Boy Movies #68

An ode to my favorite line from Uncut Gems

You’re reading Boy Movies, a newsletter. However you found yourself here, I’m happy to have you. If you want to hang out with me between issues, I’m always getting up to something on Letterboxd. The stickers I’ve been hocking for however many months are sold out (THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO BOUGHT SOME!!!), but that’s certainly not the last you’ll ever see of Boy Movies merch. In the meantime, if you like what I’m doing here, you can support me on Ko-fi. Boy Movies graphic designer and recurring character Sarah recently told me I’m “addicted to not making money” and I’m trying to beat those allegations by no longer shamefully hiding my Ko-fi at the very bottom of the About page.

Housekeeping

First of all, I have never meant anything I’ve ever said. Let’s get that out of the way immediately. Sometimes I talk just to hear myself talk, and sometimes I honestly do say things with the best of intentions only to completely go back on whatever it is I’ve proclaimed. This whole preamble is my way of walking back my announcement from March, when I told you all that Boy Movies would temporarily be pivoting to a biweekly release cadence until “sometime in May” — well, May is almost over and it turns out that life just will not stop happening. So, at least for the time being, I’ve decided that the switch to every other week will be a permanent thing. Also, Friday is the ideal day of the week to release a newsletter, so I’ll be sticking to that too. (Why the hell did I, with my full-time job, ever commit to TUESDAYS?) It’s hard not to feel very [microphone feedback shrieking in a silent room] when I say things like this, because who cares, but I also love this newsletter and I love all of you, so I must make my little announcements, if only for my own peace of mind. I have some ideas about the direction I’d like to take this newsletter in as we head into the back half of the year (?!) that I’ll get into when I figure them out, but until then, thank you all for bearing with me. Who knows, maybe I’ll go back on this in three months, too. Like I said, I never mean anything I say.

A24 got me (again)

I’m not one to do a scene report — I’m not the fabulous Akosua¹, after all — but I would be remiss if I didn’t describe to you all what it was like being at Wednesday’s one night only Uncut Gems IMAX re-release. The re-release is part of a larger A24 campaign, one built on maximalism and exclusivity. Loyal readers will remember that I saw the Ex Machina re-release back in March, though I skipped the Hereditary re-release because I’m not insane. But Gems was the one I was most excited for since the initial lineup was announced, because much like your ugliest ex-boyfriend, Uncut Gems was my entire personality in 2019. And yet I felt no kinship with the great procession of men at the Uncut Gems IMAX re-release as I watched them file into AMC Lincoln Square like a swarm of Carhartt-wearing, backpack-toting cockroaches. I instead felt like I was observing a piece of performance art, like that time Tilda Swinton slept in a glass box at the MOMA, but more masculine. 

The age demographic was what you might expect for a Safdie brothers-focused event, with guys between the ages of 28 and 35 flocking to the Upper West Side to see their favorite movie on New York’s biggest IMAX screen. A few months ago I joked that Uncut Gems in IMAX would weed out the weak; I personally never found it to be the stress hive-inducing torture fest others described it as, but I expected that many would find it too upsetting for such an immersive viewing experience. But the theater was truly packed! I got there a little early for the purpose of people-watching, and immediately wished I’d had the foresight to come prepared with questions for the very many men milling around. I could see it in their eager faces: Any of them would have been happy to give a quote to Boy Movies. I clocked a few straight couples in the audience, but this largely seemed to be a big night out for the boys.

While the trailers were still rolling, a small army of guys walked in, loudly discussing their troubling situation: One of the members of their group had booked his ticket separately and was sitting a few seats away from his buddies. After a few moments of them shouting at each other from across the row, a man sitting between them genially offered to switch seats. The solo guy leapt out of his chair, enthusiastically saying, “Are you sure? Thank you so much!” There is community to be found everywhere, especially at the one night only Uncut Gems IMAX re-release.

Just before Nicole Kidman sauntered on screen to welcome us to this magic place (I was pleasantly surprised when the Gems crowd dutifully cheered for her, which is not always the case with boy movie audiences), a title card featuring Florence Pugh’s smiling face burst across the screen to announce that the Midsommar director’s cut will be the next A24 movie to get the IMAX re-release treatment, which was met with excited whispering. A bizarrely timed QR code² encouraged people to scan it to get their tickets. Behind me, I heard someone tell their confused friend, “Dude, that’s by Ari Aster. He’s like, disgusting.”

And then it was time for the movie. The reaction from the crowd was energetic and vocal. The shot of Julia Fox in the lingerie with her ass out caused the energy of the entire room to shift; titillated murmurs echoed through the rows, which instantly reminded me that I had earlier that day watched a video where Fox spoke about her celibacy with Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live. There were gasps when Howard made the snap decision to bet all of the money Kevin Garnett had just handed him on the Celtics game and thundering applause as the credits started to roll. As I headed for the exit, I overheard a pair of guys behind me discussing all the ways in which they’re exactly like Howard Ratner. And you already know there was absolutely no line in the women’s restroom before or after.

