Snow White (2025)

Score: 0.5 / 5

Leave real-life personas, politics, and overpublicized antics out of it, and Snow White suddenly becomes much less than a sum of its parts. Taken on its own merit, the most recent live-action remake of a Disney classic fails to coalesce, its disparate elements awash in more money and scrutiny than they apparently knew how to handle. Unfocused and sorely misguided, the film bastardizes its own possible intervention into reclaiming archaic fairytales by plucking specific visual elements from the original animated classic, spinning them into gaudy practical spectacle, and attempting to pass it off as reasonable, enjoyable entertainment. Y'all know I love Disney, but this film is rubbish.

Anyone attempting to retell the Grimm tale has a nasty uphill climb, because its characters and theme have become synonymous with sexist baggage tying women to value as a result of their physical appearance and pitting old women against the young while vying for love and power. Problematic elements like a child being abused, stalked by a strange man, and ultimately resuscitated by his nonconsensual lip-locking, need to be addressed. These, along with its requirement for seven short men in motley used as little more than comedic devices, have made the myth nowhere near as appealing or prevalent in our culture of mass media as, for example, Cinderella. Those select titles that have approached the story must do so with brave new aesthetics and theming in mind, such as the terrifying Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997) or the silly and fun Mirror Mirror (2012). 

Disney fails to do this, preferring instead to rehash its visual language around the title character and double down on spectacle rather than honoring either our nostalgia for the original 1937 animated film or the story on which it is based, which is quite violent and scary. In removing teeth from the source material, the new film squanders its potential stakes, rendering the proceedings simplistic and too sweet, like a confectioner's end-of-day discount sale. To expand the original's brief runtime, more material is clumsily packed in to this iteration, mostly manifesting in the film's final act which, like in the remake of Dumbo, speculatively offers a story of how Snow White might assert her own claim to the throne and liberate her feudal homeland from the tyranny of her evil stepmother.

The problem is that, while it's a fine impulse, it's been done before. And better. Snow White and the Huntsman, for all the unspecific criticism it garnered, bravely imagined a high, dark fantasy vision of the story while positioning its heroine as an oppressed political subject on the lam and rabble-rousing before returning to overthrow the queen's destructive rule. And it was more convincing, both in its admittedly vague politics and in its call to violent action. Disney's update, conversely, depicts its heroine as a wide-eyed simpleton, wishing away her opportunities in favor of small creature comforts before triumphantly sashaying into "my father's house" -- a crucial misstep in the dialogue that elicited audible groans from audience members in our screening -- to watch the queen defeat herself. It's profoundly, disquietingly stupid writing, tone-deaf and wholly out of touch with our present.

New songs by Pasek and Paul (The Greatest Showman, Dear Evan Hansen, Spirited, and recent new additions to the Disney songbook), though arguably enjoyable, are shoehorned into this material with no reason or rationale. A marketplace song and dance about this being a place "where good things grow" doesn't make any sense with the IP, but offers a flavor of other, better marketplace musical numbers (if you know, you know); the song bookends the film in opening and closing scenes, suggesting that the film will include some environmentalist ideas, which it does not. Again, Snow White and the Huntsman, of all things, had more to say on that subject.

Meanwhile, Rachel Zegler's simplistic and cartoonish portrayal of Snow White -- which was a difficult, dull character to begin with -- never manages to feel real or earned, and her questionable agency gets sidelined by a plot that forces her into obvious next steps for "development," if you can call it that. Her song about "Waiting on a Wish" is perhaps a necessary update from "Some Day My Prince Will Come," but its poppy new energy cheapens its supposedly character-building purpose. The only pleasant new song, for this viewer, came in the romantic duet between Zegler and her character's paramour, Jonathan, who is notably not a prince in this version. Jonathan as a character is useless and functionless, but the song is pretty great and Andrew Burnap plays him with a refreshingly knowing charm and self-awareness that it otherwise sorely lacking in this film.

Gal Gadot's Evil Queen is even more frustrating than Zegler's character, for similar reasons: neither the writers nor designers reimagined it in any compelling way nor have the actors provided what is needed to give fresh blood to these archetypes. Much like her counterpart, actually, Gadot simplifies her character to its most basic and boring elements. Decked out in obnoxious, impractical sequined gowns that do nothing for her amazing body, Gadot flicks her nails and arches her brows as if that's all it takes to craft a memorable villain. Her voice coach should be blacklisted from the industry; instead of leaning into her own voice, Gadot screeches out a pinched tone with stilted, unnatural inflections. And that's before she even starts singing. Her musical numbers -- yes, the composers created one for her -- have the energy of an amateur drag queen in a high school show choir, as she parks and barks while blaring her lyrics in flat tones and awkward phrasing. She's not even given a name (historical Disney canon has the queen as Grimhilde, which is delicious and should have been referenced at least), further underscoring the film's cultural incompetence.

The screenplay's efforts to update the story, which I've already characterized as inept, take as their primary goal an unpacking of the word "fair," which bears further discussion. "Who is the fairest of all?" Traditionally, we know this question refers to physical beauty, a judgment of light complexion and pleasing countenance. This film repeatedly -- and I mean too often -- questions this by forcing consideration of fairness as also about a measure of justice or equality. The "trials" of Snow White in exile, if we can call her cozy little cottage and built-in servants a hardship, aim to test her ability to be kind and gentle and fair in dealing with conflicts that arise. Other than its remolding of the male love interest, this is the only aspect of the film I found intriguing, despite its heavyhanded and inarticulate but redundant deployment in the screenplay.

Apart from these, there is much more yet to criticize. Painting the castle and its peasants as obligated slaves to an apple-pie-baking industry is frankly an insane notion that doesn't work. The choice to cast anybody as the dwarves (Tituss Burgess voices Bashful, and I had literally no idea until the end credits), regardless of their physical size or ability, and then create the visual characters wholly as CGI monstrosities that should give those unnerved by the uncanny valley a run for their money, is simply inexcusable and irresponsible in this day and age. The potentially scary moments that should have been expanded upon -- notably Snow White's escape from the huntsman, her adventure into a terrifying forest, and the Queen's violent and desperate transformation into a hag to entrap her -- are all scaled down to be their barest and most meek, as if Disney was afraid to have even the most basic threat embodied against their heroine. The choice to have Dopey (Andrew Barth Feldman) of all characters "grow" from his experience and end up the narrator reveals a sentimental obsession from the filmmakers that eschews substance in favor of clumsy charm. The dwarves' mining operation is given no purpose or significance, making their existence meaningless in the context of the film. The costumes are chintzy and look cheap -- a gobsmacking revelation, considering this film's disgusting budget -- and Snow White's iconic outfit looks about as expensive as something pulled from a plastic bag in Spirit Halloween.

I don't like writing negatively about art, and everyone will have their own opinions of this picture. But, as a longtime fan and apologist for Disney and most of its live-action remakes, I regretfully will never recommend this film and never watch it again. Its crushing disappointment is no one's sole fault (though Erin Cressida Wilson and Marc Webb have a lot to answer for), but I found almost nothing entertaining or even worthwhile about this abysmal exercise in inanity.

Woman of the Hour (2024)

Score: 5 / 5

This is why I try not to compile my list of favorites until I've seen my full yearly list. With only a few 2024 titles left to see -- clearly I should not have taken four weeks off in February -- I thought my list was pretty solid and had been considering posting it (later than usual, being after the Oscars and all, but still before April). And then I saw Woman of the Hour.

Anna Kendrick's directorial debut premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival almost a year prior to Netflix exclusively releasing it last October. I didn't know anything about it until a trusted friend slyly made a recommendation during a conversation slightly bemoaning the state of fictionalizations of true crimes, serial killers in particular. Kendrick has long flirted with the darker side of things, notably as an actor in A Simple Favor and of course Alice, Darling, and she does star in this film, but I didn't expect much from her as a director

Ian McDonald's screenplay dramatizes the real-life murder spree of Rodney Alcala, the serial rapist and murderer of anywhere between eight and 130 victims from California to Wyoming and even New York. True crime junkies might know him better as the so-called Dating Game Killer, as Alcala indeed appeared on and won a 1978 episode of The Dating Game, the year before his capture and arrest. Much like Ted Bundy, he was known to be attractive and intelligent, isolating his victims before sexually and violently assaulting them, sometimes rendering them unconscious only to revive and assault them again. His is a terrifying story, showcased in several documentaries and procedural shows in large part due to the still unknown extent of his violence.

