Reviews

The well-laid-out and often quite beautiful Planet of the Apes prequel "trilogy" now gets a fourth installment -- namely Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Needless to say, I didn't see the use for it; having now watched it, I feel about the same, even if I appreciate the attempt to mimic the weight and patience of Matt Reeves' films -- as well as their seminal VFX work.

However, there are certain downgrades. Instead of Andy Serkis' iconic mocap performances as Caesar the ape, the new movie treats us to comparatively unmemorable sapient simians. Instead of trusting audiences can pay attention to a film that's largely silent and reliant on sign language (part of why 2017's War for the Planet of the Apes was my favorite of the bunch), the apes in this one talk up a storm. (They don't perform "Dr. Zaius", alas.)

So basically, at this point in the timeline, we are closer to the future that Charlton Heston saw in the original Planet of the Apes -- which, of course, he at first thought was an alien planet in his own time, learning the truth in what might be the most spoiled and unconcealable twist in cinematic history (yes, possibly including Luke's relationship with Darth Vader and the significance of Kane's last words).

As the movie begins, apes have all but seized control of the Earth. Those human colonies we saw in the prior film are wiped out and what few humans remain are feral -- for the most part. One exception is William H. Macy's character, Trevathan, who teaches the vicious ape leader Proximus Caesar of the old world.

Another important player is Mae, a human who befriends our hero, a young ape warrior named Noa. Mae, too, can communicate just fine, which startles a friendly, knowledgeable orangutan in one of the funnier scenes. Noa's loved ones have been taken; Mae, or "Nova" as she is nicknamed, knows where to go.

The movie has appreciably better action sequences than a lot of other blockbusters, managing to make these scenes of CGI animals going at it seem more real, weighty, and tactile than many modern action scenes that feature real humans. (They also mop the floor with recent action sequences that do primarily involve an onslaught of CGI creations -- see last year's astoundingly soulless Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.) And while we're talking of the CGI, the animation of the animals still manages to be quite astonishing to look at, even as we've grown used to seeing computers produce photorealistic apes and monkeys.

It does still look a bit "off" to see these seemingly real animals speak with human mouth movements -- yet, I feel as if their facial expressions and emotive subtleties are even more impressive than in the prior films. Several years ago, in my review of the Jungle Book remake, I wrote that talking animals are never going to look wholly natural. Now, I'd say we're getting there.

In short, it's a fairly enjoyable blockbuster. Even so, I can't imagine we'll remember anything from it quite like we remember those pivotal moments from the older films. Matt Reeves gave us a mute girl bonding with a gorilla over the beauty found in nature, distilled in a single tree blossom. Matt Reeves gave us the paralyzing sequence from the first film in the trilogy where Caesar speaks for the first time. Matt Reeves gave us Kobo. Nothing here is at that level, but I say check it out.

Shogun (which I'm not permitted to spell correctly as the macron O is an "invalid character") is a masterfully written and artistically splendid adaptation of the 1975 James Clavell novel of the same name (which was also adapted for TV in 1980 -- I'm told that if you belong to the same generation as my parents, this was more than likely the first Japanese you ever heard/learned). In this version, we get Cosmo Jarvis as the marooned Englishman John Blackthorne; Anna Sawai as the troubled Lady Mariko, who becomes his translator; and a phenomenal Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Toranaga, a mighty daimyo who becomes the target of other regents in Japan in a story that shows the dawn of Tokugawa shogunate.

It's a bit funny that it came out right around when Denis Villeneuve made his comments about how movies are the ideal place for visual storytelling, whereas TV is more about dialogue. Along comes Shogun, which looks appreciably better than many of the movies we've seen from Hollywood in recent years, most notably in terms of lighting -- Matt Zoller Seitz joked that this show reminded us that good lighting is, in fact, allowed on TV.

It's not as "realistic" as, say, the murky battle in the Game of Thrones episode The Long Night, but is this what we want in fantastical art? Recall the conversation Peter Jackson had with a crewmember when shooting the Cirith Ungol sequence in Return of the King: "Where is that light coming from?" "The same place as the music."

It's a show that puts in effort and details in ways that too few shows bother to even try. I even noticed environmental details, like a scene set during a period of thawing, where snow can be seen and heard sliding off the building while the characters are speaking -- this wasn't necessary to include, but it helps the show feel more real and immersive, while also denoting the passage of time during Blackthorne's stint as Toranaga's military trainer.

There also is the purposeful use of swirly bokeh, especially in shots that show Blackthorne's point-of-view, accentuating the dreamlike and confusing quality that Japan has to him, and of course, the costumes and sets are nigh flawless. It is, simply put, a brilliant show, and the fact that so few are talking about it is a damn pity.

Something harrowing is laid bare in Netflix's new Baby Reindeer. Based on an autobiographical one-man show by Scottish comedian Richard Gadd (who also stars), the series dramatizes his experiences with stalking and abuse. It is the sort of story that -- mainly because the gender dynamics aren't what we "expect" -- so rarely gets attention, much less taken seriously.

While I don't intend to hit you with too much info, the dynamic at the center of Baby Reindeer is one I found eerily familiar; based on the type of person that Gadd's stalker apparently was, it got me thinking about how these things seem to typically play out. Particular types of people will prey on other particular types of people. I recognized this stalker; this demeanor.

In Gadd, I see bits of both myself and an old friend who went through something similar around the same time as I did. Neither of us had to endure such insane levels of it, but I can attest that it's easy to, for lack of a better word, allow things like this to get worse. The show explores as much: When you're at a low point, you may accept any sort of attention -- even when the flags are red as can be -- and certain stalkers will be especially drawn to such a person, as they feel they have a chance.

It also showcases perfectly how stalkers of this ilk aren't just malicious, but trapped in some narcissistic state where it's unclear to onlookers if they're delusional or lying on purpose -- and where they see themselves as the protagonist of a romantic film. (Just think of the scene where Martha, the stalker, tries to win Gadd back by singing a love song at one of his stand-up gigs; she isn't being ominous on purpose, but clearly doing what she's certain will save the day.) Even so, this is a story that goes to places that cannot be described as anything other than evil.

I don't mean to "judge" the show based on things like accuracy. This is Gadd's story to tell and on top of being a bravely vulnerable piece of expression, the show as such is also technically well-made and cleverly, purposefully presented. Gadd maintains a certain sense of humor about it all: Poorly spelled emails have rarely looked so humorous yet disturbing at the same time.

Late Night with the Devil is a cleverly presented tale with a decently convincing 1970s TV look and a great performance from the ever-charming David Dastmalchian. This much is true. Alas, many critics will be hesitant to praise it.

It's likely you've already heard of this film through its AI controversy, being the first major motion picture - to my knowledge - to use so-called AI art. (It's actually "machine learning", I know, but I think we're past trying to hold on to what Artificial Intelligence "actually" refers to.) It's certainly the first one to garner this much attention for it.

To make matters more disappointing, this "major" example wasn't from a "major" studio (we might expect this sort of get-out-of-hiring-artists cheat from Disney, and we'd be right; remember the intro to Secret Invasion). Instead, it comes from the world of indie horror: a nifty found-footage joint presenting itself as recovered footage from the 1970s talk/variety show Night Owls with Jack Delroy, and the interstitials created for the in-universe show features clearly AI-generated cartoon skeletons, with all the effed up fingers and weird uneven eyes that this entails.

You may wonder why everyone is more upset by this than AI being used more and more in larger Hollywood projects (a question raised by Brendan Hodges and others, once again referring to Secret Invasion plus the various AI-voiced Skywalkers we've seen lately). Why beat up on the little guy?

Well, that's just it. The word "indie" is all but synonymous with the little guy - creators who don't get the same money or attention as the titans of Hollywood. And so, for many people, it is disheartening to see an indie production be part of the problem; to do something that spits in the face of aspiring artists, by (A) relying on prompts over hiring actual persons and (B) using software that's trained on such persons' pre-existing images without their approval. Once again, there is much to appreciate about the production and there is clearly love behind it. So why did this happen?

One defense I've seen is that the artworks in question were made back when AI art was just something people toyed around with, instead of being recognized as a real threat to aspiring creatives like it is today. (The production even predates the SAG-AFTRA strikes.) Thus - I guess - we oughtn't be too harsh on the filmmakers.

However, artist Summer Ray quickly demonstrated why there's no justification for sticking to the AI route; in just a few hours, she whipped up a hand-drawn version of the graphic that looks more era-accurate, more like an actual skeleton, and just all-around better than the AI mess (remember, this was 2022-era software), all while being an ORIGINAL piece that makes no nonconsensual use of prior works/assets. If you can't afford a drawing, you can always just, ya know, not have a drawing in your film. Hell, the version screened at SXSW reportedly didn't have the artwork.

Because of this, many people are straight up suggesting we're morally justified to pirate the film, because the filmmakers' terms are such that theft is permissible. While that may not be entirely fair to all those who did put in work to make this movie, others would deem that we should've been even more vocal - just a few weeks later, we learned of A24's algorithmically generated Civil War posters and that Netflix murder documentary that used AI to, I kid you not, create childhood photos of the subject.

