Monday, July 21, 2025

So How Did Superman Did In its Second Box Office Weekend?

 


It was clear earlier this week that something special was brewing with Superman's domestic box office run. After a strong $125 million start, this title kept having incredibly remarkable holds from one day to the next during the week. That included leaping 33% from Monday to Tuesday, a significantly better than usual hold across those two days for a July superhero movie. Good word-of-mouth was clearly working in Superman's favor...but would it hold on for its second North American frame? The answer turned out to be a resounding yes.

Superman grossed another $58.5 million this weekend, a great 53% drop from its opening. That's slightly better than the second-weekend declines than Deadpool & Wolverine and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. It's also way better than typical July superhero movie second weekend holds. Usually, these family-friendly titles burn off enough demand in the week that Spider-Man: Homecoming, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Ant-Man and the Wasp have 60-61% drops before stabilizing the following frame. Superman, meanwhile, held steady with a drop in the low 50s. 

Meanwhile, its second gross was noticeably bigger than the second frame of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, despite that 2016 feature having a $40 million bigger debut than Superman. What's going on with these holds and strong figures?

This is totally conjecture on my part, but one has to wonder if there was a segment of the population that was a bit dubious about a new Superman movie. Those individuals may have sat out last weekend, but then decided to give James Gunn's newest feature a go thanks to the positive word-of-mouth of this motion picture. Superman's certainly become a point of positive conversation online and in the real world. Just look at the affectionate memes sprouting up in the last week over things like David Corenswet's Superman grinning while lying down. With the feature taking off like this, initially hesitant moviegoers might've finally dived in just to join in on the chatter. Meanwhile, the bouncy, colorful, and upbeat atmosphere of Superman makes it prime for revisits, which could've also contributed to the smaller holds.

Plus, hey, maybe something this hopeful is actually something people didn't know they desperately needed until the word-of-mouth on Superman took off. The biggest hit movies throughout history tend to satiate audience demands that nobody in Hollywood could've predicted before they debuted. Who thought, for instance, moviegoers would gravitate towards Avatar's classical and brightly-colored storytelling in an era of gritty reboots? Similarly, Superman turned out to be just the blockbuster palette cleanser folks were looking for when it came to the superhero movie realm. Even with The Fantastic Four: First Steps on the way, it's doubtful all this good word-of-mouth is about to vanish. Expect this title to keep on rocking and rolling for the rest of the summer.

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Fans of dogs, colorful costumes, and memorable Nicholas Hoult performances unite: Superman is an uplifting treat



A dozen Julys ago, Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim clobbered its way onto the big screen. This monster movie took the skeleton of classic Kaiju films but blew them up enormously in scale while maintaining a zippy tone and vibrant color scheme. The point wasn't to translate these older genre films into "grounded" modern contexts. It was to just give them a scope and budget that was never previously possible.

James Gunn's Superman has similar ambitions in mind. However, the screenwriter behind The Specials and The Belko Experiment is not interested in just making a $200+ million version of the George Reeves Superman TV show or the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. Instead, this is the most lavish spiritual and visual Spy Kids sequel one could imagine witnessing.

That's not a complaint either. Superman is a classical, kid-friendly movie to a tee, bursting with enough bright colors to fill up a Lisa Frank coloring book. It's also another indicator that Gunn (following the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy and The Suicide Squad) has a gift for satisfying crowdpleaser blockbusters. "It just comes natural," as a wise George Strait once crooned.

Beginning in media res, Gunn's Superman picks up three years into Superman/Clark Kent's (David Corenswet) stint as a Metropolis crime-fighter. The kind-hearted Kryptonian is in hot water with certain souls after stepping into a foreign conflict. Specifically, he stopped Boravian (DC's equivalent to Russia or Israel) soldiers from invading the neighboring country of Jarhanpur (DC's equivalent to Ukraine or Palestine). 

Even while mired in controversy, Superman's opening scene shows that this friendly alien isn't stopping his quest to protect the innocent. When he isn't fighting robots or monsters, Superman takes on the alias of mild-mannered Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent. Also working at this institution are intrepid reporter Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) and dynamic journalist/Kent's love interest Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan).

Superman's juggling of these two halves of his identity becomes even more challenging thanks to Lex Luthor's (Nicholas Hoult) wicked machinations. This billionaire's seething hatred for this Kryptonian inspires a complicated evil plan that involves infiltrating Superman's Fortress of Solitude and getting the public to turn even more hostile towards the symbol of truth, justice, and DC Comics merchandise. "Who am I?" is the question Superman grapples with as Luthor's cruelty ramps up and threatens even more innocent lives. Also factoring into the proceedings are Justice Gang superheroes Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), Kendra Saunders/Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Guy Gardner/Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), as well Luthor's nefarious helpers like The Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría).

Call Superman a key line from Smash Mouth's All-Star because this thing "hits the ground running." Picking up right as Superman is in the middle of a battle with a mechanical adversary, this superhero film wisely eschews origin stories for its principal heroes and villains. Why build up the entire movie to Luthor's head finally getting shaved? Much like the animated Spider-Verse movies, Superman recognizes that its oversized, colorful characters are pretty self-explanatory. Nathan Fillion's immediate jerky swagger as Guy Gardner, for instance, says more about this character's interiority than any 100-minute origin story ever could. Why not, then, just hop right into the fun stuff instead of dragging everyone's feet through yards of lore?

The drawback to this plot approach, though, is that the more grounded human character in Gunn's Superman script often struggles to get heard. Big costumed crime-fighters and expository dialogue about "pocket dimensions" and Luthor's wicked plans are the storytelling priorities. Players like the Daily Planet crew, meanwhile, vanish for long stretches of screentime. Granted, I'm biased in craving more of Mikela Hoover's adorably-realized Cat Grant. Still, a third act where these journalists are immensely disconnected from the action encapsulates how Superman's crowded script can't give everyone the room they need. Even Lois Lane sometimes feels like an afterthought in these spectacle-driven proceedings.

Luckily, what Gunn's script excels at is comic book mayhem and pathos. Happily, the former element involves plenty of bright colors, including Mister Terrific's use of vivid red hues in his drones or the various complexions populating an ominous river Superman briefly gets trapped in. Much like how Gunn previously made no bones about bringing characters like Rocket Raccoon and Starro to live-action, so too do the likes of Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan) or Krypto leap to the silver screen with transfixing visual conviction. All these qualities inform a slew of fun action sequences (such as squabbling superheroes fighting a monster with everything from robots to massive oven mitts) brimming with excitement. The third act especially delivers a cornucopia of awesome crowdpleaser moments destined to send audiences everywhere (and a certain bimbo lady film critic) into fits of gleeful clapping.

