Don't Look Up (2021)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Adam McKay does it again with a surprise big-name, big-budget comedy right in the middle of awards season. I didn't like him before The Big Short, but that movie and Vice are two of my favorite topical comedies; perhaps they endear me to him because they both have cruel dark sides (actually, I'm not sure I personally consider Vice a comedy, but here we are). His biting satire in these feature films is finely tuned to be at once riveting, informative, absurd, and often bleak. So naturally, after tackling the housing crisis of 2007 and Dick Cheney's rise to power, he decided to tackle climate change. Seems doable, right?

Actually, in his hands, yes. Not because it's like the uncannily realistic analysis of history in his previous two films; some may argue this movie has more in common with Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt or even It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World than anything else. An enormous ensemble cast of A-listers assemble here to deliver a rollicking mess of comedy, a collage of vignettes meant to overwhelm our senses, assisted by breakneck editing that tosses in heavy amounts of seemingly random stock footage. McKay's screenplay, too, sometimes feels like an amalgamation of memes, sound bytes, and conspiracy headlines awash in wry clickbait humor. The film may be, generically, a political commentary on the climate change crisis, but in terms of scope, it is equally interested in social media, celebrity worship, technology and big business, political corruption, scientific sellout, and, yes, global warming. By its triumphant finale, it even reaches a level of existential contemplation on par with Samuel Beckett's work.

Leonardo DiCaprio leads as an unpretentious astronomy professor in Michigan whose PhD student (played by Jennifer Lawrence) discovers that a huge comet is flying directly toward Earth. Its size and movement indicate it will strike in approximately six months and cause an extinction event that could destroy all life on the planet. With their colleague (Rob Morgan), they quickly attempt to warn the White House of impending doom. But the president (Meryl Streep), a Trumpian woman who cares more about her appearance, re-election, and private life more than anything else, won't have it, and her son and Chief of Staff (Jonah Hill) tries to limit their access. To get the message out, they take to televised news, but the newscasters (Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry) are more interested in lighthearted banter and viewing numbers than in news of disaster. 

In many ways a comedy of errors, the film's bleak attitude toward our cultural institutions of media, government, and celebrity would be tragically infuriating if not for the absurdist humor lacing each scene. Each new scandal or distraction is more enticing to the American public than bad news, specifically that of the death of our planet. It's telling that DiCaprio feels the need to go on shows like Sesame Street to scream "We're all going to die" when the news only makes fun of the crazy scientists. It doesn't take long for the scientists themselves, in moments like this, to become memes and sound bytes themselves, adding to the chaotic distraction that is social media. It's also telling that the frenetic editing of Don't Look Up increasingly leans into the annoyingly short attention spans cultivated by social media -- even cutting between scenes in the middle of characters' sentences -- implying that we (the audience) are as much a part of the problem as the ridiculous people we're watching. 

It has its odd moments, to be sure, and a couple really wacky inclusions. Mark Rylance pops in as a sort of senile cross between Elon Musk and Steve Jobs to try and save the world while making even more money. Timothée Chalamet shows up for a few scenes near the end, doing his usual grungy thing as a superficially precocious young adult, but he does help facilitate the surprisingly emotional climax of the film. And then there's the chillingly realistic shift in the final act, when the scientists finally attempt to harness all the tools of social media to their advantage by starting a new trend of #JustLookUp, before the president and other non-believers challenge it with the titular catchphrase, chanting "Don't Look Up" at rallies and branding their red hats with their new mantra. These only help make the texture of the film more fascinating politically even as we see the parallels with deniers of climate change. And while few moments have real depth to them -- often the film literally cuts away just as characters experience epiphanies or prepare to make meaningful declarations -- the scope here makes it all work. It might be a message movie, but it's got a lot of messages, like any quality SNL skit worth its time. And this one is far more than worth it.

Dark Phoenix (2019)

Score: 4 / 5

I can't believe it's all over.

The final installment in my favorite superhero franchise is here and mostly indicates a bittersweet revelation for me that an era of filmmaking is ended: one that allowed for cinematic universes before it was popular, one that bent comic book style to suit its own needs, one that allowed each installment freedom to create unique aesthetics and plots while still remaining thematically true to source material. And while the Dark Phoenix saga has been done before in this franchise, it's nice to see another attempt at what is arguably the most famous (and insanely difficult to adapt) comic series under the X-Men title.

Dark Phoenix is a deceptively simple film, one that boils the bizarre elements of its source material down to a few core moments, mostly associated with character. Not development, exactly, but more of a snapshot of really interesting character circumstances, if that is even a thing. On a space mission, Jean Grey gets stuck saving her teammates and is caught in a radioactive storm. She appears to absorb the energy which, after they return home, has unlocked the potential of her psychic powers. Unfortunately, she also becomes increasingly unstable emotionally as she learns the truth of her condition and her past. The X-Men try to help her, but the team fractures as they learn the telepathic control Professor Xavier had been exerting over her development.

