Twisters Nails The Storm Chasing But Its Human Drama Leaves Something To Be Desired

As a budding film geek, I loved 90s disaster movies. VHS tapes of Independence Day, Mars Attacks!, and Armageddon captured my imagination with their mixture of epic destruction and patently (and, admittedly, more than a little naive) 90s optimism. The new film Twisters harkens back to that era, an appropriate frame of reference given that its predecessor Twister was a key part of the 90s disaster movie boom. Given that this Lee Isaac Chung directorial also features a soundtrack chock full of country music (a music genre I was obsessed with as a youngster) and many actors I adore (Katy O'Brian, what a legend!), Twisters should've left me blown away. 

Yet, no matter how many trucks revved up in the dirt or storms blew off the roofs of houses, Twisters often left me cold. Sometimes, coming back home isn't a flawless stroll down memory lane.

Mark L. Smith's Twisters script begins with a prologue following Oklahoma storm chaser Kate Cooper (Daisy Edgar-Jones) tracking down a big storm to test proposed technology that could stop a tornado. This mission goes awry and the massive tornado gulps up her dear friends and lover. Five years later, she works as a meteorologist in bustling New York City. She's left that old life behind until best friend Javi (Anthony Ramos) reaches out to her with a proposition. Cooper's wits are needed back home in the service of technology that, in theory, could help map out tornadoes and save future lives. No more dear friends or relatives would have to die. Cooper relents and comes back to the place she left behind, which is now dominated by cocky YouTube storm chasers like Tyler Owens (Glen Powell) and his motley crew of redneck thrill-seekers.

With historically bad tornados bearing down on Oklahoma, the science project that spurred Cooper's fateful traumatic day is about to become more important than ever. Owens and Cooper couldn't hate each other more if they tried. However, the time has come to put aside differences, evade those storms, and confront long-simmering fears.

Typically, when an indie movie veteran transitions to blockbuster filmmaking, their fingerprints are most evident on the movie's intimate sequences. Comedy movie veteran Elizabeth Banks, for example, showed solid chops executing visual gags in Charlie's Angels. However, she seemed lost handling generic action sequences. Jon Watts, meanwhile, channeled his 2015 directorial effort Cop Car in a deeply suspenseful automobile ride in Spider-Man: Homecoming, while the big action set-pieces didn't resonate with his personality. Chung's work on Twisters is a rare exception to that rule. Though the tornado-heavy sequences don't echo the man's Minari filmmaking, they display plenty of confidence and visual precision. There's a specificity to the execution of massive stormy chaos that's commendable for an artist relatively new to feature-length tentpoles (though Chung did cut his teeth on two different Star Wars shows).

Just look at an early scene where Owens takes two companions (including an out-of-his-depth British reporter) into a tornado in his heavily modified pickup truck. This set piece's exciting nature comes from how well-paced it is. There's a thrilling sense of theatricality in Chung's filmmaking and Terilyn A. Shropshire's editing, both providing perfect timing in unveiling each neat trick this automobile can pull off. It all provides a very finely-tuned build-up culminating in a fun reveal of drills that keep the truck latched to the ground no matter how windy it gets is a delightful finisher to this sequence. Later on, Chung captures Cooper, Owens, and some poor civilians trying to evade a tornado in an emptied hotel pool largely in a lengthy single-take. This visual decision makes the scenario's tension suffocatingly palpable while the backdrop for the entire situation is deeply creative. When handling VFX-heavy disaster movie mayhem, Chung shows a welcome flair for both bombast and imagination. Needless to say, this Minari veteran is no Josh Trank or Stephen Gaghan in registering as out-of-his-depth with blockbuster filmmaking.

Also, bonus points to Smith's screenplay for eschewing the legacy sequel mold for Twisters. A handful of references (like naming storm-chasing devices "Dorothy") exist, but the proceedings don't grind to a halt to contort the plot into a "surprise" Twister sequel. Nobody here is a secret descendent of the original film's characters, nor are random Twister props suddenly turned into sacred MacGuffin's. Twisters is just another tornado-centric blockbuster taking place in Oklahoma. Even its big set pieces creatively lean into backdrops that wouldn't have been possible back in 1996, like a tornado descending on a wind turbine field. Sink or swim, Twisters is out to establish its own identity that doesn't require viewership of that original 1990s blockbuster. What a deeply admirable trait in a time when superhero movies pause their stories to pay tribute to 90s superhero films that never even got made.

Unfortunately, in between those tornado-heavy scenes are a lot of dreary dialogue-heavy sequences that are borderline insufferable. Classic disaster movies weren't known for housing lines that would make Truman Capote or Billy Wilder proud. However, they also tended to have expansive ensemble casts that didn't leave one thinly sketched character on-screen for long. Twisters, meanwhile, focuses almost exclusively on the flirtatious dynamic between Cooper and Owens. Smith's script aims to make their rapport the His Girl Friday of disaster movie romances. He doesn't come close to those cinematic aspirations. Their dialogue is too full of predictable sarcastic banter and, later, verbose discussions about the inner machinations of tornados. Twisters best assets are its grand visual swings, not pretty people chattering like network TV scientists.

This central character dynamic would also work better if Owens wasn't so often insufferable. Constantly chanting "city girl" to Owens and hootin' & hollerin' at everything in sight, Smith and Chung go way overboard on making the character an aggressive Southern "bro". He resonates as a caricature immediately and, when it's time for him to show depth, Owens is flattened out into a generically-rendered figure shouting at CG storms. He's either got too much personality or none at all! Meanwhile, all the tech in his car (not to mention his status as a semi-famous YouTuber) gives Owens an extra irritating edge. Smith's script never grapples with this, but this guy's wealthy to afford all this tech. He's a rich guy passing himself off as "a good o'l country boy", like he's the target of Bo Burnham's modern country music parody. 

That level of financial security compounds the already insufferable nature of his character. It's also a quality especially hindering the eventual bitterness Owens feels towards Cooper and Javi's land-owner employers. Owens is meant to be a champion for "the little guy", but thanks to how financially well-off he is, it just feels like two kinds of rich folks hashing it out ("whoever wins, we lose!"). The vagueness over the machinations and intent of those land-owner employers (presumably so the script doesn't involve corrupt actions Twisters financier Comcast is doing in real life) only further hampers this plot detail. Powell's leading man charms from Set It Up and Hit Man can't salvage a character this poorly written. Nor can he resuscitate a fictional figure that goes directly against how often past disaster movies explicitly chronicled working-class figures. 

The rest of the cast delivers decent work, even if Daisy Edgar-Jones has no real dimensions to play with as Kate Cooper. Lively bursts of energy from Brandon Perea, Sasha Lane, and Katy O'Brian make them the film's MVPs by default! In another shocking twist on my pre-viewing expectations, composer Benjamin Wallfish also rounds up some fine compositions for the proceedings. Wallfish slept-walked through The Flash last year, but he's got some rousing banjos and stirring guitars ready to go for the Twisters score. His orchestral accompaniments complement the on-screen action and feel distinctly evocative of the Oklahoma setting. As for the assorted country tunes on the soundtrack, they're mostly an embarrassing waste of good singers. Tanner Adell, for instance, has an extremely lovely voice, but her ditty "Too Easy" is way too evocative of misguided 2010s "girlboss" tunes "God Made Girls". She and the other singers here deserved better than these disposably-written tracks. 

When Twisters revs up the spectacle, it's a perfectly cromulent time at the movies. I'm sure those checking it out in IMAX will get their money's worth and if these characters register as enjoyable to you, you'll be happier than a pig in a slop. However, Twisters desperately needed less expository dialogue and a little more melodrama and fun. Who comes to a 90s disaster movie pastiche for so much conversation? If nothing else, it couldn't have hurt to improve the country rock soundtrack (maybe Gary Allan should've drummed up an original ditty?) At least Lee Isaac Chung and company can hold their head high that, in the pantheon of disaster movies, Twisters doesn't have a scene as embarrassing as Armageddon's erotic animal crackers sequence.