In addition to just being a lot of fun to watch, Superman also demonstrates how much Gunn has grown as a screenwriter in terms of pathos. Gunn's earliest days featured a borderline nihilist streak in his non-Scooby-Doo work (an inevitable byproduct of his Troma upbringing). In 2000s The Specials, every ramshackle superhero had seething contempt for each other while the "normal" people were mostly idiots. 2006's Slither, meanwhile, saw Gunn viewing rural America as being full of "yokels" whose only value was in getting monstrously transformed by slug aliens.

Since then, Gunn has used his superheroes to grow as a writer and exhibit a more nuanced approach to the human race. The guy who previously used his characters as just punching bags for sometimes amusing dark comedy now crafts films where King Shark longingly gazes out at the "ordinary people" he wishes he could be. Much like with the most heightened Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad moments, Superman exhibits tremendous affection for its silliest concepts and characters.  Some comic book movies make "yellow spandex" jokes about their source material's most outlandish qualities. Superman continues the welcome James Gunn trend of not just embracing comic book silliness, but uncovering the rich pathos within conceptually ludicrous material. 

Laser vision and ice breath are not Superman's greatest superpowers. Instead, it's those quiet, affecting moments (devoid of any self-conscious, intrusive quips) that are this feature's greatest strength. "You see everyone as...beautiful," Lois Lane tells Superman at one point. Gunn's script also sees beauty in everyone who inhabits this world. From everyday Kansas residents like Ma (Neva Howell) and Pa Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vance) to folks selling falafel on the street to robots with no consciousness to Lex Luthor's girlfriend Eve Teschmacher (Sara Sampaio). 

Modern misguided attempts at "old-school" comic book movies like Wonder Woman 1984 failed partially because they didn't seem to love their characters. Superman, meanwhile, wants to give even its most fleeting inhabitants a hug. Gunn's camera lovingly lingers on the little bits of life in this universe, like Krypto playing with cows or ordinary citizens looking out for one another when disasters strike Metropolis. Best of all, there's an outstanding sequence where Pa Kent comforts a dejected Clark with words of wisdom like "parents aren't good at letting their kids discover themselves...we give them the tools to make fools of themselves." Who knew the man behind the sometimes wearily edgelord dialogue of The Specials would one day write such intimate poignant dialogue.

That's another great virtue of this latest reimagining of Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster's lastingly influential creation. Every cast member gets to leave a positive impression, a happy byproduct of Superman's default heightened acting style. That includes David Corenswet, an extraordinary discovery as the film's main superhero. There's nary even a hint of irony in his delivery of Superman lines like "dang it!" or "what they hey, dude?" He just feels like he walked right out of a classic Superman comic (or All-Star Superman, the more modern publication that heavily influenced this 2025 film). 

Corenswet also had dynamite chemistry with Rachel Brosnahan, whose spunky Lois Lane is an endless delight. Nicholas Hoult, meanwhile, is a deliciously wicked treat as Lex Luthor. Hoult's performance absolutely radiates ceaseless malice just in his insufferable facial expressions. It's a delightful turn, especially following up his wildly varied (yet consistently impressive) work in late 2024 features like The Order and Nosferatu.

Among supporting players, Gathegi is the MVP as Mister Terrific, particularly in how he's able to maintain a consistent stoic expression while demonstrating outstanding comic timing. Gisonodo is also a hoot, I'm so glad Gunn's screenplay features a mid-movie digression where his Jimmy Olsen basically goes on his own mini-adventure. Superman's great discovery, though, is Sara Sampaio channeling big Chrissy Chlapecka energy as Eve Teschmacher. Right from this movie's first post-title card scene, Sampaio's physicality portraying Teschmacher snapping selfies had me rolling. There's also such love in Sampai's performance, though, that makes the character extra transfixing. This performer isn't realizing Lex Luthor's girlfriend as a caricature but with real affection and humanity (all while scoring big laughs).

Superman's flaws (like certain sets or colors not looking as sharp as they could've been if captured on film) are unmistakable, particularly when it comes to an exceedingly crowded plot. However, it's hard to care that much when the feature nails the poignancy, performances, and fun with so much flair. Channeling Spy Kids vibes turn out to be a good look for Superman, especially since it means James Gunn unabashedly embraces sentimentality and heightened spectacle. With such confidence, no wonder Superman produces so much showmanship and excitement.

It took Hollywood 44 years, but this superhero finally got another sublime movie. If you're looking for an energetic summer blockbuster that'll make you cheer, well, to paraphrase a pair of tunes from the 1966 Broadway musical It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman*, Superman has  "got what [you] need" since it's "super nice".


* = Hey, I actually saw this show during its summer 2010 Dallas Theater Center run. I had no idea it was at the time "reviled" and odd to do a revival of the show. 14-year-old Lisa Laman just assumed, since Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark was in the news at the time, that every comic book superhero eventually got a Broadway musical. I also remember being very confused why Superman was facing off against generic scientists and bank robber baddies instead of contending with Lex Luthor or Brainiac.


Thursday, January 23, 2025

Lisa Laman's 97th Academy Awards Nominations Thoughts OR How Do We Challenge Living in Hell?

In the middle of the Conan/Leno Tonight Show fiasco of early 2010, David Letterman had to weigh in. After all, he and Leno had a similar skirmish almost 20 years prior. According to Letterman, "every day I have people come up to me and ask me about this Tonight Show thing." Initially, Letterman planned to stay out of the whole debacle. "I don't have a dog in this fight...Lord knows I've got my own problems," Letterman remarked before taking a pause. Then a wicked grin flashes on his face before he says a few little words: "But I just can't help myself."

Similarly, I really shouldn't even talk about the egregious oversights in this year's Academy Awards nominations. I was talking about award season's hideous exclusion of movies from marginalized perspectives a little over five years ago, after all, and little in the film industry informing those practices has changed. Way smarter people than me have been talking about #OscarsSoWhite for over a decade now. In a week where America's oligarchical fascism is more apparent than ever, when people prepare for ICE raids, as my fellow trans folks advocate for their rights, there are infinitely more important things to do than talk about what did and didn't get Oscar nominations.

But call me Letterman folks, because, well, "I just can't help myself."

