The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Score: 5 / 5

It's just one of the weirdest, coolest movies around. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a loose adaptation of a Greek tragedy, but you'd probably know that even if it wasn't mentioned in the movie. There's something profoundly sad and absurd about it that's deeply theatrical and feels Just, in an archaic sort of way.

The film concerns a heart surgeon (Colin Farrell) who befriends a young man (Barry Keoghan), though their relationship is left mysterious for about a third of the movie. It turns out that the doctor had operated on the boy's father after a car accident and he had died. The boy blames the surgeon for destroying his family, and now says the surgeon will have to kill a member of his own family to balance his crime. Until he does so, each member of his family will suffer and die, one by one. When the surgeon's youngest child is suddenly paralyzed, the horrors begin.

While at first we hate the young man, whose creepy and awkward interactions do little to endear him to anyone, we eventually learn too that the surgeon is a former alcoholic, which may have played a part in the death. All that began with violence will end in violence, and moral disarray is cast out of thought by the presence of a primal, blood-for-blood sense of justice. It's a gripping story, and in the hands of writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster), it's a weird, wacky, totally fascinating work of psychological horror.

The performances, especially those of Farrell and Nicole Kidman, are masterful works of deadpan humor. Much like them, the director seems to handle everything with a morbid sense of comedy that grows more perverse as things get dark and dangerous. That doesn't make it any less brutal or brooding, but it does make you feel worse for enjoying it. Lanthimos, for all his curious and flamboyant style, doesn't undermine the story with his antics; rather, he pours in his creative energies into the slower parts of the film to make them spectacular, and when the drama kicks into high gear, he simply lets it go for the guns. It's a cool, calculated, and totally awesome method of moviemaking in a film all about cruelty and desperation.

IMDb: The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Annihilation (2018)

Score: 5 / 5

This is science fiction at its very best. Like Arrival and Ex Machina, Annihilation takes what is already a fascinating premise and relies on smart storytelling to creep under your skin and mess with your mind. It's a work of visionary genius, an immersive experience beyond what I imagined, thrilling and horrifying but beautiful and wondrous. It's the kind of movie that comes out when least expected, hits you where it counts, and haunts you afterward.

Natalie Portman plays biologist Lena, whose missing husband shows up at home but seems different somehow. He falls ill, and en route to the hospital they are abducted by a government organization called Southern Reach. Taken to a remote location, called "Area X" in what must be Florida or Louisiana, the Southern Reach has been studying a mysterious region cut off from the world by "The Shimmer". Before you get totally turned off by the silly sci-fi proper nouns, just know that's about where it ends.

The Shimmer, an oily boundary stretching from ground to sky, is expanding slowly, and no research teams who entered have returned (save the husband, played by Oscar Isaac). Dr. Ventress (a chilly Jennifer Jason Leigh), a psychologist in charge of the facility, assembles a team of women to go in and learn what the men could not, and Lena joins them. Weird shit happens immediately, as the women wake up apparently four days later with no memory of their actions during that time. Not long after, monsters beset the team and claim victims. As they get closer to the lighthouse, the epicenter of this dreamlike landscape, reality is warped and matter is in a constant state of cellular mutation. Alien biology? Multiple dimensions? Spiritual manifestations? Who knows what the hell is happening here. That's why it's great science fiction.

There are almost no answers in this movie. Its beauty is in its ambiguity and mystery. It forces you to think and pulls no punches, even during its scenes of visceral body horror (I will forever see those swirling tentacles in my belly). Each shot is an artistic masterpiece, from kaleidoscopic lichens and mold to trees made of sand-turned-glass. The rainbow gleams in every other shot remind us of where we are and of the oily slick that makes the Shimmer beautiful but distinctly toxic. Writer and director Alex Garland is a master of visual beauty as well as tonal complexity: His movie changes temperature and volume seemingly without effort, and he assaults you with so many arresting visuals you don't always have time to check yourself and remind your brain that you're okay.