In Laman's Terms: Longlegs Exemplifies Why Theatrical Releases Matter

If I told you about an odd moment or image in a Netflix Original Movie, you'd have no trouble verifying what I was talking about. After all, if a feature film premieres on digital home media platforms (whether it's on Netflix or premium video-on-demand), it can immediately be spliced up into gifs or memes. Screenshots and clips can be taken out of context instantaneously for the world to see. Just Google "A Family Affair weird grocery store scene" or any viral moment from 365 Days, it's there for you. This phenomenon was especially apparent back in 2021, when major legacy movie studios dropped several significant theatrical movies simultaneously on streaming. Two or three-minute snippets from Black Widow or The Matrix Resurrections spread like wildfire across Twitter as punchlines for tweets.

Now, let's compare this to if I told you about something strange in a theatrical movie, like, say, the recent surprise smash hit Longlegs. That movie has concealed in its marketing what Nicolas Cage as the serial killer Longlegs looks like. The Neon promotional team has kept a slew of additional key plot points and disturbing imagery hidden away from the ambiguous but striking marketing campaign for this Osgood Perkins motion picture. If I told you about something especially strange Cage did in Longlegs or a particularly eerie image from the movie, you couldn't just find it on Google. You'd have to take the time to buy a ticket, head out to the movie theater, and watch the entire motion picture. With that experience, you'd finally understand what I was talking about..but you'd also have to watch the whole movie.

Meanwhile, removing immediately available visual aids adds something extra fun and specific to the experience of Longlegs viewers trying to tell their friends about key images or acting flourishes from the feature. There is no officially released still of Cage as Longlegs I could point to in explaining to my friends "this is what he looks like." I'll have to describe it myself, which undoubtedly will be a vastly different description than how another viewer would describe this malicious figure's appearance. This makes talking about Longlegs extra idiosyncratic from person to person. It also adds a fun campfire story quality to discussing the production. You're reporting to another soul who's maybe never even heard of Longlegs all kinds of freaky materials and physical appearances contained within this one film. It's like some teenager regaling their friends around a fire about a beast they SWEAR they saw in the local forest. All you have to go on is the words of the narrator and the ominous reality that we truly never know what lies in wait in the darkness.

Eventually (probably by mid-August), Longlegs will come to PVOD. Then images from the feature, including 4K screengrabs of Cage as Longlegs, will populate social media. I can immediately think of at least two 10-second clips from Longlegs guaranteed to become go-to reaction memes. Ted Sarandos and other Netflix higher-ups may scoff at this reality in between licking the boots of transphobes and podcast hosts spreading misinformation about AIDS. "Why even put these things in theaters if they'll one day be available in your home?" they'll scorn after engaging in financial practices making it impossible for directors to make a living.

However, the specialness and experiences of theatrical exhibition live on long after a movie's big-screen run has concluded. Long after The Gray Man and The Tomorrow War have been forgotten, people still talk about The Blair Witch Project and its crafty marketing. The Barbenheimer phenomenon of last year will live on eternal as a testament to the joys of theatrical moviegoing and bonding with friends over cinema. Those lines of people that went for blocks and blocks for The Exorcist, that's still legendary. The countless stories attached to prime theatrical experiences help solidify as movies in the popular consciousness. They're not just another tile on your streaming platform's home screen. They're something you bonded with other people at or a motion picture that you had so much fun talking about with another person.

Longlegs would've vanished quickly into the streaming algorithm ether if it had debuted on streaming. High-quality yet obscure horror films like His House can attest to that reality. Not every movie that goes to the big screen becomes a smash hit. But if you want a movie that takes off like a surprising rocket like Longlegs...it has to go to theaters. Believe it or not, there are a few reasons why this mold for experiencing cinema has endured for over a century. 

Longlegs Is A Cinematic Nightmare Well Worth Experiencing

Longlegs begins with bright white snow. It's a winter morning and a young girl has gone out to play in the frigid weather. This incredibly unnerving Osgood Perkins directorial effort is an extremely bleak exercise. However, unlike other horror movie attempts at "darkness", Perkins doesn't suffocate every image in minimal light and shaky-cam. Instead, Longlegs ingratiates viewers to its uniquely ominous vibes all that snow on the ground and reasonably bright lighting. Even here, evil emerges. That young girl's time outside is upended by the arrival of a mysterious adult man. The on-screen color palette and lighting suggest it's just a normal winter day. It's not. 

Unspeakable creepiness lurks in every corner of Longlegs. Clean-cut suburban neighborhoods are backdrops to slaughter. A hardware store can house a deeply unnerving customer/cashier interaction. Even the inside of one's car, a place other bleak horror films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre depicted as a safe haven from serial killers, is here often a place for disturbing proclamations of mental anguish.

After that snowy prologue, the script by Perkins moves forward to the 1990s. Here, FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is assigned a case in Oregon that's confounded this agency. A man known as the Longlegs killer (Nicolas Cage) has been responsible for several slayings over the last few decades. Problem is, save for cryptic letters he's sent after the killings, there's no evidence to tie him to these gruesome events. Where is the evidence for forced entry or accomplices? It's all so confounding. Harker, with her unusual gift for uncovering killers, could be the key to solving this crime spree. As she dives deeper into the case, more bizarre elements pile up. Is there a method to this madness? More pressingly, is there is, can that method be halted before more die at the hands of Longlegs?

Speaking of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (my pick for one of the scariest movies ever made), Longlegs reminded me of that Tobe Hooper feature (as well as David Lynch's Lost Highway) in being a rare horror movie that truly captured what it feels like to experience a nightmare. Other ultra-dark horror movies, like your typical Saw installment, are too "grounded" to truly emulate the inexplicable nature of a nightmare. Perkins, meanwhile, unabashedly embraces the absurd in this feature. Cage's Longlegs is prone to singing when intimidating people, while folks Harker is interrogating will just say the most grisly things without any prompting. The world of Longlegs isn't just grim. It's also quietly chaotic. There's no sense of control. It truly feels like your worst nightmares, where you're just strapped in for a ride your brain has concocted.

Delving deeper into specific plot points or third-act images that really accentuate that sensation would spoil the twists that make Longlegs such an evocative feature. What can be said is that the masterful visual scheme of the production works wonders in selling up that suffocatingly ominous atmosphere. Perkins and cinematographer Andrés Arochi tell the story of Harkins and Longlegs emphasizing sustained wide shots with ornate framing. There's impressive preciseness to the blocking that eerily contrasts with the unsettling storytelling material. Even just a simple conversation between Harker and the traumatized Carrie Anne Camera (Kiernan Shipka) demonstrates impressive detail in how it's composed. These two women are never shown on-screen together, they each occupy separate wide shots for this dialogue. Camera is seen from the front while Harker is viewed from a side-profile angle. It's a tiny touch, but one signifying how much distance there is between the characters. They're not just occupying different shots. The way they position themselves for the camera is incredibly different. 

Looking back on the film, it's also interesting how much Perkins emphasizes the aftermath of grisly chaos rather than explicitly showing it on-screen. This isn't uniformly true for the entire film, of course. We see rotting bodies, decapitated cow heads, one guy getting his head blown off, and one truly vicious set piece revolving around graphic bodily harm. However, viewers often learn about the aftermath of grisly slayings and suicides, hear brutal actions happening off-screen, or see everything leading up to a killing but the killing itself. It's a fascinating detail that's easy to lose track of (I certainly did until I sat down to write this review!), but one that initially puts you right in the headspace of Harker. Primarily, we are hearing second-hand information about unspeakable violence rather than witnessing it. This echoes how Harker is learning information about Longlegs killings from decades earlier. We're often on the same level as her when it comes to the carnage.

Plus, leaving things to the imagination really is so much more effective. Take an eerie sequence where the image of a slayed family is played against audio of that family's father making a 911 call just before he kills his loved ones. We never see blood splatter on the walls, but we hear their misery as the audience's eyes gaze on a photo of the family in happier times. Utilizing ambiguity and juxtaposition in this manner gives Longlegs truly distinctive scary sequences all of its own. This scene also epitomizes the feature's terrific and welcome emphasis on the imperfections of technology. The crackling of vintage phone calls is emphasized in the sound design, a small detail reinforcing the limitations of mid-1990s communications devices. However, there's something just innately unnerving about having that noise blaring through movie theater speakers. Similarly, washed-out colors in vintage Polaroid photographs accentuate the grisliness those images captured. 