Meanwhile, an alien race known as the D'Bari hunt the Phoenix Force, the apparently semi-sentient cosmic energy Jean has absorbed, which had previously destroyed their planet. Of course, in the comics, it is Jean herself who inadvertently done the deed, but this movie tries hard to make sure we sympathize with Jean. Sophie Turner's teary eyes -- so often in closeup here -- do more than enough to endear us as she battles her inner turmoil. It would seem writer/director Simon Kinberg might have thought the popular failure of The Last Stand was a result of Famke Janssen's Jean Grey being more ambiguous, even demonic. That is only my suspicion, of course, but it would explain the drastically different tone in this film.

Indeed, it is Professor Xavier here who is almost villainous, and I found it a little surprising that he wasn't put on the chopping block in this movie, compared to Patrick Stewart's untimely disintegration previously. James McAvoy allows the character to go through some unexpected ups and downs that we've never really seen from Xavier before in film. Then again, he is forced to confront true horror when, at a moment of intense personal failing, he witnesses Jean murder Mystique. And his ending here is probably more touching, as he abdicates his rule over the school, allowing Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) to preside over the renamed Jean Grey School for Gifted Youngsters.

The film suffers, it's true, from a straightforward script, simplified themes, and general disregard for most of the characters. This one really only cares about Xavier and Jean, and in that sense it is pretty magnificent. But the rest of the film relies on the vaguest shorthand regarding all other characters, assuming that the previous installments had created enough drama for audiences to fully appreciate everything going on. But now that we're used to more than twenty films in a shared universe with the MCU, Kinberg just doesn't have enough treasure in this safe to make anyone rich by proxy.

And while I perfectly enjoyed this film (and all X-Men films, including the much-hated Last Stand), perhaps we can hope that if/when the X-Men characters start popping up in MCU movies, we can get some more mileage out of this particular storyline. Perhaps the producers will allow for a more full exploration of the Dark Phoenix saga, complete with the Hellfire Club and Mastermind and the Shi'ar. Perhaps we'll also finally get Mister Sinister and Galactus. Perhaps we'll finally get to see Savage Land!

Okay, maybe I'm getting carried away. But I'll keep hoping! Kind of like how I've been hoping for The New Mutants for years now.

Red Sparrow (2018)

Score: 3 / 5

Despite the cacophonous outcries of people who think it's a Black Widow ripoff, Red Sparrow is upon us with the integrity of its source material largely intact. It's a lovely film to behold, richly detailed and determined to tell its story with the style and flair that worked so well between director Francis Lawrence and star J Law in the Hunger Games series. The problems here are that the film is tonally confused and thematically problematic, and that the screenplay is just a little too bland to keep things interesting.

I don't want to totally blame screenwriter Justin Haythe, whose successes include Revolutionary Road and whose failures include The Lone Ranger (2013). I would compare Red Sparrow more to his and A Cure for Wellness, as it attempts to do some fresh and interesting things but only marginally succeeds. Here, the story flirts with "sexpionage" as some have called it, a sort of spy style that relies heavily on sexual prowess and ingenuity to extract information and protect secrets. It's fascinating, to be sure, and J Law delivers a fascinating performance as the duplicitous protagonist. She is a killer from the start: after an injury during a ballet performance, she brutally attacks the culprits seemingly without a second thought. Yet, in turns, she appears weak and fragile, unsure, desperate, even romantic. We're never sure of the truth of her character, which makes the film endlessly watchable.

The problem comes from the other characters, and this is where things get murky. She's surrounded by equally brutal men who exploit her time and again, force her to do their bidding, torture her to make her stronger and then torture her again to break her. The women in her life are either weak, stupid, or vile, and all operate at the whims of men. Even the extent to which our protagonist has agency is up for debate (there is no clear-cut argument here). She is invited to the Sparrow program quite unwittingly and somewhat unwillingly, though her violent streak and increasingly deceptive motivations belie her unwillingness. She's aware of being used (and sometimes abused) but she actively continues in her role, perhaps because she feels she has no choice (to save her ailing mother) or because she wants revenge on the people in power (such as her charming and abusive uncle, a character I'd liken to the mother in Manchurian Candidate). Her tenuous relationship with the American spies lead her to physical torment, but she then determinedly continues her work to become a crucial asset as a double-agent.

If this thematic mess sounds a little extreme, you should know it's only my pared-down understanding of some of the stakes of this film. It's really long and really complex, and I got more than a little lost halfway through. Who is in cahoots with whom? And why? Sometimes these questions matter. Here, I think not. What matters here is the film's style, which greatly exceeds its substance. Glamorous life meets unspeakable horror in this series of games between powerful people. It's dark, cold, and vicious, brutal and sometimes difficult to watch, sexy enough but always creepy.

