Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

The Rise of Skywalker, the end of a beloved multi-generation saga of folks who love the Skywalkers in a galaxy far, far away, is a muddied mess of fan service and forced nostalgia that sacrifices the joy and ingenuity that makes Star Wars great. It is often blatantly reactionary, repeatedly attempting to comment on and even undo the magnificent strides of its game-changing predecessor, The Last Jedi. Instead of allowing artistic integrity or even quality storytelling to rule the day, Episode IX retreats to a sense of cringeworthy sentimentality and often downright sloppy craft to produce a film that means well but ultimately reveals dangerous ideological impulses.

The plot is pretty bewildering, and all amounts to just about nothing. We begin with the opening scrawl, telling us that a broadcast message has announced the return of Emperor Palpatine. To determine the truth, Kylo Ren mows down soldiers on Mustafar and retrieves a Sith artifact called a Wayfinder. Guess what it does? He finds his way, then, to a mysterious planet called Exegol, where he encounters the decrepit old man. Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid doing wonderful things again) reveals that he is the architect of everything that has happened, including creating Snoke and initiating the First Order. Fittingly, he unleashes the Final Order, a legion of new Star Destroyers each with the power to destroy planets (Death Star tech again, because we clearly haven't had enough of all that).

Then we get tossed into a chase as we follow our heroes Poe and Finn on their mission to deliver new intel to the Resistance: the same damn info we've already got twice by this point. Rey, honing her Jedi skills under Leia's guidance, joins them and they embark to yet another new desert planet to find Lando, who supposedly can help them. After a mini-adventure, they discover a Sith dagger that tells the location of -- guess what? -- another Wayfinder to help them find their way. But then they go to a snowy planet to get a mechanical device from apparently the only person in the galaxy with one, then they use that device to crack the Sith dagger code and travel to another moon of Endor where the wreckage from the second Death Star fell. In the ruins, Rey finds her way. Excuse me, I meant she finds another Wayfinder to help her find her way.

The whole affair is laughably bizarre and confusing at this point, and they still planet-hop at least three more times before the movie ends. Though some may have criticized The Last Jedi for having such a straightforward "chase in space" and an odd but thematically crucial side-plot to Canto Bight, I would take that any day over this nonsense. The Wayfinders are MacGuffins by definition, and would be interesting as such if we had other things going on like character development, world-building, or even fun action. Consider for comparison Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which plotwise is very similar to this: we didn't mind the weirdness of needing a drawing of a key to get the key to open a chest we had to find in order to stab the thump-thump and save the oceans because there was so much quality character development, humor, drama, mythmaking, and generally awesome storytelling.

Instead of those things, we often get the opposite. Much like in Lucas's original trilogy, we get very little -- if any -- understanding of secondary characters or locations. Keri Russell appears (sort of, we only hear her voice and see her eyes) for a hot second, as does Naomi Ackie. Dominic Monaghan shows up in a couple scenes for some reason. Richard E. Grant plays a new First Order (Final Order? Who knows) commander, which is thankfully about all we need to know. All these folks and more are suddenly introduced and just as suddenly ignored. As if the cast wasn't big enough.

Rose Tico, the most exciting new character since Poe, is basically unwritten in this movie. Two new female characters are put in for the sole purpose -- I defy you to give me one shred of evidence to the contrary -- of proving there is absolutely "no homo" between Finn and Poe. Finn doesn't even get a fitting arc, after all his amazing development in the previous two episodes, and he is here relegated to being a stock action hero. There's a truly baffling twist from General Hux. And while seeing Billy Dee Williams again as Lando is fun, he does so unbelievably little in this movie I'd have preferred him to not even show up. Maz Kanata shows up for like three scenes, and yet we still have absolutely no idea who or what she is, what she does, why she's important, or really anything interesting at all.

Most cruelly, Rey is here revealed to be as flat and boring a character as ever I suspected. Just when things were getting really cool in The Last Jedi, when we learn she is completely self-made, even in the Force, and that she came from unremarkable parents, The Rise of Skywalker has to screw it all up. Lo and behold, the granddaughter of Palpatine. Don't get me wrong, I think that's freakin' awesome. But when the main character has been set up as a pretty great feminist icon (remember the way she took control of every situation in The Force Awakens?), it should be artistically criminal to suddenly pull back the curtain and reveal that she is only what men make her to be. In this movie especially, she is stripped of any agency. Her story, her actions, even her identity are forced on her time and again by men. Even in her rare moments of strength, she is seeking answers, advice, and labels for herself from men.

