8 Is Enough

I use an app to keep an actual list of movies I'd like to watch. Sometimes I add movies that are out in theaters, so that in case I don't make it, I'll be able to catch up on streaming. Sometimes I add an interesting-sounding movie I hear mentioned on a podcast. Just friendly reminders to myself for later. For these reasons (among many others), I've ended up with a list that includes a lot of movies that I can't remember putting there.

This is how I found Exit 8 on my list. And it's an especially eclectic entry. It's a Japanese movie. (So right there, I'd say the odds are I heard about it on a film podcast.) It's based on a video game. (Which I'd never heard of; but with countless games available for instant download across dozens of platforms, that's no great surprise.) But it had an intriguing premise I felt I just had to see.

A young man gets off the subway and soon finds himself lost and alone in an underground tunnel. It actually appears to be the same underground tunnel, as he keeps walking and taking the same turns only to find himself passing the same features. Then he notices a sign outlining simple rules: he begins at "Exit 0" and can only leave through "Exit 8." To reach it, he must be observant. If he arrives in a corridor and finds any "anomalies," he must turn around and walk the other direction. If there are none, he must continue ahead. The man feels hope as he soon finds his way to "Exit 1".... and that hope is dashed not long after when he finds himself back at "Exit 0." Can he make the right choices enough times in a row to escape?

When I re-read the short description of the movie, I remembered why I'd put it on the list (if not when). It seemed like a ripe premise for a psychological horror film. And I kind of had to know if the filmmakers could possibly sustain the idea. How does what I just described last for a whole movie -- even one that's only 95 minutes long?

Director Genki Kawamura, working with a script by him and Kentaro Hirase, does actually manage to pull it off. I'd really rather not spoil any surprises, but suffice it say that I never felt the movie reached a point of stagnation. Before I would ever begin to wonder "this isn't really all the movie is going to be, is it?", it would expand the story. Through a clever combination of "twists," character motivations, and effectively creepy imagery, the movie kept me with it the entire way.

It has a couple of other elements helping it along. One is some very smart camera work. There's a lot of very horror-savvy placement of the camera. And while the movie doesn't try to present itself as a single take for the entire duration, there are plenty of great tricks to hide edits. Sure, there also a few obviously CG-assisted moments with ambition too great for the movie's budget, but I don't feel they really detract from the whole.

Another key asset is the movie's main star, Kazunari Ninomiya, who gives a good performance as The Lost Man. There is a very limited cast in this movie, and Ninomiya really has to do some heavy lifting. Working without a scene partner. Believably talking to yourself. Two of the tougher challenges in acting, and he handles them both.

My one reservation -- I'm not quite sure the movie sticks the landing. As I say that, I must also acknowledge that this is just one of those story premises that probably can't have a satisfying ending. The idea is more compelling than the resolution. Seeing whether they can keep the ride going is more exciting than the ride coming to an end. Exit 8 doesn't have a "bad" ending, but if you're going to watch it because you're intrigued by anything I've described here, please don't watch it to see how it ends.

I'd give Exit 8 a B+. Perhaps the real enthusiasts -- of either horror movies or foreign films -- are already aware of it. But for most of you, perhaps I'm putting something on your radar you've never heard of.

Happy Brim-Day to Me

Over 40 years ago, director Ron Howard made the movie Cocoon -- a "probably couldn't get made today" tale of how alien life force rejuvenates a group of retired seniors. Among the movie's cast of older actors was Wilford Brimley. I imagine Brimley may not be known at all by today's younger generations, but there was a time he was known universally for talking about diabetes, eating oatmeal, and being perpetually grizzled. He was the exactly the sort of actor that a movie like Cocoon needed.

And, impossibly, on the day that Cocoon release in movie theaters (June 21, 1985), Wilford Brimley -- professional cranky old man -- was 50 years old. The archetypal example of "older than the hills" was 50 years, 9 months, and 6 days old to be exact.

Many years later, this led to an internet meme I've found quite funny over the years: the Brimley/Cocoon Line. This website and feed have been around for a while now to essentially point out that 50 isn't what it used to be, by pointing out when famous celebrities have crossed the "Brimley/Cocoon Line," the age at which they're now as old as Wilford Brimley was on the day Cocoon was released. It was a headscratcher when Christian Bale crossed it, quite funny when Paul Rudd crossed it, and instantly aging when Drew Barrymore crossed it.

Today, I cross it.

I'm now "Wilford Brimley" old. Nothing left to do, I guess, but wait for alien intervention. At least I have family and friends, many of whom already crossed the line ahead of me. Now we can all sneak out of the retirement home together to use the neighbor's pool

An Epic Movie for an Epic Poem

With the collective insistence that IMAX was the definitive format for seeing The Odyssey, it took me several weeks to finally catch up with it (at a showing with decent seats). But this past weekend, I finally got to see what all the hype was about.

I have a pretty distant relationship with the original source material. I never had to read The Odyssey for school. I was well aware of many of the plot elements, though perhaps unclear about which details were part of this classic Greek story or that one, or perhaps just part of Greek mythology generally. I assumed that I certainly wouldn't notice which details were altered by writer-director Christopher Nolan for this adaptation.

But I am someone who has seen all of Christopher Nolan's movies. (Yes, even Following.) He's only ever made one film I didn't much care for, and several I really love. Suffice it to say, I feel quite able to pick out his "signatures." Whether they were always there in The Odyssey, drawing him to that for his next movie, or they were something he imposed upon it for his version, the result is a strong vision -- a Venn diagram of "Oscar bait" and "action fantasy" we haven't seen at the movies since the original The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Like the other blockbuster I recently caught up with, my feelings were mixed. Starting with things in the "plus column": the visuals. While they might have been a touch too desaturated on average for my tastes, they were stunning throughout. The supernatural moments were clear standouts, from a monstrous and menacing Cyclops to a truly horrific and uncomfortable sequence about Circe's witchcraft. But even more mundane images looked great; the many scenes in Penelope's dining hall never became repetitive thanks to raucous staging and subtle camera positioning.

It may be that Christopher Nolan is incapable of telling a story in pure, linear fashion. But I thought the jumbling of time frames here helped the story overall. The use of flashbacks helped avoid clumping all the action at the beginning and end of the story, and also served to highlight different perspectives on the same events. All of this heightened a moralistic theme I feel fairly sure was minimal (maybe even wholly absent) from the original story: this version of The Odyssey is not a story about one man being punished by the gods so much as it is about one man punishing himself.

Clever as that inversion is, I'm not sure the source material quite supports the adjustment... and here's where I get started on more of a "minus column." The Odysseus of this story has profound regrets over his actions, most keenly that he chose violence in condemnation of Zeus' law. But after we watch him beat himself up about that for hours of screen time, the story culminates in him doing that again and apparently feeling no reservation or remorse about it. That's the ending here because Homer told us that's the ending, but it's an ending that doesn't quite fit the message that seems to have been imposed (or at least highlighted) here.

