Danai Gurira

 

I don't know all of Danai Gurira's story but what I do know is every bit what America is about when it's functioning properly.

Gurira, despite one's assumptions based on her name and bearing, was born in Iowa to Zimbabwean immigrants, a chemistry professor and college librarian. Her family returned to Africa after some years in the U.S., but Gurira returned and earned a bachelor's in psychology from a small college in Minnesota and an MFA from NYU. She has appeared on and written for the stage, acted on television and in films. By all accounts, Gurira, the 46-year-old daughter of immigrants, has thrived.

She is perhaps best known as the swordswoman Michonne in the ravenous fan favorite The Walking Dead (2010-2022) and later as Okoye the Black Panther series of Marvel Cinematic Universe films, both critically acclaimed and celebrated productions.

But I first saw her in Tim McCarthy's highly engaging The Visitor (2007), in which she co-starred with Richard Jenkins, who played an emotionally isolated Connecticut university professor, and Haaz Sleiman, in his role as a Syrian drummer who along with Gurira's Senegalese merchant were undocumented immigrants living in the professor's vacant New York apartment without his knowledge, having been conned by an unscrupulous rental agent.

McCarthy's screenplay explores many human connections, and the audience is drawn into the dynamic of affection and trust that grows among these three and a fourth, the drummer's mother, who illegally immigrated to the U.S. with her son and fears their deportation.

The professor tries to facilitate the young man's release from detention after he is falsely accused on jumping a subway turnstile, but the drummer is quickly deported back to Syria and to an uncertain fate. The mother decides to join her son in Syria.

Gurira's jewelry merchant moves in with family, disappearing into the mist of anonymity that shrouds the millions who come to the U.S. seeking safety, hoping to thrive. And if not to thrive, to simply stay alive.

I loved this distressing picture, the clarity of the presentation of the thorny immigration issue but also the underlying optimism of the professor's arc of going from detachment to boldness, isolation to openness.

Perhaps he recognized that the label "visitor" could be applied to himself, as well, as we are all just visiting this old world for a while.

Conclave

 

Oscar-winning director Edward Berger's Conclave is as pristine as the marble floors of the Vatican halls that serve as the location for this engrossing adaptation of Robert Harris's novel of the same name. The screenplay, which I suspect will get nods during awards season as will the film itself, is by dramatist Peter Straughan, and involves the election of a pope after the sudden death of a beloved though controversial pontiff.

The film presents with immaculate precision the age-old process of convening the College of Cardinals -- a segment of the Curia, the body that runs the Vatican -- to select the church's new leader from among its 100+ members. Berger doesn't dwell too long on the machinery, which is as byzantine as the garments worn by these princes of the church. He prefers to dive quickly into the politics that permeates everything in the Holy See.

Ralph Fiennes is splendid as the reluctant dean of the College, whose job it is to "manage" the election, which straightaway becomes mired in turfism, with liberal and conservative factions naming their champions and carving up the delegates. At one point, Fiennes's character, Cardinal Lawrence, who is in the midst of a private crisis of faith, compares the conclave to a political convention. It's not as much of a throwaway line as one might think, which becomes clear as the story progresses, hidden agendas and secret transactions are revealed.

Lawrence's closest ally is the liberal Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci), who was a confidante of the late pope and the man Lawrence would like to see as head of the church. Bellini says he would refuse the election if chosen, but his actions suggest otherwise.

Several others whose ideologies range from moderate to ultra-conversative (played by John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati and Sergio Castellitto) are much more deliberate in making their intentions (ambitions) known.

An additional complication is the arrival of the newly installed Cardinal Benitez (Mexican actor Carlos Diehz), who was secretly anointed as archbishop of Kabul, Afghanistan. He's unknown to the other cardinals and so little attention is paid to him, his arrival or the impact he will have on the election (and only a cinema novice would think likewise).

The august body is sequestered in the Sistine Chapel to make their choice, and they will stay locked away until a candidate wins a majority of the votes. With each passing ballot, and explosive discovery, the field gets smaller and tensions mount.

How much does Catholicism play into the drama? The church's practices, dealings with marginalized communities and failures regarding children will likely register more with observers of that tradition than others. But the film's overarching issues of conscience and truth will have universal resonance with those open to personal reflection using the picture's intrigues as a backdrop.

Highly recommended.

Rebel Ridge

 

Jeremy Saulnier's Rebel Ridge (Netflix) is not as coiled and precise as the film's star, British actor Aaron Pierre, but it's still an entertaining diversion and welcome introduction to Pierre's measured intensity.

The picture is set in a present-day Louisiana town that is scamming motorists and falsely detaining minor offenders to put money in the town's coffers. Pierre's ex-Marine Terry Richmond is on the way to deliver bail for his cousin when he runs afoul of the police, who seize the bail money as asset forfeiture and warn Richmond to move on or else.

Of course, he doesn't, and thus begins a pretty convoluted scheme to avenge himself, his railroaded cousin and deliver some payback to the police. He receives some help from a court staffer (AnnaSophia Robb) who has her own worries with law enforcement.

Rebel Ridge reminded me a bit of the Black avenger flicks of the '70s -- Fred Williamson, Jim Kelly, Jim Brown -- sans the blatant racism and more politics. Saulnier isn't peddling easy tropes but does leave some narrative gaps, especially in the Third Act showdown.

