Skinamarink (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

"Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find that their father is missing and that the windows and doors in their house have vanished." That's more or less what you'll see as a synopsis if you do a quick internet search for Skinamarink. And it's not incorrect or even inaccurate; it is a bit reductive.

The feature debut of writer and director Kyle Edward Ball is best described as a nightmare, specifically one that I suspect many people have in fact had themselves. I certainly remember fearing my home as a child, staring down the long hallway in the dead of night imagining a malevolent presence inching its way closer to my bedroom, an oppressive darkness shielding me from it, as I wondered with increasing alarm when my parents might save me. Ball taps into that fear by recreating dreamlike sequences that feel ripped from a shared consciousness of memories, one he claims many people have confirmed to him and one that I can assuredly bear witness to as well. It's raw power of purpose and vision that allows Ball to dramatize something so primal and widespread; such a daring concept -- and with such a small budget -- is rarely undertaken these days. Think if The Blair Witch Project met Paranormal Activity and then got recreated by children, and you'll start to see what this movie is doing.

Indeed, two children wake in the night in 1995. Four-year-old Kevin apparently injures himself while sleepwalking, so says his slightly older sister Kaylee. Their father (presumably) takes him to the hospital and returns sometime later; we hear him on the phone with someone saying Kevin only hit his head and did not receive stitches. Later yet in the night, the children rise again to discover that their father is gone and the exterior doors and windows are disappearing. While the film doesn't, strictly speaking, format itself as found footage, Ball's cinematographer and editor certainly make it feel like we're seeing raw horror -- something we shouldn't be seeing at all -- in the first person. The shots are so extremely angled from a child's perspective that doorknobs might as well be on skyscrapers, and the floors usually have the best focus. Any shots not from a child's POV feel like old cameras left in random corners of the floor, pointed haphazardly at Legos or banisters or table legs. We never see the faces of the characters, usually just their feet pattering along dark hallways and around various toys strewn about the house. Occasionally a lamp or overhead light will flicker on for a bit as the children pass through a room, but the only consistent light is an old analog television playing creepy retro cartoons, which also feature as the only score or background sound in the film. The lack of sound makes for an eerie viewing experience, not unlike Tod Browning's original Dracula (1931).

In obscuring almost all the characters, Ball dares us to experience his nightmare firsthand along with the children. In obscuring the setting and eschewing formal narrative conventions, he turns nightmarish logic into reality, aggressively trying to disorient us just as the children are clearly losing touch with the reality of their home. In obscuring the action, through extremely dark and grainy shots, he challenges us to lean in to every frame and search for what might be awry, amiss, or lurking in the shadows. There's usually nothing of note, but your eyes will hurt from the search effort, and your nerves shred themselves pretty quickly. When the scares do happen -- and there aren't many, but the few are more than earned -- most of the fright comes from the unexpectedness of alarm in such a lugubrious movie, along with carefully curated sound mixing, which primarily features garbled, low-volume muttering from the characters. Without subtitles, I probably would have heard only about three lines in the whole film. Which isn't saying much, because all in all there isn't much dialogue at all. But the whispering sounds almost underwater, the kind of groaning strained sound you might imagine from a sick pet in the middle of the night.

You could -- and I'm sure many people are doing this -- spend hours trying to interpret this film. Are the children in some kind of shared nightmare, or perhaps purgatory or hell? Did Kevin's injury make him delusional or even put him in a coma (a popular theory, but unlikely as some scenes only include Kaylee's perspective)? Is all this horror really happening, and is an evil entity like a demon tormenting them? Or could it all be a displaced nightmare as a result of child abuse from the now-absent parents? And while any of these, and more, could spark interpretive discussions, I find the film much more interesting and satisfying if I stop trying to attach meaning to everything and instead let it take me on a wild, experiential ride meant to be felt more than understood. Sure, it could arguably be much shorter -- 100 minutes is a bit much with so few scares -- or add some jumps, and those might make it a more appealing, accessible, or entertaining movie. But for a new filmmaker to be this confident and daring in creating something wholly unlike any other movie even as he captures a fairly universal sensation or memory is an utterly remarkable feat. I'll be keeping a nightlight on for a while yet.

Scream VI (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Where do you go after Scream 5, the surprising and wonderful reboot of the series last year that functions as commentary -- and terrifying addition to the canon -- on "requels" or legacy sequels? Culturally and artistically, we haven't really bypassed that stage of horror evolution. This is the question posed for Scream VI, the latest in the series, which might also be the most viscerally scary of the series. It seems that, in accordance with Halloween Kills -- not to mention the divisive Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Star Wars: The Last Jedi -- this sequel to a requel just hammers home what the fans want. Less exposition, more action, and some smart fan service. It also cleverly includes several nods to Scream 2, much like the previous installment did with Scream (1996). 

It's Halloween again, one year after the most recent Woodsboro murders, and the young survivors have relocated to New York City, attending Blackmore University. While it might be a bit weird that the so-called "core four" crossed the country to attend school together, it's also kind of sweet and showcases their seemingly effortless friendship, along with perhaps some co-dependency. Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and her sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) live together, while Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin are nearby (Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown, respectively). The attractive cast is complemented out by the Carpenters' roommate Quinn (Liana Liberato of The Beach House, Novitiate, Haunt, and Trespass), Chad's roommate Ethan (Jack Champion of Avatar: The Way of Water), and Mindy's girlfriend Anika (Devyn Nekoda). These kids have been trying to move on with their lives, but Sam has been ostracized since a viral online post suggested she was the mastermind behind the Woodsboro massacre. Tara, meanwhile, is trying to live life to the fullest by being a bit reckless.

You can't talk about a Scream movie without attending to its opening sequence, and this one was perfect. Okay, they all are, but this one was somewhat unique because the kills were all real (rather than in the world of the Stab movies), involved total strangers to us, and referenced -- at least to my mind -- the real-life murderers Leopold and Loeb in Chicago. The featured bit parts are played by Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) and Tony Revolori (from The Grand Budapest Hotel and the MCU Spider-Man series), which makes it that much more fun. While we're comparing this film to others in the franchise, let's be sure to tie it to Scream 2: it takes place -- more or less -- in a college setting, its climax is in a theater auditorium, one character dies from a bone-crunching fall, and at least one killer is related by blood to a previous killer.