Feminist or not doesn't really seem to be an applicable argument here. This film espouses almost no doctrines beyond exploring a human's capacity for deception. It's not even a totally satisfying movie, and I think that might be the point. It's part of a trilogy of books, and my hope is that they all get made into films like this (Actually, now I think on it, it seems tonally akin to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I also wanted to see more of). I don't want to say it's good or bad, even that I liked it or not, but it was by far one of the most interesting movies I've seen in some time.

IMDb: Red Sparrow

mother! (2017)

Score: 5 / 5

Ironically enough, Mother! is the most balls-out, aggressively weird movie of the year, maybe the decade, and it's a real motherfucker of a trip. Where to start? Fair warning: spoilers abound, because otherwise it's impossible to talk about the movie.

I guess to start: The movie is palpably pretentious. It's the sort of trash-meets-Art experiment that sometimes works, but in the hands of Darren Aronofsky it becomes that rare High Art that stabs you right where it counts. The characters have no names, referred to even in the credits as Mother (Jennifer Lawrence in the best role she's had in years), Him (her husband, played by Javier Bardem), Man (Ed Harris), and Woman (a delicious Michelle Pfeiffer). These characters are played as real, immediate, and consequential, but by the time the movie is over you realize they've played allegory with such nuanced, unrecognizable skill that you feel you've been had. Which is, of course, what Aronofsky intended. The master crafter of Black Swan hasn't used up all his tricks yet, thank heaven.

The film opens with a close up of a woman burning amidst a blazing inferno, her eyes glassy and calm as her skin bubbles and scorches. We jump immediately into a surreal sequence where Him places a crystal on a pedestal, and the burned and broken house around him transforms into a gorgeously renovated mansion. A pile of ashes on the bed form into the shape of a woman, and Jennifer Lawrence awakens, turns to look for her absent husband, and calls out, "Baby?" Already there's so much to unpack, and the movie hasn't even rolled on for five minutes. But we'll get to that presently.

The first half of the film works much as we expect from the trailers, a sort of psychosexual domestic thriller that combines imagery and themes from Rosemary's Baby, The Strangers, and Eyes Wide Open. There are many, many more obvious and subtle references, but that would require encyclopedic skill and time to relate; just know that Aronofsky's blatant grabs for other Art are only the tip of his ballsy project. Most simply: Mother is the renovator of this gorgeous mansion in an Edenic field, seemingly isolated in the country, and the perfectly wifely partner to Him, a famed poet suffering writer's block. She not only literally rebuilds his wasted ancestral home all alone, but she manages to clean after him, cook extravagant meals, and still look super fine doing it all.

But all is not well in cishetero-patriarchal paradise. Mother is cracking on the inside. She has spells of tinnitus, a debilitating ringing that makes her dizzy and weak until she pours a sickly yellow drug into a glass of water and downs it. She also has this tendency to stare into the walls of her home to perceive a beating heart there. These images seem to discomfort her, along with the bizarre and creepy comings and goings of Him, and we eventually learn that she wants a child -- or maybe her husband does? It's left quite ambiguous -- and that the couple doesn't make love often, if ever.

One night, a visitor arrives at their lonely estate, a visitor (Ed Harris) it seems her husband was expecting. He assumes his place in the house through shady storytelling and lies with great big holes. But Mother's protestations are put to rest by her husband, who demands her hospitality and compliance while doing nothing to help himself. She makes the bed. She cooks the food and boils the tea. She cleans up after him. And yet her express wish for him not to smoke is ignored. Her husband is enthralled with this man, who strokes his ego and puts stars in his eyes. Apparently this Man is a fan of the poet's work, and he lusts after the poet's crystal.

Soon enough, the Man's wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) shows up too, though he had neglected to mention her existence. Their obviously erotic relationship unnerves Mother but entrances Him, and the intrusive couple overstay their welcome in every possible way. They are terrible houseguests and awful people, and soon they invite their spiteful, bickering sons as well (Domhnall and Brian Gleeson), one of which slays the other. Soon more people arrive for the funeral, and it's right about this time I gathered what Aronofsky was doing. The movie is a psychological thriller, yes, but it's also a fiercely original vision of religious allegory. Man and Woman, the Man with a flesh wound where his rib should be, they break the crystal as a form of original sin, one son murders the other. Cut and dry, right?

WRONG.

The second half of the film gets really messed up. It's some aggressively weird filmmaking, but it's also some of the best filmmaking this year. After an angry, passionate sex scene, Mother finally becomes pregnant, but she still sees the slowly dying heart in the walls of the house, and the blood spot rotting away the floorboards beneath the murder scene keeps returning, much like in Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart." Also much like that story, we begin to fear for Mother's sanity, but we quickly lose that fear in favor of our own. When strange people keep invading the house and destroying it, we realize Mother may not be losing her mind, but we're losing ours. The frenzied, infuriating, abstract absurdity of the horrors are like a knife to the heart, and I had to occasionally close my eyes to wonder if I was having a stroke.