Still well worth a watch for Pierre's performance and the primer on how to stay alive when stopped by police.

Smile 2

 

I didn't hate Parker Finn's opening salvo for the Smile horror / gore franchise back in '22 and thought it had some solid jolts and a freakish gimmick (the facial expression of the title) to set it apart from the plethora (to actually mean "excessive amount" rather than just "a lot") of other cinema blood fests that seem to appeal to millennials and their juniors.

In this serving, Finn delivers the story of a musical superstar Skye Riley (a commendable singing / screaming Naomi Scott) who is returning to the concert stage a year after being seriously injured in a car wreck that killed her boyfriend (Ray Nicholson, son of Jack), whom we meet in harrowing flashbacks and spectral visitations.

Because she's still recovering from painful injuries, Skye, who was already a coke fiend, has a wee-bit of a drug problem, a stage-mother-from hell (Rosemarie Dewitt) and recurring hallucinations {?) about eerily grinning people offing themselves in front of her. It's a lot for a young woman to handle -- even one who lives in a Chrysler building apartment and has an eager assistant (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) to indulge her spoiled ass.

In the first Smile, Finn's protagonist was a therapist who discovered this suicidal phenomenon first in her weirdly smiling patients and later among strangers. In #2, Finn merges the worlds of emotional trauma, mental deterioration and the supernatural to bend the audience's perceptions (one might say twist them into pretzels) about what we're seeing as Skye makes her descent into hell.

As is true for the rest of this money-making genre, much of this filmmaker's budget has been spent on raspberry jam, fake entrails and gross prosthetics. Depending on one's expectations about gore, Smile 2 will deliver bucketsful.

That's not to see there aren't other interesting things going for it. In fact, I thought the film's cold opening was especially keen; kudos to cinematographer Charlie Sarroff for setting the bar high for the rest of the picture, which often meets but does not exceed those first minutes.

We Live in Time

 

Irish director John Crowley has fashioned Nick Payne's unconventionally structured tale of love and loss, We Live in Time, into a warm film of tender moments between Almut, an ambitious chef (Florence Pugh), and Tobias, a recently divorced, unassuming information technologist for a cereal company (Andrew Garfield).

She's a decidedly alpha restaurateur; he's a retiring beta who is smitten with her dynamism. They have wonderfully civilized conversations and galvanic sex; they court and soon have merged their lives. All of this is shown in jumbled pieces, which seems to be a narrative choice by more and more arthouse moviemakers.

In time, Almut develops uterine cancer and chooses rather than have a complete hysterectomy to undergo a partial in hopes of possibly having a child with Tobias, a prospect she rejected out-of-hand earlier in their relationship.

They have a daughter, Ella (Grace Delaney), and when Ella is three or four, Almut's cancer returns.

Almut proposes to Tobias, in one of the picture's beautifully crafted exchanges, that they consider not undergoing six or eight months of chemo and surgery and the wretchedness that comes with the treatment. Instead, might they spend whatever time she has left living life with abandon.

The story progresses through the period after the couple's decision, their conflicts and clashes, personal revelations and disappointments. Nearly every moment feels real, every misstep authentic, and the final scenes both heartbreaking and, surprisingly, life affirming.

Jules

 

Marc Turtletaub's short and sweet film Jules is the story of Martin, Sandy and Joyce (Ben Kingsley, Harriet Sansom Harris and Jane Curtin, respectively), septuagenarians in rural Pennsylvania whom we first meet as they make individual remarks at the weekly town meetings, sharing their rather mundane concerns with the council until something extraordinary happens to them.

When a UFO crashes into Martin's azaleas and a little blue being (Jade Quon in a non-speaking role) emerges, injured, Martin, who is showing early signs of dementia, is frightened but fascinated. He reports the event at the next council meeting but is dismissed as an aging coot. His daughter, Denise (Zoe Winters) is concerned about Martin distancing himself from others and unexplainable behavior, like reports he's buying dozens of apples for an alien living in his home. Martin successfully hides the alien's presence from his daughter and most others in town.

When Sandy unexpectedly discovers the alien sitting in Martin's living room eating apple slices, she becomes Martin's cohort in keeping the creature, whom she names "Jules," safe from those who would eventually show up to take him away and do God-knows-what to him. A snooping Joyce eventually finds out about Martin and Sandy's pact and wants to be part of the action.

The lovely and often hilarious script by Gavin Steckler is concerned less with the alien visitors vs. government agents story (ala ET: The Extraterrestrial) and more with the spiritual and emotional holes in people that Jules' presence seems to fill (ala Close Encounters ....).

Kingsley, Harris and Curtin are wonderful in this unconventional story about the trials and triumphs (and temptations) that go along with getting old.

Curtin, a marvelous performer who had fallen off my radar some years ago, has a terrific moment mid-way through as Joyce, a big-city transplant to the boonies, puts her own captivating stamp on Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird. It's a funny and amazingly touching moment, perfectly pitched to match the character and Curtin's inimitable style. Brava!

Joker: Folie à Deux

 

I waited quite a while to screen Todd Phillips' Joker: Folie à Deux because I suspected from the trailers and early critical buzz that it was not a must-see for the reasons most people consider any film to be such, i.e., brilliant execution or daring, artistic vision or Marvel's latest excesses.