It's that opening sequence that brings Ghostface back, still voiced by Roger L. Jackson, and that gets the plot going, as Sam is of course brought in for questioning by Detective Wayne Bailey (the excellent Dermot Mulroney), who is also Quinn's father and concerned about his daughter's safety in proximity to the Carpenter girls. Meanwhile, Sam has been carrying on a secret relationship with their brooding but hunky neighbor Danny (Josh Segarra from Arrow and AJ and the Queen) while getting some dubious counseling from her therapist (Henry Czerny). It doesn't take long for Gale Weathers (the flawless Courteney Cox) to show up, and then we get the delicious and warmly welcome surprise appearance of Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) for the first time since the 2011 Woodsboro murders (in Scream 4). Okay, now I think we've covered all the cast. There are many of them, so it's only a matter of time before more bodies start to fall.

And that's about all I can say without risking more important spoilers. I'll try to avoid many more, but otherwise you may want to stop reading.

Sadly, we do not get the glory of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) in this installment, a disappointing result of some pay dispute. Gale mentions early on that Sidney and her family have gone into hiding, so one certainly hopes that she and Mark Kincaid (Patrick Dempsey) are still together and that both might return in another sequel. Her absence is distinctly felt, but it also lets some of the other characters have more time to breathe, notably Gale herself, who finally gets the chance to talk with Ghostface on the phone herself while being targeted for an imminent attack.

The set pieces are stunning, and I found myself constantly on the edge of my seat. Most engaging was a vertigo-inducing climb across a ladder between two apartments; another was of course the much-publicized crowded train ride on Halloween night. And the attacks are particularly vicious; these might be the goriest and most brutal attacks of the series. What's interesting, though -- especially with Mindy's expected but lackluster "rules" for this franchise extension (if that's what we're calling requel sequels) -- is that the body count is shockingly low in this film. Shockingly, and annoyingly, as my friend and I discussed as we left the cinema. For all Mindy's remarks that at this point in the franchise, anybody is so much dead meat, this movie features a disappointing number of deaths. On the other hand, the attacks are so unbelievably violent that it starts to strain credulity that any of the main characters survived at all. In earlier films, a single stab or two would incapacitate a victim; here, they get repeatedly shot, sliced, stabbed, and broken, and they keep on fighting.

Maybe realism isn't key here, but it starts to feel like we're being toyed with as fans. Let's just hope they have some bloody good plans for these characters in future installments. As it is, even without the body count and our favorite final girl, Scream VI is an excellent addition to and evolution of the series.

65 (2023)

Score: 3.5 / 5

I absolutely love it when a film so confidently embraces its classic B-movie potential and feeds it to us with a big budget and lots of fun. It requires a dynamic, unique premise (regardless of the screenplay itself), committed performers, and daring production design or effects. 65 does all of these things, and it's such a balls-out daring move that I couldn't help but fall in love with this admittedly corny flick.

The title refers to the setting, which is supposedly 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs ruled Earth. Adam Driver crash lands on the planet, which suggests that high-tech human civilizations existed elsewhere in the galaxy back then. Driver plays Mills, a space pilot on a multi-year exploration search in order to make enough money to medically help his daughter. En route, the ship is damaged by asteroids and Mills crashes what's left of it, though unfortunately all the passengers in cryogenic sleep die. All except one, named Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), who is conveniently the same age as Mills's daughter and who does not speak his language. If you didn't know the premise of this film based on its title and marketing, you might be completely shocked when, after a surprisingly lengthy opening sequence, the title card finally appears, dramatically emphasizing Mills's discovery of a large dinosaur footprint in the mud. 

Yes, dinosaurs. This is Alien meets Jurassic Park, and what a fun ride. While I'd have preferred another entry in the Alien franchise (and why not? The Predator series just set a film in the pre-historic Great Plains, and it was the best in the series!), this is still a delightful and original concept. I would compare this film tonally and formally to Jurassic Park III, as both essentially have little but plot and flair going for them. While 65 is much darker, both films function as a series of increasingly bad encounters with dinosaurs. They pile up so quickly, the brief running time nevertheless pushes you to the edge of your seat as you wonder how the characters' situations could possibly get any worse before they inevitably do.

There's not much to these characters, despite some heavy-handed attempts at sentimentality from writers and directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. And really, the whole backstory of Mills and his family don't matter at all in context; the scenes between Mills and Koa are as close as this film comes to drama, as their bonding is sweet to witness, if unnecessary. This family angle never really lands. But who cares, when we're treated to almost nonstop dinosaur action? The film works best through its endless jump-scares as a panoply of beasts launch themselves violently at the heroes, resulting in what amounts to an endurance test for both the characters and for us, the audience. I'm not sure I really breathed during at least half of the running time because it just doesn't take a break between set pieces.

Mills takes Koa to the top of a nearby mountain, where an escape pod landed and could still be functional. That's the plot. Along the way, they are waylaid by monstrous beasts, each hungrier and more deadly than the next. While the body count isn't high -- there are only two characters -- it's a consistently thrilling experience as they get injured and worn down from each dino encounter. Mills has several high-tech weapons, but none of them are used imaginatively, which is a bit disappointing. And Driver himself as Mills makes a strong case for being an action hero, intense and physical as he is, though one wonders why (especially with Sam Raimi as a producer) he didn't dig a bit into the potential for camp. Then again, too much humor and this film would have failed utterly. It needs nonstop tension to convince us to keep watching. Salvatore Totino's lovely cinematography is also deadly serious, and beautiful, despite some truly bizarre editing; the effects are all pretty darn good, though the climax is more than a little overwrought as the asteroids that first downed the ship approach Earth (SPOILER ALERT) for the major extinction event.

As soon as it was over, I wanted to watch it again. Not because it's smart -- other than its bonkers premise -- but because it's dumb, thrilling fun. Even as I watched the climax end, I wondered if the creators would try to expand their concept into any sequels, and though it's not likely based on the ending, I'll keep hoping!

Cocaine Bear (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

It really doesn't get much better than a nature monster or killer animal movie for me. Sharks and cats in summer, crocodiles and spiders in autumn, and bears and wolves as spring thaws the snow. How appropriate, then, for Elizabeth Banks (of all people) to gift us with one of the most exciting entries in the subgenre in years just as March ushers in a new season. Cocaine Bear is solidly what it promises, which is to say a story in which a bear ingests a bunch of cocaine and proceeds to slaughter folks in the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia. Inspired by the true story of a black bear that overdosed on cocaine in Tennessee in 1985, and was found dead in northern Georgia (but was not known to have killed anyone), this film takes the story to its goriest and most compelling extremes. Think if a rattlesnake were found in cargo on an airplane and the result was Snakes on a Plane; this movie has similar, raw popular power.