Seemingly taking inspiration from the likes of David Fincher's Zodiac, this film is framed by vignettes of Alcala's murder spree in nonlinear arrangement, showing his disarming charm and seductive prowess at the height of his criminality. We are never meant to doubt his identity or methods; his repeated purr, "You're beautiful," stems from his primary tool: a camera he uses to photograph his victims, savoring their impending doom once he feels slighted by them. His gaze -- literalized in his camera -- provides a sense of power over life and death, and Kendrick capitalizes on subverting this generic trope. In the first vignette, before we know for sure who or what the story is about, we hear a victim first, only initially seeing her through Alcala's photographic lens as he directs her attempt at modeling while provoking her emotional reactivity. Kendrick focuses on Alcala's charm, played to sickly sweet perfection by Daniel Zovatto in a thankless role that requires a deftness to its technique. Alcala could be played as a simpering suitor who snaps, a calculating "killing machine" as the press has called him, or even a mentally ill person with two distinct personalities. He could be played as a Buffalo Bill type, seemingly impaired or pathetic before violent, uncharacteristic outbursts. But Zovatto plays him as if he's a chillingly well-adjusted incel, aware of his own oozing appeal even as his standards are impossibly high for anyone to meet. Though the film suggests that he carefully chooses his victims, Zovatto plays it as if he's really just looking for love. He even has a suggestive encounter with a young, likely queer, man at work and nearly gets him to meet him after the office closes. It's only when his date or meet-cute turns sour -- usually when the victim gets comfortable and says or does something to even in the tiniest bit emasculate or poke fun at him -- that Alcala visibly decides to punish the perceived slight to his dominance.

Yet the film is not a straightforward reworking of Alcala's crimes. Rather, it centers around the episode of The Dating Game on which the killer appeared. Kendrick herself plays Sheryl, an aspiring but failing actress trying to make it in Hollywood. Her distant agent is grasping for any opportunity, so as a last-ditch effort to be seen in the biz, she's booked as a contestant on the show, meant to anonymously ask questions of three potential men before selecting one to date based solely on his verbal responses. Of course, given the late '70s setting, she's pampered and wardrobed before the show goes live, encouraged by the show's host (a smarmy Tony Hale) to be a "good girl" and don't play too smart. Audiences don't like that. She should be upbeat, smile, and simply ask the dull, sexist questions written on her cue cards. Sheryl grins and bears it until one of her contestants piques her interest with intelligent responses.

One might wonder why a film about a misogynist serial killer would be told from the perspective of someone who was ultimately not a victim and who otherwise had nothing to do with his life, apart from their high-stress, high-stakes meet cute. The title is only mentioned once, as Sheryl's introduction to the game show stage, before she ends up taking the reins in her line of questioning. Kendrick is her typically smart and spunky self in the role, but behind the screen she feels much more deliberate and contemplative, balancing emotionally complex scenes of nuanced chemistry and gender politics with riveting when-will-he-snap encounters with a murderous chameleon. After the show, when Sheryl chooses Alcala as her date, he pressures her into going out for drinks to celebrate their hour in the spotlight, like a pre-date date. While there, she makes the wise choice to poke fun at him, and Kendrick isolates each player in the frame in increasing close-ups as they face off, planning strategic moves nonverbally while maintaining a veneer of social grace. 

It's breathtaking work from a first-time director and her team, deftly working in tandem for a specific and arresting experience that neither overstays its welcome nor ever feels preachy. The closest it gets is in its surprisingly still relevant feminist moments, depicting the horrors awaiting women who must play "nice" and smile to get through any given situation. Sheryl does it herself multiple times -- she's the real protagonist here -- with casting directors objectifying her to her face and with a platonic neighbor who wants more from her. During a break in the game show, just after Sheryl decides to stop playing "nice" with her unknown suitors and her sleazy host, her makeup artist says that, no matter her methods, the real question for her (and any woman) remains the same: "Which one of you will hurt me?" Poignant and devastating, the question encapsulates Kendrick's approach to tonally presenting this story from the perspective of several women.

And I still haven't touched on it all! Nicolette Robinson plays a woman in the audience of the game show who recognizes Alcala from a traumatic vacation in Malibu the previous year when her friend was brutally murdered. She's shunted by the studio and all but ignored, unable to pass along her warning effectively to a limelit Sheryl. Later, during their awkward post-show drink date, Sheryl gets a whiff of danger and efficiently signals to her server not to entertain them any longer. There is a constant gaze at work in the film, and most of it is female-oriented, a sort of subtle reworking of the male gaze meant to highlight the need for solidarity and aid in the presence of dangerous men; it's all the more necessary in a culture of innocuous (or "microaggressive") sexism, where prolific serial rapists and killers are empowered to commit acts of physical violence through normalized ideological violence. And Kendrick as director subtly critiques true crime films themselves by eliding gruesome or exploitative scenes of violence; in this, she reminded me especially of Sofia Coppola's version of The Beguiled, demonstrating that the worst things are not always what you don't want to see, but rather the commonplace horrors enacted between people that pave the way to greater cruelties.

The Soul Eater (2024)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Roquenoix, a secluded French town plagued by parallel strings of brutal, senseless murders and missing children, is haunted by the local legend of The Soul Eater, a being said to invade the minds of his victims and corrupt them into committing horrific violence. The latest act of violence: a young husband and wife stab each other to death in the kitchen after making a beautiful brunch while evidently not fighting, not attempting to defend themselves, and while sexually climaxing. As the police lock down the scene and attempt to locate the couple's adolescent son, experts are called in to assess the scene, determine the cause of the homicides, and find the missing child.

That's where the film really starts: a detective, while running and yelling angrily, receives his orders. He hitchhikes to Roquenoix, meeting a Parisian police chief along the way who picks him up reluctantly. An unbalanced gender dynamic plays out as they take each other in, she questioning why he's in plainclothes and hiking and he brusquely focusing on the missing children cases he's investigating. When they end up arriving to the same address for their work, they put two and two together and realize the cases are linked.

The two actors, Virginie Ledoyen and Paul Hamy are really wonderful in the film, which wisely centers on their relationship. Like the best detective thrillers, The Soul Eater focuses on its characters and the effect horrific crimes have on them; this film reminded me at times of Se7en, Prisoners, Antlers, The Pale Blue Eye, and True Detective. Not necessarily conscious homages, but similar "vibes" as the kids say, through a contemplative and heightened thematic approach to a semi-supernatural-seeming mystery. Hamy is quite nice to look at, and performs bravado despite wearing a big anxious secret on his sleeve; Ledoyen looks like a cross between Geena Davis and Natalie Portman, but her bravery and stoic desperation to command a room reminded me a lot of Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs. Their backstories will be slowly explored via piecemeal flashbacks at key intervals, and they've got some significant baggage. Their slightly awkward pairing allows for mutual trust to develop, not unlike early encounters between Mulder and Scully. But just when you think the screenplay is going to rely on archetypal differences to dictate their characterizations, it swerves the opposite direction.

I was gasping for breath for most of this screening. Rarely do mysteries thrill me anymore, especially ones masquerading as police procedurals, and I wasn't expecting much from a French movie about which I had heard and seen nothing. For most of its runtime, the screenplay creates even more frayed edges and offers more clues, many of which are disparate and bizarre. You start wondering how they could possibly tie together into a cohesive strand, or if this will remain an abstract secret, something unknowable and endlessly subject to speculation, like Twin Peaks or a Kubrick film. But by the finale -- and I won't spoil it here, because this is a rare occasion when discovering the plot on your own is absolutely essential -- the whole thing neatly concludes with no doubt or loose ends or unwelcome red herrings.

More should be said about this film, as it touches on far more than can be examined in one brief review. Directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury came to prominence with the excellent and horrifying Inside in 2007, followed by Livid, Among the Living, and even an entry in the Texas Chainsaw franchise, a prequel to the original film, titled Leatherface in 2017. Most recently, they helmed a disappointing but noteworthy haunted house film shot almost entirely underwater in The Deep House (2021). The Soul Eater is possibly my favorite of their work thus far, because it suggests both restraint and a measured, thoughtful approach to earned, emotionally taxing mystery. Gorgeous cinematography highlights the isolation of this ghostly hamlet, haunted as much by a spook in the forest as by its own rotting economy and crumbling morale. The fictional town is facing extinction, long after its sanatorium had been shuttered, cutting off business and money and decimating the population, adding questions of mental illness and financial desperation to the suspicious townsfolk. Material needs and metaphysical fears coalesce into a heady cocktail; had this been filmed in America, I imagine its setting as deep in a murky bayou, but the rural French foothills add a sickly damp chill to the proceedings. This isn't a horror film with scares, but its dramatization of perverse desperation bothered me late into the night and for days after.