And then there's Leia, whose presence in this film is just unfortunate from top to bottom. Granted, the filmmakers had an impossibly hard job on their hands after Carrie Fisher's untimely death, especially since it seems clear that Leia was supposed to be the last O.G. hero standing. But I can't help but wonder if they should have just killed her off in the opening crawl of this new movie, because her scenes are so deeply uncomfortable. Her presence makes me think of the uncanny valley, and her image is often drenched in so many aggressively drawn visual effects that she doesn't always look real. The scenes in which she's featured -- sometimes made up of deleted scenes from the other films, sometimes simply shot behind her and using a body double -- are disjointed at best, often with dialogue so vague it makes no sense.

Apart from the plot and characters, I can't help but shake what I read as the film's core ideological problem. The film essentially suggests that, if we put this into context, Hitler survived and resurfaced 30+ years later to join forces with the Soviets and turn the Cold War into an apocalypse. That's fine, I guess, except that this film attempts to cultivate nostalgia from the original generation of fans, which is annoying even if it makes sense from a business perspective. The problem is that it's a generation that has twice allowed a Palpatine-like war criminal and egomaniac to take control (George W. Bush and Donald Trump, respectively) and, each time, failed to rise up and challenge him. How about instead of stroking those egos and making that generation feel so safe, we try confronting them with the realities of their sociopolitical choices and its fallout for subsequent generations?

I don't want to belabor the point any longer, but I was just so utterly disappointed in The Rise of Skywalker. It spends too much time retconning the previous movie, which might be the only work of consummate art in the entire franchise. This tendency dissolves any cohesion in the sequel trilogy, making the episodes incoherent at best and conflicting at worst. These anti-developments in this final chapter result in denying the sequel trilogy its own artistic reasons for existence, unless you count the considerable interest in visual effects, which feels rather masturbatory for Disney at this point.

Bombshell (2019)

Score: 4.5 / 5

His latest film plays less like a historical drama and more like a thriller. Turning his incisive aesthetic away from his earlier political interests, director Jay Roach (Recount, Game Change, All the Way) here teams up with The Big Short writer Charles Randolph to deliver a searing indictment of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked Fox News. It's almost hard to remember, but the accusations against Roger Ailes made headlines more than a year before Weinstein's disgrace and the #MeToo movement. In many respects, Bombshell presents itself as a sort of origin story, and its filmmakers bring into sharp focus the changing culture of media and the unspeakable tensions it creates internally.

We begin with Megyn Kelly leading us through the halls of the national Fox News studio. It's a lengthy sequence that features Kelly speaking directly to us through the camera, narrating the front lines of conservative news generation and execution. But she's also in the scene, communicating with her peers and coworkers, seemingly comfortable and amiable in a friendly, almost familial environment. But in furtive glances and occasionally clenched tones of voice, we are keenly aware that this is a cutthroat occupation, one we've seen before in movies about the media, and that the insularity and self-righteousness of Fox News will only make the proceedings more fraught.

I'm sorry, did I say Megyn Kelly? I think I meant to say Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly. It's almost impossible to differentiate the two here, so complete is Theron's transformation. Thanks to some Oscar-worthy prosthetics, the actors of Bombshell look a lot like their counterparts, including Theron and a gobsmackingly brilliant John Lithhow as the monstrous Ailes. But in no other film of 2019 have I seen such a chameleonic performance as Theron. I often and consistently forgot Kelly wasn't just playing herself, as Theron's stilted, measured voice flawlessly replicates those of her real-life character counterpart. Theron's miraculous performance also has incredible emotional intelligence, allowing the icy and calculated Kelly to become accessible and even sympathetic. Knowing what we know now about her time at Fox gives her opening walkthrough scene an eerie undercurrent; it's meant to be sprightly and fun, but we know her discussion of survival and success is rooted in very real trauma. She makes Kelly's unique brand of beauty and brutality make sense.

