Can someone explain Alex Ross Perry to me? Every time this guy knocks out a film, cinephiles routinely praise it as one of the best American movies in years, which to me says that either a) they have shit taste in movies, or b) they don’t watch a lot of American movies. (That’s coming from my Hyde side. My Henry side knows that there is a third option, c) they just have different taste in movies than I do, but goddammit I just cannot abide Perry movies that are not Queen of Earth.)
I say all of this because his new film, Golden Exits, opened last Friday. In a word: It ssssssuuuuuuuucks. (Two words. Sue me.) You get the sense that he’s trying something big and ambitious that’s just out of his reach, which I find odd given that he’s made three movies already; he isn’t inexperienced. He isn’t a bad filmmaker, either. His technical chops demand respect. But Golden Exits is a deflated movie with zero drama. If I couldn’t stomach Listen Up Philip on account of its endorsement of its awful characters*, I couldn’t stomach Golden Exits because it’s endlessly fucking boring. Read all about it at Paste Magazine.
*Digress: Depiction doesn’t equate with endorsement, but rules have exceptions, and for me Listen Up Philip is too close an exception to abide, coming dangerously close to siding with its main character’s aggressive, toxic behavior.
A Constant Visual Feast 