long line of shows prominently featuring gay characters, from Sex & The City to Six Feet Under to Game Of Thrones, and let’s not forget last year’s uber-gay TV event, Behind The Candelabra. Still, an all-gay show from television’s most prestigious taste maker is still a vote of confidence in gay audiences — it’s not an insignificant endorsement. Looking signals the normalization of gay culture in the TV space without literally calling that out, a la Ryan Murphy’s nobly-intentioned but failed The New Normal, which was the network sitcom equivalent of a screeching queen in cutoff jean shorts shirking, “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!” in people’s faces. Looking isn’t trying nearly so hard, and it shouldn’t have to. The new normal doesn’t have to announce itself, because it’s just normal.

Two comparisons most immediately spring to mind as Looking makes its debut. The gay soap Queer As Folk bowed on Showtime nearly fifteen years ago, so in a way it’s surprising that it took this long for HBO to catch up to its premium cable competitor (which also gave us The L Word). And of course, it’s easy to look at Looking as HBO’s gay answer to Girls — until you examine the differences. Last night’s Girls saw Lena Dunham’s Hannah celebrating her 25th birthday; I’ve often wondered why the show is even called Girls, since it places a fair amount of focus on male characters, too, but the girls of Girls are absolutely girls, in the sense that they’re immature and not even close to grown-up. Looking is not just HBO’s Boys, then — Patrick is 29, Agustín is 31, Dom is 39, and they’re all somehow supporting themselves in one of America’s priciest cities. If anything, Looking is HBO’s Men — and it has the facial hair to prove it.

One episode in, Looking is already a lock for Hairiest Show On Television. (There’s an Emmy for that, right?) As beard after beard whizzed by on my TV screen, I felt like I was witnessing Sons Of Anarchy coming out of the closet. Either HBO is trying to keep costs of the show down by banning razor blades on set or Looking is the first TV show in history attempting to appeal exclusively to users of the Scruff app. (It worked.) And yeah, I get that this show is set in San Francisco, and that even if it wasn’t, facial hair is kind of a thing right now, but seriously — there are so many beards! Aside from Jonathan Groff’s clean-shaven Patrick, everyone on this show is hidden under layers of fur. Thus I think my favorite character is Lauren Weedman’s Doris, mainly because I can see her face when she’s talking.

Curious as to why Looking seemed to have such a thing against shaving, I stumbled across a photo of series creator Michael Lannan, which suddenly explained everything.

So, yes, the facial hair on parade is my problem, we can agree. In its initial outing, Looking does get a few things right. It isn’t as drenched in sex as we might have expected from the network that airs Girls and Game Of Thrones. Gay men have enough sex thrown at them as it is, because sex sells. Title aside, it’s nice that Looking doesn’t immediately feel the urge to appeal to the lowest common denominator — there are not really any cheap thrills to be found here (though there likely will be at some point, let’s be real). We had the shallow and soapy Queer As Folk for that. Looking is a little more now, a little more contemporary — it’s a much more diverse cast than Queer As Folk‘s lily white ensemble, though star Jonathan Groff is about as white bread as they come. As in last year’s film C.O.G. (based on a David Sedaris story), he’s a smart but socially awkward guy who hails from the upper crust, unable to shed the shackles of parental expectation. In C.O.G., Groff’s character was condescending and abrasive; here, he’s just kind of… there.

That’s the main problem I had with Looking (besides the beards). It doesn’t do anything too wrong, but by the end of the episode, I wasn’t sure I liked or even connected with any of these characters. Granted, this is a half-hour long pilot, and you can only expect so much. Agustín and Frank have a spontaneous threesome, which is a predictable and unexciting development for a gay couple that is moving toward making a larger commitment to one another. I guess that’s fine, but so far we have zero investment in them as a couple, so it doesn’t seem to matter either way. Meanwhile, Dom is nearing forty and growing frustrated with the fact that he’s still a waiter and the gap between himself and his intended sexual partners is widening to the point that a cute co-worker shrugs off his advances. Looking might eventually use Dom’s character to explore the arrested development of many gay men — what happens when middle age finally hits and you find yourself still living the same life you had at 25. But it isn’t there yet.

And what can we make of Patrick? One episode in, he’s still a bit of an anomaly. It’s not quite clear why he’s even hanging around Agustín or Dom, since their friendship is the least-explored aspect of the show. None of these guys seem to have much in common, but surely we’ll see more of that in future episodes. (By and large, though, gays of a feather flock together.) Patrick half-seriously attempts a hookup in a public park, scours OKCupid for his next true love (if he has one lazy eye, that might be okay), attends the engagement party of an ex he probably still has some feelings for, and goes on a bad first date with a high-on-his-horse oncologist.

Patrick’s date ends up dismissing him because he’s immature and not serious enough about a relationship, and maybe we’re supposed to read that as Patrick’s shortcoming — he did unwisely mention that cruising incident in the park — but the guy he’s out with is such a bore, we certainly don’t feel like Patrick’s missing out on anything. Who asks if someone is “driving disease-free” within the first few minutes of a conversation? (Or at all, using those words?) Who expects a 29-year-old to be ready to commit before the first date’s even over? Some wonder at how Patrick could be attractive, educated, and reasonably successful without ever finding himself in a serious relationship that outlasted a season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, but this is actually quite common for a young gay man in an urban location.

Through a chance encounter via public transportation with an aspiring hairdresser (please, let him eventually trim away some of Looking‘s excess hair!), we learn that Patrick has likely spent his time “looking” in the wrong places — he’s gone after guys who are just like him, when apparently he should have been looking on BART in a rougher part of town. Richie, played by Raúl Castillo, will be in every episode of Looking‘s first season, so we know this relationship is heading somewhere, but I wish the interplay between them had had a little more chemistry. So Patrick takes a chance on a scruffy Latino — so what? He’s already friends with one. From the title, we might assume that Looking is attempting to explore the brave new world of online dating and hookups, but it doesn’t really. We don’t actually get a sense of what any of these guys are “looking” for. Dom Facebook stalks his supposedly violent ex-boyfriend; Agustín and Frank have a threeway and then wonder if they’re one of “those” couples, with a shrug; Patrick meets a dull, rich jerk on OKCupid and then has a chance encounter in the real world with the flirtatious Richie.

I’m glad that Looking isn’t all about quick and meaningless sex, because we’ve seen enough of that elsewhere, and it’s about time other aspects of gay life were explored with the casual attitude of a show like Girls. It’s about time for a show that doesn’t try too hard to be “that splashy new gay show” or position itself as a political statement. No AIDS, no DOMA, no questioning, no coming out of the closet. This is a show about people — people who are gay, that’s all — and though they probably look just fine naked (I’m sure we’ll find out before season’s end), we do not have a poster full of abs as our primary motivation for watching it. All that is admirable, and it’s the reason why I’ll continue watching Looking for the foreseeable future.For now, though, these characters are not the reason I’ll continue watching, maybe because in trying to make these gay men so relatable, Lannan really just made them ordinary. To Dom I want to say, “Grow up and stop talking to your ex!” To Agustín and Frank I want to say, “Maybe try the commitment first without having a threesome?” Patrick I was to shake and say, “Why are you out with this lame guy if he’s not even buying your wine? Can’t you do better?!” These are not particularly compelling conflicts, and the show is not funny or unique enough to get away with its characters being such obstacles to themselves in the way that Girls pulls this off. Groff is a fine actor, but both here and in C.O.G., he’s come off a little too smug and self-satisfied for me to really feel any sympathy for him. I’m not really on Patrick’s side yet, and that’s a bit of a problem.

Looking is sometimes written and directed by Andrew Haigh, who brought us the fantastic film Weekend, which is what gave me higher-than-expected hopes for a show called Looking. (Because I guess HBO’s Wanna Fuck? seemed a little too forward?) That movie explored a casual encounter between two (scruffy) men that, in a short amount of time, quickly developed into something more — and that “something more” is sorely missing from Looking thus far. As of now, Looking hasn’t said anything particularly new or novel about gay relationships in the 21st century; it’s fine, but I wouldn’t call it funny or moving or all that much fun. Every episode contains the word “looking” — future episode titles hint at a mixed bag, including “Looking For Uncut,” “Looking For $220/Hour,” and “Looking In The Mirror.” I hope that it goes further toward developing these characters and strays away from the salacious. I hope that it avoids the expected pitfalls and predictable tropes of so much gay entertainment. And I really hope that, in an episode not too far from now, someone decides to pick up a razor.

“Looking” is just an updated term for “cruising,” after all, and it’d be nice if not every gay show had to be about that. Some gay men may use “looking?” as shorthand for sex, but like a wham-bam-thank-you-man in the park, such crude encounters are growing antiquated. Which is not to say that casual sex itself is a thing of the past — just that it’s no longer relegated to back corners of dark clubs and steamy saunas. We can use our words — more than just one — to find whatever we’re “looking” for. Not everyone does, I know.

So last night, I had a casual encounter with a new HBO series. He was decent-looking, if a little too hairy for my taste, but I was willing to overlook that. The conversation was fine, less scintillating than I’d like, but not as stilted and forced as it could be. He had an okay personality, but unremarkable. I saw some potential, but not a whole lot to get excited about. I think I’ll see him again at least once, just to see if it gets at any better. I’m definitely not ready to commit yet. I’m intrigued and open to possibilities, but not fully satisfied — as usual, I’m “looking” for more.

*

Sup?

U looking for now?

Hello?

Dude?

U there?

For a show that’s not terribly exciting, Looking sure has generated a lot of scintillating conversation.

HBO’s new half-hour drama premiered last week with a lot of buzz and a decidedly mixed reception. Some found it up to snuff with HBO’s other properties, a refreshingly low-key look at a small segment of gay San Francisco. Others thought it was a snore. I was on the fence — relieved that it wasn’t just a soapy, sexed-up revamp of Queer As Folk, but also underwhelmed by the half-baked characters and their quarter-baked storylines.

The internet was jam-packed with commendations and criticism of the show, which is amusing because a series about heterosexuals dating and bantering in such a muted way would receive no attention at all. The real debate around Looking is in asking the question, “Are we ready to be bored by gays yet?”

Episode 2, “Looking For Uncut,” decides to liven things up a bit from “Looking For Now.” We get our first semi-explicit sex scene in grand, gratuitous premium cable fashion. There is discussion of ass-licking and uncut penises. Also, in an early scene, the guys go up a really big hill in their car, and then go down really fast. Exhilarating stuff here.

I’m being snarky. “Looking For Uncut” stays on the same course set by the pilot, for better or worse. Early on, there’s some light banter between the three central characters, who I still don’t entirely buy as a trio of gay buddies — for some reason, I can buy that the various pairs of them would be friends, but not all three of them together. Their dynamic feels a little too forced — for whatever reason, I’m failing to see the similarities and the bond between them. As Augustin moves out to Oakland, Patrick and Dom chatter about Agustin and Frank’s threeway and question whether or not monogamy is possible (not just in the gay community, but for all humans) before they break off into their separate storyline spheres and abandon Augustin in the quiet tedium of Oakland.

“Looking For Uncut” has one Latino man moving out of Patrick’s life just as another is moving in. I wish Looking had given some more time to actually developing some connection between Patrick and Augustin, because while Patrick is supposedly broken up at losing his roommate, Looking‘s audience hasn’t really invested in the relationship between these guys yet, even if we are engaged in the three as individuals. (And that is only true for some of us.) The scenes featuring all three of these guys are somehow the least convincing, while their interactions outside of each other are more grounded in reality. Dom’s relationship with Doris is a hell of a lot more convincing than his friendship with Patrick; Augustin and Patrick have a friendly phone chat that gets it more or less right, but it still falls short for me. (But is the threeway dynamic of the show’s leads working for everyone else?)

Instead, the main story follows Patrick as he heads out on his first real date with Richie, the scrappy Latino he met by happenstance on the train. (Who may or may not still think he’s an oncologist named Benjamin.) The date with Richie follows the exact same trajectory as last week’s date with Dr. Benjamin — Patrick drinks too much, makes a frankly sexual comment anyone should know better than to bust out on a first date, and the evening abruptly ends with Patrick being told by the gentleman in question that they’re “looking for different things.” Maybe this is to make a point about how Patrick’s bad dates are a pattern, how there’s really no difference between a stick-in-the-mud doctor and a charming hair stylist in training when Patrick’s just going to get drunk and run his mouth anyway. (Patrick, the problem is you.) But also, it kind of just feels like lazy writing.

Patrick and Richie’s date is more interesting than last week’s with Benjamin, because at least Richie is a reasonably appealing person who might be worth Patrick’s time, and Richie’s discomfort when Patrick laughs at seeing his (circumcised) penis is entirely justified. (No matter the reason, no one wants the removal of their underwear to be met with a chuckle.) The date is sufficiently real, just awkward enough for us to know it’s not going that well while the characters are still willing to see how the night plays out.

Yes, this week, Looking takes us out on a mediocre date and even gets us into the bedroom, though we’re not really sure we want to be there. As often happens in life, it’s hard to tell yet if the tiny spark of chemistry between Patrick and Richie is romantically promising or fleeting and fading as they get to know each other. This aspect of the series is done reasonably well — but unless Jonathan Groff is playing Patrick as having a minor case of Asperger’s, his cluelessness and naivete are awfully hard to buy at times. Patrick’s big story this week is trying something new — not just a non-Caucasian, less educated guy from a very different background, but also an uncut penis. And even if we are to buy that Patrick has never seen (and practically never heard of) such a thing, is this ever such a big deal? It feels more like a rejected Charlotte story for Sex & The City than one fit for a gay San Franciscan pushing thirty. I’m not saying Looking needs to push the envelope too far, but the fact that this episode is titled “Looking For Uncut” signals that the writers thought they were being daring and naughty. Is it, though? Even the women of Sex & The City probably would have thought this debate was beneath them.

The underlying problem is not the lack of risque gay sex, though — it’s the inconsistency of Patrick’s character. He’s ostensibly the prude, but is he really? Just how much experience has he had? It might make sense if we established that he’d been in a long term relationship for the past eight years and thus off the market, but his longest relationship is less than six months! He’s 29! What (and who) has he been doing all this time? And why doesn’t he know that he should keep his cruising in the park and internet research on uncut Latin cocks to himself, at least until a second date? It feels like the writers have yet to get a grasp on this character (or maybe it’s Groff’s take on him). It’s interesting that Patrick is willing to take Richie for a test drive as a potential fuck buddy, but still can’t think of him as anything more of a hookup, because he’s not the type he typically goes for; but again, Looking is just grazing these issues rather than truly confronting them.

Regardless, nothing terribly dramatic or exciting happens between Patrick and Richie, so critics who find Looking boring still have plenty to complain about. The episode ends on a comedic note as Groff wolfs down a squishy bowl of homemade mac and cheese (while claiming it’s a salad… a kale salad… with chicken), which is funny in a broader way than most of the show’s sporadic, understated humor. (It might behoove Looking to continue in this direction, since the dramatic end of things has been such a non-starter.)

Meanwhile, Augustin’s big scene is a night on the couch with Frank, eating pizza and watching YouTube videos. (Yes, that’s seriously all that happens.) Frank wants to hang Augustin’s unicorn artwork in their new home; Augustin does not. (Oh, the drama!) We have now come to the point in pop culture when gays interior decorating is a legitimate C story. So… rejoice? Augustin’s storyline is clearly veering into the vicinity of being bored with a domestic, committed suburban life in Oakland, yet as with all of Looking‘s storylines thus far, it’s really only dipping a toe in and testing the water, as if to say, “Yeah, we might get around to actually exploring that in an episode or two. For now, please enjoy this absence of conflict.” At the moment, this is a mere suggestion of a future storyline, and a rather wishy-washy one. You’d think last week’s threeway would come after the subplot about Augustin and Frank moving in together, and Augustin craving more excitement. This week, it’s just redundant.

So that’s two out of three storylines this week that culminate in food. Thank god for Dom.

Dom is the most promising of Looking‘s trio so far, if only because he’s a shade more fucked up than Patrick or Augustin. He meets up with his formerly methed-out ex, who is now doing well for himself selling real estate in LA (and drinking Refresh tea in lieu of caffeine). He’s still a douche bag, and by the end of the episode Dom seems to have made progress in actually getting over him — which is good, because we don’t need a long, drawn-out arc between Dom and this “meth-head motherfucker.”

