What 'Black Bag,' 'Novocaine,' and 'Mickey 17' Teach Us About Movie Stars

A big thank you to everyone who helped make our first Women in Film series so memorable this past weekend.

Lynn Arthur put together an illuminating panel on behalf of the Sustainable Southampton Green Advisory Committee that helped contextualize Agnes Varda’s brilliant The Gleaners and I as one of the great environmental documentaries of all time. Then we heard from film critic Marya E. Gates about her new essential new book, Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words. Marya was joined by The Future of Film Is Female founder Caryn Coleman as the two engaged in a lively discussion following a screening of Girlfight, which featured an informative pre-screening introduction over Zoom by masterful filmmaker Karyn Kusama.

At the end of the evening, Marya signed copies of her book, and we’ve still got a few copies available for sale in the lounge for anyone who wasn’t able to make it out.

In this edition: Lively new releases rule the Playhouse this weekend as Mickey 17 continues in IMAX, while Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender chew on scenery in the playful espionage tale Black Bag, and a numb Jack Quaid fights hordes of bad guys in the bloody action-comedy Novocaine. Plus, we’ve got a special one-night-only IMAX edition of the dazzling, poetic party movie sensation Spring Breakers on Wednesday.

Read on for the thematic connection shared by these achievements and a pretty good reason to put them all on your calendar…

For over 100 years, movie stars have been among the biggest draws to the big screen. It happened almost by accident.

As Kenneth Anger recounts in “Hollywood Babylon,” his seminal tome on the early days of the star system, fame for the first screen performers wasn’t part of the plan: “Nickelodeon crowds seemed to be flocking to see favorite movie performers known only as ‘Little Mary,’ ‘The Biograph Boy’ or ‘The Vitagraph Girl’ … Overnight, the obscure and somewhat disreputable movie performers found themselves propelled to adulation, fame, and fortune. They were the new royalty, the Golden People.”

These were the early days of cinema as an art form, one that quickly distinguished itself from the stage play through the power of the closeup and its potential to loom larger than life in the theater. These days, such an impact is too easy to take for granted, but stars continue to benefit from it just the same and sometimes bend it to their will.

Robert Pattinson plays this game well. In the 17 years that have passed since the first Twilight, the British performer has emboldened the careers of singular filmmakers by lending his star power to their ambitious visions.

From the Safdie brothers’ taut crime-gone-wrong misadventure Good Time to Robert Eggers’ delirious black-and-white two-hander The Lighthouse, Pattinson has relentlessly sought to elevate original cinematic visions while maintaining his own commercial vitality (most recently by putting on the Batsuit). With Mickey 17, Pattinson expands his range as the bittersweet goofball at the center of Bong Joon Ho’s zany, futuristic space satire by enabling the filmmaker’s typical genre-blending approach to social commentary on a larger canvas than usual.

His wayward anti-hero, who signs up to die again and again while doing thankless work for a corporation that 3D-prints him back to life, is lovable, pathetic, and tragic all at once. It’s a balancing act that makes it clear, after all these years, that Pattinson refuses to be typecast – and should inspire other actors of his ilk to take big risks.

At the other end of the spectrum, certain filmmakers possess the unique ability to lean into star power and tap its purest essence. Steven Soderbergh does this better than anyone. He might have seemed as though in his prime at the dawn of the new millennium, when he helped secure Julia Roberts her only Oscar win to date with Erin Brockovich (which screened at the Playhouse this past week for its 25th anniversary) and followed it up with Ocean’s 11, which cemented George Clooney and Brad Pitt as the two-headed centerpiece in the world’s starriest movie franchise.

However, Black Bag proves that Soderbergh has lost none of that elegant skill to recognize what makes famous faces so fun to watch. A slick and fun espionage comedy written by David Koepp (who also scripted Soderbergh’s original ghost movie Presence, released earlier this year), Black Bag stars Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett as a confident British couple who both work at a high-stakes security firm when traitorous antics ensue. These are B-side characters in a Bond movie given the spotlight, and with Soderbergh’s polished direction, they understand the assignment: Look cool, trade witty barbs, repeat.