Opus (2025)

Score: 1 / 5

We could spend hours picking apart every little problem with A24's most recent theatrical release, and I imagine most people who see it will do so. Before we get to my comparatively brief laundry list of complaints, however, it's important to impress on you -- in case you're wanting to see this film -- how exceptionally, suffocatingly unentertaining Opus was to me. I was so bored in the auditorium that I started counting the little lights that line the aisle and, as no one else was in the screening, I discovered that a total of 317 little tiny lights were dimly shining along the floor of this particular room. One might have been burned out.

Some films work by referencing others like itself, honoring and citing what has come before. Opus seems, rather, to think quite profoundly of itself, despite the obvious and better films to which one should readily compare it. Essentially, in the story, a journalist summoned to an enigmatic pop icon's isolated compound learns quickly that his worshipful cult has big plans for her. Titles like the cult-y The Wicker Man and Midsommar and The Sacrament come to mind, along with healthy doses of ritualized abuse like in Blink Twice or even White Lotus and Nine Perfect Strangers. There is some indication of pop art and/or celebrity status being used as a byproduct and shield of sorts of trauma mirrored in, for example, Vox Lux and The United States vs. Billie Holiday. The clearest point of connection, to me, was Ingrid Goes West, which plays with tone to a much more satisfying result.

Any invitation that includes the verb "luxuriate" should be accepted, so we're right there with journalist Ariel (writer and actor Ayo Edebiri, The Bear, What We Do in the Shadows, Theater Camp, Inside Out 2) when she's a bit excited for this otherwise weird summons. Her boss, Stan (Murray Bartlett of Looking, White Lotus, The Last of Us, Welcome to Chippendales), is also invited, and he educates her on their host. Aging pop superstar Alfred Moretti has announced a new album, years after his retirement. To drum up buzz, he has invited six notable journalists for a listening party at his private compound in Utah. "Journalists" is a stretch; the others include a talk show host (Juliette Lewis), an influencer, a radio shock jock, and a paparazza. Moretti himself is a mystery, but all the characters have long covered his fame in their lines of work or are personal fans. He occupies a mythic status far beyond that of mere artist, like one imagines the aura of Madonna and Elton John to be in life or the aura worshipped by devotees of Prince or Elvis in death. 

The main problem with the film is that we are given no reasons to believe or understand Moretti's greatness. By the time the characters have met and arrive at their desolate destination, it is immediately clear that Moretti is the figurehead of a cult, surrounded by sycophantic disciples tending to the compound. If Moretti's PR representative who announced the album (played by a delightfully unhinged Tony Hale) wasn't enough indication, the filmmakers include news footage of the global outburst upon news of Moretti's return. But the phenomenon of celebrity and "cult status" is herein literalized, and Ariel seems to be the only person present with an ounce of suspicion.

It's maddening, and only gets worse from there. The cultists all wear blue robes, and the visitors are pampered and prepared to meet with Moretti as if he's medieval royalty about to choose one as his concubine. An awkwardly funny sequence indicates that the visitors -- each constantly chaperoned (read: surveilled) by an attendant -- are freshly bathed, fed specific rations, shaved in specific private ways, and finally presented to their leader in the most elegant and unlikely of attire. While Stan gobbles up the experience like a greedy child, we're pushed to side with Ariel, clearly the only clear-eyed and competent guest, on whom will doubtless fall the responsibility of whistleblowing when things go tits-up.

And indeed they do. In predictable beats, the guests are treated to their glorious fantasy: a private musical performance from their host. Enter John Malkovich, in his uniquely bizarre brand of personality, dressed in what appears to be plates of mirrors that sorely hinder his movement, jerkily thrusting his way around the encircled chairs of his press. The "music" is grating and immaterial, and watching Malkovich pressing his crotch against Juliette Lewis in a big wig and red sequined gown was not my idea of a good time.

Yes, this seems excessive, but is it all meant to be too much? Could that be its aesthetic? A worthy question, dear reader. Apart from its pointed casting, the film does take big swings in odd moments. Moretti is never dressed the same way twice, and some of his outfits are genuinely dazzling. But Malkovich sometimes completely changes his wardrobe between adjacent scenes where the characters go directly from the threshold of a building to a dining venue or to a performance room, a space of time in which he simply could not have changed such elaborate ensembles. Camp? Maybe, but camp only works if it's about something, and something serious at that.

There's a curious subplot between Stan and Ariel. Though she was specifically invited to Moretti's gathering, Stan instinctively (or selfishly) delegates to her the task of taking notes of everything they experience. The article, "the story of this place," is Stan's alone. It's an infuriating first note to their dynamic, seeing his callous conceit and her automatic acquiescence. One could trace through Opus to connect the points of journalistic ethics and make some kind of point about paparazzi and the decadence of celebrity culture and the problems of parasocial relationships with emotionally-charged superstars. But despite being about that, generally, the film never offers insight into these phenomena. No sympathy, no empathy. No reason. By the film's disappointingly predictable climax, Moretti reveals the mass suicide plans for his cult and his motivation: wanting to stop critics. He seeks revenge for anyone whose artistic creativity has been hindered or crushed by the negative opinions of others.

The eye-roll-inducing basis for these doldrums revealed, I left this bitter viewing experience wondering only what this film is trying to say, and to whom. It's not funny, except in a few forced ways and a few awkward ways. It's not scary. If it's in defense of artists, its locus of horror is severely misplaced by making the artist a stand-in for Jim Jones. If it's in defense of press, it mistreats its characters by grossly misrepresenting their profession. If it's in criticism of celebrity culture and fan worship, where are its targets? Weirdness can work by and for its own purposes, but not in otherwise tepid and pointless material like this.

You'll Never Find Me (2024)

Score: 4 / 5

When a young, nameless woman knocks on your rural, isolated trailer in the middle of a nighttime thunderstorm, it's not for a good reason. Paul's well aware of this, quite alone and in what must be his usual rhythm when the knocking starts. It's pouring buckets outside, so he lets the mystery woman into his small home. As soon as the door shuts, however, the film forces our minds into overtime. Though we know almost nothing about either character, an intimate and riveting cat-and-mouse game has just begun. But who is the cat and who is the mouse?

That question plagues every scene of You'll Never Find Me, the debut feature from Australian filmmakers Indianna Bell and Josiah Allen. Playing off the fears of evil hiding behind a veneer of social politeness -- which we've seen dramatized before, and in various genres, though in this instance I'd say the opening sequence of Barbarian comes closest to the tone of this -- the film works best when it implicates us in its burning questions of which character deserves our sympathy. Or suspicion.

Playing off established horror tropes related to single-location stories, unwanted guests, home invasions, and the whole "you knocked on the wrong door" problem, the story is all about these two mysterious characters who slowly reveal their secrets. Thankfully, this is not in the vein of some so-called "elevated horror" of late that forces you to interpret tertiary meanings in endless debate or consideration afterwards; rather, here by film's end we have a pretty clear picture of all that has happened to get these characters to this fateful night and what it means for them. That feels perhaps rare these days, so watching it unfold is deeply satisfying. I won't tell you what happens, because it's worth experiencing for yourself.

In many ways, its twisty unraveling feels Hitchcockian, especially as we are locked into a fairly small trailer for the full 90-something minutes of its runtime. Only so much space for these characters to move around, dry out their clothes, and try to pass the time while lightning flashes outside. Paul seems a generous host, offering to take the woman's clothes to dry them by the heater, but is there a more sinister reason he might want to remove her clothes? She (credited only as "The Visitor," no name) is clearly concerned about his behavior, though she doesn't want to appear ungrateful for his hospitality. But why is she all the way out here, at night, in a storm, and how did she get past the locked gate, and why does she say she was at the beach when that is remarkably distant? And before you're able to accuse her of anything, Paul gets creepy again and all but insists that she use his shower to warm up.

