2023 Academy Awards Nomination Breakdown: Best Visual Effects

The Academy Awards are airing live on March 12, and for the first time, I have set out to break down every nominee in every category in order to assess, as accurately as I can, who and what has the best chance of winning. Today I will be discussing the nominees for Best Visual Effects!

All Quiet on the Western Front

Not since (ironically) 1917 has a film immersed me to the extent that it is nigh-impossible to tell what is a visual effect and what isn’t. Sure, it may be obvious that a tank rolling over numerous people through the trenches (among other war atrocities) is CGI, but it’s so well-assimilated into the world that All Quiet creates that it’s easy to believe the verity of everything you’re seeing…as awful as it is.

Avatar: The Way of Water

Avatar revolutionized digital filmmaking in 2009, and nothing less was expected from its blockbuster sequel. I wrote in my review that “it would be hearsay to claim that Avatar: The Way of Water is not incredibly beautiful to look at. Every frame is rendered meticulously, and because most of what we’re seeing on-screen is composed entirely of visual effects, it’s unequivocally awe-inspiring. I also had the opportunity to see it in 3D, a medium I’m not always the biggest fan of — in fact, I was worried about subjecting myself to it for the three and a half hours this movie runs — but it seemed effortless more than anything else, like the 3D is a natural part of the world that Cameron has created.”

Read my review of Avatar: The Way of Water here.

2023 Academy Awards Nomination Breakdown: Best Animated Feature

The Academy Awards are airing live on March 12, and for the first time, I have set out to break down every nominee in every category in order to assess, as accurately as I can, who and what has the best chance of winning. Today I will be discussing the nominees for Best Animated Feature!

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

There are lots of things present here I never thought I would see depicted in an adaptation of Pinocchio, primarily among them the blatant atrocities of war and an unfiltered look at the brutality of early 20th-century fascism. Even though this is a family film, it’s about what I expected from a del Toro-led adaptation of this story — the man has a penchant for telling dark tales, and this is about as restrained as he can be. The film incorporates elements of the classic story that Disney-fied versions never would, like religion and war, and it only further elucidates the metaphors on display here. The story of Pinocchio has never been more cogent and captivating than it is here.

Read my review of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio here.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

On the way home from the theater, my friend pointed out that there’s plenty of stuff in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On that present-day children will look back on, and their expanded minds will connect more with a film they loved as a child because of its color, comedy and accessibility. Despite this, I firmly believe there can never be an A24 film “made for kids.” Sure, Marcel the Shell is suitable for a younger audience, but there’s still a remarkable amount of philosophy, emotion and incredibly seamless stop-motion animation present to entertain those of any age.

2023 Academy Awards Nomination Breakdown: Best Supporting Actress

The Academy Awards are airing live on March 12, and for the first time, I have set out to break down every nominee in every category in order to assess, as accurately as I can, who and what has the best chance of winning. Today I will be discussing the nominees for Best Actress in a Supporting Role!

Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Angela Bassett had a challenging task in Wakanda Forever. She has to communicate the grief of losing her character Ramonda’s son, T’Challa, all while balancing her own real-life grief of losing actor Chadwick Boseman and channeling it into her performance. Plus, it’s also a superhero movie, and she has to ground that performance in the fantastical reality that she’s immersed in. This not only marks the first time a Marvel film has been nominated in an acting category at the Oscars, but Bassett’s second nomination (her first was thirty years ago, for What’s Love Got to Do with It). The first Black Panther is the only Marvel film to actually win at the Academy Awards, so who knows, there’s a chance Bassett walks away with it — her performance is certainly the most outwardly emotional of the category this year.

Read my review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever here.

Hong Chau, The Whale

Hong Chau turned in two fantastic mainstream performances this year, and I honestly wish she had been recognized more for her role in The Menu but, as we well know, horror (and, by extension, thrillers) are not very well-noticed by industry voting bodies. She’s still fantastic in The Whale — there’s no doubt about that — but it’s a very standard “awards bait” type of role that acts as both a foil and support system for the (typically overwrought) main character. I don’t expect her to win, but she absolutely has a future, and like many of these younger nominees, I can’t wait to see what she does next.

2023 Academy Awards Nomination Breakdown: Best Supporting Actor

The Academy Awards are airing live on March 12, and for the first time, I have set out to break down every nominee in every category in order to assess, as accurately as I can, who and what has the best chance of winning. Today I will be discussing the nominees for Best Actor in a Supporting Role!

Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin

One of Ireland’s greatest actors, Brendan Gleeson stars as Colm in the film that reunited him with his In Bruges co-star Colin Farrell (also nominated this year, for Best Actor), in which Gleeson is asked to balance out Farrell’s hilarious foolishness and naiveté with a cool-headed rationale that you’re forced to accept, lest your suspension of belief completely shatter. Gleeson joins the actors that I was shocked to learn have not previously been nominated for an Academy Award, though he did star in Martin McDonagh’s Oscar-winning short film Six Shooter in 2004.

Read my review of The Banshees of Inisherin here.

Brian Tyree Henry, Causeway

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Brian Tyree Henry is one of the best actors working today. In the underseen Apple TV+ release Causeway, he stars alongside Jennifer Lawrence as a pool cleaner that Lynsey (played by Lawrence) befriends upon her return to normalcy after military service. Henry turns in an incredible performance alongside Lawrence, and his character is a perfect representation of the fact that not all trauma is the same, and everyone deals with it in different ways. Everyone’s got baggage, and it’s not necessarily comparable; everyone should be able to deal with it in their own way. This is his first (well-deserved) Oscar nomination.

Read my review of Causeway here.

2023 Academy Awards Nomination Breakdown: Best Actress

The Academy Awards are airing live on March 12, and for the first time, I have set out to break down every nominee in every category in order to assess, as accurately as I can, who and what has the best chance of winning. Today I will be discussing the nominees for Best Actress in a Leading Role!

Cate Blanchett, TÁR

Though every aspect of TÁR is meticulous and engaging, nothing is more grounding than Cate Blanchett. There is not a moment when she isn’t on-screen, and she carries with her a natural confidence that both befits the character and her status as one of the best and most recognizable working actresses. Best of all, she makes Lydia Tár feel like a real person. The film itself doesn’t tell us how we should feel about her, as new evidence constantly presented about potential wrongdoings is compounded with moments of genuine human warmth and emotion. This isn’t about a perfect woman or a horrible woman — like all things in life, it’s complicated.

Read my review of TÁR here.

Ana de Armas, Blonde

I have gotten ample time to reflect since seeing Blonde (one of my least favorite films of last year), and I have come around to the fact that even though Ana de Armas is the highlight, she is still not as stunning as most believe. I think most of that is due to the writing and presentation of Marilyn’s life, but I hold true to the fact that I wish de Armas (who still has quite a career ahead of her) had something to do in every single scene other than cry about something that happened to Marilyn off-camera. This is not the fault of Ana de Armas, and the film is not indicative of her as an actress; I’ll consider this a general career recognition rather than a specific nomination for Blonde.

Read my review of Blonde here.

2023 Academy Awards Nomination Breakdown: Best Actor

The Academy Awards are airing live on March 12, and for the first time, I have set out to break down every nominee in every category in order to assess, as accurately as I can, who and what has the best chance of winning. Today I will be discussing the nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role!

Austin Butler, Elvis

Playing the King would be a tricky role for anybody to tackle, especially for former Nickelodeon star Austin Butler. At age 29, Butler was given the momentous task of playing Elvis Presley through almost a quarter century of the rock star’s life. This performance, combined with Baz Luhrmann’s bombastic filmmaking sensibilities, could have very quickly taken the turn into a straight impression, SNL style. Butler avoids that pitfall nearly every step of the way, playing Elvis with equal parts humility, grace, sex appeal and hostility. Don’t forget, Elvis is told from the perspective of Colonel Parker (played by Tom Hanks, who was thankfully not recognized by the Academy for his role in Luhrmann’s film), so we are seeing Elvis’ life and career from an outside point of view. Butler is by far the highlight of Elvis, and however you might feel about the film as a whole, it’s impossible to deny the strength of Butler’s performance.

Read my review of Elvis here.

Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin

Of his four big-screen performances in 2022, the role of Pádraic Súilleabháin (try saying that five times fast) is by far Colin Farrell’s best. The empathy oozes through every second he’s on-screen, and although he often strays into pitiful — all intentional, I have no doubt — Farrell makes Pádraic an engaging and sympathetic figure, as well as eliciting the most laughs of anyone in the film’s cast. This is the first Oscar nomination of Farrell’s storied career, and one that I say is very well-deserved.