Opening with the death of a smuggler who, after sporadically dumping (and snorting) cocaine for some reason, abandons the plane and fails to open his parachute, the film introduces us to a Knoxville detective (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) who identifies his body. Meanwhile, a black bear in northern Georgia eats some cocaine and, becoming wildly aggressive, attacks two hikers. It's not clear why the cocaine was being dumped, or geographically how this all played out, but it seems that the plane had dropped one shipment in Georgia and taken off -- the real-life story goes that they switched to a smaller, lighter plane that couldn't carry the weight -- heading northwest. Thankfully, the logistics don't really matter, except to provoke more speculation and turn the case into an urban legend, which I fully expect this film will help mobilize.

A wide-ranging and eclectic cast of characters descend on the Chattahoochee National Forest with various goals and outcomes, though most run afoul of the crazed bear. St. Louis drug lord "Syd" (the late Ray Liotta in his final film role) sends two henchmen (O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Alden Ehrenreich) to recover the goods before impatiently joining them. There is also a group of delinquent teenagers, a horny park ranger (Margo Martindale), and an obnoxious wildlife expert (Jesse Tyler Ferguson). A final group -- comprising a single mom (Keri Russell) searching for her young daughter Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) and her friend Henry (Christian Convery), who skipped school to hike the park and discovered cocaine as well as the bear. Their adventures intertwine and come to a head in the best ways, organically funny and shockingly violent, emphasizing the grotesque nature of the film.

Speaking of which, let's talk about the bear itself. For a movie monster, the Cocaine Bear isn't generally horrifying. Under the influence of drugs -- and it keeps doing more in almost every scene -- it switches dramatically from contented back-scratching to voracious bloodshed without a moment's notice. For a movie on a budget, the bear really is rendered very well on the big screen; thankfully, it was performed live in motion capture by Weta FX, with no small amount of anthropomorphizing from both the stunt performer and the animators. But even that oddly enhances the visceral terror I experienced during some of the more violent attacks, making the bear move faster and think more like a killing machine, which is really the only way movies like this work. It helps, too, that some of the best violent scenes only marginally involve the bear itself; it occasionally feels like an installment of Final Destination, where people's greed or stupidity lead to their grisly deaths or gruesome injuries.

What else is there to say? Despite its potential for pro-environmental or anti-drug messaging, Cocaine Bear doesn't really have much to say politically, preferring to just poke fun at everybody. Its cheeky, mocking tone extends even to some of the more outlandish sequences, such as the speeding ambulance chase (if you know, you know). The score and soundtrack feel perfectly in line with the already visually established tone of the film, along with costumes and production design, most notably in the park ranger's station. While the film lags a bit in the story of the mother and kids, even that plot strand pays off in the climax, which toys with cloying sentimentalism before giving us a fairly conventional ending. But by then, we're about as elevated as the bear herself, so it's okay for the film to try to ground us a bit before ending. Now let's just hope Banks decides to helm her rumored other films about animals on cocaine!

My Top 10 Favorite Films of 2022

While there are still a few titles on my watchlist -- namely Empire of Light, Triangle of Sadness, Amsterdam, and Vesper -- it's Oscar night and we're out of time. I now present to you my ten favorite films from 2022, along with several honorable mentions that also count as personal favorites (each hyperlinked film was close in running for my list!).

Special mentions: X and Pearl
If Ti West had told us all he was planning to make a trilogy of horror films this year, I'm not sure anyone would have believed him, much less that the first two, at least, would make such a big cultural splash. I certainly wouldn't have expected it of A24, a studio perhaps best known for its ushering in the era of elevated horror. Perhaps this is because West's gripping story about the violence of life deep in the American West as the outside world beckons is most accurately described as exploitative of exploitation films. His upturning of formal, genre, and even audience expectations make these films touchpoints wherein future critics and scholars and film artists will see a shift in horror for the 2020s. The extent to which West's films enact that shift -- or reflectively codify that shift in metafictional ways -- remains unknown for now.

10. The Batman
A stunning, beautiful, and daring re-imagining of the character as well as the franchise, The Batman is perhaps my most surprising film on this list. But in Matt Reeves's visionary approach, this film makes me very excited about the franchise because he avoids the mythmaking tendency of the Nolan films in favor of deconstructing the character and moving everything to a fresh place of raw grit. It's a Gothic film noir of a detective story, one that surprises even as it awes. I felt similarly about Prey this year, a prequel of sorts to the Predator franchise that so brilliantly reimagines itself that I almost forgot to pay attention to its uncannily breathtaking technical acumen; turning something so familiar it's trite into something so smart and new it's scary is no small task.

9. Fire Island
The queer romantic comedy we've all needed and deserved for so long now. Joyous and funny and inspiring and heartfelt, it's the story of a group of gay men who go to Fire Island for their annual week-long vacation and how they catch up with each other and hook up with the other gays in the village. In doing so, and in such a positive light, this film seems to be working toward reclaiming the liberated sense of community in gay culture that has largely been absent since before the AIDS crisis. It helps us literarily-minded folks that it's also a witty adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Bros was a lot of fun this year but ultimately not as liberating, and the heavy targeting of Gen-Z in Bodies Bodies Bodies was more grating to me than inspiring. Sometimes you just want to feel good about being queer, you know?

8. Strange World
While I've spoken at length before about only putting due responsibility on specific films to cater to sociopolitical commentary, this movie might have changed my mind. Strange World is the, and I won't qualify this claim, most progressive Disney movie in my lifetime. Its animation is lovely and its voice acting and screenplay all fit the bill of really solid Disney fare. But what makes this movie so important is that Disney finally gave us all the things we've been clamoring for for years. Its multiracial, multigenerational family may be the most diverse in the studio's history, to say nothing of its queer, mixed-race protagonist whose ethnicity and burgeoning sexual identity are casual and even celebrated. More people need to see this film. In some similar ways, more people should see Spirited, last holiday season's unexpected and utterly joyful musical update to the Scrooge story.

7. TIE: The Wonder / The Whale
Though isolation and quarantine aren't really current concerns anymore, two of my favorite movies of the year dealt head-on with amazing, complex characters who are essentially alone in their pursuits of meaningful lives. Each are essentially chamber dramas -- I'd argue that their respective directors also lean heavily on folk horror and psychological horror tropes -- revolving around a protagonist navigating their way through an existential crisis. Literary and philosophical, in turns heartwarming and bitterly cruel, each story begs the viewer to tap into a slower, more contemplative wavelength to ponder complex thematic and ideological concepts. These films will largely be spoken of in terms of their leading actors, who are both magnificent, but they're also incredible films in technical and artistic ways that deserve more recognition.

6. Nope
I haven't been this intellectually or emotionally involved in a movie about aliens in years. Jordan Peele's latest film is a complex and nuanced masterpiece of science fiction horror, one that frustrates even as it satisfies. Funny and terrifying, ethereally beautiful and conceptually brilliant, Nope combines seemingly unrelated ideas of fame, fate, monsters and aliens, trauma and spectacle, ambition and hope, and presents a coherent, haunting, and visionary story that will say very different things to anyone who watches. For more visceral scares, I'd highly recommend the two big survival horror films of the year, the vertigo-inducing nightmare Fall and the violent, thrilling killer lion adventure Beast.

