Malum (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

An unexpected remake of 2014's Last Shift, both co-written and directed by Anthony DiBlasi, Malum dropped last year with no fanfare and it took me some time to even learn it existed. I've been a vocal fan of Last Shift for a decade now, and it still shocks me how few people have seen it; as such, this will be a review for both films. They are remarkably similar, including their setting, plot, characters, and theming, but they divert in a few notable ways that will fascinate and delight genre fans. Fair warning: these are both suspenseful, violent and gory, and deeply unsettling horror films that aren't for the squeamish.

The premise is straightforward enough: a young woman named Jessica works her first shift as a rookie cop: the overnight watch at a decommissioned police station before it is permanently closed. Her father previously worked the same precinct until his death, a year prior, when members of a dangerous and violent cult were brought in and committed suicide. As she tries to settle in for the night, strange and frightening occurrences play with her perception of reality as she learns more about her father's history with the place, her own relationship with the male-dominated force, and the likelihood that the station is haunted. Both are fairly low-budget films but, under DiBlasi's masterful leadership, pack a gritty determination to scare the pants off you with earned fear. 

Last Shift surely had the smaller budget of the two films, providing it a gritty urgency and raw terror hard to shake. Lit mostly by aggressive fluorescent lights, flattening and almost blinding some of the tracking shots through white-tiled halls, it sometimes gives the impression of an uncommonly confident student film. Long takes in which the camera hovers over Jessica's shoulder give the impression of a survivalist horror video game, one that uncharacteristically allows her the option to fire her gun at will. Hypnotic cinematography isn't just a fun aesthetic here, though: it directly stems from and then informs the plot and our understanding of the protagonist. Much like in Mike Flanagan's Oculus, nothing in this film is as it seems or to be taken at face value. Nothing. 

Malum as a remake works mostly the same way. Taken on its own, it clearly has a larger budget for gory effects and more dynamic lighting. Its editing (also by DiBlasi in both films) is choppier; though occasionally off-putting to me, because I like long takes in films with isolated settings, it ratchets up psychological tension through increased manipulation of our perception of what's happening to Jessica. We're even less sure we can trust what we see when it's so clearly being cut in crucial moments. By blurring this clarity of sight, we feel more hopeless and less certain of reality, much like Jessica herself. This film also stretches certain sections to, arguably, increase the emotional trials Jessica has to endure, as it directly dramatizes her relationship with her father, his monstrous crime, and his untimely death. This makes the film a bit more standard in terms of the genre, but it also plays out less like a carnival haunted house or thrill ride due to our emotional investment.

Malum as a reimagining, however, pushes beyond the scope of the original film so much as to radically change the final act and metafictionally insert itself into the last six or so years of the genre. SPOILER ALERT: the Manson-esque cult that had been brought in a year prior worshipped a demon and shed blood to increase its power. Jessica's father saved three young women in the raid on their compound but failed to save a fourth, making his guilt unbearable and leading to his slaughter of several other cops and himself. Jessica's endurance of the haunt reveals that the cult is likely still alive and well, determined to complete their ritual of blood sacrifice as the city outside the station erupts into violent chaos and the cult's ghosts (and a few invading members) assault Jessica to provoke her violent reactions.

It's an artistically and creatively satisfying concept. Not only to have imagined and realized a single-setting thriller with a horrifying mystery slowly explored over a brisk 90-ish-minute runtime, and to have crafted it with extraordinary filmmaking skill and flair, but to have revisited and reimagined it almost a decade later as essentially the same thing but with updated technique and delving into variables before letting them organically conclude themselves. The first is much more psychologically devastating, its horror focused on the individual woman against her sexist surroundings while attempting to fend for herself and clearly perceive an indefinable threat. The second launches straight into religious horror, going so far as to literalize the ghosts and physicalize the demon itself in one of the most jaw-dropping reveals I've experienced in a film like this.

What else is there to say? So many clues and red herrings (well, are they really herrings?) pile up that the film is less a roller coaster than a slide, constantly building its own tension in increasingly unhinged and violent set pieces. Both films do this, actually. Earned, effective jump scares abound, and the acting from every featured person is pitched to unsettle Jessica and the audience. Your mileage for the final act -- in either film -- will vary based on what interests you more: the dissolution of Jessica's mind or her desperation to prevail over the invading forces of evil. The former feels like Oculus or Amulet whereas the latter hints at something like Hereditary or mother! in effect. Neither is "better" and both are more than worthy of a watch. I'll resort to double featuring these every damn time: one is a threadbare nightmare with acoustic score and straightforward storytelling tricks, the other is a giallo-like maximalist descent to hell with droning synth score and gory excesses. The most amazing part is that both films work so well, even as companion pieces. Especially if you like unexpectedly and astonishingly brilliant cinematography.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)

Score: 2 / 5

Oh boy.

Maybe the most disappointing viewing experience I've had in a cinema in years, the bafflingly titled Godzilla x Kong doesn't stop its confusion at the title. How do you even say it? Godzilla times Kong? Godzilla ex-Kong? Should it be an ampersand? And what about the subtitle, The New Empire, which makes even less sense the more you unpack it. Godzilla was previously touted as King of the Monsters, but now he's an emperor? Or is Kong the emperor of Hollow Earth? Is it "new," really, and who exactly are their subjects after they've killed so many other titans?

