Men (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

The latest work from Alex Garland is perhaps also his most ambitious yet. Ex Machina was patient and cerebral, but completely accessible; Annihilation with its much bigger budget may have been visually accessible, but was even more heady with its artistic grasps at existentiality. Men, however, largely leaves the realm of science fiction behind, choosing instead to tell a story loaded with psychological horrors and emotional torment that feels a little too real and a little too theatrical at the same time. Garland's absolute control over tone, pacing, colors and light, and his performers is stunning to behold, even while we're grappling with the thematic implications of the madness to which we are witness.

Harper is a recent widow, and she needs a holiday. Choosing to travel alone to a quiet hamlet in the English country, she is haunted by memories of her late husband James. Their troubled relationship is shown in a few flashbacks to specific moments: the fight they had when Harper declared her intent to divorce; James's emotional attempts to gaslight, blame, and accuse before threatening suicide and attacking her physically; and finally James's death when he fell off an upstairs balcony and impaled himself on the fence below. It's this last moment that particularly disturbs Harper. Was James up there to jump and fulfill his threat, or was he trying to climb down and into his apartment she had locked? Did he know she'd be there, and is that why they locked eyes as he plummeted? Even in death, is he exerting his control over her?

Men may be many things, but it is primarily a journey through the grief process. Jessie Buckley, who is making quite a name for herself in thankless roles of psychological drama -- I'm Thinking of Ending Things and The Lost Daughter -- carries this movie as Harper with astonishing strength and grace, and of course lots of tension and screaming and slack-jawed terror. Much like we've seen in Relic and Midsommar and The Babadook and of course The Night House, certain cinematic horror in the last few years has largely been labeled as "elevated," and that seems primarily a distinction for psychologically complex and realistic horror that is filmed in a sensitive and suggestive way. With a few notable exceptions, Men dives into grieving for a lost husband, but also for a woman finding a way out from patriarchal expectations, away from misogynist control, and through her own internalized domestic guilt and shame. Seems like a bit of a leap to say that? Let's talk about the rest of the movie.

Shortly after arriving at her vacation house, Harper meets a man. The man, in fact, played by Rory Kinnear. He's the owner of the house, apparently some sort of off-the-grid Airbnb situation, and he's nice enough. Through his toothy smile, he assures her that the house is safe and takes her on a tour, making a few rough comments that smack of old-school misogyny: instead of asking her to throw away any non-biodegradable items rather than flushing, he points out brusquely and kind of creepily that menstrual pads must be tossed in the trash. It's the earliest clear example of something being very wrong here, and it sets the tone for the rest of the film: while Men isn't generally a comedy of errors like you could argue Get Out is, with its intense desire to skewer social behaviors, it does harness a curious intensity in focusing our attention on social cruelties that we can all recognize but don't all experience.

As Harper is a bit too restless to stay inside, she goes out to take walks through the village and interacts with several people. They're all men. And they are all played by Kinnear, the famed character actor doing remarkable work as the vicar, the bartender, the police officer, a nasty teenager, and even a naked stalker who is much more than he appears. Each man is distinct (thanks to amazing hair and makeup and some slickly uncanny CGI that is as off-putting as it is fascinating), and each one manages to threaten, annoy, or disappoint Harper in quick succession. Sometimes he makes a casual remark that is deeply wrong -- the vicar declares that James's suicide was Harper's fault, and if she hadn't locked the door, he'd still be alive -- and sometimes he chases her manically through a tunnel and a forest. Sometimes he's waiting outside for her to play with him -- and when she doesn't she's a "bitch" -- and sometimes he's peering through her windows as she rests.

Early scenes and scene breaks feature gorgeous landscape shots of tranquil, cool forests and countrysides under broad, open skies. The peaceful, inviting land could be Eden (and I thought more than once about other Aronofsky films like The Fountain and, yes, even Noah). And then there's the beautiful house itself, one intended to feel like a bougie, cozy retreat until it's too big and has too many potential points of easy entry for invaders for one lone woman to safeguard. The men become increasingly aggressive, to the point that the film started to become a home invasion thriller (and there's the reference I've been waiting for: mother!). As Harper deals with the onslaught, we realize she's reaching a psychological breaking point. The hell unleashed around her bleeds into her mind, and we're directly privy to it (thanks to great cinematography and editing) as things move from a realistic to completely abstract climax.

For most of the film, I assumed we were in Harper's mind as all the men couldn't possibly look alike (this isn't the kind of horror like Stepford Wives or something). By the climax, it's clear we are absolutely in Harper's mind, as the men vanish and reappear randomly, even in the middle of pursuit. She's paranoid for sure, but there are real horrors coming for her relentlessly, not unlike It Follows. The constant, dreadful tension builds until this climax, when it unravels in a completely insane bit of body horror that would make Cronenberg squirm. While I loved this movie, I couldn't rightly say what exactly its point might be. Is he simply assaulting general behaviors and attitudes of men toward women? That's vague and uncompelling at best. Is he making broader claims, like Aronofsky did in mother!, after his early and repeated use of biblical imagery of Eden and Harper plucking an apple? Why include the pagan imagery of the Green Man -- in the chapel, no less! -- and turn the naked stalker into a grassy, leafy pre-Christian god of the woodlands? This is no Wicker Man, but it is a masterful example of the best kind of British folk horror. Suggestive, scary, and sure to stick, unwelcome, in your mind long after.

Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

It's as if we never left the fastidiously groomed estate. Downton Abbey had its throngs of adoring fans as a serial show, and these films meant to continue the soapy saga keep bringing them out in droves; in the sold-out evening screening I attended, I was the youngest audience member by at least two decades. I'm grateful for these films, because they feel more self-contained than most of the show's seasons, almost like extended single episodes. The delicious drama imagined by Julian Fellowes continues its upstairs/downstairs conflicts while we can enjoy and imagine such an aristocratic life a hundred years ago across the pond. But this movie is a bit different than the previous film, which itself triumphantly pushed the envelope farther than I thought the show would or could, so let's put our best foot forward here and step right in.

A New Era, indeed. This installment's two main plotlines are as follows: most of the Crawley family goes on a vacation to the south of France, where Granny Violet has suddenly come into possession of a seaside villa; most of the servants remain at the abbey, where a motion picture crew takes up residence to make an early "talkie" film. That's it. Typical of Fellowes, it's brilliant and self-contained and reliant on the tense policing of propriety in dialogue to work, which of course it does. I thought it was a bit annoying at first, as butler and teacher Molesley (Kevin Doyle) gives us some introductory narration, much like a "previously on Downton Abbey" catch-up reel, but then, it has been a while since we've seen these characters.

Thankfully, Granny Violet, the Dowager Countess, is back again after her poignant potential send-off in the previous film, and here she is herself, in fact, the inciting incident. She receives notice that an old acquaintance (very old, as they last saw each other some sixty or seventy years prior) has willed her the deed to his seaside French villa, and she in turn is willing it to her only great-grandchild without property, young Sybbie (daughter of former chauffer and current estate manager Tom Branson and the late Lady Sybil Crawley). The family is atwitter with curiosity about this unexpected gift. What exactly was the nature of their Granny's relationship with the recently deceased marquis? Why has she never spoken of it? Naturally, most of them venture south to learn more, and the film spares no expense in its lavish attention to beauty when they eventually reach the villa. Her son Robert (Hugh Bonneville), the Earl of Grantham, is especially anxious, as he begins to suspect that he may have been the product of his mother's potential tryst with the marquis.

While enjoying the warm weather and sunshine -- all except their tightly-laced butler Carson (Jim Carter -- the family must field skepticism and doubt from the marquis's family, including his widow and son. Robert's wife Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) seems to be battling with her health, and with the ailing Granny back at home, Robert begins to spiral out, fearing losing the two most important women in his life along with his good name (or, rather, his surname, if his fears about Granny's past prove to be founded). It doesn't help that the French family already suspect the same, but things don't really get settled there emotionally. Just legally, as Tom (Allen Leech) and his new wife Lucy (Tuppence Middleton) gratefully accept ownership of the villa on behalf of their daughter.

When they return, they see what their servants have been up to under the watchful eye of Lady Mary Crawley/Talbot (Michelle Dockery). Working as the head of the estate now, Mary has welcomed a film crew in for the month, excited to open the house to the world again and to earn enough money from them that she might finally repair the leaking roof. Unlike the aloof family, the servants are thrilled at the prospect of meeting stars and seeing the magic behind the scenes; Molesley reveals his passions for the art form, and even manages to help the film by rewriting its screenplay. The gracious director (Hugh Dancy) intended to make a silent film, but as talking pictures are the new rage in London, he quickly enlists Mary to help him get a sound technician and flip the film. He also develops feelings for Mary, whose husband is always away. This particular subplot feels especially, cloyingly soapy, but it's Hugh Dancy so that's fine with me.

The film is going along rather bumpily, apart from its director's attempts at romance, due to its stars as well. Its dashing leading man Guy (Dominic West) is more than a little anxious about being in his first talkie, but he finds some solace in befriending butler Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier), whose hopeful love life (from the previous film) is suddenly dashed. I love that this film embraces his queerness and gives him, finally, a very happy ending. The talkie's leading lady Myrna (Laura Haddock), however, is a stuck-up high society bitch whose voice is, well, not suited for audio recordings. Think Singin' in the Rain and "I can't stand him." She's a hot mess when Lady Mary is asked to step in and dub her dialogue, but there is a remarkable scene in which the cook Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) and kitchen maid Daisy (Sophie McShera) sit her down and have a come-to-Jesus moment regarding her Cockney accent. It's the first and only time in the entire franchise I've actually liked Daisy, and she's actually being a good person finally!

A New Era is gorgeously shot and rapturously jubilant. Even when things get a little dark, scary, or sad in this franchise (okay, when things get sad, they get tragic), there is always a lovely light shining through reminding us that this is, ultimately, a love story between all kinds of people and with the place they call home. Director Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Woman in Gold), accredited cinematographer Andrew Dunn, and their collaborators do really amazing work in this relatively short film to catch us up, absorb us into the new intrigues, and tie everything up in a beautiful and heart-wrenching bow. If this is the last we see of these beloved characters, they've made sure that it's a nearly perfect sendoff. And that's a monumental achievement.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

This is getting a little ridiculous. I'm just not sure I'm here for all the back-and-forth, media-spanning new directions of the MCU, and movies like this are, frankly, why.