Also in this "sort of minus column," the casting. Christopher Nolan is a director who likes to work mostly with the same actors. At this point, he's built up a lengthy contact list of people -- with still more admirers who would be happy to work with him in any capacity. And so The Odyssey is an epic movie with an epic cast: an almost endless parade of A-listers, or at least recognizable faces. I don't think this is always to the movie's benefit.

Sure, you have Matt Damon ably carrying the movie, Anne Hathaway playing an unexpectedly strong-willed Penelope, Samantha Morton giving us an eerie and memorable Circe, and John Leguizamo in a surprisingly serious role as Eumaeus. You have "fine" work -- neither exceptional nor bad -- from the likes of Tom Holland, Himesh Patel, and Robert Pattinson. But then you also have a lot of squandered talent: thanklessly small and uninteresting roles for Zendaya, Charlize Theron, and Lupita Nyong'o. And even though you could argue this telling of The Odyssey turns entirely on the character of Sinon, Elliot Page doesn't get much screen time to make an impact.

Still, while Spider-Man: Brand New Day has turned out to be a "fine" movie that's wilting in my estimation with each passing day since I've seen it, The Odyssey might be a "fine" movie that's growing in the opposite way. The more I think about it, the less I fixate on whether this movie is a "waste of Zendaya" and the more I appreciate how novel and new it made very familiar material seem. I'd give The Odyssey a B-. For now. I may be revisiting the movie one day, and my opinion of it.

"New" Isn't Always Better

With its nearly billion-dollar opening weekend, Spider-Man: Brand New Day clearly didn't need the people attending Gen Con to show up at the theaters for a smash success. But the fact remains, almost no one attending Gen Con actually got see the movie in its first week of release. But when I finally got my first "regular weekend" in what felt like ages, I did catch up.

The newest Spider-Man MCU movie pits the web slinger against a mysterious villain with the ability to possess almost anyone to use them as a human puppet. But it's hardly the only crisis facing Peter Parker. Years of isolation have left him at the edge of depression, and now he has a worrying mutation to deal with. We all know this won't be the end of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. But will it make for a good movie?

Kind of?

Here's the thing. The MCU struck gold years ago when it cast Tom Holland to play this hero... and then struck gold again in his first stand-alone movie when they cast Zendaya to play opposite him. Each is a charismatic and talented performer on their own, and the chemistry between them is off the charts. (It seemed that they seemed to think so in real life as well.) All that is to say that with the two of them anchoring a Spider-Man movie, you've basically set a floor where no matter how badly written, no matter how poor the visuals, the movie is still going to be enjoyable in many ways.

It's probably exaggerating to say the Brand New Day is "poorly written." I certainly can't claim it has poor visuals; there are some truly inspired action sequences, with unique camerawork that we somehow haven't seen even in any of the mountain of previous Spider-Man movies. There's fun banter. The key new actor in the story, Sadie Sink (whose role was kept secret in the publicity), gives a solid performance and winds up having her own interesting kind of chemistry with Tom Holland too.

But it's not the smoothest ride. All the most critical plot elements in the narrative are unjustified; there's no reason why the act two turn or act three revelation happen, it's just the time in the story where they're supposed to happen. There certainly aren't enough scenes between Peter and MJ (though as I mentioned, Tom Holland and Zendaya absolutely make the most of what's there). The movie sidelines the established "Spider-Man movie characters" in general -- an extra disappointment after how cleverly they were integrated into the very complex story of the previous No Way Home.

Instead, Brand New Day is clearly a movie about using Spider-Man and Tom Holland to shovel more coal into the engine of the MCU, which has lost some of its steam over the past few years. Not only is the movie stuffed with MCU cameos (some of which play better than others), the whole thing pretty explicitly ends up being "about" setting up pieces on the board for the future.

The result is a movie that did deliver some satisfaction as I watched... and then began to fade for me almost immediately after I walked out of the theater. Maybe it's just that the bar for Tom Holland Spider-Man movies had been set rather high by what came before.

I give Brand New Day a B-. As for the other movie in theaters right now featuring a surprising number of the same actors? I caught up with The Odyssey as well this weekend, and will get to my thoughts on that later this week.

The Film That Doesn't Exist

I caught a rather thought-provoking documentary recently (as good documentaries generally are): Zodiac Killer Project. It's the work of filmmaker Charlie Shackleton, who narrates himself (sometimes appearing on screen) to tell the story of a film that never came to be.

The Zodiac Killer is arguably America's most notorious serial murderer, and the fact that his identity was never confirmed has only fueled interest and speculation. Countless books have been written about his crimes and his possible identity, some recently, many more contemporaneous to the murders themselves. One such book was by a California police officer, Lyndon E. Lafferty, who had his own theory of the killer's true identity -- and a somewhat fanciful tale to go along with it.

Charlie Shackleton was this close to securing the rights to make a film based on that book, The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge. He was deep through all the pre-production planning, head swimming with the footage he'd collect, when the bottom suddenly dropped out. The rights holders refused to sign the contract, Shackleton lost access to the book, and his entire film collapsed. So instead, he made a movie talking you through the movie he would have made.

The result feels to me like the cinematic equivalent a young child licking their palm and holding it half an inch from their sibling's face as they taunt, "what, I'm not touching you!" A more highbrow way of expressing that sentiment might be to say that, having been denied the opportunity to make a serial killer documentary, Charlie Shackleton chose instead to burn the whole format down.

With relentless precision, Shackleton talks you through all the metaphorical boxes he was going to tick in his abandoned film. There would have been a shot like this, because these movies always have shots like this. The credits were going to have this kind of dark and suggestive footage, as they do. There would have been this kind of music, because of course there would. His narration is a wistful dichotomy: showing you how deeply he'd thought about the genre and the movie he wanted to make, while perhaps unaware of how cliche and uninventive a movie it would have been.

In a way, it's very clever. I'll certainly never be able to watch a crime documentary the same way. This is the sort of thing magicians fear should their secrets ever be revealed: once you know exactly how the trick is done, the amazement evaporates. I think this is what Shackleton is going for: holding up the mirror to the audience as if to demand, "Why do you even like this stuff? It's so formulaic!"

But I also found that to some extent, the movie might have been too clever for its own good. Is Shackleton holding up that mirror to us because he isn't quite willing to look in it himself? The only regret I sense in his narration is that he didn't actually get to make his movie. That's a totally reasonable reaction from an artist who poured his time and effort into something that will never be seen by anyone. But while he's "made lemons out of lemonade" with a meta film that basically asks why we like this garbage, he never seems to ask himself "why did I want to make this garbage?" I feel like the grade A version of this documentary would have demanded not only of the audience, "are you not entertained?" but would have explored a bit more why he himself was complicit.

Still, I do love a good peek behind the curtain of how things get made. And, evidently, how things don't get made. The Zodiac Killer Project may not have been that grade A experience I imagine it could have been, but I thought it was worth the time. I give it a B+. If it sounds interesting to you at all, I think it won't disappoint you.