Phillips' stylistic mash-up of psychological drama and musical homage is indeed the misfire many people say it is, but it is also enormously entertaining.

It is NOT a work for DC Universe fangirls and boys and will likely disappoint Lady Gaga's legions of admirers (she sings but doesn't belt). But those of us who will go to the ends of the earth to see Joaquin Phoenix do his thing, will relish the work of the master of outré characterizations as he takes us down dark passages as the murderous freak Arthur Fleck a/k/a Joker.

In Folie à Deux, which is introduced by a toe-tapping cartoon reprising the events of 2019's Joker, Phoenix's Fleck is in a desolate prison / psychiatric hospital waiting to be tried for five murders, including one committed on a national talk show. While being escorted to a meeting with his lawyer (Catherine Keener), Fleck meets a young woman named Lee (Lady Gaga), who tells him she was committed after setting fire to her family home.

This moment is not quite "meet cute," but it is nearly staged as such. In fact, Arthur and Lee duet on a dozen or so pop standards and Broadway and motion picture musical numbers, some minimally staged, others more burlesque. I pictured lots of eye-rolling during these scenes, but I thought they were refreshing. (I also thought ABC's experimental police musical Cop Rock from 1990 was pretty bold television.)

Setting aside the movie's musical aspects, one might still find much to appreciate in Folie à Deux's statements about criminality and identity, how society creates demons and what we do with our fixation on fame. It's pretty heady stuff.

As I told the theater manager after today's screening, I could imagine this picture finding life among those who fancy films that are by turns chilling and inspiring, visceral and cerebral, and, well, tuneful, too.

That's Entertainment!

The Substance

 

French writer / director Coralie Fargeat's The Substance is a celluloid nightmare of body grotesquerie that floods the screen with more blood and viscera than has ever been presented by masters of repulsion Davids Cronenberg and Lynch.

Demi Moore plays celebrated-film-star-turned-fitness-guru Elisabeth Sparkle, who receives word from her unbelievably sexist boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid) that she's run out of audience appeal and the studio would be looking for someone younger and prettier to replace her.

When Elisabeth follows a murky lead to a solution for aging that will transform her into her "best self," she's introduced to The Substance, a program that offers bodily changes on the cellular level by creating another, separate, perkier version of Elisabeth.

The program warns Elisabeth that she and her alter ego, who takes the name Sue (Margaret Qualley), are limited to a week each before switching back to the other. They can continue this exchange indefinitely, but the time limit rule -- among others -- is not to be broken, which, of course, means it will.

Sue goes to the studio and in short order becomes television's new fitness darling, leaving Elisabeth to sulk and gorge. The experiment soon goes off the rails, as we fully expected, and Fargeat's stunningly imaginative production and sound designs shift into high gear to make fuller comment on dysmorphia and misogyny.

Moore is a wonderful and underrated actress, IMO, who does phenomenal work here as Elisabeth's physical and mental states steadily decay. Qualley (who also appears in Yorgos Lanthimos' latest freak-out Kinds of Kindness) is a fierce presence who handles her highly physical role with enormous commitment even when covered in a hundred pounds of foam and latex.

The Substance is not an enjoyable film, strictly speaking. It is exhausting and revolting, but it is also instructive, insightful, frightening and weirdly funny, so the disorientation and nauseousness are not wholly gratuitous.

Ghastly imagery comprises three-quarters of the film, with the last quarter the true test of the audience's mettle. It will take a lot of fortitude -- and a strong stomach -- to stick with it to the bitter, bitter end.

Don't eat before going.

Never Let Go

 

Alexandre Aja's Never Let Go is a modest tale of possession and evil that doubles (triples?) as a story about family ties (literally) and faith, truth and trust.

Halle Berry stars as the mother of twin boys Sam and Nolan (Anthony B. Jenkins and Percy Daggs IV, respectively) and the three have taken refuge in their cabin in a forest where "evil" waits to take possession of them. The cabin is secured by a blessing that keeps the demons at bay. Or does it?

On their daily foraging excursions, the three tie around their waists a thick rope that is secured to the cabin's foundation. Momma says the connection protects them from spirits that only she sees.

As provisions run out and foraging produces less and less -- they're reduced to eating tree bark -- Nolan questions more and more his mother's stories. His doubts turn an already perilous situation into a fiery nightmare.

Oscar-winner Berry, who is also one of the movie's producers, is a steady anchor in a picture that asks relatively little of her as the lead. She is the veteran in what is ostensibly a three-character flick.

Berry has a couple of wonderful scenes -- one midway through in which she offers her sons insight into the kind of threats that lurk around them, although she doesn't say why, only that the evil got to them.

The other I won't spoil by giving away too much, but it involves a heartbreaking decision that could mean the difference between life and death. Berry nails it, solidly.

Sam and Nolan (two strong performances from child actors) actually dominate the last third of the picture, as the cabin walls no longer offer them safety and they face harsh truths their Momma has kept from them.

The narrative in Never Let Go is pretty sparse in background and context even though the mythology upon which the movie's central conceit -- the rope -- feels fresh, to me. Aja's production design is suitably pasty and claustrophobic, his demons and ghouls restrained compared to big budget horror shows.

But that's no matter because the movie's greatest appeal, to me, is its depiction of familial, especially filial, devotion, and how love can both heal and harm.

Maggie Smith

 

Dame Maggie Smith's only leading role Oscar was for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), in which she played the title character, a teacher in a Scottish girls' school.