Read my review of The Banshees of Inisherin here.

The January Movies of 2023: A Review Roundup

January has long been considered one of the “dump months” when it comes to big-time film releases, and even though studios have since been turning this around (Scream was a hit in January 2022, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will undoubtedly be the big winner this February) the stigma still remains. This past month has been synonymous with “bad movies” for the longest time, but the releases of January 2023 are far from terrible. Sure, there are some duds (there always are, even in the summer months), but since Lenient Critic reviews were few and far between this January, I decided the best way to compile my thoughts would be an all-encompassing roundup of the new releases I was able to see.

It will be hard topping last year, but if this is what the January release schedule looks like, 2023 will be a good year for movies. This I promise you.

Taut Horror “Knock at the Cabin” is a Return to Form for Shyamalan (Review)

M. Night Shyamalan seems to be settling into a groove of perfect COVID-era movies. Mostly set in one location with a defined set of characters, this trend kicked off with 2021’s Old, and continues with Knock at the Cabin, his latest psychological thriller that seeks to drive its characters to the very brink of their sanity by presenting them with an impossible situation.

Our leads are Eric and Andrew, a married couple who are vacationing in a remote Pennsylvania cabin with their adopted daughter Wen (Kristen Cui, making her feature film debut). Eric and Andrew are played by Jonathan Groff (he of Hamilton and Mindhunter fame) and Ben Aldridge (who recently starred opposite Jim Parsons in the under-the-radar rom-com Spoiler Alert), and they’re the perfect grounding force for a film that very quickly strays into the psychological extreme.

The hulking Leonard (naturally played by Dave Bautista) leads a foursome of mysterious invaders who intrude on the family’s picturesque vacation. Although they seem to be remorseful when it comes to their mission, the group is unwavering, and resolute in what they came there to do.

“Plane” is Not a Good Movie to Watch Right Before a Long-Distance Flight (Review)

I really didn’t know what to think of Plane when I first stumbled upon the trailer. It didn’t look much like a blockbuster, and its dreaded mid-January release date didn’t bode well for its overall quality. But at the same time, it seemed to harken back to the thrill-seeking action movies of the 80s and 90s, which learned to embrace the camp once their producers realized what their audiences were looking for. One-word titles were a bizarre mainstay on this odd sub-genre, so it’s fun to see a resurgence of that trend — so I hoped Plane might end up being a “greatest hits” showcase of everything great about those off-beat action classics.

The casting of seasoned action star Gerard Butler as a grizzled, well-intentioned commercial airline pilot with the capacity for badassery is definitely a step in the right direction. He plays Brodie Torrance, who makes an emergency landing in the Philippines after his plane sustains critical damage from a storm. The island he’s landed on is controlled by a dangerous armed militia who end up taking the passengers hostage, leaving Captain Torrance and convicted murderer Louis Gaspare (Luke Cage’s Mike Colter), who was being extradited on the doomed flight, to rescue them while also figuring out a way off the island.

My Top Ten Movies of 2022

After a similar article in mid-August, I expected much of my Top 10 to stay the same for the remainder of 2022. I should have predicted and expected the utter power of awards season, though, as many have been swept out of the list in favor of more recently-released films. Some of the top contenders have endured, though, proving that sometimes, the first is the best; but I have a feeling that that is not something that will be true for every year from now on. 2022 was unique, and unlike any moviegoing year in my recent memory, and I can only hope its vast caliber can be replicated at some point in the future. 2023 has some big shoes to fill.

“Snowpiercer” is Running Out of Gas (Season 3 Review)

Note: This review was originally published on SiftPop in April 2022.

I’m beginning to think that Snowpiercer worked much better as a movie.

Granted, I adore the first two seasons, but Season Three is the first time I’m getting the feeling that the series is overstaying its welcome. Perhaps it’s the fact that one of its best characters (Melanie Cavill, played by Labyrinth’s Jennifer Connelly) was essentially abandoned in the previous season, but it seems like the effort of producing this series has only decreased, and with a fourth season on the way, I sincerely hope they are able to pick up the pace again.

Image courtesy of TNT

With events that directly follow Season Two, Andre Layton (Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs) is in charge of Snowpiercer, the hyper-speed train carrying the only survivors of a massive freeze that pulverized the planet Earth. Layton’s benevolent control is still under threat from the ruthless Joseph Wilford (Game of Thrones’ Sean Bean), who made quite a splash with a bloody introduction last season. The definitive “battle for Snowpiercer” happens earlier on in the season than you might think, with the remaining episodes mostly covering the fallout.