Back-and-forth patterns, especially in screenplays, can make any audience feel a bit seasick. But Bell and Allen here, guided by Bell's intelligent and sharp writing, shape the film into an endlessly curious examination of where politeness and savagery intersect. The movie palpably breathes despite lengthy dialogue scenes by honoring its silences, the awkward and thoughtful pauses as each party of the potential conflict plays their respective side of an invisible chess board. Brendan Rock and Jordan Cowen perform their arduous tasks admirably, injecting surprising beats into quickly successive moments that could very easily have been phoned in and still effective. She's fidgety and anxious, but the flickers of fear aren't always recognizable, and it's rarely clear if she senses danger or opportunity. He's stoic and observant -- immediately he clocks her bare feet; no way she walked here from far -- but seems to be battling significant internal demons before she even materializes at his door.

Come for the twisty mystery and consistently unpredictable genre thrills. Stay for the juicy cinematography and acting. Her lies, his secrets... this is a nightmare best served cold.

Mickey 17 (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

When an auteur throws a curveball your way, pay attention. Bong Joon-ho's first outing since his huge Parasite Oscar haul will surely have many a critical eye, as all major award winners do. Mickey 17 is a curious follow-up, and anyone unfamiliar with his work prior to Parasite will feel it's a bizarre divergence from the norm. And perhaps it is. But that's what Bong does best. Like Yorgos Lanthimos in some ways, Bong bends genre and style to suit the way he feels about his material, whether it's cute fantasy adventure mixed with harsh reality in Okja, vaguely western action and drama in The Host's monster mayhem, horror and comedy in the crime thriller Mother, or of course riveting action in the dystopian sci-fi allegory Snowpiercer. And in this, Bong's third English-language feature, he explores similar political themes as he did in Okja and Snowpiercer, perhaps suggesting that he knows what that particular market needs to see. 

Based on a recent novel, the story follows the reincarnated misadventures of the titular Mickey (Robert Pattinson). A rapidly dying Earth leads teams of colonists to other planets, and hoping to escape some loan sharks, Mickey and his friend Timo (Steven Yeun) join one headed to icy Niflheim. As in any Bong film, the symbols pile up quickly, but note that Niflheim is the world of the dead in Norse mythology. Timo is accepted as a shuttle pilot, but Mickey has no real skills, so he signs up as an "Expendable," which is a job nobody else wants and that the company bureaucrats are shocked to learn Mickey enthusiastically wants. What he doesn't know is that the name is quite apt, and he is signing on to be truly expendable. Cloned repeatedly (hence the number after his name), Mickey will be tasked with any dangerous maintenance or expeditionary need in order to assess Niflheim's suitability for colonizers to, well, colonize.

This means that many, many Mickeys die over the course of this film. Whether it's to fix something on the ship as deadly debris flies by or being the first on the distant planet to remove his helmet and suffer new terrestrial infections, Mickey's life and death and renewed life are less a miracle than a mockery of existence. There's nothing personally fulfilling about the salvific job, and despite his sacrifices, the other crew members scorn Mickey with disdain as less than their collective worth. After each demise, Mickey is reprinted, essentially, in a printer of organic matter with his own memories replanted into his brain. Through extensive voiceover narration, Mickey speculates this cycle isn't as bad as what he'd have endured and suffered at the hands of those gangsters back home. And so he keeps dying, in grotesque and often rather dull ways, such as when he's used to test vaccines.

Pattinson is incredible in this role, going completely gonzo in an unhinged performance that inexplicably marries the tonal disparity at work. After all, the sci-fi trappings abound while larger-than-life characters act like fools and discuss the environmental, humanitarian, and economic impacts of colonialist practices on this mysterious new planet. That's a lot of ground to cover. Who better to guide us through the complex dynamics at work here than someone expendable by definition? Pattinson's wide-eyed Mickey speaks in a strained high voice as the pushover wimp who dies repeatedly, and it's his growth into a fairly banal hero that the film champions as truly salvific in the end. Friendship and teamwork help, of course, with notable friend Nasha (Naomi Ackie) offering Mickey companionship as well as support, seeing him for the brave and kind soul he is beneath a nervous exterior.

Which is why, when Mickey 17 is presumed dead by an opportunistic Temo, the lab prints a new version, Mickey 18, but this one is different. Aggressive and arrogant, Nasha recognizes a change and grows suspicious. Pattinson's firing on all fronts in the dual role, and it's never less than an absolute pleasure to behold. When Mickey 17 unexpectedly returns, they have to navigate a new reality, one punishable by the government's express ban on "multiples." Questions of identity and humanity abound, who deserves to live and why, even regarding the sexual imagination of his girlfriend, but I'll leave those fun thematic points for you to discover for yourself.

As Mickey toils, the true authors of his suffering -- which, by the way, is far more funny than I'm making it sound -- come into clearer focus. Kenneth Marshall, the tyrannical businessman and government leader in charge of the whole operation, and his wife Ylfa are paranoid self-aggrandizing supremacists who believe they deserve to be in charge and that any question or threat to their particular brand of elite eccentricity is deserving of capital punishment. Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette one-up Pattinson's gonzo acting choices in performances that frankly I found a bit grating by film's end despite their obvious intention for that reaction. Ruffalo and his false teeth and stilted speech pattern had me laughing aloud in the theater, while Collette's character's obsession with sauces is burned into my brain as the most inventive and bizarre trait possible in such a bit part. Their allegorical significance to a certain failed businessman and president cannot be overstated, and the film missteps briefly in overtly tying them to reality. At one point we see a room of their supporters wearing red caps and it was disappointingly obvious from Bong, whose point had already been made manifest by that time.

The film gets a bit needlessly convoluted in its second half, once Mickey 18 bludgeons his way onto the scene, even with Pattinson's endless voiceover. Its jumbled amalgamation of themes such as economic hardship and disparities, the worth of human life and the cost of experimentation on flesh, environmental abuse and collapse, and authoritarian efforts for colonization create a heady mixture that, if not for Bong's signature satirical flair, might feel unfocused and overwhelming. It even includes CGI alien critters -- excuse me, "creepers" -- in a significant if, again, obvious thematic conceit. A few too many subplots keep the lengthy runtime moving quickly, though, along with evocative cinematography from Darius Khondji and a gloomily sinister production design reminiscent of '70s and '80s ideas of futuristic space travel. Mickey 17 might not be what any of us were expecting from Bong, but it's exactly what he does best.

MadS (2024)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Horror fans, as a rule, want new ways of telling familiar stories. Zombie films are notoriously hard to keep down, much like their characteristic monsters, and tend to reinvent their own subgenre more often that most others in horror. Enter MadS, the newest zombie movie with an axe to grind, which debuted on the festival circuit and did not receive a wide release in the US. Its singular vision of a world tipping into chaos is on par with some of the best filmmaking -- horror or otherwise -- I've seen in a long time. Though its story runs thin, its technical aspects and style repeatedly had me picking my jaw up off my chest.

It starts with Romain (Milton Riche), a young man ready for a birthday night of partying with friends, getting new drugs from his dealer and testing them out. His wealthy father is away but watching the house cameras, reachable by phone. Leaving his dealer high and ready to go, Romain drives home through a rural area; stopping briefly after a cigarette mishap, a stranger materializes and jumps into his convertible. The stranger seems female but is mostly covered by bandages, even her fingertips; she grunts and indicates that he must start the car and continue driving, but he's reasonably hesitant to acquiesce. En route to the hospital, the stranger pulls out an audio recording device and plays it, the sound of a man speaking in medical jargon describes what seem to be horrific experiments being performed on someone. The mute woman is the likely victim. But her erratic behavior intensifies until she starts stabbing herself in the vehicle, soaking Romain with her blood and getting it in his mouth before he's aware of what's happening.

Getting home, a traumatized Romain panics and tries to clean up before his girlfriend Ana (Laurie Pavy) arrives. He's standoffish to a fault, and it seems likely that she might be about to break up with him, but he's also terribly distracted this evening and acting strangely. After all, checking the garage again reveals that his unwanted hitchhiker has vanished. Ana chalks it up to his birthday, so when their friends arrive, he unwillingly agrees to go with them to a nearby house party. On the way, he experiences some weird sensory phenomena, including attraction and fixation on bright lights and muffled hearing. After arriving at the party, he's overstimulated and tries to hide, overhearing a conversation in which he learns that Julia (Lucille Guillaume), a mutual friend of his and Ana, is pregnant with his child. A furious Ana leaves the party upon this revelation and Romain physically assaults another man before fleeing home as his father calls and says there is a disturbance on the monitors.