While reflecting on the picture last night, using a contemporary-culture lens, I began to see the auburn-haired Brodie as something other than a lonely spinster who toyed with men's affections while captivating her young charges with her spirited rejection of convention and mores, hiding her sadness behind bravado and shallow charm.

As I listened more intently to all of those wonderful words coming out of Dame Maggie's mouth, it occurred to me that this marvelous character (based on the Muriel Sparks novel and given cinematic life by screenwriter Jay Presson Allen) was a thoroughgoing narcissist, enamored of her own irrepressibility and unwilling to bend favorably toward anyone who would not feed her egoism.

What a rich, layered performance by Dame Maggie, whose clipped aristocratic warble was a terrific invention in itself! I studied more closely her affect when finally confronting her demons, as they were shown to her by a student (Pamela Franklin) who had grown tired of Miss Brodie's manipulation and emotional indifference.

That last-reel lashing of the teacher, despondent to learn she was no longer in her "prime," is a comeuppance for the ages, which, nonetheless, might leave some in the audience pitying the teacher, who was, yes, an arrogant, cagey, Fascist sympathizer who claimed no responsibility for the lives she'd ruined. But she was also quite mad and should not have been in a position of authority.

Miss Brodie was ejected from her position by the head mistress (Celia Johnson) based on reports of misbehavior and grooming of her "girls" to be radical nonconformists, but she would not accept the board's decision. Rather she would appeal to the public, arguing that she was well-known and popular, and her students would defend her.

Of course, all of that was a facade, and Miss Brodie eventually folded, having been unmasked by someone she had trusted, simply because that person reflected the teacher's treachery back at her.

Megalopolis

 

Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis intrigues with its bold blending of Shakespeare and Fellini (part Julius Caesar and part Satyricon) and a host of visual homages to 1927's Metropolis and 1955's The Night of the Hunter and to the tableaux of Stanley Kubrick and Peter Greenaway. It is more of a feast for cinephiles than a satisfying meal for casual moviegoers.

Coppola wrote, directed and produced this "fable" about an architectural genius / master of time and space Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) who has been contracted by the people of the future city New Rome (a remade/remodeled New York) to turn it into a model of sustainable, soul-enriching urban living, using not concrete and steel but a highly malleable material with properties that will last forever.

Catalina's vision is opposed by the city's mayor, Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who wants solutions to more immediate problems -- affordable housing being most pressing. They represent the eternal conflict between idealism and pragmatism.

Animosity between the two men extends back to Cicero's prosecution of Catalina on charges related to the drowning death of Catalina's wife, whose body subsequently went missing. Catalina was exonerated of her murder.

Catalina's efforts are underwritten by his aging uncle Crassus (Jon Voight), who is smitten by Catalina's mistress, a television reporter named Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza). Platinum eventually consorts with the old man and begins to plot his ruin.

Crassus, like King Lear, is surrounded by many nefarious underlings, most notably grandson Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), whose unabashed greed and need for attention might sound familiar to some. Clodio (oh, the names in this picture!) is a scheming rabble-rouser trying to work both sides against the middle, and LaBeouf might deliver the most entertaining performance.

No epic is worthy of the name without a romantic subplot as counterpoint to the politics. Coppola invests a lot in the pairing of the indefatigable Driver with British beauty Nathalie Emmanuel, who plays the beloved daughter of Catalina's nemesis Cicero. (Cue "A Time for Us" from Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet [1968].)

The picture is graced with featured turns from Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter and Dustin Hoffman.

Yes, Megalopolis is crammed full of acting notables and notions, stunning images and ideas, but, as others have said, it lacks true coherence. It's an expressive venture from a master of the cinematic arts that will have audience's talking more about HOW the movie was made more than what it MEANS.

Speak No Evil (2024)

 

Speak No Evil is James Watkins' remake of the Danish psycho-horror film of the same name from 2022. If one were to strip away the narrative clunkiness, one would find the new picture celebrates the power of existential threat to restore the tattered fabric of family life. The original picture was a much bleaker story.

Watkins' picture is about the perils of a small family -- Ben Dalton (Scott McNairy), wife Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and daughter Agnes (Alex West Lexler) -- who are visiting Paddy (James McAvoy), wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) and mute son Ant (Dan Hough) at their remote farmhouse in England after becoming fast friends while vacationing in Italy. (Who does that?) 

When they arrive from their London flat, the Daltons quickly discover Paddy is a boundaries-obliterator -- stepping all over Louise's sensibilities as a vegetarian and poking at Ben's apparent insecurities as a cuckolded beta. 

As events unfold, Paddy becomes increasingly insinuating and Ciara more intrusive, much to Louise's chagrin (Davis is a particularly potent force here). Eventually Agnes, between panic attacks and emotional meltdowns, discovers the non-speaking Ant holds the key to his family's weirdness.

Even if one were to give in to the bottomless gullibility that is the setting for Watkins' version of the Danish creep out, one might still be frustrated by the bone-headedness on display -- especially that of Ben, a master of indecision and self-pity. 

To be fair, some of Ben and Louise's "unspeakably" bad choices can be attributed to the couple's emotional distancing from each other and 12-year-old Agnes's arrested development. To wit a stuffed support bunny rabbit plays an important role in this tale.

