We’re doing 2022’s Best of Film coverage differently this year; instead of a large panel of friends and critics, Craig Silliphant gives us his top 10 movies of 2022.

In past years, we assembled a crack team of movie-loving friends, industry people, and professional critics to each talk about their best and worst movies of that year. It was always a blast to see what people loved and hated but it was also a lot of work to compile. But we’ve decided to just do a more straightforward Top 10 (actually, a Top 26) as there were a number of great movies in 2022 worth looking at more closely.

And of course, our usual disclaimer about not all movies having appeared in our neck of the woods still applies, so I may not have seen something that could blow my doors off. There are also a few movies like Babylon or Empire of Light that are playing but we haven’t had a chance to get to. But as someone in the office noted, “You have to make the cut off somewhere if you want to get it out in January, because 2022 movies will still be trickling in well into 2023.” Good point.

Here’s Movie Geek Craig Silliphant’s Top 10 movies of 2022!  (Followed by a link to #11 to #26).

10 – Vortex

French provocateur Gaspar Noé’s Climax is one of the best films of the 21^st century, as far as I’m concerned. Vortex, his follow up, is a different kind of Noé movie. Instead of focusing on insane visuals and pointy-sticked storytelling, the visceral horror here is about human aging. The film follows an elderly couple — the wife is stricken with dementia. Noé is still forcing us to look at something uncomfortable, but it’s infinitely more relatable than what he’s usually concerned with. I would definitely not call this, “a good time at the movies.” But it’s doing what cinema should be doing — immersing you fully in a world so you care about the people that inhabit it. Making you think about things bigger than yourself. Making you feel something. So, it’s no fun, but it’s necessary.  Here’s my full review of Vortex.

9 – Everything Everywhere All At Once

One of the biggest success stories of the year, the little movie that could. I say ‘little movie,’ but it was maximalist fare with everything but the kitchen sink jammed into it. Actually, I’m pretty sure I saw the kitchen sink flying around in there too. While it’s not perfect (it’s a little long and you sometimes do get lost in the murk), it’s pretty amazing. Plenty of laughs, lots of heart, and surprises around every corner. It was the real multiverse of madness this year.

Michelle Yeoh? More like Micheal Yeah! Jamie Lee Curtis has a small but important role that she absolutely crushes. And it’s awesome seeing Ke Huy Quan again! Here’s my full review.

8 – The Quiet Girl

Props to my man, Hank Cruise (as well as British critic Mark Kermode) for turning me onto this one. It’s a little Irish film about a 9-year old girl who is sent away from her family to live with a distant cousin. I saw several movies that I would call ‘humanist’ this year and this one that packed a wallop. While it’s a pretty minimal and straightforward story, it creeps in on you and you fall in love with the humanity of its characters. And by the end, in a way that is well-earned and not manipulative, you find yourself trying to hide the fact that you’re bawling your goddamn eyes out.

7 – Holy Spider

A stunning film from Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi (who is also directing two episodes of The Last of Us for HBO) about a journalist in the holy city of Mashhad. She is investigating a serial killer called ‘The Spider’ who claims to be ridding the streets of sinners by killing sex workers. The real terror set in for me when I realized it was based on a true story. The first half of the movie reminded me of a Michael Mann film like Manhunter (or perhaps Fincher’s Zodiac). The second half sort of spins into Law & Order territory (in a good way).

Holy Spider has been controversial because of its jarring violence in certain scenes, some going as far as calling it exploitive. I won’t say that it’s not exploitive — anything like this could rightly be called such. However, the film has a strong message about the misogyny in that place and time, especially when many of the community rallied behind the actual killer, both in the film and in real life. I’d argue that sanitizing these shocking acts would take away some of their power to bring us to rage over these crimes and the attitudes that followed. The violence may not be necessary to get that point across, but it definitely makes viewer sit through something that real women went through. And the end is downright bone-chilling.

6 – Tár

Cate Blanchett hands in a career-making performance (somewhere in the middle of a career full of excellent performances), playing a controversial conductor whose hubris is bringing her downfall. It works at its own pace, which is a nice way of saying it’s over 2 and a half hours and doesn’t mind taking its time getting where it’s going. While one could argue that the same story could be told in less than two hours, the film does a good job of enveloping you in its world. Very little feels superfluous.

It has things to say about cancel culture and white male canons of art, but it doesn’t try to shove an opinion down your throat either way. In a world where both sides of the political spectrum around identity politics and other topics want to view everything as black and white, Tár shows us the grey area in between, where real people live. It’s never too on-the-nose — in fact, sometimes you’re piecing things together when it doesn’t show you all its cards. After watching it, I recognized how brilliant it was, but I also felt like it was holding me at a distance. However, the movie kept rolling around in my head after, nagging at me, making me want to see it again now that I know where the story goes, to revel in some of its sumptuous design and character details. So, I’d say that’s a win.

5 – Aftersun

This A24 release about a daughter remembering a vacation she took with her father is so low key that I honestly kept expecting the other shoe to drop, for it to explode into violence or something. That doesn’t happen and that expectation was more on me than the film itself. It’s always engaging, but sometimes it feels like not much is happening. By the end, it’s clear that so many things are happening, bubbling below the surface, both for the characters and for the film itself. It all comes together to paint a lovely, but melancholy portrait of not only that father/daughter relationship, but also some of the struggles we carry with us — and the pain we see others carrying in quiet desperation. Another real humanist masterpiece for 2022.

4 – Top Gun: Maverick

It ain’t all about art films and pretention. Sometimes it’s Tom Cruise, fighter jets, and box office. I’m an unapologetic fan of the 1986 movie (I mean, I was in grade 6 when it came out, so I was right in the pocket). Sure, Maverick feels like a Force Awakens reboot/sequel that hits all the same beats as the first movie. But it’s big, fun escapism that takes you to a state of mind where you don’t have to think about pandemics and inflation and even real wars. Tom Cruise wins the year as the man who almost made us forget about his weird cult, thinking of him instead as the aging dog fighter who’s just trying to save the movies. This was a good time at the movies. Here’s my full review.