The nominations began with the heads of the Academy announcing that this year's Oscars would feature special tributes to first responders, Los Angeles, and the film industry in response to the devastating wildfires. Then, Bowen Yang and Rachell Sennott showed up to announce the nominations proper. Right away, things got off to a horrible start with Clarence Maclin in Sing Sing getting snubbed for Jeremy Strong in The Apprentice. A Different Man getting a Best Makeup and Hairstyling nomination shortly after was cool, but Challengers getting no Best Original Score is insane!!! What the fuck, guys?

Really, the first half of the Oscar nominations were a travesty, a weird reflection of an excellent recent Los Angeles Times piece called "How Hollywood Lost The Culture War." Films about working-class people from around the world (like Hard Truths or All We Imagine as Light) got excluded from Best Original Screenplay, while Emilia Perez (about rich people), A Complete Unknown (about famous musicians), and September 5 (about people occupying a sector of the entertainment industry*) got in. Of course Hollywood lost the culture war if it's lavishing praise on films so out of step with ordinary life. The Seed of the Sacred Fig, I'm Still Here, Hard Truths, All We Imagine as Light, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, these films got excluded. Thank God Nickel Boys, Sing Sing, and Anora got into screenplay at least.

Best Documentary Feature nominations I didn't have a problem with, though I have to catch up on Porcelain War. The other four nominees rock, though. Disappointed Kneecap got shut out from Best International Feature and Best Original Song (yay more working-class people got excluded), but at least Sacred Fig and I'm Still Here got in. As the nominations went on, though, it was so frustrating how the same movies just kept getting nominated constantly over and over again. Emilia Perez in Best Sound?? What?? Over titles like Nickel Boys, which made the sound of a marble falling down the stairs incredibly idiosyncratic???

Alien: Romulus and its terrible visual effects (remember that Ian Holm deep-fake) getting into Best Visual Effects is hysterical but yay for Better Man! You will always be famous CG monkey Robbie Williams. Had to laugh at Maria suddenly reviving from the award season grave for Best Cinematography. They just love Pablo Larrain movies in this category! Handing Perez and Maria Best Cinematography nominations over Nickel Boys, though, is an egregious crime worthy of being charged at The Hague. Guys, what the hell? That movie's first-person POV camerawork is integral to the film and groundbreaking in the history of cinema.

Heartbreakingly, All We Imagine as Light got snubbed from the ceremony entirely, another frustrating demonstration of the Oscars excluding cinema from India (remember when RRR, 2022's cultural phenomenon, only got one Oscar nod two years ago?) Light filmmaker Kapadia and Sacred Fig director Mohammad Rasoulof getting snubbed in Best Director in favor of James Mangold for A Complete Unknown and Jacques Audiard for Emilia Perez is so staggeringly miscalculated I can't even comprehend it. Rasoulof had to shoot several Sacred Fig sequences away from his actors in a car just so he could evade getting caught by the authorities, yet he still delivered a pulse-pounding thriller I still can't get out of my brain. If only he'd remembered to fill the movie with musicians Western baby boomers recognize or had a "PENIS TO VAGINA" song.

Ten years ago (God, time goes by too fast), I remember reading an "anonymous" Oscar voter's thoughts on that year's nominations films in The Hollywood Reporter. This person found it impossible to sympathize or grapple the life of Patricia Arquette in Boyhood because she was a working-class ordinary woman in Texas who didn't always do the right thing. Moral complexity, especially in women, confounded this woman. I was thinking of that this morning when Marianne Jean-Baptise's unforgettably captivating Hard Truths work got snubbed in Best Actress. 11 of this year's 20 acting nominees were playing either pre-existing characters (either historical figures or Wizard of Oz figures) and/or people in period pieces. A distinctly original modern-day role like Jean-Baptise's (and one that *GASP* asked audiences to identify with an "unpleasant" woman) just wasn't up to the Academy's tastes this year.

Then we got to the Best Picture nominees, which were bonkers, absolutely bonkers. A Real Pain, All We Imagine as LightSeptember 5, and Sing Sing got left out of the nomination pool. Instead, the ten nominees were:

Anora
The Brutalist
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Dune: Part Two
Emilia Pérez
I’m Still Here
Nickel Boys
The Substance
Wicked

Emilia Perez brought its Oscar nominations total to a whopping 13 with a Best Picture nod. Per this Collider piece, that makes it only the 15th movie in history to get 13 or more Oscar nominations. Fun fact: that's four more nominations than the country of Mexico has ever received in the Best International Feature category. Meanwhile, Nickel Boys joined a rare category of films this morning. It's now among the few post-2008 (when the Best Picture category ballooned past five nominees) films to score only one Oscar nomination outside Best Picture. The Blind Side, A Serious Man, Selma, Past Lives, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, and The Post are the only other examples of this phenomenon (that I can find right now) post-2008.

I'm Still Here, meanwhile, is only the second post-2008 foreign language Best Picture nominee financed and produced out of the U.S. (following All Quiet on the Western Front) to get a Best Picture nod but not a Best Director nomination. That's an interesting reversal of the long-standing norm (dating back to the 60s!) where the Academy nominates acclaimed foreign films for Best Director but not Best Picture. Post-2008, two examples of this trend are Cold War and Another Round.

The genuinely exciting sight of Nickel Boys and I'm Still Here making it to Best Picture diluted some of the sting of this ceremony, which was otherwise business as usual for the Academy in the worst ways possible. Two of my three favorite movies of last year (Nickel Boys and Anora) made it into Best Picture and it's surreal a movie with a climax reminiscent of Meet the Feebles like The Substance got into Best Picture. Recent studies have shown that Hollywood has made minimal progress in creating opportunities for marginalized artists over the last 16 years. Ten years since the #OscarsSoWhite campaign began, it also feels like barely anything has changed. Only four of the 20 acting nominees were actors of color. Across ten screenplay nominees, only three had women screenwriters. No women-directed films appeared in Best International Feature Film while women of color continue to get excluded from Best Director. 

Emilia Perez, meanwhile, got 13 Oscar nominations while a slew of films from trans directors in 2024 went unrecognized. This happened a year after D. Smith's masterful Kokomo City didn't even make the SHORTLIST for Best Documentary Feature at the 96th Academy Awards. A little over five years ago, Honey Boy helmer Alma Har'el said it best when the Golden Globes excluded women filmmakers:

 "They’re immersed in this perpetuated activity of basking in male excellence and overseeing this whole new world we’re trying to build with new voices of women and people of color being part of the conversation...they don’t pay attention to new voices or value them in the same way they value men they are familiar with...our perspectives are the future of cinema. Do not make politically and financially driven award shows be the endgame of your career. Stop looking for justice at award shows. Connect with audiences. Build communities. Take your power back.”

