What cis-het white woman nonsense is the original Pitch Perfect?!?

 

Perhaps I hated Pitch Perfect because I didn't watch it in the best circumstances. This is, after all, a film designed in a lab to be experienced when you're a 12-year-old girl at a sleepover or a teenager in the theater with your best friends. A 29-year-old woman watching it alone in her apartment on a Thursday night might not be the optimal experience for consuming this Anna Kendrick star vehicle.

But let's not let Pitch Perfect off the hook. I've watched tons of silly pre-2015 movies aimed at younger viewers alone in my apartment and enjoyed them. Legally Blonde. D.E.B.S. (masterpiece!!!) The Princess Diaries. Heck, I even found outlandish joys in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and Herbie: Fully Loaded. The problem here is an aca-awful movie, not the confines in which I watched it. 

You know what separates supreme femme-centric cinema (I refuse to say the phrase "chick flick", blech) from the genre's slop? What differentiates the Legally Blonde's from the How Do You Know's? Like with musicals and horror films, it's all about conviction. You've got to commit to your outlandish premise or kooky characters. You can't chicken out on your silliest elements or suddenly transform a farce into a bunch of people delivering soliloquies about their personal arcs in the third act. 

The excellent Bottoms, for instance, concludes with a delightful mixture of grisly violence and irony-free smooching. But I'm a Cheerleader commits wholeheartedly to doing its own version of "stop the wedding!" sequence (albeit at a graduation ceremony for conversion camp attendees). 2008's Mamma Mia!, meanwhile, doesn't let slower, emotional renditions of "Slipping Through My Fingers" or "When All Is Said and Done" disrupt its drunk karaoke party groove.

Director Jason Moore and screenwriter (Kay Cannon*) exhibit no such chutzpah or fun in their Pitch Perfect creative vision. For those unaware, the film concerns withdrawn college student Beca Mitchell (Anna Kendrick) at college at the insistence of her father. Mitchell doesn't want to get close to anyone, she's just interested in getting out of here and pursuing her DJ dreams. However, she soon joins the school's a cappella group, the Barden Bellas, who are trying to shake things up this year by recruiting new talent like Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson). Bellas' leader Aubrey Posen (Anna Camp) strictly sticks to tradition and old 20th-century pop tunes for their performances. Beca, though, ends up getting an urge to shake things up big time in this domain.

I hate how everyone talks in Pitch Perfect. There's no more eloquent or artistic way to put it, this film's style of dialogue irritated me to no end. Every single character exchanges the same sarcasm-drenched verbiage. It's an entire movie of people talking like Ryan Reynolds. This doesn't just ensure that the individual Pitch Perfect characters fail to sound different from one another. It also guarantees that every inch of this feature is drenched in snark. Nobody can exhibit affection for anything (music, movies, cappella performances, etc.) without following it up with a snarky "well, that happened!" retort.

At one point, upon seeing that her fellow Bellas members waited up for her after she was arrested, Becca launches into a brief monologue about how this group could something special if it got with the times. A competent movie would've let this display of vulnerability sit on its own and simmer. Instead, Becca immediately follows that display of passion by going "oh my god, that was so queerballs."The mood of the scene has been punctured and, even worse, viewers have been forced to hear the most arcane of early 2010s internet slang. Pitch Perfect is a movie constantly reassuring viewers it doesn't care about anything. With such an abrasive attitude, why should I care what happens to these singers?

Also, why does Pitch Perfect have such contempt for its characters? Bobcat Goldthwait's intentionally bleak comedies like World's Greatest Dad have more compassion for their fictional denizens than this uber-mainstream yukfest. Singer Stacie Conrad (Alexis Knapp) is around only to get mocked for being sexually active. Singer Cynthia Rose Adams (Ester Dean), meanwhile, has one trait, and it's that she's a lesbian. You can tell because she's always groping other women without their consent.  