All of this aside, I think Late Night with the Devil is a witty and well-executed picture. It is skillfully both hilarious and unsettling, with entertaining and mostly convincing performances throughout. Do what you will with this information.

In a bizarre way, Hundreds of Beavers kind of constitutes closure for me. It's the closest thing we'll get to a proper live-action Looney Tunes film (because, yeah, there was a time when even I looked at cartoons and went "This I gotta see in three dimensions").

When I saw Space Jam and Looney Tunes: Back in Action in my youth, I was disappointed and didn't fully understand why until later: The movies are about a group of characters coming together to stop bad guys and helping each other out. That's not the Looney Tunes. The Looney Tunes are supposed to annoy, beat the snot out of, and try to consume each other, oft in hilariously elaborate ways that can only happen in cartoons -- or, as it were, in the RIGHT type of live-action film.

Hundreds of Beaver is more or less that film, but visually, it is closer to a picture by Charlie Chaplin -- the original live-action cartoon -- with a few dashes of old video games and YouTube Poops. Yet, it all flows together perfectly, creating a world wherein there's a method to the madness, consistency to the chaos, and logic to the surrealism. We find ourselves immersed, understanding the rules and geography of this surreal slapstick realm of cartoon physics and AVGN-tier animal suits.

Set in 19th-century North America at the height of winter (that's about as specific as the film gets), the story follows an applejack salesman who is forced to become a fur trapper, fighting against the elements to capture enough animals to win the hand of a local merchant's daughter, using all sorts of intricate traps and schemes to do so. Meanwhile, the local beavers don't take kindly to this bearded menace. He learns that they may have been involved in him losing his applejack business.

It is, for all its influences, one of the most truly unique movies I've seen in a while. It is constantly zany and rife with visual cleverness -- with some gags that become important near the third act (allow me to propose the screenwriting term Chekov's Snot-cicle). The one complaint I can imagine people will have is that it feels just a touch too long.

In my mind, the story is sufficiently interesting -- and the gags and setpieces sufficiently varied -- to justify the runtime. But because of its hectic nature, a given minute of screentime will have so many things going on that it seems like several minutes -- not in the sense that it's tedious but in the sense that it's dense. I imagine it can be exhausting for some but as I've mentioned, the film is varied enough that you should be fine. At times, it gets close to feeling repetitive; at that same time, it does something out-of-pocket and treats us to some new sight. (Besides, the repetition is sometimes part of the humor, evoking the rhythm/structure of those silent 'toons of old.)

What's undeniable is the devotion of these filmmakers -- the "commitment to the bit" as the young uns might put it. Each scene represents just as much effort and silly wit as the last, never once failing to capture the intended vibe and look (sans maybe one shot where the backgrounds, as stupid as this may sound, look too much like a real forest).

The actors are having the time of their lives with this material and the music, cinematography, and directing in general consistently achieve that "old, wordless cartoon" feel. Real ones might know Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews for 2018's Lake Michigan Monster and the 2016 short film L. I. P. S., but if there's any good in the world, these will soon be widely known names.

Regardless of my notes above, I think you'll have a blast with Hundreds of Beavers -- and feel free to partake in the official drinking game posted by the filmmakers.

Whatever is the deal with Alex Garland's Civil War? Does he have nothing to say, or is he saying everything about everyone? Does he need to have a clear stance on the mess that's America, or is it enough that he makes an immersive and disturbing war-zone trip -- an "Apocalypse Now for the girlies" as one critic put it -- as observed by a team of photojournalists?

There are some movies where -- even though many would insist it isn't saying anything -- critics have everything to say about it. Even movies that get decried as taking a radically centrist "everyone is an idiot" stance will sometimes get accused by the same critics of ultimately being aligned with this or that "side" -- depending on how the critics read the characters of the movie, which values they themselves have, and whether or not they liked the flick. (The point of the movie is usually a greater one, often misconstrued as non-commital/nihilistic when really it just refrains from playing favorites in its assessment of how insane everyone has gotten.)

As for Civil War, however, everyone seems to agree that it's kind of lame and that its vagueness doesn't lend itself to interpretability so much as it makes the story less interesting -- because we don't know why anything is happening and what it ultimately was that pushed a divided America into abject chaos.

There are occasional evocations of Jan6, Charlottesville, and the mid-pandemic Antifa manifestations (plus a guy who almost wears the colors of the Palestinian flag) but it mostly leaves us going "Yes, and?".

To paraphrase Jeff Zhang, it's a movie that doesn't much engage with what it itself has to show; while it boasts apoliticism, its motifs are very much political -- and might've been resonantly topical if we better understood where the filmmakers stand. Surely more could've been done with this picture?

I do appreciate films that endeavor to view human beings from an almost alien perspective; to view our fighting in the same way that we watch insects tearing each other's appendages apart, not caring which insect thinks he's fighting for the GOOD ant hill or which values he's protecting. That sort of thing can be fascinating and eerie, and Garland knows how to make eerie movies. But what he gives us here, coupled with his comments about how "The problem isn't the right or the left; it's ideology", makes me think he's kind of a dork.

And if he believes that cameras are neutral -- objective machines that capture reality without bias -- I'd recommend the documentary All Light Everywhere.

Dev Patel's directorial debut Monkey Man has had quite the journey to reach us and we have none other than Jordan Peele to thank for finally getting it to the big screen. The film has solidified Peele as a savior of the art form -- in case Nope hadn't convinced you of his seminal taste -- and Patel as one of the Millennial greats.

Initially, the plan was for a worldwide Netflix release but as you might've read, they eventually elected not to platform it, supposedly out of fear of alienating their Indian viewers. (Let's just say the film isn't especially favorable towards the Indian government.) But Peele saw that Patel was cooking with fire and so attached himself as a producer via his Monkey's Paw company (how appropriate), and eventually got Monkey Man a theatrical release by making a deal with Universal Studios.

And like I said, it reminds us that Patel is one hell of an actor while also, evidently, being a skillful movie-maker. His directing displays an expert-level command of extras, space, and camera movements, and there is purposeful planning to the way everything is staged and put to music.

It explores Indian culture in both poignant and fascinating ways (few viewers in the rest of the world will have heard of hijra/jogappi or the folk tales being evoked) and the city of Yatana, with its vibrant lights and constant street activity, feels like a character in its own right. I'm a bit less enthusiastic about the story, which I appreciated on a thematic level (the unabashedly brutal anti-fascism) but less so on a personal level (the tale of Patel and his quest to avenge his mother).

These are good characters -- some of them, like Sharlto Copley's frothing underground boxing announcer, are just plain fun -- but they lack the depth that would wholly justify this runtime. I would've loved to learn more about the freedom fighters at the hijra temple (when they're set up in a news broadcast earlier in the picture, it feels like a throwaway line).

Oh and of course, being a debut, the film is often distractingly similar to the works that inspired the debutante in question. The fight scenes are clearly influenced by -- and worthy of -- the John Wick films and, occasionally, Oldboy (there are certain shots of elevators and hallways that seem especially familiar). This needn't be an issue, especially for a first-time effort, and the references, if nothing else, indicate great taste: There are nighttime city drives that recall Fallen Angels, certain elements of the premise and visuals suggest the works of Refn, and a confrontation near the end feels like a mix between Blade Runner 2049 and a Panos Cosmatos film. Need I even mention Bollywood?

Alas, there are also problems with the pacing, most puzzlingly in terms of where Patel chooses to place the flashback of the event that traumatized his character as a child. I get that putting it near the Third-Act Low Point works better for the "reveal" of how he got his scarred palm; it's just weird that the flashback comes later when there are moments earlier of Patel, in fits of PTSD, recalling images from this moment in his life and they're presented as if we should know the event he's thinking back to -- when we haven't been shown that scene yet.

Another moment that sticks out, where I thought to myself "This is ALMOST brilliant", was when the lead character is asked his name and says it's Bobby; the camera pans across a pack of Bobby's Bleach as the other character walks closer, which I thought was a cleverly subtle way of showing the audience where he got the name from. Then we see several more shots of the pack, one of which was subtitled in the screening I went to. We got it, trust me.

What nobody can deny is that if Dev Patel keeps cooking -- and people like Peele keep encouraging it -- wonderful things are ahead.

Smiling Friends continues to be what other "adult cartoons" fail and sometimes actively refuse to be.

Where other shows find edginess and intelligence in nihilism and negativity, this one works as an antidote -- partly in how its heroes endeavor to bring joy to an absurdist world (though they oft learn that some of its sadsacks only find joy/purpose in even darker places). Where other adult cartoons look ugly on purpose (supposedly to scare kids away), Smiling Friends is bright, colorful, and appealing to look at -- for all its grotesque and agonized-looking characters.

And of course, it's still a joy to behold for those of us who have followed its creators since Newgrounds, OneyPlays, SleepyCast, or wherever you might've discovered them. It was wild enough to see these people get a show on Adult Swim and eventually have said show on the HBO Max "Adult Swim" banner right alongside Rick and Morty. But to get an ad on the Las Vegas Globe for a "Season 2 premiere" that turned out to be an April Fool's Gag? Truly we live in the most blessed of timelines.