Thankfully, the actors are brilliant across the board, and the enormous ensemble cast all fill their roles well. It can't have been easy to represent so many familiar faces, voices, and personalities, but there isn't a moment in the film where you're distanced by a performance as you wonder who that person is supposed to be. The only time I was taken aback was when, after several shots and lines of dialogue, I finally realized that Allison Janney was onscreen as Susan Estrich, Ailes's lawyer. Most fascinating to me, though, is Margot Robbie as Kayla, a fictional character who appears to be made as a sort of composite of several women who all fell prey to Ailes. The always reliable Robbie delivers an emotional knockout performance and is nowhere more effective than in a disturbing early scene as Ailes watches her turn and pull up her skirt so he can see her legs. Television is a visual medium, as he says, and he wants to make sure she has the goods.

Jay Roach's attention to detail and infectious sense of urgency combined with Charles Randolph's ability to make complex stories palatable and entertaining make Bombshell endlessly watchable. Occasionally it feels like an extended episode of an office sitcom, other times it feels like a manifesto against workplace harassment, and still other times it feels like an ensemble thriller. At times I wanted the dialogue to go a little deeper, to have some more intimate understanding of these characters and the office politics. The film leaves unanswered several questions for me, including my most burning question: Why on earth would all these women -- especially Kate McKinnon playing a lesbian friend of Robbie's -- have chosen to work at Fox? It's hard to imagine they didn't know what they were getting into. But then again, that sounds dangerously close to blaming the victims, something the film staunchly guards itself against.

Its balancing act of humor and thrills looks easy, so well have the artists done their job, and within only a few minutes the movie made me laugh out loud, gasp in shock, and even leak a tear. This is intellectually and emotionally brutal filmmaking at every level, and even though you know the story it tells, every moment feels fresh and surprising. There is some discussion of Trump, who makes appearances via stock footage, and the film would be decidedly incomplete without his inclusion. I felt torn about this, though, as I wanted either more intelligent discussion about him or perhaps a little less; as it is, he's basically there for context, and I found the lack of anger toward Trump made the general anger of this film feel occasionally flaccid. But Bombshell quickly became one of my favorite movies this year because, as McKinnon advises the newbie journalist, Fox News aims to "frighten, titillate", and this film repurposes that methodology to devastating effect.

Richard Jewell (2019)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Atlanta, 1996. The Georgia summer heat isn't bothering the thousands of people who descended on the Olympic games and assorted festivities. During one concert at Centennial Park, a pipe bomb explodes, killing two people and injuring a hundred more. A frantic hunt for the bomber begins, but a clear suspect takes center stage: Richard Jewell, the security guard who found the bomb.

But Richard Jewell doesn't begin here. The introduction to this film starts earlier, following its protagonist through a bustling office where he works as a custodian. Shortly after, we see that he has become a security guard at a college. His tough work ethic doesn't always jive with his coworkers or the people he serves; he is mocked for being overweight and for having lofty ambitions (he considers himself law enforcement, on par with police officers). He is fired after multiple complaints from students of him overstepping boundaries and abusing the power of his position; he views this as him going above and beyond the call of duty, but the dean simply asks him if he'll resign or if he needs to be fired. It's pitiful in the awkward way where we are made to understand his predicament even though he is clearly in the wrong. But it's awkward viewing because we know the director and we know he is using this introduction to lionize someone who might not entirely deserve it.

If you know the story at all, things get more familiar from here on out. After moving in with his mother, Richard gets a job working security for the Olympics in Atlanta. Once he alerts the authorities about a suspicious bag -- they initially mock him for being so pretentious, only to discover three pipe bombs inside -- he works hard and fast to make a perimeter before the explosion. His heroic action makes him the center of attention, and before he can go home he is swept up in the media spotlight, interviewed by Katie Couric herself. But as the FBI begin to investigate, he becomes their primary suspect. He certainly fits the psychological profile.

Despite Clint Eastwood's heavy-handed storytelling, which seems to only get more problematic as he continues pumping out movies, the film manages to keep its emotional manipulations in check by focusing so tightly on the relative uniqueness of its characters. Unlike the broad stereotyping in Sully, for example, a lot of the characters here are not really representative of their professions, and so they aren't really painted as "good guys" or "bad guys." Jon Hamm, for example, and Olivia Wilde are painted pretty clearly as the antagonists (FBI agent and media reporter, respectively), but their characters are a little too specific and too layered to represent their power structures. Wilde is especially fascinating in a sure-to-be criticized role as a desperate reporter who jumps to wild conclusions and exchanges sex for information.