“Get Back” is a Hard Day’s Night of Music and Friendship (Review)

Note: This review was originally published on SiftPop in December 2021.

After some experience with restoring old footage and reconstructing history in 2018’s They Shall Not Grow Old, Peter Jackson has graced our screens (this time on Disney+) with the biggest treat any Beatles fan could ask for.

The Beatles: Get Back is a comprehensive documentary about the making of their album Let It Be (done in under a month, all leading up to their iconic rooftop concert) from 60 hours of video footage, over 150 hours of audio, and four years of hard work on Jackson’s part. What I love most about it is that Get Back is far from a traditional documentary — it’s not burdened by a narrator or a specific direction; it just allows their creative process to flourish, while also giving us some insight as to the causes of the band’s inevitable breakup. Even though it may seem dull at points, I find it to be enormous fun just to watch The Beatles be The Beatles.

“Avatar: The Way of Water” Returns to Pandora in Spectacular, But Still Underwhelming Fashion (Review)

13 years ago, James Cameron revolutionized visual effects and 3D imaging technology with the release of Avatar, which quickly became the highest-grossing film in history. A sequel was inevitable, but few could have predicted that it would take a Disney acquisition and almost $500 million to make that dream a reality.

Even longer in runtime than its predecessor (and twice as filled with character and supplementary storylines), Avatar: The Way of the Water picks up after a real-time jump on the alien planet Pandora, where former human Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has fully adopted the ways of the alien Na’vi after helping them defend their land from imperialistic human invaders. He’s started a family with Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and their life seems as idyllic as can be. But unfortunately, the depiction of domestic life on an extraterrestrial world is not sustainable for three and a half hours of action sci-fi.

Disaster Unfolds and Seyfried Shines in “The Dropout” (Review)

Note: This review was originally published on SiftPop in April 2022.

The story of Elizabeth Holmes and her fraudulent company Theranos has been discussed in the news for years, and with Holmes’ trial having just completed and her sentencing still to come, this is the perfect time for a biopic series to be made.

Image courtesy of Hulu

This is Hulu’s The Dropout, which is based on a podcast of the same name. The Hulu series stars Amanda Seyfried, who is giving the best performance of her career so far as Holmes, a Stanford dropout who founded Theranos, a company which strives to make revolutionary health technology that will supposedly be able to test for a multitude of diseases and conditions simply from a drop of blood. Those who have followed this story know that that technology didn’t exist at the time, and still doesn’t, which makes Theranos’ recruitment of powerful men (mostly former politicians) to its board even more impressive.

“His Dark Materials” Concludes with an Ambitiously Impactful Coda (Review)

How could His Dark Materials be adapted as anything but a television series? The epic scale of the novels may suggest that it should be made for the biggest screen possible, but the sprawling narrative lends itself more towards long-form storytelling, which fits in perfectly with the seemingly unlimited medium of television. Perhaps that’s why the televised co-production between the BBC and HBO has proven to be so successful over the last three years while the 2007 film adaptation of The Golden Compass (the series’ first book) bombed at the box office and never got a continuation.

That long-form storytelling has now paid off in the semblance of the television series’ third and final season, which adapts Phillip Pullman’s third novel The Amber Spyglass. It’s the culmination of dramatic season-long build-up which only began to make itself fully clear near the middle of Season Two, but which incorporates the series’ longer-running plotlines and characters thought to be long-forgotten. In this way, the final season does what any climax should, bringing together everything that has come before in an effort to tie it up in a satisfying manner.

“Pinocchio” is a Dark Children’s Tale from Maestro del Toro (Review)

There’s no way a team-up between award-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and the Jim Henson Company on the supposedly limitless dime of streaming giant Netflix results in anything but a truly magical experience. My optimism is helped by the fact that del Toro is my favorite director, responsible for some of my all-time top films (Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water among them), and my excitement was immediate when I discovered he was spearheading a darker adaptation of the classic Pinocchio story, while maintaining the tale’s all-ages appeal. In every conceivable way, it sounds like a recipe for success.