What's with all these tired slut-shaming and gay panic jokes? It's not even that they're "offensive." It's that they're so tired and lack imagination. These aren't characters worth getting invested in, they're just weird put-downs of women who don't adhere to a rigid standard of "proper" femininity (read: skinny, white, cis-het). It all results in a movie that's mean-spirited yet doesn't have the guts to go full-John Waters on its cruelty or darkness. It wants to instead be as much of a crowdpleaser as Legally Blonde or Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. Needless to say, that doesn't work. You'd need genuine bonds between women characters and constant fun to reach those levels, not footage seemingly cribbed from a gender-bent remake of Van Wilder.

Even more insulting than all that is how dismal Pitch Perfect's visual sensibilities are. I don't think Moore and cinematographer Julio Macat ever unleashed fun or unexpected camera positions the entire film. Nor does the position of the camera accentuate various punchlines. Instead, Moore and Macat keep the camera static and opt for unimaginative shot compositions whenever possible. That's true even when people are belting out tunes on stage. Other music-centric movies and musicals use crooning as a springboard for visually lively camerawork. Not so here. Stale framing permeates intimate conversations and splashy musical performances alike. There's no vivid verve in Pitch Perfect's visuals of characters singing. Instead, it's just the laziest, choppiest camerawork imaginable. 

Such slipshod imagery especially sucks all the energy out of a finale that, on paper, should've won me over without breaking a sweat. How the heck do you make me, of all people, find a musical finale focused exclusively on ladies jubilantly belting their hearts out insufferable? Center the whole sequence around a Breakfast Club homage, of course. Hinging the set piece around reminding audiences of a famous movie is such insulting laziness. While the SNL short Dear Sister uses pre-existing pop culture as a springboard for new comedic lunacy, Pitch Perfect is content to just regurgitate a famous teen movie ending. It's all good, though, because Becca earlier wryly criticized cheeseball movie endings. That makes it okay to indulge in a cliche. 

In every respect imaginable, Pitch Perfect is an off-key disappointment. It functions neither as a crowd-pleaser movie about women friendship nor a dark comedy centered on hysterically despicable souls. Instead, it's a vehicle for the most exhausted jokes about queer, fat, or non-white women. Moore also fills up the screen with so many interchangeable white dudes, including a flat, personality-free lead turn from Skylar Astin. Even the soundtrack is just a menagerie of 2009-2011 pop radio staples and truly terrible renditions of those tunes at that. How do you make "Party in the U.S.A." devoid of zip? Such is the magic of Pitch Perfect, which constantly undercuts seemingly surefire recipes for cinematic joy.

I do have to give this project one major kudo, though. Pitch Perfect has finally convinced me I have the courage to watch Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. I'm sure there's plenty of depraved, disturbing, and nightmare-inducing imagery in that feature. However, nothing Pasolini can conjure up will possibly be even a tenth as disturbing to witness as a Pitch Perfect sequence where Anna Kendrick sings an entire "No Diggity" verse. A wise Dan Olson put it best: "this is cringe." Beyond making me feel more prepared for eventually confronting Salò, Pitch Perfect, like Charlie Sheen jokes or "epic bacon" memes, is early 2010s culture that needs to rot in the past.

* = Between Pitch Perfect and 2021's Cinderella abomination, I'm beginning to think Cannon's delightful and surprisingly moving 2018 comedy Blockers was a fluke. Seriously, how did the writer of those two bad movies also produce something as funny as John Cena not knowing how quotation marks work?

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is fun, visually splendid, and a tad emotionally aloof

 

It's a 21st-century year ending in the number five, so you know what that means. It's time for a new reboot of the Fantastic Four. This time, Marvel's First Family are directed by WandaVision helmer Matt Shakman and don't waste time with an origin story. Taking place in an alternate dimension in 1964, screenwriters Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer begin The Fantastic Four: First Steps in media res with Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby) discovering she's pregnant.

 Upon telling the news to husband Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), she reassures him, even with a kid on the way, "nothing's going to change."

