Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

It's an odd hybrid of a film, to be sure, but that kind of fits with the whole Jurassic Park thing. They've always cleverly blended genre, and while this latest pushes its premise much farther, I'm glad the films are evolving a bit beyond the tried-and-true method they've perfected over five films already. When Fallen Kingdom ended, I was an absolute mess because the final sequence is everything I've wanted from the franchise since it was suggestively promised to us in the second half of The Lost World: dinosaurs freely roaming the earth again. While the film obviously needs a story, it does a really fabulous job of showing news reels and montages of this sci-fi nightmarish fantasy from the opening sequence to the finale. We don't need to imagine the Mosasaur gobbling surfers or Pteranodons perching above Columbus Circle because we can finally see it on the big screen!

Set four years after the previous installment, dinosaurs have now bred widely and are spread across the world. Sometimes it's like seeing a bear or moose in the wild; sometimes it results in chaos, wreckage, and death. But rather than explore this generally, the film's primary concerns seem to be with attempts to control or profit from this phenomenon. Enter Biosyn Genetics, a rival company of InGen (from the previous films) who have established a scientific sanctuary in Italy to study dino DNA and, hopefully, find medical and agricultural breakthroughs. Unfortunately, the company is headed by Lewis Dodgson (who we might remember from the first film as Dennis Nedry's accomplice in stealing from Hammond), whose criminality is put on display when a plague of prehistoric locusts is unleashed on the world, bred to devour all crops not genetically linked to Biosyn (get it? "Bio"logical "sin"s are sort of their MO). Fallout from this ecological disaster spurs the plot of Dominion, and thankfully allows for the return of some familiar faces.

Paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), in researching the suspect crops, approaches paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill) for help. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen (Chris Pratt), raising the cloned Maisie Lockwood in the Sierra Nevada, are brought out of relative isolation when Biosyn captures the Velociraptor Blue's asexually produced offspring and Maisie in one shocking raid. When the heroes approach Biosyn, they meet up with a friendly face in the form of Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), now working as a sort of corporate ethicist for Dodgson. Weird, sure, but it's a lot of fun to see the whole gang together.

I'd have preferred a less plot-forced approach. We skip around the world so many times, from snowcapped North American mountains to rooftops in the Mediterranean, that it feels more like a Marvel movie than a Park movie; then again, there's a reason this trilogy changed its title to World, and this is exactly that reason. We aren't given ample time, yet again, to really know Maisie or understand her character. She's mostly a MacGuffin, one whose thematic implications are fascinating but never really developed or explored in this trilogy. There are also two new characters including a pilot who feels more like a mercenary (DeWanda Wise) and the disillusioned head of Biosyn communications (Mamoudou Athie) who aren't developed at all and who seem merely to set up whatever comes next from the franchise. (What's the bet it'll be a limited series exclusively for streaming?)

Thankfully, we get a bit more development of Henry Wu (B.D. Wong) here, who is arguably the real villain of the franchise, and Dodgson (Campbell Scott) is actually a pretty great villain for this episode because he links it all back to the beginning. Scott himself delivers an unnervingly effective performance to undermine what could easily have been a rote character, much like Goldblum, using odd words and phrasing, unexpected tonal shifts, and even distinctly uncomfortable body language to suggest the weirdness of his character; one imagines he studied Musk, Jobs, or Zuckerberg quite a lot for the role.

If it wasn't clear already, there is a lot going on in this film. I wish it took the careful time to explore all its ideas like the first Jurassic World did: glass spheres for prairie strolls, kayaks on a dino river, a petting zoo are all genius and well-presented. But here, we're given mere seconds to take in all the information from a dinosaur black market, dino meat street vendors, dino fighting pits. These scenes dissipate much too quickly and without -- I think this is the significant bit so I'll repeat -- without caring enough to make the scenes believable and therefore tense. All five previous films are keenly aware that every single moment has to have the dread or tension that death is actively nearby. This one ratchets up the action and spectacle, but there's never really the worry that Owen or Alan will get eaten or squashed. And that's a difficult failing to overlook. But, if the franchise continues (and I hope it does), then perhaps this film will be remembered more fondly as the launching pad for some really interesting and exciting work. As it is, it probably ties with the third film as my least favorite of the franchise, which admittedly isn't saying much because I can hardly wait to watch this one again!

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Score: 2 / 5

Here we go again. The opening title card is the same as before, and the opening sequence again plays out over the familiar song "Danger Zone." This is a legacy sequel in spades, one that feels determined to work best for nostalgia's sake. Even though the late Tony Scott isn't directing this time, new director Joseph Kosinski seems to do his best mimicking the style of the earlier film, though his tone is much more somber this time. Frankly, I don't much like the first one, and while this film feels more serious and features much better-filmed practical effects, it also is just more of the same (without any queer coding to distract from its emptiness). I'm just not a fan of the whole Top Gun thing.

We begin with Tom Cruise's character, call sign "Maverick," working as a test pilot for the US Navy, a more believable career for him after the first film ended with him preparing to teach the top-tier titular program's students to become the Navy's best fighting pilots. He is summoned on a mythic "final job" mission to return to teaching a group of recent Top Gun graduates for a crucial mission. He doesn't really want to, but it persuaded to join. Unfortunately, he quickly learns that one of his students will be "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller) the son of "Goose," Maverick's former wingman who died in an accident Maverick caused. He has never forgiven himself, and is sure that Rooster hasn't either.