3 – The Batman

Most of the films on this list are here on their filmmaking merit. While this is an exceptionally well-made film, it is only ranking high because it’s my most personal entry on the list. Like many, I have been a fan of The Batman since I was a kid, so you could just keep making new Batman movies every year as far as I’m concerned (well, as long as Joel Schumaker stays the hell away from Gotham). I will not grow fatigued, which I can’t say about a lot of other superhero franchises.

Is this the best Batman movie? No. However, it felt to me like the Batman film that was most like reading a several-issue arc of the comic book. It’s one of the only three-hour movies I’ve seen recently that I felt justified its length, though your mileage may vary depending on how much you love living in the world of The Dark Knight Detective. Here’s my full Bat-review.

2 – Triangle of Sadness

Reuben Östlund is easily one of the most unique filmmakers out there right now, in a class with the best that international film has to offer. Triangle of Sadness starts out with a fashion model and his influencer girlfriend joining a cruise for the ultra-rich and from there it gets bonkers. Not everything works, but it takes so many fun twists and turns while it skewers class and rolls around in Östlund’s trademark socially awkward paradigms. Woody Harrelson is well-cast as the drunken captain of the ship. Triangle of Sadness won the Palme D’Or at Cannes this year. (2017’s The Square also won the top Cannes award and his hilarious masterpiece, Force Majeure, took home the jury prize at the Un Certain Regard sidebar). Probably not for everyone, but if you’re into this kind of thing, you’ll go bananas for it.

 1 – The Whale

Several reoccurring themes on this list collide with The Whale; it’s an extremely humanist film but it’s also courted controversy. While I liked early Darren Aronofsky films, he hasn’t done much for me since maybe The Wrestler in 2008. While many people criticized his visceral approach with The Whale, I think that like Gaspar Noé this year, it was toned down by quite a bit compared to his previous work. It’s as subtle as you’re going to get from him, anyway.

Brandan Fraser plays a 600-pound man who doesn’t leave his apartment (in fact, this film was adapted from a play and it feels like it. It’s claustrophobic; even the aspect ratio is 4:3). He teaches an online course but leaves his camera off so his students can’t see him. He tries to reconnect with a daughter who hates him. You’ve heard the accolades for Fraser already — but I say, just bring a dump truck of Oscars and leave them on his lawn. His performance is powerful, optimistic, and heartbreaking.

Now, I want to be careful here, but let’s explore the controversies. There’s been debate about Fraser putting on a 300-pound fat suit, with detractors saying that an obese man should be playing the role.

Look, I’m perfectly happy to admit that I’m not sure I know enough to agree or disagree. But in terms of the fat suit, I see a lot of that black and white thinking again. Representation is important, but I’m not sure it applies here. I agree, for example, that a bunch of gay roles shouldn’t go to straight actors while the gay actors languish in obscurity and gay people end up watching the screen and not feeling represented in a movie about their own lives. But this isn’t the same situation. Fraser isn’t a svelt Eddie Murphy crammed into a Norbit costume. It’s hard to argue that they should have cast a 600-pound actor in the role. I don’t think it would have been responsible to do so in regards to that person’s health and well-being (I also wonder if they’d be insurable).

If your response is, “Well, then they just shouldn’t make the movie at all,” the only thing I can say is — politics and opinion should never dictate what art can be created. First of all, censorship is a very dangerous path. But more so, a story like this is at the heart of all art; it creates that education, awareness, and all-important empathy that we need to understand our world, to understand each other, to understand ourselves.

Some detractors are saying that the film is purposely reveling in disgust — that it’s Aronofsky saying, “Look! This man is disgusting! Look upon him and despair!”

I can’t tell someone how to interpret or feel about a film, but I can say that they saw a different film than I did (I wonder how many detractors actually saw the film?). What I saw was a brilliantly empathetic look at another human being in distress. I saw the opposite of the exploitation that some claim is on display. I was rocked to the core, emotionally. In fact, I can overlook some of the small flaws of the film because it did such a good job of pulling me in and putting me through an emotional wringer — while still bringing me out the other side believing in the beauty of our humanity.

Ultimately, if someone thinks it’s disgusting and that we shouldn’t be subjected to it, then I think that says more about them than it does the film itself. (“What’s in there?” Luke asked Yoda in Empire Strikes Back. Yoda replied, “Only what you take with you.”)

I’m putting this at number one, but admittedly, I’m not sure how I’ll feel about it in a month or two. Will its power diminish after subsequent watches and I see more of its flaws? I think there are plenty of reasonable reasons to not like this film without clawing away at the sanctity of art. Maybe you don’t respond to the claustrophobia. Maybe you’ll think it’s maudlin (it is). My wife thought it was too miserabilist. Again, it is, but I think you need that depth of sadness to let the film’s optimism fully spread its wings. Reasonable people can still disagree about things without calling for the art to be burnt on a pyre.

So, it’s a controversial film and we’ll see if I’m still proud to hang it on my number one spot in six months. But today, I can say without hesitation that it was the most emotional time I spent at the movies this year. Where I walked out feeling like I had seen into the soul of humanity. And in a year with more than one movie that moved my cynical Gen X heart to tears, this one had the most boxes of kleenax needed to sop up the mess. And I hope that Fraser is well-rewarded at awards time.

But wait — there’s more!

There are a number of other great movies I saw this year, but I didn’t want to overwhelm this top 10. So you can read #11 to #26 here! Thanks for reading and I hope you saw lots of great movies this year, whether they’re on this list or not.

You can also read Richard Gary’s yearly list of DIY horror movies here. He eschews the idea of ‘best’ and ‘worst,’ so he just calls it his ‘favourites’ and ‘not favourites.’