But the movie belongs firmly to Paul Walter Hauser, Kathy Bates, and Sam Rockwell as Jewell, his mother, and their lawyer. The three of them play off each other beautifully, crafting a moving relationship that bends under each new blow by the media and the government without breaking. And while most artists in Trump's America are doing well to vindicate the free press, this film does the difficult -- and, thankfully, mostly tasteful -- job of showing what negative effects can happen when the news jumps to conclusions. Eastwood isn't lampooning the FBI or press here, though I was certain he would, and he does a fair job showing how irritating his main character can be and why he was, somewhat rightfully, suspected. But Eastwood seems more interested in showing how the tone of the news and the disdain of the investigators ruined Richard Jewell's life, along with the repulsive popular interest and mob mentality of the public who wanted him to fry.

Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)

Score: 4 / 5

A rare case of the welcome sequel, the second (or, rather, third?) Jumanji does indeed take us to the next level. It's pretty standard stuff, much like the first, and pulls out the typical stops for sequels: bigger, louder, with more eye-popping visuals than you can shake a stick at. Yet this movie also manages to stay fresh, interesting, hilarious, and surprisingly moving. And as you might have predicted, there is a mid-credits scene that confirms there will, indeed, be another installment for those who seek to find a way to leave their world behind.

The Next Level begins a few years after the previous film, as our quartet of heroes have returned to the real world empowered and successful. They've all learned their life lessons, that is, except Spencer (Alex Wolff), whose miserable transition to college and disintegrated relationship with Martha has left him feeling weak and alone. He returns home for winter break and reassembles the broken pieces of the Jumanji game before getting sucked in again. When his friends discover his disappearance, they enter the game again to rescue him. But a few fresh surprises await them.

Because of the game's damage, it ability to suck players in seems random, as are the avatars each player embodies. And so begins a magnificent series of scenes depicting the actors we love playing new characters, perhaps nowhere more brilliantly than in Jack Black's Dr. Oberon. When the characters discover pools of water that can switch avatars, we're treated to a sort of body-snatcher comedy sketch that allows the actors some great room to show their skills. Similarly, due to the game's dangerous unpredictability, it also sucks in a few extra players, such as Alex Vreeke (Nick Jonas/Colin Hanks), Spencer's grandfather Danny DeVito, and DeVito's estranged business partner Danny Glover (both of whom have character names that I can't remember and don't really matter).

Soon enough, the whole team is "Welcomed to the Jungle" along with their new comrades, and attempts to channel the essences of the two Dannys make up the primary shtick that carries the film. By the time this gimmick gets a little old, we're thrown into some dazzling action sequences including an ostrich stampede and a mandrill assault on swinging rope bridges. We're introduced, moreover, not only to the jungle but to a desert and a snowy mountain peak; the production design is nothing short of stunning, as are the visual effects. Though this film's Big Bad -- Jurgen the Brutal, played by Rory McCann -- is neither as fun nor iconic as Bobby Cannavale's in the prior picture, it doesn't need to be. We're not here for the villain or the plot; we're here for laughter, adventure, and heart-warming character development, and The Next Level delivers these in spades.

Ophelia (2019)

Score: 4 / 5

The movie begins with the iconic image of the helpless, doomed mad girl, drowning while floating in the river. But, in voiceover from actress Daisy Ridley, the Ophelia of this film tells us we'll hear a different story: her story. Helped by a smart script and a great ensemble, Ophelia reimagines Shakespeare's Hamlet to tell the story of the misunderstood love interest who became a casualty to patriarchal strife. Though it's no work of artistic genius, the film works hard to make a case for its heroine, allowing her intelligence, gumption, and wit to give her the agency to change Denmark, but to escape the slaughter unscathed.

Anyone who finds Hamlet (the character) dramatically inert will be happy to know this story moves along at a faster pace, thanks to the agency exhibited by Ophelia. The film begins with the young girl making a witty first impression on Queen Gertrude, who is impressed enough to grant the child a place in her entourage. In a screenplay that will invariably be scrutinized next to Shakespeare's original language -- of which this film shares none -- it's pretty remarkable that writer Semi Chellas didn't even try to piggyback, instead crafting a tone and rhythm all her own. This dialogue is riddled with wordplay but keeps itself familiar and relevant, as if determined to empower young literary minds when screened in high school English classes.