I didn't think things could get weirder, but Aronofsky seems pointedly aware that things can always get more insane. A quiet dinner gone wrong turns into a party, a rave, a riot, a war zone. But even saying that lessens what the film is doing. There's a concentration camp, a cult, cannibals, and before all is said and done Kristen Wiig shows up to sacrifice a baby. The previously timeless setting (Woman has a cell phone, but Him writes using a quill and inkwell) is taken to drastic extremes, and we lose all sense of place and logic. It's hardcore crazy-porn (if that's a thing?), and that's inflicted both on us and on Mother. It doesn't help that the film's utter lack of musical score heightens the drama, and carefully calculated, disturbingly edited sound effects raise the stakes to skin-crawling extremes.

Aronofsky keeps such a tight focus on Jennifer Lawrence throughout the film that it's sometimes hard to see the religious allegory. We get deeply invested in her brave performance, and the film encourages out sympathy with her character. In fact, Aronofsky seems determined to protect her point of view, which messes of course with our traditional understanding of the Judeo-Christian (or, actually, monotheistic) narrative. The director and cinematographer (Matthew Libatique), however, work even harder than that: their handheld camera is also active in the film, swirling and diving in, sometimes embracing Mother in its confidential gaze, sometimes prowling around her like a hungry wolf. Lawrence is never less than bare to our vision, but her strength and conviction is such that the wolf (us) can never take her down. In fact, during the crazed, extended climax of the apocalypse (I use the word because what else is the climax? Mother herself jokingly calls it that), the camera seems almost to suffer in its constant circling orbit around her character, as if she were a gravity well or black hole from which it (we) cannot escape. When, at her utmost, she screams for the death of her child and the ground shatters, we finally escape her orbit, briefly, to get an overhead view.

More than a psychological-supernatural thriller, though, and far more than a horrific religious allegory, Mother! is even still working harder to fight conventions. I think its ultimate goal is to depict the domestic horrors of a trophy wife to a Great Man, and the history of that in the world. Further, the film depicts this from said trophy wife's perspective, and forces us to live it with her. She's younger, more beautiful, but infinitely taken for granted. She's less confident, less praised, and less loved. Her final moments -- escaping the mob to the tankers in the basement, where she ignites the oil and destroys the world -- are a scream into the abyss, a cry of rage and pain and sorrow not unlike King Lear or Job, something I think Darren Aronofsky has tried to do with the film.

After the apocalypse, an unharmed Him carries her and she asks him, "Who are you?" "I am I," he responds cryptically, suggesting that he is God. But that phrasing also indicates that the film is suddenly switching its focus. It suddenly becomes about him. He finally becomes the subject of the film, and she becomes its literal object, something the film has played with ambivalently until that point. He kills her (mercifully? Who knows) by removing her heart, the ashes of which crystallize into -- you guessed it -- another beautiful gem he places on his shelf, which immediately restores the house.

Even if you read this review -- even if your skills at predicting a movie's plot twists are that good -- you will not, at all, in any capacity be ready for the way in which Aronofsky takes you through the picture. I guessed the religious allegory fairly early, and the nature of the poet's crystal. But there is nothing that could have prepared me for the sheer insanity and aggressive horror that got me to the end. You can talk about this movie for forever, in the right crowd. It's as though Aronofsky is taking everything that's ever been in his mind, splashing around in it, and throwing it at you point-blank. This is the rare movie that is totally uncategorizable because it is a consummate work of high art, containing so much trash and pulp that you feel icky for the entire two hours it violates your eyeballs.

It's magnificent. Easily my unexpected favorite this year and this decade.

IMDb: Mother!

Passengers (2016)

Score: 1 / 5

Adam meets Eve aboard the Titan A.E. and they fall in love while they save the human race. That's how the damned thing was advertised, right? And with two such bankable stars as Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, I'm almost shocked that's not what happened, and yet I'm so horrified by what appeared on screen that I can't even start to wish for the film that might have been. For starters, the trailer was better than the movie, and if that's all you need to know, you can stop reading now.

Let's start at the beginning. Fair warning: I'm going to spoil the whole damn thing for you, because it would be far crueller to make you sit through the two hours of this intergalactic waste. We see the laughably stylized Avalon, cruising through space apparently unmanned, as its 5,000+ souls journey to a new world in hibernation. Asteroids pummel its shields because the high-tech, futuristic ship's autopilot can't correct its own course (good thing it didn't hit a star or planet!), but one large rock causes several systems to malfunction, apparently including a random hibernation pod -- that has nothing to do with anything that might have been affected by the asteroid -- holding a beefy Pratt. Great inciting incident, guys.