5. The Woman King
A love story about community, about Black women, and about Africa, this film is one of the most riveting and inspiring I've ever seen. Much of the pleasure of viewing comes with learning about the culture of Dahomey, the West African kingdom that comprises the setting, and specifically the Agojie warriors, an elite sorority of women warriors. And director Gina Prince-Bythewood allows us to engage our curiosity without exploiting the peoples she dramatizes. The action -- choreographed to within an inch of its life and mostly performed with eye-popping precision -- is nothing short of exhilarating. A close tie for this would have been Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which is one of my favorite entries in the MCU, but which also suffers slightly from being overstuffed with franchise-necessary material.

4. Everything Everywhere All at Once
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. Embrace the chaos. Enjoy the novelty and beauty and hilarity and weirdness along the way. It's a unique and fabulous experience for your senses. For darkly hilarious absurdism and unbridled heartache in a similar thematic (but certainly not visual) vein, Martin McDonagh's Banshees of Inisherin was a close tie here.

3. Glass Onion
Murder in paradise is always more fun. Much like Kenneth Branagh's latest deadly mystery follow-up, Death on the Nile, which shares a lot in common with Rian Johnson's latest, Glass Onion takes everything wonderful about Knives Out and ups the ante in every way. Apart from a glorious screenplay and excellent cast, it's also uncommonly beautifully shot and staged, something I wish would have earned it a place in theatrical distribution rather than direct-to-streaming. But let's just be grateful it exists and, hopefully, paves the way for more in the series.

2. TIE: TAR / Till
The two best performances of the year are also two of my favorite films of the year. Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tar, a dubiously fictional EGOT conductor, and Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till-Mobley, the real-life mother of Emmett Till and formidable activist. Each film, directed by Todd Field and Chinonye Chukwu respectively, is a searing portrait of purpose-driven lives that go in very different ways, one cerebral and one heartbreaking, gorgeously captured as odysseys into unique and fascinating parts of womanhood and the human condition we've never seen on film before. Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, while similar in some aspects (not least of which its leading performance by Austin Butler), doesn't quite share the same scope or depth for me, and so remains suitably an honorable mention.

1. The Northman

Taken from the medieval myth that inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet, The Northman is a rare film that feels completely timeless even while pushing modern boundaries of what is cinematically possible. Beautiful and challenging, it reminds us why we culturally carry these far-removed stories with us and revitalize them time and again. In director Robert Eggers's masterful hands, both the film and its audience are in for a soul-shaping artistic experience. Prepare yourself for this one; after the film ended, I felt little other than exhaustion. Satisfaction, to be sure, and lots of joy for various elements, but it's a brutal two-and-a-half hours of greed and lust and revenge. Precious few films are this transformative.

What were YOUR favorite movies this year? Let me know and we'll chat about some stellar cinema!

The Outfit (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Easily the most beautiful and underspoken crime thriller in recent memory, The Outfit was one of those sneaky movies that flitted in and out of select cinemas early in 2022, right around awards season when nobody pays much attention to new releases. It's a crying shame, because as director Graham Moore's debut (he had previously written the screenplay for The Imitation Game, for which he won the Oscar), it's one of the most suave, confident, and brilliant debuts I've seen in a while. And in a genre that almost never rewards first-timers in any capacity. This film is about as twisty and polished as any war-era thriller, and the sort of "whodunnit" aspect is endlessly unpredictable, and yet it could easily be produced as a theatrical experience that would be no less riveting.

In Chicago in the '50s, Leonard Burling (a typically stunning Mark Rylance) lords over his bespoke outfitting shop for men. Originally hailing from Savile Row, he moved to the States after WWII; he firmly claims his identity as a "cutter" multiple times during the film, maintaining his stiff upper lip throughout. During one scene, he mentions the Blitz being only part of the reason he left; the other was blue jeans, the manufactured workaday stuff pumped out in assembly that could be made and purchased cheaply. His life seems sewn up, so to speak, in his trade and shop, and his pace of life seems slow and rather dull, despite his obvious passion and fascination with habiliments. His warm, wooden-and-leather parlor (the production design is extraordinary here) can be at once changed into a sort of operating room, with a large cutting table dead center and tools and fabrics of various sorts carefully arranged all around.

Burling's formidable poker face belies other secrets, though, than some dark tragedy from his past, and over the course of the film -- and numerous theatrical encounters with various personae -- we will learn exactly what's going on behind his personal façade and the façade of his shop. Several gangsters will grace his door over the course of the evening, ones belonging almost exclusively to the violent and dangerous Boyle family, including characters played by Dylan O'Brien and Johnny Flynn and patriarch mob boss Simon Russell Beale. They seem to offer him some protection and business, but they also use his store as a front for secret messages, meetings, and even a drop location for various associates. Burling doesn't get involved in the crime, as he is dutifully attempting to keep a calm and healthy atmosphere for his assistant Mable (Zoey Deutch), but the pair see and hear far more than they should and have made respective plans accordingly. Nobody is without motive, insight, or dangerous information.

I don't want to spoil anything else, because the joys of this film are manifold but hinge on the increasing unpredictability of its plot. Each new encounter had my head reeling, whether it involved romantic revelations, financial hardships and debts, or details about a rival crime family looming on the fringes of the Boyle dynasty. All in all, it's an incredibly rich film, made with I expect a modest budget that primarily went to its cast, but that leaves you with an impression of something epic having taken place. For a chamber piece of crime thrills -- a phrase I've never used and don't expect to use again -- it's astonishing and beautiful and will likely haunt me for some time to come.

Call Jane (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

One of the most unexpectedly timely movies of 2022, Call Jane is a fascinating and frustrating dramatization of the Jane Collective or "Janes" movement in the time before Roe v. Wade. I told you it was timely.

This film is fascinating for multiple reasons. Formally, because it's shot on sumptuous film with a warm '60s palette and a calm demeanor despite its tense material. Personally, because Phyllis Nagy (who wrote the screenplay for Carol and only directed one television film prior) as an already assured, confident director, didn't write this but handles it beautifully and has assembled a killer team and cast. Starring Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, and Kate Mara -- and featuring Wunmi Mosaku and a chilling Cory Michael Smith -- they all seem perfectly matched with the setting and style; I never doubted for a minute their authenticity as they step into illegal territory in order to receive the healthcare they need. The opening scene alone, in which our protagonist Joy (Banks) escorts her lawyer husband (Messina) to a dinner in Chicago while a raucous protest erupts outside. Fans of The Trial of the Chicago 7 will recognize the chant, "The whole world is watching," as Joy looks on not with fear or apprehension but rather with curiosity and some sympathy.