Rushing home, Romain satisfies their security company and avoids police being summoned, but the night is still young. The party must go on, right? Even though several people have now partaken of Romain's new drugs and are now scattered around town. Even though many of them are now exhibiting troubling, scary, and violent behaviors. Even though many of them have swapped saliva, sweat, and blood. 

Oh, and by the by, the entire film is shot in a single take. Or at least made to appear so in a more convincing and less obvious way than most other single-take films.

MadS is brilliant not because it dares to depict a zombie outbreak in realistic terms but because it does so in a way that does not bring attention to its showy presentation. In fact, there isn't much pretense at all here. The single-take approach is less for spectacle and awe and more for focusing our attention on particular moments for particular characters and showing how the flow of information is so much less important in a crisis than the lived reality for people involved. Chaos and confusion abound, but the camera isolates one, then another, and finally a third character as its focal points to guide us through the (roughly) three acts of this one-night, one-take narrative. In that way, this feels like writer and director David Moreau's answer to a laundry list of increasingly spectacle-oriented zombie fare in the last few decades: take it back to George A. Romero's basics. A few people knowing nothing and trying to defend/protect themselves as the world devolves into hell.

As a directorial debut, the film is astonishing. His willingness to avoid heightened or elevated material is admirable, and the result is a roller coaster ride of bleak chaos. It also eschews the frustrating tendency for zombie movies to rely on CGI or extensive prosthetics and makeup to work. Moreau's focus is squarely on the performers, mostly French, who act their pants off to portray the onset of a viral outbreak. Twitchy and paranoid, the characters barrel through mostly nonverbal sequences of feigned madness -- no doubt contributing to the film's title -- the camera hovering around them in bouts of fear, hysterical laughter, lucid attempts at escape, and even psychotic attacks on other people. When help arrives, it's in unmarked black vans by masked strangers with large guns, and we're never meant to know if they are good or bad, only that they shoot and kill on sight.

MadS is a fierce and vicious entry in a long generic history that deserves a lot more attention.

The Monkey (2025)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Mike Flanagan is in the news again for making more Stephen King film adaptations but it's Oz Perkins who helmed The Monkey. Based on King's 1980 short story of the same name, the plot concerns a cursed toy monkey that causes somewhat random brutal deaths. That's it. Simple, straightforward, easy. No demonic entity or possessive spirit of a serial killer, no flawed AI taking over, no expansive mythmaking or origin lore. Just death, meted out by the kind of nightmarish plaything that is sure to make you ask, "Who would actually play with this, and how?"

Perkins, who came into the spotlight last year for Longlegs, is much more impressive a filmmaker when social media conversation isn't hyperbolically lauding his as "the scariest movie of the year" and such drivel. I'll maintain that The Blackcoat's Daughter is much more terrifying than anything Nic Cage eked out from his mime makeup, fun as that was to see. His Gretel & Hansel and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House are masterclasses in Gothic atmosphere and detached storytelling. But the serial killer weirdness in Longlegs implied a turn in Perkins's aesthetic, and The Monkey certainly leans into a gonzo style we haven't seen from him yet. In his case, bigger spectacle isn't camp, which has been growing in popularity (though often misunderstood and mislabeled); it's just horror, a frank look at the absolute mess death often brings with it.

That's not to say it's a morose affair. This macabre experiment in tone indeed features several moments designed to elicit aloud cries of joy and surprise. Think Final Destination, but without the obsession those characters have with outsmarting or escaping death; those feature a certain hope and agency that Perkins's film pointedly does not share. The Monkey will "getcha," and it's going to be gross and strange, and there really isn't rhyme or reason to it. Its opening sequence demonstrates this, as a messy (read: bloody) Adam Scott (Krampus, Little Evil) barges into a pawn shop to sell the ape doll and its little drum, looking as grim and horrified as... well, as someone who usually does comedy would in bloody clothes at night while lugging around a cursed toy that could cause his death at any moment. Perkins has been a confident filmmaker from his start, but a film this popularly oriented could have slipped from his grip; not so, and it's in scenes like this that he reminds us of his absolute control over complex and heightened tone.

Time jumps ahead, and the story proper concerns twin brothers, Hal and Bill, who discover dad's toy monkey (despite our having seen him destroy it) and activate it. It was in a closet with his remaining stuff, dear old daddy having absconded mysteriously after that prologue scene. First it's their babysitter who bites it -- almost literally -- and then the boys realize every time they twist the monkey's wind-up key, someone near them dies. By the time it takes their weary mother (Tatiana Maslany) from them, the boys drop it down a well and soon become estranged. We jump again twenty-five years into the future, and, as any King fan will tell you, the twins' hidden past returns with a vengeance.

The barrage of death scenes in this film are graphic, to be sure, but they aren't really meant to be taken seriously. It's Grand Guignol for the postmodern crowd. A woman jumps into an electrified pool and explodes. Yet, despite laughter in the screening auditorium I attended, the comedy is notably uncomfortable, as if Perkins is inviting us to laugh and then asking why we did so. There's a tense undercurrent of inevitability as the film implicates the audience in its massacre. We often say that God has a sense of humor when good things happen in roundabout or odd ways; what if Death has a sense of humor, too?

You might wonder why I bring God into a discussion of this amoral, bleak, grotesque exercise in violence and irreverent humor. But the film's ending, which I won't spoil here, suggests that Perkins himself has some biblical ideas in mind regarding the nature of the monkey and its task among humanity, and its inclusion of a specific apocalyptic character is presented in earnest, not in satire. Perhaps he's saying that if Death can laugh at us, we should laugh back at it; a worthy message itself, this gains power when you consider Perkins's personal story as well as King's. We know about his father -- a relationship that still arouses curiosity among fans, especially as daddy issues keep cropping up in Perkins's films -- but a little-known factoid is that Perkins's mother died on the plane that struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. As Longlegs was clearly more about Anthony Perkins and The Monkey has more heart for Berry Berenson, I'd be curious to see them billed in a double feature together and would love to hear Perkins give a talkback. That would be a therapy session for the ages!

Perkins, as writer and director, added a lot to King's story, making it his own in the process. Yet it's a lean, mean hour and a half of adrenaline and violence with nary an ounce of unnecessary weight. No matter how interested I might be in the auteur's influence, the point remains that this is a straightforward and accessible film about random death and a cosmic indifference or even cruelty toward human life. Our age of "elevated horror" and films that require dissertations (or shitty YouTube videos) to explain their nuanced intricacies needs films like The Monkey to jump in, shake things up, and leave us wanting more. I hope we don't get it.

Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

Score: 2 / 5

When you have to introduce a film as the fourth in its series, the fifth in its phase, the thirty-fifth in its franchise, the continuation of a miniseries, and how even with all that you need additional info (on casting, primarily) to properly understand the newest installment, it's time to rethink your material.

As an avowed fan of the MCU, I confess that in the last two years I've fumbled several titles, mostly those airing exclusively on streaming services I'm not presently paying for. At some point, maybe this summer, I'll get caught up on all this stuff. It's just too much right now. But to say you can walk into Brave New World, the latest Captain America-led sci-fi action thriller, without significant prior knowledge is false. Even a longtime fan who actually remembers Liv Tyler and Tim Blake Nelson in The Incredible Hulk in cinemas won't be satisfied by their resurfacing here because, crucially, this film is not for such viewers. The producers are so consciously intent on looping everything together that familiar faces popping in and out feel like fan service for their "multiverse" shtick going on, when in reality, those faces aren't attached to characters who mean anything anymore.

Instead, this film is trying to establish its protagonist as a leader of his own story, and while the magnificent Anthony Mackie is still doing us right by his Sam Wilson, I suddenly have doubts about the writing committee (five fucking writers on this crap, y'all, is crazy) and their (in)ability to tap into the strongest ethos of his character. Though he was cap-tapped -- which I'm trademarking -- by Steve Rogers at the end of Endgame, Wilson victoriously endured his own trials in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the second and personal favorite of the MCU miniseries. So he's already effectively "Captain America" before the start of this film, but he's plagued with uncertainty. After all, he doesn't have any superhuman powers. Just his brain, his heart, and a fancy suit. Really not much different than some other heroes we know.

