The Greatest Showman wasn’t exactly the greatest show. Inherent problems with the character of PT Barnum aside, the musical was weak and the story overstuffed.

Plenty of critiques exist already on the new film, The Greatest Showman, especially considering it glorifies a man who famously profited off of the disabled. I wanted to talk about the film as it works (or mostly, doesn’t) as a musical. As a musical theatre performer, I had a great many thoughts on why the movie isn’t that much fun to watch, while the soundtrack is fun to listen to.

The movie follows the life of P.T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman) of Barnum and Bailey circus. The concept is a bit sour right off the bat, as it’s difficult to tell this story with Barnum as a hero when he so clearly exploited what the movie called “unique persons” for his own gain.

We begin with his childhood and speed through his entire young life alongside his love Charity (Michelle Williams). The opening song A Million Dreams tells us that Charity loves Barnum despite his poverty for his positivity and aspirations (she being wealthy and out of his league). He hits rock bottom at a young age and works his way from homeless back to being a bit of success, having two children with Charity and moving to a small apartment in New York. It’s rather astonishing that all of this can be condensed into one song, when it could easily be a musical in and of itself, but it sets the pace for the rest of the movie. It is fast-moving and pays little attention to detail, giving you broad strokes as opposed to nuance.

Once we know where Barnum is in his adult life, including that he lost his job recently (this happens between the opening number and it’s reprise – almost too fast to find out that he works for a shipping company), the real plot of the movie begins. Barnum obtains a bank loan under false pretenses and opens a wax museum, but has no success. His children suggest getting something “alive” and for him that means getting people who would make good attractions. He decides that “unique persons” are what he is looking for and he finds a collection of people with different skills or physical deformities to employ. He creates a show with them and it’s a smashing hit (except with the elites of New York, which happen to include his wife’s parents). A lot of the story revolves around Barnum trying to prove that he is worthy of Charity, while she tries to get him to stop because, after all, they’re already married, she already chose him, and he doesn’t need to keep taking all the risks that he does. As an audience member, I mostly agreed with her.

Does it feel like this is a lot of information about the movie, and not just a critique of it? That’s exactly how you feel watching the movie: there is a LOT of stuff happening. And I haven’t even begun on any of the subplots yet.

The movie makes a huge effort to tackle every major topic: issues relating to politics, class, gender, race, and disability are all given their screen time. And it is simply too much. This movie was an overwhelming experience of angle after angle, story after story, camera perspective switch to camera perspective switch. When a musical bets on spectacle as opposed to substance, it can often pay off. But when you’re sitting in a theatre watching live performers dance perfectly in unison, there is a feeling of satisfaction in the symmetry of the performance. They all kick at the same time, same height, on the beat, etc. The human body is wired to like this sort of cohesion. This movie tears away your opportunity to enjoy its spectacle because the camera angles switch so frequently and we hardly get to know any of the characters that we completely stop caring about what we’re looking at. It’s the same as watching an action movie for me: yes, there are lots of explosions. But why do I care?

The most interesting performances of the movie come from Zac Efron and Zendaya, whose subplot is that they are in love but she is black and he is white (which doesn’t fly in New York of the 1870s). Efron plays Phillip Carlyle, a playwright for the upper class, and Zendaya is a stunningly beautiful trapeze artist in Barnum’s circus named Anne Wheeler. They have the winning combination of having great songs and strong character development. Moments where the movie finally lets us breathe also come as an interaction between the two, possibly making us like them more because we actually get a chance to look at them, watch how they interact, and see a bit of subtlety. They are also the best singers of the main characters. Most of the singing in this movie occupies the weird space between whispering and singing. People seem to think that whispering or speaking, as opposed to singing full voice, will give what they’re saying more impact. The few times you hear a note that truly resonates coming out of Hugh Jackman’s mouth (read: pre-recorded and heavily edited track) you feel like the movie has finally moved forward. But this only occurs about three or four times.

In a musical, the songs should exist to move the plot forward or teach us something about the characters. This movie falls short of this in many ways, but most notably with regard to Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson). She is supposed to be a world-renowned opera singer who makes moves on Barnum. When we first hear her sing, we are met with a song that does not stand up to the build up it has received, heavily employs whisper singing, and looks painful to perform. It is jarring to say the least to insert modern, quite pop sounding music into a story about the 1870s, but here it is particularly noticeable and extremely disappointing. The style of the song fits in with nothing: the atmosphere, the character, or the plot. And yet at the end the crowd jumps to their feet, extremely moved. We are supposed to understand that what we hear is not what she just performed, and yet I am left desperately wanting to hear whatever made that audience so happy. She reprises this song after Barnum produces her tour of America, she tries to seduce him, and he rejects her. There is supposed to be a shift in the meaning of the song, but the only shift we see is from the way she is performing (she cries a lot), and it employs even more whisper singing, and we additionally don’t want to feel sorry for a woman who tried to convince a man to cheat on his wife. The movie contradicts itself in wanting us to have sympathy for her but not wanting us to side with her.

The greatest moment of the movie is the song ‘This Is Me.’ A powerful anthem of self acceptance sung incredibly well by Keala Settle (who plays bearded lady Lettie Lutz) supported by the chorus of “unique persons” and a massive dance number. It’s everything you could possibly want. Except that there is a video online of a rehearsal of the song that is way, WAY more interesting to watch because it lacks the constant change of venue and unrelated action that the movie forces into it. This song also has the difficult task of following the moment the movie tells you the most about its main character: Barnum refuses to let his circus “family” socialize with the upper class that he invited to meet Jenny Lind. In this moment he is classist and rude, and nothing he does later in the film feels like a real redemption, as his motivator for making amends is money, not friendship. A great choice would have been to have the circus group go into the party anyway and sing their song, forcing Barnum to accept or reject them in front of the whole crowd. But instead they storm off to perform their show/physically fight the protestors who don’t approve of them. The anthem about standing up and celebrating yourself gets directed at entirely the wrong problem and it is very frustrating. But as a song on it’s own, it is very moving. It is unsurprising that it has been nominated for this year’s Best Original Song Oscar.

It is clear that all of the performers in this movie have at least some skills. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t let us appreciate them that much. It goes by too quickly and tries to tell us too much. And when the hero of your film is this unlikeable, it just doesn’t make you want to watch.

BONUS: If you’ve seen the movie, you may have noticed that the character who has dwarfism, Charles Stratton (also known as General Tom Thumb), appears to be digitally animated at times, but not at others. This is because actor Sam Humphrey, though himself a dwarf, is taller than the real Tom Thumb, so he frequently walked on his knees to get the height right and they digitally erased and re-drew his legs. It is extremely noticeable in the film – the digital deepening of his voice is also apparent. This seems an unnecessary choice – how many people would have pointed to that film and said, “He’s not the right height?” I am simply happy to see a person of short stature in a major motion picture. This is further proof that this movie cared a lot more about looks and spectacle than substance.

Zzzzzzz.  What?  Is it over?  Thanks God.  Even with a great cast, Red Sparrow is a blindingly boring spy story with an overbaked running time.

The tragically bland spy drama Red Sparrow has a lot of things going for it including its star, Jennifer Lawrence, who is one of the most agreeable and bankable Hollywood leading ladies working today. The film’s genre is a staple in multiplexes and its budget is relatively high enough for you to see each dollar spent on screen. Even though it’s being ushered into theaters with a seemingly silver spoon in its mouth, the movie itself unquestionably fails to ignite. Wholly disengaging and somehow morally bankrupt, Red Sparrow lumbers through an extended runtime without providing anything to hook you with. It is not a film that rewards patient viewers in any way remotely approaching being worth spending your money on. Stick a fork in this bird, Jerry; it’s done.

Fiercely loyal Dominika (Jennifer Lawrence) is a Russian ballerina who suffers a career-ending injury before the opening title card has been revealed. She’s desperate to find a way of supporting her ailing mother while rehabilitating her damaged body. An opportunity arrives in the form of her uncle Vanya (Matthias Schoenaerts) who makes her an offer she can’t refuse. This tantalizing job prospect would involve complete submittal to the secretive Sparrow spy service, stripping Dominika of personality, self-respect, and individuality.

Not long after setting herself from her peers is Dominika whisked off for a major assignment: seduce an American CIA operative named Nate (Joel Edgerton) and gain access to his mysterious Russian informant who’s leaked secrets out of the motherland and into enemy hands. What follows is a tale of cloak and dagger replete with scenes of torture, extreme violence, and graphic sexuality. It wants to be edgy and twisted but it only comes off as gross and unpleasant. More effective physical espionage coercion could be found in any given episode of 24 – a major studio feature film release in 2018 should have tapped into what really hits us where it’s felt the most.

The biggest tragedy of Red Sparrow is that it comes off as completely out of touch with modern expectations. There’s respect to be found in marching to your own drum, of course, but this spy movie is objectively unsexy, unintelligent, and undercooked throughout. A movie has to pull its own weight in a crowded marketplace and Star Power alone can’t float many boats like it used to. Six months from now the world will have forgotten that this movie ever existed. Of course it’s a shame of a wasted opportunity, but isn’t every bad movie?

Relating to Red Sparrow’s inherent flaw of lagging a step behind its audience, the movie doesn’t feel of this time or timeless at all. Floppy disks are a plot point in this movie. They got vending machines dispensing goddamn burner phones but the McGuffin is weaker than most usually are.

Francis Lawrence (no relation to the star actress) can stage scenes with precision but each touch lacks passion and inspiration. What’s the appeal of this subject matter to those that are tasked with translating the heart of the piece to the audience? Your guesses are as good as anyone’s.

Jeremy Irons tries his own Ruski voice in some scenes and not at all in others. As has been the case with the actor recently (see also: Justice League) he just isn’t given the goods or the opportunity to stand out. Which is a shame, because he clearly doesn’t give much of a fuck and it would be awesome to see him just let loose broadly. He’s leaps and bounds more interesting than any other performer outside of Lawrence, most notably eclipsing the wasted talents of a confused Joel Edgerton and a sedated Ciaran Hinds.

Red Sparrow might, if nothing else, inspire some back-and-forth conversation regarding its politics of gender and sexuality. Full frontal male nudity is included in a couple of moments in a way to try to “level the playing field” among the sexes but the lazy reliance on sexual assault and female objectification crashes the film into the ground and puts a bad taste in your mouth very early on.

The idea of Katniss as John Wick is more appealing than the thought of Mystique as Smiley (from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which Red Sparrow would kill to be compared favorably to). Still, the Lawrences can’t be blamed for at least trying to take a swing at something outside their normal wheelhouse. The fact that the star and director seem unable to connect with the material in any meaningful way makes it extra difficult to get into the film’s groove.

A whole movie could’ve been made about Dominika’s time in training at the Sparrow Academy or whatever it’s called. Almost all of the scenes that we get during that stretch of the story are unpleasant to watch but at least they make you feel something. The same can’t be said about the flaccid sexual magnetism between Dominika and Nate, nor the intended breaks of levity that land with a thud, nor the small number of action sequences that feel as staged and as safe as an amateur production.