Image courtesy of Netflix

I realize it sounds like I’m about to say I was severely let down by Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio — but in fact, the opposite is even more true. His Pinocchio was first announced in 2008, but didn’t end up moving forward with production until ten years later, and its longtime spot in development hell was finally at an end. Now, after an extensive festival run and massive critical acclaim, its Netflix release is on the horizon.

“The Banshees of Inisherin” is a Heartbreaking Tale of Friendship and the Lack Thereof (Review)

Note: This review was originally published in The Cape Cod Chronicle in November 2022.

When you hear the title The Banshees of Inisherin, your first guess may be that it’s a horror movie. After all, it has the name of a supernatural creature in it, followed directly by a proper noun made up entirely for the film. This is a story that could really be about anything, which makes it even more fascinating and thought-provoking.

For the first time since 2008’s In Bruges, writer/director Martin McDonagh (who also made Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) has reunited with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson for a story that showcases their stupendous performance talent and allows them to act off of each other in marvelously fun ways. The titular Inisherin is a fictional Irish island, home of a group of townspeople in the early 1920s who are all intimately familiar with each other and everyone else’s business.

Chilling Thriller “1899” Presents a Compelling, Layered Mystery (Review)

I’ve only seen a few episodes of Lost, but its massive pop culture presence that has resounded for almost two decades tells me almost everything I need to know. The very act of continuing a mystery-based TV series on a season-by-season basis, constantly introducing new factors while under pressure to both solve smaller quandaries and hinting towards a satisfying resolution to the overarching questions is not as sustainable as one might think. The conclusion of Lost (as much as I've heard) does not do six seasons of buildup the justice it deserved, and I feel like it taught valuable lessons to the television writing community on how to structure a story like this.

Image courtesy of Netflix

Enter 1899, an ambitious new series from Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar (the creators of Dark) that comes to us as part of their overall deal with Netflix. It establishes a compelling mystery right off the bat, as the migrant passengers of a steamship headed towards New York City encounter the ship’s abandoned sister vessel, thought to be lost at sea.

Excellent Modern Sitcom “The Sex Lives of College Girls” Returns in Full Force (Review)

One of the most surprising television premieres of last fall was The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO Max — funnily enough, it’s also the show you’re most embarrassed to say you’ve watched or are interested in, especially in public. One might think that the title is specifically engineered to provoke awkwardness, but I see it as a move to normalize sex in pop culture and rid us of taboos that have been prevalent in media and society for centuries.

Image courtesy of Warner Bros

The second season of The Sex Lives of College Girls picks up very quickly after Season One, when our central Essex College freshmen exposed a cheating scandal spearheaded by one of the school’s fraternities. After Thanksgiving break, they find themselves living with the consequences, including (but not limited to) an informal ban from all campus parties.

Get Back Into Christmas Movie Mode with New Holiday Favorite “Spirited” (Review)

These days, I’ve been starting my reviews off with questions. I’ll ask “Why do we keep seeing these types of movies?” or “is this really a story that needed to be told in this particular way?” Usually, the purpose of those questions is to transition into my own answer, which is the perfect segue into the larger review.

I feel like there’s no need for a question today, because if you simply read what Spirited is about, it’ll pop into your head automatically. We follow the Ghost of Christmas Present (played here by Will Ferrell) who takes on the challenge of haunting an “unredeemable” human soul, a manipulative businessman played by Ryan Reynolds who is “dogmatically committed to the idea that people never change.”

Image courtesy of Apple TV+

Say it with me: do we really need another retelling of A Christmas Carol? It’s a classic story that everyone knows the major beats to, even (sometimes especially) if they’ve never read the source material. But Spirited practices what it preaches and presents a promisingly original take on Dickens’ novella, utilizing the proven comedic talents of its leads and (wait for it) transforming the tale into a vibrant musical.

“Wakanda Forever” is a Fitting Tribute to our Black Panther (Review)

Reviewing Marvel movies has always been an exercise in vagueness, but the marketing for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has been so frustratingly obscure that to discuss any story in-depth would be considered delving into the realm of spoilers. And since we know how much people on the internet hate even the slightest bit of unwelcome information about a movie of this scale, I’m going to have to dance around a lot of specifics. For that, I apologize, but if you’re reading this, I’m sure you’re at least slightly interested in seeing this movie. My recommendation is to pull the trigger. What’s the worst that can happen?