And we haven't even gotten to the film itself yet.

The latest installment of Legendary/Warner Bros's MonsterVerse franchise crashes and burns in a way I feared but did not expect from this series. I've been a fan all along, from Gareth Edwards's Godzilla -- which, contrary to popular opinion, did the whole "focus on the humans, not the monsters" thing a full decade before Godzilla Minus One -- through the stylized romp of Kong: Skull Island, the soaring epic religio-fantasy of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and even the fabulously pastiched escapist mess that was Godzilla vs. Kong. Then, when the Monarch series launched on Apple TV+, I binged that and then did again because it's so much fun.

But Adam Wingard helms the latest and seems insistent on embracing schlocky nonsense over gritty pseudo-realism with his committee of screenwriters, at least two of whom should know better than to churn out this trash. Much like the absurdity of Godzilla's fiery radiation breath drilling a hole through Earth's crust to the Hollow Earth exactly into Kong's throne room (disregarding the film's own internal logic of a gravity well and inverted physics to get there and back), Godzilla x Kong throws its own dignity out the window in favor of cartoonish balderdash with about as much sense as Saturday morning shows under the influence of acid.

I won't waste time trying to recap any plot here, because there isn't a worthwhile one. A few familiar faces return, namely Rebecca Hall and her adopted Iwi daughter (an older Kaylee Hottle) and their friend, conspiracy podcaster Brian Tyree Henry. A new character, played winningly by Dan Stevens, is such an artistically bankrupt creation that I can only hope they paid him well; the character (I won't use their names because who can remember them when they matter so little) pops in to save the day as a titan veterinarian and engineer, replacing injured teeth and using Iron-Man like technology to mobilize a frostbitten hand. His deus ex machinas appear almost at whim, and you really have to wonder how and where and why but you can't because the breakneck pacing forces us to just accept it and move on. Suspension of disbelief should be the result of flawless internal fictional logic, not the result of necessity due to aggressively fast storytelling.

The endless plotholes, of which the titan vet's tech only scratches the surface, are not the film's only faults, though perhaps should be explored further. I still don't understand the dimensional portal to Hollow Earth, nor how there is sunlight down there, among many other issues. The film's insistence that the dual landscapes of Hollow Earth aren't enough space lead it to invent yet another secret, "uncharted" realm (as if most of Hollow Earth wasn't indeed uncharted) where an entire army of giant, violent apes prepares to wage war on their ancient foe, Godzilla, and conquer Hollow Earth and the surface world. Their leader, Scar King (I know, I know, I told you this is really stupid shit) controls a secret weapon through *some* mysterious means:  yet another titan, Shimo, who has the chilly power to change the world's climate and usher in a new ice age. Because somehow that would be good for giant apes, too? Hmmm....

This film works especially hard to anthropomorphize the apes, and it get less cute as it continues. Kong himself is treated like a big baby who fights good, and the humans just keep cheering him on and retrofitting him with artificial aid. When he discovers his own kind, one young one (who is objectively visually off-putting) acts like Tolkien's Gollum, repeatedly trying to trick and trap Kong to eliminate the potential threat to his master, Scar King. The lengthy scenes of apes communicating nonverbally bored me to distraction, and it all plays out much more rote than even I could give it credit for.

And all this has been centered on the Kong side of things because the film itself is Kong-centric. Godzilla is mostly absent from this film, apart from a few money shots like sleeping in the Roman Colosseum. The film globetrots more than a cheap spy flick as Godzilla hops around to eliminate other titans (one wonders what happens to those carcasses) before we even get to see or experience them. The humans, in their unforgivably exposition-heavy dialogue, suggest he's collecting and storing energy for a major upcoming conflict (for no clear reason), and when he goes to kill the most energy-rich one named Tiamat, he does so with almost no ado and very little screen time (which renders the whole climax of that subplot flaccid and facile). 

The disaster scenes here, as in the previous one, are woefully monster-centric, and you know that tens of thousands of people are just arbitrarily dying en masse without so much as a moment of respectful screen time. Like the climactic battle between Kong, Godzilla, and Mechagodzilla previously, here the fight scenes devastate heavily populated cities before a new and totally unexpected climax in Rio de Janeiro, which was dispiritingly nihilistic in its lack of a human element. Even the sudden emergence of a new Mothra -- which completely ignores the previous hint of a Mothra rebirth from earlier in this same franchise -- doesn't help refocus things on the human element despite a bizarre quasi-religious sect of Iwi people who apparently worship her and share a psychic link with her through Rebecca Hall's daughter. The kaiju take center stage in the end, no matter how hard Brian Tyree Henry and Dan Stevens try to let their humor win the day.

Road House (2024)

Score: 3.5 / 5

There is a certain charm to movies that know exactly what they are and don't reach for more. Road House, a remake of the Patrick Swayze cult classic, has that going for it along with more than a bit of style. Gone are the '80s trappings and, in their place, a delightfully breezy action film with sweeping vistas of the Florida Keys. Thankfully, director Doug Liman and his team don't do away with the '80s cheese, and so this violent romp never feels weighed down by melodrama or even any thrills. It's simple and direct machismo, presented with direct-to-streaming B-movie panache to rival many others of its ilk out there (remember that Netflix disaster, Heart of Stone?). It's a goofy, arguably stupid film, to be sure, but that's part of its slick, "spring break vibes" charm.