Garland and his characters mix deadpan with melodrama, spectacle with mind fuckery so much that the film quickly becomes a cerebral jungle. Its cosmic horror isn't just in the human body or biology at large, but in the very mode of storytelling. Flashbacks and flashforwards interrupt the narrative while the mythic strength of a quest into a heart of darkness / into hell / for a beloved potently invites a wide range of speculation and interpretation. Which, really, is what science fiction is all about.

IMDb; Annihilation

Our Souls at Night (2017)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Yet another fabulous Netflix feature, Our Souls at Night is one of the quietest and sweetest movies of the year. It concerns a widow and a widower, neighbors, who begin sleeping together to combat their loneliness. As their affections grow, they grow from platonic partners to romantic partners, creating a family of their own when their children and grandchildren come into the picture. As age and personal commitments begin to separate them, their love is tested, and the end result is an enlightening, empowering testament to what can happen when we love without restraint.

The film has its familiar rhythms and tropes, but it never once feels tired or vague. Its wit is as sharp as its sense of purpose, and hardly a moment is wasted. So many of the scenes have nothing but stars Robert Redford and Jane Fonda together, talking, and these make up the meat of the movie. There's nothing better than watching two amazing performers acting the crap out of a solid screenplay, and their chemistry is endlessly watchable. Toss in a cute little boy (Iain Armitage), a sweet dog, and support in the forms of Matthias Schoenaerts, Phyllis Somerville, and Judy Greer, and you have an absolute delight.

Plus, for a romance and drama about aging, the film is remarkably slim on sentiment. There's not an ounce of melodrama, nothing nostalgic or weepy. These are very real characters -- some of the most complex I've ever seen in a romance -- and they confront their problems with frankness, intelligence, and gumption. A total lack of irony makes this film a breath of fresh air, one that reminds us of how ridiculous so many in the genre can be.

IMDb: Our Souls at Night

Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017)

Score: 4 / 5

I'm not sure we wanted a movie about Gloria Grahame. She was never that great, always in Marilyn Monroe's shadow on screen and in life, and there's that icky story about her affair with her 13-year-old stepson. But here we are, and thankfully this film follows the true-to-life account of Peter Turner's affair with the aging actress in a manner not unlike My Week with Marilyn. It's a sweet, warm, and ultimately sappily sentimental picture about love, death, and legacy, and that's all it needs to be.

Of course, it's helmed by Annette Bening who, as usual, shines brilliantly as Grahame, with her affected, lilting voice and lingering eyes. Countering her is Jamie Bell as Turner in what might be his best performance yet (certainly his sexiest!). Theirs is a sordid love story, rote and often banal in this film, one that heavily relies on clichés to finish the job. There are also a surprising amount of mommy issues in this picture; while that invites Julie Walters and Vanessa Redgrave in for supporting roles, it didn't do much to endear the characters to this viewer.

As a film about art and the tireless effort of artists to do what they love, I enjoyed it. As a film about an unlikely love affair between a mostly unlikable, conceited older woman and and endlessly likable, confident and giving younger man, I found it problematic but pleasing to watch. As a historical account of Grahame's last days, I don't know and I don't care about its accuracy. I'd be remiss not to praise director Paul McGuigan (Sherlock, Victor Frankenstein, Luke Cage), however, for some amazing work, as well as the cinematographer for the same: My favorite moments occur when the narrative jumps through time in a single take, as Turner walks through a door and the light changes and the scene changes but there are no editing cuts. Those were lovely.

It would be a charming movie to watch on a date, at night, in a beach house maybe or after a warm Italian dinner; it's just sweet and simple and, yes, pretty damn sad.

IMDb: Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool

Beach Rats (2017)

Score: 3 / 5

This is exactly the kind of movie I normally like. Artsy and pretentious, it has almost nothing to do with plot and everything to do with feeling. Gorgeously photographed on 16mm with the trippy lights of Coney Island in the background, Beach Rats feels like a dream that's not quite a nightmare yet but is both erotic and deeply uncomfortable. A claustrophobic snapshot of a life on the brink, the film is a character study that never quite makes the cut, but remains fascinating as an exercise.

