New York V: Good Time 🥤
In movie news: The trailer for the 'Black Christmas' remake is here
🎉 Happy Friday!
On the final day of our week dedicated to movies set in New York City 🗽🏙 I’m handing the reins over to a guest writer. Marcus Moretti, who writes the terrific Flow State newsletter — which recommends music perfect to work to — has a recommendation for one of my favorite movies of the past few years. Take it away!
Today’s movie: Good Time
STREAMING ON PRIME VIDEO • Recommended by Marcus Moretti (Flow State)
What it’s about: Robert Pattinson plays Connie Nikas, a career criminal with a Queens accent and a mentally disabled brother, Nick (Ben Safdie, who also co-directs, co-writes, and co-edits). When a job goes south, Connie spends most of his night conning and grifting his way through the city to make things right. It doesn’t go well.
Why it’s great: Good Time is a great time. It's a masterclass in propulsive writing and efficient editing. Pattinson's Connie is a sociopathic pragmatist, whose (usually illegal) solutions to a problems create further problems, ad infinitum. The Oscar-deserving performance has been called a real-life Grand Theft Auto. The occasionally beautiful, occasionally stressful score is by electronic innovator Oneohtrix Point Never. With appearances by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Barkhad Abdi, and breakout Buddy Duress.
The key players:
🎬 Josh & Benny Safdie
🖋 Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie
🎵 Oneohtrix Point Never
🎭 Robert Pattinson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Benny Safdie, Barkhad Abdi, Buddy Duress
The details: ⏳ 99 minutes // 🇺🇸 U.S. // 📺 Trailer
Fun fact: Robert Pattinson’s hair was bleached and dyed so much for the movie that it started falling out in chunks 😱.
Don’t have Netflix? Good Time is available to buy and rent on Prime Video, iTunes, and Google Play.
In movie news:
🎄 Better watch out this Christmas. The trailer for the second remake of the underrated 1974 slasher Black Christmas is here. The movie is directed by Sophia Takal, who co-wrote the screenplay with film critic April Wolfe.
My take: The original Black Christmas is one of my favorite movies of all time, so I’m wary of yet another remake of it. And, to be honest, this trailer doesn’t do much to assuage my worries. However, with Wolfe behind the screenplay, my interest remains high.
⚠️ Fair warning: This trailer seems to reveal a lot about the plot. Proceed with caution.
And that’s it for our week dedicated to New York movies! Please subscribe to Flow State — one of the best newsletters in the game — and thank you to Marcus for the recommendation.
There are so many more recommendations I can think of, so I’ll definitely be revisiting this theme. Reply to this email or DM me on Twitter with suggestions!
I’ll be back in your inbox next week with a brand new theme.
Have fun this weekend,
Karl (@karl_delo)