is a blog about design, technology and culture written by Khoi Vinh, and has been more or less continuously published since December 2000 in New York City. Khoi is currently Principal Designer at Adobe. Previously, Khoi was co-founder and CEO of Mixel (acquired in 2013), Design Director of The New York Times Online, and co-founder of the design studio Behavior, LLC. He is the author of “How They Got There: Interviews with Digital Designers About Their Careers”and “Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design,” and was named one of Fast Company’s “fifty most influential designers in America.” Khoi lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his wife and three children.
Before jumping into all my fancy thoughts about Edward Berger’s “Conclave,” which I saw in theaters last month, I just want you to know that a good title for review of this movie would’ve been “POPE FICTION.” Anyone? I want credit for that.
For fans of palace intrigue, this Vatican-set papal succession drama offers a ton of red meat. It takes you deep inside the organizational machinery that kicks into gear when the film’s fictional pope passes away, and follows Ralph Fiennes’s Cardinal-Dean Lawrence as he navigates the process of electing a successor. It’s full of political maneuvering, boiling over with process, and rife with barely masked ego and cutthroat ambition. I had a blast soaking up all the scheming characters and the plot twists and tension.
Unfortunately this movie also has an undercurrent of bone-headedness which, judging from Berger’s 2022 film “All Quiet on the Western Front”—a didactic screed against war that somehow won an Oscar—is the director’s Achille’s heel. This is a huge improvement on that, at least until the third act, where the verisimilitude of the story devolves precipitously. It’s at that point that it becomes apparent that the many pleasures that we derive from watching Berger’s frustrated characters negotiating impossible political situations can’t really be resolved in a dramatically satisfying way. When I say “satisfying,” I mean resolved in a way that truly honors the intellectual depth of the predicaments that the director has set up in the first two acts. What we get instead are some pulpy plot twists that ratchet up the volume and chaos but that basically fail to fulfill the promise of what came before. And those plot twists are ridiculous too. Still, there’s a long and mostly proud tradition of movies that fall short of masterworks but are nevertheless fun enough to watch anyway, and there’s little shame in this one falling squarely into that category. Perhaps against my better judgment, I liked it.
Roundup
Here’s the full list of all twenty-three movies that I saw in November. This is the latest in my monthly round-ups of what I watch. You can also see everything I logged in October, in September, in August, in July, in June, in May, in April, in March, in February, in January, and summaries of everything I watched in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016. Also, you can always keep up with what I’m watching by following me on Letterboxd. In fact you can click the titles below to see the capsule reviews I’ve written there for just about all of these films.
“The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan” (2023) ★★ The classic legend in a prestigiously conceived, beautifully made, authentically French, and really boring 21st century rendition.
“Bodies Bodies Bodies” (2022) ★★★★ Rewatched. One of the funnest horror movies of the past decade.
“The Candidate” (1972) ★★★★ Rewatched. An artifact from a different political age, yet still fascinating and relevant. Personally I could just soak up the documentary-style footage, organic audio design and unforced naturalism all day, but it tells its story so efficiently and compellingly, it’s hard to look away anyway.
“The Wild Robot” (2024) ★★½ A modest step forward for more organic CG rendering, but devolves into an inane MCU-like shootout in the end.
“The Big Lebowski” (1998) ★★★★★ Rewatched. A comic masterpiece that still cracks me up every time.
“My Old Ass” (2024) ★★★½ Way more heartfelt than its gimmicky premise suggests. A paean to perspective, to understanding life through multiple lenses. I really liked this.
“The Great Dictator” (1940) ★★½ Charlie Chaplin’s famous sendup of fascism is still a difficult watch for many reasons: it’s still disturbingly relevant, and it’s artistically awkward.
“Conclave” (2024) ★★★ For fans of palace intrigue, this offers a ton of red meat—it’s super fun, even if it’s kind of dumb.
“Film Noir: Bringing Darkness to Light” (2006) ★★★ This documentary is a decent primer for those new to the genre, but it begs the question why there isn’t a much more comprehensive exploration of this subject matter out there?
“Robin Hood” (2010) ★ Rewatched. Another brain-dead “historical” epic by perennial bombasticator Ridley Scott.
“A Real Pain” (2024) ★★★ Pretty good for a movie written, directed and co-produced by an actor. Still, some of the performances are very much not my thing, so it’s hard to get excited.
“Tokyo Uber Blues” (2021) ★★½ A twenty-something Japanese filmmaker takes a job as an Uber Eats delivery man during the pandemic. Intriguing but flimsy.
“The Last of the Mohicans” (1992) ★★★★ This 32-year old historical epic from Michael Mann still demonstrates how you make an historical epic the right way.
“Babes” (2024) ★½ There are some positives here but this is borderline incompetent.
“My Father's Dragon” (2022) ★★½ Beautifully animated kids story by Cartoon Saloon, but the story is generic and pointless.
“Ronin” (1998) ★★★★ Rewatched. This is a modestly terrific spy thriller that seems to be about little more than its straightforward, transactional caper plot, but it’s so much more.
“The Lavender Hill Mob” (1951) ★★★½ Gentle comedy about two middle-aged bachelors in post-Blitz London who pull off a heist, and its aftermath. Likable as heck.
“The Ladykillers” (1955) ★★★★ A “chef’s kiss” comedy about a gang of hoods whose caper is foiled by the unlikeliest of irritants. Hilarious, and recommended!
“The Titfield Thunderbolt” (1953) ★★½ Extremely genteel fable about a quaint style of British life that probably never really existed. Never cuts very deep or gets to the madcap levels it needs to.
“The Man in the White Suit” (1951) ★★ Dismissible except for its anthropological value: it’s early role for future Obi-Wan Kenobi actor Alec Guinness, and a training ground for future “Sweet Smell of Success” director Alexander Mackendrick.
“Beatles '64” (2024) ★★ Mostly exists because new tech allows us to make previously useless bits of historical footage presentable. Presentable but not inherently interesting.
“Sunset Boulevard” (1950) ★★★★ Rewatched. Gets more and more unseemly with each viewing, but never dims for a minute.