But be warned that this is not a simple retelling from a different perspective. This story includes multiple episodes utterly absent from Hamlet, though arguably they indicate an odd attempt to contextualize this tale within a nonexistent Shakespearean fictional universe. The big change comes in the form of a witch, played by Naomi Watts, for whom Ophelia is courier of a magic potion for Queen Gertrude (also Naomi Watts); it seems the queen is so desperate to hang on to her own youth and beauty that she will resort to magic and, yes, the love of a husband's brother in order to maintain it. This complication of her character could be read as making her more complicit in the rottenness of Elsinore. Magic mirror on the wall, and so forth.

While Ophelia and Gertrude are stealing our attention, it's important to note that Hamlet and Claudius have important -- and importantly diminished -- roles as well. Claudius is veritably creepy here, clearly dangerous and wicked, whereas the original flirts with his ambiguity for the play's first two acts. Hamlet, though, is a dutiful and often romanticized character, and their affair turns into a sort of Danish Romeo and Juliet situation; he effectively sacrifices himself to cleanse the castle, while Ophelia escapes the madness alone and finally free. They plan their takedown of Elsinore early on, making even Hamlet's nunnery speech into a coded plea for her to escape while she can. In rewritten moments like this, the film especially shines.

And even if you're not here for the gendered politics (shame on you!), the film boasts enough eye-popping, sumptuous costume drama to keep you enthralled. Plus, we've got some gorgeous location cinematography and sound mixing that bring a haunting duality to the warm, sunlit outdoors and the echoing, chilly castle interior. There's not much not to like about all this, though I found myself wanting a bit more of just about everything.

Freaks (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Freaks is a strange movie, and one that really should be watched without any prior knowledge. So if you want to learn its secrets firsthand and without expectation or disappointment, stop reading now.

We begin inside a closed-up house, reminiscent of The Walking Dead or Bird Box, in which a father (Emile Hirsch) teaches his daughter Chloe (Lexy Kolker) how to lie in a speech to be delivered if she's ever caught. We don't know what's outside, and neither does Chloe. We assume it's a sort of post-apocalyptic world, but the father does occasionally go outside for supplies with no visible protection or weapons. But in her few moments of isolation, she peeps through to the sunlit outside and seems enamored by what she sees, especially an ice cream truck driven by Mr. Snowcone himself. Soon she sneaks out to the ice cream truck, and Mr. Snowcone (Bruce Dern) takes her on a ride away from her house.

It's a chilling start, all the more so because we have no idea what's happening, why the secretive dialogue, or who to trust. Is the father being protective, or is he abusing her? Is Mr. Snowcone a kindly old man, a dangerous predator, or something even worse? And what exactly is happening in this strange world in which people's eyes sometimes bleed? Turns out, it's a world like you might see in X-Men, where certain individuals are born with, shall we say, uncanny powers to read minds, turn invisible, or fly. These individuals are known even by the government as "freaks" whose eyes bleed if they overexert their powers, and they are accused in the media of running loose as illegal citizens and hiding in plain sight, slapping us in the face with the real-life relevance of the immigration crisis.

The film is remarkably difficult to swallow, especially since we learn everything with -- and filtered by -- the young girl at its heart. People explain their world and powers in ways she might understand, though we are well aware there's always more going on than they say. And, possibly because of her age, things aren't always clearly happening in reality versus in her head, and almost everything is sentimentalized despite the film's attempts at grit and violence. But once all the players are on the screen and the board is set for a final sequence, I found myself utterly distractable, predicting each step in the otherwise rote plotline, wishing all the fuss amounted to more. The mutants -- or whatever they are -- are far better characters than superheroes, and so their powers are largely pointless apart from getting between plot points. I'd rather watch X-Men.

Luce (2019)

Score: 3.5 / 5

It's the sort of character-heavy drama you go see live theatre for. It's essentially a chamber piece for a handful of talented actors to bounce off each other. Their material: half a dozen hot-topic sociopolitical issues that are as timely as they are timeless. And while, as a film, everything feels a little diluted here, the screenplay seems determined to help you feel as connected to these characters as you would in the same room, breathing the same air. It's an admirable project, one that most compares to last year's The Seagull in style and efficacy.