Running a dreadful 139 minutes, Red Sparrow clips its own wings early enough to make you pray for sweet relief from the tedium after about an hour. There are no thrills, chills, or moments of celluloid empathy that make this one worth the effort. J Law will rebound instantly and effortlessly but Red Sparrow is an unfortunate black spot on her filmography.

Everyone loves Call Me by Your Name, except for me and critic Tasha Robinson. It’s not a bad movie, it just wasn’t a ‘great’ film.

Film critic Tasha Robinson on Letterbox’d, writing about Call Me by Your Name:

“Sign me up as the apostate that just doesn’t appreciate this one, that doesn’t really understand why a long, rambling, sleepy movie about a disconnected, disaffected, insanely rich and privileged teenager moping around until he gets laid is so moving to people. There are better romances, better gay coming-of-age movies, better summer-fling stories, and movies where I don’t get really really distracted by watching a dude gut a peach in his bed with his bare hands and then fuck it, making an immense mess for someone else to clean up. I will fight the world on this one.”

I have to say, I am mostly with Robinson on this one. I mean, I don’t have a problem with the fact that the characters are privileged. After all, love stories can happen to anyone, regardless of class. To wipe that away because of current politics is folly. But I do agree that it rambles and lurches along and that there are better movies about all these thematic topics.

Call Me by Your Name was directed by Luca Guadagnino, featuring an Oscar-winning screenplay by James Ivory, based on the book by Andre Aciman. It’s the story of Elio, a 17-year old Jewish American-Italian boy who has a courtship with Oliver, his father’s 24-year old research assistant, all against the backdrop of the beautiful Italian countryside in 1983.

I said I agreed with Robinson, but that isn’t to say that I think this is a terrible movie, by any means. It has a lot of great qualities, beyond the majesty of the Italian sunshine. The cast shines brighter; Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer embody their characters well and anchor the film superbly. Michael Stuhlbarg has a smaller role as Elio’s father, but once again shows why he’s one of the best character actors working today.

The music also plays an important part, both in terms of the piano tracks and how they relate to Elio’s playing, as well as Suftjan Stevens doing some of the best work he’s done in years, with several songs on the soundtrack. And songs like ‘Love My Way,’ by The Psychedelic Furs features prominently, both as a metaphor within the movie and as a marker of the era we’re inhabiting.

This all sounds amazing on paper — so, what’s my goddamn problem then?

One of the things the movie does well is also the thing that disconnected me from it. It’s a subtle and restrained movie, which is good. A lot of movies like this would veer into overly sentimental and passionate territory. Like, movie passionate. Like, screaming a declaration of love angrily in the pouring rain and falling into each other’s arms. Like, The Notebook or something. I’m glad that the film doesn’t do this — but it goes way too far in the other direction.

The first hour is the least obvious courting in history. At one point I realized that if I hadn’t known what the movie was about from the synopsis, I’d have no idea they were seducing each other. I don’t mind a deliberate pace, but Robinson wasn’t kidding when she called it “rambling and sleepy.”

I also realized I was churning up questions that were pulling me out of the movie in certain scenes. At one point, Oliver and Elio are making more overt moves, but Oliver refuses to take it further. There are plenty of possible reasons for this — he’s afraid of being gay, he works for the boy’s Dad, he’s afraid of being a pedophile — but we don’t know what his hesitation is. It would be fine to infer all these things and not have the movie hit you over the head with it, but he goes on to taunt the kid with foot rubs and other attentions, until they do go to higher levels. Why was he suddenly okay to go to these higher levels? Again, we have no idea, really.

I don’t need to be hit over the head with all this, but the characters often come off as blank. Action can speak louder than words, but their actions are confusing (and yes, I know love is confusing, but that’s not what I mean). Other than some of the little games they play with each other, there’s very little in the way of conflict or drama. In a lot of ways, handling a love story with such restraint and subtlety is refreshing. In other ways it’s a total drag. The movie gets a lot of the emotion and hesitation of first love right — but I didn’t connect with it on a lot of other levels.

I also had to ask myself, did the movie not speak to me simply because I’m not gay? While I can’t totally discount that falling in love with another man is not an experience I’ve lived, I think the movie is less about being gay and more about first love, and unrequited love, in general. And, as Robinson also pointed out, there are plenty of better movies about being gay that I think are brilliant and affecting, even in the last year, like Moonlight.

I’m happy to let everyone that loves it, love it — big of me, I know. But seriously, these things can be subjective. Perhaps the movie was trying to get through to a part of me that’s dead inside (the part that doesn’t stand for over two hours of rambling, apparently). While there have been better movies doing all the things this film was doing, it’s still better than 90% of the movies out there.  And there’s plenty of room for representation of gay characters, to be sure.  Call Me by Your Name tells a story worth telling. It just didn’t do it in a way that felt particularly effective to me.

The Feedback Society takes you inside the Ready Player One experience in Vancouver, promoting, you guessed it – Spielberg’s film adaptation of Ready Player One.

This past weekend Warner Bros. Pictures seized onto the flurry of activity in the city of Vancouver and gave us a one-of-a-kind exhibit in promotion of the new Steven Spielberg adventure film Ready Player One. For two days leading up to the Juno Awards there stood a tall stack of shipping containers dressed up to resemble the Stacks – the home of Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) and our point of entrance into the world of the OASIS.

Geeks and general movie lovers alike were in awe of the setup, which was flanked on both sides by two larger-than-life banners featuring variations of the film’s poster art. Lit up with a glowing Ready Player One logo at the top, the exhibit made one exciting Hollywood North nighttime attraction.

Dubbed the #604STACKS, there were three main rooms to explore. The first was a retro arcade filled with playable machines ranging from Ms. Pac-Man to Street Fighter II.

Sure it’s kind of fantastic to crack out on a modern game with a wireless controller and a big screen TV for hours on end, but there’s something so appealing about the physical commitment that an arcade game brings. You can’t pause it to check your phone and your eyes can’t really wander to something distracting. It’s just you and the game. Sort of makes you live in the moment. In this sense, room number one immediately romanticized the subject matter of the film.

The middle of the stacks entered into a living room set inspired by the main character’s home in the film. Kicking your feet up and sitting back on Wade’s couch made for the perfect photo opportunity, and the film’s nostalgic yearning for the 1980s was felt in every inch. Old school posters featured the band Rush and movies like Back to the Future. An old microwave sat next to an FM radio. And the couch looked and felt like it came straight out of someone’s old basement. The pictures will last a lifetime but being inside it just felt so cool.

The final portion of the Stacks was also home to its longest line. Rabid fans waited upwards of two hours for a chance to play a brand-new VR video game developed by HTC Vibe specifically for Ready Player One. I suppose your enjoyment might have been weighted on a different scale based on your past history with VR headsets, but this was my very first time inside such an immersive first person experience. And holy hell it was amazing. As one satisfied fan told me after exiting, “I’m coming back tomorrow and I’m coming back early.”

Once I was outfitted with my headset and controllers, the game booted up and I was suddenly on a foreign planet blasting away at Gunters (prize collectors within the OASIS) while portal jumping to different vantage points on the terrain. Turning 360 degrees around revealed new visual wonders and for one brief moment my senses really convinced my brain that I wasn’t just inside of a shipping container on the north plaza of the Vancouver Art Gallery. What tripped me out the most was when I instinctively looked down at my arms only to see skinny limbs outfit in a futuristic sci-fi costume. It was wild.

Regardless of where anyone stands on Ready Player One, it’s undeniable that the #604STACKS was a rousing way to enjoy a weekend night. Here’s hoping more studios make the investment to champion their films in such a highly interactive fashion. I have yet to see the finished film but after this exhibit I pre-ordered my ticket for the first showing I could attend.

“Ready Player One” is now playing in theaters everywhere.

Tom works out some haunting demons from his childhood by tracking down and watching the movie Mute Witness, a surprisingly decent thriller from the 90s.

Everyone remembers watershed moments during childhood when their whole world changed. Maybe it was when you found that Playboy with your buddies, or when you got that brand new Huffy ten-speed. These moments come fast and furious in our formative years, but far less often as we became adults. One central dividing line in my life was the time before Mute Witness, and the time after it. Making this whole exercise markedly stranger is the fact that I never actually saw the movie.

When I was around eight or nine, my friends and I would regularly go to the video store to pick out movies for sleepovers. Then we’d stay up all night watching them and playing video games. On one particular night, we’d rented a Sandra Bullock flick called The Net. It’s a techno thriller about a systems analyst that gets caught up in an international conspiracy, and let me be the first to tell you that it doesn’t hold up well at all. I’m not sure it even held up upon release, come to think of it. The main feature didn’t make too much of an impression on me, but one of the trailers that led into it sure did. It featured a young woman relaxing in bathtub below a large window, intercut with chase scenes and troubling imagery. She looks up at the window, to see a ghoulish, blood covered woman with her hands pressed against the glass. The apparition disappeared as quickly as it appeared, and the title slammed into the screen. Mute Witness.

It was something so simple that fractured my young psyche. The invasion of this horrible creature into the most private of moments flipped a switch in my head. I couldn’t sleep that night. From that moment on, I was terrified of darkened windows. What could be lurking out in the night? What could see me when I couldn’t see it? Was it just waiting for the right moment to show itself? I was haunted for what seemed like years by that scene. Nightmares featuring that woman visited me every time I closed my eyes. Soon I forgot the name of the movie, and only the image of the creature that terrorized that poor woman – and now a poor, young boy – remained.

As I grew older the fear faded, but the memory of the image that had so traumatized me remained. Now, twenty years later, I set out to find the film that had caused me so much distress. Perhaps it was just curiosity, or maybe a desire for catharsis, but I tracked it down, which was not easy. There has never been a high definition release, and the DVD is currently out of print so copies are fairly scarce. Either way, I was determined to wade into the progenitor of one of my greatest childhood fears, and I’m taking you with me.

The film cold-opens with a young woman being terrorized by a psychotic killer in her apartment. She is stabbed several times, and the killer watches in amusement as she thrashes around for what turns out to be a comically long time, before pulling down the drapes and collapsing in death. It turns out to be the first of a few ‘gotcha’ moments as the camera pulls back to reveal this is a movie set, with a hot shot young director shooting his new horror film on location in Moscow. It is here we are introduced to our protagonist: Billy Hughes (played by Russian actress Marina Zudina), a young makeup/special effects assistant, who happens to be mute.

Through an unfortunate miscommunication, Billy is left trapped in the studio overnight. With no way to call anyone using the studio phone due to her disability, she wanders the halls, seemingly amused at her predicament. After investigating a noise, she comes across two of the Russian actors on the main set, apparently filming a porno. Her amusement turns to horror as one of the men takes out a knife, and brutally murders his female co-star on camera. It would deprive you of some great moments to describe more, but suffice to say that Billy becomes embroiled in a plot that goes far beyond a simple snuff film, and has to overcome the limitations of her disability in order to escape alive.