The actual plot is about as irrelevant and vague as it was in the original. There is an enemy, but great care is taken to never identify the enemy (in the first, we can probably assume North Korea or China; in this, it's almost certainly Russia). There is a mission to be done, though it's basically opaque. There's an impossible flight plan to destroy some target and almost certainly die in the process (is it the trench climax from Star Wars: A New Hope, or perhaps a Mission: Impossible task?). And, on the home front, Maverick needs to navigate his way around these young hotshots, harden them for the impossible, and also hopefully kindle romance with the local single-mother bartender (Jennifer Connelly). Because he's him, and this is us, and why not?

The cast is uniformly, well, uniform. Serviceable but generally unremarkable, and that's the result of writing and direction. A film so narratively castrated can scarcely harness the kind of energy wartime action dramas need to capture our attention. The lack of specifics in plot, in any capacity, makes the film feel more like a dreamy, vaguely patriotic attempt at rousing dangerous ideological pockets of our culture, much like the first film was so jingoistic and vainly pious for its own good. (Then again, the performatively macho presentation of the first has since been subjected to much critical suspicion, resulting in famed attempts to queer the material. It's funny and diverting, but ultimately a troubling exercise unless you take the whole film as camp, which is also diverting but I think fruitless.)

It's a summer blockbuster, taken for its entirety, and some people will love it. I enjoyed some of the didactic zingers and the general nostalgic sentimentality for what they were. Even though the actors are largely irrelevant, Connelly works hard to feel important and Cruise just sort of is important anymore, so they command the screen well. Teller often plays off Glen Powell, and I'd like to see them square off in a better film together, as their repartee is delightful. Val Kilmer returns for a single scene, and it's emotional enough when he reveals why he selected Maverick for this job; Jon Hamm and Ed Harris also pop in occasionally for apparent reasons. Movies like this tend to cast recognizable, grizzled older white men to bark orders and repeat lines like "But that's impossible" and "You're here to follow my lead," and that's all they do here too. There are some breathtaking sequences of airborne dogfights and low-altitude chases that are infinitely better than their counterparts in the original -- and a sexy beachside football match to rival the original's volleyball playoff -- and while it's still not movie material I love, I appreciated the authenticity and lack of VFX (and excellent editing!) in telling those parts of the story.

Gaia (2021)

Score: 4 / 5

What a delicious film. Its story may not have the heft of a confident storyteller -- despite its ambitious and timely ideas from screenwriter Tertius Kapp -- but under the direction of Jaco Bouwer it manages to perform itself visually. It doesn't take long for us to feel the film, before we really understand what is happening, and that's the mark of great collaboration. Especially with cinematography (here by Jorrie van der Walt). This is the sort of transportive filmmaking even popular and "great" directors spend entire careers trying to achieve. And here it is in an independent release from South Africa in the middle of a pandemic. The big American studios should take note.

Two forest rangers, Gabi and Winston, are patrolling a river in the protected Tsitsikamma Forest, using a drone to survey the surrounding area. We're blessed with a God's eye perspective almost immediately (actually, it's the drone, so...deus ex machina?) as the two isolated rangers paddle slowly through the jungle. When the drone crashes, Gabi is determined to retrieve it and not litter; Winston warns her of the dangers of the jungle. She forges ahead alone (bad idea) and almost instantly begins to suffer the consequences, triggering a trap and getting stabbed right through her foot before wandering into a remote cabin (bad idea) to rest and treat her wound. Meanwhile, Winston hears her scream of pain and ventures into the jungle after her (bad idea) as night falls (bad idea) and encounters terrifying humanoid creatures before becoming apparently infected by fungal spores.

When night falls, a fairly straightforward adventure/survival story shifts into full-blown horror. The forest is alive, a designation realized soon enough through the red lighting and editorial manipulations of our expectations. Stunning visuals show mushrooms and other fungi growing quickly, unfurling their tendrils and oozing forward in almost sentient ways, to say nothing of the creatures which appear not unlike the pirate crew of Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean films due to the amount of mushrooms and moss and things growing on them. Winston, experiencing it all firsthand, catches on really quickly that this is bad; Gabi is slower to understand, sheltered as she may be, but she suspects that the red light and impossible sounds in the jungle indicate the presence of a more cosmic threat. And then the owners of the cabin show up -- a father and son survivalist pair who are utterly terrifying -- and that's when the movie kicks into high gear (as if it wasn't already).

Taking its visual (and, to some extent, narrative) inspiration from the mushrooms, the film's visuals get increasingly trippy and the editing wanders and returns sometimes quickly enough that you feel you're experiencing far more than just a survival story, even as you're not quite sure what exactly is happening. Barend and Stefan, the survivalists, become less terrifying because they seem to know what the mysterious presence in the jungle is and how to navigate around it. When the crazy person becomes understandable or even smart to us, we know the designed horror of the story is settling in; it's all about displacing us from the comfort of audienceship. In many ways, it's a bit like the horrors of Apocalypse Now and Deliverance and even The Mosquito Coast in the characters' isolation and dance with madness. But it also primarily works as an ecological horror film, and would pair nicely (if a little too well) with In the Earth. I also thought a few times of Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Beach House, so if that range of films gives you any idea, this movie is pretty intense and a little bonkers.