Kelvin Harrison Jr. steals the movie as the leading player, the titular Luce. He was adopted, we learn, by white Americans and rescued from being a child soldier in Eritrea, since which time he has apparently gone through lots of psychotherapy. Now a star student and star athlete, loved by everyone at his high school, he is a sort of poster child for the American Dream. He's the valedictorian, and we see him delivering moving speeches to his classmates and mentors. He's also far smarter than lots of folks give him credit for, and he too has a dark side; Luce's secrets take his community by storm when they are revealed, and his vengeful fantasy has only just begun.

At least, that's one way to read the film. Another way is as a damning indictment of older folks -- "okay, boomers" -- who are too obsessed with labels and ideologies to see the real people they're categorizing. Luce is a lot of great things, but that doesn't make him a great person. And so when Harriet Wilson, one of his teachers (played by Octavia Spencer), finds one of his papers disturbing, she immediately voices her concerns. To be fair, the assignment is a bit problematic, and someone as smart as Luce would surely jump at the opportunity to stretch his own perspective in writing it. But Ms. Wilson takes things pretty far in order to intercept what she sees as Luce's dangerous interests, searching his locker under ethically ambiguous pretenses and getting his mother (Naomi Watts) involved.

The film deals with largely unspoken ideas, and it gets more complicated when a central motif of the screenplay is that of coded language. At one point, during a parent-teacher conference that looks more like an intervention, Luce -- ever the diplomat -- calls Ms. Wilson "strict" or something to that effect when what he really means is "bitch," which even his father is aware enough to sense. And we feel the same way: she is a strict teacher, which is good, but she also overstepped her bounds and violated Luce's privacy. Then again, as much as I think we are meant to identify/sympathize with Luce, it's never quite clear whether he is too smart and more than a little sociopathic. He certainly has great answers to the adults' questions, answers that sound pre-planned and quite convenient. And it seems unlikely that someone so smart and well-liked would allow himself to be put in such compromising situations. Plus, there's that final shot, which features Luce running toward the camera with a look of completely unreadable hostility.

And for all I loved about this movie, there is enough potentially problematic material that I'm not sure anyone should watch this movie unless they're prepared for some really tough questions about representation, socially responsible storytelling, and the balance between artistic purpose and artistic integrity. For example, Ms. Wilson's mentally ill sister appears in a couple scenes and is brutally exploited in one, for seemingly little reason except to round out part of Ms. Wilson's character and invite the topic of mental illness. Similarly, one of Luce's friends -- and his sometime girlfriend, we learn -- Stephanie Kim was sexually molested by other high school boys before Luce saved her, and now she's basically a tool for the film to briefly touch on the #MeToo movement. And of course there's Luce's parents, who are dangerously close to being iconic white saviors; in one of his speeches, Luce proudly tells the story of how they named him "Luce" because they couldn't pronounce his African name. It's nauseating, and probably indicative of Luce's ulterior motives, but I think it's intentionally so.

The problem is, it's not clear what the filmmakers are really saying about these issues, other than simply introducing them as topics for debate. And I'm not sure that's enough for a quality film.

Black Christmas (2019)

Score: 1.5 / 5

The first thing you need to know about the newest iteration of Black Christmas is that it shares almost nothing with the earlier versions. In each, a handful of sorority sisters try to make their holiday break merry while being stalked and murdered in their own house. That's where the similarities stop. While the 1974 original and 2006 remake feature the deranged killer Billy (at least, we assume that's him), whose strange obsessions result in festive bloodshed, this new version completely tears away from this tradition. We are now dealing with a cult of masked and robed men, a fraternity seeking to put campus women "back in line." Sure, some of the murders feel vaguely similar, especially the initial icicle stabbing, but by the halfway point we know full well who the killers are, their motives, and their M.O., and so the familiarity is forced out.

