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bwkuettel
My podcast, on all the main platforms: anchor.fm/filmscapepodcast
Ratings for all TV shows: trakt.tv/users/bkuettel/ratings
Lifelong film buff who's been using this site since the early 2000s as a kid. My profile info somehow got wiped at one point, so I used other sites for a while that have every movie I've seen rated: https://letterboxd.com/bkuettel/ and https://rateyourmusic.com/~Talonsoffire. I just re-rated major ones for the most part on here recently and will leave it at that. I'm a professional writer/editor so the quality level of a movie's screenplay is a big factor in my enjoyment. My top favorites are The Lord of the Rings extended trilogy, The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, The Prestige, The Godfather I-II, The Seventh Seal, Psycho, The Dark Knight, No Country for Old Men, Her, Eternal Sunshine, There Will Be Blood, and The Empire Strikes Back. Favorite directors are Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, Alfred Hitchcock, The Coen Bros., David Fincher, Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Denis Villeneuve, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg, and Peter Jackson.
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)
Dracula is deadly again in one of the best vampire films in years
Dracula is back, with a vengeance. The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a true horror movie through and through, providing a genuinely creepy experience where the titular vampire isn't lampooned or romantic or charming in the slightest, but a remorseless killing machine with a gargoyle face who lives in the shadows. Autopsy of Jane Doe and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark filmmaker Andre Ovredal is unsurprisingly a great choice to direct a full-length tale about the doomed voyage from Romania to London, alongside a very solid and capable cast like Corey Hawkins from Straight Outta Compton, Aisling Franciosi from The Nightingale and Game of Thrones, Liam Cunningham from Game of Thrones, and David Dastmalchian from Prisoners, Dune, and The Suicide Squad.
The nearly 2-hour running time ensures an appropriately suspenseful, one location story to gradually unfold and eventually ramp up to an exciting climax where the defiant survivors fight for their lives against the winged prince of darkness. Dracula's design is one of the best in cinematic history, looking like a medieval gargoyle come to life with the viciousness and appetite of a xenomorph from the Alien series.
Despite knowing that the ship doesn't make it by the end, the plot is still gripping and feels consequential, with just enough attempts at characterization having been made to make the audience care. The Last Voyage of the Demeter is already an underrated underdog of a film, no worse than Kong vs. Godzilla or Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It's a grounded, atmospheric, gothic horror film that should satiate the appetite of Dracula/vampire fans wanting to see this side of Dracula, and the expanded depiction of everything that went down on the Demeter.
The Creator (2023)
A hollow story and bland characters in an impressive, fully realized sci-fi world
Some stunning cinematography, production design, and world-building can't compensate for bland characters and a derivative, predictable story. I think Gareth Edwards is a talented filmmaker, but each movie of his is worse than the last. I appreciate the commitment to his artistic vision, but he's one of those directors like Zack Snyder and Rob Zombie who really needs a good story to work with the imaginative visuals at play. The plot of The Creator feels derivative of many things, like most James Cameron movies, Star Wars, Blade Runner, District 9, Elysium, I, Robot, A. I.: Artificial Intelligence, and even Edwards' own Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. This even ends in a very similar way, and I'm sympathetic to him for how Rogue One was changed so much by Tony Gilroy, as evidenced by how many scenes in the trailer weren't even in the final movie. The Creator comes across to me as another attempt at what Rogue One was going for, but doesn't quite pass muster despite the quality visuals and impressive set-pieces. The budget was supposedly less than 1/3 of the new Indiana Jones for example, which is admittedly impressive. 4.5/10.
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
Some creative elements but missing something
The much-anticipated new Evil Dead film finally arrived a full 10 years after the surprisingly decent remake starring Jane Levy. Rise features a new characters and setting, essentially being another reboot with the unfortunate absence or even acknowledgement of her character, whose fate remains unknown after surviving her possession and escaping the dreaded cabin.
For the first time, an Evil Dead story does not take place in a cabin in the woods but in a creepy LA apartment building. Despite most of the characters having a suspicious trace of Australian accents and brief shots of some shrubbery that I don't think grows anywhere in the United States.... But anyway, while the prospect of a new setting for Evil Dead shenanigans seems like a fresh idea, I don't find the ancient supernatural demons and zombies being summoned to invade this drab, modern building succeeding as well as it might've seemed on paper. It could've worked better if it was a sleek, clean, modern apartment complex instead of having the usual flickering lights, dingy areas, and collapsing structures that many horror movies utilize. But on the positive, it does provide some neat horror sequences that would be otherwise not possible in the tried and true cabin in the forest setting.
Despite no continuation of Jane Levy's character from Evil Dead, the leading lady, Mia, gets possessed and serves as the main antagonist and highlight of the film. The actress fully commits to embodying the essence of a scheming, unrelenting deadite gleefully chasing her poor family throughout the general area with various found weapons and nasty taunts. Despite these positives and some very creative sequences and camera perspectives, including one which all takes place through the view of a doorhole, the first half is kind of a slog. The typical setup of how the deadites are conjured is essentially the same as always, with an unassuming character coming across one of the cursed books, curiously opening it, and innocently reading its contents, thereby opening the door for the demons to come through. Cue the unhinged freak show of carnage and gore that everyone paid their money to see.
Director Lee Cronin turns out to be a solid fit for the franchise, despite his debut feature being a wholly different affair: the atmospheric, slow-paced, gothic horror film The Hole in the Ground. While he brings a fresh visual flair to this latest Evil Dead, the unimaginative script is limiting. These characters are hardly any more interesting than the mostly bland cast of Evil Dead 2013, and a misguided and ultimately pointless wraparound story that shows the infamous cabin with unrelated characters who all end up dead anyway that just shows the curse spreading from the apartment building back to its original setting? I think? In any cause, it's pointless and diminishes the overall experience. There is also a lack of surreal sequences that were present in the original trilogy, such as when Ash put his hand through a mirror and it's water, or the lightbulb filling with blood. They attempt one or two half-hearted comedy antics like in the Sam Raimi ones, which stick out when the rest of the movie is so grim and menacing.
With the announcement that the producers are considering making Evil Dead a consistent franchise with a new movie every few years, this doesn't really make a strong case for that idea. Despite delivering on the characteristic gnarliness and featuring excellent directing with some truly impressive sequences on a technical level, Evil Dead Rise at the same time feels too stuck in its ways to stand out or surpass previous entries in the franchise. If they are going to make a follow-up, I would say it really needs to reinvent the wheel beyond just changing up the main setting and actually incorporate some bizarre qualities and more humor in the spirit of all the Ash-starring movies and recent series. Evil Dead Rise may not succeed on all levels, especially regarding the plot, but is still impressive in a number of ways and lives up to the mighty Evil Dead mythology. If they do make a follow-up, it should star Mia, Ash, and Beth teaming up!
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
Uninspired and derivative, bordering on b-movie level
A very uninspired script and every action scene is twice as long as it should be. At least the climax is hilariously schlocky and kind of unbelievable. Fleabag lady was annoying and their sidekick was no Short Round. The WWII era opening set piece was alright and fun enough, and really seems like young Indy is there if you squint your eyes at his digitally de-aged face and tune out that his voice is older. The undersea dive part was sort of cool also, even though nothing that clever happened. Harrison Ford and Mads Mikkelsen give good performances and it was watchable I guess, but I don't see why this way too long movie was necessary! 4.4/10.
Napoleon (2023)
This movie is a joke
I've made a conscious effort to appreciate and pay the most attention to new movies with an auteur vision behind them that are truly high quality, authentic, made for adults, and not trying to be trendy or pander to kids/teenagers or contain ham-fisted political messaging that would be outdated in six months. In other words, mature dramas that tell great stories about interesting characters with emotional resonance. They're almost always set in the past and have long runtimes; Hollywood used to make many of them. The ones I identified this year are Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, The Iron Claw, and May December (despite some camp). For action, the best were The Killer, John Wick 4, The Covenant, and Mission impossible 7, even with some weak screenplay elements in the latter. Some nice absurdist leaning ones have been Beau is Afraid, Asteroid City, Saltburn, and Guardians of the Galaxy 3.
I was hoping this would easily fit in with the first group or maybe the best of the action films, as the experienced Ridley Scott was responsible who's quite familiar with medieval set epics. I loved The Last Duel from just two years ago and was excited for another one of his prestige historical movies. But then the pre-release reviews and reactions rolled in causing worry. They were pretty mixed, citing some uneven direction and a bizarre, unflattering portrayal by Joaquin Phoenix. This was concerning to hear as I just wanted a grand, classic Hollywood historical war/drama epic that could even fit in with the genre of "arthouse action" like Gladiator, 1917, The Last Duel, and 2015's Macbeth. I'm not sure what excuse there is for anything else since it's about a legendary conqueror and directed by Ridley Scott.