In the end, Watkins' Speak No Evil is a tour de force for the sneering, scenery-chewing McAvoy's maniacal Paddy, a psychotic Daddy Dearest candidate, for sure. The movie is a messy mash up of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf's toxic passive-aggressiveness and Straw Dogs' bloody aggressive-aggressiveness. But it's occasionally an entertaining one-off mess.

Didi (2024)

 

Celebrated Taiwanese American director Sean Wang's first feature, Dìdi, is his personal reflection on a familiar cinematic theme -- budding-teen-ager angst -- set against an Asian immigrant backdrop of cultural identity and assimilation in Fremont, California. Seventeen-year-old Izaac Wang plays Sean's alter ego, Chris, called "Wang-Wang" by his "friends," "Dìdi" by his mother and grandmother (Joan Chen and Zhang Li Hua, respectively), and all manner of vile creature by sister Vivian (Shirley Chen). It's 2008, and we see the somber, hooded Chris at the family table where the hectoring is endless and at school where a different sort of hectoring goes on. He is dreading the transition to high school, even though mates Faud (Raul Dial) and Soup (Aaron Chang), who turned junior high into their own miscreant playground, are eager to make the move and expand their territory. The film does not connect the emotional and psychological dots that make up Chris's profile, leaving the audience to weigh how much an absent father and bickering elders contribute to the kid's painful lack of confidence. The move to college that sister Vivian is preparing for seems remote and entrance examinations pointless. Chris finds some joy through his video camera and posts shaky scenes of his friends' stunts on YouTube. When he sees a group of boys skating, a skill he has yet to master even though he carries his board around with him, he poses as a "filmer" and agrees to shoot some scenes for them so that they can get sponsors. The scheme doesn't work out and hard lessons are learned. Chris Wang's drive to be accepted is overshadowed by a more basic need -- to be seen, which is ironic considering how often he hides from others. When Dìdi feels shame, he disappears, erasing the evidence of his existence, be it YouTube videos or chatroom exchanges. At 30, Sean Wang captures the raging, impulsive, profane swagger of early adolescence, when high school freshmen are flex, fight or fondle 24/7. We cringe for young Chris's missteps but a scene between him and his mother paints in some important details and the picture's last frame glows with hope.

The Crow (2024)

 

I'm probably one of the few true movie buffs who has not seen Brandon Lee's The Crow (1994), so I can't comment on similarities / differences between Lee's original, which was directed by Alex Proyas, and Bill Skarsgard's version, directed by Rupert Sanders.

Critics have not been impressed by Crow '24's storyline or the under-energized performances by Skarsgard, tatted musician Eric, and co-star British singer / actress FKA twigs, as Shelly. Watching two impossibly attractive people's slithering courtship is not enough to compel interest in an undercooked story about, well, it's hard for me to say. 

Film veteran Danny Huston plays Vincent Roeg, a tech villain with an ominous power of suggestion -- not sure how he came to have it -- who in in an unholy alliance with Shelly's mother, played by celebrated British stage actress Josette Simon, and other mysterious folk. The script does not explore comprehensibly any of this satisfactorily, but it all ends with the murder of one of Shelly's friends by Roe's agents and an attack on her and Eric as they try to avoid capture. 

The lovers are killed, and Eric finds himself in a mucky limbo with another of the undead, Kronos (Sami Bouajila), who tells him his love for Shelly will keep him suspended between life and death until her murder can be avenged. (It is quite likely all of this made more sense 30 years ago.)

I agree with those who say the first two acts of the film -- the courtship and the after-death revelation -- are a moody, atmospheric slog -- and the third act is where the real party is. But by then interest has passed and despite some pretty artful swordplay by Skarsgard and an astounding John Wickian body count in the halls of an opera house, the movie is DOA.

Requiescat in pace

Strange Darling

To even the boldest of cinephiles, J.T. Mollner's Strange Darling will be the damndest (strangest?) picture this year.  And THAT, most assuredly, is a GOOD thing.

Mollner, with actor Giovanni Ribisi as director of photography, has constructed a beautifully vibrant, non-linear, highly unpredictable story, billed as a re-enactment, of the final rampage of a serial killer in the Pacific Northwest. It has elements of horror, and the gore is substantial, but it is also terrifically funny in spots, which only adds to its intoxicating effect.

Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner are the principals in this bloody, freakishly disturbing story of hunter and hunted that begins in the middle of the chase and bounces among the hours leading up to and following the final standoff. The film's last minutes are a single shot of the killer staring into the camera lens as the color is bled out of the frame. To say more would be to ruin a nearly perfect picture.

I'm not that familiar with Fitzgerald nor Gallner but their performances are wonderfully synched, bending to every unexpected twist, making every excruciating moment totally believable, riveting. Veteran actors Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey are featured in one of the story's six chapters that is risibly titled "Mountain People."

This picture is NOT for the squeamish or those triggered by, well, just about anything.

Alien: Romulus

 

I've viewed the Alien franchise (excluding the crossovers with Predator) as an extended metaphor about how human vanity and greed can be supplanted by virtue and grit. It has also been a HUGE "you go, girl" to female empowerment, while rewriting the script on tension and viscera and gore.

Fede Alvarez's Alien: Romulus tracks along with the first three films in the series, especially, with corporate scheming being the villain and the skeletal anger machines that gestate inside of human hosts being the tools to galactic domination.

