Category Archives: Movies

Movie Review: NOPE

This weekend Jordan Peele, writer/director of get Out, and US, released his third feature film again playing in the fields of horror with Nope.

The film centers on brother and sister Otis Jr (Daniela Kaluuya) and Emerald (Kiki Palmer) as they struggle to save their ranch and film horse training business following the sudden, tragic, and bizarre death of their father Otis Sr (Keith David.) Between encroaching visual effects

Universal Pictures

wizards rendering live horses almost inconsequential and a local western themes amusement park seeking to expand by buying up the failing property the survival of Haywood Hollywood Horses is in grave doubt. It is in this dire situation when a threat descends from the clouds that both threatens the inhabitants of the ranch and simultaneously offer the possibility of financial salvation.

If you saw the previews for Nope you might be tempted to think that Peele was moving into the alien invasion sub-genre of horror and science-fiction and to enter the theater with that fixed as an expectation is to invite disappointment. Nope is closer akin to The Creature from the Black Lagoon, individuals isolated and under threat than the grand global menace of War of the Worlds. Modifying your priors and you are far more likely to enjoy Nope than if you expect the film to be something it is not.

That said Nope doesn’t entirely gel. It has ideas, characters, and settings, the backstory and subplot of Steven Yuen’s Ricky Park, a former child star and now owner and proprietor of the western-themed amusement park, is tragic and horrifying but only symbolically belongs in the same film as the threat hanging over the ranch. It was the sequences where we see the source of his trauma and its repercussions that truly unnerved me and produced the most tension. Uts failure to fully integrate into the main plotline left me unsatisfied.

However, there is a lot to praise Nope. Kaluuya continued to demonstrate that he is a terrifically talented actor able to inhabit with utter authenticity his characters. Palmer is more manic in her performance which is an excellent choice for Emerald and her willingness to push and chase a dream beyond the bounds of reasonableness. The visuals of the film can be spare in a manner that accentuates the isolation and vastness of a distant and secluded California Ranch. Perhaps once of the greats slight of hands in the film’s cinematography is the way Peele, Director of Photography Hoyte Van Hoytema, and VFX artists capture fleeting glimpses of something in the skies that is enough for the audience and the characters to know that something was there but not enough to describe the thing.

Nope was an enjoyable if somewhat scattershot movie with enough character and threat to carry most audiences through the rougher patches but not achieving the heights of his debut film Get Outwhile avoiding the too fantastical ‘rationalist’ explanation of Us.

It’s Not ‘Mary Sue’ It’s J.J. Abrams

I was recently wandering through some YouTube comments on a reaction video to someone wh0 had just watched for the first time the original trilogy. Naturally there were comments from those who dislike the sequel trilogy complete with ‘woke’ as a pejorative and declarations of ‘Mary Sue.’

Now, I am not going to wade into the Rey debates, people can make up their own minds on the character and frankly heated debates over imaginary characters are dull and boring.

What I think is worthy of observation is the idea that it’s not a ‘Mary Sue’ problem but rather a J.J. Abrams has no concept how the world works problem. Abrams seems to think that skill acquisition and mastery is something that ‘heroes’ do quickly, easily, and magically. It is what happens with Rey in The Force Awakes progressing from utterly obliviousness of the Force to influencing weak minds with ease but it’s not Abrams first display of this sort of ‘easy to be the best’ mentality.

in the 2009 reboot Star Trek James Kirk enters Starfleet Academy as a cadet proclaiming he will be a captain in four years. And then doing so by the end of the movie. Ensign, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander, Commander, these are just words to Abrams and not the ladder of ranks once must climb to reach Captain. All that doesn’t matter because Kirk is the hero and an Abram’s story that cloak of heroism confers all abilities required of the plot regardless of training, work, and history.

Abrams is a competent filmmaker and director, albeit with a habit of copying others’ styles, but he is a terrible crafter of story and character.

The Essential Difference Between Ragnarök and Love and Thunder

I adore Thor: Ragnarök and found Thor: Love and Thunder a slog and I have identified one of the key structural difference that I think drives my varied reactions.

Ragnarok structurally has twin parallel plotlines that converge in the film’s final act. After some
set-up in act one the twine storylines are first Thor and Loki on Sakaar and the second is Hela conquering Asgard.

Hela’s conquest of Asgard is presented in a straight-forward tone and manner. It is fairly devoid of jokes, that is not to say it is without humor but rather the humor in it is not in a set-up and punchline format nor does it engage in large scale exaggeration of characters for effect. Asgard is presented as genuine peril with stakes that related to characters we have known.