Feeling like it was written by committee and produced by a room of execs instead of artists, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is about as confused and jumbled as you might expect. It's nominally a sequel to Doctor Strange, though the only points on which it follows that film is with its inclusion of Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), who is getting married to another man, and its incredibly awkward inclusion of Mordo (Chiwetel Ejoifor) who is actually playing an alternate version of the character rather than the one set up as a villain in the previous film. This film makes almost no sense, though, unless you've seen the Infinity War and Endgame Avengers films as well as Spider-Man: No Way Home, which it also directly follows. And yet it is most accurately a sequel to WandaVision, and that's just one project too many for me to include here. It's all an unholy Frankenstein's monster of a movie, one that picks up many threads from different places and strings them together -- I haven't even mentioned the incredible importance of Loki and What If...? to understanding this film -- in an insane two-hour fever dream of chaos. This film does not -- cannot -- exist on its own, and it never develops its own sense of identity as a result; more or less a lynchpin in the franchise, we can only hope things calm down a bit for the studio after the dust settles. I have doubts.

Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), at the wedding of Christine to another man, has to leave when the street outside is attacked by an invisible massive one-eyed octopus thing (that looks suspiciously like the villain in The Suicide Squad). While fighting it, he meets America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a queer young woman of color who has the unique ability to create star-shaped portals to alternate universes, though she's having some trouble controlling it. After dispatching the demonic monster, America reveals that she's been fleeing similar demons across the multiverse and that someone seems to be after her. Strange suspects witchcraft, and goes to consult with Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), who is still grieving the loss of her children and the fracturing of her mind. Wanda is willing to do whatever it takes to live a life with her children (not Vision, curiously), and as such the Darkhold (an evil book she got at the end of WandaVision that appears to be somewhat sentient and has her in its grip) offers a possible means to that end.

The Darkhold is one of those hot items that requires more knowledge than this film is willing to give, but it's the kind of obvious reference to director Sam Raimi's work that makes this film such an aesthetic oddity. It looks like Raimi's Necronomicon, and later events in the film -- yes, including a crucial plot point involving the possession of dead bodies -- remind us a bit heavy-handedly that this is a Raimi picture. It's got all his visual gusto and mind-boggling aggressive weirdness that we expect, but unfortunately it's not the kind of Raimi I personally like. There are some genuine scares here, and it's really primarily a horror movie, even if it's also fantasy and sci-fi and superhero. I'd have much preferred to see what original director Scott Derrickson and his team would have done with this material, and I expect I'd have liked that better. This film isn't The Evil Dead so much as it is its sequels (which I abjectly detest). There's a sequence early on when America and Stephen launch themselves through the multiverse, including prehistoric, cartoon, and even paint realms. It's just bonkers stuff, and frankly I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Thankfully, the studio anchors him a bit and the story in our universe (labeled number 616, if memory serves) proceeds apace.

Unfortunately, that same studio seems intent on including as much of its established material as possible, including locations and people and events from all across the shared universe, even obscure ones, shoehorned plot points that felt far too forced and fast rather than organic or earned, and an enormous cast of cameos. This last point reaches its incredible climax when, in one universe after meeting an alternate Mordo, Stephen is brought before a group they call the Illuminati, including Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell, What If...?), Black Bolt (Anson Mount, Inhumans), Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) as Captain Marvel, the Fantastic Four's Reed Richards (John Krasinski, as hopefully more than fan service), and even Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) in his yellow wheelchair. It's amazing, and the crowd cheered much as it did for the villains and alternate heroes in No Way Home. But to have this happen twice now in similar films is starting to feel a bit overwhelmingly banal.

More important than the film's overwrought plot and desperate attempts at unifying the franchise despite its obvious unraveling is its emotional core. It begins with Stephen's unrequited love for Christine, which we've seen before and this adds nothing new. Then it concerns America and her self-control and doubt issues, adding again nothing new to the stories of multiple other heroes. Ultimately, this film seems most concerned with Wanda and her grief, and it is here that things get pretty hairy. Obviously -- and it's revealed very early on -- Wanda is the "villain" of this film, and while seeing her embrace her inner witch is utterly delicious, it rings hollow after the intense emotional insight we got for her out of the Disney+ miniseries. While grief can certainly turn people into monsters, it's an interesting choice for the MCU to about-face on this fan-favorite character so quickly. Moreover, the film's characterization of Wanda might have been more interesting and satisfying if it didn't take so much pleasure in turning her into a vindictive, bloodthirsty monster so quickly. I was fine with her embracing her greed and pain and becoming evil, really, until in her second or third scene she shows up and outright slaughters half the sorcerers at Kamar-Taj. It's a brutal and vicious sequence that sets up the horrors to come effectively, even as it divorces us from our love of the raw work Olsen has done with the character before now.

While this movie is clearly crucial for the MCU -- the parts that led us here and wherever we go next -- it's also the most solid proof we've yet received of the oft-repeated criticism that this franchise exists primarily to keep people coming and paying for it, rather than to tell any story with integrity. I loved it, I hated it (I haven't even talked about how absurdly, unabashedly awful the editing is!), and now we're just waiting for another installment because that's what this film forces us to do. I'm hopeful this isn't the last we've seen of Olsen, because really she is one of the most interesting characters in the franchise, but as the multiverse keeps expanding and new properties are introduced, the MCU is going to have to simplify and ground themselves, or they'll lose the reins on this series and everything they hold dear. Kind of like Wanda. 