The science fiction element of the story begins and ends in the first act. Pratt (here mechanic "Jim") seeks answers but quickly learns his consciousness is the result of a malfunction, which the artificially intelligenced Titanic he's on arrogantly believes is impossible. He's stuck, alone, on a huge resort-ship ninety years away from its destination. During the course of a year in isolation, we see a nice little montage of Jim as he loses his sanity, going through stages of anxiety and fear, loneliness and mania, all in a delightfully PG-rated hedonism that culminates in an unfortunate-looking beard. Thankfully, this section also introduces us to the one decent part of the film, namely Michael Sheen as the robotic bartender "Arthur", though his screen time is cut woefully short.

Then the horror element kicks into gear, and it's the beginning of the end for Passengers. Starving for human interaction, Jim sets his sights on J-Law ("Aurora", wealthy writer who happens to be gorgeous too) and stalks her unconscious body, learning everything he can about her from her data files before he finally makes the supposedly torturous decision to force her pod to malfunction. Rather than focusing our attention on the horror of his action in condemning an innocent person to death, the filmmakers focus on the "trauma" Jim goes through in making the decision and subsequently keeping his deed a secret. The entire middle section of the movie is a perverse false romance, a study of Stockholm Syndrome between two beautiful people with good chemistry. I wonder, if the actors weren't so conventionally sexy, if this wouldn't have been a straight-up horror flick. But because they're pretty and funny and dress in nice clothes, we forget that their whole relationship is revolting.

The final act is bland trash, a time for director Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) to prove how inept he is at big-budget spectacle. Not long after Arthur reveals Jim's secret to Aurora, which sends her into a teenage rom-com rage of silent treatment, more of the ship's systems malfunction, forcing our characters to work together to find a solution. Thankfully (and stupidly), deus ex machina brings them Laurence Fishburne for about three scenes, a technician who has woken up and is apparently fatally ill from his pod's malfunction. After the nice older black man dies unceremoniously (um, outer space so white?), the two white "heroes" use his passkey to access obscure Staff-Only areas, where they discover an inferno of destruction that needs to be put out.

Obviously, the two need to work together, so Jim lays his life on the line while the damsel in distress stays in relative safety to shout inane shit like, "What? Where? What does that mean? Jim, how can we fix it? There has to be another way!" Of course it ends with the two of them surviving and falling in love again and dying of old age aboard the ship, with a nauseating final little moral in voiceover telling us to make the most of our given situation.

Regardless of how much we may like to see J-Law and Pratt in various levels of dress and undress, falling in love and making each other laugh, no amount of cutesy chemistry is enough to remove the disgusting taste of just how creepy the whole thing is. He's a terrible person. She's a badly written character, and the whole female-victimization motif in the film is shockingly opaque. It's telling, I might add, that the most exciting scene in the film takes place when she is swimming in the pool and the gravity goes haywire; it's positively panic-inducing for us as well as her. Well, I guess it takes something as drastic as imminent death in a disturbing way to feel climactic when the victim is essentially already the walking dead onboard a ship with an obsessive stalker and mental abuser. "Oh, it's already scary and bizarre? Okay, try to kill her with something more spectacular, that'll keep people interested."

Ethically, the film is a disaster zone. Tonally, it can't decide what it wants to be. Maybe it would have worked as a solid sci-fi romance, if the whole stalker-Stockholm thing wasn't there. Maybe it would have worked as sci-fi thriller, if the charm and romance were downplayed. I think it could have been a good horror-mystery if it were almost entirely rewritten and given to a competent director.

It's nice to watch a shitshow once in a while, to remember why the good ones really are good. It's just too bad this one seemed so much better in the advertisements.

IMDb: Passengers

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Score: 4 / 5

The first X-Men film that actually feels like it's one of the comics. It's excellent.

Jam-packed in its lengthy running time are dynamic action shots, extravagant destruction, vibrant colors, wit and charm, high stakes and higher concepts, and almost nostalgic melodrama. All the makings of blockbuster summer entertainment. Sure, it's not as intelligently written as Days of Future Past, and it doesn't have the heart that film bared, but a game-changing movie like that can only come once in a series. This is a big, blustery, loud and proud follow-up, as it should be, and it owns its own preposterousness. The villain is cliched, the apocalyptic images are all too familiar these days, the plights of our heroes are typical.

And yet, as you can even see from the poster below, it may be the most visually arresting film in its franchise. At every moment, the bland and empty shots of catastrophe and destruction are parried with bright and stylized shots of the outlandish characters in colorful costumes straight out of the comics striking poses and leaping frame to frame as if it were drawn on page. Are you getting my message here? I liked the damn movie.

There's not much more to say. I need to watch it again to get everything -- I confess, at two and a half hours of explosive energy and dizzying effects, my mind began to wander. This film knocks its Quicksilver scene out of the park (again), effectively balances itself between all the players in its vast cast, and beautifully reintroduces several beloveds (notably Storm and Jean).

It's not the most original superhero movie. But it does its thing, and it does it well. Bryan Singer's still got it.