What was further confounding to me upon this news was that when it came to historical films, Scott's vision has always been quite grim and self-serious, even to a fault at times, like with the dour Russell Crowe starring Robin Hood and that joyless slog Exodus: Gods and Kings. This though is not the subject matter to make for a big joke or satire, like how some elements of House of Gucci were handled. I was rooting for Napoleon and wanted it to be great, but it's unfortunately a total misfire that fails in pretty much everything regarding consistent tone, drama, conveying humanity, or successful narrative momentum... However! There is enough entertainment value to be found in Joaquin Phoenix's quirks from a misguided performance and some epic battle scenes, despite there not being enough of the latter in the 2 ½ hour runtime.
Much of Napoleon consists of depicting his life at court, mainly a tumultuous marriage, rising in French society, and occasionally leaving to fight in wars over a 20+ year period. The infamous conqueror is lampooned repeatedly in the first half, making for laugh-out-loud moments of ridiculousness as you realize this is going to be a parody instead of an aforementioned auteur drama deserving of awards. Our main character is a real uppity twit who doesn't care what anyone thinks and unapologetically thirsts for power. I kind of enjoyed the first hour and twenty minutes, which begins with the exciting Siege of Toulon sequence and culminates in the film's centerpiece, the Battle of Austerlitz, where Napoleon brilliantly corners Austrian forces and makes them retreat to a frozen lake. Stunning underwater cinematography captures their army falling through the ice and sinking to a watery grave.
Then the next 40 minutes or so leading to the notorious Battle of Waterloo is a real slog. Suddenly, Napoleon becomes much more dour and all the fun is gone. The absence of any more battle scenes longer than two minutes is also a real detriment and grinds the movie to a halt as it attempts a transformation into serious drama about the dissolution of Napoleon's marriage, the decline of ex-wife Josephine's health, and his political downfall. This whole section really exposes all the flaws in the film, as scene after scene fails to resonate due to a lack of much establishment having been made or consistent characters beyond Napoleon and Josephine. Their relationship isn't explored in any kind of depthful way and it makes no sense why they're together. He becomes kind of sympathetic to her after their divorce, I suppose to show his growth or something? None of it works and all just seems odd. Vanessa Kirby does fine, but the usually brilliant Phoenix looked lost and totally miscast in this part. He's way too old for the role and speaks in an American accent while almost everyone else sounds British, all of which adds to the strangeness.
The historical inaccuracies are plentiful and there's hardly any depiction of Napoleon's military genius, pretty much relegated to the Toulon and Austerlitz sequences. The moments where he's supposed to have a heart stick out as inconsistent with the rest of his behavior, which is 90% either brooding/moping around or acting like an immature buffoon. There are plenty of nice isolated scenes, but nothing fits together, means much of anything, or has any resonance beyond surface level entertainment. This movie was woefully put together as far as the writing, story structure, and character development went and comes across like many brief highlights of an imaginary, actually good miniseries.
On a technical level, it's of course dazzling, with numerous sets and costumes that immerse you into the past. I will award Ridley Scott's Napoleon a very generous five stars out of ten for the great depictions of battle, excellent production design/world-building/visuals all around, and the intentional and unintentionally alike funny scenes that are almost all confined to the first half. I can't imagine the 4+ hour extended version soon to be released on Apple TV+ would somehow save this and actually make it work dramatically, but I will for sure watch to further understand this fascinating artifact of a movie.
Leave the World Behind (2023)
A lot to unpack here
Leave the World Behind popped up as a curiosity on Netflix, the poster showing a lone deer staring at you on a long road that rises in the distance where numerous vehicles are gathered (later revealed to be Teslas in one of many odd scenes), all surrounded by greenery. The Obamas were credited producers, Mr. Robot and Homecoming creator Sam Esmail wrote and directed the film, and it boasted an impressive cast of Julia Roberts playing a cynical character named Amanda Sandford, Ethan Hawke as her more socially adept husband Clay, Mahershala Ali, and Kevin Bacon in a small but great role as a survivalist. The film reveals itself as an end-of-the-world thriller with a healthy dose of social commentary, being a very effective ride and producing mixed results as far as the commentary goes. The plot begins with Amanda deciding that her, Clay, and their two kids need a break from the hustle-bustle of modern life and should leave New York City on a spur-of-the-moment vacation to Long Island so they can reconnect with each other. Her affable husband Clay goes along with it and you get a sense that's how many decisions in their family probably get made.
The family's trip quickly goes south as a beach day is interrupted by an oil tanker suddenly crashing on the shore. Everyone runs away and the Sandfords flee back to their rental. They soon learn that some sort of massive disaster has occurred, with the internet and TV down. That night, a man (played by Ali) shows up at the door with his adult daughter and claim to be the owners who fled the city after a blackout. While suspicious, the Sandfords take their word for it and let them stay, mainly due to the trusting Clay. What follows is a series of events signifying society breaking down, with planes crashing from the sky, a drone dispersing pamphlets in Arabic that partially read "Death to America," animal life behaving erratically, news alerts about hackers, and an occasional shrill alarm that blares from a mysterious source. Much of the drama also comes from how the main family interacts with the homeowners and the mistrust they all feel.
Leave the World Behind was received with polarized reactions from regular viewers but mostly positive critical reviews. It's ultimately a decent but flawed thriller that could've really been something special if they changed some things and had a great story to tell. What I found most compelling was the immersive premise, this backdrop of regular people trying to figure out how to deal with a pretty realistic disaster, which really got my mind racing given how small-scale it was presented through the eyes of confused people who don't know any more than we do as viewers. It's like a Roland Emmerich movie except not awful and with the stupidity sucked out. M. Night Shyamalan might be a more relevant comparison, especially given the release of his similar apocalyptic thriller Knock at the Door from earlier this year. Anyways, the way Leave the World Behind tells its story is very effective with slowly dolling out information about what exactly has happened, though some viewers may find frustration (and clearly have, given some of the audience reception) in how much is left unexplained. A key scene toward the end centered on a theory said by Ali's character though pretty much tells you all you need to know. Still, I would've appreciated more happening and for the movie to actually be even longer due to a bit too much that was left open-ended.
The big themes of how technology has disconnected and weakened our society is also pretty heavy-handed and handled in a fairly broad way. Despite that and the Obamas being producers with an A-list cast onscreen, the film actually came across to me as a pretty unnerving indie thriller in tone that becomes nearly exhausting by the end given the two hour and twenty minute run time. Leave the World Behind was probably too opaque and weird for general audiences, and I found the most enjoyment from just experiencing it as a creepy end-of-the-world thriller that exposes how America could come crumbling down in a matter of days from a cyberattack or a related event, and how defenseless we all would be without our cushy modern conveniences to do our thinking for us. Some racial commentary was pretty blunt and unnecessary though, especially the surface-level Amanda and how unlikeable they made Ali's daughter. But she may have been an example of how manipulated the youth are with all the social media culture and nonsense that comes with that. Again, it's all pretty heavy-handed and obvious, but also explored pretty well at times, and all the actors are very convincing. Leave the World Behind may not be perfect, but it's an enjoyable psychological thriller with some great sequences and works best as a frighteningly realistic depiction of how society could break down and how various people respond to it. Don't expect amazing social commentary or a completely satisfying ending and enjoy it on that level.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Uneven but still the best superhero film of 2023
The last(?) Guardians of the Galaxy movie isn't perfect, but bursts with creativity as a sprawling sci-fi epic with a very well done social commentary element about animal testing involving Rocket's tragic past. Gunn wears his heart on his sleeve and his love for these characters unwaveringly shines through in an earnest way. He's also kind of a madman who came from a shock humor background, so has no qualms with disturbing content or making the audience uncomfortable at times, but being such a talented writer/director he always makes it poignant and worth it in the end. III is the messiest and least consistent of the trilogy, but is still a great Marvel superhero film, the best since Endgame, with all the heart, action, comedy, and visually stunning imagery you could want.
Guardians III begins pretty randomly with Rocket suddenly being attacked and put into a coma, jolting Peter Quill out of a drunken stupor over Gamora's absence and leading the charge to save him. The old Gamora who returned in Endgame returns, and the way her story with Quill goes is well handled and ends in a surprisingly mature note. But what follows the initial attack is a series of strange and visually creative adventure set pieces as the Guardians gradually learn about Rocket's past and must find the way to save his life. These events are interspersed with heartbreaking flashbacks to Rocket's time being experimented on and made into the conscious life form he became. The villain in the present and the flashbacks is the Grand Inquisitor, a megalomaniac obsessed with creating perfect life forms and planetary societies at terrible costs. He's easily the most despicable antagonist of any Marvel movie and well acted by Chukwudi Iwuji.