The Oscars have failed us and will continue to fail us as long as they're tied to the troubled film industry and capitalism. It's totally okay to feel crushed about that given how much influence this ceremony has on what gets released and financed globally. However, Har'el said it best, we must not look to the Oscars "for justice." A genuine congratulations to Karla Sofia Gascon for making history as the first openly trans-acting Oscar nominee, ditto the modern classics like Anora, Nickel Boys, and I'm Still Here that will represent genuinely challenging and sublime cinema at the Oscars. Also, I just had a good time watching Wicked, so I'm glad it was "popular" enough to score some love.

Right now, though, allow me to shout "THIS IS BULLSHIT" put positivity into the world and spotlight some trans-centric films that are actually interested in trans existence (only three of them are helmed by cis-filmmakers). Because these films don't cater to white cis-het sensibilities, they've been overlooked by the Oscars, so now you can discover them as amazing cinematic gems. Let's go spread and champion art that actually reflects the world and cinema's limitless possibilities.

The films I'm spotlighting today are:

Cowboys

Drunktown's Finest

Lingua Franca

Stress Positions

Tangerine

The People's Joker 

I Saw the TV Glow

So Long Suburbia

Joyland

By Hook or By Crook

Kokomo City

Two quick notes:

Rachel Sennott and Bowen Yang did make me laugh constantly while announcing the nominations, they were so clearly running on caffeine and jitters and it was so endearing. Sennott's "Alt-comedy is like the comedy scene except for gay men and women" line was perfect, what an icon. 

* = No, not everyone in Hollywood is a rich person living in a mansion, obviously. 99% of the people making a living in Los Angeles are working-class people. However, the Oscars have a history of preferring films related to the entertainment industry in any way over folks from other walks of life.


Tuesday, November 26, 2024

What Am I Thankful For in the World of Movies in 2024?

2024 has been a difficult year. Nobody would disagree with that. As we stare down the barrel of another year finished, it's hard to scream with joy over the last 12 months. Yet, if you're reading this, then like me, you've made it. And that's worth celebrating. We've all gotten through an incredibly arduous year and we should relish that. We're all here for each other and, while that's not enough to erase the pain of the modern world, it doesn't hurt either. As a movie geek, I'm also incredibly thankful for how cinema has once again been a balm for the soul in another challenging year.

Since it's Thanksgiving week, how about we do eschew a typical review and look at things from 2024's world of cinema that we should all be grateful for? I think Film Critic Hulk used to do Thanksgiving-oriented "giving thanks" pop culture pieces for Birth Movies Death back in the day. Hopefully you'll enjoy reading my 2024 cinematic "thankfulness" as much as I enjoyed reading his words.

What am I thankful for in movies in 2024? Let's begin with...

THE TEXAS THEATER

The Texas Theater is an absolute gift of a cinematic exhibition space. I don't think there's a better theater in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in terms of the picture quality they provide. Even digitally projected features just look so darn crisp through whatever projection technology they use here. Getting to attend the Dallas International Film Festival at this location (among other nearby exhibition spaces) was a joy, ditto seeing titles like The People's Joker in this domain. They also added a video rental store into the Texas Theatre that's such a hoot to walk through, I especially love all the old posters and standees populating the floor space. They make every inch of space in that Dallas landmark (don't forget they recently added an upstairs screening room!) and it's a joy to witness that ingenuity.

Oh, and I got to know some of the folks connected to the Texas Theatre and its programming thanks to me doing interviews for Dallas Observer and IndieWire pieces. That was also a joy, they're such amazing people!

QUEER-FRIENDLY POETRY READING

Deviating from film for one entry, I do want to shout out The Wild Detectives, a bookstore in Bishop Arts that hosted a live poetry reading event on November 13, 2024. Caroline Earleywine was in attendance and gosh, what a wonderful writer! She's a great public speaker and her words really helped me unlock emotions I didn't feel like I had the space to truly explore in the previous eight days. After she read a slew of amazing poems from her various poem collections, local poets (many of them queer!) got up to read striking collections of words (several of which were written by the readers themselves!) that truly touched my soul. It was a glorious space to be in, especially so soon after the presidential election. Here was a little isolated pocket from the rest of the world where we had each other's backs. That's the power of communal art experiences!

MOVIES THAT DIDN'T PLAY BY THE RULES

Thank God for Hundreds of Beavers, Anora, The People's Joker, Nickel Boys, and other exceptional 2024 movies that dared to subvert various cinematic hallmarks. Whether it was what angles cameras are supposed to capture movies through, the kinds of people motion pictures focus on, or even the idea that modern films need to rely on dialogue, these movies followed their own artistic spirits, not conventional norms. We need that kind of art now more than ever!

BIG DANCE SEQUENCES

Watching Wicked and Better Man within a few days of each other reminded me that I just love big song-and-dance numbers in movies! That's why titles like Singin' in the Rain or The Music Man were some of my favorite movies growing up, I love when people are doing incredible dance choreography in addition to belting out amazing tunes. So many modern movie musicals eschew dancing in favor of just focusing on the singing. Not Wicked and Better Man! Thanks to these titles for reminding me of one of my favorite cinematic sights and providing the kind of grand spectacle I once worried would never come back to movie theaters after COVID-19 shut down multiplexes. I can't wait for people to discover the bouncy and visually audacious "Rock DJ" in Better Man, it's such a treat.

TRANS CINEMA IS NOT DEAD, IT'S SURELY ALIVE

Thank you to trans directors like Vera Drew, Theda Hammel, and Jane Schoenbrun for continuing to make new exciting movies in 2024, a year where politicians based entire campaigns around dehumanizing trans folks. Corporations like Disney have responded to these political developments by, naturally, removing trans-centric episodes of children's television from circulation. Like D. Smith's incredible Kokomo City from last year, Drew, Hammel and Schoenbrun gave a big middle finger to America's default tendency towards trans erasure in exciting ways. 

BONDING WITH OTHERS THROUGH MOVIES

I love how often movies bring me closer to other people. When I'm waiting in line for a motion picture screening at a film festival, I can chat and make friends with people also patiently yearning for our show to start. Showing my friends Hundreds of Beavers and Mad Max: Fury Road, meanwhile, was an amazing experience, it was so unspeakably thrilling to see them get immersed in these movies I know like the back of my hand. Motion pictures are a rich artform on their own merits. However, I especially adore the way they can turn strangers into friends and strengthen bonds between people. That's been the impetus behind art since its creation. It was always such a privilege to bear witness to and participate in that phenomenon this year.