Harris Dickinson plays Frankie, the teenager with apparently no responsibilities, enjoying his life on the Brooklyn summer beach. He escapes his mother and sister by hanging out with his male friends and doing a lot of drugs, walking around and sulking shirtless to gawk at girls, and playing ball. By night, he holes himself up in his basement room and logs into online sex-chatrooms via webcam with older men. He'll occasionally meet up with them in the shadowy recesses of the beach for hookups and drug deals. While he'd never identify as "gay" or "bi" or whatever he might deem cool, Frankie doesn't seem to feel the fear or constraints of a typical queer protagonist.

Then again, he doesn't seem to feel much of anything. It's all a lovely film, but there's nothing to sink your teeth into. We've seen half of this before (done better, too), and the other half doesn't make you interested enough to care. When the older men lasciviously gaze at Frankie's smooth, muscular body, you get the distinct impression the director is mocking her own audience. It's all a meditation on voyeurism and we are complicit. I'm all for objectifying male bodies for a change, but also can we make it consensual and legal and not creepy?

It doesn't help that the dialogue in this film is so sparse and the actors so stoic. For example, Frankie's girlfriend get upset that he blows her off and doesn't open up. We don't feel sorry for him because he's an asshole. And then he comes back multiple times -- while she's at work -- to whine and beg her to give him another chance. It's pathetic. I was also totally turned off by his drug consumption, partly because it results in a climactic hookup gone horribly wrong. But also partly because I'm tired of watching movies about unrequited queer desires that marry stupid characters to bad situations where nothing will end well.

Then again, as an exercise in loneliness and longing, the film is undeniably beautiful to watch. It provocatively suggests that longing is both agonizing and pleasurable, and that longing can be at least partially assuaged by watching. Too bad the characters are all jerks that I didn't really want to watch.

IMDb: Beach Rats

Stronger (2017)

Score: 4 / 5

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jeff Bauman, a real-life victim of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing who lost both his legs. The film Stronger, based on Bauman's book of the same name, would seemingly be about strength, perseverance, and the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality of a Clint Eastwood movie (and the racist baloney that comes with his pictures). And, to some extent, the film is all about a man's efforts to rehabilitate.

But Stronger is far more than that: It's a surprising look at a man broken long before the loss of his legs. First and foremost a character study, the film follows Jeff as an underachieving young man whose charm and sweet demeanor belie an apparent inability to commit to anything. He still lives at home with his alcoholic mother, he recently broke up with his girlfriend, and he's always running late. When he does, finally, "show up" to something, namely the finish line of the marathon, cheering on his ex, the street explodes. When he comes to, one of his first conscious thoughts is that he had seen the bomber. The police follow his lead, and before long, Jeff is championed as a hero.

That's where the other characters in this study come into play. Boston itself is a crucial character in the film, often depicted as a mass of people cheering on hockey games and baseball games, holding banners on bridges, and buying each other drinks at the bar. They love their city, and the cry of "Boston Strong" rings out in every other scene. They lionize Jeff, whose family also basks in the glory. The Baumans, numerous and rowdy as they may be, are a "disaster", according to Jeff, but endlessly lovable. Eccentric perhaps to a fault, they are lead by Miranda Richardson in one of her very best performances.

Parts of the film are hard to watch, as it's not until the very end that Jeff gets his act together and embraces his new life. Constant fights between him and his mother and his girlfriend (Tatiana Maslany in a thankless but impressive performance) are interrupted by scenes of Jeff breaking down, alone, in bathrooms and elevators, binge drinking with his immature buddies, and traumatic flashbacks to the bombing. What started as a film about a single man's journey to rehabilitation quickly becomes a complex odyssey of a man coming of age, accepting responsibility, and navigating a world of loving relationships he had previously squandered.