The commentary on animal testing and experimentation is conveyed pretty brilliantly in the larger context of this colorful, absurd sci-fi galaxy setting. The climax is more satisfying than the typical comic book movie fare as a result, especially the recent ones, and when our heroes prevail and win the day, it actually feels meaningful and earned because these characters have been lovingly written and brought to life by people who care for 10 years now. Gunn is highly skilled at balancing various tones and really going for emotional impact, also fearless with being unabashedly bizarre and pushing the envelope. The first two Guardians were more fluid and focused, but this final chapter still embodies all those strengths and wraps up this team's saga beautifully.
Asteroid City (2023)
Charming and engaging but with unnecessary framing device
Wes Anderson goes deeper into the recesses of his enigmatic mind and pours his latest musings onto the page in screenplay format and just filmed it, regardless of how much sense things made or not. At least that's how it seemed. At the forefront is a light, breezy storyline with various quirky characters gathered in a tiny southwestern town for a stargazing convention, and perhaps even the possibility of a visit from a UFO. This enjoyable and decently funny plot is periodically interrupted by fourth wall breaking and framing devices a bit similar to The Grand Budapest Hotel and The French Dispatch. Things are taken even further into the abstract with little vignettes of artistic self-reflection that blur the line between fiction and reality. For instance, the writer of Asteroid City is featured and later the actors performing it on stage, and their stories get told along with the audience in a few quick segments in between the onscreen Asteroid City we are watching, or something of the sort. While I love Wes Anderson's filmography, I think he might benefit from getting out of his own mind a bit at this point and get back to basics, which the main plot does mainly accomplish. While Asteroid City doesn't have the depth or impact of Anderson's best films, it's a slight improvement on the still good French Dispatch and is undoubtedly charming with an excellent cast and earnest intentions.
Saltburn (2023)
Not for the faint of heart
Well, that was different. Emerald Fennell comes charging out of the gate with a transgressive sophomore feature after the excellent and timely Promising Young Woman for another in-your-face black comedy thriller, this time an incendiary commentary on class, obsession, and other related themes. A love-it-or-hate-it type movie people could say, bordering on weird for the sake of weird, but so well-crafted and just dense that it cannot be ignored. Fennell is a formidable creative force who isn't afraid to go dark. Despite some obvious influences like The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Great Gatsby, and Parasite, Saltburn is a perverse and memorable dramady that is certainly not for everyone, precariously balancing thought-provoking ideas with shocks.
The film follows a humble Oxford scholarship student named Oliver, played by Barry Keoghan, an outsider among these elites who manages to befriend a popular student named Felix (Jacob Elordi) and is invited to his palatial estate for the summer. He meets his whole family who're unsurprisingly shallow decadent alcoholics, par for the course with these types of eat-the-rich movies but pulled off with the parents being played by the great actors Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant. What follows is a series of over-the-top partying and vacationing interspersed with some genuinely funny scenes, and then some gross-out parts where Oliver reveals himself as a manipulative freak who slowly worms his way into their lives. Things go downhill toward disaster, twists and turns occur, and the audience's mental state is put to the test.
Saltburn will polarize viewers, but it can't be denied that the directing/cinematography and acting is fantastic. I loved the visuals, surprisingly hazy and dreamlike at times, nearly resembling something like The Green Knight which also featured Keoghan in a supporting role, and flirting with the surreal. The grounds of the mansion look like Wonderland and act as an enchantment on Oliver as he learns to come out of his shell and play the part of a debauched aristocrat... but the younger family members aren't buying it. Oliver is a very complex character whose actions are cast in a different light on a rewatch when you know how it all ends. One of my favorite aspects of the movie were the mind games that get played, which these actors portrayed wonderfully. Fennell is clearly very strong with writing these kinds of scenarios and must delight in pitting her characters against each other in cat-and-mouse games. Keoghan is perfect for playing sinister weirdos and nails the lead role here, despite being too old for the part at age 30. I would've preferred that the Sherlock Holmes/Agatha Christie kind of ending was actually kept more ambiguous and Oliver portrayed like a phantom or Dracula, similar to how Hannibal Lecter is portrayed in the Bryan Fuller series and given the almost otherworldly visuals and mystery in the plot, but the seemingly maligned ending actually worked for me and leaves a lot to think about.
There have been numerous us vs. Them class commentary films these past seven years or so, mostly thrillers. Saltburn though eventually justifies covering this well trodden theme, similar to Promising Young Woman by going into surprisingly dark and downbeat territory at the end. And like ...Woman, the third act walks a very fine line between comedy and tragedy. This is one of Fennell's biggest strengths, with a seemingly cynical worldview that's felt in everything about both movies and funneled through the lens of a sort of ironic kind of parody style; I'm not even entirely sure how to describe it. But it sure is different, and that uniqueness is noteworthy. Saltburn will be very divisive and a daring project to make in today's hypersensitive PC times. Figures that it's from England, as I almost can't imagine anything too subversive coming from the US these days other than from a very established director or the indie film world. Perhaps we'll learn how to be daring again at some point, but at least in the meantime, international films and some American indie ones are pulling it off. Saltburn isn't perfect, but stands out from the rest and is certainly memorable, a haunting mystery satire about lost people that is somehow pretty fun to watch. It's a bit of a brain tease, and can only be recommended to open-minded viewers who aren't afraid to be grossed out or have your world view challenged.
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022)
Spooky delights await...
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities is a much needed supernatural horror anthology series of eight short films on Netflix with frequent Lovecraftian elements, even (loosely) adapting two of his stories and another two being based on short stories written by del Toro. Suffice it to say, anticipation was high, and I knew he would deliver something with uniqueness and a commitment to the weird and otherworldly with the involvement of quality directors and writers, a much more successful endeavor than Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone for example. Cabinet... actually resembles The Twilight Zone, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents as well, with Guillermo appearing onscreen and giving a little intro to each episode. The titles sequence that follows is wonderfully gothic and spooky, one of the best I've ever seen in any series.
I love the whole idea of this project, and the chosen directors seemed generally qualified; for the most part, Cabinet delivers, though it's a bit uneven and none of the stories really connect to each other aside from some themes and a few easter eggs. Broadly, I feel like the better episodes could've been fleshed out and expanded on by 30 minutes into great feature films, my favorite of them all being The Autopsy by far. There are plenty of flaws to be found too, like unsatisfying endings for a few, with easily the worst episode being The Outside. Cabinet of Curiosities is an enjoyable descent into the fantastical, presenting an inconsistent but overall solid collection of artistically made supernatural/sci-fi horror short films.
The first of the eight episodes, Lot 36, is a curious tale about a bigoted veteran indebted to criminals named Nick (Tim Blake Nelson from O Brother Where Are Thou, Holes, and The Incredible Hulk) working at a derelict storage facility who runs a scheme with a co-worker to cash out on valuables within abandoned units. A number of discoveries find him and another character discovering within lot 36 a secret passageway leading to a chamber with a desiccated corpse of the owner's sister hosting a Cthulhu-like tentacled demon on the floor in a ritualistic circle. Nick idiotically walks through the magic circle, breaking the spell and unleashing the entity which soon dispatches of him and his companion. Then it just ends.
Lot 36 was intriguing enough, but too much time was spent on Nick and his hostility toward the world. The occult mystery leading to the wonderfully creepy room was far more interesting to me. Despite an element of karma, with a character he earlier wronged locking the exit door right before he's eaten, the climax is still so brief. There needed to be more to this story including the background of the storage unit beyond just that the recently deceased European occultist owner regularly visited for years with a bag of feed, as Nick discovers on CCTV footage. I loved the spirit of it though and totally eat up that type of mystery onscreen or in literature.
Another story, The Viewing, was a bit stronger with some nice hallucinatory visuals courtesy of the very stylish director Panos Cosmatos, who did the recent Mandy starring Nicolas Cage, and a strong cast which included Robocop's Peter Weller, but ended basically the same way as Lot 36 did with a strange entity presenting itself, wreaking havoc, and being unleashed onto the world. The second story is another highlight, Graveyard Rats, though also follows a doomed lowlife character in debt to criminals and desperate to make it rich, just like Nick. The strengths of Graveyard Rats however lies in the details, being deliciously macabre and with a number of supernatural flourishes that result in a wickedly fun, nasty watch that doesn't overstay its welcome.
The final episode based on a story by del Toro, The Murmuring, is a soulful, nearly feature film length ghost story meets domestic drama centered on an ornithologist couple, the husband played by The Walking Dead star Andrew Lincoln, reckoning with grief over their recently deceased daughter at a secluded, haunted country house. It reminded me of Mike Flanagan's work in a good way. The Murmuring is perhaps a bit sleepy and not exactly super original, but another highlight of the series. The best however is The Autopsy, a gruesome and very clever body horror-alien invasion story starring F. Murray Abraham from Amadeus that might be the best short horror movie I've ever seen.