But Call Jane also frustrated me a bit in its storytelling (I'm unfamiliar with writers Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi) because it can't quite decide whose story to tell or what the tone should be. It's very much Joy's story, and her dynamic journey makes the film eminently watchable. After her introduction at that swanky party, where we're immediately keyed into her innate curiosity about the status quo for women as well as her immense privilege in being shielded from these cultural contexts so far, she soon learns she's pregnant again (they have one teenage daughter, Charlotte, played by Grace Edwards), but something's wrong. Her doctor tells her that her pregnancy endangers her life, forcing her and her husband to meet with the hospital board -- entirely comprised of men -- who disrespect her presence and dignity before unanimously denying her "therapeutic termination" of pregnancy. They are helpless until Joy comes across a "Pregnant? Need help? Call Jane!" poster in town.

She indeed pays for the underground procedure and is whisked away to their secret location by a network of "Janes." Weaver plays Virginia, their fierce warrior of a leader, whose political and legal savvy almost singlehandedly keeps the organization running, including deals with the Mob who provide cheap, under-the-table rental spaces and presumably some protection. Refreshingly, this film is not all about Joy's laborious quest to get an abortion, as so many stories focus on that and not its aftermath. The bulk of this movie is about how Joy's successful operation leads her deeper into the organization as an increasingly active participant, first driving other women in need to their appointments and then helping with the operations themselves. Naturally, these developments make for some distracting subplots, because of course her family doesn't know what she's up to, and her friend and neighbor Lana (a wickedly boozy Kate Mara) offers a foil to her awakening as a liberated woman. 

Tonally, the film fluctuates between sober period drama and feminist comedy -- almost a buddy type film between some of the women -- and more than once I was reminded of other titles like Mad Men, Pieces of a Woman, and I'm Your Woman, but in a good way, and Call Jane is much peppier than those. Which is a little jarring, but also a welcome change. Maybe I should compare this more to Mildred Pierce and those Barbara Stanwyck-type vehicles of the early talkies, as the parts focused on Joy are basically about a lone woman fighting the odds and, if not always succeeding, at least surviving for the better. The crucial update here is that she bands together with other similar women to create a formidable and world-changing force. And then, there's always Sigourney Weaver, who really should make more movies to bless us with her incredible talents.

Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023)

Score: 2.5 / 5

And just like that, the promise and joys of the first two films fizzle into the void. Magic Mike was a brilliant and endlessly entertaining journey into a unique character's soul against a fabulous backdrop. Magic Mike XXL continued the story by expanding and diversifying its cast, soundtrack, and themes in mature but still fun ways. Now, Channing Tatum and Steven Soderbergh (who only directed the first installment) are back for Magic Mike's Last Dance, and it's all a soapy, sappy washout that will add little to their respective credits.

Its title could have been the point of the whole film, but thankfully its message hits home right away and then we move forward. The film's opening quickly catches us up to speed on how Tatum's character Mike lost his handmade furniture business during the Covid-19 pandemic and now works as a bartender for catering services in Florida. A cute cameo reminds us immediately of his history as a stripper for hire and his somewhat stigmatized socialization as a result. It also reminds us that Mike may not be truly happy in his current work, and we know from experience that dancing is indeed what brings him the most joy. He soon meets Max (Salma Hayek, an inspired casting choice that recalls Jada Pinkett Smith's casting in the previous film), immensely wealthy as the soon-to-be-divorced socialite wife, whose friend recognized him. She pays him handsomely to dance for her privately.

The dance is extraordinary to behold, as Tatum's skills haven't aged a day, thanks in part to the choreographer and the cinematographer. Hayek instantly reminds us why she's a star, acting her ass off in beautiful clothes and looking utterly stunning while clearly enjoying the situation. They both give in, and their happy ending proves to be instead a beginning; her passions reignited, Max sweeps Mike off to London as her boyfriend and business partner, determined to create a new stage production of male strippers dancing. Essentially recreating a Magic Mike experience much as what happened in real life after the first film was released.

As the two navigate their relationship -- fraught, as Soderbergh skillfully reminds us, with class differences -- they hit a series of predictable and familiar roadblocks both romantically and professionally. Their artistic visions for the show sometimes clash, to say nothing about the danger of the show getting closed by Max's husband. While it's never obvious what the endgame will be, screenwriter Reid Carolin unfortunately indeed gives his two stars a happy ending that feels inevitable in retrospect. I would have liked more tie-ins with the previous films, especially with the camaraderie of Mike's former co-stars, who only show up briefly in a Zoom call cameo. The story feels more fairytale or fable-like this time around, such as the annoying voiceover narration by Max's teenage daughter Zadie, whose lines sound like something from a wannabe Jane Austen or Edith Wharton adapter.

I understand that the filmmakers -- specifically Soderbergh, Carolin, and Tatum himself -- don't want to repeat material, and I can respect that. This time they really delve into the romantic side of Mike's character literally and thematically, as most of the best dialogue explores ideas of desire, creativity, and the freedom to pursue both. Tatum, himself still a bit of a surprise talent despite catapulting to stardom many years ago as an outsider in Hollywood, reminds us why his Mike is such a fabulous character: his demeanor feels grounded and guarded at all times, as though he's afraid he'll lose his career yet again, thinly veiled by his endearing humility and streetwise grins. These movies aren't just for the spectacle of hunks, but rather about navigating cultural commodification of working men both from the outside and the inside. At one point during their rehearsals, Max tells the team, "This show is not about getting dick. Only."

Whereas the first film, I'd say, was the most technically proficient in terms of storytelling and editing -- to say nothing of its surprisingly bleak themes -- and the second had almost too many ideas (thematic and visual) to keep under control, this one is disarmingly laissez faire. It almost lazily winds its way through the production up to opening night, when the curtain reveals a cabaret-style show not unlike the real life one Tatum helped craft. Last Dance is a feel-good embrace, the kind of film I almost dozed off during not only because it's rote but because it's warm and comforting. It's also pretty hot, which makes it eminently watchable. I suspect that, in a marathon viewing with the wine flowing, by the time this movie kicks off you'll be too happy (and horny) to much care about plot or dialogue or editing.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

Score: 3 / 5

In the time since Endgame, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) have developed a happy little life together, and his memoir is modestly successful. Scott's teenage daughter Cassie (now played by Kathryn Newton) has become a political activist, which occasionally causes tension with her former thief of a father. She's been working secretly on a project to establish contact with the Quantum Realm, a place of noted existential danger in the previous films where the original Wasp, Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), had been trapped for many years. Janet tries to shut it down, but too late: the intergenerational family is pulled into the Quantum Realm and, as you may have guessed from the title, mayhem ensues.