How ironic she'd say that since the Fantastic Four are more aware than anyone how inevitable change is. This quartet of souls, which also includes Johnny Storm/The Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), went on a routine trip to outer space and came back with superpowers, after all. You can’t beat back change, no matter how many lives oy save or fires you extinguish.

Further upheaval emerges when the cosmic entity Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) descends into Times Square and tells the Earth’s population that the planet will soon be devoured by her superior: Galactus (Ralph Ineson). Now, the Fantastic Four must save our world while juggling an expanding family.

The last three 21^st century Fantastic Four movies were clearly trepidatious on the unabashedly goofy exploits these characters get into in the comics. That’s why Rise of the Silver Surfer turned Galactus into a cloud, 2015’s Fantastic Four drained all the color from their world, and Doctor Doom was never handled well across all these productions. First Steps, meanwhile, ditches any self-conciousness or Joss Whedon-style quips to lend gravity to these unabashedly ludicrous crime-fighters. These superheroes don’t just suddenly resemble their comic incarnations but are realized with a sense of reverence.

Unfortunately, this also inspires a drier aesthetic that sometimes kept me at arm’s length. In trying to realize The Fantastic Four “properly”, the script is often too buttoned-up for its own good. Extended scenes focus on rehashing Archimedes quotes rather than finding more visually or emotionally exhilarating ways of communicating information. Plus, despite First Steps wanting to be a character-driven piece, awkward filmmaking issues (namely in the editing and pacing) undercut those ambitions.

Grimm’s two nighttime voyages to his childhood home of Yancy Street are especially plagued with distracting continuity issues and clumsy ADR. It’s hard to understand his interior world through such peculiar visual shortcomings. A slower pacing and emphasis on dialogue isn’t enough to lend immediate weight to your movie if we never get closer to the characters or themes.

Thankfully, First Steps is a sumptuous treat in its outfits and sets, which helps keep the endeavor afloat during its choppiest, exposition-skewing sequences. Production designer Kasra Farahani and costume designer Alexndra Byrne’s exquisite work unabashedly leans into a retro-futuristic aesthetic littered with colors. Domiciles like the Fantastic Four’s living room inspire you to crane your neck to catch all the neat details and intricacies in every corner. In a summer where F1, Ballarina, and Jurassic World Rebirth filled movie theater screens with such drab backdrops, First Steps dares to embrace tactile, imaginative scenery.

Similarly commendable is Shakman’s willingness to go whole-hog on cosmic mayhem. There’s a mid-movie chase sequence in the cosmos involving the Silver Surfer that’s like if Interstellar and Baby Driver fused together. Watching this thrilling set piece, it’s hard to remember a time back in 2010 when internet commentors understandably wondered if Thor could ever work in a movie. Galactus, meanwhile, appears on-screen in bright sunlight adorned in a glistening, purple outfit that’s incredibly appealing to the eye.

Juxtaposing that delightfully maximalist material with distinctly 60s elements, such as recording mysterious alien languages on vinyl records, creates irresistibly enjoyable dissonance. Just as entertaining is watching Vanessa Kirby absolutely crush it as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman. Her immense performing chops from The World to Come are superbly utilized as Storm implores a crowd to express compassion towards her baby. Shakman and the writers exude great confidence in not capping the sequence with either a joke or big action beat. They just let the raw emotions and plea for empathy simmer. Plus, who needs a quip or explosion when the famously visceral talents of Kirby are on hand?

Meanwhile, Ebon Moss-Bacharach and Ralph Ineson leave no crumbs as the most heightened First Steps characters. The former performer especially nailed the lived-in gruffness that’s always made The Thing such a great character. Ineson, meanwhile, channels the towering sense of authority that’s always served him well in projects like The VVitch or The Green Knight. Galactus could’ve just been another CG comic book movie finale baddie. Thankfully, with Ineson around, there’s a palpable danger and commanding aura to this larger-than-life being.