Longlegs is a visual tour de force and the latest Osgood Perkins also flourishes as a showcase for deeply talented actors. Modern horror icon Maika Monroe makes for a terrific anchor as Harker, while Alicia Witt's supporting performance as Harker's mother just gets more and more captivating as the movie goes on. As for Nicolas Cage as Longlegs, I was mesmerized at how distinctly Cage-ian this performance is while also being utterly terrifying. Cage indulges in the big line deliveries (including extended singing!) he's so refined into an artform after decades of performing. Yet the sparse sound design & score, not to mention the idiosyncratic cinematography, reinforce the unsettling qualities of his acting. Cage's star persona is a launchpad into something totally original rather than a trait that overwhelms the figure's intimidating nature. 

Granted, his big swings, much like Longlegs as an entire movie, won't be for everyone. As for me, I couldn't get enough. I was clenching my fists in anxiety the entire time! Right from that snowy start, Longlegs weaves a captivating tale of inescapable darkness.

MaXXXine Never Emerges From Shadows of the Past

Writer/Director Ti West’s MaXXXine is the end of a horror movie trilogy established by X and Pearl. However, what immediately stands out about this production is how it starts. MaXXXine’s first 25-ish minutes consist of seemingly standalone sequences that each would work fine as a cold open prologue. Protagonist Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) going out to an audition. A sequence where the camera glides through a peep show Minx is working in. An adolescent Minx getting her performances coached by her off-screen father in monochromatic home video footage. Individually, each of these scenes would work fine as a “special shoot” teaser trailer. Strung together, there’s no rhythm between these scenes. MaXXXine keeps starting, stopping, and then starting again without enough juicy campy entertainment to compensate for the wonky structure.

This strangely disjointed kick-off leads into a story following Minx, after the grisly events of X, trying to make it big as an actress in Hollywood. It seems like she’s finally got a big horror movie role that could launch her to stardom beyond the porno world, especially since director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki) has taken a shine to her. However, Minx’s work associates and friends keep getting brutally murdered. A slasher villain is targeting Minx…and could it all be connected to how she slayed her way to survival in X? The glitz of Hollywood is about to collide with the harsh realities Minx has tried to escape her entire life.

Once the endless series of prologues are finished, the greatest takeaway MaXXXine instills is an unfortunate sense of “playing the hits”. With Pearl turning into the source of several famous memes, MaXXXine is now all too happy to deliver elements evoking that film and X. Minx’s biggest freak out sequences are an attempt to make the next “I’m a star!” happen. Characters keep delivering lengthy monologues in the vein of Pearl’s big single-take speech from Pearl. Those elements registered as entertainingly surprising in Pearl. Trying to recreate that magic in the bottle just deprives MaXXXine of its own unique energy. Opting to function as a 1980s horror pastiche further dilutes the idiosyncrasies of West’s latest creation. This era’s spooky material has been mined so much in the last decade. MaXXXine doesn’t score lots of exciting thrills with its approach to that epoch of horror cinema.

Despite these grave shortcomings, MaXXXine largely registers as a pleasantly entertaining diversion, especially whenever West gets his freak on. A big gnarly set piece where Maxine gets revenge on a would-be mugger is delightfully extreme. Practical effects work on the vicious kills are well-executed. A late dark gag involving a supporting character wandering around with a weapon lodged into one of her eyes makes for a memorable visual. Similarly, Kevin Bacon’s wildly stylized performance as a Southern-fried Private Eye is a hoot. His flowery line deliveries and cavalier attitude towards the carnage around him are qualities just bursting with personality.

Unfortunately, MaXXXine doesn’t quite provide enough slasher or giallo fun to evade the sense that something is missing. This motion picture is ultimately too straightforward an exercise to be chaotically frightening or great camp cinema. Most disappointingly, I wish MaXXXine had anything to say about sex work or even just West’s own relationship to pornography. Despite being the rare American film anchored by a sex worker protagonist, MaXXXine still uses, like so many movies, folks in this field largely as fodder for corpses. Cops get more screentime and backstory than other sex workers Maxine hangs out with. On-screen depictions of sexuality, meanwhile, don’t register with specificity. Why is a movie with XXX in its title so aloof from sexuality?

MaXXXine isn’t a terrible movie. It is, however, a prime example of a film where nothing on-screen is ever quite good enough to distract from the potential left on the table. Plus, Ti West insists on reminding viewers of superior productions like Pearl and countless 80s horror classics. The past isn’t done with Maxine Minx. Unfortunately, a too cozy relationship with the past hurts MaXXXine as a whole movie!

A Quiet Place: Day One Surprises With a Solid Story and Good Lead Performances

One of the most ominous things in the trailer for A Quiet Place: Day One was the promise that the movie would reveal "how our world went quiet." If there's anything this franchise doesn't need, it's belabored explanations for why those sound-sensitive aliens came to Earth. That kind of lore is good for Wikis, not movies. Thankfully, Day One as an actual motion picture is not interested in such explanations. Instead, writer/director Michael Sarnoski has delivered a new Quiet Place saga that keeps the frights of the previous two films intact. Meanwhile, the more intimate parts of the piece are shockingly reminiscent of Sarnoski's 2021 indie classic Pig. Unlike Michel Gondry dojng The Green Hornet or Ben Wheatley on Meg 2: The Trench, Sarnoski kept his creative spirit intact through the franchise filmmaking meat-grinder.

Day One begins in New York City, with protagonist Sam (Lupita Nyong'o) living in hospice care. With a severe form of cancer running through her veins, Sam doesn't have long to live. This fate has led her to become understandably surly with others save for her cat Frodo. While traveling into the city with other hospice patients, a seemingly routine day turns into a nightmare as those Quiet Place aliens descend from the heavens. Immediately turning New York City into a shell of itself, most people in the city begin to head towards evacuation boats. Sam, however, is determined to get a slice of pizza at Patsy's in Harlem. On her journey across the city, Sam encounters Eric (Joseph Quinn), a law student overwhelmed with everything happening around them.

The first two Quiet Places were about survival at all costs. These were horror films about the classical nuclear family attempting to endure the apocalypse. A Quiet Place: Day One nicely differentiates itself from its predecessor by opting for a story recognizing how life is finite. What do you want to do with your limited existence? What do you want to consider important in your life? "We don't get a lot of things to care about," as a previous Sarnoski protagonist once proclaimed. What you do care about, then, should matter. Filtering the story through that lens works on multiple layers. It gives Day One a distinct identity and lends Sarnoski familiar thematic terrain he can deftly handle.

That intimate gaze is something Lupite Nyong'o and Joseph Quinn handle quite nicely. Neither performer delivers work suggesting they're phoning this material in because this is summertime franchise fare. The dramatic material clicks into place partially because of their commitment and believability. Nyong'o especially is such a fascinating presence on screen. There's always been something so instantly meaningful and layered about her facial expressions. Like the great silent movie performers, Nyong'o has consistently demonstrated a gift for communicating so much with just a look or a tilt of the head. What better place to use that skill than in a Quiet Place installment?

Thanks to competent writing from Sarnoski and two solid leads, A Quite Place: Day One is perfectly fine summertime entertainment. It's the kind of movie that registers as perfectly pleasant Friday night fare, with the biggest thing holding it back from greater heights being the more generic scare sequences. Sarnoski leans heavily on jump-scares when it's time for frights in lengthy set pieces that don't add new visual or conceptual flourishes to what's been previously established in the Quiet Place saga. To be sure, some fun chase scenes abound, especially one involving the main duo trying to get past an alien in the sewer. However, the frights don't receive nearly as much personality as the character beats.

Still, Day One functioning as a reasonable extension of the Quiet Place universe is quite surprising (pleasantly so!) considering how the very idea of sequels in this franchise initially sounded like a doomed prospect. Sometimes, it's the simple things that keep your prequel afloat, like emphasizing a cute kitty or taking cues from a movie as good as Pig. Eschewing simple origin stories for the aliens also helps! 

Ultraman: Rising and Brats Capsule Reviews

Credit where credit is due, Ultraman: Rising looks terrific in terms of its animation. The new take on the Japanese superhero Ultraman comes to life under the watch of directors Shannon Tindle and John Aoshima through animation building on the heightened visuals popularized by titles like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The Industrial Light & Magic crew (doing their only third fully-animated film following Rango and Strange Magic) deliver fantastic work providing stylized touches to Ultraman's various skirmishes with big monsters and other adversaries. Fire and smoke are realized in a style evoking hand-drawn animation. Brightly-colored impressionistic backgrounds surround the lead characters to accentuate powerful emotions. Even just the movements of Ultraman are enjoyably dynamic and angular. Just this massive superhero's body language is a lot of fun to watch!