The Ant-Man series has always held an odd place in the MCU; few people would say these are their favorites or even that the heroes themselves rank among their favorites, but Peyton Reed's offbeat and endlessly clever humor, tied with the immense likability of the cast, certainly make them lovely and unique entries in the franchise. Unfortunately, I think those qualities have just about exhausted themselves. Quantumania is, by comparison, a hot mess of CGI and annoyingly forced plot points meant to spark interest in yet another new phase of MCU storytelling. Though it's almost funny that this film puts Ant-Man and his compatriots into the smallest size they've ever been, it's easily the most eye-popping, sprawling, and surely expensive of his movies to date. It's also the least funny of them, which makes it all ring a bit too hollow for my taste.

What it lacks in humor and originality, Quantumania more than makes up for in visual flair. Reed and his team turn the Quantum Realm, which we've briefly explored in kaleidoscopic montages before, into a wholly fanciful universe unto itself. Psychedelic colors and shapes and patterns dazzle our eyes constantly in this film, and more than once I found myself gazing into the background art rather than tending to the characters and plot. It's like the creators dropped acid before designing the world, using Avatar's Pandora and Disney's Fantasia as references. While I could attempt to recall specifics of plot, I'd rather leave those bits to you to experience, because ultimately I doubt they matter much anyway, at least not yet.

Instead, I'll just trill on about other things, starting with the characters. The ones we already know and love are fine doing what they do, although Pfeiffer finally gets some solid screen time and a few scenes to really chew, while Michael Douglas all but twiddles his thumbs in a film where he's clearly utterly lost. Lilly is all but wasted, though Newton stakes a bold claim for her iteration of Cassie. A host of new characters is revealed in the Quantum Realm, although we're barely given enough time to appreciate -- much less remember -- them. There's a pink gelatinous creature who wishes more than anything to possess orifices like humans, a telepath who always hears the wacky, naughty thoughts of others, and even Bill Murray as a buffoonish local governor with a salacious history with Janet. It's all cute but ephemeral, only really existing to serve the weirdness of this new environment and the impending threat of a new Big Bad.

Enter Kang, ruler of the Quantum Realm, who apparently rose to power after Janet left previously. The film has to work overtime to explain their history together and why Janet never mentioned him before. He's a bit of a genocidal madman, hoping to conquer and destroy other timelines and alternate parts of the multiverse. He's also apparently one of many variants, and the one depicted in this film had been exiled by the others for mysterious reasons. Thankfully, all are played by Jonathan Majors, who is always excellent, though I hope future entries featuring Kang give him meatier material; here, he's broadly written and vaguely dangerous. More specificity -- like the kind Majors gives -- will help Kang feel like a real character and less of an idea. His greatest threat is as much a cliche as anything in this film: he threatens to murder Cassie and make Scott experience it infinitely if Scott doesn't successfully steal a certain power core (which inherently means nothing more than being the MacGuffin of this movie). It's not a great start for a character meant to lord over an entire phase of what is now a multimedia series.

Much as Ant-Man himself, his movies tend to not quite take themselves super seriously. Which is fine until it isn't, and this time it's hard to really care much about Kang or anything else because it's just not the kind of movie, tonally, to take any emotional or thematic risks. He's a second-tier superhero, and while this movie looks like a Marvel fever dream on drugs, thanks to cinematographer Bill Pope of The Matrix, several Sam Raimi and Edgar Wright movies, and Shang-Chi, and the visual artists, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that Pope seemed determined to disguise his own input. After all, how could a movie like this really be said to have a cinematographer of artistic integrity when every shot is so clearly pre-visualized to death by the effects artists and producers? I earnestly hope this isn't indicative of the aesthetic direction of the MCU's newest phase.

Sick (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

Who knew Peacock would suddenly start making original slasher movies? Not me, though between They/Them and now Sick, it's a fabulous place to be. Timely in thematic content and disturbing in execution, these two films should have been released in cinemas both because of the important stories they tell and because of the important artists involved who make these films so special. This latest one was written by none other than Kevin Williamson, who here isn't working at the top of his game but nevertheless proves his willingness to dive into current events with aplomb and a gleeful nastiness.

It opens with onscreen text, cruelly reminding us of April 2020, a month we'd surely all like to forget as lockdown measurements were being implemented and already stretching longer than initial estimates. We're brought back to that setting immediately, as we are introduced to college kid Tyler as he picks up groceries in a mostly wiped-out store, everyone wearing masks and standing "safe" distances apart. Tyler doesn't like wearing his mask, but he thankfully does, and the world already seems descending into chaos; someone sneezes in line and everyone turns to look suspiciously at her, and a man verbally accosts Tyler for removing his mask while outside. While navigating all this, Tyler's phone starts blowing up from an unknown texter, who toys with him and seems to be stalking him. The opening sequence is delicious, both in placing us firmly in the setting -- which changes swiftly from the fluorescent scarcity of the store to the warm interior of Tyler's surprisingly spacious apartment -- and in its slow turning of the screws, ratcheting up the tension not unlike in the opening sequence of the first Scream. Before too long, Tyler is attacked by a balaclava-wearing intruder with a large knife, who indeed kills him in spectacular bloody fashion. It's not original material, but director John Hyams and his team (including cinematographer Yaron Levy and editor Andrew Drazek) have it polished to an extraordinarily beautiful product. Their collective use of suspenseful long takes, disorienting cuts in action, and tight close-ups make this film stand out from what has become usual slasher shlock. 

Then we see the title card, and the main story gets going. Two young college women are leaving campus to quarantine together at a secluded lake house. Mansion, rather, as Parker (Gideon Adlon) clearly comes from fabulous wealth, and her best friend Miri (Beth Million) is only too happy to join, despite a few barbs about health and safety and, of course, a few sociopolitical comments. Parker is a bit entitled, and views quarantine as a vacation; Miri takes it much more seriously, though she doesn't seem too put out to enjoy the simple relaxing pleasures of sun tanning, romantic fires, and even getting high after the sun sets. That night Parker's oblivious partner DJ (Dylan Sprayberry) shows up without warning after Parker has been receiving anonymous and vaguely threatening texts.