It's also a film about a city, a thriving, pulsing community more intimately connected than many I've seen on screen. It helps that the filmmakers shot most of it in Boston and with local actors and non-actors. Some of the main players are even the people who were present at the marathon that day, and first responders to the crisis. That augments the realism of the film, as does the magnificent cinematography, much of which consists of long takes and carefully constructed blocking. I'd say the screenplay is important here as well, but so many of the scenes include what appears to be improvised dialogue that I'd have to include praise for acting as well.

Though it's pretty straightforward -- and I think more could have been made of the story -- Stronger is a charming and heartfelt movie, one that keeps you interested even as it slaps you with clichés. But for a movie that staunchly refuses to turn its protagonist into a hero (while everyone else wants to do just that), it makes for a fascinating character study and inspirational afternoon viewing. Plus, Jake Gyllenhaal is just wonderful.

IMDb: Stronger

Mudbound (2017)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I still haven't read Hillary Jordan's book, but Mudbound is a fascinating movie, especially since it has only been widely released on Netflix. In some ways I was hesitant to see it: There seems to be an awards-bait tendency to drop a "race" film in December, one that usually casts black people as slaves, maids, or the victims of lynchings. And, sure enough, this one isn't much different. But, like Loving and a few others recently, Mudbound complicates the usual tropes just enough to rise above expectations.

The story concerns two families, the Jacksons (black) and the McAllans (white). The McAllans get cheated into moving onto poor farmland, and they work the muddy ground alongside the Jacksons, who feel grateful to have land in a way their ancestors did not. The film creates magnificent parallels between the two families, especially in the mothers and sons: Carey Mulligan and Mary J Blige play the respective mothers who support but subtly challenge their subservient household positions, while Garrett Hedlund and Jason Mitchell play their sons who go off to war and return deeply changed. The white son, traumatized, bonds with the black son, who is confronted anew with violent racists he was free from in Europe, where he loved a white woman and fathered a son.

Nowhere is this made worse than in the character of Pappy, the McAllan patriarch, whose vile lines of dialogue spew racist baloney and white supremacy with every syllable, and whose gravelly voice immediately sets him up as a one-note villain who is almost more terrifying because of his simplicity. Of course, he's not the only monster in Jim Crow America, but the film smartly keeps things focused on the families.

I was most interested in the narration, a series of voiceovers from the main characters (except Pappy, thankfully) who alternate soliloquies, creating a chorus of voices. At first, I found this technique irritating and distracting, probably a translation of the book where such devices can propel the story, as it felt manipulative and disjointed. By the end, however, I understood its effort was to create a communal center of emotion. The tragedies of war and racism and violence affect all the characters differently, and their separate-but-together narrations enlighten the viewer to their more profound personal toll.

Which leads me to a final point. Mudbound has a lot of plot going on, and in fact, maybe too much. Lengthy parts of its over-two-hour run time set me to distraction simply because of scenes that do little more than create atmosphere and extraneous tension. Director Dee Rees, though, brilliantly centers her movie not on what is happening, exactly, but rather on whom it is happening. She gets amazing performances from her actors, some arrestingly good cinematography from Rachel Morrison, and a story that is more of a character study than anything else.

Take the sons, for instance. Jamie (white) and Ronsel (black), to help each other stay sane after the war, spend a lot of time together. But Jamie's swagger and provocative friendship with a black man reveal a deeper problem of white liberality. Both he and his mother, who are not explicitly racist like Pappy and Henry (the husband/father played by Jason Clarke), serve to benefit from the system of white supremacy and are protected by their skin color to the horrors they indirectly inflict on the Jacksons. It is because of Jamie's charisma and carelessness that (SPOILER ALERT) Ronsel gets abducted and tortured by the KKK near the end; Jamie's refusal to grasp the unfairness of their relationship results in him getting a bloody lip while Ronsel is forever silenced. In fact, seeing relationships like this reminded me of the brazen assault on casual racism in Get Out, and I think the two films would foster lively post-dinner conversation, in the right company.