Unfortunately, Ultraman: Rising's glorious animation touches are undercut by the screenplay by Tindle and Marc Haimes. Rather than function as a streamlined action-oriented tale propelled by visuals, Rising is a way too crowded narrative that crumbles under the weight of too many subplots. The story of Kenj Sato/Ultraman (Christopher Sean) caring for the newborn offspring of a kaiju foe is enough to sustain a motion picture. The proceedings eventually dovetail into Sato reconciling his complicated daddy issues. Then there's Sato's exploits as a baseball player. Eventually, even the Ultraman persona becomes an afterthought in the movie!

The busy plot especially becomes a blur in the second half where key character beats (like Sato learning to be more of a team player in baseball) breeze past in the blink of an eye. Tindle and Haimes also take an unfortunate page from modern animated movies like The LEGO Ninjago Movie in thinking endless dramatic monologues will make your kid's feature as emotionally resonant as Up. Given its striking images, one would hope Ultraman: Rising would have more confidence in visual storytelling. Alas, Ultraman: Rising is far too much in love with characters like reporter Ami Wakita (Julia Harriman) flat-out explaining obvious character defects in Sato. A little more simplicity and a lot less sweaty screenwriting would've served the gorgeous-looking Ultraman: Rising well.

Death Comes in the Form of a Memorable Parrot in the Audacious Tuesday

Death takes many forms, both in real life and cinema. In the latter case, the most famous versions of death come in an ominous man in a cloak, popularized by titles like The Seventh Seal and various adaptations of A Christmas Carol. That's not the only way death can show up in movies, of course. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish delivered a great family film villain with a genuinely eerie wolf version of Death. How could anyone forget about Helen Mirren's possible portrayal of the actual personification of death in Collateral Beauty? Tuesday, the feature film directorial debut of writer/director Daina O. Pusić, makes history with its depiction of death, though. By manifesting this concept through a gigantic talking parrot, this is the first personification of death I wanted pet on the head.

Death (voiced by Arinzé Kene) deals with endless misery in his work. His job of ending people's life brings him face-to-face with all kinds of humans and animals, many of them not ready to die. But he's never met anyone quite like Tuesday (Lola Petticrew). This teenager, living with a terminal medical condition restricting her movement and breathing, greets Death not with fear but a joke. She then proceeds to offer this critter kindness by washing off some glue stuck to his feet. While Tuesday is helping Death, her mother, Zora (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is struggling to cope with her daughter's condition. Zora would rather not talk about what's plaguing her only child, the person her entire world revolves around. That personal anguish will need to be confronted, though, Death has literally come for Tuesday, as it comes for all of us. Nothing can stop this parrot from doing his job...not even a mother's love.

If the premise of Tuesday already sounds like an odd creation, just wait until you see the strange corners the plot travels to in its second act. Those familiar with a certain Treehouse of Horror XIV segment will instantly get slight deja vu with where the plot goes! Pusić at once makes Tuesday a fairy tale, farce, tragedy, and even some occasional trappings of a horror film. Spanning so much territory at once results in an inevitably disjointed movie. However, that jagged narrative approach feels somewhat appropriate given the subject matter. Coping with death is never a linear process devoid of messiness. Why should movies concerning the topic be cohesive? Even the grim Seventh Seal made room for Death to whip out a cartoonishly large saw straight out of a Looney Tunes cartoon to secure one of his victims!

It doesn't hurt that Tuesday frequently wrings moments of effective pathos out of bizarre detours. This lends an emotional consistency to the piece even when the tone or unexpectedly offbeat plot turns upend the movie. Pusić and performer Petticrew prove especially skilled at crafting moving moments of intimate bonding between Tuesday and Death. Back in the 1980s, Bob Hoskins nearly lost his mind working against an invisible co-star on the set of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That infamous yarns, not to mention countless modern anecdotes of actors working off tennis balls on green-screen sets, are cautionary tales about performing off co-stars who won't exist until post-production. Hoskins delivered an excellent performance even under those conditions. So does Petticrew in Tuesday.

The key to Petticrew's believable rapport against this CG parrot and Pusić's direction of their scenes is commitment. There are no sly self-referential lines to wink at the audience about how "weird" this scenario is. Instead, Petticrew instantly commits themselves to portraying a teenage girl exuding kindness to a wounded stranger. It's often easy to forget that Tuesday is interacting with a fully digital co-star. Meanwhile, Pusić's approach to realizing Death plays a big factor in making these sequences work. Death is not a deeply anthropomorphized creation. He's a parrot that can shift his size at will, but he doesn't have fingers, clothes, or even a radically cartoony face to allow for more human expressions. Juxtaposing that realistic approach with the increasingly warm dynamic between Tuesday and Death proves mighty affecting. Little bursts of humanity from Death like his line "I love sarcasm" are shockingly moving because of these character design choices. 

As the plot of Tuesday gets more complicated once Zora discovers the existence of Death, Pusić's script gets a little lost in the woods while her filmmaking sensibilities are challenged by the confines of her budget. It's especially disappointing that there's a 20-ish minute stretch of Tuesday where the titular lead character is largely a disposable character. Tuesday was such an engaging protagonist that it's a shame when she's not at the center of the narrative. This stretch of the story also reinforces the unfortunately disappointing creative tendencies of composer Anna Meredith's score. Meredith is a deeply talented musician, but here, her compositions often hammer home the underlying emotions of key images or plot turns too heavily. Tuesday's more unusual developments and visuals need breathing room and ambiguity. The more ham-fisted musical choices in Meredith's score often deprive those elements of such vital qualities.

Despite being a movie involving a fully CG co-star, Tuesday works best when things get sparse. When the movie is just Tuesday and Death talking, the script really sings. That's an aesthetic Julia Louis-Dreyfus also thrives in. When portraying Zora lying on the couch with Tuesday, this performer is downright masterful in depicting the simultaneous affection and avoidance at play. There's genuine bonding here, Louis-Dreyfus never leaves the audience doubting her love for Tuesday. Even so, Zora quietly ignores her daughter's inquiries while they sit on this faulty couch. The nuances of that mother/daughter dynamic, where love and more complicated emotions can co-exist, are hard to realize. Louis-Dreyfus executes those intricacies with aplomb. Best of all, unlike other comic performers going dramatic like Steve Carell in Beautiful Boy, Louis-Dreyfus understands the importance of subtlety in selling a darker performance. The most emotionally devastating details of her work as Zora are worlds away from her gifted comedic turns in other projects.

Tuesday is a bumpy ride of a movie, mostly held by more rudimentary filming choices from Pusić and cinematography Alexis Zabé. The confines of shooting a VFX-heavy film like this one on a tight budget, not to mention the restrictions of filming around a digital parrot co-star, mean the shot choices in Tuesday are often not quite as imaginative as the script. However, it's also a deeply original production rich with inspired narrative risks and moving contemplations of coping with death. A cross between A Monster Calls, the third act of Terms of Endearment, and a Treehouse of Horror XIV segment, Tuesday is an audacious directorial debut worth commending. Plus, it's got the cuddliest depiction of Death I've ever seen in a movie. That counts for a lot! 

Thank You, Marie's Crisis: How One New York City Piano Bar Gave Me Musical Memories to Last a Lifetime

I didn’t expect the New York piano bar Marie’s Crisis to be a life-changing locale. I simply went because it was the latest place my friends wanted to go to. After all, I was a zygote gay both traveling on her own and visiting her online queer friends in real life for the first time. I still couldn’t bring myself to say the word “bisexual” out loud, let alone “trans lesbian. I was just so inexperienced talking out loud about queer stuff with people my own age. Just getting to the Big Apple felt like a triumph! I tended to just go wherever my friends wanted to and experience what came my way. Even as someone who didn’t drink, that meant I happily transversed to whatever bar they wanted to go to.