Consciously -- and repeatedly -- referring to itself as a Western, the basic plot concerns Elwood Dalton, a former UFC middleweight fighter, whose suicidal depression leads him to take an odd job as a bouncer at "Road House," a roadhouse in the sunshine state's Glass Key. The owner, Frankie (Jessica Williams) needs him to stop the constant, violent fights and vandalism caused by a gang, and Dalton is perfect for the job: Eventually we learn that he gained notoriety after killing an opponent once, earning him fearful respect that leads the likes of tough guys (like one played by Post Malone) to forfeit outright. After Dalton literally takes the gang members to the hospital for what he does to them, he becomes a popular figure in the town, even mentoring others to defend and care for themselves. Unfortunately, there is more violence on the horizon.

Dalton, as played by Jake Gyllenhaal in yet another eye-poppingly brutal performance (remember Southpaw, for one?), is so physically intimidating that his mild-mannered demeanor might be overlooked if not for his endearing curiosity and zinging quips. His charm switches to calculated menace with sudden alacrity, and that makes him an infinitely interesting and watchable character, aided significantly by Gyllenhaal's always dedicated and arresting presence. His scenes with local bookstore owner Charlie (Hannah Lanier) and her father are cute as heck, though thickly written to force-feed us the Western genre, while his scenes with local doctor Ellie (Daniela Melchior) are gimmicky to a distracting fault in their attempts at injecting romance. The screenplay does him no favors, but Gyllenhaal shines.

When the network of villains are revealed -- the gang was on the payroll of real estate kingpin Ben Brandt, inherited from his incarcerated father -- things heat up quickly, because this film knows its audience just wants to see more fighting. Brandt himself, as played by a delightfully unhinged Billy Magnussen, doesn't do a heck of a lot hands-on, and so he brings in a bloodthirsty enforcer named Knox to take care of Dalton and burn Road House to the ground so he can monopolize the shoreline and build a luxury resort. He's got the local sheriff in his pocket, too, and the reveal that the sheriff is Ellie's father is another twist in the profoundly silly plot that tries so hard to stay interesting. If Melchior and Gyllenhaal had any real chemistry -- or if the screenplay allowed them earned heat at all -- this might have been a worthwhile bit of melodrama. As it is, not so much. But who would want that anyway?

Knox, notably, becomes the big bad of the film, because he's the one who actually wants to lay hands on Dalton, seemingly for pay at first, but later perhaps for the increased street cred he'd get for killing a killer. Played by Irish boxing and fighting champion Conor McGregor, he's a deranged psychopath who actively seeks pain and chaos, showing up about halfway through the film and re-energizing it with a whole new flavor of weirdness. Sometimes played for laughs -- like the movie as a whole, really -- Knox feels like a character from an entirely different movie, dropped in this one to wreak havoc; McGregor feels like a cartoon villain, aggressively smiling the whole time and delivering lines, quite simply, badly. It's a disorienting experience to watch and hear him because you're never quite sure if it's just him or the character who doesn't behave like a real human. 

And that's really true of all of Road House, even apart from the realistic and nuanced Gyllenhaal performance as opposed to those of McGregor and Magnussen. The sweeping vistas, usually obviously shot via drone, and the frenetic editing suggest an escapist fantasy, beautifully highlighting the titular roadhouse that looks much nicer than it should be. But instead of feeling immersed in the material, we're swept along with the spectacle that relies too much on CGI fighting and overdone sound effects that sap the violence of its impact on us. Most action films want us to experience, more or less, the weight of body slams, the jolt of a punch, jarring headbutts; this movie's delivery skims the surface, pushing us through the occasionally brilliant but mostly silly fight choreography to get to the next set piece.

For action movies, this was a fun ride. I definitely prefer gritty, hyperrealistic violence like in John Wick or Atomic Blonde, and I'd have been curious to see Road House done that way. Read: taken seriously. But that's simply a matter of taste. For what it is, and what it clearly wanted to do, it mostly works according to its own logic, and you can't really fault a film for that. Plus, we get a lot of Jake G. with his shirt off, which is never a bad thing.

Immaculate (2024)

Score: 4.5 / 5

One of the best nunsploitation movies I've ever seen was not on my Lent watchlist this year, nor my yearly bingo card of cinematic surprises, but here we are.

When you see the poster of a bloody nun with the word "Immaculate" superimposed, you know what you're in for. And Immaculate does indeed give exactly that. It also -- and this is crucial -- does it in a consistently engaging, thoughtful, provocative way. There is nothing wrong with retreading familiar paths if you're committed to a unique aesthetic or fresh techniques or an updated, relevant twist. Director Michael Mohan and writer Andrew Lobel's film does all that and more, so let's go through those main takeaways after I briefly offer a synopsis of sorts.

Sydney Sweeney, who has been making quite a name for herself the last few years, makes a bold turn as a scream queen playing Cecilia, an enigmatic but devout young woman who turned intensely to her faith after a childhood near-death experience on a frozen lake. She arrives at an Italian convent -- we're never really sure the time period, probably intentionally -- where she is out of place and time; not many others there speak English, and she doesn't speak Italian. The sisters are strange, the fathers are creepy (even the hot one), and there is an odd intersection of faith and of age at play: Cecilia and the other young nuns care for the older ones ravaged by illness, mental decline, and age. Their faith is their own, as they do not leave their monastery, but few seem truly devout in the Catholic tradition. When Cecelia is suddenly and inexplicably found to be pregnant despite having never been with a man (there is some question about this, which Sweeney brilliantly communicates nonverbally), her sisters and fathers rejoice the second coming of Christ. Their urgency to declare this is indicative of something sinister, which the rest of the film explores through the time-warped limited perspective of Cecelia in the trials of pregnancy.