The second thing you need to know about the new flick is that it is not a Christmas movie. I mean, it takes place during holiday break, but the holiday setting and decor is purely incidental. What this Black Christmas is is a renewed salvo of the gender-based war on male-dominated horror movies (something I wasn't really sure we were in, but writer/director Sophia Takal apparently thinks otherwise). The frat brothers, led by a misogynistic professor (Cary Elwes) at historically sexist Hawthorne College (and yes, Takal, you did just alienate your literary audience members with the misreading of Scarlet Letter), have discovered black magic and a way to let their founder possess them. It's a cheap and surprisingly stupid ploy to pull, one that lessens the imminent threat of rape culture and gender-based violence on college campuses. These boys are capable of evil all on their own, without adding the bizarre and unspecific dark arts to the mix.

The third thing you need to know about the new flick is that the first half is actually quite entertaining. While the movie's scares aren't generally effective, the comedy and drama are utterly engrossing. Rapid-fire dialogue reveal the woke girls' complete disdain for the boys on their campus, building the culture of Hawthorne College didactically while distinguishing girls based on their experiences. One has a dutifully respectful boyfriend who is quite content supporting these women. One seems happy to flirt boys and leave them cold, knowing they're all trash. One was raped at a frat party recently. They pull together some really strong scenes of sisterhood-building and even perform a hardcore anti-rape version of "Up on the Rooftop" in front of the rapist frat boys in skimpy holiday outfits. It's all quite empowering, until it's suddenly not; that is, when they're home and the boys attack.

The final thing you need to know about this movie is that it's one of the biggest disappointments this year. I loved the dialogue in the early scenes, and I would rewatch these scenes again happily. It's the movie's abysmal payoff I can't stand. By the big middle-of-the-movie turn, consisting of cultish robed murderers invading the sorority house, I had completely checked out. It stopped being a feminist college movie and started being a schlocky slasher with little to no artistic purpose or merit and the gall to be intellectually insulting to boot.

Dark Waters (2019)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Todd Haynes has done it again. Nobody would have thought he'd jump into a legal thriller, much less one about the DuPont poisoning scandal in West Virginia. But here it is, one of the best pictures of the year.

Mark Ruffalo stars as Robert Bilott, an Ohio attorney who stumbles upon a troubling problem in the foothills of Parkersburg, West Virginia: cows are becoming mad, getting sick, and dying en masse. The farmer whose cows have been plagued is convinced that DuPont is dumping chemical waste nearby, and even though Bilott's firm represents the chemical manufacturer, he cannot shake the feeling that something is horribly wrong. This protagonist is a more or less typical Haynes character study in that he is an outsider looking for belonging and purpose and ends up in way over his head. His timid, almost turtle-like demeanor belies a fiercely obsessive intellectual bent, and Bilott quickly becomes, as the headline said, "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare."

Ruffalo here proves his mettle in the kind of "everyman" role that James Stewart thrived on, an awkward but unshakably decent man determined to do the right thing. And in a case like this, the right thing will prove to dominate the rest of his life, much to the chagrin of his wife, the woefully underused but always reliably excellent Anne Hathaway (who really should have played opposite Cate Blanchett in Carol, but that's another rant). It's one thing, after all, to prove wrongdoing. It's quite another to prove intent and lasting damages for such a long period of time and, as we learn, over so much global ground.

Because, thrilling as the film often is, its earnest delivery of corporate-sponsored destruction of lives and property is ongoing, making questions of our own health and complicity requisite topics of conversation for post-screening reflection. While the film pulls at our patience -- the story spans decades, friends -- writers Mario Correa (I don't know of him) and Matthew Michael Carnahan (Lions for Lambs, State of Play) do their best to keep the important parts in, balancing crucial plot development with key character turning points, making the film remarkably intimate and vast at once. It can all get pretty thick and heavy, and Haynes wades into surprisingly dark water here (forgive me). Thankfully, the righteous anger of Dark Waters comes with a strange optimism: even this little guy could take on the big business. The film allows Bilott the platform to help laypeople like me understand how this disaster could have happened, how and why it's been covered up for so long, and of course how it's possible -- indeed, our duty -- to resist.

I was left with cold sweat and a warm feeling in my heart despite the agony of viewing, but I was also left with the burning question of why on earth Haynes decided this story would fit into his body of work. But as I reflected on his early film Safe, in which Julianne Moore develops a mysterious illness to everything around her, I recognized Haynes's sense of paranoia and invisible stressors that loom over the proceedings. And as I thought of Far From Heaven, I wondered if Haynes was drawing a parallel from that picture's depiction of racism/sexism/homophobia and in this film finally highlighting economic status and class as similarly dangerous social constructs that alienate victims and disenfranchise individuals most at risk. And, of course, Haynes controls his art with a sure hand and remarkably insightful eye, making even the slightest of focus shifts sing with purpose and injecting electrified tension into each emotional beat between actors. This movie is a masterclass in directorial artistic integrity, and it's also a damn important story to see on screen.