Sheep Thrills

Between Kenneth Branagh donning the Poirot mustache and Daniel Craig solving crimes in the Knives Out movies, you might say that the whodunit is having a bit of a resurgence at the movies. That might have opened the door wide enough for something as unusual as The Sheep Detectives to slip in.

Shepherd George Hardy reads murder mysteries to his flock every night. When he turns up dead, the sheep try to apply all they've learned from books to solve the case. But they'll have to overcome their inherent limitations as, well... sheep. And they'll have to find a way to share what they know with the town's only police officer.

As strange as that description may sound, it only grows more strange as you drill down. Based on a novel by Leonie Swann, this film's script was written by Craig Mazin -- most known for his work on Chernobyl and The Last of Us. Mazin tried for almost a decade to get the movie made, failing perhaps because of how diametrically opposed in tone it was from his most successful work, or maybe because the cyclical genre infatuation of Hollywood hadn't circled back around to mysteries yet.

Eventually, though, he paired up with animation director Kyle Balda (who did numerous films for Illumination), and the movie became a reality -- with one hell of a cast. Appearing on screen, there's Hugh Jackson as the shepherd, Nicholas Braun as the hapless cop, Emma Thompson as a quirky lawyer, and numerous other recognizable faces to round out the pool of suspects.

The voice cast for the titular sheep detectives is even more stacked -- including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O'Dowd, Regina Hall, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, and Brett Goldstein. Looking at that list, you might pick up that it's a group of actors who have shined both in comedy and drama. And that's kind of the special sauce that makes the movie work. The Sheep Detectives rarely lets you forget how deeply silly the premise is -- but at the same time, it's an absolutely played-straight murder mystery. And in its most successful moments, it gets surprisingly sentimental.

I can't claim that the movie perfectly runs the gauntlet of all these tones. Indeed, I'm not sure that Craig Mazin and Kyle Balda are actually the best writer/director pairing; I get the impression that Mazin was going for a deeply earnest movie that just happens to star sheep, while Balda may have been going for something a zany Minions movie that just happens to be live action. But there is an effective core to it all (perhaps coming from the original novel), that's definitely elevated by the actors. 

The Sheep Detectives surely won't end up being one of the best movies I see this year, but it certainly felt like a sweet and enjoyable dessert I'm glad I sampled. I give it a B.

Less Than Super, But Good Enough

This weekend, I went to go see the new movie Supergirl -- bracing for, what most of the advance buzz had warned me -- was going to be a disastrously bad experience. The low expectations likely improved the experience.

This movie follows the interstellar adventures of Kara Zor-El, on an extended binge-drinking holiday from Earth to dull the powerful feelings stirring inside her. She can no longer escape responsibility when a young orphan seeks her help on a sole-destroying quest for vengeance... just as she also has 72 hours to save her dog. Now she has two lives to save.

There are some fair criticisms you could level against this movie. It's almost aggressively unoriginal. That it follows the all-but-mandated "refuse the call / answer the call" story structure for superhero stories is barely worth commenting on. That its action scenes and character beats come from the bag of tropes is perhaps a bit more disappointing -- particularly if you're a fan of The Avengers, Executive Decision, the Mad Max franchise, or any other place you've scene this stuff before. I personally was hoping a story beyond "John Wick meets Guardians of the Galaxy," and definitely didn't get it.

But the thing is, none of these homages (or rip-offs, depending on your own level of charity) is done badly here. There's a wide gulf between actively bad and "just not inspiring and new." To me, Supergirl lands (a flashy, three-point superhero landing) pretty squarely in the latter camp. It's fun, it's brash, it gets the job the done.

And in a few performances, the movie does rise above being just paint-by-numbers. Jason Momoa (in KISS makeup) sure is fun in the scenery-chewing role of Lobo. In his cameo moments, David Corenswet is still giving the most earnest performance as Superman since Christopher Reeve. And Milly Alcock really does carry this movie capably on her shoulders in the title role. She very much makes the movie.

That this "not great, but not bad" movie seemed to receive such vitriol in advance? The kind excuse would be that everyone has forgotten too quickly just how bad most DC movies were until recently. The less kind (more likely?) excuse is that this is a loud dude-bro reaction to a superhero movie starring a woman. (Especially sad, when she's basically the best thing about it.)

I give Supergirl a B-. This is pretty much what I expect if I decide to go check out a summer blockbuster in a movie theater these days. I hope it will be better than this. But if all I get is basically this? That was pretty much the contract.

Feelings of (Dis)closure

Director Steven Spielberg is back with a new science fiction adventure film? Sign me up! Like many this past weekend, I headed to the theater to see Disclosure Day.

A cybersecurity specialist steals sensitive information from the secretive organization he works for. A Kansas City weather reporter zones out on live television and begins speaking in some strange... language? The head of a rogue group of whistleblowers is holed up somewhere... building a house? What does it all mean, and what do these events have to do with each other?

Depending on what information you've sought out about Disclosure Day, you may know some of these answers before you see the movie, or at least think you know. I think the film is probably more enjoyable the less you know. But the discourse has been hard to avoid, so you probably know (or sense) that this movie in some way marks some return to very early Steven Spielberg -- some sort of spiritual successor to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or E.T., perhaps?

The thing is, those two movies set a very high bar to live up to, when a much more fair one might be to expect something on par with Spielberg's take on War of the Worlds. Go into Disclosure Day expecting anything like "the best Steven Spielberg movie in decades," and I wager you'll come out feeling disappointed. Yet also, it's exceedingly rare for Spielberg to make a bad movie. Things like clever shot-making, perfect pacing, and working with actors just seem to come as naturally to him as breathing.

And to that last point -- working with actors -- he has a hell of a cast assembled here. There's a veritable who's who of recent rising stars, including Josh O'Connor, Colman Domingo, and Wyatt Russell. There's Eve Hewson, who seems just one or two big movies away from joining their ranks. There's a stalwart like Colin Firth, who continues his slow evolution from drawing room drama to unlikely action star to now playing the mustache-twirling heavy.

Bright as they all shine, Emily Blunt outshines them all. It almost feels like her impressive career -- playing opposite the likes of Tom Cruise and Dwayne Johnson in action movies, anchoring horror in The Quiet Place, ranging from Sicario to Mary Poppins -- has been leading up to this role that asks her to do it all. In Disclosure Day, she's in an earnest and emotional scene one moment and in mortal danger the next. And I'm convinced that despite all the rest of the talent involved, Disclosure Day wouldn't work without her.

But "convinced" is a word I chose deliberately. Because I kind of feel like I need to be "convinced" a bit to truly love this movie. I walked out with generally warm feelings, thinking I'd seen something good-but-not-great, but also immediately questioning my read. Disclosure Day is a movie that makes me ask if modern blockbusters have rotted my brain and caused my movie-going muscles to atrophy. The movie very pointedly does not explain everything to you. Not only do you have to hop on board quickly in the middle of the action, but not all of the dots are connected by the end. Afterward, I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that the more I thought about the movie, the more I'd feel not everything about the story really held together.

