[Nicolai P. Zwar]

Over the weekend I watched two movies, one on Apple TV+, one on Amazon Prime. But coincidentally, they were both made in 2021, they both starred Denzel Washington (but in very different roles, demonstrating once again that he’s one of the best actors of his generation, with an eye for good material). One of these movies was great, and the other was at least very good. So I’ll take ’em on side by side:

First up is:

The Tragedy of Macbeth (Joel Coen, 2021) 10/10
I’ve always loved Shakespeare, and Macbeth may well have been the first play I ever read. It is certainly the first I ever saw on a big screen, when I was 16 or so I saw Polanski’s feverish, blood‑stained version in a limited theatrical re-run.

What’s Macbeth about? In a way, and I noticed that now watching this adaptation, the story feels like the BREAKING BAD of its day: an honest knight, loyal to his king, who slides briskly and brutally into murderous tyranny. Just my kind of story, though I hope that says more about my taste than my moral fibre.

There’s a reason why Shakespeare is still relevant today: his stories are deeply true and remain so… they are about the deepest feelings and passions of human beings. Sure, MacBeth may have been written in the 17th Century and takes place some time earlier even in Scottland… but its themes are timeless, they are Universal.

Joel Coen’s adaptation is not merely the best Macbeth I’ve ever seen; it’s one of the best Shakespeare films I’ve encountered, full stop. And it achieves this by doing almost the exact opposite of Kenneth Branagh’s baroque maximalism (which I also adore, in the same way one occasionally craves a dessert with tons of cream and sugar and toppings). Branagh gives you sweeping camera moves, operatic emotion, his style is hot and passionate and elaborate. Coen, meanwhile, pares everything down until only the essentials remain in its brisk 105 minute running time. The film is stark, monochrome, and shot in Academy ratio, a deliberate nod to expressionist silent cinema. More than once I found myself thinking of Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, with its haunted geometry and shadows.

The witches are always one of my favorite parts of Macbeth, and here they are played by a single actress who conjures a trinity through voice, posture, and a few well‑placed tricks of smoke and mirrors. It’s a clever choice, and it works because the film’s entire aesthetic is built on distillation.

If Branagh’s Shakespeare is an iced coffee with toffee and cream, Coen’s is a distilled espresso: sharp, concentrated.
Denzel Washington, is terrific… His Macbeth is weary, proud, both frightened and frightening… Fully believable. A man who believes he can outthink fate and be one step ahead of it. No dice, of course.

This is Shakespeare reduced to its bones. It’s Shakespear in black ink on white paper. Coen trusts the text, trusts the actors, and trusts the audience. The result is a version of Macbeth that feels both ancient and new, it is timeless, both theatrical and unmistakably cinematic at the same time.

One of the best Shakespeare adaptations I’ve ever seen. Watched on Apple TV+, but it’s so good, I think I will have to seek out the 4K Bluray.

That’s what I watched on Friday, Saturday I was in a Zoom chat, and Sunday I watched:

The Little Things (John Lee Hancock, 2021) 8/10
You know that line people like to toss around: “I don’t need reviews, I make up my own mind.” Haha. Yeah. As if the point of a review is to tell me what to like or dislike. No, it’s not. Of course you make up your own mind. The point of reviews is not to outsource taste. It’s to avoid wasting two hours. That’s why I read them, and that’s why I write these little forum rants… But sometimes, reviews almost keep you from watching something you should have.

Sometimes you simply want to watch a movie… so I checked what’s on Prime and what I haven’t seen yet… which is how I arrived at The Little Things. Rotten Tomatoes at 44%. Hmmm… not exactly a vote of confidence. Another trite serial killer thriller?

But then you look at the cast: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto.

At that point the question becomes less “is it good?” and more “how bad can it realistically be with that cast?” As it turns out, not bad at all. In fact, quite good. It is considerably better than I expected. Both Nicole and I ended up enjoying it very much.

Set in the 1990s, the film pits three very different actors against one another in a slow-burn procedural. Washington plays a burned-out former investigator, who has retired from the L.A. force and is now doing rural deputy duties. Rami Malek is all tension and ambition, is the rising L.A. detective who not so reluctantly (they avoided that cliché) teams up with him on a serial killer case. And then there’s Jared Leto, playing a repair-shop employee who may or may not be the culprit. I won’t lean out of the window here, but this might be the best performance by Jared Leto I’ve seen. Unsettling, ambiguous, and just odd enough to throw you off and keep you guessing.

Here’s a short 1 minute clip (that won’t spoil anything) from a scene with all three actors (from roughly the middle of the movie):

The film may not be a masterpiece on the level of Se7en (I see reviewers compare it sometimes to this film, though in many ways it has more in common with David Fincher’s other great serial killer movie, Zodiac), but it’s a very good, solid thriller. It lives through the performances. Even the final stretch, which could easily have collapsed into cliché, stays sharp. The twists land, the ending lingers, and the whole thing leaves a faint aftertaste. Of the good kind, not the “I should have watched something else” kind.

In short: sometimes the little things DO add up. (Couldn’t resist… )