I'm grateful for movies. I'm grateful for friends. I'm grateful that none of us are alone in this wild world. I'm grateful for YOU, dear reader. Enjoy your Thanksgiving week, gobble up lots of rolls for me, and hey, maybe check out your local independent theater if you have time. You never know what kind of magic the silver screen will provide.


Monday, November 11, 2024

Good One/The Grand Budapest Hotel Reviews

Writer/director India Donaldson makes a quiet but impactful feature-length directorial debut with Good One. This 2024 Sundance and Cannes darling dares to take a sympathetic gaze towards a type of person cinema usually villainizes....teenage girls. This demographic is usually rendered on-screen with mockery not humanity. In Good One, though, Sam (Lily Collias) is the story's anchor. Her perspective, constant use of a cell phone, and dubious attitude toward adult men around her are treated with empathy. Her point-of-view is explored in a story concerning Sam going on a multi-day hike with her father Chris (James Le Gros) and his long-time best friend Matt (Danny McCarthy). 

These two are always sniping at each other while Chris never seems to be satisfied with his daughter.  The tension between the trio is realized in a nicely subdued fashion, with Donaldson often eschewing a score or grandiose editing flourishes in the most uncomfortable moments between these people. Awkward gritty reality is enough to instill unease in one's stomach. There is, however, a beautiful score from composer Celia Hollander underpinning exterior shots in Good One making use of very classical instruments like a harp or flute. These tracks sound like they could've easily been ripped from a 1960s movie, they're so soothing and gentle. 

These melodies represent a larger soothing world that Chris and Matt keep intruding on with their nonsense. Within just 89 minutes, Donaldson got me totally invested in Sam's plight, a feat that also comes down to the terrific work from Lily Collias. With her aloof line deliveries and suppressed exterior, Sam is a realistic portrait of many teenage girls. She's also (conceptually) a tough character for an actor to get a hold on. Going too big with Sam would undercut this figure tremendously. Collias maintains a subdued composure that's just as authentic as it is engaging. There's still such pain or irritation peeking out from the corners of her physicality. With this absorbing performance, it's no wonder Good One gets such remarkable cinema out of the kind of person most movies ignore outright.

Saturday, November 2, 2024

Music by John Williams/ I Like Movies Reviews

2024 has seen the unveiling of many very distinctive documentaries (Black Box Diaries, Union, Daughters, Seeking Mavis Beacon, Sugarcane). Recently debuting on Disney+ courtesy of Lucasfilm, Music by John Williams is, in contrast, a very standard modern celebrity documentary. It's the kind of glossy biopic about a famous rich person who currently dominates the streaming marketplace. Everything's very tidy, nothing too scandalous or form-breaking hits the screen. In this case, director Laurent Bouzereau brings viewers down a largely chronological look at the most iconic scores Williams ever composed. Along the way, there are non-linear digressions into more personal matters tied to Williams, such as his childhood, relationship with his oldest daughter, and symphony conductor exploits,. and more.

One strange shortcoming of Music by John Williams is the disappointing lack of other major film composers interviewed in the inevitable talking-head segments. Thomas Newman and Alan Silvestri (the only two composers who've ever created scores for Spielberg movies) are the only other major film composers interviewed here. Where are the figures who can really shed light on how Williams impacted their craft? Surely Michael Giacchino, Tamar-kali, James Newton Howard, and others have thoughts on Williams. Also, the lack of non-male interview subjects is tremendously disappointing. You can call me nuts, but I'd imagine Hildur Guðnadóttir. Natalie Holt, and Kathryn Bostic might have more to say on the world of film composers than Seth MacFarlane or Chris Martin!

Those complaints (as well as the production's rigid adherence to a standard structure) aside, Music by John Williams is a genuinely pleasant experience. It helps that so much of the screentime is dedicated to the warm rapport shared between Steven Spielberg and Williams. The two have such an immediate warm affection for each other carved over 50 years of creative collaborations. It's so much fun to witness them bounce off one another. Meanwhile, hearing Williams just talk about his approach to various film scores really is transfixing. It's just fascinating to hear the level of thought he put into scores that are now part of the global musical lexicon. 

All those iconic melodies started out as notes on a sheet of paper. Letting Williams describe what inspired that process is the greatest attribute of music by John Williams. It also doesn't hurt that the film has an infectiously exciting interview with the always endearing Ke Huy Quan. How can you go wrong with him? Music by John Williams is unfortunately too derivative of the endless wave of celebrity documentaries crowding the media landscape, but it contains charms for film geeks like yours truly. Anything that gets me remembering how excellent Catch Me If You Can's score is can't be half-bad.

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Major props to writer/director Chandler Levack for committing to a deeply unlikeable character like I Like Movies protagonist Lawrence (Isaiah Lehtinen) for her first-ever feature-length movie. This is a tricky character to nail down and diving into the deep end with Lawrence shows creative chutzpah on her part. Lawrence, for the record, is a High School senior in the early 2000s obsessed with movies, himself, and getting into New York University. He's impossible to get along with, but he does have some inspired ideas for improving things at his new job at the local Sequels video store. Here, he bonds with manager Alan (Romina D'Ugo) while growing more distant from his previously tight-knit pal Matt Macarchuck (Percy Hynes White).

Levack does end up biting off a mite more than she can chew with her screenplay's protagonist. I Like Movies has a very realistic rendering of a self-absorbed film geek teenager and the unflinching nature of that is admirable. Certainly, as a lifelong film geek who saw Before Midnight in theaters as a 17-year-old, I was more like Lawrence at his age than I'd care to admit! Still, the more traditional narrative path of the third act doesn't quite fit with the rest of I Like Movies. Lawrence is such a specific, atonal character. Sending him down a standard storytelling route in the feature's home stretch feels disappointing. Compare this to Owen Kiline's Funny Pages, which also followed a deeply unlikeable teenage male artist but refused to follow tidy or cathartic narrative conventions.

