Weekend Watch - Venom: The Last Dance

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the third film in Tom Hardy’s Venom trilogy, Venom: The Last Dance, which looks to be the final installment of Sony’s partnership with Hardy in bringing the symbiote antihero to the big screen. Co-written by its star Hardy and director Kelly Marcel (Cruella and Fifty Shades of Grey), the film also features performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, and Cristo Fernández. It opened this weekend to the same collection of mixed reviews from audiences and critics as its two predecessors. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: C-; it’s just as ok as the two films that came before – fun but not at all substantial.

Should you Watch This Film? If you like the first two Venom films, you’ll probably enjoy this one as well. If you want something fresh, new, and groundbreaking, this film is not the film for you.

Why?

                Venom: The Last Dance seeks to establish itself as the true conclusion to a trilogy. Unfortunately, the trilogy it’s seeking to conclude lacked serious thematic and/or narrative cohesion, and the result is yet another tonally disjointed film with oddly communicated stakes and a marked lack of any natural emotional beats, which trilogy concluders so often seek. There’s some solid sound and visual effects work being done on the part of the post-production team, and the film does take some big swings with its action sequences, but none of it ever comes together with the intervening story to make something that feels at all better than a middling 2000s superhero film, just like the two films that came before. I appreciate the effort and love that Hardy and Marcel seem to have poured into their script and the film itself, but they seem to be working at a studio where no one else cares enough about their product and characters to actually give them the editing and fine-tuning that it would take to make these films into something great. On paper, a goofy, violent, multi-personality anti-hero should be an easy slam dunk in this age of superhero films, but Sony has never been able to get out of their own way and let these films be as self-aware as they’d need to be to work. Don’t get me wrong, the action set pieces are really fun here – arguably the best of the trilogy – but the story might be the weakest of the trilogy. It’s decent enough to please those who have been pleased with the first two entries, but it does nothing well enough to sway any new fans or break into new territory for the superhero genre. If you want new Venom content, go check it out in theaters. If not, don’t worry about making it for this one.

Weekend Watch - We Live in Time

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh starring romantic drama from director John Crowley (Brooklyn and Boy A) and writer Nick Payne (The Sense of an Ending), We Live in Time. In addition to Garfield and Pugh as the film’s romantic leads, the film also features Lee Braithwaite, Adam James, and Douglas Hodge in supporting roles. The film opened this weekend across the U.S. to solid audience responses and mixed critic reviews. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B; great acting and a devastating story are held back from their fullest potential by some odd story choices.

Should you Watch This Film? Maybe. If you want a highly emotional romantic drama, this one definitely checks that box. If you have trauma related to fertility, I should warn here that this film does deal with that pretty intimately, so you’d be okay waiting to stream this one. For everyone else, it’s a good film, but not necessarily a great one, so I’ll leave it up to you.

Why?

                We Live in Time offers this year’s look at the dramas of romance and relationships, following a relationship from its creative start (Almut hits Tobias with her car and then takes him to the hospital) and then through the typical beats, a honeymoon phase full of sex and dramatic declarations, an early bump in the road about the different expectations regarding family, the reconciliation, and finally, walking through the challenges of a committed relationship together – in this case, cancer and struggles with fertility. Garfield and Pugh are phenomenal as the two leads, carrying it from start to finish with grounded performances that feel incredibly authentic and feature some strong romantic chemistry. Even the story of their relationship is itself compelling with some startlingly real moments that can hit incredibly close to home for people who have walked through similar experiences in their own relationships. The problem is that, for some reason, screenwriter Nick Payne decided that this needed to be presented as a nonlinear narrative, jumping between points in the couple’s relationship almost at random. It’s basically giving us three stories at once – the commitment to the relationship, the pregnancy and birth, and the cancer – which could work if one of those were selected as the main story and the other two treated as jumps forward and/or flashbacks. Instead, we’re given each as its own story unfolding in parallel, and we’re left with far less investment in the couple’s relationship than it otherwise could have been. If we had committed to just one story as the primary plot with the other two in support, I think this would be a true contender for one of the best films of the year because of how compelling and honest the story actually is as it unfolds. As it stands, Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh give great performances as we’ve come to expect from them; the story is compelling and real and connects on an emotional level, but the way the story is presented detracts and distracts from the impact that the film could have otherwise had. I wanted to love this film, but I just liked it. It definitely resonated with me and will be one that I think about for a while, but I think that’s despite its odd plotting choices rather than because of them. Andrew and Florence deserved a better plot for as great as their performances were. You won’t be hugely disappointed if you go see this film, just be sure to temper your expectations a bit.                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh starring romantic drama from director John Crowley (Brooklyn and Boy A) and writer Nick Payne (The Sense of an Ending), We Live in Time. In addition to Garfield and Pugh as the film’s romantic leads, the film also features Lee Braithwaite, Adam James, and Douglas Hodge in supporting roles. The film opened this weekend across the U.S. to solid audience responses and mixed critic reviews. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B; great acting and a devastating story are held back from their fullest potential by some odd story choices.

Should you Watch This Film? Maybe. If you want a highly emotional romantic drama, this one definitely checks that box. If you have trauma related to fertility, I should warn here that this film does deal with that pretty intimately, so you’d be okay waiting to stream this one. For everyone else, it’s a good film, but not necessarily a great one, so I’ll leave it up to you.

Why?

                We Live in Time offers this year’s look at the dramas of romance and relationships, following a relationship from its creative start (Almut hits Tobias with her car and then takes him to the hospital) and then through the typical beats, a honeymoon phase full of sex and dramatic declarations, an early bump in the road about the different expectations regarding family, the reconciliation, and finally, walking through the challenges of a committed relationship together – in this case, cancer and struggles with fertility. Garfield and Pugh are phenomenal as the two leads, carrying it from start to finish with grounded performances that feel incredibly authentic and feature some strong romantic chemistry. Even the story of their relationship is itself compelling with some startlingly real moments that can hit incredibly close to home for people who have walked through similar experiences in their own relationships. The problem is that, for some reason, screenwriter Nick Payne decided that this needed to be presented as a nonlinear narrative, jumping between points in the couple’s relationship almost at random. It’s basically giving us three stories at once – the commitment to the relationship, the pregnancy and birth, and the cancer – which could work if one of those were selected as the main story and the other two treated as jumps forward and/or flashbacks. Instead, we’re given each as its own story unfolding in parallel, and we’re left with far less investment in the couple’s relationship than it otherwise could have been. If we had committed to just one story as the primary plot with the other two in support, I think this would be a true contender for one of the best films of the year because of how compelling and honest the story actually is as it unfolds. As it stands, Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh give great performances as we’ve come to expect from them; the story is compelling and real and connects on an emotional level, but the way the story is presented detracts and distracts from the impact that the film could have otherwise had. I wanted to love this film, but I just liked it. It definitely resonated with me and will be one that I think about for a while, but I think that’s despite its odd plotting choices rather than because of them. Andrew and Florence deserved a better plot for as great as their performances were. You won’t be hugely disappointed if you go see this film, just be sure to temper your expectations a bit.

Weekend Watch - Saturday Night

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Jason Reitman’s film adaptation of the 90 minutes leading up to the airing of the first episode of SNL, Saturday Night. The film stars an ensemble cast as the show’s ensemble of players and writers, including Gabriel LaBelle as creator and writer Lorne Michaels, Rachel Sennott as Michaels’s wife and show writer Rosie Shuster, Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman, Matt Wood as John Belushi, Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris (no relation), Kim Matula as Jane Curtin, Nicholas Braun as Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson, Cooper Hoffman as Dick Ebersol, Andrew Barth Feldman as Neil Levy, Willem Dafoe as Dave Tebet, and Matthew Rhys as Dan Carlin. The film, which chronicles most of the behind-the-scenes goings on of the sketch comedy show’s first night, opened this weekend. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B-; this is a good film, not a great one that could have been great with just a little bit more fine tuning.

Should you Watch This Film? If you are a huge fan of SNL and consider yourself an expert in the show’s history, you’ll probably love this film and what it does. If you have some knowledge of and interest in SNL, then you can find something worth watching in it. If you have no interest in the show, I don’t know what this film does that’ll endear it to you.

Why?

                Saturday Night is a mildly disjointed passion project from a director in Reitman who clearly loves and knows way too much about his subject matter. The actors all do a phenomenal job playing these iconic figures of comedy history, marking the film’s real high point. Story-wise, though, it feels like Reitman had too many fun facts that he wanted to include to really create a satisfyingly cohesive narrative, jumping between business drama, drug comedy, relationship dramedy, biopic, and celebration of SNL without any clear sense of direction until the final sequence, which suddenly becomes this feel-good underdog drama. If it was going for the disconnected feel of an episode of SNL, highlighted more by the entertainment that comes from watching talented people do what they do best than by any sense of message or stance, then it might still work, but I’m not convinced that that’s really what Reitman was going for here. Like an episode of SNL, there are some bits that hit and others that fail to resonate at all and you’re left wondering whether everything you just witnessed in the last hour and half plus was really anything more than an excuse for the performers to put their talents on display. The 16mm film cinematography looks really good, also lending itself to that style over substance that the film seems to be going for. Ultimately, it’s an entertaining but empty film with talent that still deserves to be seen.

                While all of the actors playing their various characters do great jobs in their roles, playing the comedy titans faithfully and skillfully, it’s the performances from the behind-the-scenes characters that really stand out as more than just phenomenal impressions. Rachel Sennott gives us a compelling look at the complex marriage between Lorne Michaels and Rose Shuster, playing Rose as this capable and self-aware woman who made the show possible. Cooper Hoffman gives an admirable performance as the young executive who supported Michaels and his show, Dick Ebersol, punctuated by a strong scene where he finally reveals the precarious situation that the show is in to Lorne in a seedily lit stairwell. It really is LaBelle, though, who holds the whole film down, carrying it with a portrayal of Lorne Michaels as I’m sure Michaels would like to see himself, a young idealist who can’t imagine failing regardless of what practical knowledge might suggest. Gabriel LaBelle is a rising talent, and I’m glad that he does such a great job in this leading role.

                While the film struggles with thematic cohesion like an episode of the show that inspired it, the performances and stylistic choices that Reitman makes still make Saturday Night a film worth watching, though mostly for fans of the show and its history as opposed to a truly broad audience. It takes some unique swings, and some of them even hit. You can find this film in theaters right now if it sounds like something you’d like to check out. I’ll leave that up to you.