Despite all the enjoyment I had with the aforementioned episodes, the others are pretty flawed. The two H. P. Lovecraft adaptations, which I was excited for as a big Lovecraft fan, are decent and watchable but pretty middle-of-the-road. They're hardly what you'd call faithful to the original stories either. Dreams in the Witch-House is more of a dark fantasy type of plot that largely foregoes the cosmic elements of the original story and makes it too basic. There's also an eyebrow raising blackly comedic ending where a mischievous rat-man ends up possessing the protagonist, played by Rupert Grint, which I can't imagine was meant to be taken seriously at all given that a plot point involving Grint's character of Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter series involves a villain being found out as having disguised himself as Weasley's pet rat, Scabbers, in the third book/film Prisoner of Azkaban.
And then Pickman's Model is pretty dull but worth watching for a wonderfully hammy Crispin Glover performance and a nice demon creature cameo. The creatures and monsters featured in the series were partially or fully designed by del Toro, who nailed it of course. The ending goes too far though; it's repetitive to have yet another nihilistic and not exactly satisfying ending just like Lot 36, Graveyard Rats, The Outside, and The Viewing sort of. Neither of the two stories feel much like Lovecraft, going into more over-the-top territory and not interested in being too depthful, subtle, or truly scary.
The less said about The Outside the better, a very odd and misguided attempt at social commentary dealing with beauty products that wasn't scary in the slightest. Maybe the producers thought some variety would be nice, as the other stories are all quite dark and monster/ghost-themed, but despite the change of subject matter fell totally flat. This one is easily skippable I thought, but the other episodes all have something of value to offer one way or another.
Cabinet of Curiosities is mainly a triumph, and more than welcome given how rare Lovecraftian movies are, being notoriously difficult to make work onscreen. Guillermo del Toro pens his name to more solid monster/ghost stories alongside the first season of The Strain, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Antlers, and Mama, not to mention his own films as well, which in my opinion have (generally) been getting better and better these past 10 years or so, with his Pinocchio being my favorite of everything he's been involved in other than Pan's Labyrinth. If you're a horror fan with a strong stomach and don't mind some camp, I'd happily recommend Cabinet of Curiosities for an entertaining, spooky diversion with its heart in the right place that engages with the imagination.
The Autopsy>>>>>Graveyard Rats>>>The Viewing>>The Murmuring>Lot 36>Dreams in the Witch-House>Pickman's Model>>>The Outside
Bring on Season 2. Ideal directors in my opinion are Oz Perkins, Kevin Kölsch / Dennis Widmyer, Michael Dougherty, Karyn Kusama, Richard Kelly, Rose Glass, Nicolas Wending Refn, David Robert Mitchell, Julia Ducournau, and Lukas Feigelfeld.
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)
Guillermo's best since Pan's Labyrinth
Beautiful, can tell this was a real labor of love! It's great that 2022 was lowkey the triumphant return of glorious stop-motion animated films for whatever reason. While I loved Marcel slightly more, Pinocchio was still in my top 5 of the year and is a glorious work of art. Manages to explore themes of mortality and darkness of our world the way classic fairy tales did, and achieves real emotional resonance by the end with where the characters end up. My favorite thing Guillermo's been involved in since Pan's Labyrinth. He's an earnest and versatile auteur, exuding his childlike wonder to make visually stunning genre films, this time without his trademark strong violence or grotesque imagery which results in a stunning animated dark fairy tale that sort of brings to mind, and lives up to, the better Tim Burton movies.
Pearl (2022)
Darkly hilarious and visually stunning
The second film in a planned trilogy from Ti West and collaborator Mia Goth, the first one simply titled X from early 2022, Pearl acts as a curious prequel to that film's primary antagonist. X was a solid 1970s slasher throwback with some unconventional elements, for example *Spoilers for X* the killer being an elderly woman named Pearl with a mysterious past played by Goth in heavy make-up. Goth also played the protagonist and final girl in her normal appearance.
As if all that wasn't impressive enough, it turns out that Ti West and Goth co-wrote another script centered on Pearl's origin at the farmhouse and filmed a psychological black comedy horror prequel centered on Pearl's young adulthood and what happened to make her the killer she ended up being in X. Her origin story presented here is a far more layered and psychological affair than that first one. Those hints at her past and implications of yearning to be a Hollywood star are fully explored in this follow-up, portraying a sweet and naive but ultimately dangerously unhinged farm girl obsessed with achieving fame and escaping her fate and monotonous, rural surroundings.
Pearl's gradual breakdown and evolution into cracked serial killer is cleverly explored, with a healthy dose of black comedy and references to classic MGM movies, especially The Wizard of Oz. One humorous sequence has Pearl singing and dancing in her barn about how amazing life will be after she is inevitably discovered and whisked away to Hollywood for a life of fame and fortune. It's a character study that may have been done before broadly speaking, but is depicted in a uniquely comedic and foreboding manner in this case. Goth showcases an impressive range with her performance, understanding the character's ambition and desperation perfectly; you always sense that under the surface of her hopeful, optimistic demeanor is an unhinged murderer who could snap at the slightest provocation. Perhaps the best scene of the entire movie is Pearl's gripping, one-shot, 5-minute monologue where you see her go through an impressive roster of emotional states as she unloads her troubles to another character in real time.
Ti West has always shown an impressive eye for detail, especially with authentically capturing an era, like the 1980s with House of the Devil. Pearl is easily his most impressive project yet and allows him to fully show off his array of talents. Some shots of the countryside for example are enhanced to resemble a colorful dreamscape to reflect how Pearl sees the world. Some of the visuals and lighting could even resemble what I would imagine the great Alfred Hitchcock would've come up with if he made a movie today.
Pearl draws from X and takes the opportunity to provide a disturbing and uproarious origin story that shines a whole new light on the titular character. It's even more impressive knowing that the budget was only around $1 million and looks better than most mainstream movies that cost astronomically higher amounts. West's stylish direction, their great screenplay, and Goth's phenomenal performance that's both sympathetic and terrifying easily makes for one of the best movies of the year.
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
It's a virtual reality theme park ride, enjoy it
I did not expect to like the new Avatar of all things as much as I did, but I must say it's James Cameron's best movie in 30 years. There's an impressive restraint shown regarding the dizzying and nonsensical action sequences that are characteristic of many blockbusters now. The whole middle hour I remember there being almost nothing of the sort. There are even some half-hearted attempts at characterization, mainly regarding Sully's kids and how they adjust to their new oceanic home after escaping danger in their forest.
The story is very standard and of course the runtime is far too long, with the movie becoming a slog by the time the extended third act climax comes around. But the film managed to provide a lot of goodwill for me in the form of all the stunning aquatic visuals and imagery that is honestly the selling point of this sequel, much of which is shown in that comparatively laid back middle hour.
As both a big science fiction fan and someone who loves the sea and practically feels a kind of spiritual connection to it sometimes, I felt like James Cameron's self-indulgent but technologically brilliant depiction of Pandora and all the sea life was highly enjoyable in a kind of sci-fi nature documentary way. It brought me back to the kind of awe I felt snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef and other places on the Australian coast. I still don't really understand the whole Avatar phenomenon, but both movies are well designed and very immersive experiences to be sure.
The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)
Gothic romance
The Haunting of Bly Manor was released during Covid-19 after Flanagan's superb Doctor Sleep, his best film in my opinion, being the highly anticipated follow-up to the widely praised Haunting of Hill House. While both are kind of lumped together as the two "Haunting" shows, the two series are totally unrelated as far as the plots go, though are very similar in many ways. Bly Manor is another example of taking the setting and character names from a classic ghost story, "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James, and using it as a jumping off point to tell a largely original character-driven romantic ghost story. The first episode is actually pretty faithful to the source material, which has been adapted numerous times by the way and may come across as a familiar premise. A young au pair named Dani is hired by a wealthy uncle of two mysterious children to look after them with the housekeeper in their haunted manor. The children are weird and misbehave, causing mischief for Dani as she also gradually becomes haunted by the ghosts of Bly Manor.
Now what occurs in the middle of the series is where some problems arise and why Bly Manor, while still great, doesn't quite have the consistency and impact of Hill House. Well until the last two episodes, which were excellent and kind of justify what came before. Overall, Flanagan attempts to recreate the structure of Hill House and focus each episode on a different character in Bly Manor, including the gardener and housekeeper. The problem is that these side characters experience weird instances of time travel and ultimately realize they're ghosts, but the unfolding of these events is executed in this kind of vague and dreamlike way that just becomes frustrating after a while and really grinds the narrative to a halt. The series is 9 hour episodes long and it really needed to be edited down, especially episodes 3-7. The other big problem is that the series is even less scary and horrific as Hill House, which barely got away with it but here really falters at times by the lack of scares for long stretches of time. It's a gentler and more romantic show, though just as melancholic with not much interest in delivering frights. I don't want cheap gore or jump scares or anything, but I need something here. However....