From the opening scene, it is clear that Mute Witness takes a lot of inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock. Camera work such as the oft-imitated Vertigo dolly zoom, the first person camera shot from the killer’s perspective, and the sparing use of actual gore (closeups of the face of the murder victim, the knife driving downward, or blood splashing on the wall) are all on full display. The MacGuffin (in this case a floppy disk that contains information unknown) makes an appearance as well. The plot twists and turns, with the audience never knowing who we can actually trust, and the movie is eager to pull the rug out from under us, even if we sometimes know what’s coming.

The whole exercise looks and sounds great, despite its age. Moscow is suitably dark and menacing, and the sets are equipped with all manner of dressing to enhance the cat and mouse games that enthrall the viewer. Director Anthony Waller uses shadow play, clever cuts, and subtle music cues to ratchet up the tension and keep you gripping the arms of your seat. Special effects are hit and miss, as is to be expected from a 90s movie with a middling budget. There is one particular scene involving an electrocution that is laughably bad, but overall the use of practical effects and clever camera work hide most deficiencies.

It’s worth pointing out that Mute Witness is not really a straightforward horror, much to my surprise. It’s a white-knuckle meta-thriller. There are elements of horror, and certainly some scary scenes, but beneath the facade there is a completely different film that tracks more like aforementioned Hitchcock thrillers. Filled with tension, fear, and uncertainty, it’s a ride that keeps you invested to the end.

Comedy is also utilized sparingly, but with considerably less success. The levity seems intended to relax the viewer between nerve-jangling scenes, but it is used clumsily, and the main story is so tight that it only serves to grind everything to a halt. Disregarding the lazier comedic moments, the film certainly does not take itself too seriously, much to its advantage. This material has been tread over many times, and coming at it without a sense of self-awareness would likely have been a mistake. Plenty of winks and nudges are offered to eagle-eyed viewers, and the director seems to dispense these moments with great joy. Slasher conventions are easily turned upside down, and grand chase sequences bookend the story to kick your heart rate up a gear. This is a movie that knows it’s a movie (and a movie within a movie), and it’s all the better for it.

Performances – aside from the lead – are not outstanding, but Marina Zudina does a great job emoting Billy without any dialogue, and plays a thoroughly believable character. She is a woman with agency, intelligence, and cunning. This is how a final girl is done right. Fay Ripley and Evan Richards as Billy’s sister and the director respectively are pretty bad, over-acted and often utilized for comic relief. The large contingent of Russian actors do an admirable job, but the antagonists seem somewhat disconnected, though suitably menacing. Sir Alec Guinness makes a surprising appearance (in what turns out to be his final theatrical film role), which provides a bit of cinematic legitimacy to the proceedings, but not much else. His scenes were apparently filmed in one day by the second unit in Germany, away from the main production in Russia. This disconnect is evident in his performance, for which disinterested would be a generous assessment.

So, what about the scene? The bathtub scene and the inspiration for so many nightmares and frantic blind pulls to hide the encroaching blackness? I’m happy to say it is great, and lives up the hype. I won’t spoil it for you, but the camera work is sublime, and the score creates tension as it builds to a wonderful peak for the scare. In the context of the film, it’s not as frightening as I had made it out in my head, but it is done tremendously well, and it genuinely made me jump all these years later. So often we look back on a moment in an old movie that made such an impression, and we are disappointed to see that our memory betrayed us. Maybe the effects were bad, maybe it was entirely different than we remembered. That is not the case here.

All in all, I really enjoyed Mute Witness, and I would recommend it both to Hitchcock aficionados and thriller-lovers alike. I’m sure my younger self would be surprised to learn that all-out horror takes a back seat to thrills and a good bit of meta-commentary, but the movie-lover in me couldn’t be happier. What could have been a by-the-numbers slasher takes on a message while still jangling the nerves, and simultaneously maintaining a sense of self-awareness.

The audience is kept invested, waiting for the next twist and turn in the story, while great camera work and audio cues fill us with dread as our heroine dives deeper and deeper into this dangerous world. Weaknesses in certain performances, and shoehorning in of comedy bits do distract, but don’t sour the experience, especially with such strengths on display. The overall feeling in me isn’t really one of catharsis, but more one of delighted surprise. They say never meet your heroes, but I’m happy I confronted this demon. I get to share a laugh with myself more than twenty years in the making, and my only regret is that it took this long to happen.

No matter your feelings on Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the blu ray release of the movie harkens back to time where features meant something.

My review of The Last Jedi stands, however, after my third viewing with the blu ray release of the film, I’m definitely getting more emotional resonance out of Rian Johnson’s somewhat controversial Episode XIII. Some of the shocks have worn off, and while I still have issues with the way the film is trying to do too many things at once (and let’s face it, Rose and Finn’s storyline is treading water). But this time, I felt myself allowing the more emotional scenes to wash over me as they were no doubt intended. My appreciation of this movie will grow over time.

After my reviews, the haters chastised me for giving it a good review and the fanboys cursed me for not loving it every second of it unconditionally. But the truth, as it so often is, was somewhere in the middle. A friend recently joked that my calm, fair, measured review style is at odds with our fractured times, where everything is either THE BEST or THE WORST, and we think nuanced opinion means bellowing, red-faced, into the abyss.

That said, the blu ray release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi definitely falls on the BEST side of things (I’ll scream it into any abyss or Sarlacc pit). Most home video releases are devoid of any significant special features these days, just the standard EPK kit, unless you’re paying through the nose for a brilliant boutique release from Criterion or a company of that ilk. But The Last Jedi has special features like it’s the year 2000 all over again.

This could easily be a review for the feature-length documentary on the disc, called The Director and The Jedi. This making of documentary is a great special feature in that it’s a feature length movie in itself, but its subject matter is also an excellent inclusion.

Where The AV Club called Warner Brothers’ blu ray release of Justice League, “a bizarre exercise in hiding the truth about moviemaking,” The Director and The Jedi smartly takes on some of the controversies surrounding The Last Jedi, head on. While it’s framed like your regular Star Wars making of featurette, with tours through green screen studios and half made rubber aliens, the doc looks closer at Mark Hamill’s feelings about what writer/director Rian Johnson did with the Luke Skywalker character. The spine of the narrative deals with Hamill’s legacy with this character and putting his trust in his director (after voicing his disapproval, of course).

The film itself also has a Director’s Commentary with Rian Johnson, which I haven’t had a chance to listen to yet, but I’m sure it will be full of great anecdotes. Again, I will note that having a director’s commentary on such a big movie is also becoming unheard of these days, so this is a both a Star Wars fan and a home video collector’s dream. Bonus points for Johnson for opening himself up in this way, especially considering some of the backlash to the film.

Special features-wise, they could have just put The Director and The Jedi on the release and they’d still be way ahead of most recent studio releases. But there are other mini-featurettes as well as more than 20 minutes of coveted deleted scenes (even a few more seconds of Finn and Rose’s story make their arcs a bit stronger). The featurettes deal with more making of topics, but one stand out is Andy Serkis Live! (One Night Only), which is the critical Snoke/Rey/Ren conflict in the throne room, but instead of the final VFX with Supreme Leader Snoke, it’s the footage of Serkis in his mo-cop suit. It’s fascinating to watch his performance.

All in all, as I’ve said, no matter where you land on The Last Jedi itself, this is one of the best home video releases of the year from a major studio. It’s THE BEST.

You Were Never Really Here is a stunning work from Lynne Ramsay, starring Joaquin Phoenix at his best, with an amazing score by Jonny Greenwood.

From the opening seconds, You Were Never Really Here grabs you by the shirt collar and yanks you in on its own grim terms. The movie is based on the book by Jonathan Ames (HBO’s Bored to Death) and directed without fear by Lynne Ramsay (Morvern Caller, We Need to Talk About Kevin).

Joaquin Phoenix gives good beard, playing Joe, a man who tracks down missing girls for a living. He is a soft-spoken sort that has a deep well of violence within him. He’s a bulky panther, stalking around and handing out harsh justice in the form of a hammer to the forehead. When he takes a case that has deeper roots than he bargained for, he has to tackle a conspiracy while reckoning with his own PTSD.

Ramsay references Hitchcock’s Psycho pretty early in the film. There are marked differences between Joe, Norman Bates, and their relationships to their mothers, but there are some similarities as well. Joe is taking care of his mother, who suffers from dementia, and he clearly loves her, which offers a good (if not way too obvious) juxtaposition to the searing violence of his vocation. It lets us humanize him.

I can be hot and cold on Phoenix, often depending more on the movie and less on him as an actor, but I loved him in this one. He mumbles his way through scenes, exerting both brutality and kindness, a certain sadness and damage always swimming on his face. With a character like this (and its gritty New York setting) it’s no surprise that a few critics have mentioned Taxi Driver when talking about You Were Never Really Here.

I have to mention the sound design and the score of this film. It’s a well-directed, visceral movie (and a tight 90-minute run time, which I love). But the visuals are sent into the stratosphere thanks to some Baby Driver-esque sound design, little moments and transitions matched to sound or music, as well as Jonny Greenwood’s amazing score. Greenwood scored two of my so-far best movies of 2018, this one and Phantom Thread (yes, I’m aware Phantom Thread was technically released at the end of 2017, but it didn’t go wide enough for me to see it until 2018).

I’m not sure if I’m inferring too much, but the film seems to borrow from, check off, or otherwise reference a lot of other movies, sometimes vaguely, sometimes outright. This pastiche reminds me a bit of Tarantino, not in its style or how the story is told, but in how many other films you can glimpse within in the film. I mentioned Psycho several times, Taxi Driver, and Baby Driver. I’d add films like The Wrestler and Three Days of The Condor. And let’s face it — this movie could be a double feature with Drive. The lead in each movie is an expert at something in the crime world and takes on a case that gets personal. Gosling’s special skill is driving. Joe’s ‘driving’ is bashing in the skulls of pedos. None of this pastiche is a comment on the film itself; whatever it takes, it makes its own.

I also thought about Dirty Harry during this film, in terms of whether or not Joe’s propensity for such brutal violence could be considered problematic. Dirty Harry was a right wing avatar that was positioned as the last sane man with a big gun keeping society from being ravaged by crime. As time goes by, it becomes more apparent that ‘crime’ back then meant mostly black people, painted as thugs — what the mainstream moviegoers were most afraid of. Audiences saw Harry as always justified in his extreme violence (murder, really) because it was okay to kill these thugs.

Joe also uses the most extreme violence to do away with the bad guys, in fact, often in a dirtier and more tactile way. We as an audience don’t just allow his violence, we cheer him on, because of our distaste of sexual slavery — due process be damned. Of course, I’m not suggesting that we need to be nicer to sexual slavers, or that this will ever be racist in the way that Dirty Harry is. I’m also not attempting to poo-poo violence on film. It simply occurred to me during the movie. It made me wonder what this blood thirst said about us — about me, as a viewer. It definitely brings shades of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, where he exploits this blood thirst and then turns it around on us.

Uh…woolgathering and tangents aside, as much as I loved this movie, I had some issues with it. First off, some of it was confusing. And I don’t mean the pieces of Joe’s fractured psyche that we get hints of. I get that part. I don’t need a roadmap. But there were several scenes that never fully made sense to me. I need to see it again to see if those answers were there and I somehow missed them. Without giving any spoilers, one involves a suicide. Why does this suicide happen? Was it a murder? I’m not sure the answer is important in the scope of the story, but it felt sloppy when combined with other pieces that lacked basic storytelling clarity.