I initially thought Marie’s Crisis would be like the other New York bars I’d seen; interesting atmosphere, some cool decorations, a bit too noisy to stay in for long. Those other bars, though, didn’t have a giant piano against the wall and pianist playing various showtunes. That was the cool thing about Marie’s Crisis: there was always a song playing live that you could sing along to. Very quickly, I discovered that there’s nothing more enjoyable on this Earth than singing Broadway ditties in cramped confines. In other circumstances, these claustrophobic surroundings would’ve sent my autism brain into overdrive. However, my love for musicals, my friends, and communal bonding ejected any thoughts of being overwhelmed.

I’ve always become transported to the past through particular songs. Various 60s and 70s songs like “Moonage Daydream” immediately place me into memories of bonding with my mom. David Allan Coe tunes bring me back to me and my dad were driving around Plano in his car. Certain chords of Eric Church’s “Springsteen” immediately make my hands go clammy as I prepare myself to once again endure the misery of 10th grade. Yet, in that 2018 Marie’s Crisis excursion, that phenomenon ceased. “Defying Gravity,” “One Day More,” “Over the Rainbow”, I’d heard them countless times before. I had fond pre-2018 memories attached to them. However, this piano bar was such a glorious experience that my feet firmly remained in the present. No evocative memories of yesteryear could compare to the joys and exhilaration in that moment.

After all, how could I get lost in the past when I was getting nearly thrown out of a bar for the first time? Yes, my inaugural Marie’s Crisis experience almost became my last thanks to me absent-mindedly sitting my frame on a nearby table. A bouncer had to step in and tell me to stop that. Imagine that! I’d never even been in a bar before June 2018. Now here I was being so “rowdy” that a bouncer had to intervene. I had gone from dipping my toes into the water to suddenly swimming laps in the Olympics. Charlie Sheen in 2010 couldn’t keep up with my bar shenanigans!

Returning to the songs, the showtunes came at a steady clip at Marie’s Crisis, there was no lull to let the energy seep out the door. Big group numbers like “One Day More” especially got the bar thumping. The bounciness of "You'll Be Back" from Hamilton was extraordinarily fun to do with a boatload of other people. A “Frozen on Broadway” balloon that had entered the bar sometimes bounced around the crowd in a reflection of all the vigor floating around. Nostalgic Broadway tunes from productions like Rent really got the older members of the bar wistful. Oh my goodness, "Defying Gravity" is also a euphoric ditty to do live with a horde of other souls. Truly nothing feels like it can ever bring you down when so many people are united in harmonizing that number! 

As a big Little Shop of Horror fan, anytime the songs from that show came on, I was also overjoyed. Just getting to hear some of my fave musical numbers in history (Howard Ashman was such a lyrical genius) was a treat. However, there was unexpectedly extra emotional power in hearing something like "Somewhere That's Green" performed by a massive crowd. The underlying yearning of the lyrics just becomes extra palpable in those confines. Meanwhile, no offense to Audrey II, my personal favorite experience of all the sing-a-longs at the bar involved “How Far I’ll Go”. The first Moana song of the night, I was convinced this tune would play to a mostly silent crowd. After all, this was a newer Disney film that didn’t even have a Broadway adaptation to broaden our its fanbase. It would be understandable if 99% of the bar didn’t know what was going on when this ditty came on. However, the moment the song started, everyone in that bar immediately went “I’VE BEEN STARING AT THE EDGE OF THE WATER” 

It was utter magic. That excellent showtune wasn’t even two years old and yet it had already burrowed its way into everyone’s subconscious. It was a microcosm of how that bar transformed total strangers into close comrades. There’s nothing like a Sondheim or Ashman song to make everyone in the nearby vicinity feel like family. The closeness and familial nature of this environment felt so especially satisfying as a queer space. I couldn’t have been the only out-of-towner in that bar that night.

So many of us were coming from locations where it often felt like we were the only gays in the world. Now those souls occupied a space overflowing with queers! Our usual loneliness became a temporary memory in those crowded yet soothing confines. It was as if we were all packed into a separate dimension from everyday reality. There was no way the intolerance and discomforts of existence could hurt us. Here was a zone that belonged to showtunes and your beverage of choice. 

As I stood there harmonizing along to Chicago and West Side Story songs, one thought about the past did creep into my mind. “Boy, Uncle Doug would’ve loved this place.” Uncle Doug was a dear relative to me, an openly gay man, lover of theatre, a published writer, and devoured of Moose Tracks ice cream. When I was a few hours old, Uncle Doug cradled me in my arms and softy sung to me “Ooook-lahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain”. From then on, I was destined to be obsessed with musicals. I always felt so comfortable around Uncle Doug, he was always a great listener and a compassionate soul. Uncle Doug was taken away from this world in the early days of July 2017. Even with his years of suffering from a sickness, his death was still so sudden and devastating.

I never got to tell him I was always queer. I never could’ve even entertained the idea of being trans while he was alive. I’ll always regret I never got to tell him those qualities about myself. It could’ve been another way we bonded, another way we mirrored each other. Forever and ever, I’ll always think about Uncle Doug and all the memories we could’ve made together.

Back in June 2018, my brain briefly fluttered to the past thinking how much he would’ve loved Marie’s Crisis. Uncle Doug would’ve been singing louder than anyone else. He also would’ve made the funniest mock shudder of horror when a Cats tune came on (oh, how he hated that show!). Uncle Doug even told me multiple times that he wanted to take me to New York one day. He loved the place so much and wanted to share it with me. We never got to take that trip. We never got to make many memories.

But I made it. That fateful day in June 2018, I knew in the back of my head that Uncle Doug would been proud of me for making new memories, forming fresh friendships, and keeping his love of musicals alive. That glorious first trip to Marie’s Crisis beautifully intertwined elements of my past, present, and future as a queer woman. Immediately, I knew that this excursion, like so many of Uncle Doug outings, would be forever encased in my mind.

A week after that Marie’s Crisis trip, I was back in Allen, Texas working my cursed job at Walgreen’s. No longer was I surrounded by hordes of queer people. Now I was stuck behind a counter, selling cigarettes and beer to older people who referred to their autistic offspring as “damaged children” or made offhand homophobic comments. My long khaki pants and blue work uniform seemed to be suffocating me. I could feel them burning my skin. Because I was worried about having any physical evidence about being “queer” back then, I didn’t take any pictures of myself in Marie’s Crisis or in most of my NYC trip. All I could do to remind myself of that magical night was close my eyes, hum a certain showtune, and then conjure up memories of that night.  

Sitting behind that counter, Marie's Crisis might as well have been on Mars. I felt like I'd never get back there. But I did, albeit after four years. In that interim period, I realized I was actually a trans girly lesbian, went to UTD, got my Master's degree, and began making a living from my writing exploits. I was also returning to the Big Apple just a few weeks before I was starting HRT. I was entering Marie's Crisis a radically different person in many ways, including in my fashion choices. However, I was also re-exploring this establishment with my love for showtunes and communal queer connections firmly interact. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

This June 2022 Marie's Crisis excursion was a solo mission for yours truly. While I went with a horde of other queer people last time, this go-around I went alone. Once inside, I ended up bonding with a couple of New York gays I didn't know mere hours earlier. However, after one or two songs, we began chattering and became friends. What a glorious experience. Marie's Crisis didn't just depend on the bonds with previously-established chums, it also could bring immediate closeness between queers. I also absorbed a story from the man behind the piano about his first Marie's Crisis trip decades earlier. 

His brother had taken this pianist to Marie's Crisis in the 1970s when he was just a little too young. While there, the sibling dubbed Marie's Crisis a grand sanctuary and revealed to this young pianist the "gay national anthem": "Over the Rainbow." At this point in the anecdote, the pianist's voice cracked with emotion and he had to pause. Then, he divulged to the bar that this sibling had died due to complications from AIDS decades earlier. It was a sobering but vital reminder of the queer community's past.

It also reaffirmed the power of these songs we were belting out. A rendition of "Over the Rainbow" didn't just make memories in the here and now. It connected us to our descendants, intertwining us with the past like a queen chain link. That pianist's brother, Uncle Doug, and any other LGBTQIA+ souls taken from us too soon were all in that bar. Like the deeply moving ending of BPM (Beats Per Minute), this story reminded me how enduring queer lives can be. Society wants to erase us. But our community can lengthen our lives far beyond what mortal coils can sustain.