The final two episodes of Bly Manor are fantastic and really bring everything together with what all this was building toward. Episode 8 is a wonderful, black-and-white ghost story all set in Victorian times and explains the main malevolent spirit's backstory that's been haunting Dani in the present. It's a beautiful, sad, gothic tale that exudes atmosphere and adds weight to the history of Bly Manor. Then the final episode wraps everything up wonderfully, with Dani having to face the tragedy of Bly Manor's history and reckon with the ghosts of the past while also enjoying a romance with another character for a bit, before facing her inevitable fate once again and resolving the spiritual turmoil of Bly Manor. The very end is a real tear jerker and drives home the emotional impact of all these hours spent reveling in the hauntings in Bly Manor. While the road was bumpier than Hill House and really could have been scarier and edited down, The Haunting of Bly Manor is still excellent and largely lives up to the high standard set by Hill House. Flanagan would next branch off beyond haunted manors into new territory with the fantastic Midnight Mass....
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Not without its moments, but still, what a disaster...
This new Disney Star Wars trilogy started out with promise, but The Rise of Skywalker shows that the overarching story was not planned out and now collapses into a heap of meaninglessness. Wihle this isn't all terrible, compared to the previous films it's a significant disappointment. I had to watch the movie twice just to make sure I had it right, but this really was a colossal screw-up despite a few good scenes and settings, mostly the ones with Adam Driver's Kylo Ren, like: him and Rey communicating on his ship where Vader's mask shatters, his confrontation with her on the death star ruins, and the subsequent dream sequence where Han Solo talks to him. Driver is a great actor and his conflicted portrayal of Ren has been such a highlight of this trilogy, having carried these movies. There are plenty of other talented actors involved too, but many of them were wasted.
Aside from those aforementioned scenes, Rise of Skywalker is filled with baffling and nonsensical choices, moving along at a chaotically fast pace. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi had their problems, but were generally well made and enjoyable sci-fi action movies with some drama that felt like they were about something, while this is a train wreck that just wants to move along as quickly as possible without letting any scenes breathe or allow the audience to think or process any of what's happening. Location after location blurs by as our heroes just go around to some planets looking for a MacGuffin that will lead them to another MacGuffin that will lead them to the recently resurrected Palpatine and his new fleet of Star Destroyers on a new planet, Exegol, for a big battle at the end. Some of these planets are interesting, but we barely spend any time on them before the characters have to go somewhere else. This whole movie is wheels spinning and comes across like it was written by a 6-year-old. Why couldn't they have hired literally anyone else but the hack Chris Terrio, who co-wrote two of the worst and most derided movies of all time, Batman v. Superman and Justice League, to co-write this final Star Wars movie?? It's such a shame and waste of so much money and effort. Unfortunately, The Rise of Skywalker is tied with The Phantom Menace for the worst movie in the entire saga, also being the only two with mostly negative critical scores.
The Rise of Skywalker feels like it came out of nowhere and a dramatic drop in quality from the more mature The Last Jedi. It's full of ridiculous plot conveniences/details like a magical dagger when from a distance, the edge lines up with the ruins of the death star (what??) to lead to another clue, ignoring the themes and character development of the other movies like Rose Tico, a headache-inducing breakneck pace, Rey being a Palpatine somehow, new Force powers like healing serious wounds which has never been done before, and pointless side characters who do basically nothing, like Jannah, Zorii Bliss, and Beaumont Kin, some of whom are played by established actors like Keri Russell, Richard E. Grant, and Dominic Monaghan in thankless roles. It made absolutely no sense why he was back after being vaporized in The Return of the Jedi, but at least Emperor Palpatine was fun.
I've been a fan of most movies directed and/or produced by J. J. Abrams, but this one echoes his other poor effort Star Trek: Into Darkness. Interestingly, both films have a lot of the same flaws by having a shallow and nonsensical plot moving at a breakneck pace to hope that the viewer doesn't think too much about what is transpiring, and just splash some good visuals and action scenes on the screen. I expect that many people are involved when Disney makes a Star Wars movie, and I can't help but think that everyone other than the actors and below the line workers really dropped the ball here. There hasn't been a Star Wars movie since, at least partially because of this I'd imagine. The main problem with how this trilogy turned out was that no one was in charge of planning the story from the beginning to the end like a George Lucas. He may have screwed up the prequels, but being a story consultant or something instead of just shut out might have been a better plan. The lack of seemingly any coherent plan might not have seemingly affected The Force Awakens as its own movie, but it sure made for trouble here and in a good amount of The Last Jedi as well.
The Rise of Skywalker is an unfortunate reminder that this whole mythology doesn't make sense beyond the original trilogy, and a good case for only considering that and maybe the first two seasons of The Mandalorian as real Star Wars. There was no excuse for messing up the post-Return of the Jedi Star Wars storyline this bad, for one thing not even having one scene with Luke, Leia, and Han Solo together. I think the powers at be, as in Disney, will be in real trouble going forward as a result with future films and streaming series. The main lesson they should learn is that these epic trilogies and series need to be well planned out ahead of time by smart people. If they learn that lesson for whenever the next trilogy is made, it might be on the road to being redeemed.
The Lighthouse (2019)
Unique and strange, but very different from The Witch
Two men, one grizzled and bearded, the other young and with a grim look on his face, drift on a slow boat ride to their destiny: the vague form of a lighthouse can be made out on an island ahead in the gloom and fog. They arrive, converse plainly, and begin their work. The wise, experienced veteran who's near retirement, Thomas Wake played by Willem Dafoe, is paired with a young rookie, Ephraim Winslow played by Robert Pattinson. So begins the gothic psychological drama/horror film The Lighthouse, with a character dynamic that's been done before but is cleverly subverted in one of the most intelligent, unpredictable, and surreal films in years. The story is inspired by the screenwriters imagining what Edgar Allen Poe's unfinished final story of the same name would have become, which only got to be about one page long before Poe's death.
The audience follows the two men as they do various tasks on the island and in the lighthouse. Personalities clash and mysteries are soon made apparent, including Wake's odd reverence for the light and unwillingness to talk about it. Strange visions soon haunt Winslow, including glimpses of a mermaid and a mysterious figure from his past. Matters take a turn to the unexpected, not unlike a movie from David Lynch or Stanley Kubrick. The influences of those auteurs, and especially Persona by Ingmar Bergman, can be felt despite The Lighthouse being wholly unpredictable and embodying its own identity. The cinematography and sound design are sublime, completely immersing the viewer in the natural elements and unpredictable New England weather the two characters experience. Dafoe and Pattinsons' performances are a significant reason for the film's greatness, both getting some amazing monologues throughout.
Despite how small-scale and personal everything is, there is an all-encompassing quality to The Lighthouse. While the film starts modestly, strange visions relating to myth and sea folklore are incorporated into the story and contribute to the descent into madness that follows. Influences from symbolist art and early photography add to the atmosphere. Like Robert Eggers's previous masterpiece, The Witch, The Lighthouse thrives in its meticulous period detail, along with unreliable perceptions of time spent in isolation and mysteries of the past. Corn cob pipes, sounds of crashing waves with the salty sea air, slithering tentacles, a mermaid singing in the depths of the sea, and supernatural encounters are conjured up in The Lighthouse. The two leads are the human connection, gradually falling prey to the astounding fever dream that the story plunges toward by the end. The Lighthouse is something special, a profound meditation on myth and identity that engages the mind as well as the soul.
Knives Out (2019)
They don't make them like this anymore
As a longtime viewer and occasional reader of Agatha Christie stories, Knives Out was a real treat to watch. It can't be easy to bring a fresh spin to the tried and true detective story, but Rian Johnson pulled it off with a labyrinthian mystery plot with surprise after surprise. After the mixed results of The Last Jedi, he reaffirms his screenwriting talents that hearkens to his debut feature, the very clever Brick starring a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Ana de Armas shines in the lead role as an out of her depth housekeeper who gets caught up in her boss's crazy family and falling out after his sudden death, a wealthy novelist played by Christopher Plummer. The cast is fantastic and the movie ends up being one of the rare new releases that's really for all audiences, being an engaging, funny, thrilling, thought-provoking mystery film, the kind they don't make anymore.
Joker (2019)
Brilliant performance highlights this dark character origin story
What a genius move it was to make a dark, well acted, character driven psychological thriller and Trojan horse it into theaters with the superhero movie connection by making it a stand-alone Joker origin story. While the beginning is a bit scripty, the movie becomes brilliant as it goes along by commenting on the importance of mental healthcare and how a very troubled individual can easily break and be a danger to society, but in this case indirectly harnessing people's frustrations at the corrupt elites of the world, or Gotham City, to become an unintentional icon of anarchy as he does by the end. Joker is interestingly the anti-Batman origin story, the other side of that coin.