My other issue with the movie was, for as cool and iconic as it was, for as harrowing as some of the situations and violence were, parts of it were trying too hard. There were certain scenes or situations that were a little too cheesy or on-the-nose for me. Sometimes just little moments, or sometimes bigger points — I already mentioned the save the cat trope of taking care of his sweet old mother as the counterpoint to his violence. Don’t get me wrong, I think their relationship is well handled, but it is probably is one of the most on-the-nose ways they could show his humanity in shorthand.

These nitpicks are minor though. You Were Never Really Here is a thrilling work of film with an actor and director (and heck, a composer) at the peak of their games. I already want to see it again, not just to answer some of my questions, but also to experience it once more.

Not even the electric charisma of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson can save Rampage, the latest bit of mediocrity in the realm of video game adaptations.

A mindless VFX-heavy blockbuster based on a video game from the 80s isn’t exactly what most general audiences want to see. In fact, they tend to avoid these adaptations like crazy. But the new film Rampage is holding a royal flush for audience engagement in the form of Dwayne Johnson, who is perhaps the most immediately likeable person on the planet. He’s got charm, charisma, a magnetic smile, and a megawatt aura of positivity. In short, he’s the perfect leading man. And yet even he can’t lift the dullness of Rampage from its lackluster screenplay and direction.

It would be disingenuous to hate on a movie that is by design intended to be loud, dumb fun. It’s about animal monsters fucking shit up – were you hoping for some pathos and emotion? Rampage isn’t trying to be accepted as an enduring piece of art, but even in its modest ambitions it doesn’t satiate your desire. In terms of story, Rampage moves its pieces around the action-adventure board while hitting enough satisfying beats to avoid being a complete filmmaking embarrassment. The film’s problem is that the execution of those beats never rises above anything other than mediocrity.

At the San Diego Wildlife Sanctuary, Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson) is a tough guy with a deeply emotional bond with a particular albino gorilla named George (performed in motion capture by Jason Liles). It’s a match made in primate heaven until a canister containing a genetic-altering formula crash-lands in George’s vicinity and he becomes super strong, super fast, and super big. It isn’t long before he’s breaking out and headed on a collision course with a similarly altered crocodile and wolf in downtown Chicago. Why? Some bullshit about an evil corporation led by Claire Widen (Malin Akerman) and her dumbass brother. The entire setup is just a wasted two-thirds of a movie spent leading to its only redeemable act: letting the monsters loose to wreak mayhem.

There are a total of four credited writers on Rampage and not one of them is a funny person. That could’ve made all the difference; the film has a sense of humor but it isn’t funny enough to keep you pleased on the long march to CGI havoc. The movie doesn’t take itself seriously in the least but it also doesn’t possess a drop of wit. The whole thing plays as if it’s light camp: Just silly enough to give a few winks at the audience, but trying to keep it serious because, you know, it’s a feature film and all. Rampage isn’t nearly campy enough as it deserves to be.

VFX is leaned upon in a staggering amount almost throughout the entire runtime, but never more so than in its last half hour. It’s necessary in order to tell this story, of course, unless you know of some monster crocs hiding out somewhere (in which case we could be making some serious bank off that thing, bro). Using it as an excuse not to build practical sets, however, is a different story. Does anyone fully fall under the spell of something so digitally fashioned anymore? Keeping it a bit more real where reasonably feasible would’ve helped the fantastic computer-generated effects pop and wow even more.

Director Brad Peyton previously teamed with Johnson on the somehow more disastrous San Andreas. He’s a man who knows how to stage a spectacle but he suffers in the human department. The actors seem to have been left to their own devices, resulting in an alarmingly wide array of inconsistency and lack of harmony. Looking at Johnson close up as he tries to look concerned just feels woefully misdirected. The only person seemingly having a jolly old time on this one is Jeffrey Dean Morgan, currently best known as Negan on The Walking Dead. But as is wont to happen when there isn’t any performance guidance from a director, even he wavers to some extremes of inconsistency.

Rampage isn’t a game-changer for the struggling video game subgenre, but at least it’s more enjoyable than this March’s Tomb Raider reboot. Escapism doesn’t need to be justified but there are still options at the multiplex that will respect your hard-earned money more than this. No one who isn’t already down for the ride will ever be convinced to check this one out down the line. If this movie is immediately the type of thing you get giddy just thinking about, hit it on opening weekend on the biggest screen with the deepest bag of popcorn money can buy.

A horror film review, wherein Brando gets really mad about the 2008 movie, Martyrs, from the New French Extremity Movement. Ah, the cinema of trangression.

Editor’s Note: Caution! Here there be spoilers!

I watch movies that are pretty messed up sometimes.

I do it on purpose and I really don’t know why.

For the most part, this is a good thing for those around me, as I can act as a cautionary tale to other people who wanna crawl down the rabbit hole of video nasties, to see what exists in the sub-basement of the dark side. Most times I watch stuff that doesn’t shock me and doesn’t make me sick, and I have moved past that. But every so often, I’ll come across a film that makes me angry. Angry that it tricked me into wasting a perfectly good damn morning with its (almost) preachy, transparent, sadistic bullshit.

Martyrs is one of those movies.

Martyrs is an award-winning French horror movie from 2008, that focuses on a girl who was held prisoner in a warehouse, from which she eventually escapes. This girl (Lucie), meets another girl, Anna, in a mental hospital following her escape, and the two become super close. Little does Lucie know, but her new BFF is actually a traumatized piece of walking scar tissue, who sees demons and has a penchant for slashing people with a straight razor.

Lucie and Anna’s friendship spans the length of 15 years, and during this time, Lucie is trying to remember exactly who it was who held her captive, and then track them down to reap bloody revenge. Of course this is exactly what ends up happening: off screen she discovers who they are, shows up at their house and shotguns them and their children to bloody death, and what follows is 40 minutes of two homeless girls camping out in a house full of murder victims.

Following some gratuitous straight razor action, Lucie ends up attacking her one and only friend with a sledgehammer, as she starts to think that Anna doesn’t believe that there is actually a zombie/demon girl that is stalking her and attacking her with a box cutter (There really isn’t, which is painfully obvious). Weird. Following a lot of screaming and crying, Lucie kills herself, as she can no longer handle the delusions that are haunting her.

Following Lucie’s suicide, Anna is thrown into the depths of the horror Lucie experienced when she discovers the murdered family’s super-secret torture dungeon, (because of course super-secret torture dungeon) complete with a girl who has clearly had a bad time, as she is covered in wounds, and has a bunch of crap bolted to her face.

Anna tries to help the poor girl, but all that yields is more gore for the audience. The girl dies and we finally arrive at the transcendent third act. The one that gets all the praise, the one that won 7 out of 8 awards. And it consists of Anna being tortured for 40 minutes until she is taken beyond sanity and sees God and then the movie is over.

Awesome.

What passes for this movie’s plot can really be summed up in a few sentences as there really isn’t one beyond the initial setup. We discover there is a secret society that is torturing girls because of a super pretentious curiosity about what it is that makes someone a martyr, and what goes on in the human brain when they are pushed beyond their limits of suffering.

Which is what left me angry.

Martyrs is a voyeuristic romp filled with torture porn and traumatic violence that is only thinly veiled by some kind of quasi-religious themes, that only serves to give the filmmakers licence to show girls being beaten and cut up on screen, presumably because that is what they are interested in. This film exists solely to present tragedy and pain with only the slightest hint of a cohesive story.

There is nothing deep or meaningful about flaying someone. It doesn’t make it art if she pees on the floor first. It’s not packed full of meaning if there is no dialogue. It isn’t an incredible cinematic achievement because she sees God. It’s heartless and cruel, and exists only to thrill people who get enjoyment out of watching people have violence perpetrated against them, and then justifying it by saying something stupid like, “but dude, it’s like…the meaning of everything.”

But it isn’t the meaning of anything. It’s just 99 minutes of snot-crying and cutting and bleeding. It is soulless and punishes you for investing your time in it and ends with you having learned nothing beyond the fact that you never want to watch Martyrs again.

Oh, and before you ask, of course it got a fuckin remake in 2015. Because: reasons.

Aaron Sorkin sits down in the director’s chair for Molly’s Game, the story of a former Olympic hopeful who built a massive underground poker ring.

If you watch TV or movies, you’ve likely seen something by Aaron Sorkin. His witty, quotable dialogue, as well as techniques such as his trademark “walk-and-talk” (which follows two characters moving through an environment while having a conversation) have propelled movies like A Few Good Men, The Social Network, and Moneyball to critical and financial success. Sorkin might be best known as the mastermind behind the NBC drama The West Wing, widely considered to be one of the best shows of all time.

In Molly’s Game, his screenwriting skills are on full display, but for the first time, he is behind the camera as director. Here he takes on the larger-than-life story of Molly Bloom: a former Olympic skiing hopeful who set up one of the largest underground poker rings in America, featuring countless celebrities, businessmen, and even mobsters. Her rise and subsequent fall are now the subject of legend, along with a tell-all book written by Bloom herself.

We are introduced to Bloom (Jessica Chastain) just as the FBI is raiding her apartment, but the story quickly jumps back to her youth as a moguls champion vying for an Olympic berth. Her overbearing father (Kevin Costner) is constantly pushing her toward excellence, which is helpful in explaining her tenacity and resolve. Again we jump to her as an adult, as she builds her poker empire, first at the behest of her pig-headed boss, and then on her own. Molly shows a clear talent for running her operation, despite the interventions of some problem gamblers, and one Player X (Michael Cera), who is determined to use Molly’s game to his own advantage. X is supposedly a composite, but Bloom has let slip that he is mostly representative of Tobey Maguire (of Spider-Man fame), who provided her with much frustration through his greed and disregard for other players.

Lastly, we have our framing story, which involves reluctant barrister Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba) helping Bloom to reconstruct her story for her legal defense, and allowing the audience to get the full picture. Jaffey’s character was constructed for the purposes of the screenplay. He is sympathetic to Bloom, and sees the good in her. I believe he is meant to represent audience, or perhaps Sorkin himself, as he understands Molly seemingly better than anyone else.

From a filmmaking perspective, this is just layers of Sorkin. The movie is tied together with almost constant narration from Bloom, easing the jarring timeline transitions that permeate the entire film. Rarely do we spend more than five minutes in a particular time period before jumping forward or back. It is an interesting conceit, as Molly’s past is often used to explain her actions in the future, but these time jumps are so short that we never really get to know the characters, other than our protagonist. They are often reduced to expository tools, poetically stating their motives as in a Shakespearean aside, though they don’t address the audience like Molly does. As such, we are often delivered emotional truths, rather than objective ones. It gives the whole movie a stage-play feel, which considering Sorkin’s stage experience and previous work is not too surprising.

Music is not a priority in the film, and it shows. We get electronic thumps pumping like a heartbeat during intense play scenes, but there is rarely a flourish to be found during emotional crescendos, with Sorkin preferring to let the performances – and Molly’s voiceover – do the talking.