I disagree! I disagree, Gary

That’s my favorite line in Uncut Gems. The script, co-written by the consciously uncoupled Safdie brothers and Ronald Bronstein, is packed with little (dare I say…) gems. Howard furiously screaming that he never resurfaced anything, Julia saying The Weekend is going to be major even though he’s Canadian, Arno³ demanding that he wants the underwear, Dinah calling Howard the most annoying person she’s ever met, Kevin Garnett wondering why the opal’s got so many colors. Uncut Gems became such instant meme fodder that it’s easy to forget how well these lines work in their profane, dizzying context. (The Uncut Gems screenplay didn’t fall out of a coconut tree!) I saw it three times in theaters back in the day, but have only watched it maybe once since. It’s one of those movies I never want to see lose its power. Much like Howard himself, I never want the thrill to wear off.

But back to my favorite line. It comes early in the movie, when Howard uses the money he gets from pawning KG’s Celtics ring to bet on that night’s basketball game. “Whaddya know?” Gary (played by New York sports radio legend Mike Francesa), Howard’s bookie, asks him, immediately suspicious of how much money Howard is placing on Garnett’s performance. “I don’t know, I just know,” says Howard. “Well, I'll tell you what I know,” Gary shoots back, “That’s the dumbest fuckin' bet I ever heard of.” There’s a perfectly timed beat of silence as Howard breaks into a big, toothy grin, backing towards the door. “I disagree,” he says, and adds, for good measure, his back fully turned, “I disagree, Gary.”

On one level I love this line because it’s just such a curtly funny way to shut someone down. I disagree! Well, okay! Even Gary has nothing to say to that. On another level, I love how it is, essentially, what the whole movie is about. Howard Ratner is a crazy bitch who drifts through life with a manic, dogged belief that he will always be able to prove his detractors wrong. He’s a genuinely sick gambling addict, extraordinarily irritating to nearly everyone in his life, and cannot make a smart choice to save his life. He’s tired of hearing people tell him no, so he’s just stopped listening altogether. He lives by the fast-talking, fast-moving principle that there’s always a chance he could wear them down, anyway. He can’t stop making selfish, ill-advised decisions because there’s always a chance he’ll be able to wiggle out of his problems. And won’t everyone else look so stupid when he does? And won’t that be so satisfying? Why play it safe when there’s always a chance?

I’ve been thinking a lot about all the guys who surrounded me at the Uncut Gems re-release earlier this week. It’s easy to label Gems a boy movie and go on with your day — even with the presence of Idina Menzel, it’s a crowning achievement in boy cinema. But I can’t help my lingering questions: Do men love this film because they too believe they have been relentlessly mistreated by the world? Do they wish they had Howard’s untenable sense of confidence? Do all men just sort of see themselves as Icarus? Is it some strange, amorphous mix of everything?

That dismissively self-assured “I disagree, Gary” is what makes the big, gasp-inducing “This is how I win” monologue land. “You wanna win by one point or fuckin’ thirty points, KG?” Howard demands, his outrage for himself thinly disguised as outrage for Garnett. He shows KG the abysmal odds for his impending game. “Doesn’t that make you want to fuckin’ kill them?” Howard implores, a ghost of a smile on his face as he plows over KG’s protests. Deep down, Howard loves this, and he knows KG will learn to love it too — he just needs to keep talking. “Doesn’t that make you want to say fuck you for doubting me?” KG falls silent, a bewildered look on his face. “This is no different than that,” Howard goes on, that shark-like grin from earlier — his disagreement grin — growing. “This is me, alright? I’m not a fuckin’ athlete. This is my fuckin’ way. This is how I win.” Just a few moments ago, a bloody and beaten down Howard had been crying into Julia’s lap, seeing no way out of his debts after he failed to parlay the thing he’d bet everything on — the opal — into the life raft he desperately needed. But when he’s able to look at his situation through an advantageous new lens, to frame KG as a fellow underdog, he finds the strength for yet another “I disagree” and sends Julia off to bet his hundreds of thousands on the Celtics. Howard doesn’t want to win by one point. He doesn’t feel that he should have to. He disagrees!

It pays off, for a second or two. Uncut Gems has that famously shocking ending, where the Celtics win spectacularly, just as Howard predicted they would, and he’s shot in the face by Arno’s goon mid-celebration. He dies feeling the soaring euphoria of proving everyone who doubted him wrong. There was nowhere else for him to go. You can easily see a world where, if Howard lived, such a huge victory would have never been enough for him. He would’ve kept chasing the high. He would’ve kept disagreeing, because it was all he knew how to do. It’s the ultimate temporary satisfaction, which is all Howard was ever really in pursuit of. In that sense, maybe, ultimately, he did win.

Happy long weekend to my fellow American readers and happy Lady Gaga Chromatica concert movie weekend to everyone across the globe. If anyone wants to theorize about Bennifer, please do so in the comments, but please be aware that I am very sensitive about them.

1. Akosua T. Adasi, my good friend who writes the iconic

Consumption Report

.

2. A24, do NOT encourage people to bust their phones out moments before a movie starts! The disembodied omniscient AMC daddy with the deep voice literally JUST told us to put them away!

3. My version of Julia Fox with her ass out was seeing ERIC BOGOSIAN flash across the screen in the opening credits <3 I forgot he was in it <3