Yet I also felt like it had been a long time since I'd watched a summer blockbuster that didn't spoon-feed every answer to every asked and unasked question its audience might have. And when I happened to mention this to a friend who also saw Disclosure Day, she was quick to point out possible themes and threads I may have overlooked in the movie. Hmmm. Food for thought, for sure. Signs that this movie was deeper than I gave it credit for, probably. But... should I need to be convinced to like a movie in this way?

That's probably a much bigger topic than a review of a single movie can cover. But I will say, whether or not Disclosure Day has a "there" there, and whether or not it holds up to deeper scrutiny... it's still, either way, a fun ride with some very good acting. So overall, I think I'm going to give it a B+. And I'm pretty sure that if I should ever watch it again, that grade wouldn't hold. Whether it moved up or down, I couldn't say... but I doubt it would stay the same. 

The Cinematic Adventures of Baby Yoda

The long-running Star Wars franchise added another movie to its ranks this past weekend with The Mandalorian and Grogu. And in my eyes, it's a strong contender for the "most OK" of the lot. Picking up on the three-season long television series The Mandalorian, the movie follows "Mando" on an action-packed adventure with the character people will always call "Baby Yoda."

The Mandalorian and Grogu is an entertaining movie. There are action sequences of seemingly endless natures and scopes. There's a surprisingly deep relationship between a character whose face you almost never see and a character whose face is rubber. Sigourney Weaver seems to be having fun, and it's kind of infectious.

But the fact that this comes after three seasons of television actually makes a huge difference. The Mandalorian has been around for years, bringing a lot of film-caliber action to our living rooms. The line between movies and television has never been thinner or blurrier than it is right now, yet the idea that a movie has to be "bigger and better" than a TV show persists. And so, to amp up The Mandalorian to cinematic size, they basically took what you could imagine as a "fourth season" of the show, and removed nearly all the quiet parts.

For nearly an hour-and-a-half, the movie bounces from one set piece to the next, deliberately leaving the audience with almost no time to catch a breath. Each sequence as an island is well-realized. Delivered as they were in assembly line fashion, I found myself getting a little numb to it all. Which is probably why I felt the best stretch of the movie was the 15-minute "end of act two" centered on Grogu. The pace relaxed, the stakes felt more personal, and character took center stage. Before, of course, an over-the-top final act.

Actually, it's probably not the shadow of three seasons of The Mandalorian looming over this movie for me as much as two seasons of Andor. It's not fair to now compare all of Star Wars to what I'm increasingly convinced is the best Star Wars there's ever been... but there's also some recency bias. Over the past several years, I've watched a lot of different "fine" Star Wars TV shows (and bad ones; looking at you, Boba Fett). I've accepted the tonal shifts between The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew. But when Star Wars is capable of being Andor instead? I understand The Mandalorian and Grogu wasn't remotely trying to be that. But also... most of me says, wistfully, why not?

Trying my best to set all that aside, I'd give The Mandalorian and Grogu a B-. I have a hard time imagining that it could ever be anyone's favorite Star Wars movie... or least favorite. But it's a serviceable action romp.

Crime Doesn't Pay?

We're still relatively early in the film year, but 2026 has already served up one of its biggest box office bombs in Crime 101, a film you can now stream on Amazon Prime. Was it actually bad, or just a movie that many (like myself) just didn't even hear about during its money-losing theatrical run?

Crime 101 centers on Mike, a jewel thief whose jobs are meticulously planned and precisely executed. But the story also tracks Detective Lubesnick, the cop hot on his trail; Sharon, a high-end insurance broker who's grown increasingly dissatisfied in her job; and Ormon, the young psychopath who Mike's fence is grooming as a replacement. This film noir-type stew of shifting agendas and loyalties keeps the audience guessing what will happen next, and even who they should be rooting for.

Earning back less than its $90 million budget in movie theaters, Crime 101 can only be regarded as a flop. But is it one of those flops that years later comes to be well-regarded? (Can that even happen when no one is watching the cable networks that would constantly run the same movie to build such whispering campaigns?) Probably not (to both questions), because Crime 101 turns out to be a movie that feels less than the sum of its parts. And yet... the parts, even on their own, are pretty good.

Let's start with the absolutely stacked cast. Chris Hemsworth stars as Mike, bringing his trademark charm to yet another action role. Mike is more intellectual than physical, and part of the fun here is seeing Hemsworth as a character looking to avoid the confrontations we know he excels at on screen.

Hemsworth is having a Marvel mini-reunion with Mark Ruffalo, who plays the detective. But for Ruffalo, the throwback most likely to be in the audience's mind is his similar role in Zodiac. It's been almost two decades since that movie, and Ruffalo's character feels like he's been on the job living every one of those hard 20 years. He's easy to root for, which makes it even more fun to have Hemsworth as his criminal foil.

The insurance broker, Sharon, is played by Halle Berry. It's a bit of a different role that allows her to act her age (though to be clear, she does not for one moment come across like one of our "aged" movie stars). It never quite seems like Crime 101 might suddenly turn into a Halle Berry star vehicle, but she elevates the role she's playing in the story.

Barry Keoghan is the one indisputable villain of the piece. His is a fun bit of casting too; many of his movies have him buttoned up tight, or perhaps showing one brief explosion of energy. In this movie, he's all volatility. And while I've now said a bit about all the main stars, I should note that Crime 101 also features Monica Barbaro, Corey Hawkins, Jennifer Jason Leigh (for like, a minute), Nick Nolte, and more.

It's a very stylish movie too. Writer-director Bart Layton is clearly a student of film noir, and has studied the classics. But he's also clearly influenced by more modern makers of noir and noir-like films; in particular I felt the influence of Steven Soderbergh and Michael Mann all over the movie. If you like a gritty movie that feels dark even when the sun is shining, Crime 101 might be for you.

But like I hinted... for all the appeal, it does feel to me like the movie should end up better than it is. I enjoyed the ride, but I never really felt like Keoghan's character was a serious threat to Hemsworth's. I never really felt like the story would give Halle Berry as much to do as it should. I certainly never invested in the perfunctory romantic subplot for the main character. Yet I did to some extent enjoy all the chess pieces being steadily marched into position for the final gambit.

I'd give Crime 101 a B-. It's not essential viewing, but it probably deserved better than the chilly box office reception it received. And perhaps by me doing my tiniest part to spread the word a little, it'll find its way to a person or two who might really like it.

Hail Mary, Full of Grace

Andy Weir's book Project Hail Mary was one of my favorite reads of the last several years. Ever since the film version was announced, I've been waiting for it with equal parts enthusiasm and nervousness. They couldn't possibly mess it up, right? But were they going to mess it up?