Dom’s telling-off of Ethan is the most “TV-ish” moment on Looking yet — something actually happened! Yelling and conflict! Drama! It’s the supposed closing-off of a loose end in a show that otherwise is reluctant to truly begin storylines, let alone finish them. In “Looking For Uncut,” Dom arranges a Grindr hookup (after an uncomfortably long stare at his intended partner’s picture, probably the longest anyone has ever looked at a single Grindr profile) with Alex, a downstairs neighbor. It’s a reasonably graphic and totally unnecessary sex scene, announcing Looking‘s arrival in HBO’s tawdry pantheon of series that show us sex because it’s premium cable and they fucking can.

Less expected is the end of the sequence, where Dom and Doris make fun of Alex while he sings Wicked show tunes in their shower. Why is he showering at Dom’s if he lives downstairs? When did Doris arrive, and why isn’t her presence more uncomfortable for all three parties? How long was this hookup, anyway? Six hours? None of this is plausible, but at least it’s an appearance by Doris, who always seems like she’s about to retreat to her bedroom to write a think piece criticizing these characters for their stupid choices and immature behavior. (Basically, she’s me.) Doris the smartest character on the show, the only one of these people who is truly self-aware. It’s strange and potentially troubling that the most dynamic figure on this series about gay men is the straight woman, but let’s just embrace it. Looking‘s prescription for success: more Doris. Have her interact with Patrick and Augustin. Have her tell them what they’re doing wrong. Or, whatever, just let me do it.

Even moreso this time around, Looking feels like an instructional video for heterosexuals whose exposure to gays thus far has been limited to salons, Virgin America flights, and Ryan Murphy series; we debate monogamy versus open relationships, chatter about penises, witness a Grindr hookup, and tag along on the dance floor for an awkward date at a gay club. That about covers it, right? (But wait, over here we have some gays eating pizza and watching YouTube, too, so they’re just like us.) In its broadest strokes, “Looking For Uncut” feels shallow and too specifically calibrated, especially in comparison to the pilot; even when individual scenes play well, as a whole it doesn’t hang together. There’s nuance and wit in little moments, but the overall concept isn’t so clever. It’s ironic that a show about looking for one’s place in the world is also still searching for its own purpose.

Compare and contrast to last night’s Girls, which has had the advantage of three seasons now to find its footing, and in a way is still yearning to find its voice with every new episode, because it so constantly shakes our expectations. Girls is not a flawless or fully satisfying series, but even in its missteps, it is challenging of TV norms and thought-provoking. Last night’s episode centered on the death of a supporting character, Hannah’s editor David, who went completely off the rails last week at her birthday party. The episode (tellingly titled “Dead Inside”) was willfully callous as Hannah had a purely selfish reaction to David’s demise, without feeling even a drop of sadness for anyone but herself. Most shows would ease up at the end and let their heroines give in to tears, but “Dead Inside” doubles-down by having Hannah fake a cry for her boyfriend, recycling a sob story his sister made up to test whether or not Hannah had a compassionate bone in her body. (She doesn’t, apparently.) It’s actually rather chilling, which is not a reaction I quite expected from Girls.

Lena Dunham revels in making Hannah nearly impossible to like, and this is her least sympathetic episode yet. Clearly Dunham knows what she’s doing — she’s been egging on critics since the beginning, many of whom missed the point early on and thought they were supposed to like Hannah Horvath. But no. “Dead Inside” goes a step further by making all of its titular girls hardened in their reactions to mortality — Shoshanna shrugs off a high school friend’s death in a car accident because it improved her social standing, while Jessa pretends to lend a sympathetic ear but has forgotten Shoshonna’s would-be woe a minute later. Adam’s sister Caroline makes up that sappy story about a disease-ridden cousin to test Hannah capability to feel for Adam, then laughs off her coolness.

Interestingly, the boys of Girls all feel much more deeply on the subject — Adam, Ray, and even Laird have “appropriate” emotional responses, while the girls are all numb. Is this where we are now? Dunham might be suggesting that the men and women of her generation have switched places from their traditional gender roles, and now it’s hipster twentysomething males who wear their hearts on their sleeves, while women have developed a thicker skin. Surely there’s at least some truth to that, and where but Girls has such an observation been made? (It’s like an extension of the gender politics of The Hunger Games, but that’s another discussion for another time.)

In this episode, at least, Girls has a distinct point of view — something explicit and unconventional to say. You could argue that Dunham (and co-writer Judd Apatow) make the point too bluntly, but it’s near-impossible not to be challenged by it. You’re forced to mull it over. Looking is, by nature, a different beast; the world may not be ready for a gay show that’s as challenging to the norm as Girls is, and that’s okay. But it would be nice if Looking had a point of view, or a premise, or at least more insight into its characters.

“Looking For Uncut” is a step down from the pilot — not a steep one, but also not headed in the right direction. Like Ethan, the writers of this show are substituting Refresh tea for coffee when what this show really needs is a jolt of caffeine. The pilot “Looking For Now” may have been slightly underwhelming to those with high expectations, but it was also more at ease with itself than “Looking For Uncut,” which may be trying too hard to please too many audiences, thus pleasing no one at all. Watching both episodes for a second time made me appreciate the pilot more, which had a lot of subtle smartness bubbling under the surface. “Looking For Uncut” circumcises away all that gentle ambiguity and amiable breeziness. No foreskin here, folks. What you see is what you get.

So last night, I had a second date with Looking, and I can’t say I didn’t leave it a little disappointed. He repeated himself on the same issues we talked about last week, and even though he made me laugh a couple times and things got a little more sexual this time and he’s even less hairier than last week, which I really appreciate, I’m really starting to wonder where this is all going. I’m not sure he’s being perfectly honest with me, and starting to question how comfortable he is with being gay — like maybe he’s afraid that if he’s truly himself, he’ll isolate straight people. Other people seem to think Looking is sweet and charming and totally appealing, though, so why isn’t it clicking? Am I being too critical? Am I doing that thing where I’m not ready to open up to him yet, in case I commit and get burned down the road? After Looking and I ended things on an awkward note, I went to hang out with some Girls, who made me think and feel so much more — what the hell does that mean?

I mean, it’s not that I don’t like him — it’s just that I was expecting something different. I wanted us to connect more. I wanted to feel like he and I were like the same person. My expectations are always so high, though, and if we have a reasonably good time together, does it even matter? Can’t I just enjoy myself without picking apart his every flaw? Or should I be wary of wasting my time? There are so many other shows out there that could be better for me… but I don’t want to just give up after two episodes! Am I over-thinking it? What’s wrong with Looking? Why isn’t he just perfect and amazing right out of the gate?

Oh god — is it me?

No. No. It’s Looking. Let’s see how he does next week.

*

When I first heard HBO’s new gay show would be set in San Francisco, I thought it was a bit strange. A gay show set in San Francisco, really? What is this, 1985?

As it turns out, the creators of Looking really do seem stuck in 1985, and thus, in “Looking For $220 An Hour,” the inevitable occurs. The boys head to the Folsom Street Fair for some leather-clad fun.

Like most gay men these days, Patrick and the boys see Folsom more like a particularly naughty exhibit at Epcot Center than a celebration of an actual sexual proclivity. None of these characters, I gather, is actually into the leather scene — certainly not Patrick, who has to be coaxed to take his shirt off and wear only a leather vest, even though he’s built like Jonathan Groff. This is, again, the disconnect between the writing of Patrick and the performance of Patrick — men who look like Jonathan Groff take every opportunity at an event like Folsom to go sans shirt, yet Patrick acts like some ginormous Buddha belly is going to come popping out when he removes his T-shirt.

It’s like the entire first season was written with the idea that Louie Anderson would be playing Patrick, and then when they recast the role with Jonathan Groff, no one bothered to update the dialogue. Four episodes in, and the lead character still doesn’t make any sense. But whatever.

Folsom is a big deal in San Francisco, even for men who prefer their leather relegated to belts and boots. So it makes sense that Looking would capitalize on the event. But on the other hand, the episode takes a very touristy approach. We don’t see any of the actual leather scene or raunch that accompany the festival, so what’s the point? I’m not saying we needed a scene where Patrick decides to give fisting a whirl, but “Looking For $220/Hr” is almost maddeningly chaste. Why not give us a taste of the real Folsom Street Fair? If only to show us what our lead characters are not into?

It’s also strange that the one character on Looking who seems like he might actually get into leather — Dom — skips Folsom entirely, so he can hang out with an older gentleman who runs a flower shop and talk about chicken. Because if any of these dudes is going to go shirtless in a leather vest with shades and maybe some handcuffs dangling from his leather pants, it’s the 40-year-old with the mustache who likes to hang out in bathhouses. Even Doris goes to Folsom! (Since when have we even established that Doris even knows Patrick and Augustin, anyway?)

That’s the oddest thing about Looking. Despite the modern lingo of the title, the show is obsessed with relics of gay culture that have become all but obsolete. The series began with Patrick cruising in a park, last episode had Dom hooking up in a bathhouse, and now we’ve got Folsom. It’s not like the show’s creators are saying that all this is trendy, hip, and now, but why are we seeing so much of gay culture from 1985 and so little from 2014? We’ve officially spent more time this season in bathhouses and public parks than we have on Grindr. I suppose it’s legitimate to give a nod or two to the past, but that only works if there’s some present tense to contrast it with. So far, it feels like what these characters are really Looking for is a time machine.

At least “Looking For $220/Hr” has a few interesting developments. Scott Bakula’s Lynn represents the ghost of Gay Pride past in a way that actually makes sense — because he’s, like, kind of old. He’s already engendered more sympathy from me than any of the leads — like when he had to clarify to Dom whether or not their interaction was a date, when Dom really only wanted some fatherly wisdom (and daddy money) from him. Burn!

I hope Looking is using this relationship to explore Dom’s conflicting feelings about aging more than it is looking to use Dom’s Chicken Shack as an actual plot point. I’m always leery when TV characters decide to build their own businesses from scratch, because it’s boring, and since they’d never be able to raise the capital on their own, some tertiary character always ends up swooping in with half a million dollars to save the day. Lynn might just be that character, but there’s something interesting about the fact that Dom is in the midst of his mid-life crisis, and suddenly he latches onto an older guy so that he can be the lusted-after “twink” in the relationship. That’s sad and pathetic, but also pretty realistic. (Hooray for realism!) I’m still worried about this chicken place, though; Dom was the one guy on this show who had a non-cushy, real-world occupation that he hated. I’m more interested in Dom, the single and frustrated middle-aged waiter who hates his life than Dom, chicken shack owner extraordinaire.

Which brings me to Augustin, who has seriously failed to interest me in the slightest over the series’ entire run so far, and continues to do so in “Looking For $220/Hr.” I’m not going to argue that there aren’t plenty of people like Augustin out there, so maybe hating him is the point — Patrick calls him out on his erratic behavior in this episode, so it’s intentional on the part of the writers, but still. Having him fawn over some he-bimbo hooker at Folsom is pretty annoying, especially when the guy is going to charge him $220 an hour just to participate in whatever “art” Augustin has in mind.

Maybe that’s the problem with all these beards — they set up our expectations that these men will act like men, but really they’re all silly little boys. If that’s intentional, it’s not exactly coming through — we need Doris (or someone) to call it out, because these people are maddening! And frankly, I don’t find the studly, self-satisfied hooker CJ all that convincing, because few escorts are quite that together. Where’s the gay snarkiness? The minute after leaving his presence, Doris and Patrick and their anonymous ginger friend would have been ripping that douche bag a new one, and Augustin would be like, “Yeah, you’re right, maybe I should not spend $500 on a hooker after I just lost my job, and instead go watch YouTube with my boyfriend in Oakland. Thanks for being a friend.”

(And don’t even get me started on that bathroom scene.)

One final plot development of interest seemingly resolves itself — Patrick’s dashing boss is trying to have his cake and eat it too, by which I mean have his boyfriend and eat Patrick too. Or at least eat Thai food with Patrick when he should be home with his lover. It’s a little sad to see Patrick volunteer to work the weekend while his boss runs off to meet his boo, but it all pans out when Patrick finally grows a pair and tells his boss that he’s going to go hang with his friends instead of have an awkward office non-romance with a taken guy who clearly just wants some attention. (Sidebar: those guys are the worst.) So far we’ve really only seen Patrick throw himself at guys who probably don’t deserve him (though whether or not Patrick is such a prize, I can’t be sure). So it’s nice that he showed a little self-respect and went off to meet Doris and the boys… and… Richie! Unexpectedly.

(Well, not that unexpectedly for the audience, who are probably guessing that there’s more to come in the Patrick And Richie Saga.) Richie confirms that he’s still circumcised, Patrick kind of apologizes for being a jerk, and they dance! It’s sort of cute, and the more everyone else on this show annoys me, the more appealing an alternative Richie seems.

In “Looking For $220/Hr,” Augustin contemplates being a whore, Dom hits up a potential sugar daddy (or, perhaps, a sugar grandpa in his case), and Patrick tells the man who’s paying him to suck it (“it” being his boyfriend) while he goes to hang with his friends. It’s all about money… kind of!

And leather, I guess.

   *

It only took three episodes for Looking to get around to having some actual conflict.

And… maybe… a point.

The third episode of HBO’s much-discussed Looking introduces two new characters and decides it’s time for things to finally happen to the ones we’ve already met. It’s probably the strongest episode of the initial trio. In “Looking At Your Browser History,” Patrick, Augustin, and Dom all find their jobs in various states of jeopardy. Dom’s looking to quit his waiting gig and open a chicken place (okay…), Augustin gets fired for poor performance, and Patrick hits on his boss before he knows he’s his boss and then catches flack for using OKCupid and Manhunt at work. (Who does that? How is he not aware that employers monitor internet usage?)

While we’re on the subject of Patrick, allow me to say that he is one of the more inconsistent characters this side of American Horror Story. Sometimes he’s shy and demure, and sometimes he’s leering at men in sailor costumes to their faces. He’s never seen an uncut penis, but he’s on Manhunt. He fairly brazenly hits on the handsome British man who seems out of his league, but also feels undateable and aloof. He’s constantly eating and even makes a joke about his big thighs, but he’s Jonathan Groff. What gives? My biggest problem with Looking remains that I still don’t really know who our protagonist is, and I’m not sure the writers do either. Maybe every writer in the room has a slightly different take on their lead character. Maybe they don’t want him to be a “type.” I suppose you could admire that, but it’s also frustrating when you’re trying to latch onto an anchor in this series, and Patrick remains so elusive.

Though Patrick remains a bit of an anomaly, his would-be dalliances remain awkward and entertaining. Patrick’s new-boss relationship with Kevin could have been predictable if there was an actual threat of romance between them, but instead it’s one-sided and pleasantly uncomfortable (for us).

The biggest revelation in “Looking At Your Browser History,” though, is the arrival of Scott Bakula as Lynn, who meets Dom in a bathhouse shortly before Dom jaunts off to hook up with a stranger. I’ll set aside my criticism of the bathhouse scene itself (but really?), since in his few minutes of screen time, Lynn already has more depth and gravitas than any of the show’s leads. I’m not sure what happened there, but it’s nice to contrast the way things used to be with the way things are, and the episode actually makes a poignant point. (“We still had sex, but it was friendlier,” Lynn says of the past.)

Less promising is Augustin’s post-firing flirtation with CJ, a cocky hooker who claims he’s great in bed and not ashamed to make a living at it. Either Augustin is contemplating a career change or he’s about to cheat on his boyfriend with a prostitute, neither of which is an entirely promising storyline. Both Augustin and Patrick are still rather elusive as characters, without many defining qualities. (At least, defining qualities that they don’t contradict a scene or two later.) With its lead characters still so hit-or-miss, it’s nice to have some promising fresh blood on Looking, though now I kind of just want a whole show about Scott Bakula.

Whatever he’s lived through, it sounds a lot more interesting than what Patrick and friends are going through now…

  *

This blog has been so gay lately!