In this sequel, scrappy young orphan Rain, a wonderful Cailee Spaeny, is trapped on a dark mining planet with her brother Andy -- a masterful David Jonsson who, frankly, owns this picture. Andy is an android programmed by Rain's father to be her guardian.

After being denied permission to leave the planet, having completed her required number of hours in mines, Rain joins with a band of young renegades -- Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, Aileen Wu -- who have spotted a damaged space station, the Romulus of the title, in the planet's orbit. They figure the station is carrying enough fuel to get them off the planet and to a better life where there is sunshine. They need Andy's machinery to make it all happen.

Problems with the pirating excursion present themselves almost immediately, with multiple disastrous threats just ticks of the clock away. The most pressing threat is the orbiting station's steady descent into the planet's asteroid rings and sure destruction. Added to this, of course, is the discovery of a hive of hungry, hungry aliens in the ship's inner chambers.

Alvarez, whom I first noticed for his excellent home-invasion thriller "Don't Breathe," has directed a film with three distinct acts. The opening exposition is smartly crafted so that audiences can overlook the thievery at the core of the narrative and see the scheme as getting back at The Man -- the soulless, grubby human counterpart to the snapping creatures on board.

The second act ratchets up the tension and the stakes as the team lands on the damaged station and discovers there is "life" on board, other than the reptilian monsters hibernating within -- a pretty neat narrative link to Ripley Scott's Alien (1979).

The third act raises the stakes on the existential threat even further, saying the alien enemy lies within us.

It's a great ride, with Alvarez using all of the cinematic tools at his disposal to create both claustrophobia and isolation in the battle and the chase, but also the intimacy of connections across the vastness of space -- represented most clearly and, yes, lovingly by Rain and Andy's devotion to each another.

Some might take issue -- as I did a bit -- with the story's infantilizing of Andy, who is Black, as a boy in a grown man's body. A charitable reading of the final moments of the film suggests Alvarez understands this and will "fix it" in the next picture -- which there surely will be.

Deadpool and Wolverine

Since 2016, the Deadpool franchise has been the distempered mongrel of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Despite on- and off-screen remarks to the contrary, the series doesn't give a damn whether it's part of the family or not. Deadpool is having a ball doing its own thing and making a mint with every outing.

 

The third installment of Ryan Reynold's vanity vehicle -- Deadpool and Wolverine -- is directed by Shawn Levy and puts the two title characters, played by Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, a host of other heroes and villains into a Cuisinart along with the series' famous fourth-wall asides and real-world industry digs to create a blisteringly funny, bloody and profane tale that mixes Marvel mythology and Reynold's infamous rapid-fire snark and vulgarity.

 

In this story by a half dozen writers including Reynolds, the indestructible mutant mercenary Deadpool is recruited by a mid-level keeper of dimensional timelines named Mr. Paradox (Matthew MacFadyen), who tells him the order of the multiverse has been disrupted and dimensions are fated for annihilation because the X-man Wolverine died in one universe (see 2017's Logan). The reasons for this are much too convoluted (or nonsensical) to recount here, and they don't matter anyway.

 

Deadpool gets the notion to find a living Wolverine in one dimension and transport him to the one in danger of destruction because he has a "need to do good." Along the way, the two encounter several lesser lights in the Marvel constellation (cameos by Jennifer Garner, Wesley Snipes, Channing Tatum) and mount an attack on the bald super being Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), who rules a vast wasteland called the Void (the sexual and scatological references run deep and wide).

 

I would wager fans of this series (or any of the other 30 or so MCU features) don't show up for the science but for the eye-popping action sequences. I think Deadpool's near total absence of sentimentality is a bonus for those who may be weary of Captain America's earnestness and Spider-Man's juvenile diffidence.

 

Deadpool and Wolverine batter and brutalize and leave the audiences crying for more.

Twisters

 

 

Lee Isaac Chung's Twisters is much more pointed in its ethical and ecological implications than its nearly 30-year-old predecessor, the singular Twister, which starred Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt.

 

Chung's nailbiter of a cautionary tale stars Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People, Where the Crawdads Sing) and Glen Powell (Hit Man, Anyone But You) as tornado chasers whose paths converge in Oklahoma, where an unprecedented series of storms have wiped out small towns and will likely do even more damage.

 

When we meet her, Edgar-Jones' Kate is a doctoral student in meteorology who loses close friends and fellow researchers during a chase. Five years later, she's left fieldwork for a job in New York, tracking powerful storms, far away from the action. 

 

A former classmate and researcher, Javi (Anthony Ramos), talks Kate into coming to Oklahoma, which is her home state, to help him test a new method of measuring tornadoes. His work is funded by wealthy sponsors who have their own agendas.

 

Still scarred from her near-death experience, Kate takes a while to get her sea legs again, but once she sees Powell's pretty boy Tyler, a YouTube "tornado wrangler," turn her serious work into a circus she is back in the game, hoping to test a theory that tornadoes can be "tamed" with the right combination of chemicals and a proper delivery system.

 

As I told my screening companion today, any film coming out of Steven Spielberg's production studios will be visually stunning, and Twisters is no exception. The implausibility of several of the set pieces do not detract from the utter jaw-dropping effect of seeing demon winds tear through a town, shredding streets and houses like paper.