Weekend Watch - The Penguin Episode ONe

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the debut episode of the television spin-off of 2022’s superhero hit The Batman – The Penguin. It describes itself as a series following Oz Cobb (the Penguin) as he tries to seize the power in Gotham City’s criminal underworld and picks up following the events of The Batman. The show stars Colin Farrell in the titular role, reprising his performance from Matt Reeves’s film, joined by Cristin Milioti as the daughter of the deceased mob boss Carmine Falcone, Sofia, Rhenzy Feliz as an inopportune henchman that Oswald picks up, Victor Aguilar, Mark Strong as Carmine Falcone in flashbacks, and Clancy Brown as the imprisoned mob boss Salvatore Marone. The show is also slated to feature performances from Theo Rossi, David H. Holmes, and Kenzie Gray. Its first episode aired this past Thursday with subsequent episodes releasing on Sundays starting next week. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B+; a strong, if slow, opening provides plenty to be optimistic for as the rest of the season unfolds, but I’m not going to guarantee anything just yet.

Should you Watch This Show? If you loved Matt Reeves’s The Batman and want to get a taste of that version of Gotham again, this is a must-watch. If you’ve been craving a good crime drama on television that doesn’t revolve around cops and lawyers, this also definitely checks that box, and it might also be a great prestige miniseries that everyone should watch by the time everything’s said and done.

Why?

                The Penguin’s first episode takes us deeper into the criminal underbelly of Gotham City, focusing on the grounded world of organized crime where Oz Cobb and his associates operate. It picks up immediately after the events of the film, giving unfamiliar audiences (what few there may be) a quick montage of news reports explaining the pertinent details as Cobb stands by a window overlooking Gotham, plotting his rise to power. The show then takes off with a literal bang as he finds himself scrambling to cover up a murder with the help of a hapless street criminal (Feliz’s Vic) who had the unfortunate luck of being caught trying to steal the Penguin’s rims. The remainder of the episode spends its time introducing us to the various characters who will no doubt become important players over the course of the season as Cobb visits mob mansions, prostitute-populated streets, drug factories, prison, and even his mother’s home in the suburbs as he attempts to shore up support in the city while gauging the wisdom of staying versus fleeing the inevitable gang war. Across it all, Farrell’s Penguin remains the central figure, playing all sides with just as much weight and squirrelliness as he had in the film, and we start to see the shape that this (mini?)series will be taking. The question of whether Cobb ends up more as a Tony Soprano or a Vito Corleone feels like the real drama of the series, and it should be a fun ride along the way.

                If there’s any major complaints to level against this first episode, it lies in its relatively slow pacing after a quick opening. It teases us with threats of mob violence and surprising turns, but so far all of the surprising turns have had very little lasting impact, serving more as tantalizing teases that never pay off as intensely as they possibly could. Obviously, this is the first episode of an eight-episode season, so they can’t be dropping every body and complicating the plot too much early on, but there will definitely be some fans who’ve come to the show more for its comic book premise than its mob drama who won’t be thrilled with the limited action of this debut. There’s enough twists and turns that have the potential to pay out into some interesting complications down the road that I’m willing (and even excited) to give the show time to cook up to its inevitably messy conclusion. Is this show going to dethrone The Sopranos or The Wire as the best crime drama in the history of television? Doubtful. Is it going to be the high action, high easter egg comic book show that Gotham was? Also probably not, but if you want a show that blends the energy of those two types of shows fairly well so far, you’d be hard-pressed to find something better.

                Led by a consistent Colin Farrell performance and the welcome addition of Cristin Milioti as his more ruthless foil, The Penguin promises to be a fun blend of comic book action and mob drama that might by your next favorite miniseries if it can follow-up on the many promises of its first episode. The next episode comes next Sunday (the 29th), and it should give us a better idea of the direction that everything’s headed. Here’s hoping it can come close to living up to the excellence of the film that inspired it.

Weekend Watch - Speak No Evil

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers is the remake of the 2022 Danish horror film of the same name, Speak No Evil. The Blumhouse-produced remake stars James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi across from Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy as a pair of couples who meet on vacation in Italy and then decide to spend a long weekend together in the country upon their return to the U.K. The film released in theaters this weekend to solid audience reviews so far and looks to be one of the early successes of 2024’s spooky season. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B; while not necessarily the most adventurous film, it’s still solidly entertaining.

Should you Watch This Film? If you have seen and loved the first film, I have a feeling that this film won’t be for you, but if you’re looking for a relatively tame but thrilling horror film, it’s worth checking out.

Why?

                Speak No Evil (2024) does a lot of taming down of the story and themes from the original, making the final product much more palatable for a broad audience, already reflected in the films’ respective IMDB, Tomatometer, and Popcornmeter scores, all of which favor this year’s high-tension remake over the subtler and darker European original. To its credit, this year’s film offers a highly entertaining, fairly safe, and solidly acted horror film. It features some quality comedy that cuts through the tension at appropriate moments without ever losing how uncomfortable the characters rightfully are. At the same time, the writing loses some of the plot by playing most of the twists and third act fairly safe, and it gets a bit too heavy-handed with communicating its themes, straight up stating its main idea in a third-act monologue from McAvoy’s antagonist, Paddy. It’s nowhere near a perfect film, but it mostly accomplishes what it sets out to do, offering some good tension and scares to elevate the heartrate that should satisfy most audiences, especially if you can separate it from the original in your mind.

                The real highlight of the film is McAvoy as the film’s primary antagonist, whose twisted motivations become more apparent as the couples’ weekend at Paddy and Ciara’s (Franciosi) farmhouse unfolds. He brings a physicality and eeriness to the character that really sells the ever-increasing tension that the film needs to execute its premise well. He starts out as this hot, abrasive British dad, slowly devolving into a sinister, narcissistic not-quite-mastermind as everything unfolds. It’s a commanding performance that’s sure to stick with everyone who goes to see the film, and it definitely elevates the film above what it might otherwise have been with the same plot and writing.

                The film’s exploration of family dynamics, commentary on society’s people-pleasing tendencies, and critique on our unwillingness to ever just say no land relatively well. None of what the film wants to say is particularly earth-shattering, and it is sometimes delivered with a tendency to tell rather than show. However, the themes aren’t really the point of the film, more just window dressing to give it a sense of weight while the tension and its eventual release keep the audience gripped.

                A fun, if a bit sanitized and simple, horror thriller, Speak No Evil is carried by James McAvoy’s startling performance as the villain, bolstered by some strong tension building, culminating in a solid final act. It definitely won’t please fans of the original, but it should be what those looking for a fun, not too involved, horror film in the early phases of spooky season want from their theater-going experience. You can currently find it in theaters from Blumhouse if you need something like that in your world right now.

Weekend Watch - A Quiet Place: Day One

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the latest film in the A Quiet Place franchise, A Quiet Place: Day One, the prequel directed by Michael Sarnoski (Pig) and cowritten by Sarnoski and A Quiet Place director John Krasinski. The prequel looks at the start of the franchise’s alien invasion in New York City from the perspective of cancer patient Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) as she fights to survive and get herself some pizza. The film also features appearances from Joseph Quinn as a stranded British law student, Alex Wolff as hospice nurse Reuben, and Djimon Hounsou as harried father Henri. The film opened this weekend to mixed but positive audience and critic reviews. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B; while not as tension filled as the other two films in the franchise, it still finds those moments of terror and humanity that have made the series such a hit.

Should you Watch This Film? If you’re looking for a less intense horror film, this’ll definitely be one you can check out. The characters are strong, and their stories make it worth watching.

Why?

                I don’t know that A Quiet Place: Day One is going to be what everyone was looking for from the prequel film. It doesn’t set out to explain the aliens or their reasons for coming to Earth or even set up some initial fight against them. It simply wants to look at another story within this universe that happens to occur in the first few days of the alien invasion. For me, that’s exactly what I needed from it. I was so worried going in that it was going to try and do too much explaining and worldbuilding and lose any of the pieces that make the first two films so good – the human stories. Instead, this film leans harder into the human element, feeling almost more like a disaster/survival horror than the jumpscare-filled home invasion horror of the first or the postapocalyptic road trip of the second. It’s also helped in this endeavor by the strong performances from Lupita Nyong’o (Us and Little Monsters) and Joseph Quinn (Overlord and Stranger Things) who portray their struggle to survive as something inherently tied to everything that has come before them and their own humanity.

                Technically, the film remains on par with the prior films with a strong sound design, solid visual effects, and another bout of creative cinematography that you really only get from horror films. The oppressive silence isn’t quite as pervasive here as in the past films, but in the moments of true tension, it returns to amp up that heart rate just a bit more at each small sound. The creatures feature a bit more prevalently in this film, and any time you get to see them up close, the visual design holds up as something not quite knowable and immediately horrifying. The camera work continues to do a great job adding to the tension of the scenes, and it all comes together so well to give us another strong, if slightly less terrifying, horror film.

                By focusing on the characters, the film does lose some of that intensity that we’ve become familiar with in the first two films, and I think that’s why we’re seeing some of those less than stellar reviews. The first film really blended those two elements together better than so many horror films, and the second continued in that same vein. This one swings back and forth between the human drama and horror sequences more than actually blending them, but it still works because of how well-executed the human element is. Lupita Nyong’o and Joseph Quinn play well individually and off of each other thanks in large part to each of their abilities to emote, leaning into the gimmick of these films by communicating so well without words. Quinn plays the supporting character so well, portraying empathy and desperation in equal parts so well, and he really gives the story the extra oomph that it needs to really resonate. Obviously, though, Nyong’o is the showstopper here, showing us from the jump how versatile her acting bag is. Here, she plays Sam as this cynical, jaded woman without any real reason to hope, but she manages to find those moments worth celebrating even as the world falls apart around her, and we believe it the whole time thanks to the combination of solid writing and her amazing acting abilities. By the time the credits roll, we’ve seen her progress through a satisfying and believable character arc that reminds us all of why life is worth living – to eat pizza and connect with other people.

                A Quiet Place: Day One might not answer all the burning questions that we have about the start of the alien invasion, and it might lack some of the horror chops of the previous installments, but it still turns in a decently scary survival flick with a truly compelling story about people, which is the core of the Quiet Place films anyway. It’s probably not going to be what everyone wants it to be, but for me, I can now definitely say that I just want to keep watching stories of different individuals in this postapocalyptic world much more than I want to understand how any of it works. This film is currently in theaters, and if you’re looking for a solid thriller, this is the one to go see this weekend.