Image courtesy of Marvel

It’s an undisputed fact that the untimely death of Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther himself, irreversibly changed both this movie and more likely than not the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole. It stands to reason that Wakanda Forever would be a tribute to Boseman, honoring his legacy while contextualizing the loss and what it means for the characters we’ve come to know and love.

While the film does serve as a fitting testimonial to Boseman’s impact, the loss feels more like a bookend than it does an anchor for a story that could have been a thoughtful meditation on losing a loved one, and what comes next. But Wakanda Forever glides over that and introduces some compelling factors that end up being nothing more than that, just tools that surface thematically without a satisfying payoff. It feels like Marvel Studios-sponsored therapy, if your therapist put on an action movie in the middle of your three-hour session.

“Falling for Christmas” Brings Lindsay Lohan Back into the Fold (Review)

Why do we continue to watch terrible Christmas movies? Are they a guilty pleasure, set to be indulged whenever we see fit, or are they a vice that we endure, despite the ever-present knowledge of how terrible they truly are? If so, why do we subject ourselves to them?

Image courtesy of Netflix

I know why I do it. I’m hoping that if I watch enough, I’ll come across one so spectacularly bad that the sheer fun of it will be worth the bearable torture I put myself through to get to that point. Unfortunately, you have to sift through more slog than not to get to that point, and thus I have discovered that Netflix’s Falling for Christmas is not one of those movies. But it definitely has something that almost none of these television Christmas films do.

Cartoon Saloon Presents an Uneven Coming-of-Age Tale with “My Father’s Dragon” (Review)

It’s much easier for animation studios to establish themselves with a motif or style of film than it is for live-action production companies; for example, you can expect certain things from a Pixar film, and movies produced by Illumination are virtually guaranteed to have a certain vibe to them.

One of the world's most notable animation studios (which has kept its stellar releases few and far between) is Cartoon Saloon, known for underground children’s hits The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, The Breadwinner and Wolfwalkers. They’re now continuing their evolving partnership with the world’s top streamers with a co-production with Netflix Animation, My Father’s Dragon.

Based on the 1948 children’s book that was read to me innumerably as a child, My Father’s Dragon is a quaint tale about displacement of a varying sort and an unconventional (but inevitable) friendship born out of mutual desire and necessity. Our protagonist is the peculiarly-named Elmer Elevator, voiced by Room’s breakout star Jacob Tremblay, who moves with his mother to the strange and scary metropolis that Nevergreen City. It proves to be an overwhelming new reality, and Elmer runs away, eventually coming upon Soda the talking whale (voiced by Arrested Development’s Judy Greer). Soda takes Elmer to Wild Island, where he meets a young, personified dragon named Boris (Stranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo) who is under tremendous pressure to rescue Wild Island and its diverse inhabitants from an oceanic demise.

“Causeway” Paints an Intimate Picture of Trauma and Friendship (Review)

It’s been a long time since Jennifer Lawrence played a real human being. In the past seven years, she’s played a shapeshifting superhero, a Russian spy, a hyperbolic but hysteric truth-teller, and a religious allegory, but there’s been a distinct lack of grounded drama in her filmography ever since 2015’s Joy. This isn’t a bad thing (I tend to prefer genre films myself), but it’s been a noticeable mark on the career of a fantastic actress who had her big break with one such drama.

Image courtesy of Apple TV+

Now she’s back to the world of solemn stories that could very well be true with Causeway, a co-production of the ever-reliable Apple TV+ and A24 that begins slowly and subtly. We begin to understand that Lawrence plays Lynsey, a US soldier who suffered a brain injury while on the ground in Afghanistan, forced to return home and struggling to settle back into a mundane routine of daily life.

“Titans” Assemble...Again (Review)

You can read my review of the third season of Titans here.

At around the three-season mark, a television series begins to settle into a certain groove. Though it had a rocky start, Titans (which began on the now-defunct service DC Universe, before moving over to HBO Max) found its footing very soon afterward, and has continued in a consistently engaging vein ever since.

In superhero stories, it’s convenient how a new, major threat only makes itself apparent once after the conclusion of another, so the titular superhero (or team) only has one major villain on which to focus their attention at a time. Soon after the wrap-up of the Red Hood/Scarecrow debacle of the previous season, the Titans are able to relax, finally getting a chance to be a real family. Unfortunately, nothing good lasts forever, and it’s not long before they’re pulled into a brand-new conspiracy involving a very Rasputin-looking Lex Luthor (played by Titus Welliver of Lost and Bosch), who seeks to connect with his cloned pseudo-son Superboy (Joshua Orpin). The Titans leave for Metropolis, unwittingly heading towards a life-threatening menace that could tear the team apart.