When the movie finally arrived, I was out of town for a ski-trip-turned-board-game-trip. Fortunately, since I'd already read the book, I didn't need to worry about anything being spoiled for me. But I did start to get a bit worried about the rapturous response from audiences. There was no corner of social media where I wouldn't encounter someone raving about how good the movie was. ("Two thumbs down! If you know, you know!") Was the experience going to be totally overhyped for me by the time I finally did see it?

Well, maybe a little. But generally -- nope, the movie actually does manage to capture most of what made the book so enjoyable.

That book/movie, if you're unfamiliar, is the story of Ryland Grace, who wakes up aboard a spaceship that's traveled to another star. As his memories of how he got there slowly return, he tries to learn why this star is immune to a contagion that's gradually killing our own sun and threatening all life on Earth. What the movie campaign eagerly spoils (that talk of the book avoided) is that Grace has an unlikely ally on his mission -- an alien creature named Rocky from another star similarly affected. The two first learn to communicate, and then forge a deep friendship as they work together to save their planets.

It's tempting to become mired in what Project Hail Mary loses in transition from page to screen. To forge a potential blockbuster with broad appeal (something the filmmakers achieved!), they definitely sand down the sharp edges of all the science talk -- that's just not cinematic enough. To bring down the run time, most of the "slow progress" moments of the book are transformed into montages or sudden "eureka!" moments. (Not that the movie is "short," clocking in at 2 hours, 36 minutes.) But if you want all of that, the book still exists. Indeed, the movie has made me seriously consider going back to it soon.

And I mean that as nothing but a compliment. Because I really didn't receive the movie as some "pale shadow of the book," but rather as a potent reminder of everything I loved about the book. When you step back and think about it, the degree of difficulty here was impossibly high.

Few movies rely so much on the performance of a single actor. And not since Tom Hanks and Cast Away have so many people appreciated the ability of such a single actor to develop chemistry with the least likely of screen partners. The filmmakers' decision to realize Rocky through puppetry instead of CG was crucial. Their much-discussed choice to keep the voice performance of the lead puppeteer (rather than stunt cast a new voice-over) was alchemy. And Ryan Gosling is that good here. He's carrying the movie so well that you almost don't feel like he is carrying the movie; Project Hail Mary feels like a two-hander that just happens to have an unusual second character.

And before I move away from character and casting, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that Sandra Hüller is also very strong as Eva Stratt, head of Earth's planet-saving efforts. Hüller's performance actually made me appreciate the character more than the book, as she shades the bureaucratic martinet with just enough humanity and dry humor to make an important turn in the story hit harder.

The last time this particular screen writer, Drew Goddard, adapted an Andy Weir book, the result was The Martian. That was an excellent movie... which laughably won the Golden Globe for "Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy" simply because science fiction wasn't (probably still isn't) respected enough to compete in the Drama category. But Goddard's work here on Project Hail Mary, along with the direction by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, really does feel more legitimately comedic. This adaptation may have had to jettison some of the hard science, but it clung tightly to the elements of humor.

Finally, a few notes in praise of the filmmaking. Lord and Miller chose to do this movie using practical effects and in-camera effects as much as possible, and it's absolutely the right decision. In just the post-production time since the movie was filmed, the rise of AI slop has made most of us more savvy than ever to the artificial look of unreal images. And while talented Hollywood effects artists can, of course, achieve visuals much better than said slop, there's still at least a subconscious level on which most viewers reject something they know is completely digital. I already mentioned the decision to render Rocky through puppetry and not computers, but it goes beyond that. The "make it work somehow" ethos of the physical approach dovetails perfectly with the message of the story.

I also appreciated the music. The score by Daniel Pemberton shifted nimbly to support both humor and drama, and some notable "needle drops" certainly paid off well. (I might even say the one we get by The Beatles could be in the running for the most perfectly curated and placed Beatles track used in any movie.)

So... "thumbs down?" (If you know, you know.) Yeah. I'll give Project Hail Mary an A-, probably shaving a bit only for my total enjoyment of the source material.

Devilish Fun?

David Dastmalchian is one of those actors whose face is much more widely recognized than his name. He's been "that weird guy" in things from Dune to Dexter to Murderbot and many, many more. But he's invariably a secondary character who isn't anchoring the film or TV series he's appearing in. In that way (among many others), the movie Late Night With the Devil is something different.

Late Night With the Devil is a fictitious documentary of 1970s talk show host Jack Delroy. Through increasing fame and sudden personal tragedy, his talk show Night Owls has always finished second to the legendary Johnny Carson. But his special episode on Halloween night in 1977 may change all that. With guests including a mentalist, skeptic, and a parapsychologist and her subject, Jack Delroy may have stumbled into a harrowing situation bringing more than he ever bargained for.

This movie uses a "found footage" conceit. After a brief introduction setting up the alleged documentary we're here to watch, the action unfolds as the "actual" Halloween broadcast as it went out live into America's living rooms. During the commercial breaks, the "documentary filmmakers" have restored "behind the scenes" footage taken in the studio. Thus, the movie is a 90-minute, real-time descent into darkness.

The structure is clever in theory, but in practice presents as something like a bell curve. The opening 15 to 20 minutes are very much a "slow burn" bit of storytelling. Anything else simply wouldn't be believable. If a 1970s TV audience was to turn on, say, the Dick Cavett Show and be confronted five minutes in with scenes from The Exorcist? Well, not only would that strain credulity, but it really wouldn't leave the story anywhere to go. Still... it means the movie requires the sort of patience that horror movies actually made in the late 70s demand: the tension ratchets up oh-so-slowly before all hell finally breaks loose. (Perhaps literally.)

At the end of the movie, without getting too spoilery, the movie lost me for another reason -- specifically, it abandons the "found footage" conceit it has so carefully established, showing us events that could not have been part of the live broadcast. It is at least in service of a fitting ending for what we've watched unfold... but it's presented in a way that doesn't have the courage of its narrative convictions.

But, for one hour in the middle, Late Night With the Devil is a pretty fun ride. We get entertaining jump scares, motivated characters gradually-but-believably making bad choices... all the best horror movie staples that makes the genre fun when done right. And a lot of what makes it work is the casting. David Dastmalchian really does carry this movie, and his casting is interesting in that he's not playing an overt creep like he usually does. His character is, as the old cliche goes, someone America would want to invite into their living rooms, and he definitely captures the patter and demeanor of a talk show host.

And really, the rest of the cast is pretty good too. To be blunt, even when the story of this movie is at its best, the dialogue isn't. This isn't an award-worthy script. But Dastmalchian, Ian Bliss, and Ingrid Torelli are particularly key among the cast in delivering what thrills there are here.

I would give Late Night With the Devil a B-. I feel that horror movies are a genre that's much like panning for gold; you have to give it a while to come up with anything valuable. This "find" is no fist-sized rock of gold... but neither is it a lump of iron pyrite. If you enjoy horror movies in generally, you might find enough gold flecks in here to feel this movie is worth your time.

A Bad Movie With a Powerful Kick

These days, I tend not to blog about entertainment I don't like. But I'm going to make an exception today for a movie I basically hated even as there were things I appreciated about it. I'm going to focus more on the latter as I tell you about If I Had Legs I'd Kick You.