Weekend Watch - Bridgerton Season 3

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the latest season of Netflix’s hit period romance series Bridgerton, which released the second half of its third season last week. The show, produced by television legend Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder), and created by her collaborator Chris Van Dusen, is based on the historical romance novels by Julia Quinn, which follow the romantic intrigues of the titular noble family and their compatriots in early 19th-century British high society. This season primarily adapts the novel Romancing Mister Bridgerton, which follows the romance between Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton) and Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan), although it implements elements from some of the other novels as well. This season sees the return of most characters and actors from the first two seasons (absent still Regé-Jean Page’s Duke Simon Bassett and Phoebe Dynevor’s Daphne Bassett) while also introducing Hannah Dodd as the previously absent Francesca Bridgerton, Victor Alli as Lord John Stirling, Daniel Frances as Lord Marcus Anderson, and Hannah New as Lady Tilley Arnold. Now that the full third season is out, plenty of people have started sharing their thoughts on it, so let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B+; where the first two seasons shone in their central romances, the third draws more on its supporting cast, which may or may not work as well for everyone.

Should you Watch This Show? If you’ve been a fan of the show from the start, this’ll continue to scratch that itch, and if you weren’t, it’s not going to do any changing of your mind.

Why?

                Bridgerton Season 3 continues in so much of what has made the show such a success – steamy romance, gripping drama, complex love stories, the Vitamin String Quartet, involved sets, beautiful costumes, and memorable characters who grow more complex with each iteration. It knows its identity and niche in the market and delivers yet again a hit for that broad subset of the streaming viewers. Unfortunately, it feels like a show whose writing is starting to get away from it, much as so many of the Shondaland shows do. Season 1 gave us a fascinatingly convoluted romance with critiques on society, gender roles, and even conceptions of marriage and nobility. Season 2 offered a subversive romance that also served as a redemption arc for a previously debauched romantic lead that somehow got us to sympathize with the fact that people actually can change. Season 3’s central romance tackles a much safer, more tried-and-true route of friends to lovers to enemies to lovers again, which tackles fewer social issues, though its subplots do feature some refreshing takes on how love looks different for different people, learning to forgive, and the self-sacrificial elements of family. It’s still a strong season of the show, but certain aspects of it feel less satisfying than in seasons past.

                In addition to the excellent production design, the performances remain strong with Nicola Coughlan, Claudia Jessie, and Golda Rosheuvel remaining the standouts. While the rest of the cast continues to fill their roles admirably, looking and sounding the parts that they are asked to play, these three women continue to grow their roles and inhabit their characters in ways that keep them iconic in every iteration. Rosheuvel’s portrayal of Queen Charlotte has become so iconic that it earned the character a spin-off prequel series, and she continues to be a dominating force who steals the screen not just with her wild hairdos but her gravitas and expressions in every one of her scenes. It’s a performance that easily becomes career-defining because of how memorable she has become. Jessie plays the second Bridgerton daughter, Eloise, who defies societal pressures as much as possible and had been Penelope’s best friend up until some drama at the end of the second season, and that break allows her to grow Eloise in new directions this season, showcasing her capability for repartee and satire on a new level than ever before without losing the sense of self and vulnerability that have made her such a lovable character. Coughlan also shines in her increased role this season; obviously, her comedic capabilities have never been in doubt if you’ve ever seen Derry Girls, but she brings a sensuality and authenticity to her romance this season that helps to sell the plot and keep the audience invested even when the writing is doing her story few favors. She is the moment, and she won’t soon let you forget it.

                Where the acting and production value remains at peak levels, the writing in this season has fallen off as the story begins to lose itself too often in the weeds, taking wind out of the central romance’s sails to puff it into a side romance for Francesca that seeks to set up what I assume will be one of Season 4’s two main plots (it’s a good romance, but it detracts from the main story unquestionably). It also spends a lot of time looking at the sudden entrance of the Mondriches into high society from their humble beginnings without actually offering much in the way of story for them besides feeling occasionally out of place. Cressida Cowper (Jessica Madsen) is given an entire character arc this season, but it feels so aggressively two-toned that I wouldn’t be surprised if they rewrote her whole character between the two parts of the season (maybe if I had watched the two parts farther removed, I wouldn’t have noticed the inexplicable shift in her character from part one to part two). Even the drama of Whistledown and her secret identity, which is inextricably tied to the romance of this season, doesn’t really hold your attention like it did in the first two seasons because of the increasing number of people who already know the secret. Really, I was satisfied with the story but never blown away by anything groundbreaking or soul-shattering like I was with the first two seasons, but the open plots that remain for Season 4 to explore leave me hopeful that we’ll get back to that success quickly.

                This latest season of Bridgerton continues to shine in the ways we’ve come to expect, if not quite so brightly in its story department, and it’s held up still by its leading ladies and a phenomenal production team. With the full season now streaming on Netflix, I’d recommend any who’ve been holding out after enjoying the first two seasons to go watch this one as well. If you’re someone who hasn’t watched the show yet, Season 3 is not the place to start, but I highly recommend the first two seasons as well, and if you’re someone who gave the first season a try but found it wasn’t for you, I can’t say that this one will suddenly change your mind. Figure out which of those categories you belong in, and then go and do what you want.

Weekend Watch - Inside Out 2

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Pixar’s latest theatrical release (their first since Lightyear), Inside Out 2, the sequel to 2015’s Best Animated Feature winner. The sequel sees the return of voice actors Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Diane Lane, and Kyle MacLachlan as the voices of Joy, Sadness, Anger, Mom, and Dad, joined this time by Kensington Tallman as Riley, Maya Hawke as Anxiety, Liza Lapira as Disgust, Tony Hale as Fear, and Ayo Edebiri as Envy, just to name a few of the new names and faces. The film follows Riley and her emotions as they move from childhood into adolescence with the complications of starting high school, fitting in, and puberty bringing a whole new set of issues to reckon with. The film opened this weekend to relatively positive reviews. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B; it’s not saying anything wrong; I just don’t know that what it’s saying carries the weight that I want it to.

Should you Watch This Film? If you want a good movie to see with your kids or are a fan of the first, this is worth checking out. Otherwise, you can definitely wait to stream this one later on when you’re catching up on all the Oscar nominees.

Why?

                Inside Out 2 does a lot of things right as a sequel, building on the world of the last film while telling an original story with a positive message, memorable characters, and a few good laughs. Unfortunately, it also suffers as a product of the current Disney/Pixar machine (the first after the infamous announcement that they’ll be moving away from autobiographical stories like those in Turning Red and Luca), and in its quest for “universality” (whatever that means), loses most of the emotional (ironic, I know) resonance that they’ve become so well known for. I felt more emotional connection to the characters and stories of every Pixar film since 2020 (besides Lightyear) than I did watching Inside Out 2. They’ve given us an important message with solid characters that somehow manages to avoid actually getting the audience at all invested in the characters that they’re watching on the screen. The film’s story feels like it’s been designed around getting to a couple of key points in the film’s third act, and the result is a sense of manufactured emotion rather than genuine connection (unlike the authenticity of Turning Red, Luca, Soul, Onward, and even the first Inside Out).

                Now I know you’re asking how this film got even a B rating after all this negativity, and that’s because it really is a well-made film. The animation remains beautiful both in the real world and in Riley’s mind with some new techniques on display that really impressed me and made for some fun world-building and comedy. The new characters add some fun new wrinkles to the world of these films, with both Anxiety and Envy being the standouts. There’s a few jokes in here that really work well, even if too many feel more tailored to the younger audience that filled my theater, who for the most part weren’t laughing as much as I might’ve expected. The sound design and Andrea Datzman’s music do a solid job of creating tension and atmosphere. Even the film’s message is one that checks that Pixar box of being relevant for both adults and children – that anxiety is something that can easily come to define us if we don’t monitor how we’re framing our situation, and that’ll always lead to disaster. All of that speaks to the success of the new Pixar method in theory. On paper, this is an excellent film, but in practice, it’s missing that personal element that’s made modern Pixar so successful – the autobiographical stories of Turning Red and Luca, the family narrative of Coco, the friendship narrative of Toy Story 4, etc. Inside Out 2 tries to create those personal moments by telling a story about anxiety, growing up, and friendship, but none of the beats of those stories feel authentic enough (besides an excellently realistic panic attack) to create the resonance that it wants to – maybe that’s also because most of the development in this story happens to Riley herself rather than the emotions in her mind, who are supposed to be the main characters.

                Inside Out 2 is an excellently crafted animated film that unfortunately fails to deliver on what people actually love about the other Pixar films – authentic emotion, which is unfortunately ironic for this sequel. It looks good, sounds good, and even feels pretty good, but it fails to deliver in its biggest moments. If you liked the first film, you’ll probably still enjoy this one, but I don’t know that it’s a film that everyone needs to go see immediately in theaters.

Weekend Watch - Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the latest iteration of the science fiction saga – Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – which opened in theaters this weekend. This newest film in the franchise remains in the continuity of the Rupert Wyatt/Matt Reeves prequel trilogy of the 2010s, but three hundred years after the end of War, bringing us an entirely new group of heroes and villains living on an Earth that has been increasingly dominated by the intelligent apes, with most humans having fully lost the ability to reason and speak. The film, directed by Wes Ball (Maze Runner) and written by Josh Friedman (Avatar: The Way of Water), stars Owen Teague as our new protagonist Noa, Lydia Peckham as his friend Soona, Freya Allan as the intelligent human Mae, Peter Macon as their travelling companion Raka, and Kevin Durand as the despotic ape Proximus Caesar. The film has received a generally positive reception thus far. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: C+; great visuals and new characters only take this film so far, as it doesn’t seem to have too much that it actually wants to say.

Should you Watch This Film? If you’re a fan of the other Apes films, this’ll scratch that itch for you, and if you’re looking for an easy to watch action/adventure film, this checks those boxes as well. If you aren’t really looking for either of those things, though, I can’t think of any great reasons to watch this film.

Why?

                Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a visually stunning but thematically hollow action/adventure road film. It does a good job of creating new characters that feel fresh and different from those in the trilogy that it follows without entirely separating itself from that trilogy, tying them together with a borderline religion established around the now-deceased hero of those original films – Caesar. Unfortunately, by tying itself to those films, it also accepts the expectation that those films created that, not only will it give us great visuals and an engaging action story, it will also have something to say about the state of the world and about humanity, and it’s just missing those aspects – the commentary on animal testing of Rise, the urging against xenophobia of Dawn, and the warning against demagoguery of War. At my most generous, I can say that the film had some ideas about religion and fate that could have turned into something worth exploring if they had done anything besides mentioning them and then abandoning them in favor of the third act’s action sequences.