Its devastatingly dark opening sequence -- typical of giallo and slashers in general -- keys you in to the kind of visceral, exploitative horror in store for us, of a kind that harkens back to '70s European horror, specifically the Italian giallo. I noted more than once my impression that this is what we would have gotten had Dario Argento or Mario Bava gotten his hands on a reworked screenplay of Rosemary's Baby or even The Nun. And while this film does feature some aspects of the giallo -- taboo eroticism, slasher violence, focus on female mental collapse, irreverent religious content -- it's hard to aesthetically link the two, as for the most part Immaculate reads visually as straightforward Gothic horror. Mohan and his team relish in this gray area, making a uniquely flavored film that bridges the gap.

Given the sheer amount of religious horror films we get yearly, it's hard to imagine much new material that can really scare you. It's one of the reasons for the push, in the last decade especially, for "elevated horror," a term I detest but that generally indicates slow-burn horror films that go for earned, disturbing reveals and existentially problematic scares. It's one of the reasons films like The Pope's Exorcist or The Nun and its sequel have been getting flak: effective as some of the scares might be, they are just jump scares in situations and with visuals familiar to us. Sure, Immaculate has its birds that crash into windows, ghostly nuns stalking shadowed halls, and priests not to be trusted, but it also features several jump scares that are absolutely unexpected and thrillingly effective. And they don't let up. This is a darkly entertaining scare ride that had me gasping out loud multiple times in the cinema.

Dramas or horror films about nuns are notoriously misogynist, at least at face value, usually highlighting their isolation and obsession with propriety as contrasted (or controlled) by the order of men in positions of power over them. Novitiate and of course Doubt are two notable dramas that eschew that, though it's still surely a part of any post-screening discussion. This film shocked me because of its boldly radical finale, which I will not spoil here, reminding me a bit of the climax of Buoyancy in its clear-eyed and rousing empowerment of a longsuffering protagonist. And it's not all in the climax; previous moments as noted increase our appreciation for Cecilia and Sweeney herself for stepping up to the plate and doing the difficult task of endearing us to this woman whose faith in the divine never wanes but whose faith in the establishment around her is in speedy decay. Offering disturbingly timely commentary on a woman's bodily autonomy, the ending also provides Sweeney with a long take that left me shaken long after the credits rolled.

All of Us Strangers (2023)

Score: 3.5 / 5

There's an air of magic to All of Us Strangers, a sort of dreamlike quality that you feel more than perceive. It's not always apparent, but once you key into it, you can't stop sensing that things are just a little off. The main character lives in an enormous high-rise apartment building that is almost entirely vacant; the only other resident meets him and asks for intimacy in a single interaction, and they embark on a profoundly sensitive and loving relationship. Light acts strangely around the main character, breaking into his apartment with almost sentient determination and dramatically coloring all his encounters with his new lover and with his parents, who are much younger than they should be when he visits them. 

This chamber piece indeed features four excellent performances from its actors, who delve into the richly layered dialogue with intense dedication in eliciting all the little nuances it hides. Andrew Scott plays Adam, the main man, whose liminal existence is nevertheless our only conduit into his world, basking in warm glowing light and stoically drifting through a world that cannot hold his interest. His flirtatious neighbor-turned-partner, Harry, is played by a charming Paul Mescal, who distracts Adam from his job as screenwriter (note: not many screenwriters could afford an apartment like this all alone, so again, one wonders the extent of realism here). Sometimes riding by bus to his parents' house in the suburbs, we meet Claire Foy and Jamie Bell, who greet him warmly and inquire all about his life over a meal. We learn that they died in a car crash many years prior, now stuck at that age in Adam's mind as he attempts to reconnect and make sense of his own life.

Director and writer Andrew Haigh exhibits masterful control over visuals and tone -- consider his previous work in Weekend and Looking, among other titles -- and this is no exception. Especially his cinematographer here, Jamie D. Ramsay, does some incredible work here clearly in tandem with Haigh's vision. But it's not an altogether pleasant viewing experience, and that's a matter of taste I mostly blame on the screenplay. It's all just too much to handle. Each interaction Adam has with any character feels cathartic, like a mini manifesto about a certain aspect of queer relationships. Less a roller coaster and more a dirge, each scene bleeds into the next, weighing it down with increasingly intense and tragic meaning. We get no rest, no reprieve, not even fluffy filler to differentiate the energy and offer us a breath of fresh air. And with the predictably excessively tragic twist ending -- no spoilers here, but you can see it coming before it slams into you -- it's all an endurance test that really doesn't go anywhere except from loneliness to maudlin isolation.