Linda is at the end of her rope. Her young daughter has a condition that requires constant care and supplemental medical feeding. Her husband's job has him almost always absent. A massive issue at her apartment forces her to move into a hotel and fight constantly with her landlord for repairs. And there's a crisis at her therapy practice involving a patient. Can she hold herself together as it feels like everything is falling apart?

There are times it feels like If I Had Legs I'd Kick You barely has a story at all. It's a parade of horrible events, at best uncomfortable to watch, and at worst being a potential reminder of things in your own life you might have been watching a movie to try to escape. This is not a fun watch. It's not a movie from which you will take away anything uplifting. I deeply disliked the experience of the two hours I lost watching it.

But... there are some aspects of this movie I really want to praise -- in part because the Award Industrial Complex has turned its eye toward this movie, and I actually can see why.

Rose Byrne has the film's one Academy Award nomination, a Best Actress nod for her performance as Linda. It's absolutely deserved. Byrne has been on such a long run of comedic roles that I find myself forgetting she first came onto my radar as the star of Damages, a great psychological drama where she held her own opposite Glenn Close. In If I Had Legs I Kick You (yes, a great title I'm deliberately repeating for the fun of it), Byrne captures all the complexity of a mother on the edge: pushing herself well past the point of exhaustion simply because a) society unfairly expects it of her; and b) there's no one else.

Byrne's performance feels utterly real, because it's utterly without vanity. Through intense close-ups (more on that in a moment), she is able to give a remarkably subtle performance where you can see every crack in the facade as it develops. There's scarcely even gallows humor here; this is simply a raw, authentic performance that she inhabits so deeply that the audience can't help but feel it themselves.

She's aided in this feat by the choices of writer-director Mary Bronstein. Bronstein is doing things that on paper sound overly auteurist, navel-gazing, and pretentious. In practice, they're absolutely crucial to narrowing the spotlight on the film's central theme, and they help make Byrne's performance come off as powerfully as it does.

In If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (yup, I did it again), Linda's daughter has no name. We don't even see her face. The focus is entirely on Linda -- and the camera stays in tight close-up on her face for the vast majority of the movie. This doesn't just put the focus on what Linda is going through, it utterly strips away any chance for the audience to bond with her daughter. We never get any of the young girl's human characteristics, any hint of why anyone would sacrifice anything to care for her. As an off-camera voice, the daughter is rendered a whiny, insistent, never-ending black hole of need. Everything Linda has sacrificed in her life that got her to this point feels in fact completely pointless, since we don't even see what any of it was for.

If you've ever found yourself skeptical of highbrow art criticism ("see, the artist's choice of blue is meant to convey a unfulfilled yearning"), you might actually want to watch If I Had Legs I Kicked You. It's as pure a demonstration as I can imagine of the way that particular film-making choices can have a powerful effect on storytelling.

And yet... I didn't feel there was much of a story here to tell, beyond being made to sit and stew in one woman's awful predicament, watching helplessly as it grows more awful by the minute. I actually give If I Had Legs I'd Kick you a D-. Frankly, I hated this aimless, uncomfortable, oftentimes boring... well-made, well-acted, hyper-focused movie. Love it or hate it, you may well find there's something here for you too.

The Suspense Is Terrible, I Hope It'll Last...

Every year, I post my top movie list from the previous year. And it seems like every year, that's all I need to do to stumble on another movie I really enjoy. That pattern holds this year.

A House of Dynamite is the latest from director Kathryn Bigelow. It's a political thriller that dramatizes the launch of a nuclear weapon toward the United States. With less than 20 minutes until impact, dozens of people scramble to formulate a response -- from officers in the White House Situation Room, to military officers tasked to intercept the inbound missile, to intelligence officers all around the country, to the president himself and members of his cabinet. Though the movie cuts around nimbly to all these points of view, there is still far more than can unfold in "real time," and so three acts each replay events from different perspectives to ultimately reveal everyone and everything at play.

Kathryn Bigelow has a long and acclaimed career making suspenseful movies. Sometimes, these have been inspired by -- or have directly adapted -- real life events. But I like seeing her bring her clear action-thriller skills to bear on a work of fiction. She knows how to build tension, and does it again here. That skill perhaps overshadows her skill with actors; she has a massive ensemble cast here, and gets good work from all of them.

To name only a few, A House of Dynamite features solid performances from Jared Harris, Anthony Ramos, Gabriel Basso, Greta Lee, Jason Clarke, Kaitlyn Dever, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Idris Elba -- among many, many more. And to me, rising above them all is Rebecca Ferguson. It's not exactly news that she's a reliably great thing about many entertaining movies and shows, but that doesn't mean I should let another good performance go unnoticed.

The movie is a bit of a fun bait-and-switch. It starts off appearing like a quintessential example of what I've heard described as "competence porn": stories that center around smart people demonstrating intelligence and excellence at their jobs under demanding circumstances. The movie becomes even more interesting as that all starts to unravel and elements of the characters' humanity peek through the cracks of their stony exteriors.

I'd heard about the unusual "three-act structure" of this movie -- not a beginning, middle, and end... but a "same story told from three perspectives" approach. I too would divide the movie into three parts, but my divisions would be a bit different:

My first part lines up exactly with the movie's "first act." It's an immediately engaging story with quickly ratcheting tension, and is undeniably the best section of the film. (I think it's no coincidence that this is the portion that features Rebecca Ferguson.)

My second part would be almost "the rest of the movie." Once you've lived through the escalating drama once, backtracking to pick up other perspectives basically can't live up. The story is by no means dull, but it can't soar to the heights of learning how events will unfold as you did the first time through the story. The tension is still palpable... it's just not as taut as in the opening act.

My third part is... well... the final minute. I found the end of the film to be profoundly unsatisfying. I deliberately call it the "end of the film" rather than "the ending," because it really doesn't feel like a conclusion in any way. After 90+ minutes of expertly crafted tension, the end credits arrived not like a crescendo, but like an abdication by writer Noah Oppenheim. In gathering up my thoughts for this review, I really had to remind myself just how much I had really enjoyed the rest of the movie -- and not allow a few final frames to drag down the experience overall.

And so, with that in mind, I will give A House of Dynamite an A-. I still hate the ending... but I think it's worth the journey all the same. I'm slotting the movie at #5 on my Best of 2025 movie list.

2025 in Review -- Movies

I've made "Top Movie Lists" every year for a while now. But in the past five-or-so years, I haven't always made them "Top 10" lists. I won't be doing so this year either. Before I explain why, some basic stats:

I seem to have settled in at watching about 50 to 60 movies each year. I was exactly on the low end of that in 2025 with 50 movies. I caught 31 at home, 14 at a movie theater, 1 at the symphony, and (in an unusual record for me) 4 on airplanes.