There's a lot to unpack in this film, but what I was left with was the impression of deep complexity and emotional weight in the characters involved. The film uses thick contradictions to striking effect, making the viewer think about every moment. It's therefore exhausting to watch, a test of endurance and intelligence that I'm not sure I always passed. It will require further screenings. Moments of surprising tenderness and beauty, scenes of abject cruelty and horror, all combine in a picture of life that reminds us of the cost of injustice.

IMDb: Mudbound

Black Panther (2018)

Score: 5 / 5

Here it is. My favorite Marvel movie yet, and easily the most important one in the franchise. Black Panther is everything we dreamed it might be and then some. Suave and sophisticated, action-packed and thrilling, dazzling and gorgeous, it also doesn't skimp on relevance, timeliness, originality, and fun. It features some of the most rounded, dynamic characters I've ever seen in a superhero movie -- especially its antagonist -- and pairs them nicely with rich, thoughtful production design.

The basic story is simple: T'Challa returns home to Wakanda after the events of Civil War to find his throne challenged. His struggle to reclaim and reunite his homeland leads him to the contested decision of whether or not to open Wakanda to the world. Its "Afrofuturist" (as I read some calling it, magnificently) grandeur, scientific wonders, rich tastes and fashion, and technology could help liberate oppressed peoples around the world at the cost of breaking tradition and revealing their secrets. Their vulnerability, however, is no match for their warriors, led by a cadre of badass women, or their weapons.

There are so many fabulous things about this movie it would take a book to list them all. To start, Black Panther is a fresh take on the superhero story because it's about people rather than aliens or monsters or robots. The tense drama comes because we see real people arguing about real issues, albeit with laser guns and vibranium armor. Similarly, while to some extent the "hero" trope continues, this film is less concerned with Black Panther's individualism and single-handed macho victories than it is with his (and others') efforts to unite groups of people. It's a film about community first and foremost. The characters all seem radically interested in liberating their people, as well as people of color around the world. They listen to each other, support each other; there is no hierarchy of age or gender, and so we have elite women and elders who defer to youth.

Along these lines, we also see some great redemption and reconciliation between people sharply at odds. An early challenger to T'Challa, though not initially welcome, is saved from death and allowed to rejoin Wakanda society. Later, the antagonist Killmonger is similarly invited to rejoin the community. Perhaps this stems from his views on liberation; he doesn't attack or kill or terrorize for pleasure or chaos but for wanting to empower the oppressed. This is framed effectively by the flashbacks to his youth in 1992 California. Though he seeks violence as the answer, it's hard to shake his empathy and desire for justice.

And, actually, we don't have to shake it. A final scene features T'Challa addressing the United Nations, opening Wakanda to share its resources and advancements with the world. He declares that looking after each other "as if we are one tribe" must be the effort to avoid global catastrophe -- a unique perspective in a franchise about intergalactic alien conquest. While it's not the same solution as Killmonger's vision of a Wakandan global empire, it shares its beating heart: remaining isolated and secret in fact endangers the world and helps no one. Radical, violent empathy inspires and affects democratic change in policy and advances social justice. That's a lesson I can get behind every damn day.

There's more to say, but I don't want to go on forever. The acting is, across the board, stellar, though Michael B. Jordan, Danai Gurira, and Angela Bassett stood out to me. Letitia Wright plays Shuri, T'Challa's younger sister and scientific genius, in a fabulously funny role, and Andy Serkis reprises his role as a totally bat-shit-crazy Ulysses Klaue for a final time. I was really interested in Martin Freeman's role as the former CIA agent, as he goes through what, I think, white audiences go through in the film. His is a minor story arc of enlightenment as he journeys into the world of Wakanda and learns through experience not to be just an ally to the black nation, but rather to get in the thick of it and actively help them. He listens rather than talks, takes orders compliantly, and finally risks his life to save Wakanda. That's another lesson we would all do well to learn.

As a final note before I (hopefully) go see the movie again, just know: Black Panther is awesome. Go watch it, and then go watch again. Buy it later. Buy two. Give one as a gift. It's important, beautiful, fun, and brilliant.