The show continues to combine the strengths of its creators. Zach "Psychicpebbles" Hadel has a knack for creating hideously cute critters in a quick moment and Michael Cusack has a way with big expressions. In this new season, we also get the best emulation of PS1 graphics that has ever been attempted, complete with bit-crushed audio for that particular character. An equal amount of care has been put into the old-timey video game promo.

The animation is better than ever and there's additional humor to be found in it if you know where to look, such as the way some random object will be over-animated and fluid while a little blob fella is zipping across the screen with a two-frame running cycle. The character animation -- the poses, the blink-and-you'll-miss-them tics/gestures, the simple yet expressive faces -- is brimming with detail, and we do get some off-model gags at the right times (once again, usually in a way where you'll barely notice them). Finally, it is still very funny that someone like Zach, to whom goblin mode comes so naturally, plays one of the most normal guys in the show.

Needless to say, I cannot wait to see what's next... in May.

The Truth vs. Alex Jones is mainly two things. On one hand, it is a documentary on the lawsuits filed against alt-news provocateur and InfoWars founder Alex Jones following his coverage of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which he called a "false flag operation" that thousands of people were in on, including the grieving parents who he notoriously dubbed "crisis actors", inciting ceaseless harassment. (He has since also been blacklisted from YouTube.) On the other hand, it is an exploration of Jones as a persona and what it is that intrigues even those who revile him.

This is, most would say, one of the absolute worst human beings alive. As we see the Sandy Hook court proceedings and interrogations, where Jones is finally confronted about his lies in a way where he can't get away the same as he would've done if the cameras were at his command, the film inevitably ends up satisfying -- even as the subject matter is harrowing.

And yet, there's something about Jones as a character -- a boisterous loudmouth whose explanations for things will get so outlandish they read like a Reddit theory about The X-Files as orated by a WWE champion -- that intrigues pretty much all of us. One interviewee explains that you may become glued to the show because "You want to see what else he'll say", echoing the scene from Private Parts where both fans and haters of Howard Stern give their answers to why they keep tuning in.

The movie, which is refreshingly concise given the popularity of the "docuseries", underscores just what a cartoon of a man this is; not in an affectionate way, but in a "car crash that you can't look away from" sort of way (only instead of a car crash it's a great ape who figured out microphones and Rolexes but little else). Even in the courtroom, he can't seem to help doing/saying something goofy.

It also explores his beginnings on Austin public radio and we learn some damning, yet unsurprising details from former colleagues of his about how IW does its fact-finding. In 2011, when there were fears that radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown had made it to the coast of California, and Jones' research team reported that their instruments showed this wasn't the case, IW producers immediately gave them a call demanding that all those logs/videos be destroyed, as they went against the narrative Jones wanted to tell and thus advertise the hot new IW product, in this case an iodine supplement meant to shield against fallout. Few things could more perfectly capture what this website -- and most alternate news in general -- is ultimately about.

In my review of Mike Cernovich's Hoaxed, I wrote that, yes, it's good to be critical of mainstream news/opinion; it's just that you shouldn't switch off your scrutiny just because the news is now coming from a sphere whose politics you happen to like (especially when they'll very provably base their reporting on what they're trying to sell). Looking at the current state of conspiracy theories -- where you seemingly can't go two minutes without seeing a post about space lasers and Satanic agendas -- I'd say my supplication fell on deaf ears.

It may sound like a slippery-slope fallacy, but I've seen it occur in real-time with a friend, whose thought process basically went "Well this guy validated by opinions about Islam and the anti-gun media, so he MUST be correct about chemtrails". It's often said that Alex Jones only appeals to those who already agree with him -- that he exists, not to change your mind, but to tell you that you're already right and get you to pay him to say it more -- and while it's true that that's how he gets ya, those people go from bad to worse (whichever tier of "bad" they were already on) once Jones starts telling them about some other things the Bad Guys are up to.

As this film shows, Jones is arguably the most important figure in the normalization of conspiracy nonsense we've seen during these past few years. We're reminded that during the 2016 presidential race -- which involved a considerable boost for alternate news -- the Trumpster himself sang Jones' praises. We're shown there was a period where InfoWars garnered more viewers than CNN.

I myself once wrote about how this magnitude of conspiracy-theorist thinking was well underway to becoming more mainstream, due in no small part to the popularity of InfoWars. And like I said, now it's everywhere. Hell, compared to some of the theories I covered in The Big Conspiracy Guide of 2023, Jones is falling behind (which is another prediction I had; that he would soon be deemed "too vanilla" if this keeps spiraling out of control).

In 2021, many of us learned that even he -- the guy with the gay frog water thesis and the spiels about "weather weapons" -- still isn't insane enough for the QAnon theories (which is to say nothing of how normal he looked next to Kanye West in 2022). Regardless, he is become Death, the destroyer of non-flat worlds.

Again, it's very satisfying to see him confronted in a setting where he can't hide or yell loudly enough at reality until reality gives up, but in a lot of ways, this is a horrifying film. Like the recent Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, its presentation is sometimes cheesier than seems appropriate for the topic, but it doesn't take away from the film's importance.

Godzilla and King Kong unite once again to fight a common kaiju enemy in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Booms and pows ensue. If that's all you need, close this window.

As I've noted before, I'm detecting a pattern in the way Godzilla sequels (d)evolve. Back in the day, we began with a powerful post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki dirge in the form of 1954's Godzilla -- originally named Gojira in Japan and later needlessly retooled for American viewers -- and before you knew it, the once-terrifying titular beast (who had seemed so large and imposing a few movies ago) was sliding forth on his tail and drop-kicking his "enemy of the week" in flicks that later became Mystery Science Theater subjects.

And now, decades later, we have the Monsterverse, which started out with 9/11-esque images of horror and has now culminated in a kaiju wrestling match where a big ape rides upon a big lizard to go fight another ape on another lizard. To make things funnier, the Japanese seem to have come full circle and returned to making Godzilla films that are deep and resonant -- using the monster as a "ghost of World War II" as Ebert once put it -- in the form of the phenomenal, Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One.

Following the release of that film, it's hard to accept the defense that Godzilla x Kong is "just a monster movie" and that it doesn't make sense to expect more from it than "monsters punching each other". I'm afraid we've all seen the truth; we know we could be getting more.

But never mind what I would like to see from the kaiju genre. How does Godzilla x Kong fare as a monster brawl? Well, now's the time to tell you that my issue isn't that it's inherently wrong to opt for mindless fun over trying to achieve thematic resonance through more grounded action -- it's that the attempt at mindless monster fun isn't that great.

I suppose it delivers what you came for, even as we waste some time on stupid prophecy nonsense and questionable interludes of cuteness (there's a scene where King Kong basically goes to the dentist). As for the battles themselves, they're no doubt well-made but they left me in a state of "so what". That's part of why it's hard for me to not compare it to its direct franchise predecessor:

Yes, sometimes simians clobbering reptiles is enough. But imagine these fight scenes if we also cared and there was emotional gravity to the action -- or even regular gravity. Better yet, what if they leaned further into a Toho sequel homage and didn't seem to genuinely think King Kong floating around with a magical axe in Hollow Earth is epic and cool? As is, I can feel myself starting to forget most of what I saw in here. Was the axe even magical?

Something I did like about the previous film, Godzilla vs. Kong, is Adam Wingard's direction. Even as the human characters in these films still aren't anything to cheer for (although I thought the human drama worked fine in the early bits of the 2014 original, and last year's Monarch: Legacy of Monsters partly warmed me up to the idea of learning more about the homo sapien side of the lore), Wingard at least made the GvK dialogue scenes look great -- atmospheric, prismatic, and bathed in "line of purples" neon. Here, we get similarly colorful sequences, yet they do very little to make the material more interesting.

I understand if I sound too demanding or even "spoiled". It's worth reminding oneself what an amazing age of F/X we live in and how doubly amazing it must be for the OG nerds. Imagine watching 1933's original King Kong or any of the Ray Harryhausen classics as a kid -- not to mention that film from 1962 where a massively re-sized Kong finally did meet Godzilla, both played by actors in shoddy suits. Could you ever have dreamed that we'd one day see movies -- spectacles -- like the ones we have now?

If you were that kid, I guess you shouldn't let me stop you -- even as you might have nitpicks of your own regarding lore or whether the monsters should really move like this (especially considering the sense of scale and weight that Gareth Edwards gave to these things when this particular 'verse was established). I do think you should go see it; I cannot promise you will remember much about it. I think you might have fun; I also think Godzilla himself, being a recent Oscar winner and all, deserves more.

Regardless: Happy 70th, Godzilla. May you either evoke the horrors of man-made annihilation or brofist a photo-realistic Gamera in whatever's next. Either way, we'll be seated.

Quiet on Set is a tough watch, but also important -- important because of the dark truths it illuminates; tough because of the truths' unsettling nature and, furthermore, what they reveal about kiddie programs that several generations hold dear. It explores the production of such '90s Nickelodeon classics as All That and naughties ones like Zoey 101 and Drake & Josh, along with the myriad stories of abuse and predation involving former Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider, dialogue coach Brian Peck, and others.