IMDb: X-Men: Apocalypse

Serena (2014)

Score: 1 / 5

It's as if no one in the film read the book.

Before you call me a hypocrite for comparing a book to a film adaptation, let's get one thing straight. If you're making an adaptation and you have a perfect roadmap (from which you are adapting your work), why wouldn't you follow it? The only reason I can logically get behind is if your adaptation works on its own terms. If your adaptation effectively and artfully explores its own themes and style in a way that maintains some honor as well as integrity.

This doesn't.

Susanne Bier's film of Serena is a mellow melodrama with little historical relevance, almost no worthwhile thematic elements, and only mildly convincing performances. The cinematography is confused and confusing, shaky and unfocused, and what are supposed to be shots of sweeping majesty fall hopelessly flat as there is no drama under the visuals. It's overscored, overedited, and underwritten, and our stars' performances suffer as a result. What were apparently very effective rehearsals in emotional connection (chemistry, so to speak) are washed over onscreen simply because there is so little for our stars to dig their teeth into. Rhys Ifans gives the only compelling show, and he only pops up in a handful of scenes.

The worst sin here, though, is that the story just doesn't work. We are given an initial shot of two strong women, Rachel the dutiful worker and Serena the upright equestrian. From there, each dissolves into wispy figures awash in blood and fatigue, fearful and insecure, waiting helplessly to be delivered by the men around them. Even those men are strictly divided into the bearded strong men of the timber industry and the hairless wimps who deserve their sorrows. It's a sort of romance, I suppose, in that it raises questions of how far one will go for love, and yet all ends in bizarre, unconnected loss and failure. But by the end, we also don't really care, because the film has shown us remarkably little to gain our sympathies with any of them. Even J-Law's self-immolation (oops, spoiler alert, if it matters) was so ridiculous that I started giggling. I'm guessing that's not the point of the scene.

In case you haven't read it, let me give you a super brief concept of Ron Rash's novel. It's Macbeth in Depression-era Appalachia, where our title woman and her hubby establish their timber empire and ruthlessly remove all obstacles and annoyances (meaning traitorous business partners and incompetent lackeys) from their path to power, wealth, and glory. Serena is a perfect character, a goddess incarnate as well as a living, breathing nightmare of the heteropatriarchy. Ron Rash imbues her with superhuman qualities and extends this magical realism to the environment, allowing the wooded mountains of North Carolina to become their own character, sentient and divine at once. Much of the dialogue, narration, and plot/character devices mirror Shakespearean style, including the chorus of lumberjacks and the soothsaying old woman, which is also a reflection of archaic Appalachian culture.

Just so you know, almost none of this makes it into the film. Moments are stolen, but they are hodge-podge and so unclear that even someone familiar with the source material might miss them. There's a shot in the middle of the picture of Serena on horseback with the sun streaming through the morning mist about her; I think it's a reference to one such icon in the novel that suggests her divinity, but the images lasts less than five seconds and the background of the shot quickly trivializes the visual, and nothing significant happens before or after, so it doesn't really matter as a moment. Another example: Late in the film, our pseudo-hero comes calling to old widow Jenkins (the soothsaying archetype, who has until that moment not been seen or mentioned explicitly), only to find her dead on the floor, presumably a victim of our anti-heroes. The whole scene takes less than two minutes (probably less than one), and there is no exposition at all. No context at all. No drama at all.

The film, on the other hand, is anything but a reflection of the culture, the aesthetic, or the themes it pretends to invoke. In fact, I might argue that it is an artistically lazy film, a sappy and pathetic romance, a borderline misogynist (and not-so-borderline classist) story, and ultimately a waste of time.

IMDb: Serena

Joy (2015)

Score: 3 / 5

It's a David O. Russell movie, take it or leave it. Despite lacking much of its titular emotion, Joy is a love letter to both women and capitalism, complex in its emotional terrain but trying really, really hard to be the feel-good movie of the season.

Leave it to Russell to let the movie rest on Jennifer Lawrence's performance. She nails it, as we might expect, and does so with great fortitude and endurance. But she also isn't given much to work with. Based on the real life story of Joy Mangano, inventor of the Miracle Mop, the movie follows its protagonist through her dysfunctional household and her repeatedly sabotaged business breakthroughs to her final victory. Lawrence pushes through her chores with verve in what might be the best Cinderella story we've seen in the last few years. Which really isn't saying much.