The greatest actor in the feature, though, is Paul Walter Hauser in a brief appearance as Fantastic Four foe Harvey Elder/The Mole Man. In his one big third-act scene, Hauser shows up talking in a slightly higher-pitched voice while his cadence lends dramatic emphasis on every word he says. He doesn’t just apologize to Sue Storm, he’ll say things like “Sorry Sue…(brief dramatic pause) END of days, you know.”

This audacious approach is an absolute riot, especially since it’s so different from this tremendously talented actors prior performances in movies like I, Tonya and BlacKkKlansman. Unfortunately, it also made me wish more of the First Steps cast had gone in that direction. If everyone’s performances (save for Ineson, Moss-Bachrach, and Kirby) had been modulated in this direction, First Steps could’ve leapfrogged from being a fun summertime viewing to something truly special.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is still an enjoyable watch, though, especially in its little displays of characterization. Anytime Johnny and Ben act like adolescent brothers with their bickering, I was grinning from ear-to-ear. Ditto any of the instances where Johnny’s scratching helpful robot servant H.E.R.B.I.E.’s. head. Best of all, First Steps, unlike other superhero movies such as Eternals (which I do have a soft spot for otherwise), doesn’t abandon its better qualities for a noisy CG-laden finale.

Instead, the climactic showdown with Galactus is a natural extension of pre-established character beats, not to mention a lot of fun to watch. Hinging this duel around Sue Storm is also an inspired decision lending emotional grounding to a very heightened skirmish. As a whole feature, First Steps needed more That Thing You Do! energy and less buttoned-up Interstellar vibes. Thankfully, its emotional moments hit more often than not and its sense of showmanship (especially in the stories second-half) is strong. Contrary to what Sue Storm says, change is indeed inevitable. That reality ensures this latest Fantastic Four reboot significantly improves on its predecessors, even if it’s summer 2025’s weakest superhero feature. 

I Got Suckered Into Watching Pete Davidson's The Home. Now It's Time to Vent About It

 

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE HOME BELOW

Last night, I got cinematically bamboozled, there’s no other word for it. 

So, my local AMC held a Secret Horror Movie Screening on Monday, July 21. Nobody in the audience would know what the film was before those fateful opening logos appeared. I was convinced the screening was for 2025 Sundance sensation Together. After all, this showing's runtime matched Together’s perfectly. Plus, Neon and Bloody Disgusting were hosting word-of-mouth screenings for the film on July 21. Surely this was part of that. 

Nope! 

As the Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate logos filled the screen, it became clear I and the other moviegoers in that room were not in for Together. Instead, we were watching The Home, a fright-fest starring Pete Davidson from writer/director James DeMonaco (Adam Cantor also penned the script). It was unquestionably a chilling movie, just not remotely in any of its intended ways. At least it functioned as a vivid 95-minute reminder of how those Purge movies finally got good once series creator DeMonaco wasn't directing them.

The Home begins depicting lead character Max (Pete Davidson) just coasting through life as a troublemaker. As excessive, poorly-written flashbacks make clear, he’s still haunted by the loss of his foster brother Luke decades earlier. In the present, Max’s dad remarks “ever since Luke died…” like this happened a few months ago, not nearly two decades earlier. Anyway, Max has taken to being a real rascal. He's smoking weed, covered in tattoos, and spray painting environmentally conscious graffiti on buildings. What a rebel without a cause. After getting arrested for that graffiti, Max is sentenced to work at a local retirement home. This is his "last strike" after previous run-ins with the law.

At this domicile, Max is given lots of duties by boss Dr. Sabian (Bruce Altman) as well as a handful of strict requirements. One of those is to never venture onto the establishment's fourth floor. Once Max does that, he discovers a wing full of elderly souls confined to wheelchairs, howling in immense pain. This and other constant bizarre happenings at his new workplace lead him to believe that something terrible is going on. Now this guy's questioning authority once more and diving into the conspiracies of what's going on in this location.