It's harshly sobering, to be sure, especially if you are familiar with these faces and/or their younger selves. You may not need this show to tell you that the world of child stardom is an evil one, but the more people realize how the system works, the better.

I do remember the Nickelodeon sitcoms and variety shows, but as they were in English (sometimes without Swedish subtitles), I rarely watched them. Yet I remember being intrigued by things like Kenan & Kel, Cousin Skeeter, Pete & Pete, and, indeed, All That; a few years later, Drake and Josh seemed to be everywhere. These kids defined the brand and, in turn, our childhoods (even if we didn't always tune in, they were somehow always there). This documentary puts things in a dreary new perspective for all of us.

There are some critiques of it that I will concede, however. At times, it seems too cheesy for the subject matter -- like when Drake Bell, finally ready to reveal himself as the John Doe in the 2004 Brian Peck case, walks in at the end of Part 2 like it's an MCU post-credits scene -- and certain arguments, like the Nickelodeon slime (along with various snot jokes) supposedly being references to cum, made me wonder:

Is that on Schneider, or people in the modern day being porn addicts?

Imagine being worried that the new Grinch film will besmirch the good name of "the original" and meaning the Jim Carrey version. Apparently, the Grinch as interpreted by the Minions makers is at a risk of somehow being less dignified than the one where the Mayor of Whoville sucks on a dog's anus.

Little known fact: the character actually originated in a Dr. Seuss book called How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which was adapted into an animated short film with Boris Karloff. As strange as it may sound, the essence of this Christmas story was not originally ass humor. I don't know how many people know that.

In The Grinch, Benedict Cumberbatch is The Grinch, and The Grinch is a mean one. Why? Because of the noise and holiday cheer emitting from a small Christmas-obsessed town, called Whoville, situated below the hill he lives on with his dog. Both locations -- Whoville and the mountain -- are inside a snowflake, by the way. I'm still waiting to see Grinch and The Whos face their inevitable doom in the sequel, Apocalypse Snowplow.

Worth mentioning, however, is that Grinch is no longer all that mean from the start. Rarely has something been so indicative of our current state as the idea that we needed to tone down the Grinch a little; make him more of a regular, if cranky guy because God forbid we ever relate to a genuinely flawed and cruel character, especially in a child-friendly film.

Let me further illustrate how much hipper and cooler this movie is with the Zillennials than the original cartoon. There is no narration by Karloff; that honor instead goes to Pharrell Williams. The song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" is performed by Tyler the Creator instead of Thurl Ravenscroft. I couldn't make this up as a joke. I mean, I could do that; it's just that Hollywood would already have done it non-ironically before I got to the punchline.

Do I need to elaborate on the plot? You all know the stuff where The Grinch eventually dresses up as Santa to take away all the decorations and Christmas gifts from Whoville, i.e stealing Christmas. But there's more. Of course there is. The movie can't very well be just forty minutes, can it? Much like the Carrey iteration, this one elects to more deeply explore Grinch's origins, to see why he's such a grump all the time.

The cast includes Cameron Steely as Cindy Lou Who, Rashida Jones as Cindy's mother, and Keenan Thompson as the "happiest Who" in the village. Angela Lansbury now voices the Mayor of Whoville.

Admittedly the film is more visually inviting than the last time Grinch got a feature-length outing (not to mention Cat in the Hat), but even when the designs are transferred from the land of Dr. Seuss, Illumination Studios manage to make everything tediously generic to look at. Their films are so inoffensive, yet so perfectly manufactured that they will always get their money back through sheer cute factor (plus merchandise, which always goes well with a story that used to be about the vacuousness of materialism), not that they're known to spend that much money or effort to begin with.

Nothing raises a red flag for me quite like the idea of someone trying to make a film about Internet memes and online culture. It can so easily come off as out-of-touch, or like a weak attempt to be hip with something that frankly isn't worth being hip with in the first place.

But the story of Pepe the Frog, once a simple Matt Furie comic strip figure, is too insanely fascinating not to make for a compelling documentary, and this one goes above and beyond in its research, presentation, and understanding of the Millennial nerd world. Since he was already widespread on various forums and a bit bastardized (by anti-social 4chan incels whom we'll discuss later) before somehow being turned into a quasi-official symbol of the alt-right and Donald Trump, the first US president to rise to power thanks to meme magic, and then seriously classified as "hate" by the ADL (which is to say nothing how he was just recently utilized in the Hong Kong protests), this in-depth love letter is what poor old Pepe deserves.

There is a lot to enjoy about Feels Good Man beyond the Pepe origin story, particularly its use of animation to accentuate the emotions of its subjects, and also its exploration of 2010s meme culture in general -- where a series of memes might just decorate the walls of an honest-to-god art museum and the word "memelord" is a legitimate descriptor. The main attraction, however, is possibly Matt Furie, not only because we learn he's quite the character.

In a sense, Feels Good Man (named after Pepe's catchphrase in the source material) is also about how easy it is for an auteur to lose ownership of their creation in the digital age; how something as simple as a cartoon frog may be repeatedly reappropriated in unthinkable ways. Once something spreads on the Internet just so, it's basically no longer yours. You can't sue every Redditor.

At this point, Pepe is so well-known that most who regard his uneasy face will be able to identify him as that "racist frog" used by alt-righters, edgy NEETs, and Trump zealots on the Internet -- they might also recognize his famous "kek" noise, originally a World of Warcraft meme (it means "LOL" in Orc) but also, aptly enough, the name of an Egyptian frog god that also inspired "Kekistan", which is a whole other story. It may not even be fair to say that Mr. The Frog exists squarely as "a thing the web" anymore. Nevertheless, the best part of this film is how it doesn't just tell us the how, but also the why; what exactly made those millions of nobodies (many of them GamerGate "veterans" or whatever they'd like to be called) who only had Pepe gravitate towards Trump and far-right jacquerie? I'm starting to wonder, is it something with amphibians?

In Sweden, the TV character Skurt has been used for similar "memes" (read: propagandic Facebook image macros) by Swedish nationalists. Even the very idea of an anthropomorphic frog is becoming synonymous with far-right rebellion, it seems. Thank God for Dat Boi, still remembered as an innocent piece of anti-humor.

Of course, his association with the alt-right isn't the only thing we recognize Pepe for, especially if we venture beyond the West. The Hong Kong protestors (see above) justified their usage of him by saying that he looks funny and "is a symbol of youth participation in this movement", as his humorous appearance "captured the hearts" of enough teens and young adults.

This is all fascinating enough without the movie's focus on the predicament of Furie, which may make aspiring creators ponder the risks of releasing their art to the web; you never know when a character you invented might reappear in an anti-Semitic meme on your aunt's Facebook feed or in a petulant drawing of Donald Trump as a modern Adonis. Such is the power of the meme, and also art. What will "kek" mean next?

Yes, a film about the saga of Pepe the Frog is officially one of the most thought-provoking and well-made releases of 2020. This year is the gift that keeps on taking, isn't it?

Dune: Part Two has been universally hailed as a sequel worthy of Terminator: Judgment Day, The Godfather Part II, and The Empire Strikes Back; a bonafide epic yielding additional comparisons to Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia; a picture that solidifies Denis Villeneuve as one of the modern titans of the art form. Even those who weren't so hot on the first film, finding its characters monotonous and its visuals largely dull, seem to have been thoroughly won over.

And although I enjoyed the visuals and thought there was a purpose to their occasional drabness (imposing brutalist structures towering over nature), the new film indeed cranks the art direction up to eleven, exemplifying some of the most potent visuals in sci-fi history. Although I thought the characters worked fine in the original, in the sequel we're treated to powerhouse newcomers and darker depths to the figures we know -- when critics said "I liked Dune: Part One just fine, but I just can't buy Timothée Chalamet as the hero", readers of the Frank Herbert novel snickered (in Part Two, new fans will see why).

If nothing else, they find that the whole thing feels more complete (recall that the first movie bamboozled many who hadn't a clue it was just "Part One"). Frank Herbert's son, Brian, wrote "When the new movie is combined with Dune: Part One it is by far the best film interpretation of Dune that has ever been done".

Other things that are expanded on and/or elevated include the performances of Zendaya (one of the most expressive and loveable actors of her generation, underused in the prior movie) as Chani, the young Fremen warrior who welcomed Paul Atreides into their camps after the fall of his "House", and Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Paul's mother who becomes the "Reverend Mother" of the Fremen, who believe she and Paul are instrumental to a prophecy of a mother and child sent to reclaim Planet Arrakis from oppression -- the Imperial spice-mining colonies that now belong to the vile Harkonnen family. On that note, we also get a better look at the Harkonnen homeworld, whose "black sun" seems to erase all color from it, bar the blackest of black and whitest of white.