                Don’t get me wrong, as a simple action/adventure film, Kingdom delivers a fun, if formulaic, take on those genres, combining tropes of road films, revenge films, and infiltration films into one cohesive piece that has characters worth exploring further. The visuals of the apes remain just as impressive as they have been, worthy of the awards that the franchise still hasn’t won in its rebooted iteration. The world, now three hundred years without human civilization, is full of creative landscapes reminiscent of the plant-covered post-apocalyptic world of The Last of Us, empty but gorgeous. Noa and Mae make for compelling protagonists, with the mystery of Mae’s mission and origins keeping you engaged with her story and Noa’s quest for revenge, restoration, and potentially leadership feeling familiar but still gripping. The film’s action sequences don’t do anything too groundbreaking, but they’re fun and harrowing enough to keep you on the edge of your seat.

                Again, though, the actual substance of Kingdom feels so lacking in the face of all of its style. The villain Proximus feels so generic when held up to the franchise’s previous villains of Koba and the Colonel. His desire for technology to help him establish rule among the ape clans doesn’t really feel that bad, and his despotism feels far less sinister than your typical evil leader type – I guess we’ve reverted to the simple statement that any desire for power is inherently evil. If it weren’t for the fact that the protagonists were basically after the same thing, that explanation could work. Instead, we’re left with a feeling of uncertainty of how to feel when the dust finally settles and everyone gets what’s coming to them. Again, if we had leaned harder into the religious fanaticism of Proximus and his soldiers, I think it would be fine, but instead, he’s just a pretender to empire whose motivations are not far enough removed from the protagonists’ to make his villainy feel earned.

                While Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes fully delivers on the spectacle that we’ve come to expect from the franchise, its thematic shortcomings and generic villain hold it well behind the excellence of the trilogy that it seeks to follow. If you’ve been missing the apes on your screen, it’s still worth watching, but don’t go in with insanely high hopes. The newness of a new era of apes can only take the film so far, but it does look good on the big screen, so do with that information what you will.

Weekend Watch - Challengers

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, which opened in theaters across the U.S. this weekend. The love-triangle-tennis-movie hybrid stars Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor as a trio of tennis stars whose interweaving professional and personal lives culminate at a small-stakes challenger event in advance of the U.S. Open. Scripted by Justin Kuritzkes (husband of Past Lives director Celine Song and creator of the “Potion Seller” YouTube video), directed by Guadagnino, and scored by the ever-talented Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the film has received a slew of critical acclaim and decent audience reception as well. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: A-; for the most part this film delivers what you want it to, and it’s all executed with excellence and innovation.

Should you Watch This Film? If you’re looking for an innovative sports relationship dramedy, this’ll be right up your alley; however, if you’re looking for that debauchery-fueled sex-fest promised in the trailers or a film with clear heroes and villains, you’ll be leaving at least slightly disappointed.

Why?

                Though perhaps a bit oversold in its marketing for broader audiences, Challengers delivers one of the better sports films and love triangle films in recent history. The performances from the three leads make for gripping romance, intrigue, and athletic sequences. Kuritzkes’s script provides a compelling story about the destructive forces of passion, jealousy, and insecurity. Guadagnino and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom create a menagerie of charged sequences in both the interpersonal moments and the tennis matches, showcasing a creativity in shot choice that continuously leaves the audience dazzled. Reznor and Ross supplement it all with a score that breathes life, energy, and urgency into every scene, elevating the whole thing while increasing the plot’s sense of urgency. The film’s only real missteps come in the form of a predictable and maybe even overdone “twist” in the third act and a focus on the character relationships more than the characters themselves in the film’s story development.

                As a sports film, Challengers offers engrossing competition, compelling character drama, and a creative presentation of the sport of tennis itself, not yet seen in this way in mainstream films. It frames the game of tennis as a relationship, inextricably tying the sport portion of the film to the love triangle portion of the film, and it makes for even more intense competitions on the court and honestly one of the best climaxes and conclusions in any sports film, and certainly the best of the year so far. The ways that the camera is used in the tennis matches turns the sport into cinema, looking at each match from angles never seen before that keep the audience on edge for each serve, each volley, each point.

                As a relationship film, certain aspects feel a bit more familiar than the sport aspects, but it still manages to keep everything compelling, partially due to the direction of Guadagnino and the score of Reznor and Ross and partially due to the leads’ performances and Kuritzkes’s clear understanding of unhealthy relationship dynamics. Zendaya plays young star Tashi Duncan, a promising tennis star whose career is cut short by injury after she hits a rough spot with her tennis player boyfriend Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), friend and rival of Mike Faist’s Art Donaldson who also has a huge crush on Tashi. The origins of their friendships and romantic entanglements are explored in nonlinear sequences of their interactions at youth tournaments and college before catching up to the present where Art is now a grand slam winner, coached by his wife Tashi, and where Patrick has fallen on hard times, struggling to find success as a tennis professional, seeking to qualify for the U.S. Open by winning the same challenger where Art has come to get his groove back ahead of the only grand slam that has yet eluded him. The ins and outs of Art’s development make for the most compelling portion of the film, as he goes from insecure also-ran to confident adult ready for the next phase of life while his rival and his wife remain their same childish selves, stuck in the what-ifs of the past. This lack of development for Tashi and Patrick has left some audiences less than thrilled with the film’s character development, particularly because their arcs culminate in a frustratingly predictable moment designed to lend extra weight to the film’s climax that really just reminds you just how little development they’ve had in comparison to Art. All three play their characters well, though, and the film’s conclusion in a relationship moment that highlights all three of their roles and sends each of them off on a high note certainly goes a long way in making up for the lack of attention paid to the actual characters of Patrick and Tashi.

                Challengers is a sexy, if not overly sexual, take on tennis films, couched in a love triangle relationship dramedy that’s skillfully executed by everyone involved with a few knocks against it for some overdone relationship tropes and weak character development, that delivers a satisfying and innovative take on sports films and plenty of relational melodrama to keep everyone invested. It’s not necessarily everything that the trailers promised that it would be, but that makes it, honestly, a better film overall, avoiding that desire to be transgressive simply to push the bubble while pushing that bubble in different ways than expected. It’s worth the watch if you’re into cinematic innovation, complex relationship dynamics, fun sports action, and films without any singularly perfect hero.

Weekend Watch - Fallout

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the latest video game to television adaptation from Amazon – Fallout, based in the world of the highly successful video game series from Interplay and Bethesda. The show, set in a postapocalyptic, retrofuturistic version of our own world, takes place 219 years after a massive nuclear war and follows a menagerie of characters who are figuring out how best to survive in the new wild west that is the bombed out west coast. It stars Ella Purnell as vault dweller Lucy MacLean, Aaron Moten as Brotherhood of Steel Squire Maximus, Walton Goggins as mutated former Hollywood star Cooper Howard, and Moises Arias as Lucy’s brother Norm MacLean in addition to a roster of recognizable cameos and B-list actors filling out the rest of the cast. The show premiered on Amazon Prime Video last Wednesday evening and has quickly become a hit with both critics and audiences. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B+, it’s not a perfect show, but it captures the spirit of the games well without alienating potential new audiences with too much overreliance on lore and references.

Should you Watch This Show? It depends on what you’re looking for in a show. If you want gory, occasionally goofy, action with just enough heart and topical discussion of corporate greed and government infighting, this’ll be right up your alley. If not, I don’t know that the characters and world have enough to offer everyone to make it a universally lovable show.

Why?

                So much of Fallout’s highs and lows go hand in hand, with leading characters being hit or miss in their writing and how compelling their stories are, worldbuilding that doesn’t go too hard in its lore dumping but does require some suspension of disbelief, and action sequences that thrill but could feel excessive to some audiences. It captures the contemporary spirit of the latest Fallout games, embracing its kitschy 1950s meets wild west meets futuristic dystopian aesthetic and themes in every sequence. The music, production design, costumes, makeup, and visual effects (mostly) hold up really well and deliver what you’d want in a series based on these video games. They also don’t try to cater too intensely to the fans of the games that newcomers will be totally lost, which really helped my wife and me get into it from the jump – I have played probably ten hours combined of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, and she had no interaction with the brand before starting the show. I will say that I’m not sure if it offers enough to keep people who aren’t interested in the world and themes of the games super invested (i.e., this isn’t going to suddenly become your parents’ and grandparents’ favorite show), but it’s a fun one for its target audience of late teens to 40-somethings.

                As far as the show’s story goes, I’m not going to get too into it here to avoid spoilers, but I will say that they’ve done a good job with their characters (mostly). It’s really fun to see Moises Arias in a well-reviewed piece of media that’s not aiming for the YA audience, and his character has a surprisingly engaging subplot that allows him to flex some of his more serious chops without losing his snarky, jaded humor either. Ella Purnell shines as the series’ lead, playing the fish-out-of-water archetype so well as she slowly assimilates to the world outside of the vault where she was raised, serving as both audience proxy and compelling heroine at the same time. Lucy’s a really fun lead character for the modern era, and Purnell plays her well. So many side characters have such well-fleshed-out stories and characterizations that I don’t have time to go into all of them here, but it really does give the show that sense of being lived in that the best open-world video games seek to capture, and I’d argue that the combination of great casting and writing accomplish that even more so here. The true star of the show, though, is Walton Goggins, whose gunslinging “ghoul” is simultaneously the coolest and most loathsome antihero we’ve seen in a long time, especially in the world of sci-fi/action media. He gets to do a lot in both the present and in flashbacks, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him contend for an Emmy before it’s all said and done. The one character that I have some issues with is Aaron Moten’s Maximus. Moten does a good job of delivering the dialogue and playing up the character with his flaws and motivations. It’s just that the show takes way too long to flesh out his motivations, and in the time they take doing that, Maximus comes across as inexplicably incompetent, vaguely whiny, and generally not likable enough to be the secondary protagonist that they want him to be by the time we get to the back half of the season. I have faith that he’ll improve as a character in the show’s next season (hopefully), but his parts are definitely the weakest and slowest in this season – again, at no fault of Moten’s.