So when President Thaddeus Ross sends Wilson to stop mercenary Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito) and his gang of Serpents from selling classified items in Mexico, Wilson dutifully accepts but remains concerned about his new sidekick Falcon, sweet and mostly untested Joaquin Torres. After their return, they begin training with Isaiah Bradley, an older Black man who had been injected with the super soldier serum and imprisoned and experimented upon by the US government. I was so ready for all of this in a film, so let's break it down. First, that Ross becomes president isn't something I remember from any comics, so that's noteworthy: in our current era of politicians who have not served in war trying to start wars, it's kind of cool to see a fictional president who is a self-proclaimed war hawk trying to stop international war. It helps that, due to William Hurt's passing, Harrison Ford steps in to play the role; he's really a highlight here. Second, making a parallel between Ross and Bradley as mentors for Wilson is a smart move, one that emphasizes a dual approach -- a double consciousness, if you will -- that Wilson must undertake to understand his own positionality in this problematic position of vulnerable errand boy for a dangerous president and a country shredded by racialized trauma.

But Brave New World isn't brave enough to actually account for much of that inherent intrigue. Rather, it constantly suggests that it's going to do something meaningful or insightful regarding historical government experiments on Black men, or even about current racial injustices being perpetrated by real-life government agents. It just never gets there. Why would an accomplished, heroic Black man even want to protect, defend, and represent a country that has so rarely treated people who look like him with dignity, let alone adequate support or defense? Is representation a good enough solution for short-term political change? With two players like Ford and Carl Lumbly playing Ross and Bradley, respectively, the film should have leaned farther into an exploration of racialized masculinity at odds with jingoism and patriotic brainwashing.

Unfortunately, the film is mostly just interested in the brainwashing itself. Eschewing political intrigue or historical reckoning, Brave New World pivots to a forced, artificial confrontation between national powers (the US and Japan, among others) rushing to a naval standoff in the Indian Ocean around the petrified corpse (?) of the Celestial that emerged there in Eternals. In a clear signal of where the MCU is next headed (and by "next," I mean yet to come in several more years, of course), much dialogue is bandied about a new supermetal discovered on this "Celestial Island" that will become the world's most valuable product: adamantium. Note that there is no reference to the actual next film, Thunderbolts, with its name theoretically taken from Ross himself, which would have been a reasonable franchise-related concession. After that bombshell lands with a thunk, the film pivots again and relies heavily on a plot stolen from The Manchurian Candidate to tell a bizarre story about sleeper agents, hypnotic brainwashing, and a loose cannon of a man in the Oval Office.

I say all this, focusing merely on its premise and presentation, because that's essentially what the MCU has become: each new installment is less interested in artistic integrity or even having a unique purpose or message to share, as comics usually do, and seems more interested in simply building itself up on references and imagery to perpetuate its own worth. The more "cool" items or looks or places it can feature, the more tickets and merch and future projects it will sell. The MCU has become a soap opera -- albeit a rare, fun one -- that doesn't know how to keep moving forward. Instead of making urgent, timely commentary on our current reality (remember Winter Soldier and how riveting and terrifying it was politically?) or even trying to say something about the human condition in general (Doctor Strange, for instance), films in this franchise are becoming watered down, afraid to make any kind of serious address in an increasingly polarized culture and toxic online fandoms. When a miniseries can talk about the Tuskegee experiments and our prison industrial complex but the film following it prefers a giant Red Hulk smashing cherry blossoms in Washington after "Mr. Blue" plays on the soundtrack, we've taken a few big steps backward.

Some might argue that the film is subtly advocating for peace, recognizing evil "on both sides" of a given conflict, as our current president once stated in a very different context. Perhaps the way forward is to let things settle into a holding pattern, to play nice with powers that are rather than challenging anyone or anything to improve. I disagree, and we can take a look at our 46th presidential administration for relevant proof (though that team was responsible for uniting Europe against Russia's invasion of Ukraine and stopping WWIII, so maybe the "do nothing" Democrats were actually on to something in international relations). Worse, after Bradley is imprisoned anew, Wilson doesn't doubt the regime and its scapegoating but works overtime to help Ross, whose only reason for pursuing peace is his own aging. Ross hopes that doing something honorable, like suing for global peace, will bring back his estranged daughter Betty. Of course, the real villain of this film isn't about to let that happen, though frankly Samuel Sterns is as much an effective villain as a mildewed rag you forgot about in the cupboard under your kitchen sink.

This might be the first time I've been brave enough to not enjoy an MCU film, and that's not a pleasant thing for me to say. It's easy to enjoy something in a familiar IP of which you've been a longtime fan. It's easy to enjoy the flood of CGI, the sleek production design, the star-studded cast, some rousing action, a few witty quips, and the feel-good victory of good over evil. It's harder to criticize a film you so desperately want to love, one that builds on some of your favorite entries in the franchise; one that features a Black man who has already earned his place in our hearts; one that puts Harrison Ford (now 82 years old) in a complex, dynamic role. It's as if the film is wholly out of time, out of touch with the politicized reality into which it dropped; hinting at a post-racial dream even as it primps itself by obscuring and eliding the dark and twisted factors that undermine our understanding of that dream. 

And that's not even the whole thing. I've barely mentioned Sterns, Sidewinder, and the Serpents, and haven't even mentioned Ruth Bat-Seraph, an Israeli former Black Widow, who serves as Ross's chief of security, played by Shira Haas, a confusing and complex character who needed more time to breathe in this onslaught of material. I've not mentioned the cinematography, which features moments of almost-inspired beauty (the shadow play and sound design of the opening sequence in Oaxaca is all really lovely and neo-noir) followed by lengthy sequences of garish lighting, frenetic editing, and seriously silly fight choreography. Even the climax, bursting with obvious symbolism in a demolished White House and the danger of policing the world, feels like a desperate last-ditch attempt to feel important despite it doing nothing to earn that distinction.

The only thing that might have saved this film as it is would be a post-credits scene of Mackie as Wilson dressing up in Captain America drag and soft-shoeing his way onstage with a cadre of Rockettes. When Rogers did that so many years ago, it felt like a shot at propaganda and the dangers of getting into bed with the government. So why is Wilson doing it "conscientiously" now? It just makes no sense, and the filmmakers are no better than the fictional government they've created, having their Magical Negro hero behave himself, choose the side of warmongering feds, and basically perform a minstrel show for the American populace. 

Companion (2025)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Marketing can really spoil a film. If you've seen any trailers or posters for Companion, this year's supposedly twisty, genre-bending thriller, then you already know everything of substance that happens in the film. It's a disappointment because if I had known nothing going in, I'd have been stunned into submission multiple times. As it is, having seen the trailer a couple times, I viewed the proceedings with expectation for a little more than what was already promised; that expectation was dashed, and the story wallows by its midpoint.

I won't bother recounting the plot here, except to point out what might have worked better (other than sacking the marketing team and starting over). Because we already know that Iris (Sophie Thatcher, burgeoning scream queen from The Boogeyman, Heretic, and Yellowjackets) is an android, a humanlike robot programmed for human companionship, the reveal of her as such is quite boring. But had you not known, things would have felt much creepier as her owner/boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid, still making his case for a serious leading man in Hollywood) casually orders her to do things she then proceeds to do. Exactly what kind of relationship is this, we'd ask ourselves, and, despite its frothy surface charms, why does their relationship put undue burdens on Iris?

But their getaway to an isolated lake house with rich friends isn't quite the same as in Blink Twice, though the sexual politics seem aligned with that (or shows like The White Lotus). There doesn't seem to be hidden criminal intent here, though the assembled friends could easily pop into an Agatha Christie whodunnit; they're all quirky but somewhat tame, like spoiled rich kids whose only real problems are the relational ones they create on a whim. Or, of course, when their fancy electronic toys go haywire.

A brutal act of sexual violence occurs that changes everything, turning the film from a satire poking holes in heterosexual dating and socialization to a thriller interested in posthuman agency and female liberation and sadistic violence. Locating this shift can be easy in films like this, as it's usually an older white guy making things weird in a group of younger people: think Lee Pace in Bodies Bodies Bodies as a counterpoint, though here it's Rupert Friend doing a very Russian thing. By the time a malfunctioning Iris -- driven to do the theoretically impossible as a result of a human's violence -- is sat down and told the reality of her existence, the film instantly changes. This is the moment we're supposed to be as shocked as Iris. Instead, it just feels a bit silly, like we're waiting for her to catch up and do something about her predicament.