 

The movie's story of personal disillusionment and redemption is secondary to its warning that such storms will become more and more frequent and deadly if real action isn't taken. I don't know if the science proposed by Twisters is real, but the message is certainly well-taken and vitally important.

 

What We Leave

 

Maxxxine

 

Horrormeister Ti West doesn't make serious "message movies" but that doesn't mean his films are shallow, slasher fare, despite pushing the gore envelope in so many entertaining ways.

West's artful trio of hack-em-ups -- X and Pearl from 2022 and the just-released Maxxxine -- are movies about the movie industry, which, by the way, does more than its share of evisceration and bloodletting, figuratively speaking.

British starlet Mia Goth has been West's cohort in mayhem for X, Pearl and now Maxxxine, injecting her unconventional beauty and whacked-out screen presence into each. (Her maniacal cold stare at the end of Pearl must be one of the freakiest moments in closing-credits history.)

In Maxxxine, Goth plays the title character, a porn actress trying to break into legitimate pictures in the mid-80s. (The soundtrack is ear-candy for oldsters and might reawaken interest in synth-pop and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.) Maxine wants to be a big star, an aspiration she received from her preacher father (Simon Prast) as a child and will do whatever she must to make that happen. Therein lies the "pearl" in this oyster. 

With an assist from her agent / lawyer (Giancarlo Esposito), Maxine gets signed onto a horror flick by its director (Elizabeth Debicki), who is banking on Maxine's uncanny ability to channel the character's determination (and Maxine's adult film industry profile) to give the picture added vitality.

All of this is happening during a string of slasher murders in Hollywood that is unraveling the city's nerves but leaves Maxine unmoved. When sex worker friends of Maxine are also killed, presumably by the slasher, detectives Williams and Torres (Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale, respectively) try to get an assist from Maxine, with no luck. She doesn't talk to the police -- and we discover for good reason.

All of this is further complicated by a pesky private detective, played by Kevin Bacon, who has been hired by an unnamed party to find Maxine. (Yeah, West has corralled a lot of wattage for this outing.) The mission does not go well. 

West stages a last reel showdown that ties off many of the picture's narrative threads and mysteries but might leave audiences not wholly satisfied and maybe a bit anxious.

Moviegoers either get Ti West's filmmaking sensibilities or they don't. In that way, he's like other horror auteurs -- Roger Corman, David Cronenberg, George Romero, for example -- who have distinctive stylistic touches that use madness and viscera to help audiences connect with their humanity.

A Quiet Place: Day One

 

Michael Sarnoski's A Quiet Place: Day One is more love story than alien-invasion origins picture.

It's not a conventional love story, by any means, but is romantic nonetheless, that is, between the attacks by the towering invaders who are blind but hunt prey through sound. Survivors quickly learn if they want to survive, they will remain silent.

Day One is also not a conventional origins picture. While it depicts the first wave of ravenous extraterrestrials landing in New York and decimating the population of that noisy city, the picture -- written by Sarnoski; John Krasinski who directed the first two installments and wrote the screenplays with Bryan Woods, who returns for Day One -- doesn't really tell us why this happened. Who did the Earth piss off? In that regard, it certainly isn't the only horror / sci-fi flick that doesn't describe the invaders' motives. Maybe it doesn't matter.

Lupita Nyong'o stars as Sam, a poet and last-stage cancer patient on an outing with other hospice patients when the leggy predators descend. She and her "service cat" survive multiple assaults and midway through the picture team up with British law school student Eric (Joseph Quinn).

Nothing lowers walls and defenses like a clear and present danger. Per force, Sam, imbittered by her disease, and Eric, who fights debilitating panic attacks, become a team, even though Sam is determined to walk uptown for a slice of pizza before the inevitable end. Evacuation boats are loading in the opposite direction.

It is this narrative twist that signals to Quiet Place fans, among whom I count myself, that this chapter is unlike the previous two, which starred Emily Blunt and John Krasinski and were about survival tactics and family bonds.

Day One is also about survival but I think more importantly it is about love of humanity and place. Sarnoski's final reel -- a rescue on the docks -- nailed this for me with a wonderful mix of terror and tenderness.

Inside Out 2

 

Disney / Pixar's Inside Out was all eye-popping braininess in 2015, as it took audiences on a fantastic ride through a young girl's excitement and angst and she makes adjustments after her family moves from the Midwest to San Francisco.

The ingenious concept behind the Oscar-winning first film was the anthropomorphizing of young Riley's emotions -- Disgust, Anger, Fear, Sadness with Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) at the helm of the control panel in Riley headquarters. Joy keeps the others in line, tempering their destruction and offering insight into how emotions contribute to building Riley's sense of self.

In 2, Riley, voiced by Kensington Tallman, finds herself confronting puberty, preparing for high school and hoping to join its kickass hockey team. New teenager emotions arrive -- Envy, Ennui, Embarrassment and their boss Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke / daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke).

Anxiety sidelines Riley's Joy and other trusted emotions and commandeers the girl's thinking and responses during a hockey skills camp, during which she confronts darker sides of her personality.

Inside Out 2 is pretty heady stuff (pun intended), and I believe might be beyond the understanding of those younger than tweens. But, like its predecessor, it's a beautifully written extended metaphor that is brilliantly animated and contains an intriguing hint about Riley and a dark secret filmmakers aren't ready to reveal just yet.

We'll have to wait for 3.