And you can read one of our many music experts, Dave Scaddan, write about his Top 20 albums of 2022 here.

The post The Top 10 Films of 2022 first appeared on The Feedback Society.

The man of a million headshots is back. Keanu Reeves puts on his fashionable Kevlar suit in John Wick Chapter 4. Is it worth seeing?

I didn’t remember the end of John Wick Chapter 3, so I didn’t know what was happening at the start of John Wick Chapter 4. But that didn’t really matter after a few minutes. The plot of this movie is pretty simple: John Wick tries to earn his freedom from under the thumb of the High Table (a shadowy group that controls all the underground criminals, etc) and has to battle the countless fighters and assassins they throw at him. Part of me thinks they should have left all the High Table stuff behind and focused on a new mission for John.

The first movie is an insanely tight, lean, mean actioner. Each subsequent movie has had its high and low points, but none have captured the same slick intensity as the original. So where does Chapter 4 land?

I should work backwards from the elephant in the room. John Wick 4 is almost 3 hours long. I think their intention was to create an action epic. Long-time followers of my film opinions know that I’m pretty hard on movies with a running time that extreme; it can and has been done well many times, but it usually just means you’re in for a bloated, self-indulgent mess. John Wick 4 is somewhere in the middle. It’s paced reasonably well, especially considering how little story there is, but I did check my watch a few times. And with so little story, John Wick 4 is like Jeanne Dielman, but instead of mundane household tasks, it’s shooting guys in the head.

All that said, there was an interesting element of immersion to it. In some ways it was numbing — some sequences were easily a half hour long. So it’s a half hour of watching Keanu run down a hallway shooting guys. However, that doesn’t do it justice either. The stunt work and choreography (as well as the set design and camera work) in the film are simply spellbinding. So it’s more like watching an immersive, violent ballet — beautiful carnage.

There is a powerful cast, led by Keanu Reeves. Yes, it makes me cringe almost every time he tries to deliver dialogue (he’s so bad), but he’s also one of the only people that can thrive in a role like this (he’s so good). They keep that dialogue to a minimum and Reeves’ body is a holy action temple, flexible and gracious, movement with meaning. He’s backed up by martial arts staple Donny Yen, who is also glorious to behold in more than one sequence as a blind frenemy of Wick’s. Ian McShane, Lawrence Fishburne, Hiroyuko Sanada, and others round out the cast with gravitas (And RIP to Lance Reddick, who passed away last week). Bill Skarsgård is also suitably oily as one of the main baddies.

If we set the whole running time debate aside, the only thing I’d note that doesn’t help the film is the number of plot holes (or just cheap writing) on display. Granted, you don’t go see a movie about a killing machine murdering 300 people with half hour kill sequences to pay too much attention to the plot. But these things do matter. When they’re not done well, they pull an audience out of the movie, which is already working so hard to be something immersive and different. But there are so many little, “Why didn’t he just do ____?” moments. When the answer is, “because otherwise they wouldn’t have had a movie,” then you need to do another pass at the script. It’s also worth noting that the original cut of the film was over 4 hours long, so there may have been some clarifying details that ended up on the cutting room floor. But that’s another writing/editing problem, not an audience problem.

If I sound like I’m being hard on the movie, let me say that I still enjoyed it. It’s nowhere near the first movie — and each John Wick movie I see honestly just makes me want to go back and watch the original — but it’s still a lot of fun, a total bonanza for action fans (at least, for those who are pretty desensitized to violence). And there are some great quotable lines in the movie, especially revolving around friendship and brotherhood, a theme it explores. It occasionally goes a bit deeper into these ideas, even if they’re just there to add to the macho vibes.

If they do more of these in the future, it would be nice to wipe the slate clean and get back to the simplicity of the original, both in terms of storytelling and length/editing. But John Wick Chapter 4 is well-worth seeing for any action fan.

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There are some great documentaries about horror movies that have been released in the last couple of years. Richard Gary takes a look at one.

It is wonderful that some of the modern classic horror films, post-1990s, are getting some documentary attention, such as Pennywise: The Story of IT in 2022, and Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy from 2010. Even Netflix had “The Movies That Made Us”, in 2019, an interesting series that focused on horror.

There is no question on where this film is focused, the title gives it away. But this is a deep-dive into the eight-film Child’s Play/Chucky franchise. The motif of this is broken into three sections, the first two being kind of obvious, which is in no way meant as a negative, but rather a logical sequence. The first is how the idea of a killer doll came about, through the initial script, and into the release of Child’s Play in 1988. We meet Don Mancini, who created the original Child’s Play, and has since written and/or directed nearly all the Chucky-related franchise, including the recent “Chucky” television series (2021-2022). Also interviewed is David Kirschner, a producer of the Chucky films and series, the animated Curious George films, as well as the two Hocus Pocus releases.

The description of the first film is kind of short, having more commentary on its cultural effect by the likes of Lin Shaye, the star of the Insidious franchise, which started in 2010. She mentions how people were attracted to the Chucky “character” who became popular in the same way as Freddy Kruger started the trend in the first A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984, because he was a villain to love and used sharp humor. Most other slasher icons up to that point, such as Michael and Jason, do not speak, making them arguably less human than even Chucky, and certainly harder to identify with to the viewers.

There are a lot of talking heads here, including some actors in other horror films or franchises, such as Marlon Wayans (the Scary Movie series), Abigail Breslin (the Zombieland franchise), and Elle Lorraine (Bad Hair, in 2020). Many times these documentaries about media are filled with writers or podcasters, but here that is thankfully kept to a bare minimum, with the likes of Tony Timpone, editor of Fangoria magazine. Also making an appearance, I am happy to say, is beloved cult director John Waters, who had a cameo in one of the films.