Add in the religious and arguably pagan fervor of the survivalists (specifically the father Barend) and the increasingly unhinged dream sequences -- though it's not always clear if they are dreams or not -- and the film reaches for really profound and heady concepts. But no matter how weird the movie gets, its messages are clear (unlike, in that regard, In the Earth): the warnings that we have irreparably damaged the earth will be made manifest and the consequences returned to humankind one way or another. There's an urgency to the proceedings, no doubt fueled by our collective fear of biological annihilation since the COVD-19 pandemic, wherein even isolating oneself in nature is dangerous. People seeking solitude and safety may find something far worse than the crime or disease of urban life: an indifferent and predatory world chewing you up, spitting you out, and forgetting that you even existed.

We Need to Do Something (2021)

Score: 2.5 / 5

It's a brilliant premise. The film opens with a family entering their bathroom to take shelter. It's a large space, thankfully, for the family of four, and it's clear they're not the happiest family all together. Their phones ding repeatedly with tornado warnings, interrupting daughter Melissa (Sierra McCormick) as she worriedly tries to text her significant other. The mother Diane (Vinessa Shaw) tries to comfort the young son Bobby (John James Cronin), who seems exceptionally frightened, though we're not quite sure if he's scared of the storm or his father Robert (Pat Healy), whose aggressive and bitter jabs at the family reveal that he's not exactly a nice guy. But, within the first ten minutes of the film, the storm feels a bit more intense than it should, with a sustained white light and the sound of something like a jet crashing. Or, you know, maybe the earth opening up. We can't see anything of the outside world. Which is why it's so scary when Robert can't get the door open again.

Could a tree have fallen in front of it? Is the rest of their home still there? Who knows, because the tiled bathroom also doesn't have usable windows or an easy way to punch through the walls. It's telling that this movie was produced during the COVID-19 pandemic, because its most immediate pleasure (and horror) is that of being stuck at home with your family. Especially family with whom you have some bad history. It would work well as a psychological drama in a locked space. Some of those can be really effective, such as Hitchcock's Lifeboat or Rope, or even recent films like Locke and Buried; it's a terrifying and theatrical experience of being intimately connected with trapped people while we also feel trapped. That sounds like a pretty great movie to me. But We Need to Do Something takes a sudden, drastic turn, and while I really admire its ambition and its absolutely unpredictable plot, I wish the screenplay did a little bit more to flesh everything out.

It starts when a dog -- or, at least, what we think is a dog -- starts sniffing around by the door. The family can open it enough to get an arm through, and they try to get the dog to approach. Maybe that will alert rescuers to their location! The dog approaches and makes some noise, but then it suddenly speaks in a demonic voice (voiced, oddly and effectively, by Ozzy Osbourne), and this sudden turn to supernatural horror is nothing short of breathtaking. I was so stunned I had to pause the movie and get another drink already. Is this locked-in-the-house thriller now also a Satanic panic or Lovecraftian horror film? My suspicions and terror were further roused when a venomous snake materializes in the bathroom. 

There is no relying on "the man," as Robert quickly becomes unhinged and violent. There is no relying on the outside world, as the family has absolutely no idea what's happening. This absurdist streak manifests mostly in partially effective dialogue between the family meant to create drama, but as such it becomes often unexpectedly funny. Sometimes the humor is so dark I felt shame in chuckling, and sometimes it's so wacky that I audibly guffawed, but it's never laugh-out-loud comedy. It reminded me a bit of Sam Raimi's early work, not least because Healy's bugged-out angry/scared eyes as he loses it felt so akin to Bruce Campbell in The Evil Dead. The man of the house actually can't handle the things he's expected to handle (or, more accurately, the things he feels are his duty under pressure). 

There is some backstory, mostly shared in dreamy flashbacks about Melissa and her girlfriend, and that didn't quite work as well for me. There is some school bullying that spurs them on to witchcraft, and the suggestion might be that their retaliation on the bullies may have brought about their current situation. Apocalyptic as it feels, though, it could just be a sort of "sins of the father revisited" circumstance in which this family is being uniquely punished (think of a less festive and more paranoid Krampus). But there's just not enough of that story -- whatever it is -- to know for sure. Instead, we're left with the chilling feeling that this dark and insane story could just be a reflection of the way we all experienced the trauma of pandemic lockdown. That's where the ending is both satisfying and infuriating: we think it's about to be over finally, but more horror awaits us just outside the door.

Crimes of the Future (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Its opening sequence reads like some of the auteur's best work. A little boy in a nasty, dirty bathroom, curls up beneath the sink and begins eating. But this is not a vampire from The Brood or an offspring of The Fly; he eats a trash can. Not its contents. Literally the can itself. It's weird, certainly, but not quite horrifying. That adjective comes into play a moment later, when the boy's sad and disgusted mother enters and kills the boy. A brutal way to start a film, and all the more intriguing because there is no exposition, no rationale, no history. And, noteworthy, we never revisit the scene in the film.