Joker recalls the greatest modern psychological thrillers like Fight Club, Nightcrawler, and American Pyscho with its incisive indictment of modern society and invoking that rousing feeling in the viewer to wake up, snap out of your everyday life, and think for yourself. Themes that have been done before and may seem obvious at first, but conveyed in an intimate manner through the eyes of a true psychopath in waiting. Like the aforementioned films, Joker will be especially impactful for empaths and disappointed idealists. It's ironic that the movie's pre-release controversy was about fears of it emboldening right-wing gun nuts and possibly causing city riots or something, when the entire movie ends up being about how crucial healthcare and competent city governance is!
Joaquin Phoenix gives one of the best performances of his career (which is saying something) and elevates the already solid screenplay with his brilliant acting. Certainly not in line with modern superhero movies, more akin to a classic Martin Scorsese crime film than a big budget Hollywood blockbuster, Joker is something special and Phoenix provides another brilliant performance as the iconic villain after Jack Nicholson and of course Heath Ledger.
The Haunting of Hill House (2018)
The best horror miniseries and best Netflix series
When I finally saw Mike Flanagan's The Haunting of Hill House miniseries on Netflix more than a year after it was released, I was surprised to find it would be an original epic family drama with a cast of characters who must reckon with both literal and figurative ghosts of the past in the setting of Shirley Jackson's classic horror novel, but in modern times and much time spent in the outside world away from the house, with only a brief reference to the actual plot of the source material. What unfolds ended up as the best Netflix original series still to this day, earning praise from critics and audiences for being an atmospheric, intelligently written, emotional, family drama-ghost story hybrid that ended beautifully and was kind of a big 8-hour movie.
This miniseries follows the Crane family, and most episodes focus on one of the characters going back and forth with flashbacks to them growing up in Hill House as their parents make repairs to flip it, and their dysfunctional and/or melancholic lives as adults. In the second half of the series, each of the siblings' separate storylines intersect and gradually come together in a very hyperlink-cinema kind of way. Each one has been affected by the haunted house and family tragedies that drove them apart. The series concludes with the characters having to return to Hill House once again and face these aforementioned metaphorical and literal ghosts together and attempt to move on with their lives.
Perhaps surprisingly, Haunting of Hill House is actually just as much a character-driven family drama as it is supernatural horror, if not even moreso the former. At first, I was a bit underwhelmed by the lack of scares or horror in the series, with much of it reminding me of Six Feet Under as opposed to something like Hannibal or the X-Files. But Six Feet Under was an amazing series too, and Hill House really won me over as it went along and I realized the creative decisions were all justified and well done. Flanagan also pushed himself to the brink as the director, shooting one entire episode in a few very long takes, even transitioning from the older characters to a flashback of their younger versions by turning the camera around all in the same shot, or at least meant to look like it, a very impressive feat on a technical level.
The performances were excellent, being one of the best television casts in a long time full of newcomers and seasoned actors alike, which included E. T.'s Henry Thomas, Carla Gugino, Elizabeth Reaser, Timothy Hutton, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen. It sure could have been scarier at times, but at least there weren't cheap jump scares or overreliance on violence at all, which would be worse and have long contributed to the weakest aspects of the horror genre. Flanagan makes horror movies and shows but really imbues strong soulful, heartfelt, and psychological aspects to them, and perhaps most impressively always ends each series in such a satisfying way. Well aside from Midnight Club, but that was supposed to continue on and was cancelled.
The Haunting of Hill House launched a new phase of creator Mike Flanagan's career, including a four-series deal with Netflix that just concluded with The Fall of the House of Usher. The other four series in the 2020s wouldn't match the brilliance of Hill House, though Midnight Mass came very close, and it cemented the miniseries format as rivaling the quality of film, similar to earlier ones like the first seasons of Fargo, True Detective, (before they were each continued as anthology shows), Horace and Pete's, and Olive Kitteridge. The line between movies and TV/series had been further blurred by Hill House, and set a new standard for Netflix and the streaming world at large. The following Flanagan Netflix series would feature many of the same actors and crew as Hill House, with the follow-up even taking place in another spooky house and involving various characters who are affected by the supernatural hauntings within it, The Haunting of Bly Manor.
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Plenty flawed, but fun and underrated
The original Lord and Miller directed version of this must have been bonkers. There's still some weirdness to it, but you can tell it was more streamlined and made safer for mainstream audiences. Everything I had heard about this movie before its release had me thinking it would be terrible, from the midway change of director to the lead actor, Alden Ehrenreich, needing to get acting lessons during the shoot. But...
This is actually a highly enjoyable space adventure film, at least as it went along. The first act is messy and off-putting, beginning with a wacky action chase scene so you feel excited, but it comes across as unnecessary. The movie's mid-point is where things come together and the plot gets going, then a very nice third act that leaves the door open for more possibilities in the future. Unfortunately, given this film's status as the first Star Wars to perform poorly at the box office, I'm not sure it will happen. A shame, because it's honestly the best Star Wars film outside episodes IV-VIII. The criminals running around in space theme and an almost Lovecraftian space sequence being a highlight of the entire Star Wars saga make for a mostly successful adventure film. Solo might be even better if it weren't connected to Star Wars at all and just went all out with the Guardians of the Galaxy meets Ocean's Eleven tone and subject matter it conveys.
Alden Ehrenreich is actually quite good as young Han Solo and was one of the best parts of the movie. Donald Glover as young Lando Calrissian and Woody Harrelson as a new bandit leader character are great too. The ladies unfortunately aren't given much to contribute; Thandie Newton plays a barely developed character in the group of bandits Solo joins, who *spoiler* soon sacrifices herself during a heist for less than clear reasons. Phoebe Waller-Bridge voices a gratingly annoying SJW robot (lol) who thankfully bites it halfway through the film, and Emilia Clarke blandly plays the halfway interesting female lead that could have used more connection with the protagonist and backstory in the script to fully be emotive, but it served the function it needed to and she doesn't ruin the movie or anything. There's also a nice return of Warwick Davis and an even more surprising cameo at the end.
Despite the fun action sequences and host of different personalities throughout Solo, one aspect really drags the movie down, and that would be the awful lighting and visual colorization. Many scenes, even in daylight, just look gross and muddy for no apparent reason. The cinematographer worked on Arrival, so I hesitate to blame this on him. I suppose it's director Ron Howard's fault, as he also helmed one of the darkest and ugliest looking big budget movies in film history, the live-action How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Like that colorful children's tale, Solo is a movie begging for a light, colorful visual style to match the wackiness on display, but it just looks like visual excrement. If that could have been fixed and the first act emphasized more character development instead of manufactured excitement, this could have gone down as a truly great entry in the series, instead of the simply good one with obvious flaws that it is.
Phantom Thread (2017)
One of the best love stories depicted on film
"Kiss me, my girl, before I'm sick."
Paul Thomas Anderson loves difficult love stories. His varied, incredibly well made, and rewatchable filmography has no less than three phenomenal movies (Punch-Drunk Love, this, and Licorice Pizza) that are each a perfect example of a quirky or transgressive love story between two fully realized, unique individuals just trying to navigate the absurdity of our world, their own anxieties, and each other. Phantom Thread is by far the most disciplined and tranquil of the three, however with a gothic, psychological undercurrent that becomes more pronounced throughout and some very humorous moments as well.
The plot follows a curiously uptight high-level British fashion designer named Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his turbulent romance with a younger, beautiful, unassuming waitress named Alma (Vicky Krieps). Her spirited demeanor and natural beauty catches his eye and draws him in, despite her personality being a sharp contrast with Woodcock's rigid lifestyle and close bond with his equally severe sister, Cyril (a formidable Lesley Manville). Even Alma's loud scraping of jam on toast with a knife during his quiet morning time is enough to throw him off for the rest of the day, and Alma must be quick to adjust to her new partner's sensitivities.
As the film goes on, Woodcock's acidic demeanor and introverted nature threaten the relationship as it had with a string of previous romances, implied with an early conversation he has with Cyril, even having her do the break-ups for him. But Alma is clearly different, and skillfully navigates her way around both siblings' defenses. Her endeavors aren't without a few bumps along the way, especially a particularly difficult to watch but at the same time hilarious dinner scene at his home. Reactions to Phantom Thread, even in a short time, could range from wincing, to laughing, to being mesmerized by the beautiful images and haunting score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, one of the finest soundtracks in decades.
The laid back pace but obvious care taken with every detail, including the gorgeous costume design, exemplifies Anderson's mastery of filmmaking and ability to bring out nuanced performances from Day-Lewis, Krieps, and Manville. The screenplay is a beautifully strange deconstruction of the stuffy, old-fashioned British romantic costume drama with moments of cheeky self-awareness and a consistently icy wit. The ultimate conclusion of Woodcock and Alma's relationship is a twisted arrangement, and on retrospect represents a hilarious demonstration of how a strong-willed but very caring person can make it work with an old-fashioned, genius artist who is also at times, frankly, an unreasonable ***hole.