What follows, almost as going from chapter to chapter, is that the films are discussed one by one, indicated by specific media: The first three Child’s Play films are represented by a VHS cassette, and the Chucky titled films are discs.

While the star of the first Child’s Play film, Catherine Hicks, is unfortunately absent (perhaps she was beamed up on the Enterprise?), we get to meet most of the rest of the cast as each film is discussed, such as Chucky/Charles Lee Ray himself, Brad Dourif, who becomes the killer doll by using an obscure voodoo rite; visually, most people probably know him as Wormtongue, in two of The Lord of the Rings films. Alex Vincent, who played the kid Andy in the original stories, is interviewed; he is also in the new series.

Christine Elise discusses how she won the role of Kyle, the main character (after Chucky) in 1990’s Child’s Play 2; she reprises the role in the new television series.

I was really happy when Jennifer Tilly (Bride of Chucky in 1998) comes into the spotlight. I have always been a fan. She is, happily, present throughout the rest of the documentary, as is Billy Boyd, the voice of Chucky and Tiffany’s transgender offspring, Glen/Glenda in Seed of Chucky from 2004; Boyd was also in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which explains the offspring’s British accent, which never made sense to me. Seed also introduced storied make-up artist and puppet master Tony Gardner (learned under Rick Baker, his work includes the Hocus Pocus and Zombieland franchises, among so many top horror hits). He has worked with the Chucky films since; he is also the father of the director of this excellent film, Kyra Gardner. Curse of Chucky, 2013, was important for the introduction of a new main character, Nika (Fiona Dourif, the daughter of Chucky himself).

An interesting topic is when it is explained how the trajectory of the Chucky films mirrored that of the Elm Street releases, in that it started off as horror, devolved into a form of horror comedy with gore, and then became serious again towards the end (Curse and Cult of Chucky in 2017).

For me, the most interesting section of this film is the last, where more intimate topics are covered, such as VFX vs. practical, discussed by a number of actors and crew, the relationships between the crew and cast, as many of them have worked on multiple Chuckys, and culture influence, such as attending horror conventions. They also discuss the down points of the experience, such as being away from family and an ever decreasing budget by the studio; Dourif mentions the loneliness during his voice recordings, where he was in a sound booth for days. But what I found most intriguing is the correlation between Fiona and this film’s director, both being the daughters of the crew/cast, and both growing up with Chucky (hence the doc’s title) as an important part of their lives. Towards the end of this release is some newly shot footage regarding the television series, being filmed in Toronto.

The often-reviled remake of Child’s Play (2019) was wisely ignored, partly due to the fact that this was mostly filmed before that was released, and secondly, it is out of scope of the topic of a cast that is family.

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Do you need to be a Dungeons & Dragons fan to enjoy Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves? We roll the dice to find out!

Firstly, I should say that I was coming into this film as a relative newbie to the world of Dragons & Dragons and roleplaying as a hobby. I know people who play them, who are really into this property, but I’m not much of a gamer myself. I played once or twice in high school, but I can’t say that I was interested enough to pursue it as a hobby. Great for all those who do roleplaying games, imagination is important, but it isn’t for me.

The reason I mention this is because one of the concerns I had going into this movie was that I’m unfamiliar with the world and likely miss a lot of the details. Fantasy can be an unforgiving genre in that sense, heavily preoccupied with world-building, such as we see with the Lord of the Rings books and movies and Game of Thrones television series (from the two or three episodes that I’ve seen). And fantasy as a genre isn’t one that usually appeals to me, so I was hesitant to see this movie on the big screen.

However, the trailers looked fun, and I was at least curious.  As someone not versed in the Dragons & Dragons lore, let alone the fantasy genre as a whole, I was pleasantly surprised. The film was an enjoyable romp and just a good bit of escapism. I wouldn’t say it was a great film, but certainly a good film. It has its issues, but generally is enjoyable and accessible enough that anyone who’s at least read or watched a basic hero’s quest adventure story will likely have a good time with Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

Having said that, there are some flaws in the movie. The movie has a rough beginning, and I was worried that I was going to have to sit through two hours of exposition dialogue. The movie starts off with nearly twenty minutes of character backstory that, to be perfectly honest, was somewhat tedious to watch. It wasn’t until we get all the character’s introductions out of the way and we have the first action set piece, which is Doric’s (Sophia Lillis) chase scene as a wild shape (which, the movie tells us, are druids who can shift into the shape of any animal, including something called an Owlbear, which was definitely one of the movie’s highlights) where she changes into a number of different animals. It’s the first hint that this movie has something fun to offer the audience.

Which points to one of the movie’s deficits: pacing. Some scenes leap off the screen with fun and excitement, or in some cases, humor, but there are sections that do drag on. There is a middle section of the movie that didn’t seem to move the story along or was particularly interesting, but luckily these were blanched with scenes that were fun enough that it balanced the movie out.

The scenes that work the best are indeed the action scenes, with three set pieces that are particularly notable. The aforementioned wild shape chase, a great scene in the underdark (basically Hades) where they square off against undead assassins and then a chase sequence with a dragon that is a great reveal for the film and leads to a fantastic chase scene, and the final action scene that begins with a deadly competition and ends with a final battle against the movie’s main villain (and features a return of the Owlbear!).

Aside from the action, the humor and the characters generally work well in the movie as well. Or, rather, I should say that about half the jokes in the movie land well, the other half doesn’t as much. But that’s not an entirely bad ratio as far as most comedies go. The jokes failed not because they were too insider for me and went over my head, but rather flopped because the filmmakers are aiming through volume with the jokes and half are just likely to miss their target.

The characters are, for the most part, likable and entertaining. Especially Chris Pine’s bard, who acts as the movie’s lead protagonist. Even the Paladin Xenk (Regé-Jean Page), who is a bit of a drip (and overpowered, which is why they wisely decided to have him only in the Underdark section), works because they make jokes at his expense. Edgin (Pine) cutting Zenk off just when he is about to go into a lengthy backstory is one of the jokes that does work. The remaining cast of Michelle Rodgriguez (Holga Kilgore, a bad-ass Xena-like warrior) and Simon Omar (Justice Smith) as the insecure wizard also work well and provide some good moments in the movie.