Allow me to interrupt my coverage of Looking for a review of my first 2014 film, which is coincidentally (or not coincidentally) also about men cruising for sex. Stranger By The Lake is a French production, by which I mean it is in French and takes place in France, and also that there are penises everywhere. I swear, no matter how attracted you are to the male anatomy, you will grow tired of penises by the end of this movie. The leads spend at least half of the movie fully naked, and the extras are pretty much all naked all the time. That’s because Stranger By The Lake takes place entirely at said lake, which is unofficially a nudist beach and cruising spot, with lots of dirty deeds going down in the nearby woods.

Including murder.

Which you’d think would be a total boner-killer in such a place. But as it turns out in Stranger By The Lake? Not so much.

Stranger By The Lake follows Franck, an attractive Frenchie who spends the entirety of his summers, it seems, trolling for anonymous sexual partners in this location. I recently criticized Looking for being a bit too stuck in the past when it comes to sex; it’s unclear exactly when Stranger By The Lake is meant to take place, since no one ever uses a cell phone (let alone Grindr), but it feels similarly antiquated. I have no doubt that such places still exist, and that men are still cruising in them like it’s 1983 all over again, but in Stranger By The Lake it seems this is the only place men can go for such kicks. Stranger still, it’s pretty much the same men, day after day, with little variation. Why is this so appealing to Franck, and his oft-nude cohorts? Don’t these people have anywhere else to be?

Though it’s not immediately obvious, Stranger By The Lake only makes sense as a critique of cruising culture. Fairly early in the film, Franck witnesses a murder in the lake, committed by the handsome mustached man he’s been unsuccessfully pursuing all summer. (Who actually looks a lot like Dom from Looking.) What’s Franck to do? A) Yell for him to stop? B) Rush home and call the police? C) Stay away from the lake for the rest of the summer? Or D) Return to the lake and immediately strike up a torrid affair with this known sociopath? If you answered D, then this just might be the erotic thriller for you.

In Stranger By The Lake, two men compete for Franck’s attention in very different ways. The first is Michel (Christophe Paou), who is perfectly dashing until Franck catches him pushing his lover’s head underwater. The other is Henri (Patrick d’Assumçao), a mostly hetero logger and loner who comes to the beach to reminisce about his ex-girlfriend. (He admits to hooking up with guys in group settings before, though — because hey! It’s France!) There’s no sexual attraction between Franck and Henri, though the men are inexplicably drawn to each other in a way that transcends traditional male friendship. (Henri suggests that he and Franck try sleeping together in a non-sexual capacity.) While most of Franck’s encounters by the lake are fleeting and meaningless, his dynamic with Henri is an unusual but intriguing variation — Henri is so lonely that he comes to a spot where gay men cruise for sex merely because it’s the only place he knows where it’s socially acceptable to talk to strangers.

Less convincing is Franck’s quickly-evolving romance with Michel, who, again, has already demonstrated his homicidal tendencies (though Michele doesn’t know Franck saw him). Franck professes his love faster than Romeo and Juliet and the two become strangely inseparable by the lake, though Michel refuses to take the relationship outside of this hallowed territory. The murder, shot in an arresting long take from a far distance, representing Franck’s point of view, is a rather shocking interruption of the previously idyllic setting, and afterward the lake and the naked men surrounding it take on a more menacing role. Briefly. But then Franck decides to carry on with his intended summer lovin’ now that Michel’s other lover is out of the way, which involves plenty of skinny-dipping, unprotected sex, and leading inquiries about who was where the night of the drowning.

After the body is discovered (off-screen, unfortunately) washed up on the beach, it doesn’t take long for the police — namely, Inspecteur Damroder (Jérôme Chappatte)— to poke around, assuming for some reason that this is no accidental drowning. (They don’t have a whole lot of evidence saying otherwise, though.) Damroder questions the men frankly about their mating habits, forcing some to examine their behavior a little more closely. (Franck insists he’s not a “regular” at the lake, though he spends seemingly all day every day there.) Franck of course does not mention to the inspector that he witnessed his new boyfriend drowning a man, but Franck and Michel become the inspector’s primary targets anyway, while Henri goes a step further and tells Franck he should be afraid of his new paramour.

So what — is Franck an idiot? On the one hand, yes. He has exceedingly terrible taste in men. It seems unlikely that any rational human being would behave in this way, so we must find a different way to perceive this film. A scene late in the film finds the inspector questioning Franck about the callousness of their love-making — rarely exchanging names, feeling nothing for one another. How can one of their own die, and still these gay men feel nothing, but go back to business (fucking) as usual?

And that’s where Stranger By The Lake gets interesting, as an extended (if rather flawed) metaphor for casual sexual. Franck displays no remorse for the death of Michel’s former lover, and Michel is even more unfeeling. He dives into their affair head-first, proclaiming his love and practically begging Michel to let him sleep over. Is this love? How can it be? Franck knows Michel is a dangerous man, perhaps dangerous enough to kill him. Few men would engage in a tryst with a man they knew was a killer, but many men have engaged in trysts with men who could kill them in another way. Stranger By The Lake may not be a perfect allegory for the AIDS epidemic, but it’s no accident that Franck recklessly chooses unprotected sex with strangers on multiple occasions. A lot of gay men are hooking up with men who could kill them; sex with a stranger is always a risk, one way or another.

Given that reading, Stranger By The Lake is a credible critique of reckless promiscuity (even if the whole park cruising culture seems largely obsolete, at least in America). However, as a story on its own terms, Stranger By The Lake doesn’t exactly hold water. (Pun intended!) It’s too hard to buy Franck’s actions when he is otherwise a reasonable, rational character — does he have a death wish? Is he filled with self-loathing? We learn so little about his inner life that his external actions are inexplicable. Michel is a good-looking guy, but he’s not all that charming. In fact, he’s pretty creepy.

It should be obvious to Franck how his dalliance with Michel will end — and it’s very hard to feel sorry for him when it goes exactly that way. The motivations of the core trio fall apart uniformly by the end, though the final scenes are suspenseful in their own right. It’s too bad there wasn’t a little more character development in the interim; since both we and Franck know of Michel’s crime so early on, we spend a lot of time waiting for everyone else to catch up to what our protagonist already knows. We have a pretty good sense of where this is all headed.

Still, Stranger By The Lake at least takes risks and offers something besides the typical gay romance — and I’m not just talking about all the testicles. Seriously, this film may win some award for most cinematic nudity, which includes some very graphic sex scenes. (Most of it isn’t particularly arousing, however. You grow numb to it after a while.) Writer/director Alain Guiraudie has certainly crafted a very distinct gay film, if not an entirely cohesive one. All in all, you’ll likely walk away from it feeling pretty pleased with your own poor choices in the romance department, at least.

*

Okay, here we go.

We’re now officially more than halfway through Looking‘s first season, and we’ve finally gotten the series’ first pretty great episode.

Sure, Looking‘s detractors can still complain that nothing happens — in fact, even less happens on a plot level in “Looking For The Future” than does in previous episodes — but that’s by design. Looking cuts out all the side characters to focus exclusively on Patrick and his developing romance with Richie, finally giving us some insight into the show’s lead.

It’s no coincidence that “Looking For The Future” was written and directed by Andrew Haigh, who was one of the series’ most promising elements in its inception. Andrew Haigh also wrote and directed Weekend, one of the best “gay” movies in recent years, and also one of the best romances. Up until now, Looking displayed only a few of the qualities that made Weekend so great — whereas “Looking For The Future” seems like a specific and self-conscious attempt to replicate that movie’s charms precisely.

Original? Not really. But it works.

The episode finds Patrick and Richie in bed together, at some point after their chance meeting at Folsom. Patrick tries to shower without waking Richie, but instead finds himself serenaded from Richie’s bed with a bass. They chat and cuddle, Patrick says he really has to go to work (about five times), and leaves… then promptly returns to Richie’s apartment to play hooky. It’s Patrick Murray’s Day Off, everybody!

Patrick and Richie spend their day mostly wandering around, eating, and checking out the sky in an observatory, underneath the “stars.” Along the way, we learn that Richie’s last boyfriend was HIV positive, Patrick has “bottom shame,” Patrick is perhaps more cautious than the average gay, and that he also had a preteen crush on Sean Astin in Goonies. It’s typical early-date stuff, until Richie convinces Patrick to see a psychic who uses eggs to read the future. (They leave before the actual reading.) Looking has previously depicted dates going awkwardly awry, but it’s harder us a date that’s actually going really well, yet we can see on both Patrick and Richie how much fun they’re having. We, by extension, are also having fun, like we’re right along on that date with them.

As in Weekend, most of the pleasures of “Looking For The Future” stem from our witnessing two men genuinely falling for each other, which is still a pretty rare thing in film and television these days. In all the noise about coming out and hooking up and marriage equality, that initial connection between two gay men often gets lost in the ether, but that‘s what it’s all about.

And that, I daresay, is what Looking should be about — not bathhouses and public parks and antiquated sexual practices, not developing a crush on a hooker and deciding whether or not to be one yourself, and not about uncut penises. All that is fine, I guess, but what has always been missing from Looking is what we finally find in “Looking For The Future” — a specific sense of who these characters are, and some actual chemistry between them. We learn so much more about Patrick through Richie than we ever learned in his reasonably hollow interactions with Dom and Augustin (a friendship trio that still doesn’t really make sense to me). I’m not sure it’s quite enough to make Patrick a fully likable leading man yet, but I liked him just fine in this episode.

It’s the sort of information that we probably should have had in the pilot — I don’t know that something like “Looking For The Future” really could have worked as a pilot episode, but it has the warmth and ease and charm and specificity that has been missing so far for so many of us. Looking has largely been a disappointment because gay men wanted to see themselves represented on TV, and instead we got some strange bearded folk from the 80s that didn’t really represent us at all. Who are these people? we wondered. We kind of recognized them, but found only a fraction of ourselves in them. It was all so hesitant and tepid, especially for a show on HBO. And that’s not really the gay way of doing things.

“Looking For The Future” isn’t necessarily more titillating or splashier than preceding episodes; in fact, it’s far more intimate. But it’s bolder in the sense that it’s unlike any other episode of TV I can think of. The sex scenes aren’t attention-grabbing or “hot”; it’s an actual depiction of what’s going down between two guys who really like each other, which is a lot more daring than a three-way or a Grindr hookup or a bathhouse dalliance or whatever else Looking has been depicting this season. Queer As Folk already did that stuff, and it’s been done elsewhere too. Looking can get away with some of that sexy stuff, but ironically, it isn’t that that feels like a revelation. It’s the stuff two men talk about on their second or third date. It’s the moment they realize they’re both former fatties. It’s one man sharing his love for his favorite movie, and the other admitting he hasn’t seen it. Sounds like mundane stuff, but Andrew Haigh is typically very good at making the mundane feel insightful. This is what Looking‘s audience is likely to connect to.

There are fewer emotional obstacles in “Looking For The Future” than in Weekend, and the characters are still a little less developed, and also contrast less. Patrick likes Richie, and Richie likes Patrick, and there’s nothing exactly stopping them from being together. But sometimes it works like that. The pilot episode was titled “Looking For Now,” which I guess is what Patrick was doing then, stuck in the present and not open to changing up his options in hopes of finding something unexpected; now, in the aptly-titled “Looking for The Future,” this show is finally going somewhere.

(Sidenote: it was a good night of TV on HBO, with a rather stellar episode of Girls, too, that also ended up being pretty gay, with Andrew Rannells reprising his role as Elijah and bringing a cadre of gay boys — including Danny Strong — along to the Hamptons. There’s even a musical number!)

I find myself looking forward to the future of Looking moreso than I have in the past, and yet I also know that Augustin and Dom will be back next week, and so will the traditional format of the show. (Episodes of TV shows that focus exclusively on a few key characters and cut out the rest of the cast always feel special, and are usually very good.) I worry that “Looking For The Future” is just an anomaly, and next week we’ll go back to having no real grasp on who these people are. Do we need an all-Augustin episode, too, to see that there’s more to him than being a silly bitch? (If there even is…)

Regardless, “Looking For The Future” gives us some indication that Looking can actually be the show it should be. That it can form believable connections between people. That these characters actually have layers and more on their minds than meets the eye.

For once, the future of Looking is actually looking pretty bright.

*

Last week’s “Looking For The Future” was the first time in Looking‘s still-brief run that the show actually took a narrative and creative risk, allowing a single date between Patrick and Richie to sustain an entire episode. Some found it the epitome of the show’s nothingness, its willingness to let the mundane create drama.

Others, like myself, proclaimed that it was by far the best Looking yet, because it’s not that it matters so much what happens on a show, but how we feel about it. Looking‘s first four episodes similarly didn’t have a lot going on plot-wise, but they also kept the characters a bit of a mystery. Are we supposed to feel sorry for Augustin amidst all his self-entitled whining? Can I really sympathize with Dom’s moping about the Big 4-0 when he’s still gallivanting around like a fresh-sprung twink? (Answer: no, and not really.)

Now, with “Looking For The Future,” Looking has less to prove. We know it can be heartfelt and insightful, but will it be, ever again, from here on out? With “Looking In The Mirror,” we (kinda sorta) have an answer.

“Looking In The Mirror” opens up with Patrick and Richie, appropriately, since that’s where we left off. Patrick’s about to introduce Richie to his friends (already!), so Richie asks the questions we’ve wanted to know all along about how these guys know each other. (Still not sure these friendships makes sense, but oh well, I’m over it.) Patrick (accidentally) drops the B-word — “boyfriend” — which causes Richie to ask, “Who said I was your boyfriend?” (Ouch!)

Of course, Richie is only giving Patrick a hard time, because of course he wants to be Patrick’s boyfriend. All gay men can safely assume that the guy they’ve been on, like, three dates with is completely ready for a steady relationship! Right? It totally works that way.

Okay, so, no — I don’t believe that someone as self-conscious and relationship-averse as Patrick would so casually drop the B-word, even if the last date was a whole day long and took place partially in a planetarium. (Note to self: plan more dates in planetariums. Addendum to note to self: plan more dates.) And no, I’m not on board with it being quite so easy for Patrick and Richie to get this important talk out of the way so early in their courtship. In real life, it takes weeks and months of agonizing and hand-wringing and self-doubt before the B-word is broached, following many, many more dates (seldom in planetariums) and then an awkward phase where you realize all you do is eat Thai food and watch sitcoms with this person and you still don’t know if they’re sleeping with other people. (They are.)

Yes, okay, sometimes you find someone who’s super special and you just click and know that they’re as into you as you are into them, and then you barely even have to ask that question — because you’re soul mates! But that’s always shortly before said “soul mate” applies for a restraining order. (I mean, I can only speak from my own personal experience, but I’m pretty sure I’m right about this.)

So initially, from this opening scene, I was already fired up about how the show had gone downhill again so fast. How dare Looking allow Patrick and Richie to be happy? I only watch shows where the main characters are significantly worse off than I am, which is why I watch Game Of Thrones and True Detective and American Horror Story instead of, like, Nashville. Only miserable people allowed on my TV screen, thank you! (This is also the reason most of my paired-off friends are dead to me.) Luckily for me, Patrick and Richie’s newfound boyfriendship takes a nosedive later in the episode. But we’ll get to that.

Meanwhile, Dom is spending more time with Lynn and his snooty, well-to-do friends, hoping said snoots will invest in his chicken shack or whatever (perhaps because one of them is black). Lynn ends up being a lot more impressed by Dom than his friends are; Dom dreads the stroke of midnight because it means he’s officially entering his fifth decade of life (and swiftly exiting his relevance as a sexual creature in the eyes of the young men he goes after). What Dom doesn’t realize is that he’s decrying his old age to a man who is roughly twenty years his senior, which results in a delightful verbal bitch-slap from Lynn, who says he spent his own 40th birthday doing mushrooms in a canoe. Dom is suitably put in his place. (Go Lynn!)Elsewhere in the city (Oakland, to be exact), Augustin is having a snit fit because the scantily-clad photos he took of a sexy hooker are somehow not “artistic” (who would have guessed?). Augustin defends CJ’s profession yet again as Frank displays a saintlike level of patience and understanding about his boyfriend spending all of his spare time with a narcissistic prostitute, sometimes in a state of undress. And this is before Augustin bags on Frank for being the black guy who wants to bring Cheetohs to the party, which is just rude. Moral of the story: Augustin is a whiny child, a terrible boyfriend, and an outright bitch. Are we seriously supposed to like this character? (More on that later.)