Sakaar, from its production designs, its saturated color palate, and it very broad characters is over the top in its quips, jokes, and japes. Characters are painted in very broad strokes and exaggerated traits giving the audience a funny ‘fish out of water’ story as Thor fights to escape and confront Hela.

When the two plots converge it is on Asgard and plays fairly consistently by the rules setup for dramatic effect during Hela’s conquest. The stakes are real and humor becomes less broad for a quite satisfying conclusion.

Love and Thunder has several locations and except for a few brief scenes all of the characters in

Disney Studios

all settings are painted broadly and are exaggerated. This film is seeming composed of only Sakaar-like sequences with a Hela plot to counterbalance. It is a diner that has only desserts, which sounds like a good idea but ultimately it is not satisfying.

An Unofficial Extended Cut of 1978’s Dawn of The Dead

Romero’s Zombie masterpiece, Dawn of the Dead, officially has three versions, the 2-hour 7-minute US theatrical release, the 1-hour 59-minute Dario Argento edited European release, and an extended cut release on home video of 2 hours and 19 minutes.

On YouTube I discovered an unofficial 2-hour and 34-minute edit that combines material from the previous version. It was quite an edit and in general I really like this fully fleshed out version of the story.

I saw the original release of the film back in 1979 when it played at a local drive. (We’ll skip over the part where I bicycled to the drive as I had no access to a car.) The film then was impressive and as I have aged and matured my appreciation has only grown. In addition to horrific events, gory set-pieces, and action the film is a satirical commentary on American consumerism and how easily we put material goods and comforts over more important matters and duty. I do not think it is by chance that our characters are all people who have abandoned their responsibilities in favor of themselves.

The long version has more ‘world-building’ as we spend more time with the characters and their environment before they discover the abandoned shopping mall. We see more of the disintegration of society at the television station and with more police abandoning their posts as the main characters flee the crumbling city.

Nothing about the core story changes and the ending remains the same as Romero never photographed his script’s original conclusion. It is a shame that this is an unauthorized edit as I think it works quite well and it would be nice to see it have a proper home video release.

Movie Review: Thor: Love and Thunder

I wish I could say I loved Thor: Love and Thunder but the film was a disappointment. I will cover

Disney Studios

the general reason why it failed to work for me, but I will avoid spoilers and anything that really hasn’t appeared in trailers. However, if you are concerned the short review is that the film failed and is likely for me the bottom of the MCU.

Still here? Okay Let me present my arguments why this film did not work for me. There are three major failures in execution in the movie.

1) The humor was forced.

2) The stakes carried little weight for the audience.

3) There was little to no thematic statement or argument in the film.

The 9:30 am showing I and my sweetie-wife attended was not packed but there was an audience, and I cannot recall very much audible laughter during the screening. All of the best jokes and punchlines seem to appear in the trailers and what was surprising seemed to be trying too hard. If felt like someone attempting to replicate Thor: Ragnarök but failing. Where the broad characterizations utilized in that film were set against an equally broad and exaggerated setting here the same over the top characters were principally in more ‘grounded.’ as much as any MCU setting can be grounded, and the clash of styles failed to be funny.

The villain of the piece if Gorr, The God Butcher, a being defined by tragedy and wielding a weapon that allows him to slay gods. Which he does. The problem is that all of these gods are new characters to us, disconnected from the on-going storylines of the MVU and divorced from its characters so why should any audience member have an emotional attachment to their demise? All the gods whose death’s would have a serious impact have already died in other films. Also, Gorr’s course towards his goal is ill-defined and inconsistent within the film itself. Gorr needs X to achieve his ultimate goal, but he doesn’t act like he is trying to obtain X until after the audience if informed of the need. It really felt as though the film was being written and re-written as it was being produced.

The film, as best as I can determine, has nothing to say. Thor: Ragnarök under its flashy, colorful, Kirby-Inspired production design and it broad comedic tone had a lot to say about the legacy of sin, crimes of the past shaping the present, and colonialism. Love and Thunder apparently has nothing more to say than live life fearlessly and with love but even that rather cliched message is at best muddled and buried in the confusing chaos of the movie.

I have respected and been vastly entertained by Taika Waititi’s previous creative outings, his work often infused silliness with deep emotional heart, but sadly I cannot in good faith say I enjoyed this movie.