The villains are a mix. There are two notable ones, Forge (Hugh Grant), who plays on his image in a delightful way in this movie, and an evil wizard named Sofina (Daisy Head), who is bent on world domination, or some such typically nefarious plan. Sofina is a bit of a weak spot as she isn’t especially interesting as a character, but is also necessary for the plot to move forwards (Forge wouldn’t work as a solo villain, he’s more of an unwitting dupe), and she does make a good action climax in the film.

All in all, a solid and entertaining movie. Without the world-building that is inherent to so many fantasy films, the viewer can just sit back and relax and enjoy the pure escapism of the movie. Not everything works, and it’s not without its flaws, but enough does work that you won’t be bored watching Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among thieves.

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The weather-related movie, Supercell is a 2023 film about a young boy who runs away to follow in the footsteps of his storm chasin’ poppa.

Natural disaster films are hardly new. The first I remember is Earthquake (1974), but it goes back at least until The Hurricane (1937), or arguably even Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928). In recent years, cheapie weather-related knockoffs have been prolific on cable. It is worth mentioning, and I certainly will not be the last, that the bar to beat, especially in the “wind” category, is Twister (1996). And rightfully so.

Another aspect worth mentioning is that there are occasions where an A or B-plus level actor will appear in an independent film, usually in a cameo or as a favor to someone associated with it. In the movie Supercell, there are three who are main characters: Alec Baldwin, Anne Heche (in her next-to-last film; d. 2022), and Skeet Ulrich. This is rare for an indie flick.

Tornado alley is where the film is situated, such as Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas; the former has recorded more tornados than anywhere else in the country (it was actually filmed in Montana). The often-sweaty high schooler William Brody (Daniel Diemer) has lost his storm-chaser/scientist father, Bill (Richard Gunn), to a cyclone. But the big Bill has passed down his fascination with the storms to his young’n.

Much like Dorothy, the weather reader thingamabob from Twister, here there is a machine in a nascent stage made by Bill that can read the possibility of tornados by soundwaves that William now works on. That is when he is not hanging out with love interest, Harper (Jordan Kristine Seamón).

William wants to understand about tornados and about what it meant to his dad, much to the chagrin of Quinn (Heche), his scientific genius mom who now makes a living cleaning other people’s houses. He takes off solo and phoneless in search of Oz…I mean wild weather. In this day of climate change, it is a topical – er – topic. He goes to see “Uncle” Roy (Ghostface himself, Ulrich) who drives for a bus tour to see tornados that uses the Brody name that was bought out during bankruptcy when big Bill was blowin’ in the wind. It is run and led by the antagonist of the piece, Zane (Alec Baldwin) – as in “inzane” – who is more interested in the bucks of his passengers than their safety.

Let me address this for a second: the women in this film (Quinn and Harper) are reasonable and level-headed, when it comes to the danger level, but the men (e.g., Bill, Will, Roy and Zane) are like the videos on social media of macho ubersports proponents who risk their lives for a thrill (and perhaps some clicks).

Naturally, Quinn and Harper set off to find the testosterone-filled tornado chasers, thus bonding (road trip!!) going from Florida to the west. Wait, so Quinn moved William away from the Tornados after his father’s death to Hurricaneville? Hmm.

With a ton of exposition that fills the first act, the wind…I mean the pace does not pick up until about half way through, when the first tornado for William comes into the picture while on the tour bus. You know each tornado experienced is going to get more and more intense, cinematically, as is the paradigm. Again, an observation, not a criticism. Building up is the way it is supposed to be, otherwise it would be anticlimactic.

There are some nice cinematic touches, like never seeing Bill’s face other than family photos, or going from a storm to watching clothes going around a washing machine. Another is Quinn asking Harper “Have you ever been to Kansas, Dorothy?” as Harper has twin ponytails. There are some cool Easter eggs, as well, such as William looking up Bill on the computer, and for just a brief second, Bill Paxton’s (d. 2017) name comes up in the search engine.

The soundtrack is – and really should be for this type of topic – orchestrated and swelling, when need be, especially reflective of the weather situated on-screen. It is lush and beautiful, like a rainstorm.

Baldwin and Heche share no scenes together, but they did in an earlier film, The Juror (1996). While Baldwin is arguably the biggest current star here, and Diemer is the central character, it is Ulrich who steals the film with his complex reading of Roy, who is torn by past occurrences and taking care of the son of the person he most admired.

There are a lot of Twister moments, such as one with a car van (though no cows), but at least no one shouts, “It’s here!!” I will say that the CGI is better, and the storms look more realistic, as they slash through the countryside. While I found the survivability in Twister a bit unrealistic, here is it more real feeling, even though the excitement level is a bit less. Do not get me wrong, there is lots of relatively scary weather moments, and it is beautiful to watch. My only real issue with the film is its length. There are lots of exposition moments that could have been edited down and still arrived at the required destination. I get the feeling it is so the star power have their own monologues and scenes. Again, understandable.

If you like big storms, like me (though I have zero interest in storm chasing any more than, say, paragliding), there is a lot to like about this: adrenaline, rain, hail, and fast paced weather.

The post Supercell first appeared on The Feedback Society.

Web slinger Miles Morales and his amazing friends are back in Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse, which somehow manages to top the first incredible Spider-Verse film.

In 2018, Sony and Marvel blew the doors wide open on both Spider-man and animation in general with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which was ground-breaking both in terms of storytelling and visuals. They’ve upped the ante with part 2, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

The story takes place sixteen months after the events of the first movie. Gwen and Miles, are in their own universes, each with their own Spider-person problems, teenage and beyond. Miles encounters a villain named, The Spot, which sets off a series of events that pull him into an adventure spanning the multiverse. He is forced to question whether he has to accept certain things will always happen to Spider-people, or whether he can change them.