Doris and Dom talk about Lynn on the way to Dom’s birthday bash in the park. Doris is insightful enough to see that Dom’s feelings about Lynn run deeper than he’s letting on, which is confirmed later when a youngish Grindr guy goes untexted while Dom jaunts off to Lynn’s house unannounced.

But first: Richie is introduced as Patrick’s boyfriend, which has Augustin all miffed for some reason. Patrick does a prolonged and surprisingly offensive imitation of an effeminate gay man that really makes him seem like an asshole, just when some of us were kinda-sorta starting to like him. It’s odd that no one calls him out on this, given that nearly all gay characters on this show are reasonably masculine — are the writers unaware that gay viewers may see this as further evidence that Looking is, if not exactly homophobic, a little leery of coming off as too gay, just as many gay men are? (It goes hand-in-hand with the beards.) I’d wager that this moment didn’t play well with some of Looking‘s harsher critics, and seems like a fairly egregious misstep as written. (Looking could certainly shed some light on the masculine-versus-feminine debate, but this wasn’t the way to do it.)

Patrick’s uncomfortable sissy-boy imitation is interrupted by his boss Kevin, who has arrived with his studly Caucasian sports medicine-practicing partner Jon (Joseph Williamson), who is the counterpoint to scruffy Latino hairdresser Richie, who Patrick pointedly does not introduce as his boyfriend. (Danger, danger!) At this point, I was back on board with “Looking In The Mirror,” because if it isn’t going to explore the extreme awkwardness of the Boyfriend Conversation in a naturalistic fashion, at least it can explore the Boyfriend Omission in a realistic way. And aren’t there moments, early in a relationship, when you’re not sure how someone you know will react to your significant other, so you kind of don’t feel like getting into it? Patrick makes something up about Richie wanting to open his own salon (he doesn’t), which is ascribing his own upper-class ambitions onto a boyfriend who’s pretty happy to be who he is.

CJ shows up to the party (seriously, did Augustin have to pay for his attendance?) and is all over Augustin in front of Frank, who again doesn’t really mind because CJ is kinda all over him too. Lynn has flowers delivered to Dom. (Aww!) Then “Looking In The Mirror” cuts right into the meat of it when Augustin flatly accuses Patrick of slumming it in his relationship with Richie. Richie, unfortunately, overhears. Fortunately Richie has the cojones to stand up to Augustin, who backs down immediately, though Patrick doesn’t put up much of a fight. Richie’s just scoring all kinds of points lately, isn’t he?

The scene suggests that there’s a widening rift between these old college buddies, which makes sense because they don’t have much in common, and sometimes friendships go that way. Someone who used to be great can eventually become a sniveling little bitch like Augustin, who takes his own frustrations out on well-intentioned people like Richie to avoid looking in the mirror. (Ohhh, heyyy there, title of the episode!) Usually, said friend should be dropped immediately, but that’s unlikely given that Augustin is a series regular. Patrick calls Augustin out on his hooker bullshit, while Augustin at least does have a point about Patrick slumming it since Patrick couldn’t introduce Richie as his boyfriend to his boss. (Then again, that’s also because Patrick is attracted to Kevin, which doesn’t bode well.)

And suddenly it hit me — maybe we aren’t supposed to like Augustin? I mean, like, at all. That’s a strange choice for one of the three leads of a drama (at least one in which no one is a serial killer or meth dealer), but it’s much easier to accept Augustin’s whining and moaning and childish behavior if I don’t feel that the show’s writers are asking me to sympathize with him at the same time. Because I don’t. At all. Yes, he does remind me of guys I’ve met, just not guys I’ve liked, and in a way his arrested development is even more striking than Dom’s, and is perhaps an insightful look at 30-year-old men who still act like 15-year-old girls. (But at this point, only perhaps.) So there you have it: I am giving up on Augustin. I don’t like him. I won’t like him. And in that way, I may actually get some enjoyment out of hating his character.

But shouldn’t it be the other way around? Aren’t the supporting characters supposed to be the ones we love to hate? Aren’t we meant to side with our protagonists more often than not? That’s the super fucking strange thing about Looking — so far, the three leads’ love interests (Frank, Lynn, and Richie) are so much more likable than Augustin, Dom, and Patrick are. When was the last time a TV show did that? (If the answer is never, there’s probably a good reason.)

Now, for the first time, all of the Looking lads are finding themselves in or at least close to a significant partnership. Yes, Lynn rebuffs Dom’s rather desperate birthday lip-lock advance, as well he should — because Dom is not as ready as he thinks he is for a stable, mature guy like Lynn. (Though it was Lynn who said just a few episodes ago that he mourns “friendly” casual sex.) I highly doubt we’re seeing the end of Dom and Lynn’s flirtations, though. Lynn makes a proposition for a “pop up” of a different kind, offering to finance a one-night only chicken shack extravaganza, which we all kind of knew he’d end up paying for. I call bullshit on Lynn truly caring about this business partnership — does he really think Dom’s chicken restaurant is that solid an investment? No. He wants to be Dom-inated, he’s just being smart about not rushing into it.

At the same time, Augustin’s relationship is veering toward collapse as he invites CJ over for a (paid?) threeway, which they decide to film. This being 2014, naturally they film it on an iPhone — or perhaps a webcam, right? Oh, wait, no — I forgot that Looking takes place in a bizarro version of 1985, which is why Augustin films it on some sort of old-fashioned movie camera. (Is this “art,” too?) Augustin doesn’t look pleased that Frank and CJ are getting so intimate, which is a good reason not to bring a charismatic, chiseled hooker into your relationship. The episode ends with Patrick and Richie somewhat in a state of limbo after Richie legitimately wonders if Patrick can handle his rough-around-the-edginess. Patrick stands in front of a mirror naked (as you do), soul-searching while wearing only the necklace Richie gave him (that Augustin bitchily mocked).

Symbolically, I imagine the writers intended viewers to think, “Oh, look, Patrick has shed everything but this new identity as Richie’s boyfriend, and is ready to move into a new chapter in his life, away from his old pitfalls and values.” Most probably thought: “Hey, look! It’s Jonathan Groff’s ass!”

All in all, Lynn is fantastic, Frank is a saint, Richie is pretty awesome, and… the show isn’t really about them, is it? Is it time for a spin-off already? “Looking In The Mirror” had legitimate conflict, pushed the dynamic between two lead characters, and (I think) advanced the overall story, in an episode that’s all about how none of our three lead characters deserve the men who are into them. That’s enough to rank it as probably the second-best Looking episode, which means in the latter half of its inaugural season, things are Looking up…

*

There’s only one episode left in Looking‘s first season, and unless they really fuck it up (which is entirely possible), it will go down as a lop-sided debut, with the first four episodes getting off to a wobbly and largely disappointing start, while the final four gave us something that was much more promising.

“Looking For A Plus One” continues last week’s trend of our three leads behaving like jerks to love interests who deserve better, but the stakes are even greater this time around. More “happens” in “Looking For A Plus One” than all of the other episodes combined, really, in terms of conflict between characters.

Yeah — conflict! Who knew Looking had such a thing in store?

The show opens with another scene of the core trio drinking beer and smoking bud in hoodies, firmly reminding us that this is San Francisco (though it could also be Portland or Seattle). Things are less harmonious this time, as Augustin bitches about his latest “art” project while Patrick takes the opportunity to gently suggest that taking sex pictures of your boyfriend being effed by a near-stranger is not inherently artistic. “How dare you, sir!” Augustin says (but not in those words), miffed at being called out in such fashion (the truth). Dom goes to get another beer, and so does most of the audience, because it seems like we’re in for plenty more of Augustin’s self-righteous whining.

The next day is a big one — Richie is to meet Patrick’s family at a grand Murray wedding. The early scenes expertly capture the high drama of getting ready for a major life event, during which you will inevitably spill a dark liquid all over yourself (Richie) and/or get a parking ticket (Patrick) for such a minor infraction as not turning your wheels. (There are two other moments in this episode during which Patrick is also in danger of getting a parking ticket, another reminder that the show is set in San Francisco. Ironically, I have never identified with Patrick more or had deeper sympathy for him than when he despaired at that ticket.)

Patrick is a little manic in anticipation of the wedding, which is perfectly understandable. Richie tries to fix his bow tie while they’re driving over the Golden Gate Bridge (reminder: this is San Francisco!), and Patrick freaks out, and Richie makes him pull over on the bridge, and Patrick does pull over, but not on the bridge, and Richie tells him to smoke some weed, and Patrick yells at him for bringing marijuana to his sister’s wedding, and Richie storms off all handsome and smooth-faced — because homeboy shaved for the big event! (And Looking becomes about 25% less hairy! At this rate, they’ll all be fully body-waxed and hairless by the series finale. Hooray!)

And, okay, I have to say I’m on Team Patrick on this one (for, like, the first time ever). First of all, it is annoying when people distract you while driving, as Hannah and her cousin discovered in Sunday night’s Girls, and if someone is asking you to stop tying their bow tie while driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, well, you should stop it! Second of all, it is completely fair to ask your boyfriend to not be high as a kite while meeting your entire family at what seems like a reasonably conservative wedding, or really, any occasion. Patrick might have handled this better, but it’s a big day for him! This is one moment when Richie could have been the bigger man, sucked it up, not smoked it up, and just gotten back in the car to meet the Murrays. Patrick was legitimately a jerk last week when not introducing Richie as his boyfriend, and is kind of legitimately a jerk to Richie behind his back later in this episode, but it’s not totally one-sided. C’mon, Richie! Did you shave off all your good boyfriend potential along with that scruff?

Before we get back to Patrick being a jerk, though, we need to check in on Augustin being a jerk and Dom being a jerk. In this episode’s slightest subplot, Dom is stressed out about his big chicken shack debut, which is happening in a rundown Indian-Chinese fusion restaurant in about 28 hours. Dom snaps at Lynn (and everyone) because his entire future depends on this chicken being fucking delicious, which causes Lynn to abandon ship when Dom doesn’t care about his flowers. (Dear Dom: never dismiss Lynn’s flowers again.) Dom and Lynn’s interactions have always been one of Looking‘s strongest suits — until this week, because I still think it’s way too easy for Dom to suddenly start his own chicken business, even if it’s a one-night-only chicken extravaganza rather than a full-fledged restaurant.

Didn’t they just have this idea last week? Don’t they need more time to market it, and find people to actually cook this fabulous chicken? And if Dom doesn’t make the chicken himself, what exactly is he doing? So far, Dom has done nothing to convince me that he can or should open his own chicken place. Once again, the show is redeemed only with Doris speaking the truth in one succinct line of dialogue or sometimes even just a look. I propose a spin-off called Doris in which Lauren Weedman wanders onto the set of other TV shows and tells the characters all the bad things the audience is thinking about them. In summary: Doris continues to be awesome.

Meanwhile, Augustin is being the biggest jerk of all when he decides to bail on his art show because Patrick was right about how taking sex pics of your boyfriend getting it on with a prostitute isn’t really the kind of “work” that needs a home at a gallery, and is probably better suited for something like Snapchat. (Though I’m sure plenty of websites would display it happily.) Augustin confesses to Frank that he bailed on the gig — and that he paid CJ $220 an hour to seduce and destroy his boyfriend, which has Frank justifiably pissed that his man paid a hooker to have sex with him and neglected to mention it. Especially considering that said man isn’t even paying rent in their sweet Oakland pad! (Blowing all your money on secret hooker threesomes? Not the greatest plan, Augustin.)

Frank and Augustin have a reckoning during which Frank decides Augustin needs to move out, as well he should. Augustin has displayed a grand total of zero redeeming qualities as a boyfriend (and a human being, for that matter). But let’s not leave Frank totally blameless here — he knew that CJ was a hooker, he just didn’t know CJ was a hooker currently being paid for his services — and really, isn’t any situation that brings a hooker into your relationship pretty volatile and fraught with complication? Isn’t that basically always a harbinger of doom? Neither Augustin nor Frank should be surprised at this outcome, and neither should we. At this point, I’m all for storylines about Augustin’s suffering, especially since Dom and Patrick have it pretty easy these days. Moral of the story: don’t pay a whore to have sex with your boyfriend — or, if you do, tell him about it.

Now, back to the wedding. We meet Patrick’s mother Dana (Julia Duffy), who we’ve heard plenty about, and a twist of fate has Kevin and John, of all people, attending the ceremony! (Patrick and Kevin sure do randomly run into each other a lot, don’t they?) Kevin gets drunk and tries to kiss Patrick in the bathroom (naughty Kevin!), which Patrick ends maybe a little sooner than we’d expect him to (good Patrick!). The kiss is all kinds of complicated, because we don’t know precisely what flashes through Patrick’s mind at that moment. That he shouldn’t kiss Kevin because of John? That he shouldn’t kiss Kevin because of Richie? That he shouldn’t kiss Kevin because he’s his boss? Probably all of these — but in which order? It seems Richie’s absence has Patrick longing for him enough that a cheap affair with his boss is not so appealing, which we know because Patrick uses the word “totally” in his apologetic voicemail to Richie, which is what he does when he’s nervous.

The episode ends with Patrick having two distinct interactions with his parents. First up: that awful moment when “Love Shack” comes on and you don’t have a boyfriend to dance with you, so you end up chatting with your mom. Patrick tells Dana that she wouldn’t like Richie because he’s an unambitious Mexican hairdresser, and with an introduction like that, how could she? Patrick has failed to list any of Richie’s good qualities — he’s leading with the negative, turning his mother against Richie before she has a chance to do it herself. Dana isn’t having it — she tells Patrick that Richie’s absence at the wedding is not her fault. And she’s right. It’s time for Patrick to stop blaming mom for his relationship failings and take some ownership of his own choices. But also: Dana is munching a pot-infused Rice Krispie treat, which means she and Richie might get along just fine after all.

The episode ends on a different note, as Patrick has a brief conversation with his father, who bemoans the $40,000 dropped on this joyous occasion and asks Patrick, “You’re not going to want one of these, are ya?” It’s not the question Patrick wants to hear after his first major fight with his brand-new boyfriend, and it’s especially ironic coming at the end of an episode in which three gay partnerships of varying types are jeopardized. Patrick and Richie, Dom and Lynn, and Augustin and Frank are all at a crossroads that could very well lead the better halves out of our trio’s lives for good, because gay relationships often do come with added complications that heterosexual ones don’t. (Even Kevin and John could face a rocky future if John ever finds out about that kiss.) “Looking For A Plus One” has Patrick, Augustin, and Dom all “minus one” instead.

There’s no more hetero institution than a big ol’ wedding, after all, and “Looking For A Plus One” subtly explores how awkward that can be for men and women who only recently obtained the right to have a wedding themselves (in some places), in a world that isn’t quite used to them having that right yet. The inner workings of gay relationships are still a mystery to many straight people, while straight relationships are the norm, the institution, the standard to live up to (or fail trying) — we all know how that story is supposed to go.

Patrick’s father isn’t being mean-spirited in suggesting that Patrick might spare him several grand by neglecting to follow his sister’s matrimonial footsteps, but in the end, it seems the question only causes Patrick to realize: Yes, I do want this. Which might mean wanting Richie. However, the question might as well have been posed to the gay faction of Looking‘s audience: do we want this? A true partnership? Love and commitment and stability? Tuxedos and cake and “Love Shack”? (Well, of course we want “Love Shack.”) Or do we want to be the sole proprietors of our own enterprises, perpetual bachelors pursuing, um, chicken? Do we want to pepper our monogamy with the occasional hooker, risking all we’ve built together in the process?

Are Patrick and Richie done? Not likely, but it’s the third twosome that ends on an iffy note this week. One hetero union comes together while multiple gay ones fall apart. Gays haven’t had hundreds of years to get used to such partnerships and establish their own marital traditions, so perhaps Patrick and Dom and even Augustin can be forgiven for this week’s sins. Or perhaps not. But Looking is finally generating some suspense, at least, its plot actually moving forward — since Augustin and Frank actually do seem done.

Can we keep Frank instead of Augustin? I doubt it. But we’ll see what happens in Looking‘s Season One finale next week.

*

And so we’ve come to the end.