The Bikeriders

 

Writer / director Jeff Nichols' elegy to American motorcycle clubs is about short-tempered manchildren in '60s Chicago, who appear to love their machines -- and one another -- more than their wives and children.

This could easily have been a short-subject film, but Nichols trusts most of his engrossing story (based on a book by Danny Lyons) to the care of one biker wife, Kathy, played by the inestimable Jodie Comer (Killing Eve, The Duel).

Kathy recounts for photojournalist Danny (Mike Faist of The Challengers and West Side Story), who started riding with and documenting the club while a university student, how she met pretty boy / hot head Benny (Austin Butler) and the enigmatic club founder Johnny (Tom Hardy), who was inspired after watching Brando's The Wild One.

Kathy recounts the growth of the club from a ragtag group of brawny misfits and malcontents to a nationwide organization of pretty much the same -- owing much of the expansion to the disaffection of young men of the day and the disillusionment of soldiers returning from Southeast Asia.

Kathy tells of Benny's dogged pursuit of her, his disregard for societal norms and his own personal safety, and the tension within the ranks, between the old crew and the newbies. She tells of Johnny's inability to manage the clashes and Benny's resistance to taking over as head.

Though Kathy is on the periphery of the biker turmoil, she clearly sees how it is affecting the men she's gotten to know perhaps better than they know themselves. She makes the stakes palpable ... and the outcomes for Benny and Johnny seemingly inevitable.

The Bikeriders boasts a large cast of featured players, most prominently Michael Shannon as a grizzly anti-pinko named Zipco, Damon Herriman as Johnny's solid right-hand Brucie, and the young actor Toby Wallace as The Kid, whose anger and ambition affects the future of the club.

Still, this is Comer's picture, thoroughly and unmistakably. She gives an award-winning performance as a woman in love with a man who doesn't seem to know what that really means, and she presses on anyway.

John Wick Redux

I've been re-watching the John Wick series the past few weeks and reflecting on the humanity that underpins the story of a "retired" assassin re-activated by the theft of his beloved supercharged 'Stang and the killing of a puppy left to him by his recently deceased wife.

Wick, known as The Boogeyman by members of his extensive tribe of hitmen and their handlers, uncorks his formerly sublimated demon as his retaliation against those who wronged him cascades into one vengeful battle after another on nearly every continent and against countless foes within a system with strict rules and rituals that seem almost medieval.

The narrative world in which all of this happens is as fanciful as any mythical realm that operates on its own system of logic. Though Wick is supposedly a ghostly figure, everyone in New York and abroad seems to know him. In fact, everyone in New York seems to be working for the same global criminal operation known as the High Table, its members represent the collective interests of organized crime around the world.

Wick -- played by Keanu Reeves, as everyone knows -- is a Russian orphan raised by the mob "to serve and be of service." He was a star pupil and an unstoppable killer -- until he fell in love and wanted out. As a condition for his freedom, he was given an impossible task but completed it and left. He was done for five years, then his wife got cancer and died and a week later the sociopathic son of a former associate steals his car and kills the dog and that's where the series begins.

That Wick is running for his life across the four films and is forced to dispatch dozens of opponents in amazingly creative ways makes him a noble figure, fighting against nearly impossible odds to save his soul. His cause balances the outrageous body count.

John Wick is every person who is faced with impossible choices while confronting circumstances not of their making. Repeatedly Wick is told that he is fighting against his nature but the film shows he is a creation of a system he did not choose. A system he rejected once he discovered a greater truth.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die

 

The long-in-the-tooth Will Smith / Martin Lawrence buddy cops, 4-deep franchise, Bad Boys, offers fans highly digestible actioners with a tried-and-true formula -- sharp-shooter straight man (Smith), his mouthy sidekick (Lawrence) and irredeemably evil villains.

This formula has been a bonanza for both lead performers and quite likely anyone else attached to the series. Estimates are Smith earned about 40 million for the first three pictures; Lawrence a little over 30 million.

Michael Bay directed the first two films, and the latest entry -- titled Ride or Die -- was directed by the Belgian team Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. It continues with the narrative of 2020's Bad Boys For Life, also directed by Arbi and Fallah. In that picture, Smith's Lowrey and Lawrence's Burnett, special forces cops in Miami, lost their trusted and beloved C.O., Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano), in a botched operation.

In the latest film, Howard is posthumously accused of conspiring with the drug cartel his team had been investigating and in which Lowrey's son by a cartel operative, Armando (Jacob Scipio), was a key player and assassin. The Bad Boys mount up with their trusted team -- Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens) and Dorn (Alexander Ludwig) -- to find the evidence needed to clear Howard's name.

Predictably, the quest for answers leads to a string of bad cops and worse politicians, multiple chases using all manner of conveyance, enough explosions to level Miami, and messy romantic and familial entanglements. As a nod to the not-incidental age of this series, Ride or Die contains some ruminations on mortality and vulnerability, although neither Lowrey nor Burnett suggests retiring, as they had previously.

That's probably welcome news to millions who revel in the pictures' hood rat sensibilities (a spicy cameo by Tiffany Haddish as the operator of a strip club seems an odd casting choice considering her real-world travails), Lawrence's unhinged lunacy and Smith's stoic swagger.

Not bad.

Old Friends

 

Here and There, 2023

Here and There, 2022

 

Twenty-Five Words: The Stories We Tell