It's an amusing and thought-provoking idea of going to a bizarre extreme in order to make an otherwise beautiful and harmonious relationship work, as unexpected as it may have seemed at first. This bittersweet resolution appears to be the only logical way to make their marriage work, and in an odd way exemplifies the inspirational lengths two people in love will go to stay together that feels weirdly sweet. Unconventional love stories have a subtle power to be more profound and emotional than a typical romance story, and auteur Paul Thomas Anderson taps into that potential wonderfully, first with Punch-Drunk Love, the disciplined Phantom Thread, and recently the more youthful and free-wheeling Licorice Pizza.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
The highest and lowest of Star Wars
What can be said about Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi that hasn't been said already? Perhaps the most controversial film in the saga, certainly of the sequel trilogy, which inspired a plethora of varied reactions to how subversive and seemingly disrespectful of the series it was, or how refreshing it is depending on who you ask. But the truth lies somewhere in the middle. While The Force Awakens is technically the best and most straightforward of the three, there are a few aspects of this one that are more interesting thematically. The less said about the ill-fated and scattershot Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, the better. First off, The Last Jedi looks fantastic and is incredibly well made from a technical perspective. Just a cursory glance at any scene from each film in the trilogy makes it clear that this is the most artfully done and visually rich of them all. Rian Johnson is a high quality director, responsible for the excellent sci-fi thriller film Looper (starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, and Jeff Daniels) and the low budget neo-noir murder mystery satire involving high schoolers, Brick (also starring Gordon-Levitt in an earlier role). This is perhaps his strongest from a pure filmmaking level, with picturesque shots, wonderfully choreographed action sequences, and vibrant imagery throughout. However...
Rian Johnson is also credited as the sole screenwriter, and the script is where the problems come in. Episode VII: The Force Awakens was a standard but highly effective starting point that echoes A New Hope maybe a bit too much, but with good focus on the fresh faced new characters meeting Han Solo, Princess (now General) Leia Organa, and then at the very end Luke Skywalker for a solid soft reboot to the new trilogy. The Last Jedi needed to take the story into a new direction and rely less on nostalgia, which is does, but almost to a fault. The film takes a more deconstructionist approach by all the characters being separated from each other and in a state of conflict or even confusion. The quality level of each story thread is also varied. This makes for a pretty noticeable split between an A-story, B-story, and C-story. While this kind of parallel plotlines isn't rare in the Star Wars series, the B and C stories are far inferior to the A-story, the latter making for some of the best scenes and thematic ideas explored of the whole saga. The more frivolous and light side stories drag the movie down however.
To get the negatives out of the way, nearly every attempt at humor in The Last Jedi falls flat. The middle chapter of a sci-fi/fantasy trilogy is usually the darkest and sees the heroes at their low points. The Last Jedi certainly fits that criteria, but there are too many jokes throughout that don't fit the subject matter of nearly every character generally feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, or even hopeless at their circumstances. This is also odd because Looper and Brick, along with the more recent Knives Out, use humor well in a subtler and more situational context. The Last Jedi's low point concerns a mission assigned by Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) where former storm trooper Finn (John Boyega) and a new character, the mechanic Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) journey to a casino planet with cartoonish aliens and eye-rolling attempts at wacky humor reminiscent of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. This whole part ends up being completely inconsequential to the main conflict of the film and trilogy as a whole, an embarrassing and easily skippable sequence similar to something from the prequels.
There's also a plot line where Poe clashes with Vice-Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) concerning a plan to stop the planet-destroying First Order spaceships. Holdo takes control of the Resistance after Leia is temporarily indisposed after being injured from an attack by a First Order ship. This sequence of events ends with Poe, Leia, and everyone else except for Holdo escaping, who sacrifices herself to destroy the ships by flying into them at light speed. This comes across as a surprise maneuver, and she could have just told Poe about it in the first place to avoid their conflict. Some moments also come across as awkward, like the aforementioned attempts at humor, Leia saving herself with the Force by flying back into her ship after the explosion from the First Order attack propelled her into space, Rose's explanation for why she crashes her ship into Finn's at the end to stop his sacrifice by saying "Love will save us," or some such nonsense, and Yoda in Force ghost form coming across a bit too goofy in an otherwise nice cameo scene with Luke.
The strong central story though concerns Jedi Knight Rey (Daisy Ridley) trying to continue her training in the ways of The Force with a now jaded and cynical Luke Skywalker in self-exile on a small island. She feels at a loss with what she must face in terms of Luke's failed protégé and Han Solo and Leia's son, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and his fascist First Order, a new incarnation of the evil Empire. She also communicates with Ren through the Force while on Luke's island a number of times, and despite bitterly rejecting him at first due to having seen him murder Han Solo at the end of The Force Awakens, they gradually form a tentative bond and understand one another a bit. These scenes are some of the most interesting of the series, especially when they later meet in person while confronting Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), another Emperor Palpatine type of evil ruler.
There's a contemplative moment after Ren kills Snoke and he and Rey dispatch his guards that could have led to a new direction for the Star Wars series: He suggests that ideas of good and evil are irrelevant and they should team up to start a new society for the galaxy and leave the old ways behind. This could have been a really interesting direction to go in, but the movie chickens out as she rejects him because she sees he's still evil or something along those lines. It turns out that this film really isn't that subversive and blasphemous to the series, as in the third act, the scrappy band of rebels are facing down the butt-end of a doomsday super weapon led by the villain in his black mask (Ren), while the hero (Rey) must once again rise to the challenge, rescue everyone, and leave the area for them to fight another day. Not all that different for a Star Wars film!
There is more good than bad with The Last Jedi though. There's a very satisfying climactic confrontation between Luke and Ren on the ground near the doomsday weapon. Before that, Luke shares a special moment with his sister Leia, where he kisses her forehead and gives her Han Solo's dice that was always hanging in view on the Millennium Falcon cockpit in the original films, a brief and simple scene but honestly the most emotionally affecting one in this entire trilogy. Luke then goes to meet Ren where he taunts and stalls him so that Rey, Leia, and the others can escape. Ren tries in vain to kill him, eventually realizing that Luke is not physically there, and had used The Force to astral project himself to the location. Luke coyly vanishes on Ren and peacefully dies on his island. This is poetically visualized by him fading away and becoming one with The Force with twin suns in the background (like the ones above his home planet of Tatooine), and then his Jedi robe gently glides away. As mentioned before, lots of beautiful visuals in The Last Jedi. Hamill also gives probably the best performance of his entire career in The Last Jedi.
All this is well and good if it wasn't the middle chapter of a trilogy. There's actually a real air of finality to it, with Luke Skywalker dead along with Han Solo, Rey and Kylo Ren back to where they started as enemies, and Leia still leading the resistance with the other rebels, including Poe, Finn, and Rose, who didn't do anything relevant to the main story. Nothing has really changed, and the following installment could take place two, five, or ten years later. It really doesn't matter even though Snoke was killed, Rey was revealed to not have special parentage, and Luke had wanted the Jedi to end. Going in a new direction is the right idea after Force Awakens, but this result turned out to be a flawed way to do that. The Last Jedi is like anti-Star Wars, without even a lightsaber battle or much in the way of reverence for the world these characters are in. No wonder it's so controversial with diehard fans. There's nothing to look forward to or anticipate after what has taken place, which is a problem when part of a larger story. This was proven by the air of desperation and uninspired, frenetic nonsense that The Rise of Skywalker turned out to be, including retconning much of what this film was all about by not acknowledging the themes, making Rey have important parentage after all, showing a much more positive Luke in force ghost form, and totally sidelining Rose Tico.
While The Force Awakens did a good job reinvigorating the franchise and kicking this new trilogy off, The Rise of Skywalker was a generally convoluted and uninspired conclusion with just a few good moments here and there, mainly involving Kylo Ren. Both were directed and co-written by prolific writer/director/producer, and who some called the new Steven Spielberg, J. J. Abrams, with apparently no involvement by Rian Johnson. The problem with this trilogy wasn't all the fault of Force Awakens or this one, but actually from the leaders of Disney/Lucasfilm/whatever not planning out a continuity between these three films in the first place. Johnson is not the one to blame for how the trilogy turned out. As just a sequel to The Force Awakens and not thinking about what comes next, The Last Jedi is generally very enjoyable to experience in the moment and feels like it even has a definitive ending. What results is a very flawed but still good film that could have been great.
True Detective (2014)
Seasons 1>3>2>4
True Detective is a crime drama anthology series from HBO created by author Nic Pizzolatto. Initially conceived as a miniseries, season 1 premiered a decade ago to rave reviews for its unique, philosophical take on the detective genre and chemistry between leads and real life friends Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. It was such a hit that HBO immediately ordered season 2 on the double, which resulted in Pizzolatto feeling pressured and overwhelmed from the sudden attention, and probably rushed to write the next season in a short time. While it was poorly received mostly due to the finale, season 2 actually has a lot of interesting and worthwhile elements that become more apparent on a rewatch.