Of Season One, anyway.

And it’s time to think about what we’ve been Looking at all this while.

Looking began with a would-be hookup in broad daylight in a public park. It was a bit of a fake-out — a nod to the gay past — but still. It set a strange tone for the show, a series that wanted to be not about sex but still kinda sexy, about a group of gay men who are all over the place in terms of age, race, their sexuality, their facial hair, and where they are in life, but still somehow are meant to be friends. Supposedly they’re a tight unit, but we saw a lot more of them as individuals in their own lives than we saw of them together. And when they were together, they were mostly bitching at each other’s life choices (valid) or listening to the messy fallout of a vegan eating meat in the bathroom (totally not valid because no one does this).

We started off not really knowing who these guys were. Then, through a promising all-day date with Richie, we figured out a little more about Patrick; eventually we realized that Augustin is just a bratty jerk, and we don’t have to like him, and maybe that’s okay. The Season One finale “Looking Glass” borrows its title from Lewis Carroll, an homage to the topsy-turvy craziness of Wonderland. In a show as muted and low-key as Looking, I guess this is about as fucked up as it gets. Which is still not that fucked up, by HBO standards; I mean, last night’s Girls finale had Hannah in a blonde wig, donning a variety of accents, pretending to be a married woman cheating on her fictional husband with her actual boyfriend, with her tits out most of the time. That’s a level of fucked upedness that Looking has never broached (and likely will never broach). That’s fine. In comparison to the lackluster and eventless first few episodes, “Looking Glass” is positively wacky with conflict. Compared to most TV series, though? It’s still rather tame.

“Looking Glass” begins with Patrick stopping by Richie’s work, where he’s met with a cool “Can I help you?” Richie is still pissed that Patrick wouldn’t let him bring weed to his sister’s wedding, I guess. (I know, I know, it’s more than that, but that was the tipping point.) Richie asks for “space,” which is never a good sign, unless he means the kind of “space” that you find on a cute date at the planetarium, but we’ve been there and done that. And that’s not what Richie means at all.

If Richie and Patrick are left up in the air at the beginning of this episode, Frank is very clear about the status of his relationship with Augustin: finite. Splitsville. Dunzo. And a good thing, too, since Augustin is truly in need of a comeuppance. Frank adds insult to injury by telling Augustin that he’s not a talented artist and never will be — a scorching burn that also holds a lot of truth, since we’ve seen what Augustin’s vision of “art” is. And that’s real life. A lot of people enter adulthood thinking they’re artists; many fewer end up making a living that way. Augustin is going to have to figure out something else to do with himself now that he’s got no man, no job, no artistic cred, and no place to live — it’s almost enough to make me feel sorry for him, until I remember what an obnoxious child he was in the last seven episodes. And then I just say, “Haha, you got told, Augustin.”

Does this mean no more Frank? I’m not that attached to Frank, though he’s clearly the better half of the Augustin+Frank=4ever equation. Patrick and Dom can’t exactly hang out with Frank now that their bud has dumped him, and the relationship seems over enough that there won’t be a “Will Frank take Augustin back?” arc in Season Two. (Or at least, not for a while.) Assuming this is it for O-T Fagbenle (what a name!) on Looking, let us say: so long Frank! We hardly knew ye.

(But we hardly know any of the characters, really.)

Meanwhile, Dom is still freaking about the Great Chicken Shack Experiment, or whatever they’re calling it. Lynn is MIA after Dom snapped at him (and made an unwise “daddy” comparison) in “Looking For A Plus One.” Yes, all three of our boys have been spurned after last week’s outbursts, with Dom’s being the least dramatic but perhaps also the most poignant. Again, I must point out that Looking‘s idea of high drama is having Lynn show up slightly late to Dom’s pop-up chicken restaurant; Macbeth this is not. There’s no yelling, no Lynn demanding his money back, no Lynn not showing up at all. Lynn does show up with a very San Francisco-looking (read: bearded) stud he claims is “just a friend,” but that can never be taken as gospel. After all, we met Lynn in a bathhouse.

Dom acts all jealous and Doris has a terrific scene where she practically begs Lynn to go easy on Dom’s heart, telling Lynn that he’s “worth it.” Then again, this episode also has a moment where Doris says she wants Lynn’s date to sit on her face, then corrects herself and claims she should be the one sitting on his face, but doesn’t sound too convinced; either way, I’m down to watch a Doris spin-off no matter who is seated upon whose visage. HBO’s Face-Sitting is bound to be more eventful than HBO’s Looking, especially if it stars Lauren Weedman, who I still say needs her own show (and, perhaps, her own country).

Anyway, it doesn’t seem like Lynn is taking Doris’ words to heart — I mean her words about Dom being worth it, since I don’t think he overheard that bit about his pal sitting on her face — until Dom desperately pulls him aside and apologizes like a grown-up, rather than the petulant teenager he was impersonating last week. Meanwhile, Lynn is really, really anxious not to keep his “friend” waiting, which is why I suspect he’s more than a friend, because real gay men don’t care if they keep their friends waiting. (Especially if it’s only for a few minutes.) Dom goes for the kiss, and this time, Lynn seems to like it — but we don’t know for sure because that’s the last we see of Dom and Lynn this season. I think we can feel reasonably confident that Scott Bakula will return to Looking next season… unless Face-Sitting somehow snaps him up instead. (Even better!)

Augustin decides to take (unspecified?) drugs, which actually make him a more tolerable character, as I suppose they do with a lot of people. He and Patrick stop by the One-Night-Only Chicken Shack Spectacular to show their support, where they discuss their respective breakups and Patrick cops to a surprising and somewhat alarming armpit fetish. (I thought Patrick was a little too vanilla for that?) Augustin must already have been aware of Patrick’s penchant for pit, because he doesn’t react at all; or maybe he’s just too fucked up on his drugs still. (He’s functionally eating chicken, so he can’t be that far gone.)

Then Patrick gets a call from Kevin demanding his presence at work. (Patrick is way more agreeable about working nights and weekends than just about anybody on the planet.) Augustin and Patrick leave the chicken shack with full glasses of wine abandoned on the table, which is another reminder that Looking is fiction, because real gay men do not leave full glasses of wine on a table. Ever. (Especially if they’ve just been called in to work.)

But just joking — Kevin didn’t call Patrick in to work, he called him in for a beer and another rapey kiss, because apparently last week’s “no” screamed “Yes!” when translated into British. Being called into work late at night and being forced to make out with one’s boss would be hell on Earth for 99% of Americans, but because he’s rather cute and from England, I guess Kevin gets away with it, because despite some feeble protests, it’s not long before you-know-what is happening…

And now it’s time to say our second good-bye this episode. Farewell, Patrick’s supposed bottom shame! We hardly knew ye, either!

Following that naughty office fuck (and, presumably, some armpit-licking), Kevin says he “doesn’t know” what this means for Patrick and Kevin in the future, which is probably code for “I’ll never text or call you again, I’ll avoid eye contact whenever I see you, and in six months or so I’ll find a lame excuse to lay you off when what I really want to do is forget all about this little episode. But thanks for bottoming!”

Patrick returns home to find Richie (of course!) waiting for him outside his apartment, which is something people on TV still do… because texting “hey can I come over?” and not getting an answer is too undramatic, even for Looking. (Have you noticed how people on TV are always dropping by unannounced? Seriously, no one in real life does this. TV characters are the only people who have six hours to spare to wait in front of someone’s apartment, just hoping they’ll find their way home eventually, without bothering to call or text.)

Patrick is understandably guilty about his naughty office fuck with his all-but-married boss, which is basically a porn-level escapade — and technically, he did kinda cheat on Richie. (It wasn’t exactly clear whether or not Richie’s “space” included a room to fuck one’s boss in.) Rather than confess, Patrick hears Richie out, and Richie says he’s “this close” to falling in love with Patrick (which is heartwarming) but he won’t, because he doesn’t think Patrick is ready (which is heartbreaking). Patrick’s unpreparedness for Richie’s jelly has just been confirmed on a sofa at Most Dangerous Games, so it’s time for Patrick to say his tearful good-bye to Richie and his armpits. (I, however, will bid neither Richie nor his armpits farewell, since this ends on an uncertain enough note that I’m sure Patrick and Richie’s saga is ongoing in Season Two.)

After that unhappy confrontation with Richie, Patrick returns home to find Augustin’s severed head impaled on a spike in his bedroom — ahh, sorry, I was just fantasizing about what might happen to Augustin if this were Game Of Thrones. On the less decapitation-happy Looking, Augustin is curled up asleep (in a drug-induced coma), snoozing to an episode of Golden Girls. Patrick picks up where Augustin left off, which is both a sweet moment and also a reminder that the tremulous gay bonds of friendship and occasional minor half-smiles engendered by Patrick, Augustin, and Dom of Looking are nothing compared to the pals, confidantes, and outright chuckles of Dorothy, Sophia, Rose, and Blanche. (But that’s a pretty high standard to live up to.)

The season finale of Looking essentially resets Season One back where it began. Patrick is single once more, Augustin is (probably) living with Patrick again, and Dom is (probably) still having age-related issues, except now he’s dealing with them by hooking up with a much older man instead of a much younger one. I imagine, with that Golden Girls theme music playing us out, that Looking is trying to be all about the friendship, and I still think that eight episodes in, these friendships seem totally arbitrary. We haven’t had any truly meaningful interactions between the three leads. Doris and Dom manage to have a poignant scene in nearly every episode; if the show were about their bond, I’d buy it.

But Patrick has not impacted a single one of Dom’s storylines. Nor has Augustin. Nor have Patrick or Dom had any significant hand in either preventing or provoking Augustin’s meltdown. Augustin had some effect on Patrick and Richie’s courtship, but it’s Patrick’s boss Kevin who ended up being the bigger threat (along with Patrick’s insecurities). These characters exist in this same universe, but only occasionally interact. Their friendship is not integral whatsoever to the show, and that should probably change if the show’s writers want to keep using Golden Girls as a reference. Would anyone have watched Golden Girls if all the old ladies were just off in their own corners, hanging out with other people every episode, barely seen together?

And that’s our show. Looking took a while to warm up to. I still wouldn’t call it appointment television. Girls was extremely sharp for the majority of this season, and True Detective was a much richer and more enticing HBO debut. I’d rate them higher than this one. But I will say that several Looking fellas (not necessarily the core cast members) made their way into my heart this season, and I do want to know what happens to them next. Will Lynn and Dom give it a go? How long will Richie’s armpits go unlicked? Whose face will Doris sit on? I guess you could say I’m Looking forward to the second season, more for the fringe benefits of the supporting characters than anything relating to Patrick or Augustin. But that’s still something.

So. I’ve seen him eight times now, and that’s a lot. After our first three or four outings, I was unimpressed, but I must have seen something to keep me coming back. Some… potential. And then there it was. On our fifth date, I witnessed something truly special. I felt something. Granted, it wasn’t something I’d never felt before — in fact, it reminded me very much of something I’d seen a couple years back — and it was better and fresher then. But still.

After that fifth date, I was willing to cut him some slack. He still frustrated me at times. I wanted him to go further; he was always holding back. It was like he was afraid to go too far, so he kept moving forward mere inches. And after so many weeks, I wanted more. I wanted to love him! Instead, I only liked him a little. But there were moments, little sparks, that made me believe he might be worth putting some more time into. And so I did.

Now he wants to take a break. I don’t know when I’ll see him again. Sometime next year, maybe? And who knows how he’ll change by then? Or how I will? I know there will be others to help me while away the hours in the meantime; soon, I’ll barely think of him. But when he returns, I’ll be glad to see him again, ready to pick back up where we left off. I wasn’t sure at first, but after these past eight weeks, I guess I’m ready to make a commitment.

Looking, I like you. I certainly don’t love you… yet. Maybe I never will. Maybe this is the peak of our… relationship? You are nice, and sometimes a little bit funny, and slightly sexy, though not nearly as promiscuous as I was expecting you to be. You are genuine, and at times endearingly awkward, and it takes time to get to know you. A lot of my friends didn’t like you when they first saw you, but I kept hoping for the best.

I didn’t get the best. I got you. And I suppose that will have to do.

*

Have you heard the Good News?

One of the most innovative filmmakers of this millennium has released an epic blockbuster that caters heavily to a Christian audience — and it’s actually pretty decent.

There was every reason to be skeptical about a major budget version of this tale. Actually, any major budget version of any tale. In case you haven’t noticed, movie studios are increasingly obsessed with telling (and retelling) recognizable stories in recent years — and there are few stories more widely recognized than the tale of Noah’s ark. We’ve all become reasonably cynical about Hollywood’s eagerness to turn anything you’ve ever heard of into a film — comic books, video games, board games, toys, people — regardless of story potential. There’s no actual correlation between brand name recognition and box office, since so many of these films have failed, but it keeps happening and almost always seems more like a cash grab than a movie.

Factor in the massive amounts of money that can be made when the right movie finds its built-in Christian audience, and Noah seems like a no-brainer — and by that, I mean both a really good way to make money, and also a potentially brainless movie. The wild card here is Mr. Darren Aronofsky, one of this generation’s most talented filmmakers, the man behind Black Swan, The Wrestler, and Requiem For A Dream.

Yes, that’s right — the same guy who brought us Ellen Burstyn hopped up on diet pills being attacked by a refrigerator and Jennifer Connolly going “ass to ass” for a heroin fix is now bringing us one of the most cherished biblical stories ever told. Who’d have guessed?Darren Aronofsky’s last film was the dark ballet drama Black Swan, which was nominated for Best Picture, won Natalie Portman an Oscar, and made a surprisingly massive killing at the box office. No one expected a psychological thriller about a demented lesbian ballerina who ends up stabbing herself in the belly on opening night to gross over $300 million worldwide… and nobody expected the man who made it to suddenly turn his eye toward the Bible with his newfound clout.

As it turns out, Noah is a passion project of Aronofky’s, and anyone who has seen the underrated, multi-century-spanning The Fountain can understand how Aronofsky’s sensibilities might line up with this kind of old-fashioned epic. But still! Even in comparison to other Bible stories, the tale of Noah’s ark is problematic. It doesn’t hold up to deep scrutiny. I mean, can we seriously believe that two of every species on Earth could fit on one boat? And have enough food to eat throughout those forty days of rainfall? And not kill each other? Where did all that water come from? And, forty days later, where does it all go? Does this mean that every single person on Earth is a descendant of Noah and his wife? What about black people? And Asian people? And Latin people? There weren’t two of any of them on the ark!No, this particular Bible story has never really seemed all that believable, and there’s only so much that the big screen Noah can do to combat that. Those who go into this movie questioning the veracity of this tale will not leave it utterly convinced that this is the way it happened, but that’s not necessarily a problem. Did we leave Lord Of The Rings thinking that Frodo really made that epic trek across Middle Earth? (Sorry, there is no Middle Earth.) Aronofsky adds further fantasy elements, such as angels-turned-rock-monsters, as if to highlight that the entire tale is utterly implausible. Turn your brains off, skeptics, and just enjoy the ride.

Noah stars Russell Crowe as the biblical hero, who is turned here into more of an antihero, determined to wipe mankind off the face of the Earth. ‘Cause, you know, God said so. This kind of defense didn’t work so well for the Son of Sam thousands of years later, which I count as progress, but back in the ol’ days I guess people just sort of accepted it. (Most people with this sort of agenda end up being the bad guy, thwarted by James Bond, which is what makes Noah rather nifty.) Noah is married to Naameh, played by Jennifer Connolly, who gets this film’s most powerhouse scene. (It’s too early to talk Oscars, but one can imagine a Supporting Actress nod in her future. Maybe.) You may remember that Connolly also played Crowe’s wife in A Beautiful Mind, so she’s had plenty of experience playing “supportive wife to potentially schizophrenic visionary played by Russell Crowe,” as she does here.Noah also has two studly sons, Shem (Douglas Booth) and Ham (Logan Lerman), plus Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll), a son too young to be deemed “studly,” and a surrogate daughter named Ila (Emma Watson). Since these are to be the only survivors of humanity, the fact that Ila is not really their sister is how Noah dances around the tricky issue of incest, although it is implied that there will be some funky pairings going on when Ham and Japheth eventually have to fuck their nieces in order to keep the population going. (Sequel!) The cast is rounded out by Noah’s loopy grandfather Methuselah, who is a little bit crazy, a little bit magical, and a lot obsessed with berries. He lives up on a mountain and apparently doesn’t get out much, since when Naameh finally visits him he’s apparently been cooling his heels, waiting for someone to bring him berries for the better part of a decade. (He is also apparently not invited to join his family on the ark? Harsh!)