---

It's a Wednesday morning in Allen, Texas. I sit here on a couch, pug heads on my lap, 23 months on estrogen. It's been two years since my last trip to Marie's Crisis. Yet, the memories I made there are so vivid. I feel like I can reach out and touch the bar counter or the little corner crevice to the left of the piano. Every time certain showtunes emerge on my Spotify shuffle, a smile emerges on my lips. I'm suddenly thrust back into the past singing that song with a boisterous crowd.

There are queer bars in Dallas, Texas. They even often house live karaoke events where you can sing with other gays. No offense to any of those, but they can't hold a candle to Marie's Crisis. How could they? There's something special about sitting in a bar rich with history not too far away from the streets of Broadway and the Stonewall Inn. Marie's Crisis is the place where queer history and musical theatre nerds intersect joyfully.

When I returned to Texas in June 2018, I felt distraught. It seemed like I'd never return to Marie's Crisis. Now? In my heart of hearts, I know I'll return someday. If I did everything I've accomplished in the last two years (started HRT, came out publicly, began living on my own, etc.), then anything is possible, for good and for ill. I will return to Marie's Crisis someday. Until then, those showtunes and memories will sufice. They remind me of all that I love about this queer community and the bonding great music can accomplish. Nothing better encapsulates those feelings than, naturally, a musical number. Specifically, a musical number belted out by a bit of a weirdo...

There's not a word yet

For old friends who've just met

Part heaven, part space

Or have I found my place

You can just visit 

But I plan to stay 

I'm going to go back there Someday

Evil Does Not Exist is Further Evidence Ryusuke Hamaguchi is One of Our Best Modern Filmmakers

I immensely respect the amount of craft and effort director Sam Hargrave and company put into the extended one-take action sequences of both Extraction movies. However, to be perfectly blunt, I think both sequences are a perfect distillation of "style over substance". That phrase has often become cursed in modern cinematic discourse since it's typically reserved for only features that "dare" to suggest motion pictures should be motivated by visuals or emotions rather than standard narratives. In the case of those Extraction set pieces, though, such a descriptor feels apt. Lots of time and sweat got poured into making very important fight sequences involving protagonist Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) look like they were happening in real-time. But they're just not involving or exciting as they unfold.

Filtering things through a one-take doesn't open up new possibilities for fight choreography. The drab color palette of those movies becomes relentlessly grating as these extended shots drag on and on. One also becomes extremely conscious of how little they care about any of the people on-screen as Extraction keeps the camera unblinking. Evoking the visual language of that iconic Goodfellas sequence and utilizing the dedication of so many stunt performers can't mask how hollow these Extraction one-take scenes are. Sometimes, all the confetti in the world isn't enough to disguise how tedious a party is.

I'm probably the only person in history to invoke Extraction when talking about a Ryusuke Hamaguchi movie, but I think it's important to understand just how extraordinary one of the most striking shots of the director's 2024 movie Evil Does Not Exist is. Said shot concerns two representatives of a glamorous camping (or "glamping") company approaching protagonist Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) to help them out on their project, which will intrude on the local land Takumi and others call home. In this shot, Takumi's young daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) is in the distance just behind the two "glamping" advocates. To the right of Takumi is his neighbor, who has been deeply untrustworthy of these two outsiders hoping to bring staples of city life to this rural community.

If you showed this image to somebody devoid of any context, they could still tell you the individual personalities of these characters and their interpersonal dynamics. That's a testament to how striking the blocking of these characters is. Hana is physically removed from everyone, pushed to the back, to signify how she's not necessarily involved in these proceedings. Takumi is quietly placed in the center of the frame to suggest how all eyes are now upon him. His neighbor is shifted to the far side of the scene. This placement suggests his animosity towards the newcomers approaching Takumi. The quietly detailed physicality of the actors in this shot also reinforces the interior worlds of these critical figures in Evil Does Not Exist.

Yes, the big action one-takes in the Extraction movies and this marvelous image from Evil Does Not Exist are setting out to accomplish drastically different tasks. However, I think it's worth pointing out the wildly disparate end results of these visuals. Extraction throws so much razzle-dazzle at the screen only to create murky imagery that neither thrills nor makes one further invested in Tyler Rake. Meanwhile, Hamaguchi and cinematographer Yoshio Kitagawa just focus on six people standing around in a parking lot for a shot that lasts little more than 90 seconds and it packs an emotional wallop. There's so much to unpack in just this single image. That's the power of Hamaguchi cinema right there.

The director of the 2021 masterpiece Drive My Car is back with this visually rich exercise, which concerns the inhabitants of a village called Mizubiki. Like several other 2024 cinema protaganists (see also: Problemista and Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World), Takumi and other Mizubiki denizens are grappling with the encroaching specter of capitalism creeping into their lives. A proposed "glamping" site would adversely affect the environment and there doesn't appear to be much these individuals can do to stop these devastating plans. Evil Does Not Exist uses this conflict to explore the interior lives of characters like company representatives Takahashi (Ryuji Kosak) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani).

The former character gets one of the most fascinatingly vulnerable moments in Hamaguchi's script in a car ride over to Takumi's home. Here, Takahashi bemoans where his life has gone, the people he deals with every day, the terrible bosses he serves. "How the heck did I end up like this?" he ends up yelling in the car, much to the shock of Mayuzumi (who is in the passenger seat). That outburst is one of the few loud moments in Evil Does Not Exist, which finds power in quiet depictions of simmering anguish. Practically everyone in this movie is caught inside a larger system they cannot escape. We are all at the mercy of something bigger. It's a theme not only reflected in the quiet conversations these people. share. It also manifests in Hamaguchi giving foliage in Misubiki's forest so much emphasis in Evil Does Not Exist's visual scheme. From an opening extended shot looking upwards at looming trees onward, this entire movie is conscious of the wider wilderness that humanity is only a guest in.

Nuance isn't just afforded to the characters of Evil Does Not Exist. Eiko Ishibashi's score is as complicated and intricate as any human being on-screen. Initially, her compositions relying on wind chimes and noises resembling the "drip-drip-drip" sound of water droplets falling simultaneously evoke an atonal yet soothing quality. Later, her creations segue into a more classical aura that captures the grand emotions within Takumi and his companions as both potential connectivity and tragedy befall these souls. Ishibashi's score truly offers everything, but Hamaguchi wisely lets certain key scenes play out without those compositions. Sometimes, just a shot of a lake or branches trapped in the snowy ground is enough to capture our eye, we don't need an accompanying music cue. Extraction movies, take note. Evil Does Not Exist is a masterclass in wringing extraordinary imagery out of ordinary locales.

Apes Continue to Be Solid Big Screen Fare in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

The jury is still out on whether or not Mark Wahlberg could've stopped 9/11. However, it's abundantly clear that he's the centerpiece of the one truly dreadful Planet of the Apes movie. Thankfully, when the leading man of Father Stu isn't around in this saga, those damn dirty apes have an impressive creative track record. The assorted Planet of the Apes titles are a deeply enjoyable collection of blockbusters. Whether they're concerned with ape shopping montages, eclectic scores from master composers like Jerry Goldsmith and Michael Giacchino, or the empathetic behavior of orungtan Maurice, these features have proved creatively resilient over nearly 60 years. That solid track record even extends to the modern-day world. The 2010s Planet of the Apes movies were almost certainly conceived as a cynical attempt to make the Batman Begins of the Apes saga. In execution, this trio of features proved downright incredible. 

The newest entry in this saga, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, can't hope to live up to the greatest of its predecessors. However, director Wes Ball's stab at expanding Apes mythology reaffirms that there really are few more reliably enjoy big screen sights than watching apes be apes. Also, Mark Wahlberg is nowhere to be seen, thank Dr. Zaius.

Picking up 300 years after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes begins with a trio of figures the last three Apes titles didn't concern themselves heavily with: teenagers. These particular apes may scare the livin' shit out of some viewers, but they have more on their minds than making someone bleed. Young ape Noa (Owen Teague) and his two best pals are on the hunt for eggs as part of a coming-of-age ritual in his village. The pressure is on for Noa to do everything right in this ceremony given that he's the son of an important master of hawks in this clan. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes before this event can occur. Noa's village is attacked by a gaggle of powerful apes. 