This moment is one of many reasons you need to see this in a theater. I cannot stress it enough. These sequences -- from the most thunderous battles and Sandworm rides to the intimate final duel that left my audience at the edge of their seats -- are paralyzing to behold in an auditorium, complete with music and sound design that seem to make the very Earth tremble (then falling dead silent at pivotal moments), all sublimely photographed by "swirly bokeh" extraordinaire Greig Fraser. (It's not often you see a film and just know you're witnessing the creation of "iconic" images.) The action scenes are elevated by impressive choreography and, of course, the performances.

The most intense of the new faces is undoubtedly Austin Butler as Feyd Rautha (that's the Sting character in the 1984 movie, in case you needed the reference), lauded by many as the best villain performance since Anton Chigurh and Ledger's Joker. Additional newcomers include Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, Léa Seydoux as Lady Fenring of the "Bene Gesseret" priestesses, and Christopher Walken as Emperor Shaddam IV.

Returning actors include Javier Bardem as the Fremen leader Stilgar, whose incorrigible fanaticism gets some big laughs; Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, who is out for Harkonnen blood; Stellan Skarsgård as the revolting Baron Harkonnen; Dave Bautista as The Beast Rabban, who envies the affection the Baron shows toward Feyd; and Charlotte Rampling as the Imperial Reverend Mother, who hatches schemes of her own. Certain characters I've mentioned are given just a few minutes of screen time, yet they all make a considerable impact, from the memorable line reads to the looks that speak even louder, most notably during that final exchange of haunting glances between Paul, Chani, and the Princess.

At the center is Chalamet as Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides -- a performance that will vindicate his stans and make non-believers hopefully realize not only how formidable he can be, but what he was truly going for in Part One. Chalamet is known for his thin frame and his friendly demeanor; yet, we have absolutely no trouble believing that his Paul would be a master of sparring and a conqueror of Sandworms. As I wrote earlier, those who judged the first movie by how well his story works as a garden-variety "Hero's Journey" are bound to have an "oh" moment or two.

If you're still worried that some of these elements seem lifted from other works, recall that Dune is (likely) an older series than whatever you're thinking of. All the same, even the familiar images feel new here -- epic in scale in a way that cinema hasn't been able to achieve until now. This movie is a close-to-perfect marriage of hitherto unthinkable technology and a crystal-clear vision for said tech to realize. In part, the movie plays as if Villeneuve heard the complaints of the previous film and, as if on a dare, went all the way with his movie magic for the sequel, putting the doubters in their place.

Knowing how the books go, I know this franchise is far from done. And despite how long this film was, I never wanted it to end and still crave more, ergo I'm more than stoked to see what Villeneuve does with the rest of Herbert's legendarium and if audiences keep finding resonance in his version of it. The world of Dune is a uniquely well-realized potential future: intimidatingly immense and outlandish on one hand, and dreadfully convincing on the other, showing that Imperialism and colonialism may be alive and well millennia ahead. (Had this film been made with even less studio interference, the parallels between the Fremens' plight and Palestine may have been even more obvious.)

The story of Dune Messiah still needs to be adapted and I'm confident that, once Villeneuve shows it to us, the same media illiterates who started posting Film Twitter Takes about how Poor Things approves of misogyny once that film came out on digital won't be taking Paul's "White Savior" and Jessica's cultural appropriation at face value -- or so we may hope. An interesting theory from Walter Chaw suggests that the reason so many people keep failing to get the point of Dune -- and Paul Atreides specifically -- is that "colonialism is so embedded in our value system as manifest destiny" that it's straight-up impossible for some of us to interpret a figure like this as anything other than a good guy. Lisan al-Gaib, and all that.

Hayao Miyazaki returns from retirement yet again with his latest "final film" The Boy and the Heron and if this truly is to be the note he ends his career on, it would be a most poignant and powerful one. The plot is based in part on Miyazaki's own childhood, perhaps even depicting some of the visions he saw that would later inspire his entertainment.

Ever since the 60s, he has enchanted generations of kids and parents alike, in Japan as well as in the rest of the world -- from My Neighbor Totoro, Porco Rosso, and Kiki's Delivery Service to Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, and Spirited Away. (Regrettably, I've only seen a few of them; even more regrettably, I saw even fewer during my childhood.) This movie is as beautifully drawn and beautifully animated as any of those masterworks, and as is often the case, it doesn't have much of a structured story, at least in the sense that most of us understand "structured stories".

Per usual, this is more about taking us into a world of pure dream logic -- one last time (or maybe that's "the first time", depending on how you read the film).

I will also say this: Although I am often a purist when it comes to dubs, in that I typically swear them off, I think this one is worth seeing in English purely to hear Robert Pattinson's freaky voice performance. No matter which version you pick, I urge you to see this film and just let it whisk you away.

On untold forums and blogs, Blue Eye Samurai has been praised as the best "anime" in a while but it really isn't. It's great, yes, but not anime. Not only does it not actually qualify as "Japanese animation" (despite what the setting and largely Asian cast might have people think), being produced in English by French and American studios, but it certainly doesn't have the stylistic choices and big-eyed over-the-top expressions we'd ordinarily expect from an anime.

These are characters with realistic features, whose thrashings and slashings deal damage that feels agonizingly real. Still, it is a highly expressive show in terms of art direction -- the angles, the lighting, the speed of the visuals, etc. The animation is a sort of hybrid of 2D and 3D that recalls movies like Klaus, just with decidedly less cheerful-looking characters. The aim of the creators was to create "moving paintings" that combine the works of Kurosawa with bunraku puppetry. The show achieves all of this and more.

All of it is carried by a majorly compelling protagonist, a scowling onna-musha named Mizu, who is both unthinkably badass and terribly pitiable at the right moments.

Disguised as a man, donning shades to conceal her blue "mixed-race" eyes, and damn good with a sword, her story has been dubbed "Mulan meets Kill Bill", yet I feel as if she exists in a category all her own. The side characters are also memorable, including an optimistic cook, a kindly princess, an over-confident swordsman, and a smug Irish villain.

If I were to find anything at all to complain about, it would be that Blue Eye Samurai sometimes feels distractingly like a video game, albeit one that would kick ass. Would it kick the same quantities of ass as the show? That's hard to imagine. All I know is, I'd love to give it a try.

There exists a series of clips of Adolf Hitler that, to a lot of people, is actually a lot harder to stomach than his enraged speeches and hateful bellows followed by thundering cheers. They show him during his downtime, playing with his kids and charming Eva Braun, acting not altogether unpleasant. As nauseating as the more well-known footage of him may be, there is something singularly disturbing -- even horrifying -- about the reminder that, yes, this monster was in fact human.

The Zone of Interest, in a way, does for Holocaust films what that haunting clip does for WW2 footage. There are untold movies about this point in history that are horrific to watch; yet, they are movies we can accept. There is a disconnect between us and the ferocious, clearly evil Nazis. This movie, though it depicts next to no actual barbarity, may go down as the most harrowing of them all.

Like Klondike, it is a war film whose horror comes not from images of violence, but from the casual way that violence is treated by those at the center of war, only this time, it is not from the vantage point of traumatized innocents. As Jeff Zhang's review points out, this is not the sort of Holocaust film that puts the atrocities of Nazi Germany in the preferred blunt terms: "Its acts of evil -- oozing on the periphery of domestic rigamarole -- are designed to needle and splinter in the brain rather than suck the air out of the room: ashes of the dead in the river as nuisance, installing Auschwitz ovens like they're dishwashers, gunshots and wails of anguish heard but not seen..."

More precisely, the movie follows a German man as he simply, well, spends time with his loving family at their lovely home -- which, as it happens, is situated right by the walls of one of the deadliest concentration camps of The Third Reich, whose death and suffering are acknowledged only when they "intrude" on the family's peace. The man is Rudolf Höss, who was the Auschwitz commandant 1940-1943. One of the biggest stirs in the family is when he learns he may be promoted, possibly forcing them to move.

In a genre that often forces us to look into Hell, this movie forces us to remain blind. To be clear, that's not to say that the truth is hidden; we're painfully aware of what's being kept from us as we're put in the comfort in which people sat, and continue to sit, while watching genocide from afar. And it isn't just the audience that Glazer puts into this position:

The actors, particularly the leads Christian Fiedel and Sandra Hüller, are eerily convincing and they may have ended up eerily CONVINCED during filming. All but forced to immerse themselves in the lives of the Hösses, they sometimes weren't informed where exactly the cameras were located -- only that certain rooms in the Höss household contained cameras (sometimes they didn't even get to hear which ones). The actors go about the family's routines, presented to us in real time. This Caché-esque cinematography only strengthens the feeling that we're sitting somewhere in the house, watching; hearing what they hear; forced to ignore what they ignore.

Basically, this is not akin to such Holocaust dramas as Schindler's List, Son of Saul, or Come and See; however, it isn't quite a film like Shoah either -- a movie that, whereas some would insist that we have a duty to "depict" Nazi violence so that it's clear to future generations this mustn't happen again, suggests that it cannot be done, and so relies solely on the words of survivors, letting our minds fill in the rest. In the words of David Ehlrich, The Zone of Interest "splits the difference between the two opposite modes of its solemn genre"; other reviews view it as a reaction to Godard and Haneke's statements re: Schindler's List, accusing Spielberg of trying to make suffering entertaining.