It's an unfortunate tonal choice for more reasons, too. The early scenes set up a sort of nouveau spin on The Stepford Wives as we wonder precisely how perfect Iris really is, and what particular purposes Josh has in mind for her. We're meant to wonder if their relationship is purely sexual -- there is frank discussion of "sex bots" and the like -- and if the charming Josh is really no more than an incel needing to control the only kind of female that could have him (one, that is, without a soul). By the time another couple on this getaway -- mismatched but annoyingly cute Lukas Gage and Harvey Guillén -- is revealed to be a similar owner/companion duo, the thread of entitled "stupid rich" young adults overwhelms the movie. The characters all feel they are owed whatever they desire without penalty for their actions regarding those things. Worse, they feel entitled to not be held accountable, to not have to make tough decisions or do any internal work. In this way, Companion's messaging is actually quite timely and pointed.

The shame is that it never leans fully into that headspace, preferring to flirt on the brink of meatier metaphysics while safely and predictably featuring chase scenes and gory violence and a few quiet moments of Iris discovering her full capabilities. But even those scenes meant to tie us emotionally to Iris are ham-fisted, lazily riffing on more effective similar sequences in films like Her (2013) or Ex Machina (2014). When characters started talking about limits to Iris's brain power and how she increased it to its fullest potential, I was ready for the monstrous-feminine to erupt in glorious horror and for Iris to pull a Lucy (2014), Transcendence (2014), or even an Ultron (2015). Instead, she just gets a little smarter, I guess? The film's tenuous grip on science fiction and robots clearly pulls from several referents a decade ago, which seems indicative of the film's shaky and slightly out-of-touch ideas. How much more thrilling might it have been as an erotic horror film about the kinkier side of its inherent relational dynamics? Or more about the power moves by owners and androids to establish dominance without the violent bloodshed?

A convenient and simple plot, as we are given here, could make room for more cerebral ideas, but Companion is happy to not do that. Skirting more interesting ideas like the most extreme and overt commodification of technology for pleasure, the implications of built-in misogyny in a robotic age, and an industry built on slave labor by non-consenting humanoid beings, the film relies instead on tired tropes of abusive, spoiled men melting plastic by candlelight. Really, you could say this is a dramatic thriller based on Toy Story's villain Sid in an adult setting. Convenient plot points and a strange emphasis on a couple violent encounters reveal this film's more entrenched interest in keeping its audience satiated on genre-based moments of frisson. Writer and director Drew Hancock has some really cool ideas here, but, much like Don't Worry Darling, it just doesn't know what to do with them in any fresh or meaningful way.

Heart Eyes (2025)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Holiday horror is having an unexpected resurgence in the last few years, and I'm totally here for it! As far as St. Valentine's Day fare, Into the Dark has covered the day celebrating romantic love, the too-late but entertainingly diverting Valentine (2001) exists if only as a temporally displaced exercise in pre-Scream slashery, and most notably the 1981 Canadian romp My Bloody Valentine and its 3D 2009 remake have carved their way into the festive niche of a gory subgenre. Following the trend of revitalized attention on the classic slasher format in new and creative ways, Heart Eyes dropped in time for V-Day this winter and came to slay.

Advertising agent Ally (Olivia Holt, Cloak & Dagger, Totally Killer) pitches her campaign for jewelry products, using the concept of famed doomed lovers. She's still a bit distraught over her recent breakup, but the pitch doesn't go well due to its timing. A serial killer known as "Heart Eyes" has been slaughtering lovebirds on Valentine's Day in various cities for the last few years, and customers surely won't buy jewelry tinged with the specter of more death. Her company, desperate for a fresh idea, unexpectedly hires a hot new consultant. Emphasis on the "hot." His name is Jay (Mason Gooding, Fall, Scream 5 and 6), and he oozes more charm than one human should ever possess despite his demanding job and packed itinerary. He suggests the most contrary approach, sending the company into a tizzy over the pending capitalistic frenzy.

Jay clearly has eyes for the irritated and dejected Ally, though in her attempt to reclaim some dignity in the face of her ex and his new date, she grabs Jay and lays a big whiz-popper* on him in public. While their promising and admittedly appealing date is ultimately cut short -- literally -- by the Heart Eyes killer, it's clear they're going to work together to survive in part because of their earned, sweet chemistry. Even though they keep reminding us that they are, in fact, not together.

The oddball couple fits the generic bill, to be sure, providing any viewer with ample ground to identify with them. Screenwriting can be tricky when navigating between archetypal or stock characters in such a polarizing subject area, but this writing team (including Christopher Landon!) elicits empathy along with good humor in poking fun at the holiday conventions. They do it with a knife, of course, but that's why it also feels aesthetically heightened beyond simple mockery or spoofing of rom-com "isms." Other characters pop in and out with delightful and imaginative offerings to suggest other kinds of love and the ways people change (or don't) as a result of their romantic relationships. 

I haven't had this much fun in the cinema in a long time. Horror fans needing nasty jump scares and foreboding plotting can reliably count on this flick to deliver the goods. Romance fans looking for a dark twist on otherwise accessible humor are in for a treat. And pop film buffs into excellent production design and thematic atmosphere have plenty to soak up. Both fans and cynics of the lovey-dovey holiday will find boons in this wholly unexpected and delightful exercise in tonal balance. Plus, it gives us a distinctive new killer who is brutally terrifying and bears a memorable mask, one reliant on inspiration from classic slashers even as it overtly flips the meaning of the heart-eyed emoji on its head.

*I hereby posit this word choice as an appropriate and necessary synonym for "kiss," with no need for comment.

Hold Your Breath (2024)

Score: 2.5 / 5

The Dust Bowl is an inspired setting for horror. 1933 Oklahoma, a rural farmhouse surrounded by barren plains. Storms can whip up dirt and dust that blot out the sun entirely, caking the surface of everything, causing terrible damage to throats and lungs. Hold Your Breath, directed by Karrie Crouse and Will Joines (and written by Crouse) and released as a Hulu exclusive feature last October, uses this setting to maximum effect. Certain elements of the film are quite stunning, including its mostly daylit scenes of horror, the vicious winds whipping up clouds of dust, and the typically masterful central performance by the always reliable and eminently watchable Sarah Paulson. For these, it's definitely worth a watch for a fun, chilling movie night at home.

Margaret Bellum (Paulson) is struggling to keep her family afloat. Her husband Henry is away, moved to Philadelphia for a construction job after their farmland was wasted by nature, leaving Margaret alone to care for their two surviving daughters. Ada, their youngest, died from scarlet fever some time previously. Of the survivors, teen Rose (Amiah Miller) helps to care for the younger Ollie, who is deaf and mute from the same scarlet fever that killed her sister. Margaret has sworn not to leave their home and Ada's grave, though Henry had pleaded with her to join him. In her grief, Margaret had begun sleepwalking and blacking out, so she takes sleeping pills to prevent any dangerous or violent episodes.

One night, Rose reads Ollie a scary story about "the Gray Man," a vagabond, murderous character who can dissolve into dust and shadows and enter houses and bodies through the smallest cracks and crevices. Once inside, he can influence your soul and make you do unnamed "terrible things." Disturbing sexual connotations aside (which are not explicit in the screenplay, mind), the story itself influences the girls' minds. Soon after, when stories circulate of a mysterious wandering man murdering a nearby family, the girls and their mother batten down their hatches and work overtime to seal up their house. Margaret, seemingly vulnerable without her husband around, becomes more anxious and paranoid about protecting their property until she suddenly discovers a drifter man hiding in her barn.

The thin plot won't hold if I describe more of it to you, so we'll leave things there. Suffice it to say that, as a premise, Hold Your Breath is nothing new beyond its setting and trappings, which are absolutely worth watching. Its story has been ripped and replicated too often: a single grieving mother watching after two ill or otherwise problematic children, attempting to protect them from supernatural evils prowling around their home. The Others is the obvious Gothic parallel (indeed, I'd say Hold Your Breath is a rare Western Gothic story, which is very fun to think about), but we usually see this in apocalyptic movies like Bird Box or even this year's Never Let Go. As you know from those examples, the external threat is often secondary to the internal one: something is off with mother. The strain of protecting children single-handedly or the crippling grief of bereavement are the first stones cracking in the dam; by the time her mental state deteriorates entirely, best to find high ground.