                Fallout manages to offer audiences an original story, fun world, faithful game adaptation, memorable characters, and strong performances in its retrofuturistic packaging, sure to please fans both old and new even if its story occasionally lags and it doesn’t necessarily have that universal charm needed to snag some of the older audiences. It’s so much better than I had any reason to expect, and I look forward to it getting that second season. You can currently watch this show on Amazon Prime Video, and I’d encourage you to do so.

Weekend Watch - Dune: Part Two

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, an recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Dune: Part 2, the sequel to Denis Villeneuve’s award-winning adaptation of the first part of Frank Herbert’s acclaimed science fiction novel of the same name. After a delay from its original November release date due to last year’s Hollywood strikes, the film finally released widely this weekend (plus some early screenings in various theaters over the past few weeks). It sees the return of Timothée Chalamet as protagonist Paul Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Zendaya as Chani, Javier Bardem as Stilgar, Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, Dave Bautista as Rabban, Charlotte Rampling as Reverend Mother Mohiam, and Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Harkonnen. They are joined in this continuation by Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha, Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, Christopher Walken as the Emperor, and Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot Fenring, rounding out the all-star cast of this sci-fi epic. With stellar reviews from audiences and generally favorable returns from critics, this looks to be the best film of the year so far. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: A-; while not perfect, it delivers on so many of the promises of the first film in compelling fashion.

Should you Watch This Film? Yes! In the theater, with good speakers, get the full experience. It’s a thrill.

Why?

                Dune: Part 2 is the science fiction epic that we were promised in 2021’s Dune. Its action is bigger, its characters are more fleshed-out even with a wider cast of characters, and it’s just as visually stunning as the first installment. As character motivations become more apparent, so does the film’s true message about the dangers of “chosen ones” and issues with buying into your own mythos and the ills of settler colonialism – all the messages of Herbert’s original 1965 novel, made even more evident by its sequel Dune Messiah. The actors have all elevated their game in one way or another to give audiences a collection of memorable characters. The film’s sound and visuals continue to stun in every sense of the word – sets, locations, special effects, the “props”, costumes, Hans Zimmer’s score – everything working together to immerse the audience in the world of the film. It transports and grips you as its story unfolds in thrilling, tragic, and epic fashion.

                We’ll start with story and execution, since that’s where the film’s biggest issues lie. It’s troubling when a film that’s two hours and forty-six minutes in length feels like it could’ve told its story more effectively with an extra twenty minutes or so. It improves on the story issues of the first film, where if often felt that the audience were merely casual observers of these moments that carried weight for characters to whom we had little connection. This time, a combination of improved character development, legitimately compelling themes, and intense action sequences get the audience fully invested in the story from the jump. What’s missing this time around is the mystery and atemporality of the first film. Gone are Paul’s vague and confusing visions of unknown characters and uncertain futures, replaced by ominous looks at his mother walking past starving bodies, which feels much more heavy-handed in its messaging than the hints of the visions from the first film. It also does feel again as if we are jumping from moment to moment in time with the characters, missing out on some (though not all) of the film’s potential character moments and interactions not tied directly to the plot. Again, this is a loss to the film’s runtime, which does feel as long as it is and would probably not be abbreviated by any extra moments, so we’re left with a stronger story and film that nevertheless still feels like it’s missing something.

                Where obviously the technical aspects and score for this film are excellent, the welcome addition is a cast of actors giving committed, fun, and engaging performances, helping to cover the aforementioned story issues because of how easy it is to invest in their characters. Where the first film had some strong showings from Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson, you can feel the improvement from everyone in this film, making the most of their increased character development. Zendaya, who was notably absent from most of the first film, immediately makes Chani a rich and dynamic character, more than just a love interest, with some excellent character moments and really solid expressive work. Ferguson takes an even tougher role in this one as Lady Jessica steps into a more prominent position among the Fremen, and it’s again a captivating performance, if a bit more intimidating, that might just be her best yet. Javier Bardem takes on an ironically more comedic role in this one as Stilgar’s dedication to the prophecies of the Lisan al-Gaib come to the fore, giving him the opportunity to deliver lines with such earnestness that the audience actually erupted in laughter because of their ironic timing. While Florence Pugh and Léa Seydoux are satisfyingly welcome additions to the cast, the runaway favorite of the new characters has to be Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha. He plays the new villain in a chillingly animated fashion, crafting a memorable performance that’ll end up alongside the likes of Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger, Tom Hardy’s Bane, and Ricardo Montalban’s Khan in the annals of film history. Finally, Timothée Chalamet has come into his own here, establishing his movie star status as he takes Paul through his journey from reluctant hero to willingly participating messiah. It’s a powerful performance, full of excellent vocal, physical, and expressive work that confirms his place as one of the best actors currently working.

                Denis Villeneuve has executed a phenomenal science fiction sequel that stays true to its source material and innovates with compelling characters, stunning production value, and memorable performances that supplement a story that could probably have benefited from a few more scenes but is nevertheless engaging. It’s the best film of the year so far by a fairly wide margin, and the theatrical experience of watching it is glorious – people laughed, they applauded, and some even called it “terrible”. It’ll probably be a while before I recommend a new release this strongly.

Weekend Watch - All of Us Strangers

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the BAFTA-nominated film from Andrew Haigh that finally got a theatrical release at a theater within feasible driving distance of my house this weekend – All of Us Strangers. The film, adapted from Taichi Yamada’s novel Strangers, stars Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell, and Claire Foy in a story about a lonely screenwriter (Scott) whose work on a script based on his own adolescent tragedy leads him back to his childhood home where his deceased parents (Bell and Foy) are seemingly still alive, while he also starts to open himself up to a relationship with a fellow tenant (Mescal) at his supremely vacant apartment complex. The intimate and mind-bending film has already received six BAFTA nominations, a Golden Globe nomination, and a Critics Choice Award nomination. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: A; this film meets and exceeds expectations at almost every level.

Should you Watch This Film? Yes, assuming that it’s playing in your area and you’re allowed/able to go see R-rated films.

Why?

                All of Us Strangers does, in fact, live up to the expectations that I have had about it. It delivers a beautifully acted, emotional, engaging, well-shot, mentally stimulating, and intimate look at grief, love, memory, family, and the universal human need for connection and intimacy. On the one hand, it offers a devastating portrayal of loneliness and its consequences when left unchecked, but on the other, it presents the audience with the beautiful nature of the alternative – opening yourself up to being vulnerable with others who might be able to love you (platonically, paternally, romantically, or any other way) and whom you might love in return. Andrew Haigh’s adaptation of Yamada’s novel takes the premise of what I understand to be a fantasy/romance/mystery/horror-lite story (based on the plot synopses I’ve read) whose focus is on letting go of past hurts and loss so that you can connect with your present and twists it into something that lacks a bit of that horror element but that leans hard into the other aspects to tell a story of opening up despite past hurts because of the need that everyone has for connection. Add to that adaptation the four excellent performances from Scott, Mescal, Bell, and Foy, and you’ve got yourself a modern masterpiece of film.

                I think that there exists a problematic and simplistic reading of this film as a purely LGBTQ+ story about how, in fact, being non-cis non-het is inherently isolating to the point of total despair. Adam (Scott) consistently describes himself as lonely, even from childhood before the deaths of his parents, and attributes that loneliness to his sense of feeling different and his fear of being judged and/or ostracized by his peers and his parents for being gay. Likewise, Harry (Mescal) talks about his lack of contact with his family once he told them about his sexuality being an operating factor in his own loneliness and isolation. I think, though, that reading such an interpretation – “the gays are lonely and sad” – into this film is reductive and dismissive of what Haigh (and the cast) are actually trying to accomplish. Their isolation doesn’t stem from their sexuality; it stems from the sense of rejection that they chose to latch onto, that society continues to push everyone toward. This fear of potentially being hurt by others because someone did once hurt you or someone like you seems to permeate modern society and relationships, from children to work environments to families to romantic partnerships to everything in between, and it’s that type of isolation that Haigh seeks to highlight – isolation driven by fear, fearing that you’ll never be loved or be enough but also fearing the possibility of finding out whether or not you are right. It’s so much deeper than a story of gay men being isolated, and it being told from an LGBTQ+ perspective simply lends more truth and power to its universal nature – that I, a straight man, can resonate with and recognize the tension of needing connection but fearing the hurt that comes when you connect with imperfect people as an imperfect person. It’s powerful.

                To top it all off, though, each of the four actors in this film (because it really is just a four-person film with two other credited actors who share one line between the two of them) delivers some of their best work, and when Oscar nominations leave all four of them out on Tuesday, it’s going to be a travesty. Claire Foy as Adam’s mother gets the opportunity to play this maternal figure to a forty-something man while being five to ten years younger than him due to the circumstances of her life and death. It’s a fascinating performance to watch because of how natural it feels, how, no matter the age of your child, you never stop being a mother – with all the highs and lows of motherhood included. Across from her, Jamie Bell plays Adam’s father in what is arguably the most emotionally taxing role of the film as he comes to terms with his treatment of his son while alive, forgive himself, and ask for a chance to be better in one of the most touching scenes from a film in the past year. Paul Mescal provides the perfect sounding board for Adam’s newfound desire for intimacy, offering a caring and interested romantic partner who hides his own pain just as deep down as Adam. It’s a strong supporting performance that comes to a climax in the film’s final sequences when his own pain and isolation finally make themselves known, and the audience gets to see the fullness of his own character development that’s been happening across the film. Finally, without Andrew Scott, this film simply doesn't work. His combination of longing, loneliness, and eventual acceptance come through in every facial expression, movement, and line delivery as he takes the audience along with him on this emotional ride of learning to connect with others and shed his fear of rejection. His is actually one of the best male performances of the year.

                All of Us Strangers gives audiences a glimpse at the power of films to tell universal truths in compelling and emotionally engaging packages thanks to the excellent adaptation and direction of Andrew Haigh and the spot-on performances from all four of the film’s primary players. On the surface this film could be one of the bleakest and most depressing looks at the current state of humanity, but deep down it offers a beautiful alternative if we can only get over ourselves and let others into our hurts and fears and see their own as we want to be seen. If you’ve got this film showing at a theater near you, I can’t stress enough how much you should go check it out. If not, definitely find it when it hits streaming.

Weekend Watch - The Boy and the Heron

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers is The Boy and the Heron, the newest film from acclaimed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. The film has been reported as the filmmaker’s final film, but more recent reports seem to imply that he might have one more in him. Either way, after opening in Japan in July, this film opened in U.S. theaters this weekend. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: A; animation, themes, characters, and story all hit those notes that we’ve come to expect from Miyazaki, yet again in a new and exciting tale.