IMDb: Black Panther

Colossal (2017)

Score: 4.5 / 5

What do you do when you realize that, at the same time and place each day, a monster appears on the other side of the world and does exactly what you do?

That question is only the beginning of Colossal, a complex story that defies genre and convention. Anne Hathaway masterfully plays Gloria, an alcoholic writer who is unemployed and struggling with the men in her life. Dumped and kicked out by her NYC boyfriend (Dan Stevens), she returns to her childhood home and meets up with old friends and flames while working as a bartender, which fuels her troubles. It's around this time, every day at 8:05 AM, that a monster appears in Seoul.

Gloria, though tormented by the pain and terror she unwittingly causes, has other battles to fight. Her real-life monsters include her ex, who returns to reclaim her, and her boss, self-hating and abusive suitor Oscar (Jason Sudeikis in a terrifying performance). The latter, we learn, has a similar predicament, and when Gloria and Oscar battle for agency in the relationship, it's a clash of the titans in South Korea.

Besides a fascinating screenplay (by director Nacho Vigalondo) and stellar performances, there's not much to this movie. It's a heartfelt story of a woman battling the odds and winning. It's a razor-sharp black comedy that never relents on awkward humor. And, of course, there's the bizarre manifestation of monstrous avatars wreaking havoc in a metropolis. The film weaves its way through unlikelihoods and absurdities to downright crazy shit, but the final act ties everything up into a rousing and emotional showdown that is as fitting and earned a conclusion as any I've seen on screen. When we see Godzilla-meets-Pacific Rim as a mirror for a bunch of drunken asshole losers in a fictional American town, we see a work of pure artistic wit that works to destabilize our cultural obsession with larger-than-life spectacle and ground us in the human element. Take that, Transformers.

IMDb: Colossal

The Beguiled (2017)

Score: 4.5 / 5

It's always refreshing to get one of those movies that sticks to its guns. Leave it to an auteur like Sofia Coppola to do it again with The Beguiled, where her artistic integrity -- for better or worse -- remains intact for the whole feature. It's obvious she isn't concerned about much beyond her vision for this piece, which makes it a fascinating moment as well as a beautiful one. What it doesn't make it is easy to watch or understand.

The story, if you haven't read it or seen the 1971 film, has a simple plot. A group of women, alone in a plantation-style house in Virginia, find a wounded Union soldier and take him in. As they nurse him to health, they grow fond of him and he flirts with each in turn. Jealousy and sexual tension undermine their lives while rivalries spring up to test the bonds of their community.

Especially as it is gorgeously filmed by Coppola, this picture is incredibly dense. Claustrophobic and atmospheric, it's an absorbing exercise in technical craft. White-washed linens contrast magnificently with darkened, candlelit interiors as well as the Spanish moss hanging from the gnarled willows outside. Amidst this beauty, we get glimpses of incredible internal struggle. The girls want to be women but enjoy their playful youth. The women don't know how to handle their sexuality. They can't quite balance Southern hospitality with safety or prudence. Their political, moral, and religious alliances are put to the test. Their Edenic isolation is at times choking; they each struggle with alienation from each other but cannot leave the property.

Add to this mess a hunky wounded man who requires care -- including a delicious scrub-bath -- and you know it won't end well. His are the eyes of a calculating man. We get the sense that he is a fine man, good-mannered and kind to children and animals, a gardener and tender of the earth, gentle and humble and thankful. We also get the sense that he's a liar and deeply unbalanced. He's terrified of being caught and imprisoned, and he's terrified of going back to war. PTSD or no, he toys with the affections of his hostesses, flirting and seducing them, even turning violent when he gets caught.

It's all a sort of psychosexual chamber play, a vivid heterosexual nightmare of what can go wrong between the sexes. There's hardly a moment we don't see coming, but that doesn't stop us from staring at the horror. Dangerous as the man is, he's nothing compared to the women, who all keep their motives hidden and play their cards close to the chest. It's a masterful game of facades and deception and power-play that could take whole psychoanalytic seminars to unpack. And all that's to say nothing of the perhaps problematic absence of anyone of color: One of the women in the school is, in the book and earlier film, a black slave. Rather than simply criticizing the lack of this character, we would do well to consider the impact this has on the film, the story, and our cultural moment. There is no easy answer, of course.