Finally the mayhem starts when a masked (ha ha) figure enters the house. It's all less home-invasion horror than it is pyscho-killer horror, especially when we learn there is a second masked killer. Saying "killer" implies a high body count, and that's not really the case here so much as singularly brutal murderous intent on full display. These killers are not unlike Ghostface in their body-slamming berserker-style stunts as they run full-force into furniture and people in their quest to kill. Sure, the film has a few logistical plot holes, but you don't go to slashers expecting a lack of contrivance. Hyams and his team prove themselves capable, beyond the prestige of Williamson's name and his (in the wrong hands) somewhat dubious material here, of crafting a dynamic, thrilling, and surprisingly sleek scary movie with its share of earned laughs. The viewing experience of Sick is relentless and absorbing, the kind of movie that really does put you on edge if you tune into its offbeat frequency. By its finale, I found it emotionally challenging and deviously clever, even if its contrivances aren't quite finished yet.

Knock at the Cabin (2023)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Its premise is, by now, familiar enough to us all: A young gay couple, on vacation with their adopted daughter, find themselves approached and assaulted by four mysterious strangers who claim that the apocalypse is nearing and can only be averted if the family decides to sacrifice one of their own. Intriguing, to be sure, and certainly the kind of thing that would attract a filmmaker like M. Night Shyamalan. He's made several films previously about the end of the world and various forms of invasion to that end, though more often than not he's hamstrung himself in the execution of his ideas by a certain tendency for moralizing. In these ways, I'd call Knock at the Cabin a true Shyamalan film from top to bottom, which is to say very much in the vein of his best work while occasionally, annoyingly, sentimental. 

Adapted by the novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, this film is unusual for not being Shyamalan's own original idea. I think that has helped him here, as a director, be more creative in other aspects of directing, namely in his approach to the material and in his work with the cast. Here, his actors are uniformly excellent, terrifyingly intense for the entire movie, led by Dave Bautista in his best performance yet. He plays Leonard, the leader of the "four horsemen" who were strangers and approach the cabin almost with confusion after being unable to stay away or endure horrific visions of death and destruction. Along with the other horsemen -- played by Abby Quinn, Nikki Amuka-Bird, and Rupert Grint -- they come armed with weapons but say they don't want to use them. Bautista is completely disarming despite his hulking physical presence, and both his voice and movement work, while totally believable, are fiercely calculated to disturb our expectations of his character.

Their assault on the house is brief but fierce, and it doesn't take long for them to tie up the dads and sit them down to hear what's about to happen. Think of the end sequence of The Strangers but with quasi-religious urgency and stretched out to about an hour. It's a chilling scene, one that takes place during the bulk of the movie, albeit in different iterations. The family in peril includes young Wen (Kristen Cui) and her two dads, Eric and Andrew (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge), who battle both their forced confinement and the ideas of impending doom. Of course they can't sacrifice one of their own for these violent invaders, right? Do they even believe that it's really the end of the world, or are they just being targeted for a hate crime?

A series of weird turns start to shake their certainty. At appointed times, the invaders must shed blood to forestall the inevitable, so they periodically kill each other in ritualistic fashion. Each time, the murder happens just before something bad in the news, such as a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami. But there are a lot of suspicious holes in what they say and how they say it. Some of the news updates are recycled from hours earlier, some couldn't be breaking news, and even the intruders themselves aren't exactly being honest about who they all are. The seeds of doubt take root quickly, and soon Eric and Andrew find themselves internally battling their own misgivings. Shyamalan shines here, making yet another movie we might loosely qualify as "faith horror," something just shy of existential horror in that it maintains a firm grip on traditional morality while treacherously muddying the waters.

I was also fascinated to see that Shyamalan utilizes two cinematographers rather than one -- Jarin Blaschke (who usually does beautiful work for Robert Eggers) and Lowell A. Meyer (who I don't know of at all) -- who together make this film a stunning treat for the eyes. Beautifully rendered in saturated colors of rich and earthy tones, all on real film, the movie focuses on its characters in mostly close-up, creating an intimate and tactile experience for us that never quite feels claustrophobic. What they, surely via Shyamalan's direction, fail to do is satisfy the film's constant threat of violence and gore. Shyamalan notoriously sidesteps gore to make his movies more psychological and more PG-13, but Tremblay's book is dripping with graphic violence and I for one think that is kind of appropriate to the material, especially with Shyamalan's clear intent to lean into the religiosity of sacrifice and salvation.

It's all just a bit anticlimactic, especially in the denouement, which is changed significantly from the novel. SPOILER ALERT about the ending, because we've gotta go there. While I appreciate that the death of a child is not ideal entertainment or for any kind of viewing, the filmmakers' decision for Eric to commit suicide and for Wen to not (accidentally) die was exactly the kind of sentimental crap I think Tremblay was trying to avoid in his novel. Sometimes the love between two people does matter more than any philosophical debate about the "greater good," especially when that greater good is thrown into much doubt. Shyamalan also changes -- a far worse sin, in my mind -- the nature of the secondary threat, making it extremely visually clear that the end of the world is indeed approaching. The novel ends with that being very ambiguous, but as the surviving characters depart the cabin in the film, the sky has grown dark and planes are dropping and it's just all too obvious. Ambiguity would have served the horror better here, much like the end of Hitchcock's The Birds.

Pinocchio (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Easily the most beautiful adaptation of the classic story, this may also be the most original, which is saying something of a work adapted countless times in many languages and times and places. Pinocchio, originally published in 1883 in Italy, is currently conceived as a timeless tale in which a lonely man makes a wooden boy puppet or doll who comes to life and must learn what it means not only to be human but to grow up as one. Most widely popularized in the 1940 animated Disney musical, which was also remade in 2022 (I usually love the Disney live action remakes, but this one was middling at best), the story tends to embrace heavily moralized themes of honesty and integrity and sacrifice. The "point" of the story, apart from his nose, is Pinocchio's quest to become a "real boy."

Finally, an adaptation with less moralizing and more speculating comes to us, courtesy of Netflix, from the dark master of the fey and fantastic Guillermo del Toro. The film, which bears his name in the title due to his visionary approach, is remarkably -- and directly oppositional to Disney's two approaches -- entirely done practically. Del Toro's first stop-motion film is the kind of brilliant project that almost makes you wonder how it wasn't the first stop-motion animated film ever made, or at least something like it. For a story that not only questions reality and constantly crosses the boundaries between life and death, but that is indeed about all the animates and inanimates in between, stop-motion is probably the singularly perfect medium for storytelling. It's the ideal combination of material and form, one that emphasizes del Toro's own involvement like Geppetto's (the lonely old man and creator of the titular character) in that the human touch and eye literally creates every painstakingly realized frame of this film.