Should you Watch This Film? Yes, but I do think that not everyone will love this film equally.

Why?

                Whether The Boy and the Heron truly is Miyazaki’s final film or not, much of the film feels like a swan song from the master of animation. The story, drawing its name from the novel by Genzaburo Yoshino, is loosely based on the filmmaker’s own adolescence during World War II, while also drawing on themes from his other works and combining all of that with his own sense of self and nearing the end of his life and career. It’s a film by Miyazaki for fans of Miyazaki first and foremost, but it doesn’t stop there, offering an engaging coming-of-age story for all audiences with one of the most complex protagonists that the animator has ever delivered. With what might be the filmmaker’s best display of animation, just the right amount of levity, and an engaging exploration of grief, growing up, aging, and generational responsibility, this film delivers a strong endcap to a year full of animated instant classics.

                The film’s story follows Mahito, a teen living in Japan during World War II, who loses his mother in a fire and then moves to the countryside when his father marries his mother’s younger sister, Natsuko. At their new house, Mahito struggles to accept Natsuko as his new mother and is harassed by a grey heron who lives on the grounds. Eventually, though, when Natsuko disappears into the forest surrounding the house – apparently taken by the mischievous grey heron – Mahito takes it on himself to bring her back, following her with one of the elderly women of the house (Kiriko) to the abandoned tower on the grounds that was built by his eccentric granduncle many years past. In the tower, the heron informs Mahito that his mother is still alive somewhere within the tower and that Mahito has to save both her and Natsuko before he leaves. Mahito’s adventure into the magical world of the tower brings him into conflict with the human-sized, man-eating parakeets that have taken up residence there and seek to rule it for themselves. To face them down, he is aided by a young fisherwoman named Kiriko, a magical girl with fire powers named Himi, and the heron who might have designs of his own. Ultimately, Mahito must choose between staying in the tower as its new master or returning with Natsuko to his world and his father. It’s one of Miyazaki’s more complex stories if you’re going beat by beat (which this recap certainly wasn’t), but it’s still fairly easy to follow in terms of the key points and very engaging thanks to the characters and animation.

                As always, Miyazaki’s animation is gorgeous, capturing a combination of realism, fantasy, and whimsy in the characters and landscapes that he brings to the screen. It might actually be the best that he’s ever done. The opening sequence of the film on its own is one of the two best animated scenes I’ve seen this year – the Spider-Gwen montage from the beginning of Across the Spider-Verse being the other – and the rest of the film keeps that excellence going, even if it’s never quite at that level again. I was struck by the realism of the way that Mahito was animated, with movements that look and feel like the movements of a real human, more than any character that I have ever seen in one of the director’s films. At the same time, the fantastical animations of the heron, the parakeets, the warawara (the requisite cutesy spirits that, in this case, look strikingly like plastic bags with faces), and the magical world of the tower feel inspired and totally new and distinct from Miyazaki’s other works, even while drawing inspiration from them. In particular, the parakeets give the film a feeling of levity that keeps the audience from falling too deeply into the potential for melancholy that the film’s story offers.

                Miyazaki has offered us a story full of the deeply human themes of loss and growing up and responsibility that still manages to stay light in the midst of its heavy realism thanks to his incredibly fun characters and animation that will leave audiences coming back to this film over and over again, discovering something new every time. While the film’s story might be overwhelming on the first watch, its wealth of detail and depth of themes make it an easy film to revisit, and the emotion and characters make it one that you’ll want to revisit. Currently, this film is showing (both subbed and dubbed) in theaters, and if my experience was any indication, I strongly recommend seeing it while you can on the big screen.

Weekend Watch - Saltburn

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Emerald Fennell’s highly anticipated sophomore feature Saltburn. The film follows a scholarship Oxford student as he spends his summer holidays at the estate of one of his wealthy schoolmates and slowly inserts himself into that world of wealth. It stars Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Archie Madekwe, Paul Rhys, Richard E. Grant, Rosamund Pike, Carey Mulligan, and Alison Oliver and opened last week to a strong response from audiences even if its critic reviews are only a bit mixed. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: A-; so much of the film’s themes have been gone over time and again, but it executes them in such innovative fashion that you can’t help but be enraptured.

Should you Watch This Film? Maybe: filmgoers interested in a film that blends The Talented Mr. Ripley with Babylon are sure to be thrilled. People who find either or both of those films off-putting are probably in for a bad time, though.

Why?

                Saltburn delivers on its promises of exploring the excesses of the British aristocracy and the lengths that people will go to attain wealth through a twisted series of events. Fennell has delivered a depraved but highly entertaining story about class, education, and desire that is at its best when its actors get to show off the fullness of their characters’ idiosyncrasies and sociopathy. The film takes the premise of “eat the rich” to a whole new level that ultimately reads as much as a critique of middle-class social climbers as it does of the aristocracy that it puts on display. Keoghan, Elordi, Madekwe, and Pike, in particular, stand out in their performances, bringing the sexiness that the film requires to hold its audience’s attention as it dives deeper and deeper into the lifestyles of the denizens of Saltburn and into Keoghan’s Oliver’s need to be part of it all.

                In terms of its actual story, Saltburn is fairly reminiscent of Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, following a gifted middle-class college student who inserts himself in increasingly aggressive fashion into the life of his rich schoolmate and his friends and family. Keoghan’s Oliver Quick is perhaps more chilling than Damon’s Tom Ripley simply on his ability to lurk while hot, giving a more disconcerting lead performance than Damon’s obsessive one. The twist that kicks off the film’s third act comes only as a mild surprise, and Oliver’s final reveal (no, not that one) might leave too little to the audience’s imagination. Overall, though, the story works because of how fun it is to watch Oliver and his machinations play out, even when you’re pretty sure you know where it’s all headed.

                In addition to the film’s fun – at times, disturbing – story beats, the cast of characters keep things compelling as well. Archie Madekwe, who continues to have himself a year with his supporting performance here, perfectly plays the spoiled, but broke, American cousin of the Cattons, Farleigh Start. He plays smug and confident with so much smarminess that you can’t help but love to hate him. Even toward the film’s end, when his arc becomes more tragic, he brings just enough ridiculousness that you feel he deserves whatever comes, and he manages to never get shown up by any of the film’s “bigger” names. Jacob Elordi also happens to be putting up career numbers this year, and in Saltburn, his Felix Catton is aloof enough to draw the audience in and jealous enough to make them stay. His charisma and sex-appeal ooze from every scene he’s in, and you almost empathize with Oliver’s blend of obsession and frustration with the rich young socialite. Rosamund Pike, though secondary in the film’s cast of characters, gives a scene-stealing performance as the matriarch, Elspeth Catton. Her deadpan delivery of some truly wild lines brings an element of unexpected humor to many of the film’s tensest situations, and she plays so well off of every character she sits across from – Richard E. Grant’s Sir James, Keoghan’s Oliver, Elordi’s Felix, and even Carey Mulligan’s Pamela – elevating every scene that she’s in because you never know exactly what she’s going to do next, raising the whole cast up to her incredibly talented level. Obviously, though, Barry Keoghan carries the bulk of the film on his back, playing that unnerving little dude just as well as he ever has here as Oliver Quick. In every moment, his decisions, however uncouth and out-there they might be, feel true to the desperation of his character, and the actor feels like the perfect casting for such a uniquely depraved performance. I never doubted his willingness to fully send, and he full sends many MANY times in this film.

                A brilliant cast of characters, some truly gorgeous visuals, and plenty of wild story beats keep Emerald Fennell’s sophomore outing fresh and entertaining even as the themes it explores feel a bit overdone in modern popular media. The big swings taken by the filmmakers certainly won’t land with all audiences, but those looking to see a well-acted film that innovates and takes risks in the modern landscape of film are sure to be rewarded for their watch. Saltburn is currently showing in theaters around the country if you’d like to check it out while it’s still there.

Weekend Watch - Killers of the Flower Moon

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Martin Scorsese’s latest crime epic, Killers of the Flower Moon. The film opened across the U.S. this weekend amid huge buzz for the prolific filmmaker’s return to the director’s chair. Based on David Grann’s nonfiction book of the same name, the film documents the Osage Indian murders of the 1920s, focusing on the perpetrators Ernest Burkhart and William Hale and one of the survivors, Mollie Burkhart. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest, Robert De Niro as Hale, and Lily Gladstone as Mollie, and also features Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Cara Jade Myers, Jenae Collins, Jason Isbell, William Belleau, Louis Cancelmi, and Scott Shepherd in prominent roles. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B+; if a three hour and twenty-six-minute runtime sounds daunting, this film will not be your cup of tea. The positives outweigh the negatives here overall, but it’s not a film without flaws.

Review:

                Martin Scorsese is back with another weighty true crime story with some of his favorite collaborators and new faces as well. This one takes us to the plains of Oklahoma, the land of the Osage in the 1920s, where vast oil reserves made the Native Americans one of the wealthiest people groups in the world before the wealth drew American settlers looking to use intermarriage and “accidental” deaths to steal that wealth away. It’s a story that begs to be told, and Scorsese feels like one of the better choices to tell it, honoring the heritage and culture of the Osage even as he focuses the spotlight on the white perpetrators. The three central performances carry the film’s hefty runtime, not really lightening the load but making it a more acceptable slog. Is the film 20 to 40 minutes longer than it could be? Probably, but I think most of the length comes from an intentionally plodding pace rather than an excess of unnecessary story moments. It would feel a disservice to cut much of the story, but a more typical Scorsese pace could have shortened things a bit and made it more easily marketable to a wider audience.

                Your take on the latest Scorsese film will most likely come down to how willing you are to bask in the corruption and deceit of William Hale and his cronies because Scorsese really wants you to take it all in – to witness just how far American greed is willing to go and just how many people it’ll walk over to make a profit. If you come in knowing much about the story, the slow pace could frustrate rather than engulf and leave you wondering why you agreed to sit for this long watching a single film whose outcome you already knew. If you don’t know much, there’s enough from moment to moment that keeps even the slow moments engaging as the web becomes more and more complex. I’m not sure how effective putting DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart as the film’s focus is for the goal of the film, since he’s almost too much of a yes-man to feel like the scathing picture of an American capitalist that Scorsese loves to portray as his leading hero/villains. De Niro’s Hale as the lead could have been a truly chilling look at American greed, and Gladstone’s Mollie could have provided more of that victimized minority perspective were she serving as the lead instead. As it stands, the story has impact because of how tragic and seemingly thoughtless most of the deaths were, but it doesn’t go a long way in offering any modern condemnation of continuing American exploitations in the name of “progress” and capitalism.