That said, it's a beautiful film in more than just visuals. The thick dialogue, while one-note, is profoundly insightful and can offer boons to anyone who appreciates articulation of spiritual and cultural consternation. Adam's relationship with Harry feels swiftly started, but their conversations are wonderfully paced and realistically tender. Their age difference allows for some nice points about "post-AIDS" attitudes about queer identity and gay sex, not diluted with any small talk whatsoever. It's, really, what a real romantic drama should look and sound like, something most (especially hetero romances) eschew in favor of cheap laughs and self-actualization. And, to be fair, Adam's conversations with his parents are similar, with nary a wasted second, and though his coming out to his mother feels jarringly outdated, his coming out to his father is one of the most deeply moving moments in the film.

Your mileage with this film will largely be determined by your own personal history. If you have estranged or nonexistent relationships with your parents, this will hit hard. If you have experienced the death of a lover, you should probably steer clear. If you, like me, were raised in the height of the AIDS epidemic and have experienced more than your share of doomed, tragic gay love stories, it's really hard to enjoy yet another, no matter how pretty it is. Haven't we evolved from basing queer stories on trauma and letting them wallow in it?

Drive-Away Dolls (2024)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Drive-Away Dolls promised a lot of fun in its irreverent homage to road trips and screwball comedies, and while some will appreciate its kitschy femininity on display, one is left wondering what the point of all the fuss is, and why Ethan Coen thought he was the filmmaker to handle it.

Set in 1999, this crime caper starts in Philadelphia as two lesbians plan a road trip to Tallahassee. The time period and destination seem a wink and a nod to those of us who know these characters are on the brink of a conservative spiral in national politics. Note that these two lesbians are, truly, friends: Jamie (Margaret Qualley) has recently been kicked out of her ex's (Beanie Feldstein) apartment for her infidelity, and uptight Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) just wants to get out of town and birdwatch in a more exotic locale. Jamie seems eager to get Marian to loosen up, and her infidelity seems a fact of life, as she increasingly flirts with Marian in the hopes of some casual sex on their road trip. Between the BBQ joints and lesbian bars along the way, of course.

Short on funds, they plan to drive a booked one-way car to Tallahassee, not knowing that their car has already been booked by someone else. Proprietor Curlie (Bill Camp) might make some shady deals, but he also makes a terrible mistake in this instance, as the car he lends the girls is already loaded with a suitcase carrying untold secrets between criminals. Thankfully, unlike in Pulp Fiction, we do get to know what's inside this one, and it is admittedly very funny, thanks in no small part to the ensemble presence of Pedro Pascal and Matt Damon and Colman Domingo in effective bit parts meant to showcase the desperation and inadequacies of men in the face of loud and proud young dykes.

There is plenty to enjoy in this film, especially if you like crude sexual humor and obvious aesthetic ploys for kitsch and irony. The brightly lit material and zany situations feel straight out of a John Waters flick, but rather than bask in its own mise en scène, the film keeps ramping up its own absurdities, adding pointless action and forced one-liners to guide the flow of each sequence. It jerks us back and forth between the two main lesbians and their pursuers, everybody bickering with each other. Thankfully the performances, especially of Qualley and Feldstein, are dedicated and inspired, proving Coen's steadfast ability to wrangle killer deliveries from his actors.

I could never quite shake the feeling, however, that this film was simply trying too hard to do something, and I still don't know what that something is. Coen and his spouse Tricia Cooke co-wrote the screenplay, and while I don't think artists shouldn't be imaginative and creative, this material feels uncomfortable under their pens. Perhaps it's their blasé attitude toward queerness and a strange entitlement to language that isn't theirs to own; perhaps it's their crude handling of material without any consideration of the realistic basis for their humor. It's equally odd that idiosyncratic, setting-specific crime comedies like this are what made the Coen name famous, yet this feels like a B-movie knockoff of their own earlier works. Its dirty irreverence and foul-mouthed fun feel indicative of the writers' "what the hell, why not" entitlement, and I'd have preferred even a little bit of earnestness in it, like there was in the similarly silly Burn After Reading or Hail, Caesar! Then I might have cared more, especially about the faux-camp to which this movie so desperately aspires.

Madame Web (2024)

Score: 3 / 5

Getting back on my soapbox: In a time when it's cool to hate new installments of long-running franchises, nuance has all but vanished from conversations about film. Especially when it comes to superhero movies in the consistently flooded market of the genre. So I tuned out the vociferous outcry against Sony's latest Spider-man-adjacent title and went to see it with no expectations other than what little I remember of the character from the comics. And while its rushed story, heavyhanded exposition, and frustratingly messy climax do hinder its impact, the film is surprisingly delightful in its mid-2000s aesthetics and noir-thriller approach to its feminist story. Too, and perhaps more importantly, it reimagines its protagonist in such a fresh way that multiple times during the film, I forgot it was a "superhero" movie.

Madame Web refers to Cassie Webb (short for Cassandra, referencing the cursed Trojan prophet), a paramedic in Queens in 2003, who after a near-death situation begins having precognitive visions. Many of them are violent, of course, and no one believes her, but this isn't just Happy Death Day in the Spiderverse; she is inexplicably mentally tied to three teenage girls who are being hunted and attacked by a menacing man in a black bodysuit. As Cassie tries to make sense of her visions and rescue the girls from Grand Central Terminal -- in a breakneck sequence of earned suspense and action -- we learn that their pursuer also has the ability to see the future, bestowed to him by a rare Peruvian spider along with strength and rapid healing. He foresaw that these young women would kill him, and is now out to kill them first.