Interestingly, this Pinocchio also has its updates, and so while it adapts a lot of themes from the original fable, it also updates it slightly, heightening the stakes and increasing our curiosity as del Toro and his team move us forward a bit to the era of World War II. In this atmosphere, under the fraught shadow of Mussolini in power, Geppetto (voiced by David Bradley from Harry Potter and Game of Thrones) is driven to drunken depression after his son Carlo is killed in their idyllic town by a wayward bomb. A grieving Geppetto eventually carves his puppet replacement in a scene eerily reminiscent of Frankenstein, all narrated by a delightful Sebastian J. Cricket (an excellent Ewan McGregor). It's the kind of scene that we'd expect to see in a traditional Grimm-style fairytale, where wishes and death are much closer than they are in subsequent fantasies.

When a Wood Sprite (Tilda Swinton, of course) gifts the puppet with consciousness, we begin to see a familiar del Toro at work. He's not interested in Disney-fied versions of fairies, but rather of older, darker understandings of "monsters" and the otherworldly. The Wood Sprite seems more like a biblical angel than a cultural one; much later in the story, a Sphinx-like beast seems to lord over the realm of Death (also voiced by Swinton), and we're reminded that del Toro is very much interested in these things artistically and philosophically, making these moments stand out in a movie already chock-full of spectacular and memorable material. His story is decidedly not taking any inspiration from Christian or even Western ideas.

Del Toro and co-writer Patrick McHale sprinkle some excellent pithy morals and aphorisms in their dialogue, most of which skirt the familiar morals of the last few decades of children's fare, seemingly advocating for more mature themes. Sebastian at one critical point declares, "I try my best, and that's the best anyone can do," and that's the kind of wise perspective that sets him (and this film) apart. Pinocchio's tale here isn't always between lying and honesty, but in fact between life and death itself, and as he "grows up," he learns that life doesn't exist in those ideal forms -- or any idealization -- but rather in the space between them as we learn through failures and successes. It helps that this Pinocchio (voiced by Gregory Mann) looks more puppet-like than many iterations, and his abrasive naivete is on full display rather than sidelined. Children aren't usually perfectly behaved curious little cherubs, and it's refreshing to see that in a film that would otherwise be deemed "for children."

It helps, too, that del Toro himself has long championed, in his film, the monstrous and misunderstood who have been hurt by the "civilized" world. He seems to be quite in love with his odd little puppet, and perhaps that's why he clearly wanted his Pinocchio to look more naturalistic and even tree-like. Anything, he seems to say, but a depiction of a typical little boy or even anything too structured, perhaps to continue his ongoing commentary on the dangers of fascist ideologies. It's telling, I think, that apart from Mussolini himself -- who the film directly mocks -- the other major male characters are wicked, including the villainous Count Volpe (Christoph Waltz) who abuses his monkey Spazzatura (Cate Blanchett) and Pinocchio while on tour as well as a government official named Podesta (Ron Perlman) who strictly disciplines his son Candlewick (Finn Wolfhard). One wonders, too, if the often-repeated setting of the town church and visuals of the crucifix indicate del Toro's critical commentary extends to the Catholic church. I suspect it does.

Ultimately, the film leaves us with a surprisingly soft reminder that death isn't always something to be feared, but rather to be respected. Mortality is a gift, even as it curses us with sorrow and pain during life. Even the dual-cast roles of Geppetto's biological son and created son as well as the Wood Sprite and Death indicate a duality of life across the bridge of death. It's at once sobering and refreshing for this kind of thematic content in an animated straight-to-streaming feature, reminding us all that the most beautiful and lovely things in life are what we make, faults and all, out of hardship and tragedy and horror. And maybe some of the lovely things we make will continue on after we're gone, enriching the lives of those who come after. Who knew Pinocchio could be such a philosophical journey?

Dual (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Karen Gillan leads with not one but two of her best performances yet in the aptly titled Dual, a satirical science fiction thriller that was released under just about every radar last year. The Doctor Who, Jumanji, MCU, and Oculus actress plays Sarah, a depressed young woman who prefers isolation to engaging with her pestering mother and emotionally distant boyfriend. One wonders if this is a chicken-or-egg situation, and if Sarah has driven them away or vice versa. Suddenly stricken with a terminal (and gory) illness, Sarah keeps her condition a secret while she explores her options. She elects a somewhat experimental and sensational path forward: to create a clone of herself to live on after her own death, to protect her loved ones from the pain of losing her.

The world of Dual is very realistic, one that could generally be our own world, except for this cloning technology. The "replacement" process is touted as a loving practice for family and friends, one that is minimally invasive (apparently the clone is created almost instantly from only a drop of your saliva) and requires only some time with the original to learn mannerisms, facts and details, and personality traits. The transition from original to replacement is supposed to be seamless and heartwarming. Of course, that's not the case, as sometimes the original survives the terminal diagnosis. By this point, the clone has generally become a full person and doesn't want to be "decommissioned"; when this happens, the two identical people are made to duel to the death. 

Hence the title, which plays off both the dual nature of Sarah and the duel she needs to prepare for with her clone. Because her replacement, from their introduction, has no interest in copying Sarah. She's assertive, challenging, and independent; her different eye color is suggested by a clone technician immediately to be a "glitch," though he has no idea how deep the glitch goes. The clone is more confident, more sexual, more assertive, more fun; Sarah's mother and boyfriend both prefer the clone, and so Sarah finds herself a stranger in her own life. So Sarah, miraculously cured from her terminal illness, decides to duel her clone. Over the course of one year, she trains rigorously (under a combat trainer named Aaron Paul, which is hilarious to me) to prepare to survive and reclaim her life.

Interesting thoughts that are suggested but never quite explored litter this film, such as the offhanded remark that Sarah doesn't need to worry about paying for her replacement because the clone, as the survivor, will be billed. Every time the film starts to suggest intrigue around the anxiety-inducing uncanny implications of having another version of yourself running around messing up your life, it shies away from even smart conversations about it. It's not a fault of the director or actors, but of the screenplay, which is almost exclusively interested in Sarah's process of training for the duel and then, of course, the outcome of that confrontation. Ordinarily, big ideas like this -- talk about a life debt -- deserve more consideration and time, but Dual is so lean and mean in its incisive look at the psychology of the two Sarahs that it doesn't need to dwell on more cerebral, existential themes. Can you fault it for being what it is, even though it could have been far more interesting, even based on its title, which in retrospect should have been titled Duel?

Then again, in enduring all the unsatisfying blank spaces that this film creates, one wonders if we're meant to feel as liminal as the central characters. The "double" concept has been used extensively throughout cinema, notably from Hitchcock and Roeg and De Palma, and has even featured in several recent movies, such as Infinity Pool just this year. Perhaps it's a theme that will resurrect in the wake of Covid-19, the kind of dual consciousness not of race or ethnicity but of a trauma response to having very different public and private personae.