It's borderline impressive how DeMonaco and Cantor's The Home script is so incompetent at building tension. For one thing, the duo immediately makes the retirement community a weird place where elderly ladies seductively flicker their tongues at Max, and people bleed out of their foreheads during pool aerobics. There's no sense of atmospheric pacing in The Home. What you see is exactly what you get in this project. Great horror movies like Society, both Suspiria's, or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre just get more and more unhinged as their stories progress. The Home, meanwhile, just exists as a horror cinema flat-line from the moment the studio logos end. 

Meanwhile, Max's tremendously easy ability to access that "forbidden" fourth floor further undermines internal anxiety. Granted, it's not as devastating to the production as truly wretched instances of ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement, dialogue recorded in post-production). Tahar Rahim's comically bad ADR in Madame Web would be proud of the awkward execution of various Home lines. Too often, security camera footage or other unnerving images are accompanied by an off-screen Pete Davidson either over-explaining what's happening or dropping superfluous observations like, "what the fuck are you doing, old man?" 

The Home doesn't trust its audience to understand the simplest visuals, which means the whole film is papered over in amateurishly incorporated ADR'd expository dialogue. It's a byproduct of what this feature's shoddily assembled status. Todd E. Miller's editing, for instance, is incredibly choppy, even when it comes to the most mundane, static conversations. At least his poor visual impulses create one or two instances of unintentionally hilarious comedy. Most notably, there's an ominous Home sequence that immediately cuts to a wide shot of Pete Davidson sullenly using a leaf-blower outside. Swerving right from Z-grade horror to an image of Davidson channeling the energy of an eight-year-old forced to do his chores had me chuckling.

Also generating inadvertent chuckles is the utterly stupid interior politics of The Home. Initially, DeMonaco and Cantor's script has constant references to global warming (including through an extended televised "debate" playing as background audio for one scene) and even features a temporary explanation for the retirement home's evil rooted in U.S. government experimentation. Then, the third act swerves to reveal that this whole story has been about elderly people kidnapping young folks. This way, folks like Dr. Sabian and Lou (John Glover) can extract "nectar" behind these youthful right eyes that keeps them eternally young. So it all devolves into imagining "what if QAnon-adjacent nonsense was real?". Where are all these contradictory political leanings going?

Nowhere! It's just sporadically amusing that The Home invokes the most surface-level versions imaginable of leftist and right-wing friendly talking points. This is such a stupid movie, right down to it only knowing political terms like "global warming" without having any thoughts or commentary to offer on them. It's infuriating that such idiotic cinema gets financing and major theatrical releases, but the staggering incompetence is certainly something to witness. Eventually, all those references to 2020s political matters dissipate for the only reason anyone will talk about The Home. For the film's final eight minutes, Max is restored to health through the youthful eye nectar of other fourth-floor patients. Then, he grabs an axe and hammer and proceeds to viciously slaughter all the evil retirement home employees and residents. 

Did you ever watch Oldboy's hallway fight scene and wish Choi Min-sik was played instead by Pete Davidson? For that one weirdo out there, The Home is your must-see movie. The sight of Chad from Saturday Night Live drenched head-to-toe in blood snapping elderly bones is certainly a commendably "WTF" sight. Unfortunately, even this set piece reflects The Home's failure as a movie. After all, there's just not much tension in whether or not Pete Davidson can beat up Lex Luthor's dad from Smallville. Opting for a tidy, happy ending, meanwhile, is just another cop-out in a film full of wasted potential. 

The antithesis to quality, frightening horror cinema, The Home will become infamous among scary film aficionados for being humorously bad (oh God, I didn't even bring up the exposition-laden "secret room" in Max's childhood home that contains a shrine to the Goddess of youth). Even in that regard, though, this is no Assassin 33 A.D. or Birdemic in the realm of constantly hysterical subpar genre fare. The Home turgidly vomits back up jump scares, plot points, and visuals (including  DeMonaco's love for kooky masks from The Purge) from infinitely superior chilling motion pictures. It's an insultingly bad enterprise that would've gotten on my nerves even if I hadn't had my hopes of seeing Together early dashed.

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.

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.

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 Light, September 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.

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.

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.

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.

__________________________________________________________________________________

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.

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!