The camera work is quite good, with fast cuts and crash zooms to portray the dizzying mania of the poker games, and slower, wider shots allowing us to relax as Molly is telling her story. Bright, flashy colours saturate the screen at high times, and muted tones pervade as she begins her downward spiral. Visual callbacks to previous scenes – that happen to be in the future chronologically – are a mind-bending treat, and one that I would not expect from a first time director. Surprisingly, I spied only one instance of Sorkin’s famous walk-and-talk, but the movie is propelled along so quickly that more protracted dialogue scenes would have felt out of place.

Performances across the board are solid, despite the aforementioned expositional dialogue. Jessica Chastain is one of the best actors working today, and she plays Bloom with such conviction and charisma that it’s not hard to see why she was Sorkin’s first choice. As both the emotional and moral heart of the movie, she shines. At times we are asked to believe that the 41 year-old Chastain is as young as 19, but that can be forgiven due to the powerhouse performance overall. Idris Elba is calm and cool as usual, and his fatherly affection for Molly gives his character real emotional depth. The supporting cast including Costner, Chris O’Dowd and Cera all give good performances. Bill Camp is great as an over-leveraged gambling addict in dire straits. This is a movie full of professionals, and the proof is in the end product.

Overall, I would certainly recommend Molly’s Game. I’m not sure anyone but Bloom knows how much of it actually happened, but that’s not really the point. The story is designed to remind us that a person’s actions define who they are, even if their vocation doesn’t. Sorkin does an admirable job in his first directorial outing, and even though we get the magnification of his scriptwriting tendencies, it does not overwhelm the production. The narrative is disorienting, but we genuinely care for our protagonist by the time the credits roll. The chaos of a poker game full of whales is captured perfectly, as is the despair of the inevitable downfall. Chastain is incredible as Molly, and supporting performers provide a rich background to work with, even if they are a bit poetic. Those looking for a straightforward narrative with real, down to earth dialogue should know by now to avoid Sorkin’s film work, but in terms of delivering emotional heft and feeling, it would have been difficult to do any other way.

If you hate these movies, then you’ll really hate this one, but Avengers: Infinity War is a surprisingly enjoyable movie that isn’t a bloated mess.

Most Marvel movies riff on specific genres to give each movie a distinct personality; the first Captain America is a war movie, Winter Soldier is their paranoid 70’s thriller, Ant-Man is a heist movie, Spider-man: Homecoming the John Hughesy high school movie, and so forth. If this thinking holds true, then Avengers: Infinity War, is their Lord of the Rings-style epic. Not in terms of swords and sandals, but just in the scope of the story, the time and space journeys, and of course, the CGI hordes at the gates.

Infinity War is the 19^th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and while some people might complain of their homogenous, assembly-line nature, Marvel has done a remarkable job committing to and creating a franchise — a universe — of characters and stories. Infinity War feels like the culmination of this huge story, bringing together almost all of the separate characters we’ve watched unfurl over the last decade or so.

In Infinity War, Thanos, the living piece of purple Hubba Bubba who has been skirting around the edges of our Marvel Universe ominously, finally appears in full force. He’s got the patented crazy guy plan of murdering half of the universe in order to bring harmony to those left over. To do so more easily, he needs the Maguffin Stones…er…the Infinity Stones, which are scattered about. Our heroes must band together, and potentially sacrifice everything in their own version of the Kobayashi Maru to stop Thanos.

Up front, I will admit that I wasn’t really looking forward this movie. I think the solo stories (or pairings like Thor: Ragnarok and Captain America: Winter Solder) work much better than the group outings, with the exception of the first Avengers movie, which had good balance. But the solo stories generally are able to focus on telling one succinct story, where as Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War were more bloated and hollow.  Sometimes they became mere vehicles for CGI washing machine destruction porn, sometimes commercials for movies that were upcoming in the franchise.

If you already don’t like Marvel movies, you’re probably not going to find anything new in Infinity War. In fact, it’s all that stuff, turned up to 11. But for all of its loud posturing, Infinity War works (surprisingly) better than Ultron and Civil War. The movie has human stories that manage to make themselves heard above the noise. There are even a few emotional moments that land well.

The movie itself plays like a grunge song, or like Radio Free Vestibule’s parody of every Pixies song, ‘The Grunge Song.’ “This is the part of the song that’s really quiet…we play very soft, it sounds like a ballad/AND THIS IS THE PART OF THE SONG WHERE WE PLAY REAL HARD…IT’S MUCH LOUDER THAN AT THE BEGINNING/then we go back to the quiet part,” and so forth. You get some dialogue and story, then you get a battle, then you get some dialogue and story, then a battle, etc. This actually works well enough — there were very few lulls in this 2½ hour movie. The pacing is Hulk-strong and kudos to the editor for keeping all these plates spinning.

Aside from his distracting bubble gum head, scrotum chin, and obviously CGI pants, Thanos won me over. I’m pretty turned off by a lot of these lame otherworldly space god demons like Ares in Wonder Woman and Steppenwolf in Justice League. But Thanos is more than the stock, overly powerful but ultimately hollow bad guy; he has motivations behind his madness.  There is more than one point in the movie where you are sympathetic to him, which is actually pretty amazing. He manages to be quite interesting not only as a villain, but as a character in his own right. Props go to Josh Brolin as well for bringing a certain human gravitas to the role.

If someone were to dislike this movie, it would be because it becomes an exhaustive assault on the senses. I saw more than five people bail during the screening (some of them older folks) and I heard some people complaining after, “I don’t get it — it was just a bunch of fighting.” Of course, if you’re in the pocket for this movie, a lot of this is why you want to see it in the first place. But it’s definitely one of those epic journeys where the audience is worn out in the end. Some are worn out with a big question mark cloud over their heads, some with a big, fat, satisfied grin on their faces. Sure, some characters get lost in the shuffle, but I am just happy that it managed to tell a story and didn’t feel like the narrative mess a lot of these group superhero movies can become. To be clear, I liked it.

And no spoilers here — but just to weigh in, I loved the ending. Some people have called it cheap and it is obviously meant to lead into a part two that they’ll want us to shell out for, but the stories being told came to a satisfactory close while also opening it up for part two.

My big question is, after part two — where can they go to top themselves? I don’t mean in terms of the next phase of characters in the Marvel Universe, which are already coming — I mean in terms of the big super hero team ups. Perhaps you just build a new stable of characters up again and you have a whole new generation of moviegoers in 10 years when you go to do something like Infinity War again. But they should be careful they aren’t painting themselves into a corner; after a movie this ambitious (and successful), anything else could feel like diminishing returns.

Ryan Reynolds’ take on the Merc with the Mouth is back, and somehow, manages to defy expectations and be a better movie than the original.

Two years and approximately 89 superhero movies later, the world’s biggest breakout solo character Deadpool is back to seize the genre with full force. As portrayed (perhaps ‘inhabited’ is more fitting) by Ryan Reynolds, the erstwhile Wade Wilson has risen from underdog ranks to bona fide blockbuster superstar status. With greater expectations comes immeasurable pressure to prove that 2016’s Deadpool wasn’t just a one-trick pony. It’s a tall order and I don’t know how they did it but Deadpool 2 manages to beat the odds to emerge as a superior product than its predecessor.

Your receptiveness to Deadpool 2’s charm can be determined by your tolerance for the first film and/or the encroaching-on-annoying shtick of Ryan Reynolds. There is no ‘off’ button on this ride and many audience members are going to find their patience tried harder than it was by the runtime of Avengers: Infinity War. You shouldn’t anticipate anything here that would reverse any misgivings you have about Deadpool as a character or this series’ meta sentience. If the first movie was your thing, however, this follow up is going to be your 2018 summer jam.

There’s a lot that is going to differentiate Deadpool 2 from its predecessor despite the sequel’s retreading of similar themes and duplication of the former’s narrative structure. It’s jam-packed with more gags, effects, and cameos than the first film by a wide margin. It also dips its toes into some more dramatic territory that makes it feel, ever so briefly, like a serious film and not just one big extended lark. But, alas, the stakes don’t matter and the only lessons learned are of a pre-school level. That’s not why people go to these movies, obviously, so those aren’t totally audience-appropriate concerns. But they do hold Deadpool 2 back from really breaking the mold.

No spoilers about the movie’s plot will be found here because, frankly, there isn’t a lot to the story itself. Deadpool continues his life of vigilante violence with a vengeance as he races against a man from the future to prevent a potentially apocalyptic event. Bullets and zingers abound and blood flows in equal measure with foul-mouthed expletives and gratuitous absurdity. The fourth wall doesn’t get broken so much as it’s demolished into dust. And it’s all nonstop fun.

The whole thing’s just an excuse to bring together a plethora of disparate characters and watch them bounce off each other. The approach works splendidly – newcomers Domino (Zazie Beetz) and Cable (Josh Brolin) instantly leave indelible impressions as the Merc with a Mouth’s newest foils and cement their assumed status as franchise mainstays moving forward. Young New Zealand actor Julian Dennison (best known as bad egg Ricky Baker in Hunt for the Wilderpeople) handily supports the weight of his character’s integral capacity to the story and central theme. Plus we get an eclectic array of heroes in Deadpool’s new X-Force: Bedlam (Terry Crews), Zeitgeist (Bill Skarsgard), Shatterstar (Lewis Tan), and Peter (Rob Delaney). Not enough for you? Don’t worry – fully CGI X-Man Colossus is back with Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) and Weasel (T.J. Miller) in tow. There’s almost not enough room for everyone to play a part but somehow they all get their own moments.

Filmmaking is a collaborative art but these Deadpool flicks really do feel like they should have a title card reading ‘A Ryan Reynolds Joint.’ Despite having his face hidden for 99% of the runtime the star exudes the charisma, energy, and confidence that this character needs. His irreverent style expands into almost every other area of production; it’s no surprise that he’s credited with co-writing the screenplay (alongside Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick) in addition to producing this time around.

When there’s so much splattered across every frame it’s impossible that each and every joke is going to land. So, of course, there are parts that don’t work and scenes that feel a bit misguided. But when so much of the content just soars like this you have got to be hard pressed not to walk out feeling satisfied. It’s a lot of a lot of things but Deadpool 2 is enough of a madcap singularity to maintain a legacy all of its own.

Rewatchability is going to be higher with Deadpool 2, I believe, than the first movie. The original was quaint and succinct by comparison but this sequel just amps everything up to 11 across the board and it’s frankly a more all-around entertaining time at the movies. It’s clunkier but funnier, less inspired but more on point. It nearly goes full-on Looney Tunes but sneaks in to surprise you with a dose of actual human heart. Deadpool 2 isn’t a great film by any means but it’s the type of self-aware sendup that demands to be buoyed by the laughter from jam-packed theaters on opening weekend. Oh, and it’s got a mid-credits scene to put all others to shame.

The Adventures of Young Han Solo: A Star Wars Story…er…Solo: A Star Wars Story hits the big screen and it’s probably better than you’d hoped.