Frustratingly, the film never really rises beyond its compelling and contrived premise. Moments that suggest increased melodrama and thematic stakes are few and far between, mostly mobilized by Annaleigh Ashford (Broadway darling) as Esther, a nearby neighbor who also seems to be declining rapidly. I'd have liked more consideration of her as a parallel or foil to Margaret, and for the film to engage more with the hardships of simply living in the Dust Bowl. Even pushing the characters to madness could have made for a fascinating character study of the steps leading from motherhood to insanity under impossible conditions. After all, that's what Paulson does best!

Some really wonderful scenes of tense drama are strung together by haphazard transitions and lazy writing thick with exposition in unconvincing and inconsistent spurts. Similarly, visually, there are a few really effective gems that never quite scare but have haunted me since viewing a few nights ago. Taken together, and ignoring the occasionally baffling CGI dust storms, the film highlights the economic efficacy of a powerhouse performance from a powerhouse actress doing the most with a screenplay doing the least. It's just too bad the filmmakers decided to up the ante in ways that distract and undermine the raw potential of the nightmare they've crafted.

Anora (2024)

Score: 1.5 / 5

Every awards season, there's at least one golden darling lauded by the masses that I can't stand. This year, it's Anora. 

The title character, called Ani by most folks in the film, is a lively and willful Russian-American living in Brooklyn. She's an exotic dancer and sex worker, seen masterfully plying her craft in the film's frank and hypnotic opening shot. Unlike her counterpart in Pretty Woman, to which this film has been tirelessly compared, Ani is remarkably down-to-earth and content with her line of work. She connects with various clients, bickers and gossips with her coworkers, and has no ambition or pretension of rising above or beyond her station. She doesn't even seem interested in romance, and has no delusions about being swept away by a man. But, of course, some of her clients have a lot of money and aren't as self-aware as she is, so inevitably, one of them decides she's his girl.

The typical Cinderella story launches when Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the wealthy playboy son of a Russian oligarch, frequents her club and asks for someone who can understand Russian. She can understand the language, but doesn't speak it, so there's a curious disconnect between them when she continues to speak English. She won't let even this charming twink of a man play her like a pawn; she will keep her strategy close. Ani becomes his living fantasy ("God bless America," he says once while orgasming) while Ivan becomes her sole benefactor, arranging to be her only client and for her to accompany him to parties and getaways in his family mansion on the seaside. Their transactional relationship isn't cute or romantic; he's always distracted, playing video games in various states of undress while she sits and watches, clinging on to him until he's ready to fornicate again. By the time he proposes to her on a whim in Vegas, she seems to have dollar signs in her eyes rather than hearts, but it's clear her affection (or feigned affection, to be debated) for him is in some way greater than his for her.

Their whirlwind marriage and shopping spree comes to a screeching halt when Ivan's parents hear of their son's marriage to an escort. They empower a local priest on their payroll, Toros, who keeps an eye on their US property (and son) to annul and dissolve the marriage and reign in their spoiled and prodigal son. He, in turn, hires two gangster buffoons to get Anora out of the house. They show up like something out of a mediocre crime flick, and while Ivan cowers in fear and shame, Ani gets shockingly manhandled. The sequence is meant, apparently, to be funny. It is not.

And this is where my problems with the film kick into high gear. It's one thing to have an obnoxious and rote opening for a pseudo-rom-com like this, but just when it could start to get interesting, Baker decides to marry his contrived, generic premise with that "slice of life" aesthetic that frankly I almost never enjoy in a film. Hints of it start earlier in the film, but it's the home invasion scene when I nearly stopped the film altogether. As the mercenaries push in the door and corner the newlyweds, all four characters talk and don't stop, yelling over each other as they demand various things, making ugly accusations and refusing to listen or pause for each other. Of course this might be "realistic," especially for spoiled, privileged jerks, but it's unbearable to hear, especially in this age of poorly recorded dialogue. Lengthy minutes pass with completely unintelligible verbal eruptions from the characters as they physically assault each other, destroying this expensive living room that was never comfortable and belongs to none of them. Then there's the obnoxiously stereotypical element of their Russian and/or Brooklyn accents, which become so grating I had to mute my television multiple times.

Admittedly, it's just not my kind of film at this point. If you know me, you know I almost never care about a film solely interested in a young adult heterosexual "romance," if that's even what this rightly can be called. Worse, I rarely care about gangster crime films unless there are significant other elements at work (think John Wick), and ones based in specific ethnic or linguistic regions especially turn me off; it's why I never choose to watch even Scorsese's gangster flicks. The caricatured Italian, Russian, Bostonian, or, worst, Brooklynite gangster in a film of glorified material and capital excess and criminal violence just makes me feel sick. And once Anora starts with it, it doesn't stop.

Mikey Madison (Scream 5, Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood) plays Ani with vim and verve, so to speak, with a backbone and fangs ready to fight back whenever a man tries to put her in her place. The character has had to, presumably, in her line of work, for survival. But when squaring off against the thugs, she becomes a petulant child, biting and thrashing while partly naked, insulting them in sexual terms while constantly screaming and cussing to distraction. By the time one thug, Igor, ties her up with a phone cord, I actually really wanted him to gag her just so the soundscape would cool down (I had the speakers muted for this part anyway). And while her screeching, monotonous babbling was clearly a choice Madison made -- or was elicited by her director -- that doesn't make it pleasant to witness in this scene or for the rest of the wretched film.

Igor (Yura Borisov) seems to be a more emotionally aware character than anyone else in the film, and Baker latches on to that, ensuring that we understand his absorbing of information. In particular, the brief moments when Ani is truly vulnerable are clocked and stored by Igor and, by extension, us. It becomes shockingly obvious that he will grow to understand her on a greater personal level than any other character in the film -- including Ani herself -- and that the two will embark on their own something by film's end. I guess that could be a spoiler, but a) I don't care, because I hope nobody else sees this miserable movie, and b) it's painfully obvious from the home invasion scene where this plot is heading. Both Igor and Ani are characters in lower classes, people doing hard jobs to make a living while being thrown money at by people who don't work, don't get their hands dirty, and who treat them like problems to be foisted off by a well-written check. Of course they're going to bond.

Baker, ever the humanist, is the kind of director I can usually respect even if I don't like what he creates. The Florida Project is his only film I've liked, and even that came close to the brink for me in its poverty porn and dreamlike sentimentality. His pretentious approach to this film was manifest in the studio's shameless awards campaign, and was only made worse when I finally saw what everyone was buzzing about. Cinematographer Drew Daniels captures NYC with a beautiful lens on film stock, making things feel from the '70s or '80s more than 2025, but that's about where my appreciation of the film ends. Like Uncut Gems, this is the kind of profoundly ugly film I just can't stand. Art is subjective, and projects like this are distinctly out of my personal charmed circle. I didn't laugh, didn't cry, and hated about four-fifths of the excessive runtime. In fact, the only scenes I can safely say I enjoyed -- and saw Madison's raw talent for the first time ever -- are smack at the film's end, in two quiet moments Ani shares with Igor as they figure themselves out.

Strange Darling (2024)

Score: 5 / 5

And the award for most unforgivably overlooked film of the year goes to... drumroll, please...

Strange Darling.

Saying anything too detailed about this film will spoil it, so do yourself a favor. Look up no plot points, no summaries, no reviews. Just watch it. If anything, check trigger warnings, as there is some terribly gory violence and a sequence of violent (grim but consensual) sexual activity.

J.T. Mollner's writing and direction is some of the best of the year, incisive and timely even as it subverts every expectation you could attach to its outcome. Giovanni Ribisi's cinematography (I know, it surprised me too) is glorious and stunning in grainy, chromatically vivid 35mm film. Willa Fitzgerald (The Fall of the House of Usher, MTV's Scream, and more) and Kyle Gallner (scream king of Smile, Smile 2, and many more) churn out the best performances yet of their careers, respectively, in their sadistic cat-and-mouse game. Barbara Hershey even shows up, which is always a good thing. Edited to pretentious perfection, this thriller is indeed a nonstop thrill ride that had me constantly gasping for air even as I chuckled my way through.

Don't look up anything. Don't hesitate. Curl up for a quiet movie night, eliminate any distractions, try not to grind your teeth, and enjoy. Strange Darling deserves all your energy.