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Unpopular opinion: I really love these movies. The staggering amount of creativity and detail crafted to realize such a magical "wizarding world" in this franchise is the kind of stuff movies are made for. Transporting in the best way, they stop just shy of escapism because they also deal with real, dark issues. This newest installment hits topical issues perhaps a little too solidly, with a significant plot point hinging on an attempt to steal an election and defraud the public. But it doesn't quite feel pandering to current issues because there is so much world-building happening. Perhaps that's why some don't like these films; each one is actively, aggressively engaging with the kind of fantasy world-building that usually works best in an initial installment of a franchise, not halfway through the series. It's a bit exhausting at this point, when we should be invested in character and drama rather than in catching all the exciting new tidbits.

Five-ish years have passed since Gellert Grindelwald -- again in a new form, this time played by Mads Mikkelsen -- launched his war, and now he's angling for social and political acceptance and adoration. His quest has briefly stalled as he is arraigned by the International Confederation of Wizards, but due to procedural inadequacies (and some moles), he is acquitted of his crimes against the wizarding and Muggle worlds and is suddenly launched into the global spotlight as a candidate for Supreme Mugwump. It's a lot of plot to take in, and the film moves at a breakneck pace to cover its ground, both narratively and geographically. Characters in China in one scene are in Germany in the next, and the amount of creative design is never less than overwhelming.

Newt (Eddie Redmayne) and his group of friends are tasked by Dumbledore (Jude Law) with a series of globe-trotting adventures to thwart Grindelwald's acolytes from assassinating political leaders and attempting to steal the election. One infiltrates Grindelwald's followers, one is imprisoned and needs release, one is framed for attempted murder, and all try to keep safe a Qilin, a magical deer-like creature that can determine someone's purity of spirit and thus bestow the office of Supreme Mugwump to the most deserving. This movie is all about its plot, obviously, and so the characters are thinly written and mostly undeveloped, compared to the massive character work done in the first two installments. Case in point: Credence (Ezra Miller) feels mostly shoehorned in here, and his story is getting less compelling by the minute. Whereas he initially was a fascinating character, and was essentially a MacGuffin for the mystery plot in the second film, here he just pops in a few times to learn that he's been lied to repeatedly and that his choices have been the product of gaslighting and abuse.

But I could hardly believe its opening scene brings the romantic relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald to the fore; it's a quietly entrancing scene of afternoon tea as the attractive two stars remember their affection and passions privately. The blatant queerness still isn't satisfying, but at least it's canon now, rather than relegated to internet message boards and digital missives from the author. And there are still nuggets of joy for fans, such as the physical humor Newt undertakes to distract the prison guards (if that's what the strange scorpion-like mini-manticores are?) by dancing his way to his brother Theseus's cell (Callum Turner). Similarly, the film works hard to repair the relationship between the No-Maj Jacob (Dan Fogler) and his paramour witch Queenie (Alison Sudol), and that finally has a really nice concluding feel to it. On the other hand, Newt's tenuous relationship with Tina (Katherine Waterston) has all but fizzled out, and she doesn't even appear until the penultimate scene of this film, sadly. 

What else can be said in brief? I'm feeling more hesitant than usual to critique this film because of several factors. First, it doesn't work on its own terms, but rather as a continuation of the story. Second, it's supposedly only the third entry in a five-part series, and it's hard to see where exactly the story is headed next. Third, it's more politically engaged than previous entries, but slightly out of its time; while its aggressive concerns about racism and governmental fraud have been timely for the last six years now -- and fit well with its setting of 1930s Berlin -- now they feel less nuanced and more like flogging a dead horse. Fourth, and I hate even saying this, the production studio has put further installments of this series on hold to determine if they will be commercially viable, which is about the greediest thing they could say to whip up fans into a frenzy, to say nothing of their lack of artistic integrity as a studio.

I absolutely loved the introduction of a professor from Ilvermorny (the U.S. wizarding school), a Charms instructor named Lally Hicks (Jessica Williams). Her spunk and charm are much needed, and she's a breathtaking screen presence. The Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam) storyline here is deeply emotional, finally validating his presence in the previous film. And other than that, it's all fun magical mayhem, just as we expect from the series. I personally love this franchise, despite a few issues with writing and editing, because of its creativity, its performances, and its production design, and so I hope David Yates and Steve Kloves and team continue their brilliant and fun work.

Deep Water (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

A Hulu exclusive? Ugh, I'm getting tired of this streaming frenzy. I get that Disney owns everyone now, but if they're going to financially back movies for adults, why do they have to dump the releases unceremoniously on Hulu?

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I really liked Deep Water, the poorly titled new erotic thriller from Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction, Jacob's Ladder, Indecent Proposal). I thought Lyne had retired or something, but thankfully the master (of sorts) is back in form after, what, a decade or more? I confess to loving a solid erotic thriller, and the subgenre has been considered dead for a long time now. Of the most recent ones that come to mind, Fatale was a bit disappointing, Acrimony was pitifully misled, and I actually really enjoyed Careful What You Wish For. But that's about it in the last decade or more! I love movies like this, where the sexual tension is palpable and laced with murderous intent; the actors are usually gussied up to look like glamorous off-duty models and the drama is forced, uncomfortable, and delicious.

This story, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel (Highsmith's work always gets high scores in my roster), concerns Vic and Melinda Van Allen, a married couple with a young daughter Trixie and absolutely no love between them. We're not sure why they're together, except maybe for Trixie's dubious benefit, as in the opening sequence we see Melinda actively cheating on her husband as he watches. He later corners her new lover at the same party to quietly warn him that he killed Melinda's previous extramarital partner. Ben Affleck plays Vic in a powerful performance so understated we're never really sure what he's capable of doing. And that's okay, because the point is made loud and clear. He could be killing off her partners, and that's what matters for their relationship.