It felt to some like we’d already reached peak Star Wars with the announcement of a young Han Solo movie. Many of us grew up with only one Star Wars film, then two, then three, then nothing for many years. Now they’re cranking them out at a pace we would have plotzed for as kids. If you’re a purist, or just hate franchise building, this may be a bad thing. But if you can, “let go of your feelings,” and the cultural weight of these movies in your mind, and just enjoy them as you might something as prolific as the Bond franchise, you’re in a good place. I didn’t go in to Solo: A Star Wars Story with high expectations, which was probably helped a lot.

Solo tells the story of, you guessed it, Han Solo. He escapes his Oliver Twist upbringing on Corellia and joins the Imperials so he can become a pilot. He becomes part of a crew of thieves for hire that are pulling a big job. If successful, he can buy his own ship and go back for the childhood sweetheart he was forced to leave behind. Things don’t stay that simple for long though, and we are launched into an adventure that puts together pieces we’ve only heard about before.

There’s not a lot of depth to the film; Solo is more concerned with being a swashbuckling adventure, which it succeeds at. It’s a well-paced actioner. That’s not to say it doesn’t have any deeper themes or emotional moments, but it’s built for fun, not profound thought. I’m actually happy about this, as I want to take my (almost) five-year old son to this film. He’s obsessed with Star Wars right now (and I’m living vicariously through him), but has yet to see one in the theatre. I think this movie is perfect for his five-year old attention span. Take that to mean what you will for adults.

There’s a lot of fan service, some of which is fun, some of which gets a bit grating. It does that thing where it has to explain every little detail of his origin based on lore we already know. It makes sense that this is the movie where we see how Han meets his hetero life mate, Chewbacca. It makes sense that we see how they came across the Millennium Falcon. But it takes some of these things to silly degrees, like, say, how Han got his blaster. Some of the fan service is fun, but every five minutes doesn’t have to be, “oh, so THAT’S how he got his ____.” (It’s like Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade showing how Indy got his whip, hat, and scar, but now imagine that peppered through the whole movie instead of a quick prelude).

What many people will be asking is, how does the kid do? I certainly don’t envy Alden Ehrenreich, stepping into the pivotal Han Solo role, replacing one of the most iconic actors in film history to play one of the most iconic characters in pop culture. That’s a lot of pressure. For the most part, he does a good job. It’s maybe not quite as good as Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Karl Urban replacing the original Star Trek crew, but for all the talk of Ehrenreich needing acting lessons, etc, he does just fine. And not messing it up is a good enough place to be in this role.

One of the really bright spots of the movie is Han and Chewie’s relationship. In fact, it wouldn’t have hurt the movie to knuckle down on this a little further. It sometimes gets lost in the noise as well as in the other relationships they are building. It’s also interesting that we see a Han that is less beaten down by the universe — this is the first adventure on the way to being the cynic we meet in A New Hope.

Without giving anything away, there are minor issues near the end that make the timeline of the movie confusing, especially if you don’t know your Star Wars lore — enough to pull you out of the movie. A few of us left the theatre scratching our heads. (As a side note for anyone that’s seen the movie and is trying to figure this out, the story seems to take place 11 to 14 years before A New Hope).

In regards to Star Wars fatigue, if I have to go to more CGI blockbusters, they might as well be Star Wars movies instead of The Rock fighting giant monsters or whatever. And if we’re doing more of these standalone spin offs, hurry up and give us a Kenobi movie with Ewan McGregor, the best part of the prequels. (Seriously, I have a whole plot in my head where he has to leave Tatooine to go on an adventure, then at the end comes back to settle into years of living like a weird hermit and spying on young Luke).

And in terms of Solo: A Star Wars Story itself, if you were saying, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” rest assured it’s far from the trainwreck some people were anticipating. It’s nowhere near the best Star Wars movie we’ve seen, but it’s a serviceable entry.

Writer and Director Paul Schrader’s latest film, First Reformed, courts controvery, as per usual, but this time, it does it in a quietly intelligent fashion.

Films about religion are often as troublesome as the subject matter they dare try to dissect. When has any honest discussion of spirituality ended with each and every angle satisfied? In many ways the new film First Reformed is indeed going to leave many viewers unhappy and could even piss off a chunk of its audience. But it is that audaciousness and that uncomfortable earnestness that elevates it to the ranks of greatness. First Reformed isn’t easy but it is one of the year’s absolute best films.

Writer/director Paul Schrader has released his most invigorating work in years with the story of a priest questioning the cracks in his own earthly existence. It’s a subversive twist that First Reformed essentially becomes an environmental cautionary tale but the film’s true power is derived from the singular steps its protagonist takes in his gradual ascension to profound self-discovery.

Reverend Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) leads a tiny congregation at First Reformed church in upstate New York. The majority of the region’s faithful have flocked to the commercialized, flashy Abundant Life – less a house of worship than a monetarily exploitative modern tourist trap where Christ is a commodity. Abundant Life’s Pastor Jeffers (Cedric Kyle, a.k.a. Cedric the Entertainer) treats Toller’s modesty with base kindness and barely concealed condescension. First Reformed is about to celebrate its 250^th anniversary and Jeffers wants to throw a celebration with the financial aid of local tycoon Edward Balq (Michael Gaston). Toller would rather keep his meager crowd in a quiet service but the pastoral politics of the area have twisted his arm otherwise.

The day-to-day fades out as background noise when Toller begins a journal chronicling his most difficult, maybe even sacrilegious, thoughts. The man’s also a closeted alcoholic and probably dying from stomach cancer. There are moments of unbearable pain that Toller endures but he finds absolution in conversations with Michael (Philip Ettinger), a depressed young environmental activist whose wife Mary (Amanda Seyfreid) is deeply concerned for his well-being. It’s this relationship that enthralls Toller and opens his eye to a new, higher purpose. For the first time in many years, life has opened a new door for him.

Many scenes in First Reformed play out in a series of center-shot close-ups as two or more characters engage in touchy conversation. Voice over narration from Toller flows in and out, bringing the audience into the words he scribbles in his journal. As his worldview pivots we’re completely immersed in the ride. The experience is fascinating and unpredictable. Themes of environmental neglect and corruption rear their prickly heads, as does Toller’s uncomfortable admissions of guilt and despair as he reflects on the death of his son and the dissolution of his marriage.

Little joy is found for Toller in life. He rejects the romantic advances of Abundant Life’s choir leader Esther (Victoria Hill) and ignores basic nutrition and self-care as he marches deeper down an existential hole leading him towards the same martyr mentality that Michael is consumed by. Questions abound but answers are in limited supply. How Toller decides to take the reigns and make a difference in the world is shocking and wholly staggering.

The conflict found in the “slice of life” moments are endlessly fascinating due in part to Ethan Hawke’s commitment to the work and his commandment of our attention. The underappreciated actor has only refined his craft with age and turns in one of his very best performances as the tormented Toller. It’s a masterful piece of acting and even if no one else in the movie is able to go toe-to-toe with him, they can be forgiven in the face of such a powerhouse. This is simply a showcase for Hawke, though kudos should be given to the low-key turn from the normally clowning Cedric Kyle.

Filmmaker Paul Schrader was seemingly put on this earth to court controversy as nary a single title in his oeuvre has been released without some force of a stormy public reception. Even his most celebrated work as the screenwriter of Taxi Driver remains, in many ways, just as much of a hot-button topic for discussion today as it did when it was initially released. Schrader’s work as a director almost always depicts uneasy excavation of dark human behavior, from the grimy sex addiction of Auto Focus to the self-obsessed L.A. denizens of The Canyons and the violent kidnappers of Dog Eat Dog. First Reformed is perhaps his most quietly inflammatory work yet; it slowly seeps its way through your pores and into your consciousness, sticking with you for days and burning you up at night.

As if the first hour and forty-five minutes weren’t enough, First Reformed writes its name in the history books with perhaps the most jarring cut to black in recent memory. It leaves you confounded and convinced that the story isn’t over, that there has to be some tidy resolution to send you off with. It’s not dissimilar to the final episode of The Sopranos in that regard, though Toller’s in a far more tormented state than Tony was when he was ordering those onion rings. But great art doesn’t answer questions – it raises them. First Reformed is cinema of the highest order.

Thoroughbreds is much more than the teen romp it may appear to be on the surface.  It’s funny, satirical, thrilling, and dream-like in different moments.

An element of darkness exists inside all of us; it’s been said a thousand times by a thousand poets. Some of us learn to coexist with it, some try to trample it down, and others simply cannot control it. Thoroughbreds, the debut film from writer/director Cory Finley, shows us the encroaching void where we least expect it: among two intelligent teenage girls firmly planted in society’s top rung. What follows is an exploration of the inky blackness of the human soul, along with the comedic surreality of wealthy life (and death).

Lily Reynolds (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a teenager living with her mother and stepfather, the three of them occupying a cavernous mansion in an ultra-rich New England community. She has all the hallmarks of a conscientious, intelligent young woman with a bright future. Her estranged friend Amanda (Olivia Cooke) re-enters her life unexpectedly as a tutoring student, in the hopes that Lily can help improve her grades. Memories of horseback riding together are long gone, as the two grew apart after the death of Lily’s father. Emotionally damaged Amanda has since been in trouble with the law and feels no emotion or empathy toward other human beings. She is a willing pariah, while Lily is uptight and obsessed with appearances.

The pair reforms their friendship, initially out of morbid curiosity by both parties, and we find that beneath Lily’s well-adjusted exterior lies a deeply disturbed individual, who feels unfairly persecuted by her overbearing stepfather Mark. Lily recounts her sorrows to Amanda, who provides a simple solution: kill Mark. Though initially repulsed by the idea, Lily quickly warms to it, and they enlist the help of a local deadbeat (Anton Yelchin) to eliminate him.

For playwright Cory Finley, this is the first time being involved in any movie, let alone behind the camera, but you wouldn’t know it. The story comes together masterfully, allowing its talented cast to flex their muscles. He is extremely careful not to take a principled standing on the actions of our characters, which is interesting. Some have been citing the film’s moral ambiguity as a flaw, though I don’t see it that way, and I believe it represents a firm criticism of social elites. Finley goes to great lengths to explore the boredom and monotony of wealth, and the effect it has on the two adolescent leads. There is also a very ethereal dreamlike quality that coats much of the film. It’s teetering on the edge of David Lynch territory, despite being relatively linear, and I think it works wonderfully

Unsurprisingly considering the above, the cinematography is outstanding. The colour palette is mostly cold (save for a couple moments), reflecting the existence of our protagonists in their gilded prison. Static, soundless shots allow the echoes of the monstrous houses to unnerve us, and long smooth takes winding down deserted corridors let the emptiness and unreality of the lifestyle sink in. The camera comes alive and jolts us sporadically, intentionally disorienting us even further in this absurd world.

The film is wonderful visually, but it’s the story and interactions that steal the show. At times I was left wondering if the dialogue was ad-libbed or scripted. With a background in stage writing, it’s difficult to tell how Finley planned it, but the result is magnificent. I was surprised by the repartee between the two characters, which is entertaining and doesn’t seem forced or fake. The whole proceeding is surprisingly funny, though obviously in a dark and twisted way. Still, it provokes a few wicked laughs.