“The White Lotus” Returns with an Awkward Vengeance (Review)

You can read my review of the first season of The White Lotus here.

“Italy’s just so romantic…you’re gonna die. They’ll have to drag you out of here,” says an outgoing guest at the very start of the second season of The White Lotus, which proved a hit for HBO when it premiered last year. From the instant those words left her mouth, I had the sense that they would be true, in both a literal and metaphorical sense.

Image courtesy of Warner Bros

The White Lotus is a special kind of anthology series. Evidently set in the same universe as its first season, Season Two brings us to a brand new White Lotus resort, this time in Sicily. Almost every main character is entirely different — some more so than others — with very few returning characters. It’s those returning characters that ground the series as interconnected, beyond themes and the general sense of luxury.

Coming-of-Age Family Drama “Armageddon Time” Thrives on its Beautiful Simplicity (Review)

This seems like the perfect time to revive my point about living in a golden age of creativity in film. We’re getting original horror hits like Barbarian and Smile, seasoned directors like Martin McDonagh are producing incredible stories like The Banshees of Inisherin, and I’m genuinely excited about most upcoming Marvel movies than I have been for a while. It would seem that it’s also an era for directorial reflection, as several accomplished filmmakers are dead set on revisiting their childhoods through a fictional lens. Spielberg is doing it with The Fabelmans (out next month) and now James Gray is doing it with Armageddon Time.

Set in the early 1980s, Armageddon Time is about young Jewish-American Paul Graff (a stand-in for Gray), whose life is changing faster than he would prefer. After he and his African-American friend Johnny are caught smoking pot, Paul is sent to his brother’s private school, where he’s confronted with the brutal realities of everyday prejudice. Young actors Banks Repeta and Jaylin Webb, who play Paul and Johnny respectively, are nothing short of incredible. Gray writes the central adolescent characters with care, compassion and an unexpected maturity, staying true to the precocious nature that one would expect from a likable young protagonist while keeping everything very realistic. Yes, this is how children talk, and it’s about time someone finally gets it.

The Chaotic DC Universe is Epitomized in “Black Adam” (Review)

Eight years ago, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, former wrester and prospective Hollywood star, was officially cast as comic book antihero Black Adam. A host of production difficulties and failed comic book universes later, and his dream has finally been realized: the Rock now has another larger-than-life persona to dominate the big screen.

With the future of the so-called “DC Extended Universe” still unclear, it seems that we’re settling into a trend of relatively self-contained solo films. Black Adam is the latest of these, but its place in a hazy universe doesn’t stop it from introducing a near-indescribable amount of lore.

“Halloween Ends” the Franchise, One Way or Another (Review)

By all rights, it shouldn’t be difficult making more movies about a masked serial killer murdering debaucherous individuals in progressively intense ways, but at a certain point, why stick with the formula? At this point, it’s tired and worn out, and could do with an upgrade.

Slasher films in general aren’t necessarily known for their creativity, which is why Halloween Ends is one of the most interesting horror movies that has come out this year. I don’t use that descriptor because of what the movie contains, but primarily the ideas it presents, and the methods it uses to subvert all the tropes it possibly can. I also use “interesting” because it’s a word that can go either way, positively or negatively. My feelings are complicated on this one.

Todd Field Returns with Spectacular Drama “TÁR” (Review)

2022 is the year of triumphant returns for your favorite directors. Guillermo del Toro, Steven Spielberg, Martin McDonagh, Sarah Polley, Noah Baumbach, James Cameron, Damien Chazelle and more have new features debuting within the next two and a half months, with many of them releasing their first movies in years.

Image courtesy of Focus Features

None of them have writer/director Todd Field beat. This past weekend, he unleashed ferocious psychological drama TÁR, his first film in sixteen years (since 2006’s Little Children) upon the world — and what a return to the filmmaking landscape this is.

Stellar Spacecom “Avenue 5” Returns in Spectacular Fashion (Review)

At the very start of the pandemic, many of us turned to television and film for both the entertainment value and a reprieve from potential boredom. Luckily, Hollywood is always in constant operation, and there was a whole mess of content filmed before the shutdown that was just waiting to be released. But what about the films and series released at the very start of COVID-19’s rampage upon the world? Does anyone remember Bad Boys for Life, Dolittle or Birds of Prey, regardless of quality?