Cronenberg is of course the master of body horror (or "the body beautiful" as he calls it), and Crimes of the Future is very much a return to form after two decades of drama and history and thriller films (almost all of which are also excellent). From his twisted mind, we're introduced very quickly and without any panache to a world in the vaguely distant future that feels grim, grimy, and altogether nasty. Think a less urban Blade Runner aesthetic. Humanity has apparently begun to mutate in this polluted waste of a world so that some humans continuously grow new organs, and most humans no longer experience pain. As a result, of course, new occupations have arisen. In what seems to be his fantasy of the middle of the end of humankind (it's not the beginning because of the world-weary nature of the proceedings and the characters, and it's not the end because humans are apparently generally handling the world fairly well), there has sprung up quite a market for human organs. Technicians have developed biological machines to help humans sleep and eat more organically (as if those weren't two of the most organic functions of humans anyway).

As different people have evolved differently, there seems to be an intense stigma specifically against humans who have evolved to the point of being able to eat plastics. Hence the opening scene. These considerations could make for a film with massive scope, somebody like Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich might make a global disaster movie; somebody like Steven Soderbergh or Ridley Scott might make an epic that is also intimate. Cronenberg, in his signature style, makes a distinctly political premise markedly antipolitical in execution, meaning that this movie that indirectly references the plastics that have polluted our world and that already exist within human bloodstreams and takes it to a logical conclusion: if saving the earth (and humanity) that was is less and less likely, as it is, perhaps we need to look forward into adapting our world to accept and cater to this plastics behemoth we've created.

It's frighteningly accessible to our pandemic world, too; learning to live with the constant threat of annihilation and how to not only survive but use that threat to somehow better ourselves. Enter Caprice (Lea Seydoux) and Saul (Viggo Mortensen), an ex-surgeon and performance artist respectively, who kind of hate what they do but fill a particular need and niche for themselves and their audience. Saul continuously grows new organs (and yes, the idea of increased and unwieldy cancer problems as a result of pollution and plastics is present), and for a profit, they perform surgeries in front of a crowd to remove those organs. It pushes Saul's body to horrific limits, opening the body to new possibilities as the film tells us; since pain isn't really a concern anymore, the body can be molded in much more violent ways than we see today with body modifications and performance/body art.

Where the movie makes its most intriguing (and, for me, horrific) turn is that these surgeries are notably erotic. Calmly wicked, subversive and raw, the new openings in Saul's body provide ample locations for penetration; several scenes in which Caprice slides her fingers or hand inside feel uncomfortably sexual. Perhaps it's this reality -- all captured with a sensual eye by the camera -- that entices Timlin (Kristen Stewart) to fall in love with the artistic duo. She's a bureaucrat gopher in the National Organ Registry, investigating and keeping tabs on new organ growths, which naturally brings her into a potentially compromising situation with Saul. On the other hand, the plastic folk are almost anti-sensual, as plastic (and toxic) in their interactions as in their diet, led by a mysterious and inscrutable Scott Speedman (I don't recall his character's name) who is determined to prove the government's stance on human evolution is wrong.

There is a lot of heady material here, and many lenses can be applied to the film to tease out its many ideas on everything from evolution to sex, from environment to government, from social corruption to economic failure. And yet the film places equal -- if not greater -- emphasis on the subtle, mostly nonverbal, human experience of all these things, as if to say, "this is our reality now, if exaggerated, so what do we really feel about it?" Alarming, calming, horrific and beautiful, this is Cronenberg at his typical best, and while it's confusing and cerebral stuff, it's also a fascinating and fun time at the cinema. 

Men (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

The latest work from Alex Garland is perhaps also his most ambitious yet. Ex Machina was patient and cerebral, but completely accessible; Annihilation with its much bigger budget may have been visually accessible, but was even more heady with its artistic grasps at existentiality. Men, however, largely leaves the realm of science fiction behind, choosing instead to tell a story loaded with psychological horrors and emotional torment that feels a little too real and a little too theatrical at the same time. Garland's absolute control over tone, pacing, colors and light, and his performers is stunning to behold, even while we're grappling with the thematic implications of the madness to which we are witness.

Harper is a recent widow, and she needs a holiday. Choosing to travel alone to a quiet hamlet in the English country, she is haunted by memories of her late husband James. Their troubled relationship is shown in a few flashbacks to specific moments: the fight they had when Harper declared her intent to divorce; James's emotional attempts to gaslight, blame, and accuse before threatening suicide and attacking her physically; and finally James's death when he fell off an upstairs balcony and impaled himself on the fence below. It's this last moment that particularly disturbs Harper. Was James up there to jump and fulfill his threat, or was he trying to climb down and into his apartment she had locked? Did he know she'd be there, and is that why they locked eyes as he plummeted? Even in death, is he exerting his control over her?

Men may be many things, but it is primarily a journey through the grief process. Jessie Buckley, who is making quite a name for herself in thankless roles of psychological drama -- I'm Thinking of Ending Things and The Lost Daughter -- carries this movie as Harper with astonishing strength and grace, and of course lots of tension and screaming and slack-jawed terror. Much like we've seen in Relic and Midsommar and The Babadook and of course The Night House, certain cinematic horror in the last few years has largely been labeled as "elevated," and that seems primarily a distinction for psychologically complex and realistic horror that is filmed in a sensitive and suggestive way. With a few notable exceptions, Men dives into grieving for a lost husband, but also for a woman finding a way out from patriarchal expectations, away from misogynist control, and through her own internalized domestic guilt and shame. Seems like a bit of a leap to say that? Let's talk about the rest of the movie.