Ana de Armas plays Melinda with a cool, sexy suavity engendered by disillusionment. She's unexpectedly amazing in this role, and she seems to be having a lot of fun with it. De Armas and Affleck together have an unlikely chemistry, and Lyne films them in stunning clarity, emphasizing their physical connection in counterpoint to their mental games. She seems to know what he's capable of, to the point that when yet another of her lovers ends up dead -- at a party they are still present for -- she is utterly convinced Vic did it. A nosy acquaintance at the party (played by Tracy Letts), who writes for a living, takes a keen interest in their dynamic and the murderous potentiality of Vic's behavior, starts poking around after Melinda's accusations find purchase in his mind. It's then that the plot really gets going.

This isn't a mystery. It's also not a standard drama. You have to know the subgenre to appreciate a movie like this, and if you do, there is a lot here to admire. The performances are all great, and the writing gives them some juicy stuff to gnaw through, though it stops short of the kind of spectacle you might expect. Utterly earnest as it is, it brilliantly plays everything deadly serious, keeping the psychosexual tension humming like in Gone Girl or others (I thought of the Fincher film because Affleck is playing a similar character, with a few notable changes). I wanted a bit more dialogue to flesh out some more heady concerns of the screenplay, such as the ways in which most characters attempt to commodify and use each other for selfish purposes. Especially near the end things get really dark really quickly, and I wanted more of that. But thankfully this is a feature film, not a miniseries, and we need to maintain the value of not drawing things out needlessly.

Turning Red (2022)

Score: 3 / 5

Disney's last few movies haven't quite done much for me, and the latest -- in conjunction with Pixar -- pretty much follows suit. Turning Red features a breakneck screenplay that has a lot going for it. Fiercely intelligent, it concerns the coming of age of a girl in a world she is still learning to navigate. Added to Meilin's (Rosalie Chiang) journey are elements, yes, of age and gender, but also of class and race. Her Chinese-Canadian family lives in Toronto and she helps her mother Ming (Sandra Oh) run a sacred temple for their ancestors; their family has a mystical connection with red pandas. She's also a bit of a geek at school, annoyingly involved in everything and not shy about her widespread interests. Most importantly, Mei is becoming a woman at the time this film gets going, and so in multiple ways she is indeed "turning red."

I wasn't ready cognitively for an animated Disney movie to so pointedly tackle menstruation and puberty in girls, but I quickly hopped on board. The film fabulously courts audiences into its candy-colored world at a breakneck pace, one seemingly designed for Gen Z viewership due to its frenetic energy. Blink and you'll miss crucial plot and character details. There are pointed scenes about the awkwardness of engaging your mother about your changing body; she repeatedly checks if Mei needs a tampon, even in public. Mei's burgeoning interest in boys -- she is 13, so take that for what it's worth -- is perhaps the most obvious point of the film, and causes no small amount of stress for her (she should be focusing on schoolwork, work, and her tight friend group) and her mother (as a proper mother from eastern Asia, her standards and expectations for Mei's success are almost unattainable).

POOF. After a particularly embarrassing moment in which Mei's mother shames the store clerk after whom she's pining, Mei's overwhelming emotions transform her into a giant red panda. Obviously this plays off the western werewolf myth -- or for Gen Z audiences, the Incredible Hulk story -- but it's clever culturally and symbolically. Turning into animals in times of need or stress is a common trope; less common is using the animal to describe and symbolize real issues, such as new body hair, new body type, and new colors that could be alarming to an impressionable youngster. Mei's panic at seeing herself soon changes to more existential questions of identity. How can she fit in if she's prone to poofing in a cloud of red smoke and fur?

The film actively embraces the identity of Mei, and everything from the animation style to the editing speaks to forcing us into her world. It's a hormonal roller coaster mixed with a style not unlike anime. That's, frankly, why I don't much like the film, but I understand that the popular aesthetic will appeal to many other viewers than myself. Sudden tight zooms on faces, cartoonish and exaggerated expressions (like the glistening wide eyes of...hope? Starstruck awe?), and backgrounds that suddenly look like the backdrop of a comic book when a superhero materializes. These moments and many more make the film feel like something in an anime, which is just a style I don't enjoy.

I also think it's a profound disservice that this film went straight to streaming. Disney films will always do well in the box office, and Disney+ is clearly doing just fine for itself, so it's annoying to me that they are releasing feature films there (such as Soul). Maybe some of the more experimental or risky ones (the live action Lady and the Tramp that I refuse to watch because those beasts are nightmare fuel), sure, but not original, reliable animated features. It feels weird to me that Luca, the first ostensibly queer drama from the studio, was released this way, and now that the most aggressively and intelligently feminist Disney movie in ages (other than Raya and the Last Dragon and Frozen II), one has to wonder why Disney is playing it safe in cinemas. I mean, Ming literally asks her daughter at one point "Has the red peony blossomed?" and even though it was meant as a cringey joke by the writers, it caught me offguard and I got a bit emotional about it. Perhaps residual concerns about the pandemic's effect on ticket sales is why they're just streaming it, but it's telling that Disney is still releasing half their output in theaters.