Wow. First of all, I think they have managed to upgrade the design and the art. In the first film, we saw characters from different universes manifest with their own looks, from anime to black and white noir. But this one busts it wide open because we’re seeing into those universes now instead of just seeing emissaries from them. The art hints at different historic and brilliant comic artists from Steve Ditko to Bill Sienkiewicz.

Story-wise, there is a lot going on; enough that I’m going to need to see it a few times to really unpack it all. But there are some great themes about living up to expectations, family, and other familiar ground for fans of the books.

There’s also a lot more insight into how the multiverse functions. To be honest, I’m pretty over the multiversal storytelling. Partially because it’s constantly trumpeted as being this novel, new, unique thing, when it’s actually old hat to sci-fi and comic book fans (in fact, much of what we see in the Spider-Verse is basically the Council of Ricks from a more recent show, Rick and Morty). But worse, the multiverse bugs me because it has given Hollywood license to bring back old IP for nostalgia’s sake, which often litters the movies with memberberries in place of good storytelling. However, Across the Spider-Verse explored it well and managed to keep me excited about the concept.

The structure is fascinating and perhaps wouldn’t have worked in a lesser movie. We start off without our expected main character, Miles. Instead, we see Gwen’s life. This ends up being awesome though, finally fleshing out Gwen’s character further from the original film, drawing us deeper into things. And when we do see Miles and he meets The Spot, that villain quickly disappears from the movie. Again, in a review of another movie, this would be unforgivable, but here we can see they’re playing the long game; the story is a two-parter and when we see The Spot again in Part 3, he’ll no doubt be a force to be reckoned with.

This does lead to one of my complaints, the fact that it ends on a cliffhanger. It’s a minor quibble, because so does one of my favourite movies of all-time, The Empire Strikes Back. However, in Empire, we do sew up the story we’re telling and the cliffhanger comes up at the end to lead into Return of the Jedi. Across the Spider-Verse feels more like we’ve cut off the story halfway through, which also makes it hard to know how they’ll do with some of the themes they’ve set up. It’s easy to say they’re great themes now, but if they don’t stick the landings in part 3, then it’s all for nothing.

Some audiences might feel overwhelmed and probably won’t understand everything being thrown at them. However, the story is so well told that this won’t matter. You’ll get the idea, even if you don’t catch every little nuance. And like I said, I think even I will need to see it again to absorb it all. So don’t feel dumb if you feel a little lost in the multiverse.

One of the things the movie does best is straddle the line between the serious and the ridiculous. A great example of this is a standout character, Hobie/Spider-Punk (whose art is also amazing, a Sex Pistols gig poster come alive, bursting with punk anarchy). But it’s a character that I should dislike; the idea of a punk rocker dressed as Spider-man with an awkward guitar slung on his shoulders just seems so cheesy. But somehow, between that sick art, the actions of the character in the film, and Daniel Kaluuya’s voice acting, it bloody well works.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a beautiful contradiction. It’s deeply emotional, serious and resonant, while also being alive with irreverence and web-slinging fun. It can be a serious FILM and a hilarious meme at the same time. It’s a comic book movie elevated to poetry in motion. It’s post-modern and hilarious, with style and wit, melancholy and glee.

It really does remind me of the experience of reading comics when I was a kid; it’s a Saturday morning cartoon with the beating heart of an artist running the machinery inside.

The post Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse first appeared on The Feedback Society.

The Flash has been a controversial movie from its star Ezra Miller to its paltry box office take. But is the film itself any good?

I was not a fan of the DC Synderverse. There were pieces of it I enjoyed, like Ben Affleck as Batman or Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent. But I found most of it to be a sloppy, poorly-conceived attempt at building a cinematic universe, especially when you compare it to Marvel’s initial 10-year run.

I also thought it was unnecessarily grim — the look of it, the tone of much of it, and even specific characters like Superman. There is, of course, room for different takes on all characters, but the Superman I like is an optimistic boy scout, who stands in brilliant juxtaposition to Batman’s moodiness. (I also liked the first Wonder Woman movie the first time I saw it, but found it long and boring upon rewatch).

But we’re here to talk about The Flash!

I won’t get into any of the Ezra Miller controversies, but I was glad to see this movie coming out, if only as a welcome end to the Snyderverse and a reset for James Gunn (and Peter Safran) to parachute in to retool the DC films.

In The Flash, Barry Allen still grapples with his father being wrongly incarcerated for murdering his mother. He uses his powers to go back in time to change the past, but causes much more harm to the entire multiverse.

Flash was touted by David Zaslav, Warner Discovery CEO, as being, “the best super hero movie [he’d] ever seen.” I’m guessing he hasn’t seen too many superhero movies. However, while it has plenty of issues we’ll get into, I did enjoy it, perhaps more than any other Snyderverse movie.

I was skeptical about Michael Keaton’s return as Batman (which would have been so much more fun if they hadn’t had to ruin the surprise in the marketing). I am getting sick of multiverse stories, especially when used as a weak excuse to bring older IP into the mix to sell tickets with cheap nostalgia. However, while my principles are still solid, I will admit that Keaton was one of the best parts of the movie. So was Kara Zor-El, aka, Supergirl, a new character in this cinematic universe. In fact, while I didn’t want a three-hour movie, I think they could have focused more on Bruce and Kara’s stories — they were much more interesting than Barry.

I wonder if some of this rests on Ezra Miller. It would seem to me that they are okay as a bit player in a Justice League movie, as the annoying sidekick, but I don’t believe they have the lead character charisma to carry the film.