And what a Cinderella story it is, one replete with Russell trademarks: bizarre character turns, dialogue that tries to be more important than it is, and occasional outbursts of cathartic, comedic agony. While I say it reads as a love letter, I don't mean to ignore the rather caustic worldview Russell still employs in his films. It's a profoundly melancholy look at a particular slice of American life, far from the reaches of the upper crust. Unlike this year's earlier Cinderella, this film doesn't delude itself into playing a classist irony, nor does it prevent its characters from articulately exploring their motivations. But that doesn't relieve the tension we feel looking at the generations of a dysfunctional family living in the same small house, with the charming but lazy ex-husband in the basement, the monstrous father attempting to reclaim some lost power, the knowing grandmother who cares for everyone in her own small ways. It's claustrophobic and noisy, with bits of dialogue (probably partially improvised, as in American Hustle) shouted and overlapping in its own perverse kind of musical score.

I think my only real takeaway from this movie is that it's not as cerebral or artful as Russell's last two hits, but it really wants to be. It's stylized and interesting, to be sure, but in a way more befitting a coming-of-age story or an adventure movie than a family drama or even a feminist manifesto. It's got good performances that are mostly washed over by cheap dialogue and meandering, inconsistent plot devices that turn the film into a tonally chaotic mess. And the final act plot turn (a watered-down deus ex machina) is so gimmicky that I found it hard not to snort aloud in the theater.

IMDb: Joy

Mockingjay: Part Two (2015)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I find these films -- probably the only series about which I'll say such things -- to be far more enjoyable than the simple prose of the novels on which they are based. And while the two parts of Mockingjay may not be have the fastest pace or the most daring action sequences of most modern young adult dystopian fiction, I find them to be fiercely intelligent and resourceful in mining the source material and in delivering satisfying results to their audience. The split also allows more time for us to focus on the great character developments that happen during the otherwise high speed, plot-driven events of the story. So I'm not really sure why people keep complaining about that.

As for Part Two specifically, it's brilliant. Not as breakneck as Catching Fire, not as meditative as Mockingjay Part One, it allows the various elements of the series to simmer together in a harsh treatment of escalating warfare. Its topical relevance shines through perhaps best in the moment when the rebels bomb a mountain, effectively burying the enemy soldiers and civilians inside together. The following scene between the escaping survivors and the rebel army led by Katniss. It's hard and it's complicated and it's wonderful. There's also a few beautiful moments as Coin leads her people to victory, and Katniss watches and suspects that her aim is less noble than she had first imagined.

Nothing in this movie quite matches the fierce brilliance of the scene in Part One of Gale and the rebels sneaking into the Capitol to save Peeta while Donald Sutherland drones in voiceover. However, Part Two skillfully avoids overdoing the special effects and getting caught up in its own exciting energy. In fact, there is really only one particularly violent sequence in this film that I can recall. It's also probably the most violent scene in the series, and one that I had some trouble watching. It happens in the sewers, where our team of heroes is attacked by monstrous white lizard-men in a terrifying melee that had me covering my eyes. Mad props to director Francis Lawrence, because it's got to be one of the most stunning fight sequences I've seen in a film since The Return of the King. Not because it's particularly intelligent, but rather because it's so fast, surprising, and long; it's an extended sequence that has absolutely no moments of relief. Even when they climb up the ladder and escape the lizards, seemingly in peace to mourn the deaths of their friends, sharp metal drills start popping up from the exploding floor beneath them.

Perhaps part of the reason I so loved the sequence is because the film until then is pretty tame. It's not slow, exactly, but more meditative and emotional like in Part One. Even when Katniss and her team get into the Capitol and maneuver its booby-traps, it's not a particularly action-y movie. Which, by the way, is great. It makes the climax that much more effective.

And speaking of the climax, I'm not exactly sure where it was in this movie. Which is also great. Because, as the finale to the series, the whole damn thing is a bit of a climax. Rather like the eighth Harry Potter film, this picture more or less begins with the climax and ends up with an extended resolution. Actually, in a sense, it feels like The Return of the King, with several denouement scenes that let the story end with a nice little flourish. Maybe the epilogue scene was a bit much, but it's a sweet little nod to the book. I noticed several people in the theater squirming to leave after the "climax" (I say that's the execution scene, because Donald Sutherland's face and laughter is devastating), because it's hard for some people to stay seated when there's nothing "exciting" left. It's sad, but the film manages those squirmers gracefully.

What else can I say? J-Law is fantastic. I'm glad we saw more of Josh Hutcherson in this one. I'd have liked to see Elizabeth Banks and Woody Harrelson more, but the story isn't really about them any more. Julianne Moore is great and we can always use more of her, and the moments with Philip Seymour Hoffman gave me all of the feelings. The camerawork is strong, the editing stronger, and I have no big complaints. It's a fine film, and a fine ending to the series.

**
I should probably qualify my earlier claim that I prefer these movies to their source material. I like the books fine, and I'm not saying they're bad. The prose is simple, straightforward, and first person. These fit the concept Collins was going for, and I can't fault them, except to say that I don't like that style in prose. I'm also conflicted with the fact that the intense and violent story is clearly marketed for young people; sure, the protagonist is also that age, but ultimately The Hunger Games is an extended Lord of the Flies, and Mockingjay is nothing short of a war novel (I'm thinking of a Tim O'Brien novel or two). I'm just not sure parents and teachers should be letting middle schoolers loose on this kind of material without accompanying conversations and context.