For the most part, though, I Like Movies is a charming chronicle of Canadian teenage life in the early 2000s. The deeply lived-in performances are especially terrific, with D'Ugo standing out the most as the fascinatingly messy and raw Alana. Levack, meanwhile, demonstrates a solid grasp of visually executing awkward humor with her blocking and use of the film's claustrophobic aspect ratio. The messiest parts of I Like Movies also effectively tap into the ceaseless intertwining pain of growing up and existence. Life is so full of tears, uncomfortable encounters, and dashed expectations. Thank God we have movies to soften the blow.



Sunday, October 27, 2024

It's What's Inside/The Young Woman and the Sea Review

 The worst people you know just found a body-swap device. Specifically, the cocky financially well-off people assembling for Reuben's (Devon Terrell) pre-wedding party have stumbled onto such a device. This crew includes more likeable protagonist Shelby (Brittany O'Grady), her jerk boyfriend Cyris (James Morosini), and Forbes (David W. Thompson), the latter of whom has brought this revolutionary machinery to the party. This shindig soon orients around everyone switching into different people’s bodies and trying to figure out who has stumbled into whose fleshy coil.

Of course, this being a horror movie, It’s What’s Inside is full of twists, turns, and unpredictable chaos. Writer/director Greg Jardin (making his feature film directorial debut after helming various shorts and music videos) leans into the loopy with this premise. Inside is full of rapid-fire editing that would make Edgar Wright proud and super colorful streaks of light fill up Reuben’s domicile. It’s a visually maximalist enterprise full of alternatively vengeful, horny, and manic energy. That doesn’t make for a fully cohesive motion picture. However, those ingredients do make It’s What’s Inside reasonably fun to watch while it unfolds, kind of like 2019’s Netflix horror film The Perfection.

Once it’s finished, It's What's Inside’s more generic impulses begin to weigh more on the brain, ditto its penchant for eye-roll-worthy “edgy” dialogue. Still, there's some enjoyable thrills here, especially for a nice Halloween-themed viewing. The best part of the proceedings is watching these actors play so many different personalities in just 103 minutes! David W. Thompson especially excels in contorting his facial expressions to immediately create a whole new person. O'Grady also does strong work immediately establishing a firm, discernible personality to protagonist Shelby in It's What's Inside's opening scenes that’s extremely fun to see other actors mimic. Maybe there is some upside to the worst people finding a body-swap device after all…

 

Hollywood couldn’t quite make Mark Hamill and Hayden Christensen work as live-action leading men. That’s no reflection on the talents of the two men, considering Hamill is an iconic voice-over artist and Christensen crushed it in 2003’s Shattered Glass. However, they would freely admit themselves that they never became Leonardo DiCaprio or Denzel Washington-level movie stars after headlining multiple Star Wars movies. Perhaps Hollywood assumed the same thing would inevitably befall Daisy Ridley after she played Rey in the sequel trilogy. However, Young Woman and the Sea is a great reminder that, holy cow, she’s so talented as a leading lady.

In another era, Ridley could’ve easily become a silent movie icon. Like Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, or Janet Gaynor, Ridley has immediately transfixing facial expressions that get you engaged with her characters. Much like with classic F.W. Murnau protagonists or silent cinema leads, one look at Ridley and you instantly sympathize with whatever fictional role she’s playing. It’s a great gift that Hollywood desperately needs to utilize more. At least Young Woman and the Sea nicely plays on this gift for a solid inspirational sports drama. Here, Ridley plays real-life icon Gertrude Ederle, a woman swimmer in the 1920s determined to beat the misogynistic odds and swim the English Channel.

Nothing in Young Woman and the Sea is very surprising, but it’s also a deeply pleasant affair buoyed by sincerity. Director Joachim Rønning doesn't suffocate the proceedings in snark, but rather embraces making a feel-good sports movie like Cool Runnings for a new generation. The bond between Trudy and her sister Meg (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) is also nicely-realized, their chummiest moments of laughing by the fireplace or working to make a new swimsuit are just so sweet. Shout out too to composer Amelia Warner, in one of her first feature film scoring assignments (following 2020's bananas bonkers Wild Mountain Thyme). She delivers some truly rousing compositions that often effectively evoke James Newton Howard's epic Dinosaur tracks. The sheer magnitude of these swimming shenanigans are nicely communicated through her orchestral works.

Then, of course, there’s Daisy Ridley, doing superbly engaging work in the lead role. Even when Young Woman and the Sea gets bogged down in predictable plot beats or an overuse of sickening light blue color grading, Ridley remains captivating. She’s what really makes Young Woman and the Sea worth a watch for sports movie fans.

 

 

Do you like Lisa Laman’s reviews? Check out more examples of her professionally published work on her portfolio site and don’t forget, she’s a freelance writer that is available to write for YOUR website! Just reach out to her at her portfolio at the link above! 

Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Underrated Summer 2024 Movies You Need to See

Well, summer 2024 has come to a close. Another season of moviegoing has closed out, this time defined by the return of emotions, a foul-mouthed merc, and Nicolas Cage singing in the snow. With this season firmly in the rearview, it's clear what the biggest movies of the summer were. But what about the underrated titles of summer 2024? This is, after all, not just a season dominated by a handful of features making $1+ billion with ease. There are also smaller arthouse titles or even blockbusters worthy of your time and attention. Before the award season landscape swallows us all up whole, let's take a look back at the most underrated summer 2024 movies that you still need to see, along with information on where you can watch them now (either in streaming, premium-video-on-demand retailers, or theaters).

Here's to the rest of the year and watching movies on the big screen!

Furiosa: A Mad Max Story

George Miller returned to the Wasteland for Furiosa: A Mad Max Story and this genius filmmaker didn't just do a standard Hollywood origin story for Fury Road's big breakout character. Instead, he made a grand epic about what it takes to survive the unspeakable. Often heartbreakingly intimate, Furiosa had grand imagery to spare and a dazzling dedication to subverting expectations. This was no Fury Road retread, which is the greatest thing you could say about a prequel.

Available on Max

Ghostlight

Tears will be shed when you sit down to watch Ghostlight, which starts on an undeniably wobbly note with too ambiguous character motivations and potentially overly arch performances. As the film finds its groove, though, it becomes a deeply moving exploration of using art to cope with pain. 

Now streaming on AMC+

Kill

Some of the very best action sequences of 2024 thus far were confined to a train in this excellent feature. Kill had executed slaughters with aplomb while its filmmaking demonstrated real craftiness in wringing visual versatility out of limited spacing (everything in this movie takes place on a handful of train cars). 

Available on PVOD

Dandelion

KiKi Layne is a movie star and deserves more lead roles. The quietly touching country music yarn Dandelion nicely reflects her many gifts as a performer and reveals she's also got a great voice. Combine all that with soothing autumn-tinged backdrops and Dandelion's a deeply enjoyable watch.