This is indeed a film that sticks in your brain. It leaves us horrified, not that people like the Hösses existed and still exist amongst us, but that the movie may simply be a mirror -- here we sit, in a warm building in comfortable chairs as lives are ended by the day in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, and several others that most of you probably haven't even heard of yet. There is a world of difference between being uninformed and being an SS officer of course, but complicity takes many forms and both types of person are victims of the same propaganda. Now, will you look past the wall?

By design, the movie doesn't have the sort of nightmarish visuals we may expect from Glazer; yet, there are shots of dark hallways and other pitch-black images where the darkness seems as alive and all-consuming as the liquid void from Under the Skin. (The music, by Mica Levi, during these moments was succinctly described by a YouTube commenter as "the Universe mournfully sighing".) While I recommend seeing the film in theaters -- in a setting where you can truly appreciate the sound design and purposeful imagery -- these particular sequences may work even better at home.

On certain screens, when you stare into pitch blackness, you eventually discover your own face in it.

Ever since 2010's Dogtooth, Greek master Yorgos Lanthimos has developed a style of bleak, deadpan hilarity -- often juxtaposing lavish settings with ugly behavior -- that could hardly be mistaken for anyone else's. Aspects of his films will garner comparisons to Roy Andersson as well as Kubrick (Barry Lyndon vis-a-vis The Favourite) and Haneke (Funny Games vis-a-vis The Killing of a Sacred Deer), but Lanthimos truly is one of a kind.

With Poor Things, he may have made his absolute masterpiece, exploring questions of sex, science, class, morality, et cetera without spoonfeeding us the answers (even as some try to project definitive answers, then actively getting angry at what they perceive, but we'll get to that), all while supplying the finest visuals -- from the ornate costumes and elaborate sets to the camera work that frames them -- in recent cinema. We're taken through it all by Emma Stone and need I even tell you what a phenomenal performance this is?

She plays Bella Baxter, the creation of a disfigured Frankensteinian scientist named Godwin "God" Baxter, played awesomely by Willem Dafoe. Living in seclusion in a steampunk reimagining of Victorian London, she's been created using the body of a woman who committed suicide and the brain of the woman's unborn fetus and now resides among various other bizarre concoctions -- a chicken with a pig head, a goat with a goose head, and so on -- showing signs of learning at a faster rate than you'd expect.

Eventually, she is whisked away by mustachioed lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), who persuades her to come along by... never mind. You'll see for yourself. Anyway, he promises to indulge her wishes to experience the outside world, all while letting her experience polite society and his renowned libido. Soon enough, however, she begins to learn things that he would rather she didn't, from the philosophies that may deprogram our desired roles in The System, to the horrors that occur just outside polite society's opulent walls (and sometimes within them).

While Emma Stone is obviously the show-stealer, I contend that each of these performances exemplifies the sort of mastery of body language, expressions, et al. That ought to be studied in high-level acting classes for years to come. The characterizations are perfect, as are the timing and delivery of the actors. (Dafoe, by the way, is in for quite the year, having played "sort of Dr. Frankenstein" and is soon to appear as "sort of Van Helsing" in Eggers' Nosferatu.)

Bella meets several other odd figures on her voyage. Her first suitor is Max (Ramy Youssef), a student of "God" who is at first tasked with studying her increasingly accelerated development. On a ship to Alexandria, she meets Martha (Hanna Schygulla), an older woman who seems content with life and death alike, and Harry (Jerrod Carmichael), a cynic who elucidates only the darkest truths and views us all as beasts with varying degrees of makeup to mask it. (Whether the ending seems to prove him right, I leave for the think-piece scribes to discuss.) Finally, theater legend Kathryn Hunter is as enjoyable as ever in the role of a seasoned Parisian brothel proprietor.

This is, per Lanthimos tradition, an uncompromisingly uncomfortable film, from its tangibly awkward social interactions to its often irksome imagery and the untrammeled sex scenes that would give a stroke to the sort of sexiness-starved Gen-Z puritans who thought last year's No Hard Feelings was "way over the line". Rest assured, it is also a blast to watch; the film's 2.5-hour runtime is never once felt. It is ceaselessly, riotously entertaining -- equal parts hilarious and unsettling -- and its visuals are constantly electrifying, be they monochrome or Technicolor-esque. It is one of those films where each frame would make a sublime painting.

Every shot moves and/or is composed with purpose and there is plenty of additional wryness in the editing. The frequent use of fish eye lenses, I must confess, I didn't really understand (beyond being one of Lanthimos' "things"), but I'm confident I'll see the point upon my second or third revisit (both will doubtless be very soon). And this is to say nothing of Jerskin Fendrix's music, which both sounds brilliant and is brilliantly used; the composition grows more complex as the story progresses (and possibly louder -- so it seemed at my theater, anyhow).

Poor Things is, by all means, a masterwork and evidently unimpeachable. The chief criticism I've seen against the picture is that isn't as feminist as it (arguably) presents itself to be, sometimes via explicit dialogue but also thoughtful images. (One scene shows Bella fruitlessly attempting to open a gate that has considerably phallic-looking symbols on it; you might read it as rattling a cage of c*cks.)

My instinctive response is to shrug and go "Okay, then it's a marvelously crafted and fearlessly acted movie that isn't feminist" (or, the right type of feminist). But I shall note that I understand the broader concern: that too many (mainly male-directed) movies understand empowerment to be through sexuality -- or use "liberation" as an excuse to sexualize -- which is especially noisome when it's happening to a childlike woman who, despite her accelerated intelligence, may not truly grasp what she's doing or being convinced to do.

Be that as it may, I also understand the feminist women who heavily disagree with these complaints of Poor Things and read different yet similar themes into it (notably, some read Bella's story as an outright critique of the idea that prodding women into hypersexuality constitutes liberation, especially when their agency is an illusion) while noting that Bella's minimal body hair and lack of menstrual blood, decried by the aforementioned critics as a male fantasy, doesn't stick out as especially unrealistic in a movie that has steampunk airships and pug birds. (And for all the "alien" images herein, Bella has also been lauded as a quintessentially human figure, said to embody the curiosities and desires for discovery we all share, while lacking the pesky social skills that inhibit us.) Even if it is passé to deem sex "empowering", remember the film's quote about how the proverbial "way of things" is in constant flux. A few "waves" down the line, I'm sure it'll officially be empowering again.

All I can tell you from my end of things is what the film does well. If you find that it doesn't agree with you, or that it somehow pretends to agree even though it doesn't really, I'm sure another well-made film will come along soon that does. A better age lies before us. The fact that this is the sort of art we fight over is joyous.

All of Us Strangers is one of the most tender love stories put to film in recent memory and a frightening number of people will choose not to see it because it is a gay one at that. Just thought I'd disclose this aspect upfront so that only the worthy stick around for this read. We good? Good.

Directed by Andrew Haigh (45 Years) and based in part on the Taichi Yamada novel Strangers, this movie tells of a reclusive London-based screenwriter named Adam (Andrew Scott of Fleabag and Sherlock) who lives in an all-too-quiet apartment building where the only other living soul appears to be the oft-drunk Harry (Paul Mescal of Aftersun), who begins to act flirtily towards him. As you may have guessed, the two eventually bond and fall in love, even as Adam finds Harry a bit mysterious at first and, partly due to what he was taught re: sexuality as a youngster, isn't as comfortable with intimate touch -- initially.

Sheila O'Malley put it best when she wrote that All of Us Strangers, almost immediately, has a "surreal, almost supernatural atmosphere". I don't know how much I ought to give away, but I can tell you it's not for naught. When I say that the apartment building seems strangely quiet, I mean it seems almost unearthly; it is no surprise that the posters make use of the almost entirely dark building where only two windows are lit up -- it is an image that sets the tone.

All the same, love is discovered in this setting (this connection, taking place in an eerie realm where connections at first seem impossible, recalls 2015's Anomalisa in a lot of ways) and it isn't long before our hearts are grabbed and then broken. This oft-surreal film is nonetheless very much, devastatingly real.

Adam is also troubled by thoughts about his parents (Jamie Bell; Claire Foy) as he keeps revisiting his (ostensibly) abandoned childhood home. He has a series of dreams (or are they dreams?) where he goes through the conversations he wishes he'd had -- the sort of conversations that frankly a lot of people, be they gay children of traditionally-minded parents or not, wish they'd had with their folks; the sort of conversations we typically don't get around to before it's too late, resorting to having them in our heads, sometimes in the form of revisiting moments and trying against all logic to rewrite them.

These sequences exemplify some of the best and most emotionally honest acting of the past year. It is one of those films that make you realize how good other films aren't, particularly those of the romance variety that too often settle for tried routines and formulas while rarely doing anything stylistically intriguing or letting the actors be truly vulnerable. (I'm aware, painfully so, that that's what the crowds want; the statement I heard from a rom-com fan in high school, that "film is about hot people and satisfying endings", still echoes in my mind.)