Of everything I saw, 20 were actual 2025 releases. From a field of that size, listing the "best half" (top 10) I happened to see isn't always going to make sense. I won't pretend to claim that Drop was one of the 10 best movies of 2025 -- even if, for a fluffy writer's exercise of suspense in a confined space, it did work well as in-flight entertainment. That's why this year's list is going to be very short; while I generally enjoyed most of what I saw, there are really just four movies that I want to call out as "worth seeing, if you haven't":

1. Weapons
2. Presence
3. Black Bag
4. KPop Demon Hunters 

None of these are going to be Oscar nominees. (Though if KPop Demon Hunters doesn't win Best Animated Feature...?) But I think they're all wildly entertaining, each in their own way.

As usual, I do plan to circle back and add to this list if I catch up on any other 2025 releases that feel deserving. But also, I'm so far avoiding most of the Oscar bait. During award season last year, I took a now-rare moment to bother writing a negative review, specifically about The Substance. In my comments, I noted that the movie may finally have broken me of the urge to see things I'm actively disinterested in only because they're in the award conversation. We'll see if that holds.

Updated 1/12/2026:

1. Weapons
2. Presence
3. Black Bag
4. KPop Demon Hunters 
5. A House of Dynamite 

Dead Letter

After enjoying the two previous Knives Out movies, there was no way I'd miss out on the third Benoit Blanc mystery from Rian Johnson, Wake Up Dead Man.

Catholic priest Father Jud is sent to a small town, where the local preacher, Monsignor Wicks, leads his flock in a stern, Old Testament style. Wicks constant needling of Jud fosters animus between them... so when Wicks is murdered, Jud seems the obvious suspect. But the odd "locked room mystery" circumstances of the death attract the interest of detective Benoit Blanc, who discovers motives for murder all throughout the congregation.

Rian Johnson has been on quite a mystery tour of late, not only with Knives Out, but with the superb television series Poker Face. Wake Up Dead Man is the first Benoit Blanc movie to arrive after Poker Face, so it's possible that the way I received this new movie has been altered by the experience of 22 episodes with Natasha Lyonne. I do feel there are three key ingredients in the Knives Out recipe: a twisty murder plot, a large ensemble cast of big actors there to play, and a dash of social commentary. The ingredients are all there in Wake Up Dead Man, but I feel like the measurements have been substantially tweaked.

Knives Out was woven through with "upstairs-downstairs" commentary about class and means. Glass Onion turned up the heat on the rich even more. But Wake Up Dead Man is (almost) mainly about its religiously-themed message. It has a lot of ground to cover about organized religion vs. faith, the kind of people who wield religion for their own personal aggrandizement, and in particular how these issues intersect with Catholicism. The subject is ripe for a takedown, and I have no problem with this franchise putting another lever of power in the spotlight with this movie.

But I think it comes at the expense of that second aspect of the Knives Out formula: the ensemble cast of big actors. Oh, they're here, to be sure: Josh O'Connor is far more the lead than Daniel Craig, and he's surrounded and supported by Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Thomas Haden Church, and Jeffrey Wright. But where the first two Knives Out movies were full of fun characters I could see actors lining up to portray, I just don't feel there's much juice to be squeezed from most of the people in this story. Where Knives Out and Glass Onion seemed to offer everyone at least one moment to chew the scenery, Wake Up Dead Man feels almost disinterested in developing many of its characters -- to a degree where people seem like suspects only because they're portrayed by someone famous.

The effort that might have been spent on characterization goes instead to developing the mystery. Wake Up Dead Man has by far the most convoluted plot of the three Benoit Blanc mysteries. To explain how would probably give too much away -- and such pains were taken to hide the truth that I'd feel monstrous to spoil it. I'll just say that you'll probably enjoy the movie more if you don't expend much mental effort trying to solve "whodunnit" and just go along for the ride.

All of that probably sounds like I didn't enjoy Wake Up Dead Man very much -- but that's not at all the case. Really, it's that the prior two movies set a rather high bar for entertainment, and I feel that you really have to get into the weeds to differentiate and rank them. This movie has plenty of laugh out loud moments, a few triumphant monologues, some wonderful visual imagery, and an especially great performance from Josh O'Connor. It's enjoyable. I just enjoyed it less than Knives Out or Glass Onion. And it's possible, if I'd not been hearing about critics praising this as possibly the best Knives Out movie, that coming without heightened expectations wouldn't have soured the experience at all.

As it stands, I give Wake Up Dead Man a B. It's well worth watching, especially if you've liked either of the previous movies. But if you've heard any of the hype, maybe tamp it down a bit.

We've All Been Robbed

I'm not the sort of person who is usually moved deeply by the death of a famous person. But yesterday's news about the death of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele hit differently. It was the kind of news you feel like you couldn't possibly have heard correctly the first time -- and that's before you get into the horrible circumstances, that the two were murdered in their home. But that awful end is hardly necessary for Rob Reiner's passing to feel like a major loss.

It can be difficult for a generation to know how much of its own pop culture has currency to other generations, but Rob Reiner's work spanned a few. In particular, if you ask the average movie fan in their 40s or 50s what their favorite movie is, there is a significant chance you're going to get as the answer either the Reiner-directed The Princess Bride or This Is Spinal Tap. (You could go deep on what the preference between the two says about a person, but that's a topic for a less sad day.) Both loom large in 1980s pop culture, and both have continued to play well to new audiences years later.

But Reiner wouldn't have needed either towering achievement on his resume to be a notable director. Writer Stephen King has found a few go-to collaborators in his career, but Reiner was one of the first: in directing both Stand by Me and Misery, he showed a mastery of two strikingly different tones in King's catalog. Without Reiner, we certainly would never have had The West Wing, since Reiner's direction of A Few Good Man and The American President are what built the audience for Aaron Sorkin's dense, often-imitated writing.

And for "often-imitated," look no further than the foundational rom-com When Harry Met Sally...

Those are just the highlights of Reiner's directing career. As a producer, he was a founder of Castle Rock Entertainment, which gave us City Slickers, The Shawshank Redemption, Before Sunrise (and its sequels), The Green Mile, Miss Congeniality, and many, many more. Oh, and a little television show called Seinfeld.

Then there's Reiner's acting career. He was convinced that playing Meathead on All in the Family would be the first line of his eventual obituary, though he went on to put in memorable appearances in plenty of movies (directed by others and himself).

Reiner's death feels like a big one because it's kind of impossible to imagine anyone who is even vaguely aware of film and television of the last several decades who doesn't know any of his work. What I can imagine is a lot of fans firing up one (or more) of his movies this week.

Naked Eye

I would not necessarily have pegged The Naked Gun as a franchise that was ripe for rebooting. But Hollywood will reboot pretty much anything these days, and so it was that this year we got a new The Naked Gun film starring Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr., a lieutenant in L.A.'s "Police Squad" that fights crime with tongue planted firmly in cheek amid an avalanche of jokes.