Seeking the kidnapped members of his clan, Noa ventures into a "valley beyond" that he's previously been forbidden to journey into. Here, Noa discovers that he's lived in a much more sheltered world than he could've ever imagined. For one thing, the nefarious bonobo Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) is concocting an evil plan for ape supremacy.  There's also the deeply knowledgeable orangutan Raka (Peter Macon), a figure well-versed in information about Earth's ancient past. Then there's human Nova (Freya Allen), a lady Noa encounters in his clan. She's an important figure who may just unite all these disparate apes...and further change Noa's perception of how this planet of apes operates.

If there's a key issue with Josh Friedman's screenplay for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, it's how much it packs into one movie. Kingdom's story often tries to simultaneously be Rise of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes, which leads to certain elements feeling undercooked. I especially yearned for a little more breathing room in the initial sequences depicting Noa's everyday life in the village. Our protagonist only gets to share a single scene with various members of his clan, like his dad, an intimidating warrior ape, and so on. One wants to marinate in these sequences longer so that the sudden change to Noa's status quo feels truly impactful. 

War doesn't feel as impactful if you don't spend time developing the apes like Rise did. A chopped-down opening like Kingdom's undercuts some of the dramatic tension in the ensuing movie. Plus, the youthful rapport Noa had with best pals Anaya (Travis Jeffery) and Soona (Lydia Peckham) in the lengthy opening sequence was mighty fun. Suddenly sending Noa out alone into the wider world with those pals deprives Kingdom of a fresh new character dynamic for the franchise.

Other aspects of Friedman's script, though, are deeply commendable, including Kingdom's relationship to the last three Apes movies. This Wes Ball directorial effort doesn't take the expected route of following Caesar's direct descendent, nor is the name of that Andy Serkis character on everyone's lips. Centuries after War, Caesar has left behind a complicated legacy he never could've imagined. Going this route doesn't just subvert audience expectations, but it gives room for Noa and the other new characters to establish themselves as distinct personalities. Noa, for instance, isn't worried about living up to the ideals of Caesar. He's just nervous about elements exclusive to himself, like pleasing his father and saving his clan. Even newbie baddie Proximus Caesar has a delicious swagger to him reminiscent of a cocky and manipulative Roman emperor than the feral Koba that menaced moviegoers in past Apes installments. 

Most importantly, though, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes continues the franchise's dazzling visual effects wizardry. Ball and cinematographer Gyula Pados consistently commit to framing these motion-capture critters in vividly bright sunlight, a bold decision that functions as the inverse of Roland Emmerich drowning his CG Godzilla in rain-soaked nighttime backdrops. It's a bold gambit that pays off, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes pops off the screen and the animated characters hold up to scrutiny in the vivid sunlight. One also gets the vibe that Ball and company are having a blast coming up with imagery and set pieces oriented around the idea that this is a world where apes can go anywhere. Buildings have been overtaken by foliage. Gigantic trees have sprung up where buildings once stood. In the wreckage of humanity, opportunities for thrilling ape-centered visuals emerge. 

The slightly more stylized primate designs compared to the last three Apes movies are another choice informing Kingdom's own identity. Two complaints on that front, though. The first is that I desperately wish Noa had a more idiosyncratic look to him. The other apes in his clan have very distinctive appearances and his father appears to be some variation of a baboon. However, Noa himself just looks like a slightly more youthful version of Ceasar. Giving him some unique physical attributes would've made him feel extra special as a character. The other quibble? That one concerns Raka. He has a very circular mouth that descends outward. It's a physical trait many real orangutans have. However, it looks a little odd whenever Raka's speaking. More than once, I was reminded of this master golfer from Monster Factory when I should've been paying attention to his dialogue!

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes gives you just what you'd want from a Planet of the Apes movie, even if it's undeniably a step down from the last three installments in this saga. By the end of its overlong 145-minute runtime, no characters quite as compelling as Zira, Koba, or Maurice have emerged and certain themes are left oddly unexplored. However, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes still delivers tons of gorgeously rendered simian spectacle and a welcome willingness to experiment with what a modern Planet of the Apes movie can look like. In a pleasant surprise, composer John Paesano (a veteran of direct-to-video and streaming movies as well as previous Wes Ball directorial efforts)  steps up to the plate with a solid score. Though he's never composed a score for a movie this big before, Paesano comes up with some creative compositions that nicely further the rich sonic legacy of the Apes saga. Beyond those nuances regarding Kingdom's narrative and score, the feature benefits from one truth we've constantly seen over the last nearly 60 years: "apes together strong" is an enduringly enjoyable sight on the big screen. Only die-hard Mark Wahlberg stans will leave infuriated with what Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes offers up. 

The Fall Guy Has Unforgettable Action Stunts And Dialogue You'll Wish You Could Forget

The Fall Guy is a love letter to the stunt community. It's no exaggeration to say that this is the feature that stuntman-turned-director David Leitch has been working towards his whole career. True, he dabbled in showbiz satire and self-aware cinema about action stars with Confessions of an Action Star in 2005 film, a feature he starred in and wrote, but didn't direct. But with The Fall Guy (based on the 1980s TV show of the same name), Leitch, building off Drew Pearce's screenplay, uses a massive canvas to pay homage to his stuntpeople siblings. Plus, it's an opportunity to navigate the franchise-dominated film industry Leitch grew famous in. This filmmaker has a lot of personal investment in this project. Unfortunately, The Fall Guy is best when Letich tries to channel classic Buster Keaton movies with its elaborate bursts of physicality. The proceedings become a lot more monotonous when this summer blockbuster switches into a His Girl Friday pastiche as envisioned by the screenwriters of Deadpool.

Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) loves being a stunt performer, a job that allows him to be the go-to double for massive movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). He adores this gig almost as much as he's enamored with camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blint). Naturally, when life is going this right, something's got to go haywire. A stunt gone wrong leads to Seaver suffering a severe injury, prompting his abrupt exit from the film industry. 18 months later, Weaver is plucked out of obscurity by producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham). She needs his help with Ryder on the set of a new blockbuster being shot in Australia and directed by none other than Moreno. Given that this stuntman just went AWOL on Moreno after his injury, this filmmaker has a lot of resentment toward Seavers. Soon, though, that becomes the least of our hero's problems. While trying to pick up the temporarily missing Ryder, Seavers gets trapped in a web of trouble that's ensnared this movie star. If he wants to get out of this situation alive and win the girl, the double needs to become a hero. Fast.

Quick digression on a larger film industry trend: what is with modern comedies being so self-conscious? Contrary to what out of touch rich white people think, the problem with comedies today isn't "wokeness". Rather, it's that these films are too confined to "Save the Cat" narrative conventions. Seemingly wacky comedies like Stuber and Strays pause their respective plots repeatedly so main characters can monologue about their character deficiencies and story arc. A title like The Lovebirds practically beats you over the head when it's establishing a Chekhov's Gun. Even seemingly mean-spirited comedies like The Wrong Missy and The Boss devolve into treacle in the third act. Modern comedies seem obsessed over not being perceived as "real movies." Thus, these titles suffocate their gags with excessive runtimes, overcomplicated plots, and ham-fisted adherences to "traditional" narrative structures. In the process, they just dilute the laughs that do crop up. 

Occasional modern comedy gems like the outstanding Bottoms, the masterpiece Barbie, the witty Booksmart, or the visually sumptuous Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar show that it's possible to make superb modern yukfests. You just have to have the confidence to embrace absurd gags over forced pathos and shorter runtimes. Oh, also doesn't hurt to remember that women, enby's, and other marginalized genders are funnier than men! The Fall Guy is far from the worst culprit of the worst traits of modern comedies. However, I was unfortunately reminded of those flaws as Drew Pearce's screenplay unfolded. Specifically, it's so strange that The Fall Guy's plot bends itself into knots trying to establish a big secretive "conspiracy" plot surrounding Ryder's disappearance. It's no spoiler to say that the "secret" bad guys are evident from the get-go. All the endless expository dialogue trying to make sense of The Fall Guy's various narrative detours will just have you yearning for the action sequences to resume.