Yes, there’s a lot of silliness in Noah, much of it thanks to the source material. But as blockbuster spectacle goes, it’s pretty killer. The CGI animals aren’t super convincing, but the imagery is dazzling nonetheless, and it’s nice to see what Darren Aronofsky can do with untold millions at his disposal. (Then again, the special effects in Black Swan and The Fountain were even more breathtaking, and done with a fraction of the budget.) There’s some Requiem For A Dream-like editing involving animated Bible sequences (swapping the forbidden apple for heroin, which is fitting), and another bombastic score by Clint Mansell. The epic battle scenes are… well, epic. And there’s a Tree Of Life-like montage of Earth’s creation which shrewdly avoids any evolution-related controversy by cutting away just before monkeys turn into people. (But we all know it happens… right?)What truly sets Noah apart from the average blockbuster — and the average movie that caters to a Christian audience — is its savvy attention to character. Each of the main players has a clear and compelling story, and though the Bible didn’t often give its female characters a lot of agency, the women in Noah are every bit as important as the men, even if everyone does ultimately defer to the titular prophet — even when he attempts to kill off members of his own family because he’s pretty sure that’s what God told him to do. (On this matter, it would have been helpful if God had been a little more specific.) There’s real angst to be found here, which is not so true of most films of this size and scope, and the Noah character goes surprisingly dark. He spends more time on the Ark threatening to kill his infant grandchildren than hanging out with giraffes — a bold move in a studio movie, which tend to demand that all heroes be “likable” (AKA boring). God tends to be a more benevolent figure in modern Christian lore, but Noah isn’t afraid to point out that back in the day, He could be kind of an asshole. (Don’t smite me. Just saying!)

The fact that Noah is Darren Aronofsky’s worst film yet is only a testament (ha!) to the fact that his other movies are so good. And in comparison to his pre-Black Swan oeuvre, Noah is poised to make boatloads (ha!) of cash, which means he may have even more artistic freedom from here on out. It’s far from a perfect movie — the teen romance dips into melodramatic Twilight territory once or twice, Anthony Hopkins starts off hammy and goes full-on goofy shortly after, and Ray Winstone’s broad villain should have been excised from the latter half of the movie to make room for the true “bad guy,” Noah himself — but it’s still all rather awesome, considering. After a string of flops, it’s nice to see Russell Crowe back in Gladiator mode, headlining the sort of movie he’s good at… even if he does sing again (triggering shudder-inducing Les Miserables flashbacks — but only briefly). It absolutely could be better, but it also could’ve been God-awful. (Ha!)

Faint praise? Maybe. But Aronofsky is one of few filmmakers I’m still willing to follow to the ends of the Earth. I only hope this budget hasn’t spoiled him, because I’d much rather see more pill-popping housewives, suicidal wrestlers, and demented ballerinas than Aronofsky’s take on the parting of the Red Sea.

Let’s save that one for Paul Thomas Anderson.

*

In cinema, there are twist endings… and then there are endings that are so twisted, so gnarled, so completely screwed up they leave you sitting in the theater with your mouth hanging open puzzling over what the hell just happened until the end credits are over.

Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy has such an ending.

But let’s start at the beginning. Enemy is the second English-language film from Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, though technically it was filmed before Prisoners, which also starred Jake Gyllenhaal (and an impressive cast of other high-caliber actors, including Hugh Jackman, Viola Davis, Paul Dano, Terrence Howard, Maria Bello, and Melissa Leo). Prisoners was an enjoyable but muddled and largely incoherent thriller with some unfortunate gaping plot holes that undermined its plausibility, and a lot of storylines and characters that went literally nowhere. (The real crime: Viola Davis was totally wasted.) The fault lied in the script rather than in Villeneuve’s taut direction; it was twisty and turny in the usual ways, with a few minor surprises along the way.

With that simple, ambiguous title, Enemy sure sounds like it could be the sequel to a film called Prisoners, but besides leading man Jake Gyllenhaal and Villeneuve, the two films couldn’t be more different. Enemy is by far the smaller of the two, in terms of look and scope, with only five or six characters of significance. It certainly feels like the kind of movie a director would make before prestigious, studio-friendly fare like Prisoners; it’s quirky, murky, and deliberately confounding. A lot of people would prefer the straightforward thrills of Prisoners, but I’m more transfixed by Enemy, a film I will need to see several more times before I feel like I have a solid grasp on what it’s actually trying to say. I knew the film had a surprising ending, and so I braced for it; yet I doubt there’s a single filmgoer in the entire world who could have predicted what happens in the last scene of this movie. It’s the ultimate cinematic “What the fuck?”, and it’s delightful.In Enemy, a milquetoast history professor named Adam finds himself experiencing a nasty case of Vertigo when he rents a DVD from the local video store (thanks to a colleague’s recommendation) and discovers an extra in the film who looks exactly like him. That man turns out to be the small-time, Toronto-based actor Daniel Saint Claire, whose real name is Anthony. Adam does some light stalking to find out where Anthony lives; he calls his doppelganger’s home and speaks to his wife, Helen (Sarah Gadon), who is severely confused by the man on the phone who sounds just like her husband but claims to be a stranger. Adam doesn’t tell his girlfriend Mary (Melanie Laurent) anything about this, and his mother (Isabella Rossellini) isn’t very helpful. Neither Anthony nor Adam reacts to these events the way you’d think a person would.

That’s because there’s clearly something larger going on here. Villeneuve strikes up an unsettling tone right from the very beginning, when we see one of the two Jakes enter a gentlemen’s club, of sorts, featuring sexy women and tarantulas. Automatically, we know we’re in for a pretty surreal ride.

It’s difficult to say much else about the story, since Enemy is a film that must be experienced to be believed, with Hitchcockian elements that have one foot firmly rooted in classic suspense, while others feel a bit more modern (Cronenberg and Lynch may come to mind). The film’s palette is a grimy yellow, which only unnerves us further. It’s not exactly a pretty movie, though it is a visually enticing one thanks to the clever camera work. The spooky score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Juriaans is top notch. And that ending!Okay, yes, back to that. Enemy‘s final scene has already been a subject of much lively debate amongst the few who have seen it. It’s rather unforgettable, simultaneously ridiculous and terrifying, and it’s bound to leave just about anyone with more than one feeling about the finish of this film. It’s more than an M. Night Shyamalan-style “gotcha!” — it’s as if The Sixth Sense ended with the reveal that Bruce Willis was dead the whole time, and then he turned into a watermelon.

As you might expect, Enemy leaves many questions unanswered. (Most of them, actually.) Are Anthony and Adam twins separated at birth? Clones? Two halves of the same man’s psyche? It’s hard not to notice that they’re both involved with beautiful, icy blondes. Adam’s mother seems to know more than she lets on, especially when she insists that he likes blueberries when we know it’s Anthony who likes blueberries. (Paired with Noah, this is the second movie in a row I saw in which berries played a significant role in the film.) Jake Gyllenhaal gives two compelling performances, establishing him further as leading man material as he matures as an actor, and Sarah Gadon is equally compelling as Helen, who finds herself drawn to her husband’s bashful double. (Melanie Laurent’s Mary doesn’t have enough screen time to make too much of an impact.)

Obviously, Enemy is not for everyone… and certainly not for the deeply arachnophobic. Many will find it impenetrable. Some may find it just too preposterous. And it’s totally fair to think that the ending is just a big “fuck you!” to the audience. But I happen to enjoy this sort of puzzle-box movie, a film that may not ever be completely solvable.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a very delicious-looking housefly I intend to have for lunch.

*

* based on absolutely no criteria whatsoever

It’s almost summer again (here in Los Angeles, anyway — the rest of you may have another month or two before it’s good and sunny out). And that means it’s time to listen to some good fucking songs. Because the best fucking songs sound the very best when it’s nice out, and you’re laying by the pool or at the beach or driving around in a convertible.

It’s been quite a while since I compiled a list of The Best Fucking Songs, which is (like all music lists) totally subjective and impossible to definitively quantify. Everyone has a different taste in music, and it’s a bit harder to say whether a song is good, bad, or the best compared to a movie or a TV show. I don’t know why, but that’s the way it is.

Disclaimer: I have not heard all of the new music in the world, or even that much new music lately, yet I’m fairly confident in my selection of these songs as at least amongst the best.

*

1. “Triggerfinger” // Donkeyboy feat. Kiesza

Sorry, everybody else. My very new favorite musical discovery all-around is Donkeyboy. I’m not sure where I was when they emerged onto whatever scene they emerged onto, but clearly I wasn’t there, and I’m a little mad at everyone in the world for not alerting me to their presence sooner. If you know anything about my musical tastes, which are rather clearly laid out in posts like “The Best Fucking Songs Right Now,” you will know that this music is essentially tailor-made for me.

Donkeyboy is reminiscent of previous Best Fucking Songs selection Sound Of Arrows, except a bit more upbeat and dancier. They hail from Norway — because almost zero of my Best Fucking Songs artists ever hail from the good ol’ USA, which gives us artists like Miley Cyrus and Jason Derulo instead — and have that artful Euro-pop appeal that seems almost impossible to emulate stateside, given that no one does it. (Of course, the rest of the world is fonder of artful Euro-pop than we are, for whatever reason.)

I stumbled upon Donkeyboy with the single “Triggerfinger.” While watching the female vocalist in the video, I thought, “Hey! She looks familiar!” A quick search confirmed that she was Kiesza, another previous recipient of my Best Fucking Song honors (and whom I hung out with a bit on my last night as a New York City resident). I was very pleased to see two talents come together like this, and “Triggerfinger” is a beautiful and hypnotic song.

A little more digging led me to Donkeyboy’s 2011 release Silver Moon, which is home to several more great songs, as well as their latest, “Crazy Something Normal,” which is a slight departure from the Silver Moon sound, but not radically. It’s a track that reminds me of “Young Folks” by Peter Bjorn and John, and hopefully will be a similar breakout hit here. Needless to say, I’m much looking forward to Donkeyboy’s forthcoming album which contains “Crazy Something Normal” and presumably “Triggerfinger.” Until then, let me highly recommend those tracks as well as “Get Up,” “Out Of Control,” and “Pull Of The Eye.” Seriously, more Americans need to jump on this bandwagon with me. There’s room.

*

2. “24 Hours” // Sky Ferreira

And now, the rare appearance by an American on my Best Fucking Songs list — the Los Angeles native Sky Ferreira. She’s been on my music radar for a few years now, since she was breaking out back when I was writing for Idolator. Then I started writing less about pop music and she fell off my radar. So recently, I was surprised to hear her new album recommend by sources who might not have enjoyed her poppier tunes from a few years back.

Sky’s Night Time, My Time is a very listenable record that I suppose you would still classify as pop — especially a couple of the catchier tracks like “You’re Not The One” and “Love In Stereo.” But it’s also a touch darker and more melancholy than you might expect from a talent who also moonlights as a model/actress, and whose first EP was titled As If.

All of Night Time, My Time is pretty solid, but the track I find myself listening to most is “24 Hours,” in which Sky sings about how she’s got exactly one day left with her love. (It’s unclear where he’s heading in 24 hours… prison, maybe?) It’s upbeat and catchy, but at the core, mournful — as a lot of the best pop songs are. And if you like “24 Hours,” there’s a good chance you’ll like the rest of Night Time, My Time too. Most highly recommended: “I Blame Myself,” “You’re Not The One,” and “Love In Stereo.”

*

3. “Volcanoes” // Andreas Moe

In addition to Kiesza, who snuck in thanks to her Donkeyboy collaboration, we have another returning champion on this Best Fucking Songs list. That’s Andreas Moe, from Sweden, also known as pretty much the best place to find music I will like.

Andreas Moe first came to my attention with his badass “Long Time” remix video (a collaboration with John De Sohn. I then discovered that “Long Time” was actually a beautiful acoustic song when stripped of its techno beat (and the bloody children from the music video). It appeared on his Collecting Sunlight EP, which was similarly soft and melodic, with light electronic influences.

The This Year EP continues in a similar fashion. It’s a year old, but I only just found it, and Moe’s forthcoming Ep isn’t due until June. This is the kind of music I often find too earnest or schmaltzy from other artists, and isn’t exactly my speed, but for some reason, the way Andreas Moe does it just works for me. Get it!

*

4. “Somebody Loves You” // Betty Who

Australia’s Betty Who just released her Slow Dancing EP last week, and I can highly recommend it. That’s how I came across Betty Who in the first place. However, I can’t honestly call any of the Slow Dancing tracks the best fucking song when it’s her previous EP that yielded the one I’ve been listening to non-stop, “Somebody Loves You.” (But they are Very Fucking Good Songs, I promise.)

This is sort of upbeat pop song that tries its damnedest to put you in a good mood, and if you are immune to its charms, you are probably also immune to kittens, rainbows, sunshine, and all other things that are said to bring a smile to a human face. (For the record, I’m not so strongly endorsing the micro-budgeted 80s-tinged music video, which is only so-so.)

I really feel like I should be promoting Betty Who’s latest music, which is very good, so check out tracks like “Alone Again” and “Heartbreak Dream.” But since I’d never heard “Somebody Loves You,” I have to imagine that there are many others out there who haven’t either, and may benefit from the sunshine-kitten-rainbow-like effect of it. I’m basically like a doctor here, prescribing you dancey-happiness in sonic form, so you’re welcome.

*

5. “Mega Tubes” // Moon Hooch feat. Alena Spanger

I heard about Moon Hooch secondhand from their recent SXSW show. They are American, they play what they call “cave music,” and they are two saxophones and a drum kit. And that’s pretty cool. If you’re looking for something offbeat and different, that’s basically Moon Hooch.

*

For more of the best fucking songs…

The Five Best Fucking Songs Right Now* (Volume 3)

The Five Best Fucking Songs Right Now* (Volume 2)

The Five Best Fucking Songs Right Now* (Volume 1)

*

The people of Scotland need a refresher on “stranger danger,” at least according to the events depicted in Under The Skin. The lesson: even if someone looks as comely as Scarlett Johansson, that does not mean it is safe to get in a creepy van with her, return to her dungeon-like homestead “about a half an hour away,” and take a dip in her icky black pool.

Just say no and walk away.

In Under The Skin, Johansson plays a nameless visiting extraterrestrial temptress who arrives on Earth with zero empathy for human beings. She spends seemingly all of her time prowling around in a conspicuous white van, on the prowl for men. She has a specific type — youngish loners without families. Despite her apparently brief time on this planet, she has a better understanding of thick Scottish accents than I do, because I found about half of the dialogue in this film indecipherable. (Scarlett herself dons a posher English accent that is perfectly understandable.) Several of the interactions we see were unscripted, using non-actors who apparently never saw one of the biggest movies of all time (The Avengers) and didn’t recognize Scar-Jo in those acid-washed jeans and fur coat with a bad haircut. (I must assume that the men Scarlett hypnotically seduces in her alien lair were, indeed, aware that this was a movie.)

The film opens with a disorienting sci-fi moment — the temptress, in voice over, masters the English language as we see her obscurely being “formed.” It’s the first of many striking visuals in this film, most of them taking place in Scarlett’s lair, a surreal space of immense proportions and very few colors. (Either white or black, mainly.) This is in stark contrast to the mostly drab scenery of Scotland, though we do briefly jaunt to a noisy nightclub, a castle, and a blustery beach where something incredibly tragic happens. It is in this scene, relatively early in the film, that Under The Skin first grabbed me emotionally; unfortunately, those grabs were few and far between.In theory, Under The Skin is a fascinating study of humanity and gender, and I can think back on it with some added context and recall several moments that are thought-provoking and maybe even profound. The experience of watching it was very different, however. Director Jonathan Glazer (who brought us such diverse titles as Sexy Beast and Birth) uses incredibly long takes with obvious intent, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that nearly every shot was held twice as long as it really needed to be, which made me constantly restless between the more alluring and cinematic scenes. There’s precious little dialogue in the film, which works fine when what’s on screen is captivating to look at, but there’s a lot here that isn’t. Every scene serves a purpose, I’m sure, but what we’re seeing is given so little context that it’s hard to connect the dots until well after you’ve seen the film (and listened to a podcast or two to clear things up, as I did).