They might not have the comedy chops either. I’d submit that The Flash was funny, but not hilarious. I’m not sure if the script needed another pass or it’s fully on Miller not being able to deliver jokes well. I smiled through the whole movie, but rarely laughed out loud.

The Flash also has problems sticking to its own rules, which is not a good thing in a superhero movie. In one scene we establish that Barry heals incredibly quickly, but later, he’s shot in the knee and doesn’t seem to heal until later. Kara Zor-El also has the powers of Superman, yet her skin is pierced easily by General Zod (maybe it’s a special Kryptonite tool, but that isn’t explained). And — while there is some power-up explanation offered in the film, we see Flash kicking the asses of at least a dozen Kryptonians, which is silly. The whole Justice League wasn’t able to stop Superman, but Flash can stop a bunch of them? And if he can stop so many Kryptonians so easily, why can’t he stop Zod?

I also have to point out the CGI, which was abysmal. I know a lot of people are referencing the babies and some of the surprises at the end, which I agree look like Polar Express, dead-eyed, uncanny valley, nightmare fuel. (I’ve heard a few people rightly question how some of the speed scenes look so bad when we already have the X-Men Quicksilver scene that proves how good it can be). But my problem was more fundamental than that; capes looked fake, costumes looked painted on, the whole universe, while bright and reminiscent of certain eras of comic books, just looked too fake. Director Andy Muschietti claims this was on purpose, which he doesn’t seem to realize just makes it worse.

Wow, it sure sounds like I hated this movie.

Not so — I just think it had a lot of sloppy issues. While I didn’t love it, I really did enjoy it quite a bit. It had a good story, it was fun and freewheeling, and it moved along quickly enough that you didn’t have to sit in some of these bad details too long. It also had a solid thematic core and some great emotional beats, especially revolving around the mother/son story and how death affects us. Especially poignant in Barry’s scenes with Affleck and even Keaton, whose mothers were also murdered.

And as happened with the Flashpoint comics The Flash is loosely based on, I hope now we can retcon the whole darn Snyderverse and see what James Gunn can do. There are a lot of people screaming about superhero fatigue, but no one says that after a string of good movies. And lately, both DC and Marvel have been cranking out garbage, Marvel headed deeper into its own weak multi-verse story (with another cancelled actor, no less).

The Flash was not as bad as its box office might suggest. In fact, it was a lot of fun. But I sure hope Marvel can pull out of their tailspin and that James Gunn can bring life to a new DC universe, to once again convince us, that a man can fly.

The post The Flash first appeared on The Feedback Society.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is plagued with various issues that drag it down; it’s not terrible, but it’s not very good either.

I hoped that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny would be the swan song for our beloved blockbuster archeologist. They needed redemption after their failure to see him out gracefully with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I know that some people were skeptical that an 80-year-old Harrison Ford could pull off another swashbuckling, body-bruising adventure. I actually thought this could work. After all, “It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.”

I should say up front that the movie is not an unmitigated, disaster. It’s a mediocre summer action film that I’m sure some moviegoers will enjoy. As an Indiana Jones film though, especially the last one, it’s a disappointment. You can take this with a grain of salt — like most people of my vintage, I was raised on these films, so I have, er…complicated feelings about it.

This time around, it’s 1969 and Indy is a professor in New York. He is visited by his goddaughter, Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), who wants his help finding the Dial of Destiny, a MacGuffin that her father went crazy trying to figure out.

We first see Indy in the prologue in 1944. It’s the end of the war and he’s tousling with Nazis. Much has been made of the digital de-aging technology used. Sure, it was probably some of the best de-aging I’ve seen, but it still wasn’t good enough. He didn’t have the Polar Express, uncanny valley dead eyes, but he looked like a well-rendered video game character.

My biggest problem with Dial of Destiny is that Indy gets lost in his own movie. A large chunk of it doesn’t feel like an Indiana Jones movie (they don’t even encounter or solve any archeological puzzles or riddles until over an hour and a half in).

But the bigger issue is Helena Shaw.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s a great character, a progressive woman, a money hungry scoundrel, like early Han Solo. And while Waller-Bridge is an amazing force of both acting and writing and does a great job with the character, the actress herself feels too contemporary for ‘69.

But that’s minor thing. The main problem with Helena Shaw is that most of the film feels like another back door pilot, which they already botched with Shia LeBeouf. She comes in with a big origin and even her own Short Round-style sidekick and probably the best character arc in the film. I’ll say it again for the people in the cheap seats: JUST TELL ME A GOOD GODDAMN INDIANA JONES STORY.

This movie could have easily been called Helena Shaw and the Octogenarian Sidekick. Indy is often relegated to shuffling around in the background saying grumpy things while she does all the heavy lifting. Our good friend Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) appears, but he’s also quickly sidelined. I wish the timing had have been better to bring the newly Oscar-minted Ke Huy Quan back into the fold; a character we know and love. You’d still have to write it as an Indy movie and not a commercial for the next three movies, but Short Round would be a great person to pass the fedora to after Indy’s exit.

As I said earlier, the old man hero looking back during the sunset of his life could have easily worked in this film. And they do address it, sometimes with emotional results. There are some great lines that Ford delivers that’ll put a lump in your throat. However, they could have gone way further into this. Without giving anything away, they do mention an idea with his son Mutt (LeBeouf) and I found myself wishing they had told that story instead.

Spielberg was missed greatly here. James Mangold is a perfectly cromulent director, with some great movies like Logan and Copland and a lot of middle of the road films like Ford V Ferrari and The Wolverine. While there were cool action set pieces and locations, a lot of the action felt forced or poorly executed. Spielberg is a genius; he will draw your eye to certain things and often he makes less into more. In Dial of Destiny, there were several action scenes where you couldn’t tell who was shooting at who or who was wearing what frogman suit.

Mangold also forgot about the humour inherent in an Indiana Jones movie. Indy drops some great, gruff one-liners here and there, but it didn’t have the playfulness of even the darker entry, Temple of Doom. If James Mangold could create such a brilliant swan song for Logan, why not for Indiana Jones as well?