That said, I also have a little bit of misgivings about the films being PG-13. Much like the books being marketed for kids (I assume this might be why they are not particularly descriptive), the films are being marketed for kids. The MPAA rating stops the films from going into really dynamic territory (the moment in Mockingjay when Katniss randomly shoots a Capitol woman before she can speak; the bloody murder of a random girl in the streets by a shower of bullets). Ultimately these films take on a hue of polished Hollywood young adult sci-fi fiction rather than a raw, brutal war film.

I don't really have a coherent opinion on this franchise, obviously. But these are my main considerations.

IMDb: Mockingjay: Part Two

Mockingjay: Part One (2014)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Okay, I've never really been on the whole Hunger Games wagon. Don't get me wrong, I like them quite a lot. But the aggressive, vocal fanbase has often put me off. I finally got to read the first two books, and they're fine, and I thoroughly liked the previous two films. This one feels different, though, and I very much enjoyed it. Director Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend, Water for Elephants, Catching Fire) slowly builds up to its climax, which for me is the last, I don't know, ten minutes, and I eagerly anticipate the final film as a result. I'm glad Lawrence is directing both parts of Mockingjay, because it lets me hope that he will balance out a doubtlessly thrilling conclusion to this series.

In case you, like me, were wondering where this franchise was going, be prepared for a surprise. Because suddenly the dystopian world of Panem isn't divided into an evil empire and righteous rebels (yes, I am thinking about Star Wars), but a chaotic, war-torn country with virtues and vices all around. With Mockingjay, we are thrust headfirst into a gray area (and no, I'm not just talking about their jumpsuits) where plans and actions and intentions are all dangerous gambles with dire consequences. This film explores themes of the influential (and misleading) power of media, suggests ideas of guerrilla warfare and terrorism, and the ultimate costs of war. It's a powerful meditation on these things, even more so than The Hunger Games or Catching Fire due to its slower pace.

This film is nowhere near as action-centric as the previous films. Moody and broody, we get a lot of closeups on Katniss to see the effects that war horrors have on her. We see her desolate homeland, her hopeless countrymen, and her tortured love Peeta, but more importantly, we see the effects they have on her. She isn't just the firebrand the rebels want her to be, because she also feels the burn from that flame. I was a little upset, at first, that this film isn't remotely as exciting as Catching Fire, but I think that's because we need a little break to cement and explore our relationships to these characters before letting all hell break loose in the final installment. And that's not to say Mockingjay is without its tense scenes: The Capitol bombs a hospital at one point, and near the end of the film a small team infiltrates the Capitol to rescue Peeta.

I don't think that Jennifer Lawrence quite rocked this performance as she has before, but I also don't think she was given much chance. The Mockingjay Katniss isn't the same one who can own a battle arena. This Katniss is buried -- literally -- in a mine of secrecy, expectations, and fear. She isn't allowed to shine as she would prefer. She can't help Peeta, she can't go home, she can't reconcile the effects of war with the people she loves. Instead, she has to become a figurehead, filmed and protected, and watch as the people around her go to fight or cower under attack. As far as her emotional center and conflicted passions, Lawrence nails it here. But I expect Part Two to bring a dynamic change to her character.

Sadly, we don't get much of the charming and skilled Josh Hutcherson (Peeta) in this one, though his few moments are dramatic highlights. With him, and so horribly briefly, we see Stanley Tucci rocking his fabulous costumes as television host Caesar. We do, however, get to see a bit more of Liam Hemsworth as Katniss's other romantic interest, which is good because up till now he hasn't had much onscreen time, and Sam Claflin supports as fellow victor and rebel Finnick. Natalie Dormer (The Tudors, Game of Thrones) shows up as leader of the film crew, and we see a bit of Woody Harrelson again as a now-sober Haymitch. Elizabeth Banks rocks a jumpsuited Effie with sweet charm, though her time onscreen is also sadly short.

The real stars of this film, however, are the people in power. Donald Sutherland maintains his icy, terrifying hold on President Snow, and Philip Seymour Hoffman returns as ex-Gamemaker Plutarch Heavensbee with typical intelligence and fervor. But newcomer Julianne Moore gave a weird edge to this movie for me, as the rebel President Coin. She shows strength and smarts in leading the war effort, but something feels wrong to me. Besides her striking visage and crazy eyes, President Coin has cultivated a rigid, militaristic atmosphere among her people. I predict that her true colors have not been entirely shown. At one point, to defend her strategy, she claims "We are not the Capitol," before glancing directly at Katniss and then quickly away. Other characters mention in passing her strict control over rebel life. I wonder if her methods are not so very different from those of her avowed enemy, President Snow. But I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

IMDb: Mockingjay: Part One