Image courtesy of Warner Bros

Television was even worse off. The season finale of Avenue 5, a space-set comedy series created by master of satire Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It, The Death of Stalin), aired on March 15, 2020, just three days after worldwide cancellations and closures led to an unprecedented global lockdown. “Fell under the radar” doesn’t even begin to cover it, especially when everyone’s minds were everywhere else (remember, this was about a week before everyone became absolutely obsessed with Tiger King).

This is all to say that, after several delays, the second season of Avenue 5 is upon us and (just like in 2020) nobody is talking about it. It picks up almost directly after its predecessor, which followed the crew and passengers of the titular interplanetary cruise ship that gets knocked slightly off-course by an artificial gravity mishap — the only problem is, that minuscule shift added three years to the travel back to home planet Earth. Season Two covers the aftermath, in which five extra years of travel time were accidentally added by an impulsive waste jettison.

Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise” is a Disoriented Meditation on Existential Dread (Review)

I love it when novels are considered “unfilmable.” That term alone carries a certain challenge, daring filmmakers to accept the creative provocation and to put their own interpretation out into the world. The unadapted Vonneguts and Tolkiens are still begging to be brought to the screen, but there’s an endless amount of prose out there, and only a comparatively small percentage of dedicated filmmakers who are willing to put in the work to bring an infamous novel to the silver screen.

Image courtesy of Netflix

In an anomaly for his typical family-focused fare, writer/director Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha, Marriage Story) has taken up the torch in adapting Don DeLillo’s existential novel White Noise, first published in 1985, which has since made its way onto many a high school reading list and confounded generations of grade school students. It’s a daring undertaking, but one that Baumbach and his 27-year career are fully capable of.

Soulless King Adaptation “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” is Not a Call Worth Taking (Review)

There are things we learn to expect from certain genres of film. Science-fiction will put a futuristic twist on modern technology; fantasy will transport us to faraway worlds; and comedies will be funny (or at the very least, absurd). Not to mention that the one constant for horror movies is that they should be scary.

Image courtesy of Netflix

But what does being “scary” mean? Does it mean slow-paced scene after scene, featuring increasingly bizarre imagery and occurrences that are mean to jar and unsettle the audience, before being punctuated by a loud noise and the appearance of a brand-new factor that is supposed to scare the living daylights out of you?

No, wait, sorry, that’s the baseline for modern horror. Most modern horror, that is — we’ll make exceptions for the Get Outs and Midsommars of the bunch that endeavor to try new things — but there will always be the outliers that choose to stick to the status quo. And then, just slightly below that, are the films which take no risks whatsoever, to the extent that the “scare factor” has been all but eliminated.

“Chucky” Breathes New Life into Horror Television (Season 1 Review)

Note: This review was originally published on SiftPop in December 2021. Also, read my review of the Chucky series premiere here.

Add Child’s Play to the list of franchises that still manage to be fresh, original and fun over thirty years after their inception. And while we’re at it, add Brad Dourif to the list of voice actors I will never get tired of; as much as I like Mark Hamill, Chucky should be played by no one else but Dourif.

Directly following the events of 2017’s Cult of Chucky, the new eight-episode series picks up in Hackensack, New Jersey, an unassuming town known in this world as the birthplace of Charles Lee Ray…also known as Chucky, everyone’s favorite killer doll. The first half of the season features an all-new cast, which is a refreshing change of pace for the series, which has mostly had Chucky as its lead character in recent entries.

Class Satire Reaches New Heights with “Triangle of Sadness” (Review)

The lives of the rich and famous is a concept that we can’t help but fantasize about. The alluring nature of a lifestyle we have never (nor likely will never) experience is a subject we love exploring and glamorizing in entertainment, which often romanticizes the status of some truly unhappy people. If you want quasi-realism and some truly brutal takedowns, watch Succession.

But for every fantasy, there must be a grounded reality. There must be a cynical look into the lifestyle that many idolize and strive for, and these days it seems like there’s a new one every year. There’s a certain irony to a movie or show about how terrible the über rich can be, that is usually made by (and/or starring) certain members of the said one percent. This year’s ironic presentation is Triangle of Sadness, already heavily lauded before it even made its way to the United States.