In terms of the film itself, I'm not sure what else to say. We could talk about the universality of Mei's story paired with the incredibly realized specificity of her culture and society. There are conversations to be had about first and second generation immigrants, about how this story encourages synthesis between tradition and novelty, about working class families and inner city youth. We could psychoanalyze the panda, the girls coming of age, the mother. We could talk about Mei's loving father and the objectification of boys. We can even praise Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell for their musical input vis-a-vis 4-Town, the boy band (with five members) for whom the girls all swoon. Perhaps most interesting to me is the film's intense concern over generational curses, and how Mei connects with her ancestors over the seeming curse of the family women turning into monsters (even when Ming, too, turns, it's a shocking moment of, shall we say, kaiju proportions). But ultimately, it's a cute romp through feminist territory that normalizes stories of immigrant families, and it's really wonderful. I just personally wish it was presented in a different format aesthetically.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

The most aggressively weird movie in a long time, the latest from Daniels is a doozy. It begins as one thing, shifts into something wildly different, and by the halfway point is unrecognizable as a coherent film. And then, by the end, I found myself so awash in feelings and sensations I've never felt in a film before that I stood with my friend outside the cinema and we just giggled and cried and kept shrugging our shoulders because we just couldn't figure out what we were feeling. Everything Everywhere All at Once is, I promise you, not like you might expect. No summary or synopsis can do it justice. I'm not even sure watching it can do it justice. Think of it like an SNL skit -- about everything and about nothing at the same time, so specific and so absurd at once -- pulled into a two-and-a-half-hour arthouse genre flick. Then you'll start to grasp what's really going on here. Maybe.

It begins with the sardonic wit of reality, as first-generation immigrant Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) struggles to keep her laundromat afloat. They are under audit by the IRS after having incorrectly filed taxes, and her husband Waymond is passively trying to serve her divorce papers; her daughter Joy is pushing for her family to accept her girlfriend, and her typically patriarchal father Gong Gong has recently arrived for a visit from China. Evelyn's life is a bit chaotic at the moment, and it only gets worse when they visit their auditor, Dierdre Beaubeirdre (a hilarious Jamie Lee Curtis). I wondered how long the movie would dwell on this; its tone suggests something a bit more commercially approachable than David Foster Wallace's The Pale King but with the same sour humor. 

It doesn't last long here, as shortly after arriving at their appointment, Waymond is seemingly possessed by a Waymond from another universe. He tells a fantastic story about the other universes, all of which are parallel, and all of which are now in jeopardy because the daughter Joy from his universe has created a black hole, possibly out of spite. It's up to Evelyn to save everyone. But she doesn't have the time or the desire to help. The hilarity of her situation is rather short-lived, at first, because the evil Joy's minions appear and start attacking. Evelyn must "hop" between universes to learn skills and knowledge from alternate Evelyns to fight back. Thankfully she can draw on an Evelyn who excels at mixed martial arts and even an Evelyn with long slappy noodle hands; with all these extra experiences and abilities, she gets spinning a lot, questioning what she thought she knew about her life, the possible lives she could have led, and the value of her family relationships.

As we hop between universes, I was pleased to note that the film is utterly original in its exploration of the multiverse, at a time when this will be the dominant sci-fi trope and will surely be beaten to death by the MCU and DCEU. It is original, that is, even while actively and hilariously nodding at other films and franchises. For example, there is an alternative universe modeled off Ratatouille, ones like The Matrix, even one uncannily like 2001: A Space Odyssey. In one, Evelyn is a movie star earning awards and fame; in one she is a rock watching a wasteland. Even the real world -- most of which takes place in an IRS building -- becomes a strange place in which enemies fight with kung fu and moves out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or even, yes, Shang-Chi. The cubicles become an endless hallway of doldrums that contain an endless supply of bizarre weapons, culminating in usage of an "auditor of the year" award becoming a butt plug. The cinematography and editing change with each universe; sometimes even the aspect ratio changes. The film handles its internal chaos beautifully so that even as things exceeded my conscious comprehension, I could follow its emotional lines through to their payoffs. I'd like to revisit the film sometime, or at least read its screenplay, to appreciate and understand it better. I know I missed significant portions of dialogue as I held my splitting sides.

Michelle Yeoh is amazing, and I teared up more than once watching her masterfully guide the film to its sticking places. Her action-movie prowess is always stunning, but here we can really see what she does with a feature-length feature that very much relies on her role to convey human experience. And she delivers all of them plus some! Using dry wit and biting humor she embraces the comedic aspects even as she uses almost imperceptible facial muscles to convey entire manifestos with a single look. Her talent shines on the top tier, and this is the kind of movie that will help people recognize her brilliance.

No less amazing is Stephanie Hsu, who plays Joy, a role I initially thought little of but who I think probably carries equal emotional weight in the film. Joy's thematic locus rests on an otherwise undefined but strongly emphasized generational and cultural divide between Evelyn, her father, and her offspring. Joy's queerness and feminism are foreign to Evelyn, who feels growing disappointment that Joy isn't embracing the opportunities Evelyn's hard work has made possible. Similarly, Evelyn's lifestyle and values are a far cry from her father's (who is played by the wonderfully voiced James Hong), and these restive tensions come to a head when the black hole -- spoiler alert: it's an everything bagel -- spirals its way into our universe. Thankfully, according to the film's apparent logic, the destructive void of generational disconnect and regret and disappointment can be ended when we choose to love and accept and learn from each other, especially those of us in different generations. I'm not sure if that's the main message of this film, or really a valid one, but it's the one that stuck out to me after a single viewing and I'm running with it for now.