I admit, the "reboot anything" framing I just used probably makes it sound like I was primed not to like this film. Quite the opposite, actually; I had high hopes for it, given the pedigree. It was directed and co-written by Akiva Schaffer, one-third of The Lonely Island. It was produced by Seth MacFarlane's production company, and he in turn probably influenced getting Liam Neeson to star (the two having worked together before). Every one of these people has comedy chops -- and has demonstrated an affinity for the joke-dense environment that was the original Naked Gun trilogy.

When you watch this new movie, it's clear that everyone involved has a particular affection for the comedy of Zucker-Abraham-Zucker ("ZAZ"), the trio who created Police Squad! (the short-lived TV show that inspired The Naked Gun), as well as Airplane! and Top Secret! (They had a thing for exclamation points.) This new movie embraces the particular anarchy of a ZAZ film that will try anything for a laugh -- running gags, dumb puns, sight gags, prat falls -- and will pile it on so fast that there's no worry when one joke doesn't work for you. One that does will be close behind.

There are particular jokes in this new movie that feel like they could have been written by that original ZAZ trio, wordplay along the lines of "Surely you can't be serious." But there are other styles in the mix too, like a long plot diversion about a snowman that almost feels like a Lonely Island sketch plopped down right in the middle of the movie. I didn't find the whole to be as deliriously funny as some of those ZAZ classics, but that could well be because those hit me at just the right age. In any case, this did make me laugh.

Liam Neeson is a wonderful heir to Leslie Nielsen's deadpan delivery, and the cast surrounding him meets that tone. Pamela Anderson is willing to shed every ounce of vanity in her femme fatale-like role. Paul Walter Hauser brings the "comic sidekick" chops he displayed on Cobra Kai to this more satirical stage. Danny Huston and CCH Pounder, both best known for dramatic work, bring the same intensity to this utter tomfoolery. That is the Leslie Nielsen model: don't behave any differently as you say the stupidest stuff.

In short, The Naked Gun is stupid fun. If you liked the original, you will like this reboot -- it's that simple. I give it a B.

Burn Notice

Back in 2019, a then-new movie made it on my "watch it someday" list. But that "someday" didn't come until James Gunn's recent Superman film gave it a second moment in the spotlight.

Brightburn is a movie clearly derived from Superman's well-known origin story: a childless farmer couple discovers an alien spacecraft with a single young occupant, and raise the adopted alien as their own. As the child approaches adolescence, he comes to realize his true purpose on Earth: to use his manifesting super powers to conquer the planet.

Brightburn arrived in theaters a few years before Invincible reached our TV screens, and a few months before The Boys -- though well over a decade after the source comics for either of those series. While that timeline could get fans arguing over which if these (if any of these) was "first" to the idea of ultraviolent superhero stories, Brightburn is doing something distinctly different from the rest: it's a horror movie.

As young Brandon Breyer discovers the scope of his powers, he quickly becomes a Freddy/Jason/Michael Myers-type figure at the center of a story that observes all the conventions of the bloodiest horror movies. Cornered victims flee for their lives -- sometimes making clever choices but often not -- before being snuffed out in the most grisly ways imaginable. It's not for all audiences, and it certainly lacks the social commentary of the episodic TV shows I mentioned. But if you just like a good slasher movie on occasion, well -- here it is. (And what occasion is more fitting that the run-up to Halloween?)

Brightburn has been hard to find on streaming services (included in a subscription, at least), and might not have been remembered at all were it not for the its creative pedigree. James Gunn used his Marvel-soon-turning-to-DC clout and money to produce this script by his brother Brian and cousin Mark. And while he didn't take the director's chair (that job went to David Yarovesky), he did make sure to cast many of the actors from his core "repertory company." Fans of Peacemaker in particular will clock the brief appearances of Jennifer Holland, Steve Agee, and omnipresent Gunn collaborator Michael Rooker -- as well as David Denman in the role of Brandon's father.

But the big name in the cast is Elizabeth Banks. She has a tricky, almost double role that calls for her to be both loving, protective mother and conventional horror movie heroine. This movie is certainly more about "the kills" than the performances -- but for what it's worth, I think Banks gives a good one.

I don't feel like Brightburn is "can't miss" entertainment, not even for horror movie enthusiasts. I'd give it a B-. But if it sounds like a bloody good time, you might want to check it out. Either way, I think it's nice that the movie got something of a second life as a side effect of the new Superman discourse.

Looking Back on the Years

Hollywood has plenty of sequels and franchises, and seems constantly on the prowl for any older films that can be rebooted. Still, I can't really think of many examples where, after two decades have passed, a writer and director both reunite to make sequel. Yet that's what happened with 28 Years Later.

In the decades after a "rage virus" has swept the United Kingdom, the world has responded by cutting off the islands from the rest of the world. But humans still live in isolation, raising new generations to survive. Jamie is taking his 12-year-old son Spike on a hunt for the first time, during which the boy learns of a long-shot possibility to aid his ailing mother. Defying his father, Spike takes his mother to go find a doctor. But has he learned enough from his father's training to keep them both alive? And will they really find what they're looking for at the end of the road?

The original 28 Days Later was a super-low budget movie that put director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland on the map. (Star Cillian Murphy as well, who returns here as an executive producer.) I could not help but be curious about what kind of story the two would tell now. Why look back when most creatives would rather push forward? What could they add to the zombie genre, which has overflowed in the time since the original movie?

The answer, partly, is that they want to bring "art house" sensibilities to zombie movies. While the budget of 28 Years Later is inconceivably higher than that of the original film -- and it was released to theaters in the summer -- it doesn't look like summer blockbuster fare. The movie plays with unusual frame rates, odd lighting choices, moments where the narrative timeline is made deliberately murky, and more. Yet at the same time, it's not like the movie is pushing to be "anti-blockbuster." It's the first of a planned trilogy, and explicitly sets up the next film (due to release early next year).

It's hard not to push away comparisons to The Walking Dead or The Last of Us while watching 28 Years Later. But I also found it unnecessary to do so to enjoy the movie. Where those other zombie tales have focused a lot about what it means to make and live with hard choices, 28 Years Later is much more about learning to live with hard truths -- when you have no choice at all. The young protagonist, Spike, still feels like he's got more growing up to do than, say, Ellie of The Last of Us. He still has more to lose than characters of the countless Walking Dead spin-offs I hear about, who have already bleakly lost everything. To me, these key elements mean that even if 28 Years Later isn't going to be something radically  different, it still has different ground to cover than other zombie tales.

And if you don't buy any of that, then maybe you'll be pulled in by some good performances. Alfie Williams is great as Spike, the kid on whom the whole movie rests. Ralph Fiennes brings a soulful stillness to a role that could have been played far more over-the-top. Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson have very different roles as Spike's parents, but each brings the right tone to their roles. And Edvin Ryding provides some much-appreciated comic relief.

I'm not sure I liked 28 Years Later enough to be clamoring for next year's sequel the moment it arrives. But I did enjoy it. I'd give it a B. I can understand if you're feeling zombie fatigue right now. But if you have room for one more, you might want to check it out.