All that said, I can't help but feel just the tiniest bit wanting in the final film. I just wanted more. More violence, more sex, more Gothic imagery. Something to set it apart from the book and 1971 film, something special and different. I found myself getting distracted as I thought of all the exciting, crazy things I would have done in this adaptation had I written or directed it. Which really isn't the best response a movie like this should get.

IMDb: The Beguiled 

Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House (2017)

Score: 3 / 5

In yet another curious multiple-feature that happened this year (after the three Wonder Woman movies and two Dunkirk movies), Mark Felt and The Post both tackled Nixon-era scandals. Perhaps this combination isn't quite so curious as it is timely, but what's interesting to me is that neither of these films attempt to re-create Nixon himself. Both utilize stock footage of the former president while dramatizing efforts by reporters and politicians and aristocrats and bureaucrats to bring down the administration. Mark Felt would pair well with All the President's Men, too, were you to brave an all-day marathon of political thrillers set in the early 1970s. These films together would be as fascinating as a marathon of Nixon movies; are double marathons a thing?

Unfortunately, Mark Felt alone isn't much to look at. Dismal and slow, it drones on much like Liam Neeson's voice, forced and gravelly. One would think that a film detailing the many secrets of one of history's most famed whistleblowers wouldn't be so anticlimactic, but here we are. It's as though writer and director Peter Landesman (Parkland, Concussion), so desperate to engage critically with those famed journalists Woodward and Bernstein, has either bitten off more than he can chew or thought so deeply about this period in history that he has made it almost inaccessible to viewers.

Besides the tossing around of names and titles like confetti, the screenplay doesn't inform us of some of the more important details of the story. And before you say "movies can show, not tell", I'm letting you know this movie doesn't show much beyond what it says. Everything is dimly lit in bluish lighting, making of course the mystery of "Deep Throat" enjoyable to watch if too atmospheric for its own good. While the huge ensemble cast gives some fine performances, I couldn't help but feel the varied storylines were individually terribly weak and unfocused. Diane Lane, for example, makes only a few appearances, despite her top billing, most of which take away drastically from the politically thrilling pacing of the movie. It's not her fault, mind, but it constantly left me wanting more.

Then again, there are a few surprising and exciting scenes that should be mentioned. Liam Neeson plays Felt like a sphinx, his silvery hair glinting with his eyes, a total enigma to his peers and his audience. He embarks on several small plot arcs, the first of which involves J. Edgar Hoover's death and the power struggle left in his wake. A later one concerns Felt's daughter (Maika Monroe), who has abandoned her family for a part in the counterculture; this comes as a shock, as Felt has spent most of the film and is eventually indicted for aggressive and illegal actions against counterculture groups. Of course, the real heart of the move lies with, well, the lies told between the FBI and the White House. When politicians start sticking their fingers in FBI investigations, Neeson's character gets righteously riled, and the hairs on my arms stood up thinking about America 2017.

Oh, and for heaven's sake, was the title really necessary? Just Mark Felt or even Deep Throat would have been better.

IMDb: Mark Felt

Winchester (2018)

Score: 2 / 5

It's a grand idea. Devastated by the death of her husband and child, the aged Sarah Winchester lives in relative isolation. Her massive inheritance -- which she sees as blood money for the countless lives taken by the weapons her family produces -- she uses to catch and eventually liberate the souls of those spirits returned to haunt her. It's all much more exciting because it's based on a true story, the very real, very haunted Winchester mansion in San Jose. And the leading lady is played by Helen Mirren. What could go wrong?