One problem was that season 1 was so self-contained and really its own thing, a masterful southern gothic psychological drama with faint cosmic elements and a deep, tragic, and soulful main character, Rust Cohle, perfectly juxtaposed with the more relatable Marty Hart, played by Harrelson. Cary Joji Fukunaga directed the whole thing and probably had a significant part to play in how amazing it turned out. It was lightning in a bottle and one of the best seasons of any television series in history, right up there with seasons 4 and 5 of Breaking Bad, season 3 of Better Call Saul, seasons 4 and 6 of Game of Thrones, season 2 of Fargo, season 3 of Twin Peaks, season 2 of Six Feet Under, season 3 of Lost, season 3 of The X-Files, and season 2 of Hannibal.
The problem was that season 1 was so perfect that any follow-up wouldn't be able to escape its shadow, similar to Nicolas Winding Refn's polarizing Only God Forgives following up the previous Ryan Gosling thriller Drive. Pizzolatto had also been thinking about and writing season 1 over a period of years, with all the time he needed to craft it just right. The follow-up was effectively a total reinvention and should be viewed that way. On its own, season 2 is more good than bad, but sprawling and unfriendly to mainstream sensibilities. It's not focused enough with too many downbeat characters wallowing in their damaged lives and acting like watered down versions of Rust Cohle. They navigate a series of criminal conspiracies and murders by crooked Vinci city politicians and organized crime in CA, which became convoluted to follow. Season 2 is certainly unique and engrossing, like a bizarre mix of Eyes Wide Shut and Inherent Vice with a splash of David Fincher, but needs a guide to understand everything that happened, and it was clear that Pizzolatto was not able to satisfactorily conclude half of the character's storylines, perhaps due to time constraints. Season 2 ended up as a very heavy, grim, dense neo-noir mystery thriller that asked too much from a wide audience and could never live up to season 1. Comparisons are almost unfair given the circumstances of how season 2 came to be after the first, also going for different subject matter in a new setting.
After the disappointment of season 2, True Detective took a hiatus to figure out what should be done next. With a good amount of time spent ensuring that a well thought out story could be told, season 3 ended up as a less strange and much more streamlined mystery drama back in the south with rich, conspiratorial assholes as the villains and a strong psychological angle from the central character Detective Wayne Hays, played by Mahershala Ali. Despite the relatively straightforward nature of this case and main character, a murder and child abduction, it's explored over an ambitious amount of time with the entire season cutting between events from three different eras, the first 1980, 1990, and 2015, the latter showing Hays struggling with dementia trying to recall his life events and put this case to rest once and for all. Season 3 reminded me of the excellent mystery film Gone Baby Gone and this mediocre Ryan Reynolds abduction thriller The Captive. This season felt a bit like a throwback to the style of season 1 but without the brilliance, or the suffocating heaviness of 2 either. There was a depthful, storied partnership between Hays and his partner Roland West, played wonderfully by Stephen Dorff, and Ali is of course great as Hays too. It ended up as a fairly solid psychological mystery story that was reliably well told and focused. There could have been fewer episodes, especially condensing 2-4, but the last three are real show stoppers and the ending was quite poignant, poetic, emotional, and thought-provoking. As far as mystery crime drama/thrillers go, season 3 is for sure above average and could even be called excellent, a clear improvement on season 2.
Season 4: Night Country was announced a few years later. Interestingly, a new showrunner and writer named Issa López would write and direct all the episodes, who was responsible for a very good horror film called Tigers Are Not Afraid about ghosts and the Mexican drug cartel. This new season would star Jodie Foster as Detective Liz Danvers partnered but feuding with a Native American detective named Evangeline Navarro, played by former champion boxer Kali Reis, investigating the disappearance of male scientists at a research station in Alaska. There would also be a supernatural horror element and share faint connections with season 1. Suffice it to say that all this was very intriguing, but there was the downside of no creative involvement from Pizzolatto (He even denigrated it on Instagram. The guy really gives no ****s which isn't all that surprising given some of the stuff he's written haha).
While each season should be judged on its own merits, it's still strange to have one with no involvement from the showrunner and writer of all previous episodes. In that sense, can Night Country really be called True Detective? Or is it just something that's been fashioned into the series for name recognition? I suppose it's all subjective. Sure, the atmosphere and subject matter kind of fits, but there are also clear indicators that this is a different creative voice from Pizzolatto. I feel like it should've just been its own series. In any case, Night Country has a decent spooky mystery plot and an expectedly great lead performance by Foster, though it clearly isn't on the intellectual or psychological level of season 3, let alone season 1. It's kind of on the level of 2 more or less, being plenty flawed but still interesting with some noteworthy elements. I didn't really buy the revelations about the case, which were less than satisfying and don't really make sense when you think about it, and I'm not entirely sure what the point was for all that. It ended up being surprisingly safe and kind of familiar with how it ended, especially these days. Night Country didn't totally work for me and had lots of problems, but managed to stand out a bit in the modern television landscape due to the unique setting, creepy atmosphere, and some decent character development. I really have no desire to ever watch it again though, whereas I find revisiting the other seasons to be worthwhile. What is in store for the future of True Detective is a mystery, but it's certainly been one of the most memorable and provocative series in television history, at the end of the day mainly due to the incredible first season, as well as some flawed but worthwhile follow-ups, especially 3.
For those who dug the setting of Night Country, I highly recommend the first season of a great series called The Terror, about a lost polar expedition that gets terrorized by a mysterious force.
First three seasons episodes ranked: 1. Who Goes There (s1e4) 2. The Secret Fate of all Life (s1e5) 3. Form and Void (s1e8) 4. The Locked Room (s1e3) 5. Seeing Things (s1e2) 6. After You've Gone (s1e7) 7. The Long Bright Dark (s1e1) 8. Now Am Found (s3e8) 9. Hunters in the Dark (s3e6) 10. The Final Country (s3e7) 11. The Great War and Modern Memory (s3e1) 12. Haunted Houses (s1e6) 13. If You Have Ghosts (s3e5) 14. Black Maps and Motel Rooms (s2e7) 15. Church in Ruins (s2e6) 16. Night Finds You (s2e2) 17. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (s3e2) 18. Down Will Come (s2e4) 19. The Western Book of the Dead (s2e1) 20. The Big Never (s3e3) 21. The Hour and the Day (s3e4) 22. Maybe Tomorrow (s2e3) 23. Omega Station (s2e8) 24. Other Lives (s2e5)
Lincoln (2012)
Daniel Day-Lewis Becomes Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln needed to be redeemed in the cinema after the atrocious Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was released earlier in the same year. The satire from that novel was scrapped in the film version, making it a more straightforward horror movie with the 16th US president as the star. Luckily, Lincoln now exists, presenting a largely accurate and insightful look at the legend of American history as he caps his presidency with the end of the Civil War and abolishing slavery in the United States. Lincoln is based on the biography "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The movie primarily focuses on his efforts to push through the signing of the 13th Amendment and the aftermath of these events, up to the end of his life.
Daniel Day-Lewis plays Lincoln masterfully in one of his Oscar winning performances, completely immersing the audience with his period-accurate accent and subtle physical mannerisms. The film also portrays his skills with people by telling jokes and stories to express his point of view. No one knows for sure what Lincoln sounded like or how he acted, but Daniel Day-Lewis gives a highly convincing interpretation that feels wholly believable. His performance can be seen as the other side of the historical American success story of the previous performance as fictional oil tycoon Daniel Plainview in 2007's There Will Be Blood. While Plainview sold his soul and ended up a bitter, resentful murderer in pursuit of the American dream in early 20th century American landscape, Lewis exudes the spirit of heroism and political genius that Lincoln embodied.
The rest of the cast lives up to Lewis's greatness, serving as other players in his personal life and the politics of the time. Sally Field plays Mary Todd Lincoln, imploring Lincoln not to allow their conflicted son Robert, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, to fight in the war. The film does not descend into melodrama and naturally illuminates the various challenges Lincoln dealt with, often at the same time. They didn't keep him from fearlessly pushing the 13th Amendment forward to finally end slavery and the war, even when it was not necessarily a popular stand to make at the time. The lofty subject matter, however, does not get in the way of the humor he possessed, along with a reliable Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens and the sleazy W. N. Bilbo played by James Spader.
Lincoln succeeds not only due to the outstanding performances, but also from director Stephen Spielberg's effective and reliable style of presenting suspense and drama, particularly in a historical setting. As the judge counts each vote that could end slavery in America in the climactic scene, the audience knows the outcome, but you still feel the tension in the air in that room as each ballot is read. Even with an absence of grand action sequences, the climax is an exciting and triumphant moment for a country to begin moving forward from a dark time of slavery and war. These events happened over a century ago to people we will never know personally, but the impact and genius behind it is masterfully brought to life on the big screen in what seems to be the best way possible. Lincoln is a poignant look at the 16th president's final months in office, showing why he is often cited the greatest president in American history.