When it becomes clear that someone on their team is a mole, Fassbender’s George begins to suspect Blanchett’s Kathryn, as well as a plethora of other people in their close-knit network. Various attempts to unravel the mystery lead to amusing dead ends, including a dinner party poisoned by truth serum, but the core of the story revolves around how this couple maintains mutual trust for each other despite the walls of confidentiality that surround their everyday lives.

We’ve seen variations of this premise before in everything from 1934’s The Thin Man and its sequels through True Lies and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But Soderbergh and Koepp’s nimble screenplay holds its own thanks to Fassbender, who delivers an icy performance that borders on deadpan, and Blanchett, enjoyable as always as a cocky, domineering figure generally one step ahead of everyone else. The pair have chemistry in part because they’re already such familiar onscreen characters. It doesn’t take long to grasp that they were meant to be together – as a fictional couple, sure, but also as the stars of this movie.

Blanchett and Fassbender spent decades accumulating their star power. Jack Quaid, on the other hand, has gotten there much faster thanks to the expediency of TV stardom. As the plucky nice guy at the center of the wacky superhero series The Boys, Quaid has clearly found his niche as a likable everyman in unusual and often perilous circumstances. While he played against type to an enjoyable degree in Companion earlier this year, he’s back in top form with Novocaine.

Filmmakers Dan Berk and Robert Olsen follow Quaid’s Nate Caine over the course of a deranged single day in the aftermath of a bank robbery. After his new love interest Sherry (Amber Midthunder) is seemingly kidnapped, Nate undergoes a chaotic journey to track her down. The twist? Since childhood, he’s been afflicted by a genetic condition that doesn’t allow him to feel pain.

While it left him alienated as a kid, he becomes an unlikely superhero when suddenly faced with various violent showdowns that don’t stop him no matter how gory they get. Nate gets burnt, shot, and punched around a whole lot, but it doesn’t slow him down. This is generally more funny than gross: Quaid’s constant ability to convey the shock of his physical circumstances leads to an endearing slapstick quality that carries the movie through its many goofy twists – and, as a result, provides a terrific showcase for Quaid’s strengths. The Boys fans will be pleased, but it’s also a nice introduction to his talent for newcomers as well.

“I think it really comes from the contrast of the expected foundation of Jack Quaid,” Novocaine co-director Berk told me last week, while recording an introduction that screens at the Playhouse this week. “This movie is very violent, but he’s such a sweetheart. There’s inherent comedy in what he’s doing and that, to us, was really essential. We knew we needed an absolute puppy dog who could get to a gritty place by the end of the movie. Jack was perfect for that.”

For Berk, Quaid is already on track to cement his legacy. “He will be our generation’s Tom Hanks, because Jack – like Tom Hanks – can be really, really funny, but he can also handle great emotional weight,” Berk said. “He has four-quadrant likability. Everyone likes him onscreen. That’s kind of essential to being a movie star.”

Berk’s co-director Olsen put it in a broader context. “Jack fills a position of need in Hollywood right now,” he said. “You have a lot of the next generation stepping in. You have Glen Powell as your gorgeous leading man in the Tom Cruise vein, Timothee Chalamet as the more artsy, Leo DiCaprio vibe, and we just don’t have that Tom Hanks everyman. There’s something about Jack that allows the average person to map themselves onto him. That’s a very underrated superpower for an actor.”

It’s also one that feels especially distinctive now, as Instagram Influencers and YouTubers contribute to a whole new era of online stardom, and the idea of a famous everyman feels more elusive than ever. It’s time to resurrect relatability. Bring on the Age of Quaid!

As usual, I encourage you to reach out to me here with any feedback, questions, or comments about the Playhouse.