Lots, apparently. While it's by no means the worst horror movie in recent memory, it cannot help but disappoint at nearly every turn. Derivative and dull, the movie lurches through jump scare after jump scare, an interesting technique that might have worked had the film not relied upon them to be a horror movie. Besides these genuinely scary moments, the plot is flat and dull, with nothing unnerving except the constant hammering in the always-under-construction house. So many ghosts appear that I wondered more than once if the idea was to turn this film into a franchise. More often than not, it felt like we were being introduced to varied, fascinating ghostly characters that will reappear in sequels, a sort of Ghost Whisperer franchise.

But I hope not. The best part of the film -- not Mirren or even Jason Clarke, who do what they can with a terribly written screenplay -- is the house itself. Partly filmed in the actual Winchester Mystery House and partly on soundstages, the picture is at its best when it pans, tracks, or hovers over any part of the fabulous house. The thick atmosphere inside is the stuff of a production designer's dreams, and the hardwood interiors, rich fabrics, and mazelike design are nothing if not stunning to behold. Unfortunately, the film also does not do the house justice, relying on a small handful of "iconic" sets for the action instead of actively exploring the interior that would be creepy if it weren't haunted.

It all feels like missed opportunities for something really dynamic. I can applaud the anti-gun premise and message all I want, but it rings hollow in a film that similarly echoes back ghostly whispers of what could have been.

IMDb: Winchester

Hostiles (2017)

Score: 3 / 5

In case the title didn't hit you over the head, the idea is that everyone is hostile (read: in America, in 1892, in the West, when we're different).

It's not a bad Western, really. Our brooding leading man (Christian Bale) is a captain, eager for retirement, who is commissioned on a last mission: Take the dying Cheyenne war chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) from New Mexico to his home in Montana. Despite his hatred of the man and his tribe, he is forced to undertake the journey. Not long after, his party comes across a woman (Rosamund Pike) whose family has been slaughtered by Comanches. More episodes follow as the journey becomes an adventure, many people die, many people kill, and a few even fall in love.

What else do you want from a Western? It's pretty typical stuff, though perhaps heavier than usual fare. Hostiles sets up a premise, helped by its marketing campaign, of more subversive themes that it never fully embraces. Just look at the poster, below: the cast, in grayscale to mute their skin colors into neutrality, superimposed over a colorful (if faded and torn) national flag. And then there's the tagline, "We are all...Hostiles", which suggests an almost Tarantino-esque aesthetic of "whodunnit...don't care...bang bang blood". But the film itself doesn't really play into these moral issues and curiously avoids some of the deeper thematic horrors that are as timely in 2018 as they were in 1892.

What exactly do I mean? Spoiler alert: Everybody dies. Well, everybody except the two main white people and a young Cheyenne boy who we last see on his way to white school, where we know the "Indian" will be burned out of him until he becomes "civilized". All the natives are butchered by white men, though most of the white men are then killed as well. Out of the three women in the story, two are native women with almost no voice at all who are senselessly murdered in the penultimate sequence. The third is the white woman who spends most of the film crying and shaking over the traumatizing deaths of her husband and children, unable to do much; she regains some impressive agency, especially her prowess with a gun, though ultimately we know she shouldn't have survived even a day without rescue by a hunky man. Right?

Then there's the film's ending, which ignores all the horrors of Westward expansion in favor of a love story. After the woman and child hop on a train back to Chicago, tearfully saying goodbye to the man who had saved them and she especially had grown attracted to, we see the captain also hop on the back of their train, the indication being that he, retired, will go start a life with them. What a lovely story about the inevitable death of Native cultures and the picture-perfect ways the beautiful white people responsible can live happily ever after, far away from the frontier they've washed with blood.

It's not all bad, to be sure. The gorgeous score and amazing cinematography make this film a pleasure to behold. An interesting and dynamic cast keep things really riveting, especially Rosamund Pike, who works damn hard to milk what the screenplay gave her for all its worth. And director Scott Cooper (Black Mass, Out of the Furnace) shows us again that his style is promising, if not yet excellent. Hostiles is, ultimately, watchable, if politically void, thematically problematic, and one of the longest, slowest, most serious movies you'll see this month.

IMDb: Hostiles