Writers Going to Write

One of the unfortunate side effects of being a writer, at least for me, is that it’s quite difficult to switch off the part of my brain that writes and re-writes while I am enjoying someone else’s artistic work. I remember attending a best-selling authors book tour at our local bookstore and after he read from a piece having the urge to provide feedback and notes. This applies to movies I watch as well.

On its release I thought Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness was okay but rewatching it on Disney Plus has raised my appreciation of it. That said I have found one line of dialogue I really really want to re-write. Just add three words to line. That’s all.

Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) when lectured about sacrifice by Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) answers “Don’t talk to me of sacrifice Stephen Strange. I blew a hole through the head of the man I loved, and it meant nothing.”

That’s a good line, gives real weight to Wanda emotional pain and it works but I think it could be better.

“Don’t talk to me of sacrifice Stephen Strange. I blew a hole through the head of the man I loved, and, because of you, it meant nothing.”

Strange gave Thanos the Time Stone which allowed Thanos to reverse Wanda’s act of killing her love in an attempt to save half the universe. Putting in those three words helps move her motivation from Strange simply being opposed to her to something much more personal.

CineFix’s Top 10 A24 Films

The YouTube Channel CineFix-IGN, which releases regular and top-notch film analysis and exploration videos this week dropped another of their ‘Top 10′ lists, this time for movies released by those lovers of indie cinema A24.

Consistent with their previous top 10 lists they broke the list down into categories. I found it amusing that I had seen 7 of the 10, a personal record for me I think, and own 3 of them on physical media.

Here is the listing of their top 10 A24 titles.

10) Debut features: Lady Bird (2017) dir. Greta Gerwig

9) Science Fiction: Ex Machina (2015) dir. Alex Garland

8) Fantasy: Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) dir. The Daniels

7) Coming of Age: The Green Knight (2021) dir. David Lowery

6) Survival Horror: Green Room (2016) dir. Jeremy Saulnier

5) Supernatural Horror: Hereditary (2018) dir. Ari Aster

4) Existential Horror: The Witch (2016) dir. Robert Eggers

3) Traumatic Drama: Midsommar (2019) dir. Ari Aster

2) Quirky Character Drama: Uncut Gems (2019) dir. Josh and Benny Safdie

1) Capital ‘D’ Drama: Moonlight (2016) dir. Barry Jenkins

The three I have not yet seen are, Lady Bird, Green Room, and Moonlight. The owns I own are Ex Machina, The Witch, and Midsommar.

Green Room is the film I have the most anxiety about watching. It is a strange quirk of character that fantastical horror, monsters, witched, zombies, cam create dread in me but far from enough to cause any hesitation in starting the film, but grounded realistic horror, such as trapped in a back room while a gang of fanatical neo-Nazis led by Patrick Stewart try to kill you can set my hand trembling. The utter banality and real-world nature makes such a prospect more terrifying than all the zombies or Swedish death cults.

Of the seven that I have seen the one that worked the least for me was Uncut Gems. While exceptionally made and Adam Sandler’s performance was fantastic, I found his character so repellent and unsympathetic that I cared nothing for his fate. Nor was he interesting enough as a character to leapfrog over his repulsive nature. It was not the actor, but the character as written that left me cold.

Still, when the A24 logo appears on the screen I know that quality and vision will follow.

Noir Review: Pickup Alley (1957)

As part of the collection Noir Archive #3 Pickup Alley is a British police and crime film that in the UK was released as Interpol but retitled for its American distribution.

Victor Mature plays narcotics detective Charles Sturgis, a man with a personal vendetta against a major drug smuggler Frank McNally, the incomparable Trevor Howard, who murdered Sturgis’ sister. When drug mule Gina Broger, Swedish Actor Anita Ekberg, shoots one of McNally’s underlings when he attempts to assault her, this creates the crack in the operation that finally

Warwick Films

allows Sturgis to properly begin the chase. With teamwork from Interpol and Across the ocean and the European continent Sturgis follows Gina in his dogged pursuit of McNally, a criminal so talented and intelligent that no police force has even a decent sketch of him much less a photograph.

Pickup Alley is a mediocre film, neither great nor terrible. Mature is good enough as the vengeance obsessed detective but doesn’t rise to the heights of some of his other performances. The stand-out actor here is Howard, thoroughly enjoying himself, reveling in his character’s evilness, with only occasional forays into eating the set. It’s worth watching this film just for his performance.

Ted Moore’s cinematography and John Gilling’s direction are competent journeyman work lacking any particular flair. The film is shot and the frames composed professionally but feel like that are missing that extra bit that elevates work from competent to artistic. That said the budget appears to be fairly limited and that may have hampered the overall look of the production.