Shortly after arriving at her vacation house, Harper meets a man. The man, in fact, played by Rory Kinnear. He's the owner of the house, apparently some sort of off-the-grid Airbnb situation, and he's nice enough. Through his toothy smile, he assures her that the house is safe and takes her on a tour, making a few rough comments that smack of old-school misogyny: instead of asking her to throw away any non-biodegradable items rather than flushing, he points out brusquely and kind of creepily that menstrual pads must be tossed in the trash. It's the earliest clear example of something being very wrong here, and it sets the tone for the rest of the film: while Men isn't generally a comedy of errors like you could argue Get Out is, with its intense desire to skewer social behaviors, it does harness a curious intensity in focusing our attention on social cruelties that we can all recognize but don't all experience.

As Harper is a bit too restless to stay inside, she goes out to take walks through the village and interacts with several people. They're all men. And they are all played by Kinnear, the famed character actor doing remarkable work as the vicar, the bartender, the police officer, a nasty teenager, and even a naked stalker who is much more than he appears. Each man is distinct (thanks to amazing hair and makeup and some slickly uncanny CGI that is as off-putting as it is fascinating), and each one manages to threaten, annoy, or disappoint Harper in quick succession. Sometimes he makes a casual remark that is deeply wrong -- the vicar declares that James's suicide was Harper's fault, and if she hadn't locked the door, he'd still be alive -- and sometimes he chases her manically through a tunnel and a forest. Sometimes he's waiting outside for her to play with him -- and when she doesn't she's a "bitch" -- and sometimes he's peering through her windows as she rests.

Early scenes and scene breaks feature gorgeous landscape shots of tranquil, cool forests and countrysides under broad, open skies. The peaceful, inviting land could be Eden (and I thought more than once about other Aronofsky films like The Fountain and, yes, even Noah). And then there's the beautiful house itself, one intended to feel like a bougie, cozy retreat until it's too big and has too many potential points of easy entry for invaders for one lone woman to safeguard. The men become increasingly aggressive, to the point that the film started to become a home invasion thriller (and there's the reference I've been waiting for: mother!). As Harper deals with the onslaught, we realize she's reaching a psychological breaking point. The hell unleashed around her bleeds into her mind, and we're directly privy to it (thanks to great cinematography and editing) as things move from a realistic to completely abstract climax.

For most of the film, I assumed we were in Harper's mind as all the men couldn't possibly look alike (this isn't the kind of horror like Stepford Wives or something). By the climax, it's clear we are absolutely in Harper's mind, as the men vanish and reappear randomly, even in the middle of pursuit. She's paranoid for sure, but there are real horrors coming for her relentlessly, not unlike It Follows. The constant, dreadful tension builds until this climax, when it unravels in a completely insane bit of body horror that would make Cronenberg squirm. While I loved this movie, I couldn't rightly say what exactly its point might be. Is he simply assaulting general behaviors and attitudes of men toward women? That's vague and uncompelling at best. Is he making broader claims, like Aronofsky did in mother!, after his early and repeated use of biblical imagery of Eden and Harper plucking an apple? Why include the pagan imagery of the Green Man -- in the chapel, no less! -- and turn the naked stalker into a grassy, leafy pre-Christian god of the woodlands? This is no Wicker Man, but it is a masterful example of the best kind of British folk horror. Suggestive, scary, and sure to stick, unwelcome, in your mind long after.

Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

It's as if we never left the fastidiously groomed estate. Downton Abbey had its throngs of adoring fans as a serial show, and these films meant to continue the soapy saga keep bringing them out in droves; in the sold-out evening screening I attended, I was the youngest audience member by at least two decades. I'm grateful for these films, because they feel more self-contained than most of the show's seasons, almost like extended single episodes. The delicious drama imagined by Julian Fellowes continues its upstairs/downstairs conflicts while we can enjoy and imagine such an aristocratic life a hundred years ago across the pond. But this movie is a bit different than the previous film, which itself triumphantly pushed the envelope farther than I thought the show would or could, so let's put our best foot forward here and step right in.

A New Era, indeed. This installment's two main plotlines are as follows: most of the Crawley family goes on a vacation to the south of France, where Granny Violet has suddenly come into possession of a seaside villa; most of the servants remain at the abbey, where a motion picture crew takes up residence to make an early "talkie" film. That's it. Typical of Fellowes, it's brilliant and self-contained and reliant on the tense policing of propriety in dialogue to work, which of course it does. I thought it was a bit annoying at first, as butler and teacher Molesley (Kevin Doyle) gives us some introductory narration, much like a "previously on Downton Abbey" catch-up reel, but then, it has been a while since we've seen these characters.

Thankfully, Granny Violet, the Dowager Countess, is back again after her poignant potential send-off in the previous film, and here she is herself, in fact, the inciting incident. She receives notice that an old acquaintance (very old, as they last saw each other some sixty or seventy years prior) has willed her the deed to his seaside French villa, and she in turn is willing it to her only great-grandchild without property, young Sybbie (daughter of former chauffer and current estate manager Tom Branson and the late Lady Sybil Crawley). The family is atwitter with curiosity about this unexpected gift. What exactly was the nature of their Granny's relationship with the recently deceased marquis? Why has she never spoken of it? Naturally, most of them venture south to learn more, and the film spares no expense in its lavish attention to beauty when they eventually reach the villa. Her son Robert (Hugh Bonneville), the Earl of Grantham, is especially anxious, as he begins to suspect that he may have been the product of his mother's potential tryst with the marquis.