We know from the introduction scene that Cassie's mother was in the Peruvian Amazon thirty years prior looking for just such special spiders. It's all much ado about precious little, but the screenwriters -- a whole committee, it seems -- seem determined to make their Sony Spiderverse into its own thing, and this movie kind of fits the bill for an origin story of sorts for the whole shebang. By its conclusion, it seems to have established not only the origin of spiders with superhuman toxins, but it has also established one of the older and more mysterious characters in Spider-man lore as a sort of Professor Xavier, complete with retinue of Spider-girls ready to take on crime in the city. Clunky and expository as most of their dialogue may be in the film, the screenplay is narratively doing a hell of a lot, actually.

The feature film debut of longtime television director S.J. Clarkson allows that screenplay to be what it is, focusing her efforts on eliciting dedicated, grounded performances from her cast. Dakota Johnson plays Cassie with a frustrated world-weariness that authentically captures the angsty urban young adult in the mid-aughts. It's telling that Clarkson worked on Jessica Jones, because Johnson here comfortably handles the deadpan, wry humor that defined that character. The teens (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O'Connor) are a fun and funny trio of energy, while their antagonist (Tahar Rahim) is legitimately scary in his handsome, brooding menace. More importantly, Clarkson and her editor use the frantic, stylized techniques of the period to frame the action and especially the scenes of precognition, making the whole experience feel like a blast from twenty years ago. More than once I wondered if Sam Raimi was part of this team, because it's got his energy all over it. And for a film that knows exactly what it is, what it wants to do, and why it's doing it, this is pretty solid stuff. I will champion any superhero film these days that doesn't overuse CGI to make a spectacle of world-ending, apocalyptic climaxes. This movie keeps things simple and straightforward and grounded, breezy and pleasant as it stays focused on itself. It's just out of time with the current state of the art, which is probably why so many people are writing it off.

Spaceman (2024)

Score: 1 / 5

A lonely man on the fringes of the known universe, occupied mentally with memories of loved ones, turns his survival into an epic journey of cosmic comprehension. It's not a new narrative, and this movie turns Adam Sandler into the titular sad boy in space. Most of this type of film -- I'm currently thinking of First Man and Ad Astra, though Interstellar and The Martian and Solaris also fit the bill -- engages with elements of action, science fiction, or horror to remain engaging and relatable to the audience. Not so in Spaceman, in which Johan Renck (of the miniseries Chernobyl and episodes of many other series) focuses instead on his protagonist's state of mind.

Sandler's Czech cosmonaut, named Jakub, has been alone in space for six months already, en route to a cloud of dust near Jupiter. His ship is all but a wreck, and perhaps that's less a critique of the times or funding and more a literal representation of the real driving force in Jakub's life: his marriage. His pregnant wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan) seems to be giving him the cold shoulder, offering him radio silence in the vast reaches of space. He's still troubled by the death of his father, a Communist informant, when he was young, and seems to be a workaholic to the point of neglecting and abandoning Lenka when she miscarried. The production design and effects feel desperate for purpose, unfortunately, rendering what should be glorious shots of the galaxy inert and cheap, and offering us little to no insight into the character's experience or reality. No wonder he's in the dumps.

So when a giant spider suddenly appears in his vessel, Jakub is rightly terrified. But Hanus, as it calls itself (voiced unnervingly by Paul Dano), has no intention of harming him. Even in these moments, when we should be most concerned for Jakub, Sandler's uninterested and subdued performance reinforce what little we know about him -- namely that he isn't a likable guy -- and completely disconnect us from him. Anyone who knows me knows I hate spiders, but even I wanted Hanus to just eat him and put us all out of our misery. Alas, Hanus tells the truth and only speaks to Jakub in lengthy conversation, plying him to share his memories and experiences in the style of Socratic dialogue.

Flashbacks to dramatize Jakub's past filmed oddly -- I think meant to be what Hanus sees or imagines -- and edited so haphazardly as to confuse purpose and cohesion. Much like the vague, soporific dialogue (the number of times Mulligan intones something like "Where you go, I go" in Terrence Malick-esque voiceovers is annoying at best), these sequences serve mostly to slow down the already plodding film and offer little to no entertainment to the proceedings. It doesn't help that an actress of Mulligan's caliber is utterly wasted in this one-note role as it is written. In fact, the material is such a depressing slog that Hanus resorts to snacking on human treats just to keep its spirits up. The only other characters we get are brief, underwritten scenes with his physician and commissioner (Isabella Rossellini, here for some bizarre reason and woefully underused).

By film's end, we learn the Chopra cloud -- the reason for Jakub's journey -- is material left over from the beginning of the universe in which all time exists simultaneously. As he floats in it and mourns his disintegrating friend in the film's most visually disgusting flourish (as the melancholy music swells, jarringly), Jakub comes to the conclusion that all he wants is to be with his wife. It's a frustrating conclusion because there hasn't been a moment of the film in which that wasn't the case. So, apart from being able to articulate himself better -- maybe that's the point -- Jakub goes through no real development or growth. Despite all the arachnid's efforts at therapy, Jakub succeeds only in ruminating on his bitter childhood and current insecurities before deciding that, just as he pines when we first meet him, love matters to him most in the end, and the Scrooge-like epiphany that he still has time to fix his relationship with her. What an insipid waste.