The music chosen for the film is almost primal, perhaps echoing the primitive goal of our main characters. It reminds me of the music in 2014’s Birdman, with percussive beats and squeaky strings adding to the sense of the surreal. One particularly memorable song called ‘Sila’ by A Tribe Called Red features Canadian throat singer Tanya Tagaq, and I recommend listening to it. It’s evocative of the entire audial experience. There are also conventional musical choices (perhaps used ironically) like an appearance of Ave Maria as Tim wanders through Lily’s home, bewildered by the show of wealth.

The performances in Thoroughbreds are spectacular. This is a small cast, but each actor is individually worthy of praise. The emotional and psychological arcs of the two main characters are incredible to behold, and both Cooke and Taylor-Joy completely sink into their roles. Anya Taylor-Joy is even more impressive here than she was in The Witch, showing her range from mousy intellectual to hard-nosed sociopath. I had never seen Cooke in a film before, but her ability ensures I will seek out her work in the future. It may seem easy to play an emotionally muted teenager, but she fills the role with so many wonderful quirks and eccentricities, it’s impossible to ignore her craftsmanship. Lastly, Anton Yelchin gives us an incredibly humorous yet humanistic lowlife drug dealer we can’t help but root for. His constant machinations about how he will overcome the hand life has dealt him, and his incredulousness at the boldness of the girls give the audience one sympathetic character to side with. It’s a rough reminder of what could have been for a talented young actor gone far too soon.

It’s fair to say that I loved Thoroughbreds. Rookie director Finley took a premise that could easily be monotonous and cliched and made it into a stylish exploration of the darkest corners of the teenage psyche. The moral ambiguity of the whole affair allows the audience to enjoy the experience without feeling preached at (not-so-subtle one-percenter-bashing notwithstanding), and the performances elevate it beyond its simplicity. Elements of teenage comedy, horror, thriller, and fever dream blend together beautifully, and the music keeps the pulse rate up even when the visuals are intentionally sedate. It’s wonderful to see a talented new director on the scene, paired with two incredible young actors sure to be lighting up the screen for a long time. So go ahead and look down into the darkness. You won’t regret it. Just be careful not to fall in.

Hype can hurt a movie, and Hereditary had a blast of huge, steaming hot hype.  Thankfully, the film mostly avoids being destroyed by that hype.

Editor’s Note:  We usually prefer spoiler free reviews, but in this case, if you haven’t seen the movie, you shouldn’t read anything about it at all.  All I would say is that it’s worth your time if you like smart horror movies.  For this particular review, we’ve decided to be pretty open about the whole thing in order to better discuss it. 

You’ve been warned — spoilers ahead.

Seeing any movie with a ton of hype surrounding it is a dangerous proposition (ahem, Lady Bird, anyone?), and Hereditary picked up all the hype after its screenings at Sundance and South by Southwest, instantly putting it on every horror fan’s radar.  A24’s little movie with a $10 million budget has already earned back what it cost to make and more in its opening weekend, which, as a horror fan, is great to see.

After that spoiler warning, I suppose if you’re reading this, you probably saw the movie, but in Hereditary, Toni Collette is Annie, an artist whose estranged mother has died.  After the funeral, she starts seeing weird things around the house (you know, like, the disembodied spirit of her mother) and she goes to grief counselling, where we find her family had a history of mental illness.  Her brother committed suicide years before, claiming that her mother was trying to “put people inside his body.”  Also, she has two of the weirdest looking kids around and a husband (Gabriel Byrne) that deserves some sort of husband of the year award.  Seriously, that guy is so sweet and supporting that he comes off as a bit of a cipher for the first half of the film.

Before I dig deeper into some of my ponderances and criticisms, let me first establish that I thought the movie was excellent. I can see why it’s getting great reviews.  Except for the CinemaScore, which is in the toilet.  Though I don’t know why we suddenly bother to reference something that gave God’s Not Dead III an A- and this movie a D+.  I will just say that if you hated The Witch because there weren’t enough jump scares, then you may not be right for this movie.  It ain’t about jump scares.  Hereditary establishes an atmosphere of unsettling horror, using everything from visuals to sound design to excellent acting to drag you through the fiery rivers of your own terror.

I don’t know if I’d go as far as to call Hereditary a slow burn, because it does move along, but I did find that I had to tell myself to trust that it was taking me somewhere (and boy, did it).  Scenes upon scenes pile onto each other, slowly building something, until the final moments.  It’s not doing anything we haven’t seen before, but it uses its tools in an effective manner, without feeling cliched.  And there are some genuine surprises, as well as some moments of terror that will have you checking under your bed before you hit the sack.

One of my big problems with this movie isn’t really a problem, and it isn’t necessarily the movie’s fault.  As I’ve gotten older and read/watched/written so many stories and narratives, my brain tends to deconstruct story points, even when I don’t want it to.  I’m a big-fat-know-nothing-know-it-all-asshole.  Narrative devices become easy to spot. Little clues give away big mysteries. Reverse engineering the ending becomes second nature (I don’t know how my wife puts up with me, to be honest — and what’s more annoying, that I’m always calling the ending or that I’m usually correct?).  In Hereditary, I saw the ending coming way too soon, because Rosemary’s Baby.  There are, of course, vast differences between the two films, but Hereditary is basically Rosemary’s Baby as seen through the eyes of a family that don’t know they are Rosemary.  At least until it’s way too late.

I copped on pretty much from the moment early on when we met Joanie (one of the best actresses around, Ann Dowd from The Leftovers and The Handmaid’s Tale), whose introduction was perhaps supposed to seem natural, but didn’t.  And it’s not long before she’s showing up at just the right moment all the time, convincing Annie to drink a tannis root smoothie or do a séance or whatever.  Because of the witchy book of her mother’s that we see Annie uncover at the beginning, it was immediately obvious that they were dealing with a cult/coven of some sort.  From there, every clue seemed screamed, like Joanie’s door mat, and I could only think of her as this movie’s version of Minnie Castavet.

There’s nothing wrong with recycling that idea, but it also sucks some of the wind out of Hereditary’s sails to make the twist obvious so early.  I’m curious to know other people’s experience with this — did I call it super early?  Or did everyone?  If everyone caught that (assuming they’ve seen movies like Rosemary’s Baby and The Wicker Man), then the movie telegraphed it too hard.  It definitely telegraphed things like Charlie’s nut allergy with all the subtlety of a telephone pole to the face (too soon?). Everyone walked in the room going, “Does that chocolate bar have nuts in it?  No?  Okay, ‘cause don’t forget, Charlie is super allergic to nuts!” You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist or pasty, basement dwelling movie nerd to know that this allergy was going to come up sooner than later.  That said, Charlie’s death scene was a surprise to me, and quite harrowing.  When the movie is on, it’s on.

I also wonder about other parts of the story — this is in no way a criticism, and I want to see the movie again to answer some of my questions — but does each scene serve the plot all the way through or were they padding some of it with scares that don’t ultimately mean anything?  Like, what was the point of the book burning, really?  It made for some great scenes, but unless I missed something (which is entirely possible), the book itself has no real bearing on what happens with the possession.  It even seems to violate its own rules by burning Dad instead of Annie, since he didn’t throw it in the fire.  And why did Peter start violently banging his mole against his desk?  Again, it’s a freaky scene, but it doesn’t make sense that they’d want their new demon lord’s new vessel all smashed up.  Nothing worse than taking over a new body and finding that your face is all fucked up like a soup sandwich.  And was he even possessed at that point?  Perhaps, but I thought Peter wasn’t taken over until Charlie’s light went into his body.  I don’t need an explanation for everything — some mystery is a good thing.  But some of this may have been muddled at best or like I said, at worst, padding.

Whether these moments mean something that I’ll glean later or not, the movie does carry itself with an admirable confidence from first time director, Ari Aster.  After Charlie is killed, I felt myself being pulled out of the film by the nagging feeling caused by the lack of any authorities attending to the family (which isn’t a plot line I wanted to see, but in reality, it would have been something the family would have to deal with, so even a vague mention of it being ruled an accident would have solved this), and the fact that the family didn’t seem to be acknowledging Peter’s role in Charlie’s death at all.  No one is saying anything about it.  However, this all comes to a head during the dinner argument, a superb scene.  The movie was controlling the experience and it wasn’t ready to give me this scene yet, which I can respect.  It’s like the old Outer Limits intro: “We have control of your set.”  The film said, confidently, you’ll experience the family reaction when I am goddamn good and ready.  It wanted to first show us the mother’s grief, the funeral, etc, and then dig into the family dynamics.

It’s worth repeating, that I dug Hereditary.  It not only works well because of the way it has been constructed on a technical level, but also because it explores themes like family, grief, mental illness, and grandmas that turn out to be the leader of weird naked cults, which everyone can identify with (well, except maybe the last part).  It might sometimes show its cards too much in its homage to Rosemary’s Baby, and it may overcomplicate things sometimes, but it also manages to be its own thing.  It manages to be an electrifying, scary, thrilling ride that still works well.  We are experiencing a bit of a horror renaissance these days, and Hereditary fits squarely into that model.

After Solo’s poor showing and the online abuse of Kelly Marie Tran, we’ve been thinking that we need to take Star Wars off its pedestal.

Check out this Feedback Society vlog about no longer treating Star Wars like a holy thing.  We can still enjoy (or dislike) the movies, but we’re taking it to heights that are ruining everything it stands for.

Disobediance, from Sebastián Lelio, is a garish melodrama that has compelling moments; perhaps those less jaded by romance films will get more out of it.

Disobedience is just merely OK in just about every category. Call me jaded, but it feels as though the sub-genre of intense, forbidden-LGBT-love has been worked from just about every angle in cinema by now, and if anything, Sebastián Lelio’s latest even further proves the point. His entry into this distinct category seeks to capture a unique vantage point on prejudice through the prism of Hasidic Judaism. Unfortunately, what it seeks to do—and what it convinces itself with an obvious earnestness that it is doing—is much more compelling in concept than execution.

I had high hopes for this one going in, not necessarily because of the subject matter, but because of the Chilean director’s superb previous work. A Fantastic Woman, last year’s Oscar winning foreign language entry, was ground-breaking not only with its stylistic flair, but also with its uncompromised dedication to the transgender protagonist’s flaws. That, in juxtaposition with the prejudices surrounding her, made for one compelling and unique entry into the LGBT film canon—one that did not come across as sappy or heavy-handed as it did just heavy. Lelio’s newest film, however, seems to prioritize melodramatic indulgence and explicit moralizing over the nuance of his previous work. A shame, really, because the subject matter rests on the kind of complex terrain that could make for refreshing cinema. However, Lelio indulges the kind of forlorn love tropes of pulp romance novels and combines it with some heavy socio-religious content. It’s a bit like throwing a juicy steak into the blender along with some cheap vodka.