Now that I know what the fuck Under The Skin is about — or at least have grasped a few basic ideas — I find it a lot more intriguing than I did when I was watching it. There is at least one motorcycle-riding character whose function in the story completely eluded me; the film takes a jarring and abrupt turn halfway through that left me totally lost about any and all character motivations, in a movie that is already very light on such things. Scarlett’s alien character begins the movie outwardly confident, fitting in with humanity reasonably well; she is able to seduce several men easily, and while this is at least partially a commentary on how easily a good-looking woman can get an average-looking man to go home with her, no matter how strange she is or how murder-ready her house looks, she’s also not so bizarre that it’s a total tip-off to her real agenda.Then, in a key scene, she picks up a hooded stranger who ends up being disfigured; she runs through her whole seductress routine, but feels more sympathy for this kind and lonely man than she has for any of her prior victims. What happens next is pretty confusing, sending the alien out into the world sans van, sans black murder pool, on her own. All of her previous knowledge about how to approximate being human seems to have vanished, and it’s not clear why. This is the moment in the film that the alien herself truly attempts to be human in several ways — trying a piece of cake, taking a stab at romance — because she apparently has felt human emotion. Yet it feels like a separate movie, because her sudden confusion and disorientation doesn’t seem to line up with her previous confidence and ease of assimilation into the human world. It’s a big leap to make all at once, and the confusing aspects of the story in that moment add to the confounding quality. Scarlett literally walks into the fog as that transition happens; figuratively, so do we.

There are essentially no details provided about where this alien from or why she’s here. I certainly wouldn’t want a lot of exposition to spell it all out — I’m fine with a reasonable level of ambiguity. But in Under The Skin, I was just lost, and it would have been a very different (and much better) viewing experience if I’d just a slightly clearer understanding of what was going on. The key to this is the alien’s relationship to a man who appeared to me to be a human minion under her thrall; in this case, she is the sole extraterrestrial on Earth, and she’s in charge. Subsequent research has given me the idea that perhaps this man, and others, are also from a planet beyond, and she works either for or with them; this adds a lot more subtext, but with so few clues from the screenplay, I never even got such an inkling. The alien’s story is much more tragic if she is essentially a prostitute from outer space, designed to seduce human males for the gain of her species; I thought she was here alone, eating them for herself.Is that my bad? I think not really. Jonathan Glazer gives us less than the minimum to comprehend the story, which is based on a book that has little in common with the film but I believe makes things much more clear. I’m frustrated, to be honest, because I wanted to like this movie, and I think I would have, if Glazer had budged just an inch or two on being so enigmatic and high-minded. Am I asking for a movie to be dumbed down a bit? I suppose I am, and I feel bad about that. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that Glazer withholds such details mainly for his own satisfaction, rather than keeping his audience in mind. Why deny us compelling dialogue, a comprehensible story? I’m only asking for a little more context to make all the murky metaphor palatable.

Despite my frustrations with its director, Under The Skin contains several cinematic moments I won’t soon forget — ones that I wish were attached to a more consistently riveting movie that I could watch over and over again. I’m not sure I could soon sit through this one again without fast-forwarding. The end is hauntingly beautiful, disturbing, and unlike anything you’ve seen before, as are the unnerving seduction sequences, featuring horny naked men meeting a bitter end at the hands of a black widow from space. These scenes have all the elements to be horror classics, as arresting and unsettling as moments from The Shining or 2001: A Space Odyssey (and, in the case of the latter, just as perplexing). It plays like a rape-revenge movie in reverse, with the female first exacting her ruthless predatory methods on unsuspecting males, and then becoming vulnerable and helpless against one very creepy dude in the woods. (Again, I’m totally mystified as to where all her powers of seduction and thrall went in the latter half of the movie.)I know Under The Skin has a lot to say about “What It Feels Like For A Girl” (Glazer totally missed the boat on having that Madonna song in his movie). A lot of it has come into focus a day after I saw the movie (thanks, in large part, to extra-textual sources). I would even call the film “powerful,” if you can figure out what the hell is going on. But that’s a big if. The hypocritical ways our world (and Scotland, in particular) treats female sexuality would indeed seem bizarre to an outsider, and probably even frightening. Men prey on females all the time, and rarely would they suspect that she is doing the same thing back to them (tenfold!). All intriguing ideas… many of which I had between seat-shifting and a couple yawns as I watched Scarlett Johansson drive around in her van for what seemed like hours, occasionally picking up a friendly bloke whose Scottish brogue I couldn’t decipher to save my life.

It’s ironic (and probably not totally accidental) that Under The Skin is being released at the same time as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, in which Johansson plays Natasha Romanoff, AKA the Black Widow — named after the infamous arachnid who eats her male suitors after mating with them. Natasha Romanoff does no such thing, to the best of my knowledge, but the unnamed space-hussy in Under The Skin does something like that. Johansson is unmistakably the eye candy (for hetero males) in the otherwise sausage fest-y Avengers lineup; she wears a tight black catsuit most of the time, and though she’s brainy enough to exist in a franchise sometimes helmed by Joss Whedon, let’s face it — she’s basically there to give eleven-year-old boys their first boner.

Under The Skin is a direct critique of exactly that type of casting, and of course you can nitpick all sorts of minor points in Marvel movies. But I had a pretty great time with Captain America: The Winter Soldier (and understood everything!), which bears little resemblance to the first Captain America movie except for the reprisal of certain characters. Gone are that movie’s period charms; instead, it’s a slick comic book movie that dips one toe into the pool of conspiracy thrillers. (But All The President’s Men it ain’t, despite the appearance of Robert Redford.) It’s in the upper echelon of Marvel movies, perhaps the most consistently good since Iron Man. (The Avengers hit higher highs, but it took its sweet time getting there.) I suppose there are people in this world who will enjoy both The Winter Soldier and Under The Skin, but they’re basically as opposite as two movies could be, except for the black widow-ishness of Scarlett Johansson.

For my money, I wish Under The Skin had had a pinch more of Captain America‘s clarity of plot and witty banter (Johansson and Chris Evans spar nicely). And if Captain America had more naked men being flayed, I’d be fine with that too. Perhaps I’ll revisit Glazer’s murky sci-fi drama someday; if nothing else, I will forever be grateful to it for giving us this.

*

Summer movie season is officially underway, everybody, and you know what that means: I’ll be writing weekly reviews of each and every blockbuster that Hollywood throws our way.

Just kidding! What am I, made of money? I sure don’t have the funds to shell out sixteen bucks for all of the mindless crap the studios hope teenage boys and Chinese people will like enough to put them in the black for the year.

Nor do I have the time. Last summer, I saw one lone “summer movie” in theaters, which does not mean I didn’t see any movies during the summer. I just preferred to spend my summer hours on the likes of Blue Jasmine, The Spectacular Now, The Bling Ring, Much Ado About Nothing, I’m So Excited, and Before Midnight, all of which appealed to me more than Man Of Steel or Star Trek Into Darkness or The Lone Ranger.

This summer is a little better. The season kicked off early in April with the better-than-expected Captain America sequel The Winter Soldier. Next week sees the release of a promising X-Men movie, Days Of Future Past, with the return of Bryan Singer. And while there are a handful of obvious thuds on the horizon, like Blended and Transformers 4 and Let’s Be Cops, we can be cautiously optimistic about a number of titles including Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, 22 Jump Street, and Guardians Of The Galaxy. Cinematically speaking, I’m looking forward to this summer.This past weekend brought us the behemoth reboot of Godzilla, last spotted wreaking Independence Day-style havoc on New York City in Roland Emmerich’s largely reviled 1998 version, which had the bad luck to be released after Steven Spielberg’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Unleashing a Tyrannosaurus Rex on the mainland was a no-brainer for the blockbuster dino franchise, but the T-Rex’s rampage through San Diego was not a part of Michael Crichton’s book, and admittedly the sequence was randomly tacked on at the end of the movie as a bonus fourth act. I didn’t mind. It was basically Spielberg’s way of giving Emmerich’s Godzilla the finger (if T-Rexes had a middle finger…), beating the Americanized Asian monster to the punch by having him stomp through hordes of innocent civilians.

And why not? Emmerich’s Godzilla definitely stole a page or two from Spielberg, with a more T-Rexiified lizard than the traditional Japanese fatty and lil’ ‘zillas that were, no doubt about it, velociraptor rip-offs. Emmerich’s movie even had us feeling sorry for the big mama bitch, the same way we developed some feels for the mama-and-papa T-Rex duo in the Jurassic Park sequel. To be fair, Spielberg probably owes some kudos to the Japanese Godzilla movies, so this whole cycle is basically one giant lizard eating its own tail. In the years since, we’ve had Cloverfield, which was a rip-off of Godzilla‘s rip-off of Jurassic Park (and we all know JJ Abrams loves ripping off Spielberg!). And now we’re back with both a new Godzilla and next year’s highly anticipated Jurassic World. (Is anyone else starting to feel old, witnessing multiple reboots of the same franchise within their lifetime?)

It’s no surprise, then, that the latest Godzilla owes as much to Spielberg as it does to the Japanese B-movies of yore. The hero’s name is Ford Brody, for crying out loud! (That’s Ford as in Harrison Ford, AKA Indiana Jones, and Brody as in Martin Brody, the hero of Jaws. Because, I guess, “E.T. Goldblum” was just a bit too obvious.) Ford’s wife’s name is Elle Brody, not so far from Ellen Brody (also of Jaws), and for that matter, not so far from Ellie Sattler of Jurassic Park, either. The film opens with a picaresque helicopter sequence that we can only wish had a lush John Williams score to go along with it, and at one point, a soldier is pointing his flashlight beam dangerously close to a monster’s eye, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t want to jump up and scream, “Turn the light off! Turn the light off!”Moreso than these aesthetic similarities, however, what Godzilla really borrows from Spielberg is its pacing. It’s a good long while into the movie before we set eyes on the title titan, and before we do we see his “fins” poking out of the water (hello, Jaws) and his big ol’ legs (hello, T-Rex). Godzilla spends its first hour primarily on scientific-speak, which is not nearly as riveting as Jurassic Park‘s rather nerdy and utterly convincing discussion of just how dinosaurs were brought back to life, but posits what is probably the most plausible explanation for how Godzilla and perhaps a few other behemoth beasties have been hiding out unnoticed on Earth for the past however many years.

This pseudo-science buildup all might be a bit more riveting if it hadn’t been done (rather badly) back in the 90s, except with Vicky Lewis and Matthew Broderick instead of the award-winning likes of Juliette Binoche, Bryan Cranston, David Straitharn, and Sally Hawkins. Like Jurassic Park, Godzilla casts a caliber of actors we don’t normally see in a major summer blockbuster like this one, though none of them are really able to transcend their one-dimensional characterizations. Bryan Cranston has the most to do, emotionally, though he’s unfortunately not playing a meth kingpin (that we know of). Indie darling Elizabeth Olsen plays a W.I.J. (Wife In Jeopardy) and as such gets to do movie-wifely things like frown at the news, leave frantic voicemails, and then wait in some kind of crater for the army to rescue her. Protagonist Ford Brody is played by the newly buff Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who seems to have traded in his acting chops for biceps. I’m not sure the buff body really suits him; wasn’t he better off when he was quirky and scrawny? Wasn’t that kind of his niche? Does the world need another Taylor Kitsch? I dunno, these days Aaron Taylor-Johnson looks like he’s perpetually posing for a selfie.What director Gareth Edwards gets right in the latest Godzilla is that Spielbergian sense of awe and spectacle. Does anything match the Spielberg face goodness of Jurassic Park? Of course not, and no movie probably ever will, because back in 1993, seeing a CGI dinosaur roaming the Earth was about as novel as seeing a real one. Nowadays, we’ve seen too many monsters causing havoc on the big screen, and there’s not too much in the 2014 Godzilla that we didn’t see in Jurassic Park or Pacific Rim or some other Godzilla movie, which is the problem with these frequent reboots (it’s even more “been there, done that” in The Amazing Spider-Man). But these creatures are genuinely ginormous, way bigger than a T-Rex, and Gareth Edward’s Godzilla could probably step on Roland Emmerich’s. (He’s more or less gone back to the original Japanese design, big fat cankles and all. You’d think that would be cheesy, but it actually works.)

There are some genuinely awesome moments in the new Godzilla, the kinds of moments we can’t take for granted in a blockbuster these days. Several feature Spielbergian flourishes, like when a monster stomps idly under a bridge as Brody and a fellow soldier lie very, very still — because it can’t see you if you don’t move! There are also several children in jeopardy — at one point, a whole school bus full of ‘em. Edwards does not forget to ground all this mutant mayhem in the real world, in the context of what people’s reaction to this next-level chaos would be. (Not that we couldn’t have used a little more, especially from Elle Brody.) The scale is massive, proposing apocalyptic WTF reactions from the little people being stomped on like so many ants, and that’s at times genuinely unsettling. (Which is appropriate for a franchise that started off as an allegory for nuclear threat.)What doesn’t work so well is the large amount of screen time given to the military, almost always the most useless subplot in a city-in-peril blockbuster. (Spielberg knows this, but Roland Emmerich, Michael Bay, and countless others seem to think we want numerous cutaways to what some admiral or general thinks we should do about all this.) Making Ford Brody an expert at dismantling nuclear weapons is a tedious and ultimately pointless choice — the whole point of these movies is to spend time with the clueless, hapless, scared-shitless civilians, because that’s us. Martin Brody and Alan Grant may have some know-how, but when it comes right down to it, they’re just regular dudes who make Spielberg Face just like the rest of us would if presented with the gaping maw of a great white shark or a T-Rex. They’re relatable, you see. And Aaron Taylor-Johnson seems incapable of making Spielberg Face. (Either that, or he’s making it all the time. I can’t tell which.)

A few of the action set pieces are disappointingly brief, including a Hawaiian tsunami and especially an attack on Las Vegas, which could have been a whole ten minutes longer (because how much fun is it to see a monster take down that tacky city?). Edwards seems a little hesitant to dwell on mass destruction until the end, which basically obliterates San Francisco. The multi-monster battle at the end is suitably epic. The overall filmmaking is rather impressive, with a style and mood that isn’t matched by many movies of this ilk. There’s a parachute sequence that is hauntingly beautiful, and the images of burned and destroyed cities evoke the devastating blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that kicked this whole franchise off in the first place; it’s rare to see these disaster movies evoke such gravitas, and it’s much-needed. Godzilla has already been deemed worthy of a sequel, something its 1998 predecessor never was granted. With a hefty slate of blockbusters on the horizon and rather tepid word-of-mouth, though, it may not end up being quite the smash Warner Bros. is hoping for. Why aren’t people more favorable to Godzilla? It could be the weak characters, or the lack of humor, or the Godzilla-free first half of the movie — which may prompt some audience members to channel their inner Ian Malcolm and inquire, “You are planning to have Godzilla in this Godzilla movie?” — or maybe we’ve been so bombarded by Transformers-style mish-mash in the years since Jurassic Park that we’ve forgotten how to have patience with smart, slow-building spectacle.

It isn’t quite Spielberg, thanks largely to a rather dull cast of characters and an unfortunate lack of humor or levity to even out of the gloom and doom. (Not a single line approaches “Hold onto your butts”-level memorability.) But it’s also not Roland Emmerich.

In other words? We might wish life had found a way for the studio to spare no expense on a more clever girl to write the screenplay… but at least it’s not one big pile of shit.    *

Antz and A Bug’s Life. Deep Impact and Armageddon. Infamous and Capote. Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down.

It happens all the time — movies with eerily similar subject matter doubling up in the same year. As if there’s just something in the air causing different filmmakers to suddenly think alike, releasing movies that might as well be carbon copies of each other. (Though one is usually the clear superior — Dante’s Peak, take a bow; Volcano, you’re drunk, go home.)