                As I mentioned above, the three leads drive the film, even if their characters don’t necessarily receive the proper amount of screentime, respectively. DiCaprio is on his A-game as the leading man, blending the affability of Rick Dalton with the sliminess of Calvin Candy and the greed of Jordan Belfort to produce the bumbling henchman that is this film’s leading man. I don’t know that I’d go so far as to put it as the actor’s best performance, but in combining his three best performances, the actor unlocks something unforgettably gray and discomforting in this film. Gladstone turns in a career-making performance as Mollie, offering the audience a quiet but pervasive look into the viewpoint of the victims of these crimes. It’s a slow-developing performance that percolates as the plot of the film does, hitting its peak in the third act when she finally knows as much as the audience does and delivers the deathblow to Ernest’s illusions of coming back from everything that he has participated in with no lasting repercussions. It is De Niro’s performance, though, that truly dominates the film. His portrayal of William Hale will go down with Ledger’s Joker, Bardem’s Anton Chigurh, DiCaprio’s Calvin Candy, and Waltz’s Hans Landa as one of the best villains of the 21st century. He’s a character that’s so chilling because he really believes that his actions are justified and that his “good” deeds excuse any evils and victimization that result from his machinations.

                With captivating performances from its three leads and a story that absolutely has to be told, Killers of the Flower Moon outshines an excessive runtime and a focus on the wrong character to insert itself into the upper echelons of films released this year. It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, especially being as long as it is, but Scorsese’s filmmaking certainly hasn’t fallen off with this latest outing.

Weekend Watch - Gran Turismo

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers is Gran Turismo, based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough – a Play Station gamer whose skills at the titular video game allowed him to become a professional racer. The film stars Archie Madekwe as the gamer-turned-racer, joined by David Harbour as his chief engineer Jack Salter, Orlando Bloom as the marketing executive who first pitched the idea Danny Moore, and Djimon Hounsou as Jann’s father Steve who played soccer professionally in his younger days. After a brief delay from Sony, the film got its wide release this weekend to massive audience fanfare but middling responses from critics. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B; there’s definitely two different tones to this film, and one of them is much better than the other (plus, I had a wild viewing experience that will make this film unforgettable for me).

Review:

                I’ll start out by saying that, based on my experience last night, the target audience for this film is ten-year-old boys (because, collectively, my wife and I had eight kids in that range on either side of us), and it works great for that demographic, with enough for the adults and sports film fans in the audience to keep it widely marketable. It’s a feel-good story about an underdog making his dream of becoming a professional athlete come true thanks to his skills at a video game – just hearing that, you probably know what kind of audience this is going to draw the most. It helps that director Neill Blomkamp was willing to get creative with the racing sequences and give audiences a strong video game adaptation with just a few simple visuals that keep the whole thing feeling fresh even while the two biggest races in the film (Nürburgring and Le Mans) have both featured just as prominently in the two other biggest films about professional racing in the last ten years (Rush and Ford v Ferrari, respectively).

                While the film’s story might not be the most innovative ever brought to screen, it does offer a fresh look at the modern world of motorsports, showcasing both its highs and lows through the eyes of a virtual outsider in the main character of Jann. Unfortunately, his venture into professional racing doesn’t begin in earnest until about halfway through the film, making its first act drag as it tries to build tension in an audience that already knows how it’s going to end up. Had the arc about Jann qualifying to be Team Nissan’s first “sim racer” been about fifteen minutes shorter, I think this film might have better critic scores than its current 46 Metascore and 59% Tomatometer. It spends most of that time reminding the audience how accurate the game Gran Turismo is to real racing and generally serving as an advertisement for Sony’s product, which is one of the big reasons why I think it could have been pared down to make a better and more universally successful film.

                Though the film is about Jann’s story, it features more of a hybrid three-man leading performance from Madekwe, Harbour, and Bloom, each with his own story and contribution to the main plot. Bloom’s Danny Moore feels the least fleshed out of the trio, serving more as the optimistically skeptical head of the threesome, a catalyst who’s never completely bought in to the story unfolding as a result of his dream. Harbour gives a more grounded (and impactful performance) as the technical head of the trio, serving as both the coach and washed-up former pro in the same role, and he brings a lot of fun to his part. Madekwe, in his first starring role shows some flashes of potential, exploring the emotions of racing and being an outsider and living out his dream all at once. It’s not necessarily the most demanding performance, but he brings a depth to the character that you don’t always see in these types of films. Djimon Hounsou anchors the cast (and probably helps solidify Madekwe’s performance) by playing the disapproving father who cares deeply for his son and isn’t convinced that video games and racing are setting him up for the most success. He takes a fairly cliché role and turns it into something deeply impactful by the film’s end, as only Hounsou is capable of doing.

                Intense and original racing sequences coupled with some solid performances for a sports film help make Gran Turismo a quality addition to the genre despite some overlong love paid to its video game sponsor and a fairly familiar story. Be aware that if you go see this in theaters, you might have talking/farting/barefoot boys on either side of you, but that you’ll probably have a good time despite all that too. This film probably isn’t going to win any awards, but it will win over its audience.

Weekend Watch - Haunted Mansion

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Haunted Mansion, the latest of Disney’s films based on rides from their parks. This film is in no way related to the Eddie Murphy film from the early 2000s except in its inspiration coming from the same ride. The current film stars an ensemble cast of LaKeith Stanfield, Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, Tiffany Haddish, Danny DeVito, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chase Dillon, and Jared Leto. It focuses on Dawson’s Gabbie and her son Travis (Dillon) who have bought a new home outside of New Orleans with the goal of turning it into a bed and breakfast and have discovered that it is haunted, leading them to turn to a series of experts – a physicist, medium, historian, and priest played by Stanfield, Haddish, DeVito, and Wilson respectively – to rid themselves of their ghost problem. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B-; this film isn’t “good” like last week’s slate of excellence, but it knows its lane and delivers a solid film for its genres and target audience.

Review:

                Haunted Mansion is every bit the Disney ride adaptation that we’ve come to expect, never quite hitting the highs of the first Pirates film, but delivering a quality blend of goofy effects, Easter eggs for the devoted fans, and light comedy in the midst of serious stakes. For me, I’d say this film outperforms the more recent ride adaptations – Jungle Cruise, Tomorrowland, The Country Bears, and The Haunted Mansion – thanks to better comedy, better acting, and a simpler story.

                The humor can be hit and miss, but for my wife and me, it was certainly more hit than miss – even if the rest of the audience didn’t quite seem as tickled by a lot of it. This can’t come as much of a surprise, considering writer Katie Dippold’s track record – writing such hits as Parks and Rec’s “Indianapolis” and “The Set Up” but also flops like Ghostbusters (2016) and Snatched. The jokes and characters all feel very trope-y in an endearing way that keeps the film familiar even if it’s not overly original. With a story that does a good job of establishing characters and connections, including a fun heist-esque montage of recruiting the various players, the film is at its best in the first two acts with a third act that rushes a bit to get the characters to a conclusion that only feels satisfying for one of its characters but leaves you happy enough with the outcome.

                The actors help to make their archetypes work well, introducing unique flairs to their characters to help them stand out against the familiarity. Dawson plays maybe the most familiar character in Gabbie, the unsuspecting homeowner and mother who gets caught up in a haunting. She plays her with the right amount of heart and backbone to hold the unlikely team together. Dillon’s Travis plays an interesting addition/sidekick to Gabbie’s character, struggling with his recent disconnection from his father (Gabbie’s husband). Dillon brings a lot of fun to the son character while still giving a deep enough performance to make his character arc interesting. Stanfield’s Ben Matthias has the most depth of the film’s players, struggling with an inner grief that he portrays in a surprisingly heartfelt and moving way for such an otherwise simple and comedic film. His acting far outweighs the rest of the cast for most of the film, but he manages to tone it down enough in the funny moments to get some laughs for himself as well. Wilson, Haddish, and DeVito deliver the most laughs of the film as the supporting cast, each with their own unique takes on the familiar character tropes. Wilson’s priest with a shady background, Father Kent, brings that familiar Owen Wilson squirrely charm to the typical unorthodox priest character. Haddish’s medium, Harriet, gets the most laugh-out-loud moments and lines in the film, coming across as a fraud with just a hint of authenticity, keeping the energy very light as we’ve come to expect from the skilled comedienne. DeVito’s historian, Bruce Davis, mostly exists to give some exposition, but he also gets some moments to be the funny, irreverent old man that DeVito so often embodies these days.

                With an ensemble cast that brings a solid blend of heart and humor to the familiar (and maybe a bit too rushed) story, plenty of nods to the ride that inspired it, and just enough mild and goofy horror moments, Haunted Mansion is a passable and fun time at the movies that won’t necessarily break any new ground in its genres but should please the crowd. It far outshines some of the more recent live action Disney outings, but it also won’t be making anyone’s top-10 family or horror or comedy films any time soon. Go in hoping for a lighthearted good time that won’t make you think too hard, and you won’t be disappointed.

Weekend Watch - Barbenheimer

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week, we’re looking at the cinematic event of the year, the double release of Barbie and Oppenheimer, which have combined to form the 4th-largest American box office weekend in history – and the only one headlined by non-franchise films. Barbie comes from director Greta Gerwig, cowritten by her and Noah Baumbach, starring Margot Robbie as the primary titular character, joined by Issa Rae, Alexandra Shipp, Kate McKinnon, Hari Neff, and many others as the many iterations of the iconic doll and Ryan Gosling as the leading Ken, joined also by Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa, and many others as the other Kens in Barbieland. America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt, Will Ferrell, Helen Mirren, and Michael Cera round out the star-studded comedy that has ruled the weekend. Oppenheimer, from writer/director Christopher Nolan, stars Cillian Murphy in the titular role, supported by another star-studded cast, headlined by Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Alden Ehrenreich, David Krumholtz, Benny Safdie, and Florence Pugh. Both films, and this weekend, are sure to go down in cinematic history, so let’s get into it.

Barbie Letter Grade: A-; this is the type of film that studios should strive to get back to for their blockbusters!

Oppenheimer Letter Grade: A; Nolan delivers a masterclass of a biopic, drawing excellent performances from every actor in the film!