Dune: Part Two (2024)

Score: 5 / 5

For anyone who didn't already know Denis Villeneuve is one of the best directors currently working (some of us would say ever), Dune: Part Two will cement that attribute to his name. For those of us who love the middle part of any trilogy -- for, indeed, the heart of Frank Herbert's Dune is the first two books, the story of Paul Atreides, this film being the second part of the first book -- this is eminently on par with the likes of the middle of The Lord of the Rings and the three Star Wars trilogies, picking up where the previous left off, diving right into action without need for more exposition, and intensifying the dread of war and prophetic doom while raising the emotional stakes for characters we already know (and a few new ones). Villeneuve has never shied away from scope and breadth in his films, but his keen focus on the psychology of his main characters is what makes all his films feel epic. With this material, he can finally embrace a real epic, and boy, is it glorious.

After their annihilation of the Atreides, the Harkonnens take over Arrakis again and wage war on the Fremen "sand rats" who live in the desert and disrupt the harvesting of valuable spice. Unbeknownst to Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) and his brutal nephews (Dave Bautista and a chilling Austin Butler), one tribe of Fremen led by Stilgar (Javier Bardem) harbor two Atreides house survivors: Paul and his mother Lady Jessica (Timothee Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson). As they integrate into Fremen culture, the two learn more about prophecies of a savior from beyond, a messiah meant to lead all Fremen tribes to take back Arrakis and launch a holy crusade that will turn their planet green and sweep across the stars. They decide the prophecy applies to them -- and well it might -- and take drastic steps to ensure their own ascendancy.

Whereas the first installment sets the stage in every conceivable way -- mostly expository and world-building, the first film had more intrigue and tension (if not action) than some credit it -- the second allows the various factions to collide in some spectacular battle sequences. More importantly, the heightened stakes reveal more about characters we need to care for, making the violence matter in emotional ways. To counterpoint this, several characters, especially Stilgar and Paul's love interest Chani (Zendaya) inject key moments with unexpected and wonderfully effective humor. Exerting extraordinary mastery over tone, Villeneuve and screenwriter Jon Spaihts use these elements to inform their headier themes of corruptibility of power and the uses and dangers of fanaticism in ways we rarely see in epics or hero's journeys.

Not to be outdone by cerebral intrigue, Villeneuve continues his inability to make any visuals less than picturesque. Shot by Greig Fraser, every moment could be paused, blown up, and framed, including enemy bodies falling from rocky buttes and fleets of sandworms racing across no-man's land. Costume and production design continue to be the best in the business: a sacred reservoir looking like a bottomless cavern, a princess in pristine silver that could be chains, a new reverend mother who looks like some priestess or goddess from an eastern religion. And nothing compares to the breathtaking transitions to infrared light on the Harkonnen homeworld of Gieidi Prime under its "Black Sun," a brilliant interpretation of the novel, which suggests the planet is a volcanic wasteland raped by over-industrialization; here, their world (and lifestyle) is so removed from nature that even the sun's light seems profoundly wrong and torturous.

While I was annoyed in the first film that Zendaya's Chani narrated, I was pleased to finally have some of Florence's Pugh's Princess Irulan in this film, though her part is sadly limited. So is Christopher Walken's Emperor Shaddam IV, but he's not featured much in the book either (and frankly I've rarely been interested in his acting, so this limitation was fine). Given what happens in Dune: Messiah (the final part in this trilogy, though I promise, no spoilers here), I'd have liked a bit more time with the emperor and princess, Charlotte Rampling's reverend mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, and Lea Seydoux as Lady Margot Fenring, but I expect we'll get plenty more in the next film. This isn't their story. Yet. On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised at the visual power and attention paid to Lady Jessica's rise and the film's recognition of her disturbing desire to galvanize weak-minded religious tribes into worshipping her son and waging open war. This isn't about them understanding and joining and leading the native people; it's about them co-opting an entire planet for their own designs.

You need to see this on the biggest possible screen with the best possible stereo system. Then see it again.

My Top 10 Favorite Films of 2023

Despite my best efforts, I've been unable to generate this post until today, the day after the Academy Awards. But it's never too late to talk about fabulous films! I now present to you my ten favorite films from 2023, along with several honorable mentions that also count as personal favorites (each hyperlinked film was close in running for my list!). I'll note here that I have not yet been able to watch The Zone of Interest, Eileen, or Godzilla Minus One, though I hope to soon.

Special Mention: Skinamarink
Not a single day has passed since I saw this film -- a full year ago -- and not thought about it. Regardless of what you think of its lo-fi presentation, its obscure plot (if there is a plot), its interpretive challenges, Skinamarink is an arthouse endurance test, an interminable nightmare that seeps out of the screen and into your consciousness. Insidiously implicating itself into your memories, it's one of the scariest and most provocative movies I've ever seen. The Outwaters, too, stole my attention this year, though its found-footage format and clear sci-fi elements make it less accessible or haunting to most of us.

10. John Wick: Chapter 4
The most thrilling and satisfying conclusion (maybe) to the series, the fourth installment goes back to basics, simplifying the story and streamlining unnecessary characters to focus on the hero's Sisyphean journey of revenge and freedom. Even for someone who only marginally tolerates action movies, this series consistently offers aesthetic pleasures and joie de vivre to rival any other, even with its rather nihilistic penchant for destroying Keanu Reeves's stoic body. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was also a memorable and heart-wrenching sendoff to that subset of the MCU, and I've never cried so hard at Florence & the Machine's "Dog Days are Over."