Pickup Alley, a nonsensical title, is neither great nor bad but at 92 minutes neither does it overstay its welcome. worth watching once but unlikely to become anyone’s favorite noir.

Movie Review: MEN

From writer/director Alex Garland, screenwriter of 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Dredd, Ex Machina, and Annihilation and director of the final pair of that list comes the strange horror film Men.

Harper Marlowe (Jessie Buckley), retreating for two weeks in a rental house in the English countryside following the traumatic loss of her husband James, finds that all the men in the local village, all played by Rory Kinnear, are demanding, disturbing, and vaguely threatening,

A24 Studios

from the tween insisting on playing hide and seek with her to the naked vagrant who follows her home. Harper is confronted by both internal threats, guilt, and sorrow over her husband James, and external, the men of the village, while trying to come to a new emotional balance.

Rory Kinnear’s multi-part performance is non-diegetic, Harper shows no reaction to the fact that all the men she encounters are all variations on the same individual and as such it is a symbolic expression intended solely for the audience.

Garland’s previous scripts can be roughly divided into straight forward descriptive narratives, 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Dredd where the images on the screen represent an objective reality, and symbolic expressions such as Annihilation, where the scenes represent emotional, psychological states of the characters. Men lives deeply in the symbolic side of Garland’s creative process. The film follows its own nightmarish dream logic, particularly in its third act when objective reality is apparently discarded entirely. And yet the final sequences of the movie would seem to indicate that the fantastical events of the story climax were also reality the chaos’ detritus is seen by characters beyond Harper.

Men is a brilliantly crafted film that luxuriates in long shots and sequences that layer tension but the open to interpretation and symbolically charged elements of the imagery I found, while expertly executed, difficult to connect with and unclear in their meaning.

This movie is no doubt someone’s jam, and I have no question that it will be divisive, but I found it impossible to lose myself in the film as I was constantly battered by the question if I should be taking this literally or symbolically? Garland never gave me a clear direction on that and so I left the theater confused and without any strong emotional reaction.

Men is highly subjective, and it is a film that is impossible to either recommend or oppose as each individuals reaction is likely to be highly idiosyncratic.

Streaming Review: Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

Doctor John Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift) is a talented and empathetic neurosurgeon working in a deeply under-funded southern hospital just before the outbreak of world war II. A wealthy local widow Violet Venable (Kathrine Hepburn) offers to fund an expansion of the hospital, but she wants her niece Katherine (Elizabeth Taylor), currently confined to a Catholic asylum, treated by Cukrowicz’s lobotomy technique. However, when he examines Katherine, he

Columbia Pictures

suspects that Venable is more interested in suppressing the truth of her son’s death while vacationing with Katherine than in her niece’s wellbeing. With the future of the hospital at stake and relatives pressing for the procedure to please the family’s matriarch Cukrowicz is in a race against time to discover the truth that has unbalanced and disturbed Katherine before another specialist, one not so constrained ethically as himself, is brought in to lobotomize the young woman.

Suddenly, Last Summer is actually my fist encounter with the works of celebrated playwright Tennessee Williams, though the screenplay was adapted by Gore Vidal. The film is an example of Southern Gothic replete with eccentric characters, mystery, and a dark heart. The driving mystery of the film is the death of Mrs. Venable’s son, Sebastian, a poet, and charming person adored by all who knew him and portrayed in the film to preserve the illusion of a person uniquely different from the rest of his family and society. While the official cause of Sebastian death is reported as heart attack it is clear that this is a cover story and the doctor’s attempts to uncover the truth and help Katherine confront the terrible memory lay at the story’s emotional heart.

I must admit that my enjoyment of this film was somewhat depressed by the fact that I was already aware of the truth of Sebastian’s demise from the documentary that sparked interest in this film, but I will neither reveal the mystery nor the documentary instead suggesting that you see this film blind and unspoiled for its full effect.

Elizabeth Taylor was 27 when she made Suddenly, Last Summer and, having drawn on personal tragedy to power her performance, was reportedly inconsolable after filming Katherine’s emotionally fraught recounting of the tragic death at the film’s climax. Hepburn dominates every scene she speaks in with a patrician’s command and turns in a stunning performance as the cold matriarch hiding a dark secret.

Suddenly, Last Summer is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel but leaves at the end of May.

Robert Mitchell Evans

Literary Saboteur