Come for Michelle Yeoh. Stay for the chaos. Enjoy the novelty and beauty and hilarity and weirdness along the way. It's a unique and fabulous experience for your senses.

Ambulance (2022)

Score: 2.5 / 5

It's pretty much what you'd expect from the trailer, or by knowing that Michael Bay is directing again. Thankfully, this one doesn't call for the outlandish over-reliance on special visual effects that made him famous with the Transformers franchise, but beyond that it's very much a Bay blockbuster effort. His trademarks here manifest in exhilarating chase sequences, massive explosions and gunfights, and bewildering editing and dizzying kinetic cinematography. And despite some heavy-hitting star talent, it's also a pretty unremarkable film that might have been better as an extended episode for a serial drama like 9-1-1. 

Struggling veteran Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II of Candyman, The Trial of the Chicago 7, The Matrix Resurrections) is in a bind to finance his sick wife's life-saving surgery. He asks his adoptive brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) for help, and gets roped into a bank heist. Danny knows what he's doing -- his latent sociopathy peeks through occasionally in a masterful performance that could easily have been single-note -- but even the best-laid plans will go awry when players are blinded by the love of money. After sudden violence and graphic bloodshed, the brothers are forced to hijack an ambulance as a getaway vehicle, keeping as dubious hostages an EMT nurse Cam Thompson (Eiza Gonzalez) and a slowly dying police officer. Yeah, the nurse is Latina and the brothers are black and white and the camera lingers on the cop's badge more than once; it's a typically performative bit of diversity and hot topic-baiting that doesn't end up meaning much.

But this movie isn't a riveting psychological thriller or fraught social commentary piece. It's an action movie, and Bay knows what he's doing in that arena. Ambulance is indeed a roller coaster to watch, wild and kinetic in its palpable adrenaline rush. The opening sequence is arguably its best, balancing bits of multiple characters and their stories and bouncing between them to show their interplay and inevitable collision. Once the actual heist devolves into bloody chaos, the film's stakes are pretty much ratcheted up to their apex; things shift a bit as the hostages consider fighting back and the cops pursuing the brothers attempt to negotiate, but it's all held at a plateau that feels more like a test of endurance than one of maintaining interest.

The film reaches a particularly contrived but effective climax when, during the final chase, Cam is performing open surgery to save the cop while his blood gushes like a fountain and Will serves as a human blood bag and Danny is driving the wrong way on an overpass being chased by helicopters. It's completely insane, and everything goes wrong, and it's all just a breathless flood of images and deafening sounds and dizzying camerawork. I said it felt like a roller coaster, and it's telling that a repeated moment in this film is what appears to be a drone shot, zooming up the side of an LA skyscraper and then zooming back down until the audience's collective stomach is in its throat. There's nothing profound or meaningful or moving about Ambulance, but it's still a fun time in the cinemas before we head into summer blockbuster season.

Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021)

Score: 2 / 5

Do franchises ever end anymore? When I heard Christopher Landon was returning to write a new installment of Paranormal Activity, I confess myself a little excited but mostly bewildered. The franchise spent a lot of time and money in 2015 to fully end the cycle Oren Peli had created in 2007. The Ghost Dimension, which split fans due to its heavy reliance on CGI and poor narrative focus determined to tie up some of the loose ends that had dangled for far too long, effectively ended the franchise on a note divergent from the material that made the franchise so spectacular and effective. As such, it was popularly considered a disappointment. Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that someone wanted to create a course-correcting new entry.

But Next of Kin is a shockingly bizarre entry that nobody wanted and probably even fewer have actually seen, much less appreciated. I had my doubts when it was announced as a Paramount+ exclusive film, but I was willing to give it a try anyway. But there is essentially no connection between this new film and the previous six, not in plot, character, setting, or even aesthetic. None. Sure, it carries the appearance of a found footage film, one shot admittedly with some beautiful cinematography, but the logic is completely gone. The excessive edits of the film bounce back and forth between what appear to be multiple cameras (often in unlikely places) when there is really only one in use. Repeatedly in the film I guffawed aloud as the edits revealed impossibilities in in-world camera techniques that made it impossible to suspend my disbelief entirely. By the climax, I was a but accustomed to the bizarre unbelievability, and director William Eubank (Underwater) did start to embrace the visual chaos he unleashed, but I was too far gone at that point to relate to the terror experienced by the protagonist.

Margot (Emily Bader) recently discovered that her mother -- who abandoned her as a child -- was a member of an Amish community. Curious about her past, she has enlisted her boyfriend and friends (for sound and camera capture) to help make a documentary. One wonders if her "documentary" is for YouTube only. But upon meeting the community members, her suspicions are piqued: her mother was clearly a controversial figure among locals, as several refuse to talk about her or cast dark looks upon mentioning her name. Perhaps this uptight community conceals the reason why her mother let her go. And where is Margot's mother now? The film's earlier scenes are clearly well-researched on Amish people (the reactions of the children to seeing outsiders are especially accurate, to a chilling and mildly comical level), but it also heavily relies on Othering them to create a somewhat icky "Scary Amish People" dread for most of the film. Even when -- spoiler alert -- this community is revealed to be not Amish at all, the taste is still bitter.