While enjoying the warm weather and sunshine -- all except their tightly-laced butler Carson (Jim Carter -- the family must field skepticism and doubt from the marquis's family, including his widow and son. Robert's wife Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) seems to be battling with her health, and with the ailing Granny back at home, Robert begins to spiral out, fearing losing the two most important women in his life along with his good name (or, rather, his surname, if his fears about Granny's past prove to be founded). It doesn't help that the French family already suspect the same, but things don't really get settled there emotionally. Just legally, as Tom (Allen Leech) and his new wife Lucy (Tuppence Middleton) gratefully accept ownership of the villa on behalf of their daughter.

When they return, they see what their servants have been up to under the watchful eye of Lady Mary Crawley/Talbot (Michelle Dockery). Working as the head of the estate now, Mary has welcomed a film crew in for the month, excited to open the house to the world again and to earn enough money from them that she might finally repair the leaking roof. Unlike the aloof family, the servants are thrilled at the prospect of meeting stars and seeing the magic behind the scenes; Molesley reveals his passions for the art form, and even manages to help the film by rewriting its screenplay. The gracious director (Hugh Dancy) intended to make a silent film, but as talking pictures are the new rage in London, he quickly enlists Mary to help him get a sound technician and flip the film. He also develops feelings for Mary, whose husband is always away. This particular subplot feels especially, cloyingly soapy, but it's Hugh Dancy so that's fine with me.

The film is going along rather bumpily, apart from its director's attempts at romance, due to its stars as well. Its dashing leading man Guy (Dominic West) is more than a little anxious about being in his first talkie, but he finds some solace in befriending butler Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier), whose hopeful love life (from the previous film) is suddenly dashed. I love that this film embraces his queerness and gives him, finally, a very happy ending. The talkie's leading lady Myrna (Laura Haddock), however, is a stuck-up high society bitch whose voice is, well, not suited for audio recordings. Think Singin' in the Rain and "I can't stand him." She's a hot mess when Lady Mary is asked to step in and dub her dialogue, but there is a remarkable scene in which the cook Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) and kitchen maid Daisy (Sophie McShera) sit her down and have a come-to-Jesus moment regarding her Cockney accent. It's the first and only time in the entire franchise I've actually liked Daisy, and she's actually being a good person finally!

A New Era is gorgeously shot and rapturously jubilant. Even when things get a little dark, scary, or sad in this franchise (okay, when things get sad, they get tragic), there is always a lovely light shining through reminding us that this is, ultimately, a love story between all kinds of people and with the place they call home. Director Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Woman in Gold), accredited cinematographer Andrew Dunn, and their collaborators do really amazing work in this relatively short film to catch us up, absorb us into the new intrigues, and tie everything up in a beautiful and heart-wrenching bow. If this is the last we see of these beloved characters, they've made sure that it's a nearly perfect sendoff. And that's a monumental achievement.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

This is getting a little ridiculous. I'm just not sure I'm here for all the back-and-forth, media-spanning new directions of the MCU, and movies like this are, frankly, why.

Feeling like it was written by committee and produced by a room of execs instead of artists, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is about as confused and jumbled as you might expect. It's nominally a sequel to Doctor Strange, though the only points on which it follows that film is with its inclusion of Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), who is getting married to another man, and its incredibly awkward inclusion of Mordo (Chiwetel Ejoifor) who is actually playing an alternate version of the character rather than the one set up as a villain in the previous film. This film makes almost no sense, though, unless you've seen the Infinity War and Endgame Avengers films as well as Spider-Man: No Way Home, which it also directly follows. And yet it is most accurately a sequel to WandaVision, and that's just one project too many for me to include here. It's all an unholy Frankenstein's monster of a movie, one that picks up many threads from different places and strings them together -- I haven't even mentioned the incredible importance of Loki and What If...? to understanding this film -- in an insane two-hour fever dream of chaos. This film does not -- cannot -- exist on its own, and it never develops its own sense of identity as a result; more or less a lynchpin in the franchise, we can only hope things calm down a bit for the studio after the dust settles. I have doubts.

Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), at the wedding of Christine to another man, has to leave when the street outside is attacked by an invisible massive one-eyed octopus thing (that looks suspiciously like the villain in The Suicide Squad). While fighting it, he meets America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a queer young woman of color who has the unique ability to create star-shaped portals to alternate universes, though she's having some trouble controlling it. After dispatching the demonic monster, America reveals that she's been fleeing similar demons across the multiverse and that someone seems to be after her. Strange suspects witchcraft, and goes to consult with Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), who is still grieving the loss of her children and the fracturing of her mind. Wanda is willing to do whatever it takes to live a life with her children (not Vision, curiously), and as such the Darkhold (an evil book she got at the end of WandaVision that appears to be somewhat sentient and has her in its grip) offers a possible means to that end.