On a similar note: as many viewers of British/English cinema will point out, this one sticks out with its artful compositions (note especially its usage of mirrors and windows), dreamlike editing, deliberate color choices, and occasional magical realism. This isn't a first or anything, but it seems we often associate English film with gritty realism -- think This is England or Billy Elliot. I assure you, though, that the English are quite capable of outstanding visual communication. There are edits and framing/blocking choices in All of Us Strangers that cut even deeper than that one "reveal" in 45 Years. If you know, you know.

Oh and of course, as a long-time fan of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, I can't forget to mention how the film uses their 1984 album Beyond the Pleasuredome, particularly their best song "The Power of Love", as a reoccurring motif; a devastating one. The music video is also referenced, in ways I cannot reveal here. Best you go see this wonderful picture before I say too much.

And remember: let yourself be beautiful.

How nice of The Curse to give me three of the things I desire most in this world: a new Nathan Fielder show, a new Safdie title (although it's only Benny this time), and of course Emma Stone.

That's a match made in Heaven as it is, and my expectations were heightened when reviews stated that the resulting show is, not only up to par with Fielder's docu-comedy masterpieces Nathan For You and The Rehearsal, but an idiosyncratic work of art that may well be the most transcendent, defiant, and deeply haunting TV production since Twin Peaks: The Return. I thought: How can this possibly be true of a Showtime comedy show that just seems to satirize reality TV, gentrification, the White Savior complex, faux sensitivity, and spectacle? Well, so it is.

It gives us the palpable discomfort we've come to expect from the works of Fielder -- which may be even more potent in these scripted interactions than when he makes an ass of himself in front of real persons in Nathan for You -- and all the hypnotic visuals and trippy music (courtesy of Daniel Lopatin, aka Oneohtrix Point Never, and John Medeski) that we want out of a Safdie production. Tying it together is Stone, giving one of the best, most unsettling performances we've seen from her. I'm yet to see Poor Things but am prepared to come away with the Hot Take that her performance in The Curse was better, even if by a hair.

The show focuses on another show -- an HGTV home renovation project hosted by newlyweds Whitney and Asher Siegel (Stone; Fielder), who aim to bring their "eco-conscious housing" to the inhabitants of Española, New Mexico. The production is troubled by various obstacles, including turbulence in their marriage; the interference of eccentric TV producer Dougie Schecter (Benny Safdie), who observes "potential in their story"; and also what Asher believes to be a curse, cast by a small girl who he pretended to hand $100 for the cameras, only to ask for it back when they got the shot. ("Cursing", he learns, is a thing on TikTok right now, yet he remains paranoid.)

Each performer, tots included, brings their A-game to these roles. Benny Safdie continues to be a delight to behold, Barkhad Abdi is superb as a caring but fearful father to the girl with the "curse", and Stone seminally portrays a TV host whose friendly smile masks something revolting -- one face is, of course, for the guests and the viewing public, while the other is only caught on camera by accident in one of the best scenes (wherein "reality" entertainment, in this case a would-be Instagram video, finally captures something true). Another scene that comes to mind is one where Whitney interviews a Native American local, getting to him wax philosophical about the history of the land that the "eco-conscious" structures are to be erected upon; the scene eventually cuts to her and Dougie discussing how to best trim down the footage.

Then, of course, there is Fielder himself. Through the years, there has been some uncertainty as to how much of his material is "actually him" vs an act. Was Nathan for You a damn fine put-on, or is he really like that -- at least to the extent that he has just about the same demeanor in late-night interviews? Is it possible that the persona was once a bit, but ceased to be over time? With The Rehearsal, we nonetheless learned that he can very much act; his character in The Curse, while retaining a lot of the Fielder-isms we adore, more than confirms his acting prowess, taking us to darker places before we can say "goat in the water".

I mentioned before that, in true Safdie fashion, the show looks gorgeous. It's been made to look as if it was shot on film (the in-universe TV footage looks digital and is presented in full-screen, whereas everything else is grainier and letterboxed) and it routinely employs warped reflective surfaces and shoots things through windows, which may have a thematic significance that I'm yet to decode. I've already praised the score, but should also commend the use of pre-existing music, most notably the works of Alice Coltrane -- adding an ominously mystical feel when needed.

There is much to talk about in terms of commentary, but the thing that everyone truly seems to respond to is the show's visceral effect. People have talked of the way that the cringe comedy and awkward interludes made the skin crawl off their bones (particularly during Asher's "comedy classes"), but especially note the unanticipated nightmarishness and "dread" of the finale, which yielded comparison to the horror of Franz Kafka, Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent, and yes, the Twin Peaks revival. Indeed, the feeling I was left with after this series ended -- sharpened by the fact that much is unresolved or left to the imagination/interpretation of the viewer (a powerfully disquieting denial of closure, to borrow a Dan Olson line) -- recalls the unearthly dread I felt after the screen went black for the final time in Twin Peaks. This includes the way that those final images, line deliveries, and sounds stayed fresh and vivid in my mind for days.

As for where this show ranks against Nathan for You and The Rehearsal, it's honestly tough to decide. The Rehearsal is not as funny as Nathan for You, but it takes his pseudo-realist puppetry to new heights while giving him a moment to ponder his own career. The Curse doesn't have any of the elaborate "prank" stuff to impress us with, but it takes some of the themes of The Rehearsal and turns them into one of the most fascinating things that have ever been approved for television.

It proves not only that Fielder is just as intriguing in a dramatized format but that fiction sometimes tells the truth better than so-called "reality TV" ever could. We don't deserve this madman.

Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall, the winner of this year's Palme d'Or, is about as intriguing a courtroom drama/crime mystery as you can get. The film is highly intelligent and particular in what it chooses to reveal to the audience and what to conceal from them.

Never is there absolute certainty of what the truth must be. As the interrogations progress, we learn more and more about the characters and the complicated backstory of the marriage that seems to have ended in a murder.

The way the hearings -- via bits of evidence that take us into flashbacks -- serve to characterize the characters is brilliantly done and feels completely natural (nothing is ever revealed in a clunky or contrived manner). These damaged individuals are regarded with honesty; there is no clear villain.

All throughout, the acting is absolutely first-rate. Sandra Hüller (despite the pessimism I expressed when I first wrote about the movie) is, rightfully, on track for an Oscar nomination and, per some people's predictions, possibly a win.

And if you thought Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers) and Charles Melton (May December) were considerable breakouts this year, wait until you see Milo Machado Graner in this; it may be the best child performance I have ever seen, which is to say nothing of his canine co-star. Of course, Swann Arlaud as "the hot lawyer" also seems to have inspired a few crushes (understandably so), and Antoine Reinartz's prosecutor character appears to be a new favorite love-to-hate character.

Rebel Moon (aka Rebel Moon: Part One) is a bad film, albeit one that shows signs of a (maybe) decent film somewhere in the future. Not just a Part Two that might make the story feel whole, but an extended cut that represents what the author wanted more than what the studio wanted. Then again, I keep reading that the author and the distributor weren't actually at odds during this production or even in the decision to release it in this state, but I'll get to those stories later.

People aren't wrong to call Rebel Moon a hodge-podge of imagery from other tales. I almost find it sort of intriguing. Here is a universe that takes inspiration from Star Wars, Dune, Heavy Metal, and even non-sci-fi works like Gladiator and filters it through Zack Snyder -- who, for all his faults, has a style that is entirely his own. The resulting mess recalls 2015's maddening Jupiter Ascending, except it swaps the lush visuals for drab, blurry browns and greys and just doesn't have as much fun with itself.

Also fascinating (to me, but probably an oddity to others) is the anachronistic design of this universe, namely in terms of tech and clothing. Some of the people look something like late 1800s farmers, others like Third Reich officers, others like Roman gladiators, and then some characters, like the robots and cybernetic aliens, seem entirely futuristic. It's not all seamless and usually feels a bit random -- as opposed to something like Dune where we understand why some aspects are primitive and others advanced -- but there's something about it that makes it a lot more interesting to look at than had he simply gone all the way in one direction.

It also makes sense, I suppose, if one knows the history of this production. Originally pitched as a Star Wars film but rejected by Disney, Snyder was forced to file off the serial numbers and make up his own sci-fantasy universe in which things variably call back to Kurosawa, space ranger serials, WW2, et al. The problem is that characters like Han Solo have more charisma and characterization in their pinky than any of these new characters do in their entire person.

And that's not for lack of a great cast. The movie stars Anthony Hopkins, Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou, Ed Skrein, Michiel Huisman (the two Dario Nahaaris actors, together at last), Doona Bae, Jena Malone, and many more. What we get from them is the usual Snyder fare: Important Dialogue interspersed with meaninglessly stylized action scenes (with slow-motion that, even for Snyder, has little rhyme or reason to it), sexy poses, and vacuous "cool" moments.

Sure enough, some of this is pretty cool and, like I said, sometimes intriguing in its unapologetic adolescent-mindedness -- not just the mashing together of toys from various franchises and periods but the inability to focus. As with Justice League and BvS, I also enjoyed the music. Alas, that's about the most I get out of Zack Snyder.