9. Leave the World Behind
A consistent theme in films this year was that of insiders and outsiders clashing, the haves and have-nots trying to work together but usually failing to do so without bloodshed or trauma. Perhaps the most blatant version of that central conflict comes in this arresting adaptation of Rumaan Alam's riveting novel about identity and cooperation when society fails. Uncomfortably, outrageously funny when it isn't terrifying, beautiful and sublime when it isn't shining a mirror on our nastiest instincts. And what a dream team, both on and off camera! I also really loved The Blackening and No One Will Save You, each also funny and clever and deeply unsettling portrayals of what happens when civility and civilization are left behind in the face of unspeakable horrors.

8. Maestro

Offscreen drama aside, this biopic of Leonard Bernstein is educational and beautifully moving, a testament not only to the tortured soul of an artist but to those who love the artist. To some's chagrin, we don't get much insight into the genius musical process, but we do get a profoundly human glimpse into his personal and social life, the sordid excesses of which are somewhat simplified into poignant dramatic beats that shape a film as lyrical as anything the composer wrote or conducted. Cooper may occasionally be a mess, but he's a damn great director when he wants.

7. Killers of the Flower Moon
A saga of tragic crime that relentlessly takes us to hell and back, Scorsese's latest epic forces us to experience history from the perspective of its villains, implicating us as it excoriates us. It's not abnormal material for the directing legend, but it is some of his most culturally sensitive and intentional work, manifest in glorious production design and casting that should have been standard for the last century. An oddly similar film, almost tied here, would be Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan's latest (and some are saying greatest) epic about the creators of the atomic bomb, an existential horror story that meanders a bit too much for my taste but nevertheless teaches as it tragically takes us on a free fall to hell.

6. Are You There God? It's Me Margaret
Led by a trio of phenomenal female performances, this (by all accounts faithful) adaptation of Judy Blume's landmark book is the feel-good movie of the year. A rare title that should be seen by everyone everywhere at every age, it is a roller coaster of the best emotions and had me weeping and laughing in rapid succession. When adaptations stick the landing, you know it, and this is what family-friendly entertainment should be all about.

5. The Color Purple 

One of the best movie musicals I've ever seen. Its timeless source material combined with state-of-the-art cinematography and editing and production design renew the story for yet another generation. We don't deserve the Black queer feminism gloriously gifted to us, but we got it and it has deserved infinitely more popular and critical love than it has received. I can't imagine a more perfect adaptation or a more perfect revival of this material than in the spectacle of the largest screen and the best calibrated surround sound. This is why movies were created. Look what God has done!

4. TIE: Saltburn / American Fiction
The two literary cinematic marvels this year, respectively inspired by and directly adapted from source material, were primarily male-centered, exploring the depraved depths of humanity when Others invade circles of wealth, privilege, and influence. Both are hilarious in often cringey ways. Both are chilling when we recognize how realistic they are, despite heavy stylization. Both seek to relate us to social spheres with which we aren't familiar but are fundamentally part of. Each manages to balance substance with style -- rather, each manages to allow one to inform the other reciprocally -- in some of the most memorably verbose encounters we saw on screen this year.

3. TIE: Poor Things / Barbie
The two visual cinematic marvels this year, interestingly enough, were female-centered, exploring the surreal escapism and sublimity found when women forge their own unique paths and eschew what is expected of them by men (who also want to control them). Extraordinary costumes, production design, writing, and performances make these two films oddly fascinating in a double feature kind of way, though only one of the two is suitable for younger audiences. Each is mobilized by a character whose childlike innocence ends, though in very different ways between the two, and each paradoxically teaches us about our own world, despite neither film really adhering to the laws of nature or physics.

2. Beau is Afraid

There were a lot of surreal psychodramas this year, but nothing -- well, almost nothing -- compares to the punishing three-hour anxiety attack that is Ari Aster's latest masterpiece. From production design that had me drooling to surprise casting choices that had me grinding my teeth, from a story straight from hell to performances diabolically brilliant, this odyssey into the mind of a man (a culture, a way of life) in crisis is the Pilgrim's Progress of the 21st century. I'll never not want to watch this movie. I'll never be okay now that I've seen it.

1. May December

Psychodrama? Hold on, Ari Aster. Todd Haynes is taking the crown this year (well, and Tom Ford would too, but he makes so few films). Knowing almost nothing heading into this film served me well until it really didn't, and I still haven't brought myself to rewatch it. The most disturbing and haunting film I've seen in years, it bases itself on a true story but then flips the script by adding an original character who mirrors its subject perhaps too much, implicating us along the way as we all seek to consume that which we should not. Their vampiric monstrosity is accentuated by the film's keen -- and absolutely pure -- aesthetic of camp. Not shitty, kitschy camp all the rage these days, but true camp in its most deadly serious form, making what is ugly and disgusting fascinating and grotesque, even beautiful, until it destabilizes our understanding of everything -- everything -- this otherwise obvious story has to say. (Inasmuch as grooming is a thematic concern this year, I also think Priscilla was a shockingly timely and important film that won't get nearly as much attention as it deserves.) Led by performances that should have won every award available, helmed by a director at the top of his game, written like an organized nightmare that you care about deeply, May December is by far my favorite film of the year.

What do you think? What were your favorite films in 2023?