Quick shout out to Mad Mikkelsen and his gang of henchmen. While it seems like low-hanging fruit to go get Mads for a villain role like this, he does an excellent job. Boyd Holbrook (playing a character similar to his role in Logan) and the hulking, 7’2 Olivier Richters are effective as well. While I’m throwing names out here, Toby Jones has a small, but important role as the elder Shaw. And much like Mads, when you need something like this done right, you grab Toby Jones.

Ultimately, it was a messy film (I mean, no spoilers, but what happened to the whole plot thread about why he couldn’t return to New York? They just ignore that it was even a thing, which is super weak, considering it would be easy to cut out the set up if they had to cut the story for time).

I may soften on Dial of Destiny when I see it again, now that I know where the story goes. God/Kali knows I softened on Crystal Skulls on my recent rewatch (though it still had too many problems to be even a good Indy movie, I at least wasn’t hurling objects and profanity at the screen).

The ending for our hero, while it had a nice surprise, didn’t have the poetic oomph of a final goodbye. I guess I need to take solace and satisfaction in the idea that Last Crusade already achieved that perfect ending as they rode off into the sunset. If I had my own Dial of Destiny, I’d create an alternate reality where the last two movies never happened and Last Crusade was the true ending.

All that said, Dial of Destiny was a late-stage freebie. It’s hard to be mad at a franchise that gave me three of the best movies of my life. So thank you to Lucas, Spielberg, Ford and company. And farewell to Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr, who we shall always remember, was named after the dog.

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The Venture Bros. is ending its run, not with another season, but with a full-length movie. Here’s our blu ray review of the new film!

I opened my mail last week and screamed like a teenage girl at a Beatles concert in 1963, because I held in my hands a blu ray copy of The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart.

TVB: RITBOTBH, as the kids are calling it (they’re not), is the new full-length Venture Bros film, picking up where the season 7 finale left off. It was released digitally on July 21^st and will be released in physical copies on the 25^th. We’ve seen a pile of riches from The Venture Bros. this summer; they also recently released their entire episode run on dvd. 

In the film, Doc’s latest invention could either bankrupt Team Venture or launch them to new heights. Hank searches for himself, while Dean searches for Hank. The Monarch searches for answers and a mysterious woman from their pasts threatens to bring it all crashing down for everyone.

All the regular characters and their voice talents are returning, plus voices like Clancy Brown, Jane Lynch, Charles Parnell, JK Simmons, and more.

There are great special features, some which may even shed light on the somewhat mysterious creators of the show. There is a commentary by co-creators Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer. There’s a commentary where they answer fan questions. And a featurette interview with them about the making of Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart and other untold stories from the making of the series.

This is the culmination of the longest running series in Adult Swim’s history and I can’t wait to dig into it. I’m trying to decide if I watch the movie now or finish my rewatch of the original series first.

Either way, I’m watching the show pretty much every night! Go Team Venture!

The post The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (blu ray review) first appeared on The Feedback Society.

This holiday season, we’re delighted to present a reel treat for all the movie enthusiasts in your life. From timeless classics to the latest blockbusters, our curated holiday home video gift guide is your ticket to spreading joy through the magic of film. Whether you’re shopping for the ultimate cinephile, the family movie night aficionado, or the film buff who has it all, we’ve got the perfect home video releases to make this holiday unforgettable.

Most of these releases offer special features like commentaries and behind-the-scenes documentaries. They also feature digital codes to enjoy on mobile devices.

(Note that the codes with the movies I got from the studio were only redeemable in the US, but I’m guessing if you buy them in Canada, you’ll get the Canadian codes. Don’t quote me on that though).

Lights, camera, and let the gifting extravaganza begin!

1. Cool Hand Luke (4K Ultra HD): Paul Newman’s iconic performance in this classic film is now available in stunning 4K resolution. Witness the rebellious spirit of Luke Jackson as he takes on the system in a Southern prison. The enhanced visuals will bring this timeless tale to life like never before.

2. East of Eden (4K Ultra HD): James Dean’s powerful portrayal in East of Eden is a must-see for any film enthusiast. With the enhanced clarity of 4K resolution, delve into the emotional intensity of this classic adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel. The visuals will capture every nuance of this cinematic masterpiece.

3. Rebel Without a Cause (4K Ultra HD): Join James Dean once again in this groundbreaking film that defined a generation. Rebel Without a Cause is now available in 4K, bringing the intensity of Dean’s performance and the iconic red jacket to vivid life. This edition is a perfect addition to any film lover’s collection.

4. The Maltese Falcon (4K Ultra HD): Humphrey Bogart’s legendary role as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon is a film noir classic. Now, with the crystal-clear details of 4K resolution, experience the mystery, suspense, and sharp dialogue like never before. This edition is a treasure for both fans of classic cinema and detective stories.

5. Barbie: While not in 4K resolution, this light-hearted and family-friendly film is a delightful addition to the holiday gift guide. Perfect for a cozy movie night with loved ones, Barbie offers a colorful and enchanting experience. It’s an excellent choice for a change of pace after enjoying the intense dramas from the golden era of Hollywood.

Bonus Recommendations:

• Classic Movie Night Essentials Gift Basket: Include some gourmet popcorn, vintage-style soda, and a cozy blanket for the ultimate movie night experience.

• Film History Books: Complement the movie collection with a book that delves into the history and behind-the-scenes stories of Hollywood’s golden age.

This holiday season, give the gift of cinematic excellence with these timeless classics, enhanced with the brilliance of 4K resolution, and a touch of family-friendly fun with Barbie’s enchanting adventure. Happy holidays and happy watching!

The post The Feedback Society’s Holiday Home Video Release Gift Guide for Movie Lovers! first appeared on The Feedback Society.