The Darkhold is one of those hot items that requires more knowledge than this film is willing to give, but it's the kind of obvious reference to director Sam Raimi's work that makes this film such an aesthetic oddity. It looks like Raimi's Necronomicon, and later events in the film -- yes, including a crucial plot point involving the possession of dead bodies -- remind us a bit heavy-handedly that this is a Raimi picture. It's got all his visual gusto and mind-boggling aggressive weirdness that we expect, but unfortunately it's not the kind of Raimi I personally like. There are some genuine scares here, and it's really primarily a horror movie, even if it's also fantasy and sci-fi and superhero. I'd have much preferred to see what original director Scott Derrickson and his team would have done with this material, and I expect I'd have liked that better. This film isn't The Evil Dead so much as it is its sequels (which I abjectly detest). There's a sequence early on when America and Stephen launch themselves through the multiverse, including prehistoric, cartoon, and even paint realms. It's just bonkers stuff, and frankly I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Thankfully, the studio anchors him a bit and the story in our universe (labeled number 616, if memory serves) proceeds apace.

Unfortunately, that same studio seems intent on including as much of its established material as possible, including locations and people and events from all across the shared universe, even obscure ones, shoehorned plot points that felt far too forced and fast rather than organic or earned, and an enormous cast of cameos. This last point reaches its incredible climax when, in one universe after meeting an alternate Mordo, Stephen is brought before a group they call the Illuminati, including Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell, What If...?), Black Bolt (Anson Mount, Inhumans), Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) as Captain Marvel, the Fantastic Four's Reed Richards (John Krasinski, as hopefully more than fan service), and even Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) in his yellow wheelchair. It's amazing, and the crowd cheered much as it did for the villains and alternate heroes in No Way Home. But to have this happen twice now in similar films is starting to feel a bit overwhelmingly banal.

More important than the film's overwrought plot and desperate attempts at unifying the franchise despite its obvious unraveling is its emotional core. It begins with Stephen's unrequited love for Christine, which we've seen before and this adds nothing new. Then it concerns America and her self-control and doubt issues, adding again nothing new to the stories of multiple other heroes. Ultimately, this film seems most concerned with Wanda and her grief, and it is here that things get pretty hairy. Obviously -- and it's revealed very early on -- Wanda is the "villain" of this film, and while seeing her embrace her inner witch is utterly delicious, it rings hollow after the intense emotional insight we got for her out of the Disney+ miniseries. While grief can certainly turn people into monsters, it's an interesting choice for the MCU to about-face on this fan-favorite character so quickly. Moreover, the film's characterization of Wanda might have been more interesting and satisfying if it didn't take so much pleasure in turning her into a vindictive, bloodthirsty monster so quickly. I was fine with her embracing her greed and pain and becoming evil, really, until in her second or third scene she shows up and outright slaughters half the sorcerers at Kamar-Taj. It's a brutal and vicious sequence that sets up the horrors to come effectively, even as it divorces us from our love of the raw work Olsen has done with the character before now.

While this movie is clearly crucial for the MCU -- the parts that led us here and wherever we go next -- it's also the most solid proof we've yet received of the oft-repeated criticism that this franchise exists primarily to keep people coming and paying for it, rather than to tell any story with integrity. I loved it, I hated it (I haven't even talked about how absurdly, unabashedly awful the editing is!), and now we're just waiting for another installment because that's what this film forces us to do. I'm hopeful this isn't the last we've seen of Olsen, because really she is one of the most interesting characters in the franchise, but as the multiverse keeps expanding and new properties are introduced, the MCU is going to have to simplify and ground themselves, or they'll lose the reins on this series and everything they hold dear. Kind of like Wanda. 

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Unpopular opinion: I really love these movies. The staggering amount of creativity and detail crafted to realize such a magical "wizarding world" in this franchise is the kind of stuff movies are made for. Transporting in the best way, they stop just shy of escapism because they also deal with real, dark issues. This newest installment hits topical issues perhaps a little too solidly, with a significant plot point hinging on an attempt to steal an election and defraud the public. But it doesn't quite feel pandering to current issues because there is so much world-building happening. Perhaps that's why some don't like these films; each one is actively, aggressively engaging with the kind of fantasy world-building that usually works best in an initial installment of a franchise, not halfway through the series. It's a bit exhausting at this point, when we should be invested in character and drama rather than in catching all the exciting new tidbits.

Five-ish years have passed since Gellert Grindelwald -- again in a new form, this time played by Mads Mikkelsen -- launched his war, and now he's angling for social and political acceptance and adoration. His quest has briefly stalled as he is arraigned by the International Confederation of Wizards, but due to procedural inadequacies (and some moles), he is acquitted of his crimes against the wizarding and Muggle worlds and is suddenly launched into the global spotlight as a candidate for Supreme Mugwump. It's a lot of plot to take in, and the film moves at a breakneck pace to cover its ground, both narratively and geographically. Characters in China in one scene are in Germany in the next, and the amount of creative design is never less than overwhelming.

Newt (Eddie Redmayne) and his group of friends are tasked by Dumbledore (Jude Law) with a series of globe-trotting adventures to thwart Grindelwald's acolytes from assassinating political leaders and attempting to steal the election. One infiltrates Grindelwald's followers, one is imprisoned and needs release, one is framed for attempted murder, and all try to keep safe a Qilin, a magical deer-like creature that can determine someone's purity of spirit and thus bestow the office of Supreme Mugwump to the most deserving. This movie is all about its plot, obviously, and so the characters are thinly written and mostly undeveloped, compared to the massive character work done in the first two installments. Case in point: Credence (Ezra Miller) feels mostly shoehorned in here, and his story is getting less compelling by the minute. Whereas he initially was a fascinating character, and was essentially a MacGuffin for the mystery plot in the second film, here he just pops in a few times to learn that he's been lied to repeatedly and that his choices have been the product of gaslighting and abuse.