Barbie Review:

                Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is sure to go down in history as a modern classic of satire, production value, and comedic excellence. Every role in the film feels perfectly cast, from Margot Robbie’s complex leading lady to Ryan Gosling’s perfectly himbo-coded Ken to Will Ferrell’s bumbling CEO to America Ferrera’s harried mother/secretary to every supporting Barbie, Ken, and Allan. It’s a fantastic cast that help sell Gerwig’s vision of the mythical Barbieland and the almost real “real world” and allow the film to thrive in its massively important messages of female empowerment and the importance of defining yourself intrinsically rather than extrinsically.

                Barbie’s production design might be some of the best of the year, starting obviously with Barbieland but extending also to the real world, particularly the office-scape of Mattel where we get a particularly fun chase scene and some great contrast to the brightness of Barbieland. The attention to detail that went into the creation of the sets and their intentional artificiality makes this a film that will undoubtedly stand the test of time. The subtle (and not-so-subtle) changes that occur there throughout the movie only add to the film’s sense of itself, drawing the audience into a fantasy land where truths about our own world can be put on full and aggressive display as only satire can do.

                The comedy and story of Barbie, as crafted by Gerwig and Baumbach and then delivered by their stellar cast, hits the right note in just about every scene. The depth of the film’s satirical critique of modern society can only be appreciated when you take a step back and look at the whole thing. This is not a film, as some have argued, that “hates men” or “wants to set the feminist movement back fifty years” or “seeks to villainize all men”. It is a film that uses its childlike premise and perspective to peel away the façade of society’s nuances and lay everything out in its most basic terms. The reverse parallel between Barbieland and our own world highlights the flaws of gender-driven/sexually-motivated systems of power – namely that they are overly reductive and generally ineffective in creating well-running, equitable, informed, and ethically acceptable societies. By showcasing this argument through humor (sometimes self-deprecating, sometimes on-the-nose, sometimes slapstick, sometimes other forms), the audience is invited to embrace gender as a definition of self without it being a cookie-cutter or archetypal label that defines your entire potential for life. Patriarchy is the film’s villain, not because the filmmakers view men as villains, but because they want to reject fully the idea that gender (or implicitly, income, occupation, family status, nationality, race, sexuality, age, etc.) can define anyone’s individual worth or efficacy. You need only look at the story arcs of both Barbie (Robbie) and Ken (Gosling) to see that this is the message being portrayed. The only real issue with the film’s story/comedy/messaging comes in its climactic monologue from America Ferrera’s Gloria in the third act about the struggles of being a woman in a patriarchal society. The monologue itself is excellently done, hearkening to Laura Dern’s Oscar-winning performance in Baumbach’s marriage story in its tone and content, but its issue lies in the fact that the moment feels a bit unearned, given all that we’ve seen of Gloria’s life up to that point in the film (not a whole lot). For a character to make so many sweeping statements speaks to the state of her society, but when so much of the film has taken place away from that society, it feels like there should have been a little bit more lead-in to the moment, however valid it might be.

                Barbie is one of those big studio films that manages to live up to the hype thanks to some excellent performances, great production design, and solid writing that leave audiences with a minimally flawed film and a great time at the theater. Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, and Ryan Gosling again have the fullness of their talents on display in this film that is sure to stick around for a while in modern cinematic discourse.

Oppenheimer Review:

                Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has set a new standard in biopics, delivering a devastating historical narrative in a way that keeps its audience fully engaged and guessing for its entire three-hour runtime. It is a dialogue-driven film full of hearings, interspersed with conversations about politics, metaphysics, and the scientific community that never actually manages to feel as boring as all of that sounds, which is a triumph in and of itself. Nolan manages to deliver a well-paced narrative that only gets you lost a few times and that is one of the most well-acted films of the year, top to bottom.

                At its heart, Oppenheimer wants to tell the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer as honestly as it can, taking the good with the bad and leaving the interpretation up to the audience. It invites you to empathize with the historical figure who is at least partially responsible for one of the biggest atrocities in history, and it accomplishes this goal not by attempting to justify any of the evils that he wrought but by showcasing the human behind it all. Oppenheimer isn’t a hero or a villain or even an antihero; he is a man thrown into some of the muddiest waters in history and asked to swim back to the surface. We get to see the worst parts and best parts of Oppenheimer’s life – both personal and professional – as portrayed in Cillian Murphy’s subtle but gripping performance. The people he wronged along the way and his awareness of that wrongdoing play a key role in making this film as successful as it no doubt will continue to be.

                While I wish that the narrative let you in on a bit more of its side characters’ (RDJ’s Lewis Strauss and Jason Clarke’s Roger Robb for examples) motivations, the overall narrative structure – jumping around between hearings and history – works well in keeping you engaged and presenting its true message, which is only tangentially related to the person of Oppenheimer. The film’s final moments, though not chronologically the last point in the film’s timeline, offer a chilling and gut-wrenching conclusion to Oppenheimer’s work. From the very start of the film, we see Oppenheimer plagued by this fear and guilt and fascination over the work that he conducts, offering an awareness of his own nature and the nature of humans toward self-destruction. His participation in and enthusiasm for the creation of the atomic bomb only serves to reinforce this message, and Nolan makes it all the more clear when we finally see what it is capable of (in gloriously enrapturing cinematography and sound design). Nolan wants his audience to understand that our “othering” of our fellow humans and our own selfish desires for self-preservation over the good of all others are in fact leading us down a path of self-destruction, just as Oppenheimer set himself up for his own demise, the human demand for “defensive weapons” has set us up for our own violent destruction.

                Led by Cillian Murphy’s commanding performance and a plethora of strong supporting performances, Nolan’s Oppenheimer manages to tell the truth about its subject while also offering a deep truth about humanity, marking it as the new gold standard for biographical films. It’s not always the most perfectly paced or explained film, but on the whole, it offers a new perspective and a meaningful message that the world needs in this time.

Weekend Watch - Creed III

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers is Creed III, the latest film in the follow-up series to the Rocky films, again starring Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson, Wood Harris, and Phylicia Rashad, this time joined by Jonathan Majors, Mila Davis-Kent, and Jose Benavidez. The film follows Adonis Creed as he grapples with retirement, family life, mistakes from his childhood, and the return of an old friend who is hungry for the opportunity he believes he was denied after spending eighteen years in prison. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: A, the film has its flaws, but they are small and easily forgiven thanks to a strong story, moving characters, and excellent fights.

Should you Watch This Film? Yes! It looks great, feels great, and is fairly easy to digest even for someone with limited knowledge of the rest of the RCU (Rocky Cinematic Universe).

Why?

                Creed III benefits from a combination of successful endeavors, with great performances from its two leads, an engaging story both in and out of the ring, a banging soundtrack, and visuals that might outshine all previous films in its franchise, highlighting the truly visceral nature of the fights it focuses on. Michael B. Jordan wears two hats for this film, playing the lead and directing (his first film ever) and he carries both burdens admirably, doing far more in both roles than I ever would have given him credit for. The script from Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin (Oscar nominee for his King Richard screenplay) and the story from Ryan Coogler give the rookie director plenty to work with, and he also benefits from getting to act across from one of the biggest new talents in the game, Jonathan Majors.

                The film’s story picks up at the “end” of Adonis Creed’s career with his very last fight – a bout against “Pretty” Ricky Conlan to solidify Creed as the universal champ on his way out. It then moves to his retirement as the audience gets to watch his interactions with his wife Bianca (Thompson) and their daughter Amara (Davis-Kent) who was born deaf in the previous film. The Creed family dynamic serves as the heart of the film, as Donny struggles to open up to his wife about some of the more troubling aspects of his past and as together they try to help their daughter communicate her emotions and unify that with her desire to fight like her father. The reintroduction of Majors’s “Diamond” Dame Anderson to Creed’s life comes after an eighteen year absence and gives the film its meat and spine – Dame returns from his time in prison hungry and hurting after losing his opportunity to achieve his dream and watching his friend live it instead. The exploration of both men’s pasts and their difficulty voicing and communicating emotion through anything but fighting serves as the start to a deeper conversation on masculinity and emotions that culminates in the film’s concluding act, which I’m not going to spoil here if I can help it.

                The film’s performances carry its story. Tessa Thompson isn’t given a lot to do besides be a record producer and supportive wife, but she does it well with true commitment to the character. Phylicia Rashad gives an admirable, and even emotional, return to her character Mary-Anne Creed, Adonis’s adopted mother and the widow of Apollo Creed, serving as the inspiration for some of the film’s most deeply personal moments. Majors brings plenty of gravitas, swagger, and grit to the character of Dame to hold his own as the film’s antagonist – feeling in many ways like the parallel life of Adonis. The pain of his life and the passion of his future come through in chilling fashion as the character returns to boxing with a fire that threatens so much of what Adonis has built. He’s the most well-established and well-performed villain of probably any film in the entire franchise – Rocky and Creed. This might actually be the best performance I’ve seen from Michael B. Jordan. With plenty of solid co-stars to work with and the opportunity to showcase more than just his anger in his big moments, he shows off a more vulnerable side of the character and of his own persona. The role he plays feels incredibly well-thought-out and authentic to the experience he’s trying to capture. He is given more to do here, and he does more than just clench his teeth and yell about how he’s been waiting his whole life for this, and I was legitimately impressed with his performance.

                Jordan also dazzles in the director’s chair, putting together quite possibly the most entertaining trio of fights in any of the films. Each fight showcases something different for the audience, and each also brings in a new element of filming that makes it feel, as Jordan was quoted to have said, in the “spirit” of an anime showdown. The Conlan fight utilizes slow-motion to emphasize Creed’s physicality and the ways that he understands his opponents, sizing them up in bullet time, so to speak. The Dame-Chavez fight utilizes the hyper-detail of zoom and hi-def cameras to showcase Dame’s less-than-legal style of fighting and the pain he seeks to inflict on his opponents, also highlighting his ability to break down opponents and setting him up as a legitimate contender. The final fight between Adonis and Dame might be the best fight in the entire saga, visually and emotionally engaging from start to finish. I won’t spoil what makes it so good but suffice it to say that this is a beautiful fight.

                A gorgeous trio of fights, great leading performances, and a solid story about family and masculinity help Creed III outshine any minor detractions it might have and give Michael B. Jordan an excellent first entry in his directing repertoire. It's fun, engaging, emotional, well-paced, and a legitimate great time from start to finish. Check this one out in theaters while you can, and if you can’t, be sure to hit it up when it gets to streaming. I’d be surprised if this film didn’t manage to make my personal top 10 films of 2023 by the end of it all.