I think it's wrong to write him off as worthless -- as many critics are hasty to do -- but as for the masterpiece I believe he has in him (perhaps a film in which we can even, I dunno, be bothered to care about anyone), well, I'll have to keep waiting. And despite Snyder's history of superior, more fleshed-out, more cohesive Director's Cuts, I'm not certain his full version of Rebel Moon will be that masterpiece either.

When I saw the Rotten Tomatoes score, I was worried. Not because I thought that I'd automatically dislike the picture, mind you, but because I knew for a fact that there'd be weird discourse about "Snyder cuts" and whatnot. But this time, the narrative isn't that Snyder was betrayed by Netflix (a company that ostensibly gives creators more freedom than big studios); rather, the fact that the released version is incomplete and poorly received is "part of the plan". As in, people are supposed to make a fuss about wanting to see a proper cut, thus generating more PR -- for Snyder and Netflix alike -- until we get one. Yes, I've heard this both from people who hate the film (baffled at the strategy) and some who like it, asserting that we non-fanboys just aren't smart enough to get that the movie is bad on purpose and that God Emperor Zack is playing 5D chess with us all to prove how strong his fandom is.

Snyder himself, however, has stated that both cuts are valid and that the uncut R-rated version isn't strictly the CORRECT version to see. Regardless, I guess Netflix didn't actually force him to release it this way -- to remove entire storylines and take out the blood spurts that were clearly meant to punctuate the hits and slashes (as it is, the fights look conspicuously bloodless and oft cut away quickly from the stabs; it plays as if something more was really meant to happen). So who are we fighting by campaigning for this film's completion? And how many truly care enough to save Rebel Moon from, I dunno, its own creators?

I give a lot of flak to Disney fangirls who claim to have "waited their whole lives" for a sequel to one of their childhood faves that only just was announced (with no other sign that the story needed, or was ever getting, a continuation). But with this follow-up to Aardman Animation's Chicken Run, y'all almost got me.

Chicken Run was the first movie I ever saw in a theater and, for whatever reason, I couldn't stop rewatching it once it came out on VHS (and when the Swedish dub was over, I'd happily move on to the English version, which was on the same tape). I can definitely recall wanting more and, sadist that I was, even wishing for the return of Mrs. Tweedy -- one of the most ruthless of all animated villains -- so that she may exact revenge.

Well, now there's Dawn of the Nugget, and while I'd stopped pining for a sequel years ago -- having learned, as most adults do, that sequels aren't automatically a positive and, in fact, often a negative -- the sequel in question did seem to get a lot right.

In terms of animation, Dawn of the Nugget certainly doesn't betray the original film (everyone looks exactly as I remember them; I was never as put off as when I saw the Wallace & Gromit film when I was younger, disappointed that they gave Wallace that weird overbite), but it's too brightly lit and bouncy to ever achieve the original film's atmosphere. What's worse, there's little depth to the characters and the story.

It just sort of goes through the motions of a Finding Nemo-type get-back-home plot (with a few tropes that recall Disney direct-to-video sequels), meaning it also fails to stand out from the kiddie-film competition the way the first movie did with its Great Escape homage. (Note that the new film is about breaking INTO Tweedy's place of business -- now it's a nugget factory that seems curiously high-tech for a franchise I always thought was set in 1950s rural England.) The darkness and urgency of the original can only be seen in the various in-your-face flashbacks and Member Berry clips.

I'm also a bit mixed on the vocal performances. It's great to hear Miranda Richardson, Imelda Staunton, Lynn Ferguson, and Jane Horrocks again, and Thandiwe Newton and David Bradley constitute decent replacements, but boy do I not understand replacing Mel Gibson with Zachary Levy of all people.

For what it's worth, in a climate where the term "Netflix original" seems to have gone back to having about the same ring to it as "direct-to-video", I'd say Dawn of the Nugget is the perfect film to toss on there.

Roald Dahl once wrote that he found Gene Wilder's performance as Wonka in 1971's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory to be a way too "sappy and saccharine" version of the character he first envisioned. Well, if that one was "a bit too much", Dahl is lucky to have passed away before he could witness the Timothée Chalamet version.

Here is a Wonka who is full of cheer and whimsy. Being that it's a prequel, I guess we are to understand that this is set before he adopted more kooky and sinister traits, ergo this isn't quite the Wonka we know. The real issue, perhaps, is the casting. Chalamet can be dark and brooding (Dune), and a little creepy if he needs to (Bones and All), but having him dial up the whimsy feels off.

Of course, I also believe that there's a missed opportunity here. A while ago, with regards to FXP's The Bear, I wrote this: "When Timothée Chalamet was cast for the upcoming Willy Wonka prequel, many TV nerds pointed out that they could've gone with Jeremy Allen White if they wanted someone who has a sort of Chalamet energy to him, but actually LOOKS like a younger Gene Wilder, supposing that's the Wonka they were going for. ... Having watched the show that put White on the map, I see it even more. It's like they had some kind of character customization slider with Wilder on one end and Chalamet on the other and cranked it all the way up to Chalamet when they could've left it in the middle and gotten White."

Ultimately, however, I warmed up to Chalamet as the picture went along. His singing isn't always great, yet there is an earnestness to it all that seems to have won critics over. Indeed, as if this year in movies wasn't already wild enough, it now closes out with the revelation that, yeah, even the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fan-fic prequel is a part of the "cinema is back" club. It's good -- for the most part.

Perhaps we were foolish to presume that a Willy Wonka musical as done by the man behind Paddington -- boasting a cast of such names as Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, and Olivia Colman -- would be mere soulless IP nostalgia bait, especially in the year when Hollywood pictures of that ilk finally would begin to f*ck off. (So starved indeed were people for anything other than the usual slop, with its green-screened everything and persistent key-jangling, that even the return of the Saw franchise, itself more "on fire" than before, was cause for more jubilation than, say, a lot of Disney's output in 2023.) Sure enough, Wonka has more lively and well-staged musical numbers than any of Disney's recent remakes and is unabashedly colorful to look at.

I maintain that some aspects looked unpromising as the trailers came out and that the final product is flawed, but this was still a joyous viewing that certainly left me in the mood for some exotic sweets.

One still baffling element is the casting of Wonka's first Oompa-Loompa. Instead of a little-person actor, it's Hugh Grant's head on a small body. I understand if little people would find this sort of role demeaning (or if Peter Dinklage's comments about the exploitation of little people made studios less willing to cast little-person performers in roles like this, ironically making the landscape more difficult for the group he sought to protect, as they now get even less work), but this isn't really a sight one gets used to.

Lastly, allow me to once more evoke David Ehrlich with the following musing: "There's a delicious irony to the fact that Warner Bros.' first big release since Discovery CEO David Zaslav (once again) canned a completed film in exchange for a $30 million tax write-off is an anti-capitalist fable set in a city run by a ruthless chocolate cartel who've diluted their own product in order to hoard the profits." Hollywood will never be perfect, but sometimes, as with the year 2023, it lets out more gold than usual. Golden tickets, if you will? No? Okay.

There is a lot wrong with Leave the World Behind -- the latest of Netflix's apocalyptic holiday pictures (see also Bird Box and Don't Look Up, both released just in time for the Yuletide cheer). It builds meanderingly to a non-conclusion, many of its characters are one-note, and when they speak, it mostly sounds like check-point movie dialogue and rarely like any sort of real conversation (even when that's clearly what's being attempted), complete with expository bits that use at least one "as you know" clause.

Still, my biggest issue with the movie (although the movie itself isn't strictly to blame) is how it seems to have humored conspiracy theorists something fierce.

I wrote a while ago, in The Big Conspiracy Guide of 2023, that these sorts of people are worse than ever; this time, they use the film's plot, as well as its occasional usage of the show Friends -- whose star Matthew Perry recently passed away, i.e after this script was completed -- as confirmation that The Elites™ (A) were somehow aware that Perry would die, as they are of all significant future events, and (B) are now signaling what's coming next, whyever they would want to give that away. This is to say nothing of the various Satan symbols that supposedly feature in the movie and its marketing material, or that scene where an Obey shirt is seen right next to a NASA shirt.

There is a whole sub-section of TikTok dedicated to these sorts of "It was in fiction, so it must be true" takes -- like how The Simpsons "confirmed" mole people by joking about them one time (and since The Simpsons is a reputable source for "predictions", it's gotta be legit), or how Stranger Things "proved" the existence of Project Looking Glass, Project Blue Beam, or whatever.

I get that it's hard to make a film like this, even if it were to lean more into comedy and poke fun at conspiracy theories, without humoring the tinfoil crowd (The Da Vinci Code famously ushered in a whole new generation of schizoids who would thenceforth believe not only that secret cabals exist, but that it's standard practice for them to leave clues -- in art -- for the Main Character to decode) and so I shall not deride the filmmakers. Well, I deride them for boring me, but that's a different sin.

I will say that despite some of my gripes with the dialogue, the actors do well with what they're given, particularly Julia Roberts, who plays one of the most manifestly nasty characters of her career. Yes, in this house, that's a compliment.