Available on PVOD

Kneecap

The music biopic has a new gold standard in quality. Kneecap chronicles the exploits of an Irish rap group (all three members play themselves here) in a movie bursting with anarchy and rebellion. There's so much energy wafting off the screen, it's impossible not to get caught up in the chaos. Also, there are lots of great toe-tapping tunes in this one you won't get out of your head.

Now playing in theaters

Strange Darling

Rarely have I felt so disconnected from Letterboxd users than seeing folks mocking Strange Darling's opening text declaring that it was shot entirely on 35mm. For me, that's a fantastic way to kick off a motion picture rendered with such gorgeous photography and delightfully transfixing non-linear storytelling. Come for the 35mm camerawork, stay for Willa Fitzgerald's mesmerizing leading lady turn.

Now playing in theaters

Sing Sing

One of the best movies of the year (not just summer 2024), Sing Sing is all about restoring humanity to people often denied basic decency. Anchored by an outstanding Colman Domingo performance and turns from real-life former Sing Sing inmates, Sing Sing is an emotionally mesmerizing work. In a season of expansive explosions and massive fight scenes, the most captivating sequences in summer 2024 cinema were Sing Sing's quiet depictions of human beings just talking and trying to connect with one another.

Now playing in theaters




Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Alien: Romulus starts strong but loses its guts along the way

Oh, what a crushing experience it is to watch a movie lose itself. When features start with so much potential before concluding on such a middling note, it's heartbreaking. So many cinematic promises left unfulfilled! "We were on the verge of greatness, we were this close!" as one Orson Krennic once declared. Alien: Romulus is an unfortunately egregious case of this phenomenon in gooey action. An enthralling and thematically compelling first act gives way to a standard modern sequel chock full of fan service. Good news for us Alien fans though: much like Rick Blaine will always have Paris, we'll always have those impressive early Romulus sequences.

Romulus begins on a Weyland-Yutani mining planet where the sun never shines. Ash fills the air, despair is everywhere, and protagonist Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) is desperate to leave. Just as she thinks she's secured enough work hours to leave this place, she gets a devastating shock. The Weyland-Yutani corporation has increased the workload she needs to reach before she can exit the planet. "Weyland-Yutani thanks you for your hard work," a dry bureaucrat informs her while delivering this horrific news. She and her android/surrogate brother Andy (David Jonsson) need another way off the planet. The script by Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues (the former of whom also directs) gives them a ticket out through a scheme hatched by their friend Tyler (Archie Renaux). He and some other young denizens of the planet are going to sneak aboard a ship that's just hovering in the planet's atmosphere. Once they get onboard, they can go wherever they like.

The most inspired touch in Romulus is how it extends the franchise's contempt for corporations. After all, all the mayhem of the first Alien occured thanks to the Weyland-Yutani corporation ordering android Ash (Ian Holm) to retrieve the Xenomorph without caring what happened to the human employees. Corporate greed and a disdain for working-class lives have always informed this franchise's horrors. Here in Romulus, inaccessibility to upward economic mobility inspires a risky mission to an abandoned ship. Desperation is the underlying motivator of every on-screen action.

Meanwhile, the disdain most human characters wield for android Andy intriguingly reflects how the working class often creates proletariat hierarchies rather than unite as one. In the face of capitalism's horrors, too often everyday workers seek out other ordinary souls they can feel superior to. If one can't take down the big bosses actually making their lives miserable, they can create another social hierarchy that puts them "on top". This informs toxic perceptions that "immigrants" or "trans people" are really at fault for woes rooted in matters like unequal wealth distribution. That's a fascinating idea to translate into a sci-fi setting and especially into an Alien movie. These humans can't stop using Andy as a tool to give themselves brief bursts of "power" in a world they have no hope of controlling. Moments of humans othering Andy instead of embracing him echo the Alien saga's ethos while also delivering something discernibly new to its thematic tapestry. 

Alien: Romulus also looks incredible under Alvarez's direction and cinematography from Galo Olivares. Though the proceedings sometimes lean too heavily on darkness (even for a movie set on a planet with no sunshine!), there's a tactility to their images that's incredibly welcome. That element is undoubtedly aided by solid production design work ensuring Romulus occupies a world of grimy tangibility, not green-screen artifice. What light does enter the screen emerges in such an interestingly precise way while an emphasis on wide shots allows moviegoers plenty of opportunities to soak in grand images. Alien: Romulus looks incredibly crisp...which makes it such a shame when the script starts going off the rails.

Without delving into spoilery specifics, a mid-movie plot turn connected to the original Alien suddenly thrusts Alien: Romulus into the dreaded territory of a modern blockbuster sequel too overly concerned with franchise mythos. From there, distinctive character personalities vanish in favor of action beats, expository dialogue, and entire lines of dialogue either echoing or outright repeating earlier Alien installments. Alien: Romulus starts off with a bang because of a willingness to differentiate itself from its predecessors. Elements like younger protaganists or emphasizing capitalistic hierarchies suggest this Alvarez feature will be more than just Aliens redux. Alas, that potential slowly deflates away as Romulus becomes most interested in reminding viewers of the past.

It doesn't help matters that the bigger frightening set pieces are hit-or-miss, though there are some undeniably creative high points. A terrific sequence chronicling our leads trying to walk through a room crawling with Facehuggers is dreadfully suspenseful. Alvarez channels lots of energy from his 2016 feature Don't Breathe for this scene and that influence works quite nicely. Emphasizing excellent practical effects work for the Xenomorphs also lends these creatures a discernible ominous presence. There's such believable weight and texture to these beasties, they're truly an impressive feat from the visual effects crew. Other times, though, not even cool practical effects can compensate for the script's generic jump-scares. Too many of the scares in Romulus are serviceable, but nowhere near nightmare-inducing.

Alien: Romulus is an endlessly frustrating movie. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in its overall clumsy social commentary. Conceptually, this feature is all about the dangers of putting corporations first. Key Romulus aspects like that suffocating mining colony planet or an antagonistic character justifying their actions by saying "it's for the good of the company" exemplify this. Yet the distracting fan service in Romulus, not to mention its dedication to not subverting too many Alien franchise norms, reeks of modern corporate blockbusters. Alien: Romulus is very much a Disney Alien movie, though not in the sense that it has princesses singing to birds or toxic right-wing interpretations of what "Disney" means this month. Instead, Romulus adheres to the modern Disney blockbuster mold (see: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the 2022 Hellraiser remake, any of the live-action animated movie remakes) of merely gesturing at loftier progressive ideas, lots of fan service, removing any traces of sex (no naked push-ups here or men kissing here), and building on the bold creativity of other artists. 