Queen & Slim (2019)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Few films have harnessed the power of myth as efficiently or effectively as Queen & Slim. It feeds off the tradition of cinematic folktales while it repurposes those tropes to craft a fresh and compelling story that, for all its specificity and alarming cultural relevance, becomes an epic in its own right.

Its title characters are never actually referred to by their nicknames in the film. In fact, their real names are unknown until quite late, thanks to the news reports about them. All we know, when the movie begins, is that "he" and "she" are having an incredibly awkward first date. She is a defense attorney who had a bad day and didn't want to eat alone; he is a little too forward and eager with her, and he masticates loudly. We can tell this is their first date and their last date: his license plate says TRUSTGOD and he prays before he eats, but he's happy to suggest they continue their evening together at home. She is cold as ice, wearing a full white outfit, and content to shut him down repeatedly.

Things suddenly take a worst-case scenario turn as he is driving her home. They get pulled over by a cop for "driving erratically" and, despite their initial compliance with his clearly antagonistic racism, things get heated. When she gets out of the car to record the evil cop on her phone, his trigger-happy finger blows up the night with violence. But it is our two leads who survive the encounter, killing the cop in a moment of glorious self-defense. But Queen (I guess we can call her that?) makes the insightful claim that they will be hung out to dry by the law, not vindicated. I personally found this to be the single moment that infuriated me; the evidence at the scene should surely exonerate the two from persecution. But they decide to run, and so the legend of Queen and Slim is born.

The two leads -- Daniel Kaluuya and newcomer Jodie Turner-Smith -- drive the film magnificently both in terms of acting talent and literally, as the film turns Green Book on its head. This is a road picture, one fraught with life-and-death peril, from Ohio to Florida. Our protagonists flee to the Deep South, planning to somehow cross the big water to Cuba and live there together. Despite the change in cardinal direction, the film becomes fascinatingly analogous to an Underground Railroad. Queen and Slim have become national sensations, sparking protests and riots against police brutality, and wherever they go people recognize them, hiding them when necessary and helping them travel to a hope for freedom.

The police are never far behind, and not all black folk are sympathetic to their action or what they have come to stand for. But therein lies the film's amazing ability to make an archetypal story -- a modern odyssey -- with archetypal characters who are relentlessly their own individuals. Queen and Slim are black, sure, but they are fully fleshed characters who, the film seems determined to hammer into our heads, do not represent and can not represent all black people. They are not icons, they are not intending any of the social phenomenon that they become. But by being unapologetically themselves, they are mythic.

Moreover, it's crucial to note that Queen and Slim are not criminals. Her uncle, one of their railroad conductors, you might say, calls them the "black Bonnie and Clyde" half-jokingly, and the new and police clearly have them painted as ruthless cop killers. But their only alleged crime initially is in self-defense; there is no reason to be shot when you are pulled over for swerving once and you have no illegal substances or weapons in your possession. Their later crimes are a matter of survival, such as stealing a couple cars and gas. And, thrilling as the film is, it resides almost exclusively in moments that are not action-packed or even violent; rather, we spend most of the two-hour-plus runtime in relative silence, breathing with our protagonists and experiencing the beauty of the U.S. heartland with them.

First-time director Melina Matsoukas does some amazing work to this end, dwelling with her characters and letting us in on their sensory experience. She interposes bits of context and exposition, often including brief moments of violence, usually in terms of radio or television. Sometimes these jumps or juxtapositions feel a bit forced, sometimes a bit bizarre, but they make sense the more you give yourself over to her vision. Often awkward conversations tread an engrossing line between sensationalistic, morose, and absurdly funny, and I found it to be at once more lifelike and more profound than if the script detailed lengthy, poetic passages in heightened language. This is an earnest film, an artistic film. This is a film that buttresses its anger with tragedy, combines its dirge with its call to action, and celebrates the simple fact -- a fact that has come under assault as political propaganda by those who choose to not understand -- that black lives matter.