It's not an original idea. I thought multiple times of similar movies like The Village, The Ritual, The Visit, and even The Wicker Man and Midsommar, to which this one is clearly related aesthetically and thematically: Outsiders enter a sacred community whose religious or social ties antiquate them and who harbor a terrible secret. Here, there is a supernatural element not far off from The Blair Witch Project or the previous Paranormal Activity films, but the actual plot points and setting have nothing to do with the existing franchise. The only connection is the ultimate presence -- you guessed it -- of the same demon whose behaviors gave the series its title. Asmodeus (also called "Toby" in previous installments, a wry reference to the biblical/apocryphal Book of Tobit in which the demon prominently features) is indeed the being to whom this religious community devotes itself, and he's causing problems again as he tries to incarnate or manifest himself. Other than his presence, and the loose found footage format, Next of Kin felt keenly like an original story that was hijacked or repurposed by the studio and rebranded with Paranormal Activity ideas. With some work, it could just as easily have been a sequel to any other film I've already mentioned here.

Morbius (2022)

Score: 3 / 5

I'm so tired. Fandoms can be nice places to meet people and see creativity blossom in support of franchises that mean a lot culturally and personally, but increasingly they seem filled with toxic, hateful people who just want to tear other things apart in cruel and hypocritical ways. While the MCU is currently blessed with a fairly solid fanbase, almost all others suffer, even those adjacent to that behemoth. Take Sony's repeated attempts at breaking into Marvel properties, each of which I have thoroughly enjoyed. Its most recent attempts seem bent on exploring the villains as antiheroes, hence the Venom series and upcoming Kraven the Hunter film. The latest, based on one of my favorite characters from the comics, is very much in line with the odd aesthetic choices Sony has cultivated, and I am totally here for it. Apparently not everyone has been, but as usual, the clamor online largely sounds like angry children decrying the film as "bad" or "terrible" without actually stating reasons for their hatred and without acknowledging that their opinions aren't objective. So let's talk about Morbius.

The "living vampire" here takes the form of Jared Leto, who for the first time in several years actually looks and acts kind of normal on screen. He's recognizable, despite lots of effects to make him initially appear sickly and frail, and it's refreshing to remember he can actually perform when not covered in prosthetics and hiding behind caricatured mannerisms. Surprisingly physical here, his Dr. Michael Morbius is instantly believable in the film's early scenes, desperate to cure himself of a rare blood disease. His previous work has resulted in blue, artificial blood that works for many people, including children with similar illnesses, and has won him a Nobel Prize that he rejects early on. He just wants a better life and permanent salvation.

Anyone could guess that he'll end up getting the opposite. And soon enough, after collecting vampire bats from Central America and experimenting on them, he ends up splicing genes and fusing blood with them, transforming himself into a super strong, super fast vampire. Most of the middle of the film, as with many origin stories of super people, occupies its time with its protagonist learning the limits of his powers, which include echolocation and, somehow, a keen ability to fly. His bloodlust is sporadic, and it occasionally turns him into a monstrous gargoyle-like creature; at one point he says "You won't like me when I'm hungry" and it's unexpectedly hilarious in a delightful, metafictional way. The film's mythology leaves much to be desired, but then, don't most of these stories? As Morbius himself once notes in the film, there isn't as much "science stuff" to it as he first thought, and I think the screenwriters included that little gem just to piss off the hecklers.

With Leto's tortured performance in the middle of all the chaos -- and trust me, the plot is pretty chaotic, to say nothing of the action -- I found a lot of surprisingly thematic meat to chew on. Much like Tom Hardy's nuanced and vaudevillian turn as Venom, Leto digs into physical movement and earnest emotion as Morbius, questioning the extent of illness or addiction as it relates to his behaviors. Less effective is what the visual effects crew does to him; his appearance is great, but the CGI around him never quite manages to make sense. Smoky trails of residue follow him around when he moves quickly, in effects that feel ripped from these kinds of movies in the late '90s or early '00s, and when his ears prick up, they look rippled and pulsing like cords on a harp in an effect that had me actually retching in my seat. It's uniquely horrid.

If he's a hero, why do his attempts to help others result in murder (especially graphic murder)? Why, in the film's early scenes, does no one blink an eye that Morbius's ethically shameful and completely illegal experiments lead him to international waters for the deed? But then, does it matter? It allows for some fun nods to other vampiric fiction, such as the drifting ship littered with bloodless corpses (Dracula) named the Murnau (director of Nosferatu). It also allows the characters to return home changed, a crucial moment in any superhero film, which sets up the primary external conflict for the plot. Enter Matt Smith as Morbius's surrogate brother, jealous and wealthy man with the same blood disease who takes the same "cure" but embraces the more monstrous side of his new identity. He's the primary villain, apart from Morbius fighting with his own impulses and lusts, and Smith is really wonderful in the film. 

I love that we finally have a superhero film that is an honest-to-Stan-Lee horror film. I don't love that it's only PG-13, like Venom, and so can't quite give itself over to the necessary elements that could make it fabulous like Deadpool. It's never quite as dark as it wants to be, though I felt suitably icky with dread multiple times, such as when a nurse walks down a hallway with motion-sensor lights and gets stalked by a vampire. It's not nearly as gory or violent as it should be, and most of the action is sadly unwatchable due to uninspired cinematography, an excess of VFX, and bewildering edits. But it's still a fairly good time, despite a general lack of humor, and hopefully a suitably dark entry in the burgeoning Sinister Six franchise for Sony.