The jagged "I'll do the fingering" edges of earlier messy installments like Alien: Romulus are gone. In their place are hollow reminders of the past, including regurgitating one of the most iconic Alien franchise lines. These inescapable symbols of the larger Mouse House empire leave the Romulus political commentary hollow. It's hard to chastize corporations while also reeking of a corporate monopoly. Without that element in play, audiences are left with a rudimentary entry sci-fi horror film. Great cinematography and committed performances from actors like David Jonsson (between this and Rye Lane, Jonsson's becoming a star to always watch out for) can't erase the emptiness ultimately permeating this project. Oh well, at least the first act of Alien: Romulus is strong, even if that dynamite opening just reinforces how weak the rest of the production is.


Friday, August 2, 2024

Trap Is Shyamalan Operating In Agreeable Dark Comedy Mode

M. Night Shyamalan's first two 2020s movies were unquestionably made as direct responses to a world rattled by COVID-19. Both Old and Knock at the Cabin were grim projects following characters isolated from the rest of the world coping with the inescapable specter of death haunting families. Old especially evoked the days of COVID lockdowns with its younger characters wistfully talking about how they'll never get to experience events like prom or graduation. Meanwhile, Knock at the Cabin had its leads watching as the world unraveled through their television set, much like all of us frantically checking and rechecking COVID-19 statistics on our phones in August 2020. These were brutal thrillers channeling the apocalyptic vibes and inescapable mortality informing the earliest years of this decade.

By contrast, Shyamalan's latest feature Trap is a respite from those earlier titles. After his immersion into darker projects ruminating on how death comes for us all, Shyamalan wants to do something more enamored with dark comedy. This isn't a title about family units gradually succumbing to mortality. Instead, Trap is meant to make audiences go "ooooooh!" at big plot developments and revel in its silliness. Shyamalan's post-2022 excitement even extends to Trap's central locale of a concert. With COVID filming restrictions eased or outright eliminated, this filmmaker can finally shoot interior crowd scenes again! He doesn't have to confine his actors to a beach or cabin anymore! These qualities offer something new for 2020s Shyamalan. They also inform a movie that's entertaining more often than not.

Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett) on the surface looks like a normal dad, especially with how excited he is to take his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see pop star sensation Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan). While at the concert, though, Cooper notices a lot of police and extra security systems in place. Cooper quickly realizes that the FBI knew that local serial killer The Butcher was going to be at this concert and they've set up a trap here to catch this monster. Little does anyone realize that Cooper is actually The Butcher and he's not going down without a fight. As he tries to ensure Riley has the best day ever at Lady Raven's show, this psychopath also does everything in his power to throw the authorities off his trail. The Butcher is cornered, but he's not down and out, not by a long shot.

Shortly after Cooper discovers this movie's titular "trap", he returns to his seat with his daughter. Suddenly, right in the aisle next to them, a trap door opens and a "surprise" fictional singer appears. This entrance remains open for an inordinate amount of time, which inspires Cooper to suggest to Riley that they should head down there and explore the stadium's underground area. During every second of this exchange, I could only think to myself "there's no way they'd place that trap door there." Just creating a sudden giant void in a crowd of screaming fans with no guardrails in sight, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen! It's a totally preposterous element of Trap's universe. It's also one of those distinctively ridiculous elements only the writer/director behind "you know what gets a bad rap? Hot dogs" and the character name Mid-Sized Sedan would conjure up.

Trap's greatest ridiculous moments contain enough of those idiosyncracies to register as charming rather than lazy or irritating. Making the innate silliness of the proceedings go down easily is the darkly humorous atmosphere. Some of Shyamalan's worst movies are total dreary slogs like Lady in the Water or After Earth. Here, dashes of grim zest pop up throughout the runtime playing on Cooper being Hannibal Lecter in disguise as Ned Flanders. A sight gag involving a side character unassumingly handing this man a pair of box cutters, for instance, is quite amusing. A later set piece involving Cooper watching over a crowd of police getting a brief on The Butcher is similarly humorous.

These jokes and all of Trap work especially well thanks to Shyamalan's precise visual sensibilities. Working with cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Trap's camerawork isn't afraid to linger on a shot or engage in deeply precise blocking. After a summer of so many stagnantly framed blockbusters, it felt good to see a split-diopter on the big screen again! Especially interesting in the camerawork is how Shyamalan often just plops viewers into the POV of Cooper without any foreshadowing. It's a great abrupt trait that immediately sets you at unease. Are we being put into his eyeballs because some carnage is about to unfurl? It's a terrific subtle detail. There's also a third-act gag involving the camera swerving to the right to emphasize a piano that's so perfectly timed (shout-out also to editor Noëmi Preiswerk on that front). The 35mm images of Trap go a long way to making this such a fun cheeky outing.

Even with all these virtues and an impressively bravura Josh Hartnett lead performance at its back, Trap is still, ultimately, a messy movie in some key respects. This is a feature thriving on recurring Shyamalan traits like detailed camerawork or well-structured suspense sequences. It also, unfortunately, succumbs to recurring problems scattered throughout his filmography. Trap's final 30 minutes, for instance, ehco Old in lathering on too much exposition that answers questions the audience likely doesn't care about. Meanwhile, Shyamalan's former go-to composer James Newton Howard (the duo last worked together on After Earth) is still deeply missed. Herdís Stefánsdóttir's, reuniting with Shyamalan after Knock at the Cabin, compositions aren't bad, they just lack an extra dose of oomph. Her tracks tragically can't evade the lasting sonic legacy of Shyamalan and Howard's greatest collaborations on films like Signs and Unbreakable

Most frustratingly, this is yet another Shyamalan movie with a disabled villain. This time, Cooper is defined heavily by his OCD. Following Unbreakable, The Visit, Split, Old, and other films, Shyamalan's employment of "disabled=villain" is so predictable and that's the one thing a thriller can never afford to be. Trap is clearly imperfect, but it's also a hoot to watch unfold. Even as an Old defender, it's fun to witness Shyamalan in a better and lighter mood with his latest feature. Trap isn't exactly a chart-topper, but it's still a cinematic melody with some incredibly fun flourishes.