Of course, there’s a special irony to it when the movies are about doppelgangers. Earlier this year, Jake Gyllenhaal played both a nebbishy professor and the cucumber-cool actor he discovers wearing his face in Enemy, and now Jesse Eisenberg is working double-time in Richard Ayoade’s The Double. Both movies feature the central actor as both an impotent, meek version of himself as well as a suaver, more confident twin; in both, an enigmatic blonde features prominently; in both, the doubles decide to switch places, with disastrous results; both are pretty open to interpretation as to what the hell is going on.

So which film is superior? Well, for once, these doppelgangers are equally good.

Despite surface similarities, Enemy and The Double are very different movies. Enemy takes itself very seriously, with the atmosphere of a Hitchcockian thriller. It ends not so much with a twist, but a full-on lambada. (I pretty much loved it; you can read my review here.)

The Double, on the other hand, has a surprising sense of humor. It’s very much a satire of bureaucracy, reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, with the same manic zing to its performances. But it’s also a film about perception, one in which only the protagonist finds the fact that he’s been cloned overnight off-putting. Enemy is psychological and dream-like, while The Double is heightened and surreal. Enemy requires a bit more thought to put the pieces together, and I’m not sure there’s any way to arrive at a totally definitive answer to its eight-legged puzzle; The Double doesn’t require a whole lot of mental work, because it doesn’t present its premise as a mystery. You could, perhaps, explain away The Double with “He was really dead the whole time!” or “It was all a dream!”, but that’s less interesting than accepting this madcap world at face value and going along for the ride.

Co-writer/director Richard Ayoade’s first film was the quirky Submarine, which I didn’t love; you can sense some of Submarine‘s Wes Andersonian flourishes in The Double, but they’re put to much better use. As with Wes Anderson’s movies, The Double asks you to accept a world that does not exactly look like our own, where people do not behave quite as real people do. It’s all very stylized — instead of depicting the real world, it’s a facsimile that represents certain aspects we might recognize. (The sets and technology seems to plus us somewhere between the 1940s and the 1980s, but it’s definitely not a “period piece.”) That’s quite appropriate in a movie that is very much about copies, and how much our individuality and originality mean to us. It’s a movie about being different, and a movie about being the same.

Ironically, The Double turns out to be quite unique, though Anderson and Gilliam’s influences can certainly be felt. The world of The Double is not our real world, but a copy that turns out to be sharper than the original, just as the copy of its hero manages to upstage him in just about every way imaginable.

Doppelganger movies almost always present their protagonist and antagonist as dual sides of the same person, and that’s certainly the case here. Simon James is a corporate lackey at a company that does… something. There is much discussion of reports and productivity, but they don’t service any real purpose — nobody actually does anything that produces a tangible result. (Isn’t that basically how it is in the corporate world?) Their business is just a lot of busyness — paperwork, protocol, and prattle that yield nothing whatsoever, so far as we can tell. The company’s figurehead is the elusive Colonel, who is worshipped like a deity as so many CEOs and founders are, even when we know next to nothing about them. The company advertises that it’s all about “people,” but features them all speaking in unison — that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Then, one day, a worker named James Simon shows up. He looks exactly like Simon James, but no one seems to find that disturbing except for Simon himself. James is a jerk, a womanizer, a bully, and a buffoon who doesn’t even know what they do at this company, but everyone loves him immediately. That includes Simon’s boss, Mr. Papadopoulos (played by Wallace Shawn), and the love interest Simon is too shy to speak to, a winsome copy girl named Hannah (played by Mia Wasikowska). The fact that Hannah makes copies for a living, and her name is a palindrome, fit right in with the heightened reality The Double establishes in its early scenes. It’s all very surreal.An easy reading of The Double might lead you to believe that James Simon is merely Simon James’ id — he’s the bolder, brasher version of Simon himself, and therefore he’s more successful in every way. But this Tyler Durden approach has been done before, and The Double knows it. Really, The Double is making a sly point about the perils of perception — how some people, no matter what they do, can’t help but be perceived in a certain negative light, while others skate by with little to no effort and come out smelling like roses. Having both types portrayed by the same actor only highlights how arbitrary these factors of failure and success are — kindness, intelligence, thoughtfulness, and hard work often go unappreciated while someone louder, crueler, and far less careful reaps all the rewards. The Double picks away at this cosmic injustice until Simon essentially has a psychotic break — he’s not crazy, but everyone perceives him as crazy, so he might as well be. Knowing you’re right doesn’t much matter in this world if no one else knows it.

The Double gets at this existential dilemma, along with several others. It’s not subtle, but it is graceful. We all feel like beautiful, unique snowflakes in a world that treats us like cattle. We all want to be celebrated for our individuality, while the people we want to celebrate us look right through us.

Or — maybe not all of us. There are many Simon Jameses in this world, but also a handful of James Simons. Like, you know, the Kardashians. The Double digs into that nagging feeling that we deserve adoration and success more than they do. We’re better, dammit! And if you take appearance out of the equation — since Simon and James look exactly identical — it’s hard to see why the good ones flail when the bad ones thrive, except that human nature is just sick that way. It’s enough to drive a person crazy.For all its philosophical intrigue, however, The Double is also probably the funniest film I’ve seen yet this year, with a welcome streak of absurdity. Jesse Eisenberg is the perfect man to deliver the script’s rapid-fire deadpan — which should come as no surprise after his Oscar-nominated delivery of Aaron Sorkin’s drily funny dialogue in The Social Network — and there are amusing cameos from the likes of Chris O’Dowd and Sally Hawkins, as well as a surprising appearance by the recently elusive Cathy Moriarity as a bitchy waitress. (A large majority of the cast has worked with Ayoade previously.)

Its earnest moments are surprisingly touching, including a bit of dialogue in which Simon compares himself to the wooden Pinocchio that pays off beautifully later. The Double is amusing, touching, haunting, thought-provoking, original, and surprising — a combination that’s tricky to pull off, and something I certainly didn’t expect from Richard Ayoade. So far it’s one of my favorite films of 2014, competing only with — you guessed it — its evil twin, Enemy.

Time will tell which one I rank higher. For now, all I know is they’ll make a hell of a double feature.*

Here’s the sad fact: the more $200 million blockbusters make their money back, the less we see studios willing to spend $20 million, or $10 million, or even a lousy $1 million on a smarter movie that’s aimed at a smaller audience.

Thus, the independent’s revenge. If smaller, smarter movies want to be made, they essentially have to make themselves, without an assist from the billion-dollar conglomerates that will greenlight Transformers and Avengers movies until giant robots from space really do come down and annihilate the human race. It’s summer now, which means Godzilla and Ninja Turtles and X-Men; but it also means indies that tempt the more selective of us with shrewd counter-programming, pulling those Sundance darlings out of the freezer to cool us off in these creatively dry summer months.

My revenge? To see most of these smaller movies, and not many of the big ones. It’s not much, but it’s all I can do.

One of these early summer releases is Blue Ruin, which made something of a splash at Sundance this year. It’s about revenge — a subject studio films have explored often — but instead of following the crafty, implausible hijinks of a martial arts superstar or a gun aficionado, Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin centers on a homeless man named Dwight (Macon Blair) who has never committed an act of violence in his life. (Until he does.)

Blue Ruin is essentially the tale of what would have happened to Bruce Wayne if he hadn’t inherited millions from his deceased parents after their murder. If there was no kindly old butler named Alfred to watch after him. Instead, he’s got only his estranged sister Sam (Amy Hargreaves), spending his days digging food out of trash cans and sneaking into empty homes to take showers, living out of a very beat up car. Dwight is no Batman. But when he learns the man who went jail for killing his parents has been released years later, it’s enough to spark him to hunt the guy down, following him into a bar as he celebrates his release, all in the name of justice.

But in Blue Ruin, revenge isn’t easy, and it doesn’t come without consequence. Many revenge movies would save this first kill for the climax, but vengeance is only the first of many violent problems Dwight will contend with as he opens up Pandora’s very bloody box. Because when one criminal falls, you can bet there are plenty more where he came from. Blue Ruin takes us through the motions — how would a homeless man obtain a murder weapon in the first place? Where would he hide after? What if he got injured in the process? It all feels a lot more real-world than your average man-on-a-mission thriller.

Blue Ruin doesn’t say anything terribly novel about revenge, except that it’s harder than it looks in the movies. Dwight isn’t a total idiot, but he makes a number of crucial mistakes throughout the course of this story, and we often cringe at things he does that only make his situation worse. Like it or not, it’s probably closer to the way we’d behave in the same situation than anything in Payback, The Brave One, or Kill Bill. We’ve seen plenty of stories that intend to tell us that vengeance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but that message tends to get muddled when there’s a bad ass action hero at the center. In Blue Ruin, revenge is a dish best served not at all, because it’s going to dish itself right back with some powerful indigestion.

The film is often tense and occasionally gruesome, but also takes time out for more off-the-beaten-path moments, like Dwight’s emotive confession to Sam, or his reunion with the high school buddy (Devin Ratray) who ends up helping him out quite necessarily. The final act is quietly suspenseful in a rather masterful way, with an empty house that couldn’t be more foreboding. As Dwight contends with the family of the man who torn his own family apart — including Jan Brady herself, Eve Plumb (!) — well, let’s just say it doesn’t end with hugs and a learned lesson.If Blue Ruin takes great pains to make a revenge story plausible, then another smallish thriller from 2014, Grand Piano, does the very opposite, reveling in absurdity. Grand Piano is like Die Hard in a concert hall, Speed goes to the symphony. And if that sounds like a ridiculous idea for a movie, well… it is. Truly.

Elijah Wood plays Tom Selznick, a piano wunderkind who flamed out five years ago during a concert when he flubbed the near-impossible “La Cinquette,” composed by his recently deceased mentor. Tonight he’s making his grand return to the grand piano, playing on the very instrument once owned by his millionaire maestro.

After a slow-building first act which sees Tom grow increasingly uneasy about his upcoming performance, Tom sits down to play… and discovers an ominous note written in his sheet music: “Play one wrong note and you die!” Tom soon discovers that a mysterious figure in the balcony seats has a gun trained on him and his famous actress wife (Kerry Bishe), which means he has no choice but to play “La Cinquette” flawlessly — or die trying.Obviously, this is a ludicrous premise for a movie. And even if you buy it, the script adds a number of loopy twists that might have had us tearing our hair out — if we hadn’t already checked our heads at the door. (Anything involving the killer’s “assistant,” or Tom’s hapless drunk friends in the audience, is particularly looney.) These phony developments could bring down a thriller that took itself more seriously, but Grand Piano is so baldly silly that it’s hard not to just sit back and enjoy it, the way you might take in a good classical concert. This is the kind of movie where a man sends a text message under his sheet music while performing for an audience of hundreds; where a major fight breaks out in the rafters just above the audience during an emotive performance, and no one hears it. Whatever! When the criminal mastermind’s reason for forcing Tom to perform a note-perfect concert comes into focus, it’s equally senseless — surely there was an easier way to accomplish this! (Or, you know… just smash the piano.) It’s practically a straight-faced spoof of single-location thrillers.

Does Tom prove himself to the snarky detractors who mock him mercilessly for choking? Does he execute “La Cinquetta” without getting himself shot to death? (Do you really have to ask?) Unlike Tom, the screenplay hits a lot of false notes, but it’s hard to stay mad about it. What does work is the cinematography, which is surprisingly expensive-looking for such a contained movie. The camera zooms and swoops along with the classical music, and despite the insane plot twists, the score gives the film a touch of class. (More thrillers these days should be given an entirely classical soundtrack.) Goofily written by Damien Chazelle and elegantly directed by Eugenio Mira, it’s the kind of movie Hitchcock might have made, if maybe a touch more ridiculous.And while we’re on the subject of revenge, let’s put in a few good words for the wide-release comedy Neighbors, which surprised me by receiving good enough word-of-mouth and reviews for me to actually bother seeing it. And you know what? I’m glad I did. Neighbors pits new parents Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne against a cadre of party-hearty frat boys played by Dave Franco, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Zac Efron. The conflict is this: the frat boys want to be loud, and the neighbors want them to be quiet. Enough to hang a summer comedy on? Sure! (We’ve seen movies hung on much less.)

Yes, the only stakes of this comedy are literally whether a baby sleeps or wakes up. That’s what Hollywood movies have come to! And I know this is a big deal to parents of tiny infants, but it’s not likely to leave the rest of us on the edge of our seats for two hours. I guess we should be grateful that it’s not a suspense thriller about whether the baby’s diaper is full or empty?

Anyway, Neighbors manages to get a number of laughs in despite a tepid premise, and the cast fully commits to the silliness. Seth Rogen adds his usual amount of heart to a movie that would mostly be a waste without it, while Zac Efron is (surprisingly?) convincing as a meathead aplha bro. (I’m not a fan of Zac Efron, but he disappears into a somewhat thankless role without doing what many young actors would do, which is wink at the audience to let us know he’s not really a dumb jock douche bag.) The supporting cast is fine, but the movie’s secret weapon is Rose Byrne, who shows off killer comedic timing that proves her hilarious supporting turn in Bridesmaids was no fluke. (It’s about time for Rose Byrne to carry her own comedy, isn’t it?)

Neighbors takes a few weak stabs at, like, having us sympathize with Efron’s Peter Pan complex, which comes as too little, too late in this movie. The frat end of the battle is undercooked, since everyone will root for the sweet, struggling young parents and their uber-cute moppet anyway. The script is a little slapdash, the pacing a little lazy, but nearly all of the jokes work, so whatever, bro. It’s an $18 million movie that unseated The Amazing Spider-Man 2 from the box office throne in the superhero’s second weekend, which feels like sweet revenge for anyone who’s growing tired of mindless summer actioners dominating the battlefield.

*

They say there are no small parts, only small actors. So I guess it’s also true that there are no small movies, only small budgets.

Coherence is a movie that plays with some very big ideas — so big that you may not even notice that it was shot on a micro-budget. Most of the film takes place inside the same house (well, kind of). The cast is an ensemble of eight actors playing eight characters (again, kind of). It all centers on a dinner party featuring four couples with a few complicated relationships between them, some of which are known, some of which will be revealed. The dialogue is mostly improvised; the actors did not know what the film was about when they signed on. And though it starts off like a mumblecore-style talky relationship drama, the fact that a comet is passing by overhead eventually casts a dark pall over the wine-drinking and gabbing.

Emily Foxler plays Em (appropriately), a dancer whose pride recently cost her a starring role in the production that might have made her career. Emily and her boyfriend Kevin (Maury Sterling) show up to dine with five friends, which does not include Lauren, the outsider of the group who used to date Kevin but is now on the arm of Amir (Alex Manugian). The friends assemble at the home of Lee (Lorene Scafaria) and Mike (Nicholas Brendon of Buffy fame) who reveals to Laurie that he was on a popular TV series. No, not Buffy — it’s a show called Roswell, which may or may not be some kind of WB in-joke about the sci-fi high school series of the same name that aired during the Buffy era but did not feature Nicholas Brendon. (It actually starred Jason Behr, who played Ford on an episode of Buffy.) Also in attendance are Beth (Elizabeth Gracen), who brings along some ketamine just in case anyone needs some loosening up, and Hugh (Hugo Armstrong), whose brother warned him that something strange might happen tonight as a result of that comet.

Hugh’s brother was right.

It’s probably best not to know much more about what goes down in Coherence, but suffice to say it’s one of several movies this year in which doppelgangers play a major part. Alongside The Double and Enemy, Coherence is a bit of a mindfuck and also one of the most entertaining films of the year. Co-writer/director James Ward Byrkit knows how to make the most of his premise, unleashing a mind-bending thriller that manages to be surprisingly funny, and though nearly all of the action takes place in the same room (kind of), the story is never obviously making concessions for its budget.

It’s a little bit Twilight Zone, a pinch of Donnie Darko, the kind of storyline that would easily be at home in an episode Buffy (speaking of). It’s a lot of fun. And it deserves a wider audience than it will probably find when it opens this weekend. (There’s hope for a healthy life on VOD and streaming, one would imagine.) It offers the kind of no-pressure fun that a $200 million blockbuster just can’t.

Sometimes less is more. Sometimes smaller is better. And some movies don’t require a pre-screening dose of ketamine to fuck you up a little bit.*