But I could hardly believe its opening scene brings the romantic relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald to the fore; it's a quietly entrancing scene of afternoon tea as the attractive two stars remember their affection and passions privately. The blatant queerness still isn't satisfying, but at least it's canon now, rather than relegated to internet message boards and digital missives from the author. And there are still nuggets of joy for fans, such as the physical humor Newt undertakes to distract the prison guards (if that's what the strange scorpion-like mini-manticores are?) by dancing his way to his brother Theseus's cell (Callum Turner). Similarly, the film works hard to repair the relationship between the No-Maj Jacob (Dan Fogler) and his paramour witch Queenie (Alison Sudol), and that finally has a really nice concluding feel to it. On the other hand, Newt's tenuous relationship with Tina (Katherine Waterston) has all but fizzled out, and she doesn't even appear until the penultimate scene of this film, sadly. 

What else can be said in brief? I'm feeling more hesitant than usual to critique this film because of several factors. First, it doesn't work on its own terms, but rather as a continuation of the story. Second, it's supposedly only the third entry in a five-part series, and it's hard to see where exactly the story is headed next. Third, it's more politically engaged than previous entries, but slightly out of its time; while its aggressive concerns about racism and governmental fraud have been timely for the last six years now -- and fit well with its setting of 1930s Berlin -- now they feel less nuanced and more like flogging a dead horse. Fourth, and I hate even saying this, the production studio has put further installments of this series on hold to determine if they will be commercially viable, which is about the greediest thing they could say to whip up fans into a frenzy, to say nothing of their lack of artistic integrity as a studio.

I absolutely loved the introduction of a professor from Ilvermorny (the U.S. wizarding school), a Charms instructor named Lally Hicks (Jessica Williams). Her spunk and charm are much needed, and she's a breathtaking screen presence. The Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam) storyline here is deeply emotional, finally validating his presence in the previous film. And other than that, it's all fun magical mayhem, just as we expect from the series. I personally love this franchise, despite a few issues with writing and editing, because of its creativity, its performances, and its production design, and so I hope David Yates and Steve Kloves and team continue their brilliant and fun work.

Deep Water (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

A Hulu exclusive? Ugh, I'm getting tired of this streaming frenzy. I get that Disney owns everyone now, but if they're going to financially back movies for adults, why do they have to dump the releases unceremoniously on Hulu?

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I really liked Deep Water, the poorly titled new erotic thriller from Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction, Jacob's Ladder, Indecent Proposal). I thought Lyne had retired or something, but thankfully the master (of sorts) is back in form after, what, a decade or more? I confess to loving a solid erotic thriller, and the subgenre has been considered dead for a long time now. Of the most recent ones that come to mind, Fatale was a bit disappointing, Acrimony was pitifully misled, and I actually really enjoyed Careful What You Wish For. But that's about it in the last decade or more! I love movies like this, where the sexual tension is palpable and laced with murderous intent; the actors are usually gussied up to look like glamorous off-duty models and the drama is forced, uncomfortable, and delicious.

This story, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel (Highsmith's work always gets high scores in my roster), concerns Vic and Melinda Van Allen, a married couple with a young daughter Trixie and absolutely no love between them. We're not sure why they're together, except maybe for Trixie's dubious benefit, as in the opening sequence we see Melinda actively cheating on her husband as he watches. He later corners her new lover at the same party to quietly warn him that he killed Melinda's previous extramarital partner. Ben Affleck plays Vic in a powerful performance so understated we're never really sure what he's capable of doing. And that's okay, because the point is made loud and clear. He could be killing off her partners, and that's what matters for their relationship.

Ana de Armas plays Melinda with a cool, sexy suavity engendered by disillusionment. She's unexpectedly amazing in this role, and she seems to be having a lot of fun with it. De Armas and Affleck together have an unlikely chemistry, and Lyne films them in stunning clarity, emphasizing their physical connection in counterpoint to their mental games. She seems to know what he's capable of, to the point that when yet another of her lovers ends up dead -- at a party they are still present for -- she is utterly convinced Vic did it. A nosy acquaintance at the party (played by Tracy Letts), who writes for a living, takes a keen interest in their dynamic and the murderous potentiality of Vic's behavior, starts poking around after Melinda's accusations find purchase in his mind. It's then that the plot really gets going.

This isn't a mystery. It's also not a standard drama. You have to know the subgenre to appreciate a movie like this, and if you do, there is a lot here to admire. The performances are all great, and the writing gives them some juicy stuff to gnaw through, though it stops short of the kind of spectacle you might expect. Utterly earnest as it is, it brilliantly plays everything deadly serious, keeping the psychosexual tension humming like in Gone Girl or others (I thought of the Fincher film because Affleck is playing a similar character, with a few notable changes). I wanted a bit more dialogue to flesh out some more heady concerns of the screenplay, such as the ways in which most characters attempt to commodify and use each other for selfish purposes. Especially near the end things get really dark really quickly, and I wanted more of that. But thankfully this is a feature film, not a miniseries, and we need to maintain the value of not drawing things out needlessly.