Ronit Krushka (Rachel Weisz) is a free-spirit photographer who is suddenly called away to her hometown of London after her deeply orthodox Rabbi father passes away. Upon her less than receptive welcome back to the community she abandoned long ago, she finds lodging with her old friends—now a married couple—Rabbi-in-training Dovid (Alessandro Nivola) and Esti (Rachel McAdams). Much to her chagrin (though really not surprising to the audience), no one in the community really wants her there, and the dangling conversations and blunt atmosphere make it a dreary visit not only for Ronit, but also for the audience. However, somewhat gradually but more so awkwardly, a former sexual attraction between Esti and Ronit re-emerges, and the delicate façade of her marriage and overall religiosity is threatened.

This is just simply a finer film on paper than its materialized counterpart. Through his direction, Lelio displays a genuine passion for Esti and Ronit’s forbidden love, yet he unravels it with perhaps too much of a smug attitude, as though every sub-textual beat is so painfully obvious it does not require the basic legwork of a conventional film. In actuality, the chemistry between McAdams and Weisz and their respective characters is dramatically forced in the wrong places. Their passion is buried until it’s bluntly and fully realized in only a few minutes of screen-time, and this without Lelio fully contextualizing it within their sexual history. The necessary kinetic energy to pull off that level of ineffable attraction, à la Elio and Oliver in the much better Call Me By Your Name, instead plays like a rushed mimicry of it; the actresses play romanticized versions of lesbians, ones that feel less authentic and more one-dimensionally titillating. The film’s bare-bones script constructs a framework for a compelling relationship and shades of it are brought out by Lelio’s subdued style. Yet, these moments are too few and far between to tide us over while the film predictably plods along.

The movie’s religious critique has its moments as well, though it is buried under its somewhat cringey obsession with Ronit’s intellectual superiority and the lesbian couple’s sensuality. I would argue that Dovid is the most interesting character in this film, a man who has put his faith in a dogma and ideological system that proves itself paradoxical. The film takes a sympathetic cadence in constructing his arc, and Alessandro Nivola does fine, nuanced work. Yet, a film of this critical caliber must truly understand and embody a religion in order to expose it. Lelio comes off as judgemental and glib in moments that require thoughtfulness. He is much more concerned with exploring the theme of liberation in a vacuum, and forces this onto the film instead of naturalistically paving the way for his audience to think for themselves. Strange, because A Fantastic Woman excelled so brilliantly in this regard, maintaining a more nuanced representation of its ideological perils.

Overall, it is still a passable effort. The film’s garish melodrama still has its compelling moments, and perhaps those less jaded by romance films will get more out of it. Lelio has his heart in the right place and it sometimes shows, but—for whatever baffling reason—he seems to lack the confidence and poise in this one to really trust in his audience to read between the lines. If anything, the stale art-film exoskeleton draws too much attention to the film’s melodrama (that word keeps coming up, doesn’t it?), making it stick out like a sore thumb. Lelio is an inspired filmmaker and I have no doubt in my mind he has multiple great films in him, but this flick—released less than a year after his last film—is rushed. Actually, it somehow manages to be both rushed and ploddingly dull. A unique, but ultimately unsatisfying feat.

It may not win everyone over, and we can’t say it’s not without flaws, but pound for pound, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom evolves the franchise.

Science has run amok once again and genetically engineered dinosaurs are on a rampage in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, a new blockbuster that goes slightly esoteric in the service of avoiding modern day sequel pitfalls. It isn’t fully successful and character logic is dumber than a doornail. There are repetitive tropes and clichés that are leaned into hard. And yet it all still remains wrapped up in its own odd blanket, impervious to the threats from within and pre-registered audience hatred. At the end of the day, this Jurassic World delivers visually engrossing spectacle with an atmosphere of its own that you won’t find anywhere else.

A Shady Corporate Villain (Rafe Spall) contacts our intrepid Romantic Lead Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) with a proposition — take the all the resources they have and go save as many dinosaurs as possible. Claire’s a bleeding heart activist fighting against the world’s indifference to letting these man-made specimens die off forever, so she jumps at the chance. But she needs our Stoic Male Hero Owen (Chris Pratt) to join. As we recall from the first film, Owen has a special bond with a particularly advanced velociraptor named Blue, and he’s the only one who can help tame the beast and bring her in. Unbeknownst to Claire and Owen, though, this rescue mission is all a ruse to cover a more nefarious plot. And Blue is the key to it all.

In the realm of summer blockbusters, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a fascinating outlier simply based on its tone. Where once there was awe and wonder there is now only dread and fear. Sinister musical notes and lighting tell you right off the bat — there’s no ‘Ellie sees a brontosaurus for the first time’ moments here. To some, that’s disingenuous to the whole idea of a movie set in the Jurassic Park world. But others will view it as an inspired injection of ominous foreboding — which I surely do.

It isn’t ‘fun’ in the sense that it’s a rip-roaring adventure. The fun comes more in thriller format, where you clench your armrest during many tense sequences. Each frame is packed with VFX and production design that captivate even when the story and characters don’t and in the spirit of John Hammond himself, it would appear that no expense was spared in bringing this film to the big screen.

Look, the movie is dumb. But it isn’t insultingly dumb, because it knows it’s a B-movie at heart so therefore it’s operating on a B-movie playing field. And in that sense, it’s the most expertly executed mega-budget B-movie ever. Because no matter how you split it this movie can be deduced to expensive trash. Stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are as game as ever but they’re given little opportunities to do anything interesting — they coast along solely on movie star charisma but Howard in particular shows off some momentarily impressive chops when it comes to screaming and running scared shitless.

Directory J.A. Bayona makes every groan-worthy moment seem passable thanks to his dedicated sense of mise-en-scene and action. There are visuals in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom that will stand with the storied franchise’s strongest, most indelible imagery. There’s simply no comparing to the 1993 OG that started it all because that’s an impossible bar to meet. You’ll find more to stick in your memory here than in The Lost World and Jurassic Park III combined, however. If you’re a fan of these movies it’s doubtful you’ll shake your head in dismay as you walk out the theater.

Technical merits are high across the board here. Really the only part of it all that’s lacking is the screenplay, written by Derek Connolly and Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow. But still — the screenplay doesn’t pretend to be anything that it’s not. There’s no political grandstanding or overwrought emotional monologues. It’s a vehicle to get dinosaurs off the island and into a civilized landscape; that alone sounds similar to 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park, but Fallen Kingdom has more of a unique identity in its thumbnail than that bloated Spielberg mess had in its entirety.

Where the series leaves us to move on from here is indeed more exciting than even the peaks of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. But does the promise of greater things to come make the journey worthwhile in its own right? In my opinion, it does.

A lot of people aren’t going to jive with the mix of jungle exploration adventure and haunted house horror scares but it truthfully works well — it’s just not at all the movie we expected it to be. We’re given exactly what we’re promised, so any incredulous outbursts from critics should be muted to a calmer level. Because Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom keeps it the same while dishing out a wildly different flavor at the same time. It’s no Jurassic Park — of course it isn’t. It doesn’t even go toe-to-toe with 2015’s nostalgic blockbuster Jurassic World. But in a universe of retreads and paint-by-the-numbers recreations of what worked before (looking at you here, Incredibles 2) Fallen Kingdom more than makes a trip to the theater refreshing and rewarding in its own way.

Does The Incredibles 2 have a responsibility to shoot for something brighter than the first film to satisfy the older fans that have now grown?

It’s truly a testament to the progress that animation has made in this digital era that a film like The Incredibles 2 can construct a more exciting and concise action sequence than a great deal of CGI-laden live-action films. From the opening sequence, a resolution to the Under-Minor ‘cliffhanger’ viewers (at least 20 and older) will remember from the original, to the film’s raucous finale resembling Speed 2 (a legendarily bad entry into the canon of movie sequels), Brad Bird’s latest PIXAR offering is a dazzling and inventive use of its state-of-the-art technology. The film is visual feast and adds a number of creative outlets for the PIXAR team to flex without sacrificing clarity. However, while the characters themselves continue on their charming paths of juggling daily life with their super-powers, this film doesn’t provide as much room for growth as its predecessor. Beyond its exciting action sequences and visual gags, it’s disappointingly par for the course.

I’ll preface this by saying that it’s a difficult task evaluating this film. Its primary directive is so blatantly oriented around re-jiggering the franchise for the younger generation of kids, ones who were barely (if at all) sentient when the original was released. We’ll call it The Force Awakens Syndrome or TFAS for short. TFAS is a fascinating affliction, in that the films beholden to this condition are usually far from bad. In fact, one of the primary attributes of films with TFAS is that they are sexy to look at and a lot of fun, rife with all the bells and whistles that fans of the original expect. But it comes at a price; the older generation is never quite satisfied beyond the surface level fan-service and the younger generation is handed on a silver platter that which is perfectly enjoyable — perhaps even great in their perception — but will always be condescended down to as second-hand cinema.

Judging from the responses of adult audiences to Incredibles 2, the film has managed to bridge this gap slightly. However, I cannot help but feel that the film is marred by its conservativism, rehashing character arcs and themes that were perfectly evoked in the original. As someone who loved the original as a young boy, I find myself in an awkward position: should I praise the film for technically being sound and on the whole effective when viewed in a vacuum? Or is it valid to be perturbed by the films inability to grow its characters and to really say something distinct? Is that too much to ask from a kids’ film? Is it even accurate to label this, “A KIDS’ FILM™?”

All these questions make for one hell of a divisive and subjective film-going experience. It’s the kind of film that PIXAR fans will either irrationally despise or view with rose-tinted glasses. And it’s easy to understand why this is the case; relative to many superhero blockbusters, this is still quite the breath of fresh air. The family unit with super powers is a wholesome concept that may serve as an antidote to the self-serious tone of the latest Marvel and even DC films. Yet, it’s the usual symptoms of TFAS and Sequelitis that turn up when investigating its flaws: a contrived, easily telegraphed plot, the same, old lessons, a reliance on the characters’ charm over actual development, and — last but probably most prominent — a refusal to raise the stakes and instigate meaningful conflict. In the first film, the family is on the brink of being torn apart; they have to embrace their powers in order to save the ‘ole clan. But its sequel replaces those heavy-hitting stakes with quasi-conflict: Bob doesn’t entirely know how to parent, Violet resents her crush’s memory of her being erased. Conflicts emerge from their superhero double lives, sure, but there is never a doubt that things will be OK; there is never a feeling that the family is really in much jeopardy.

For me, these flaws simply removed my ability to be absorbed into the action. Even the exciting spectacles, for all their visual poise and splendor, felt more or less vapid. I just didn’t care; not like I did with the original, at least. Now, maybe you can chalk that up to aging and growing cynical. Maybe the original isn’t so perfect either. But at least the original was original, at least its conflicts were moving in ways audiences had not been shown before. The danger with sequels is that you can do everything right by the book, and still fail to capture the magic of the first film. That’s because what makes a good sequel is not seeing the thing you love done slightly different. Rather, a good sequel gives you what you don’t even know you want: change, development, unexplored territory, a turn for the worse.

As a kids’ film, I suppose it works fine; it’s flashy and creative and there’s still plenty of story to go around. But The Incredibles 2 proves it’s not just a kids film by its very existence as a story with a 14-year old reference point. And for those who aren’t buying their tickets with their allowance, it’s an example of how to completely settle. I suppose, why would Disney go above and beyond? They’ve already got your money, don’t they?