Convoluting up the plot may have seemed like a good idea in the writer's room to make a modern feature adaptation of a 1980s TV show something "resembling a real movie." In execution, though, The Fall Guy is just poorly paced fodder that leaves one wishing the proceedings could've been severely trimmed down.  Similarly underwhelming are the various comedic romantic exchanges between Seaver and Moreno. These conversations get a major boost from Gosling and Blunt sharing good chemistry, but good Lord. These characters only speak in smarmy sarcastic quips that get old fast. Once I heard one of their back-and-forths, I'd heard them all. The Fall Guy is deeply admirable in hinging a modern blockbuster around romance rather than hunts for sequel teases. If only the romantic banter had been better than a torturously long meta-commentary on split screens that made me just go "oh, I could be revisitng Down with Love right now".

Despite all those major complaints, there are elements to enjoy in The Fall Guy. Chiefly, the action sequences are dynamite. Leitch and Pearce come up with many creative scenarios to put Seaver in that nicely find opportunities for John Wick-style skirmishes in ordinary surroundings. A garbage truck is the centerpiece of a lengthy chase scene through the streets of Sydney, Australia. A hotel duel between Seaver and Iggy Starr (Teresa Palmer) creatively exploits various trinkets in Ryder's pad. The extended finale, meanwhile, is a giddy creation chock full of the cathartic cheer-worthy moments we go to summer blockbusters for. Leitch and cinematographer Jonathan Sela, unfortunately, don't frame the various fight scenes in an especially distinctive manner. Their visual approach to capturing spectacle isn't bad. Just rudimentary. Thankfully, Gosling and the other performers (including the stunt folks!) fully throw themselves into these sequences and prove key to making them the highlight of The Fall Guy.

This feature also provides another joy of summertime cinema: watching talented and pretty people having a blast on-screen. Ryan Gosling just oozes charisma to no end no matter what he does. Unsurprisingly, he's a riot as Cole Seaver. Whether he's engaging in pronounced displays of fight choreography or executing tiny bits of comedic physicality, he's outstanding. Blunt has a good rapport with Gosling and clearly relishes her character's lighter moments. The standout of the cast, without question, is the endlessly charismatic Winston Duke. Give this man his own action movie, he could anchor his own Fall Guy-sized tentpole with ease. Shoutout also to Everything Everywhere All at Once/The SpongeBob SquarePants Musical scene-stealer Stephanie Hsu showing up in The Fall Guy for one extended sequence. Always good to see an icon on the big screen even if it's just for a scene.

The greatest joys of The Fall Guy are delightfully straightforward. It's really fun to watch people do impressive fight choreography. Attractive folks being charming is an endlessly entertaining sight. Sincere romance is an easy but effective way to tug at the heartstrings. Even the sight of working-class folks (with no superpowers in sight) stepping up to be the heroes of The Fall Guy is a conceptually simple but enjoyable detail of the feature. What a shame this production messed things up with a bloated runtime and too much snarky meta-dialogue. Like too many modern comedies, The Fall Guy is too creatively insecure to trust its greatest simplest elements. No amount of sincere lived-in love for the stunt community can mitigate a flaw that fatal.

Chronicles of a First-Time Attendee of the Dallas International Film Festival!

CW: Discussion of suicide, sexual assault, rape ahead

Despite living in the Dallas/Fort Worth area my entire life, it wasn't until this past week that I finally attended the Dallas International Film Festival for the first time. First established in 2006, DIFF has been going on for nearly two decades now, which makes my eschewing of the event all the more inexplicable. Thankfully, I finally got the privilege of attending this event over the course of April 26-May 2. Though work and other commitments prevented me from going to this festival every day like I would've loved to, I still went to three of the seven days the 2024 incarnation of DIFF was operating.

Attending this festival, I was reminded of just how wonderful these theatrical film festivals are. It's just so much fun to dedicate days to watching movies. Your field of vision and priorities are just concentrated on the screen in front of you rather than the hundreds of disparate demands that make up a normal day. It's also a hoot to talk to people between screenings or while waiting in line for movies. If you're at DIFF, you're bound to be a film fan and that gives you immediate common ground to connect with folks. I got to meet and chat with quite a few people over the three days I attended DIFF and that's what I really cherish from this festival. The communal setting of theatrical moviegoing can be so beneficial for bringing people together. My DIFF experiences truly highlighted that.

I caught six movies at my first ever DIFF trip and I've decided to drop capsule reviews for each of these titles as well as rank them from "worst" to best. Read on for my takeaways of the six motion pictures I reviewed at what shall not be my last DIFF voyage!

6. Losing Grace Finding Hope

In November 2016, 16-year-old Grace Loncar took her own life. Losing Grace Finding Hope is a reflection on this tragedy containing several pieces of testimony from Loncar’s family and friends that are deeply moving to watch. Despite those moments and a conceptually noble task of removing the stigma around mental health, this documentary is simply not well made. The score keeps hammering home the tone of individual scenes instead of just letting the words in the interview segments. The awkward cuts during archival footage are unnecessary and (when things awkwardly zoom in) render grainy home video footage nearly incomprehensible. Also, what’s going on with all the lens flares anytime we cut to an old photograph? Director Marcia Carroll overwhelms the proceedings with too many "flourishes" that never let the audience just set with the testimony of these emotionally devastated souls.

Worst of all in Losing Grace Finding Hope, though, is the aloof treatment towards the psychological struggles of Grace's siblings. In the final ten minutes of this documentary, it's nonchalantly revealed that two of these siblings struggled with addiction. Mother Sue Loncar off-handled mentions in an early piece of narration that one of Grace's older sisters also has intense mental health struggles. Why was this greater context almost entirely removed from the proceedings? Keeping these elements of the Loncar family so removed from the viewer makes it hard to discern the individual personalities of the interview subjects. Whether intentionally or not, it also makes the proceedings feel "sanitized," as if darker explorations of mental health and addiction have been removed to make Losing Grace Finding Hope “more family friendly” for faith based audiences. 

Let's be clear, this documentary doesn't need to become trauma porn nor involve Loncar family members delving into aspects of their personal lives they're not comfortable divulging on-camera. However, the fleeting mentions of these greater struggles for Grace's siblings just reinforced to me how little I knew about any of these people by the time the movie is done. There's a vagueness to Losing Grace Finding Hope that does it no favor. The lack of substantiveness leaves a middle section concerning the Grace Loncar Foundation feeling like it's just a lengthy commercial for this entity. Noble intentions permeate this documentary, but they're not enough to overcome a lot of underwhelming filmmaking and an unwillingness to delve deeper into the central story at hand. The life of Grace Loncar and the heavy topics touched on in Losing Grace Finding Hope deserved a better motion picture.

5. Desire Lines

Director Jules Rosskam is juggling a lot of elements concerning the trans man community in the documentary Desire Lines. There's a framing device concerning a gaggle of trans men, circa. early 2020, navigating an archive seemingly located in the same work building from Severance. The feature is also concerned with the history of stigmatization surrounding gay men sexual experiences as well as interviewing trans men about their most vivid sexual memories. That's a lot to balance in one documentary and it's no wonder Desire Lines as a whole lands a bit on the disjointed side of things. However, it's generally an engaging piece of cinema that especially works in some of the original evocative imagery it conjures up. Rosskam creates intriguing visual parallels between two go-to environments in Desire Lines (a bathhouse and an office building), with their winding hallways and wandering souls often looking for something they can't even describe. A closing sequence depicting a cavalcade of trans men sexual fantasies and bodies (all set to gorgeous blue lighting) is a particularly striking accomplishment in terms of imagery. 

4. I Saw the TV Glow

I won't write too much about this one because I've got a full review already up and running for this exploration of suburban angst. Needless to say, though, it's quite good and full of evocative imagery making good use of bright lights clashing against dark tableaus. Even for someone like me that was a tad more mixed about We're All Going to the World's Fair, director Jane Schoenbrun work on I Saw the TV Glow dazzles.

3. An Army of Women

The road to justice is not an easy nor short one. It's not even a road that necessarily promises the tidiest form of catharsis. Such is the reality faced by the multitude of women explored in An Army of Women, a documentary chronicling a cluster of rape and sexual assault survivors living in Austin, Texas. These women experienced unspeakable horrors and afterward received no aid from local politicians or police. Their perpetrators got away scot-free because of Austin's default dismissal of sexual assault cases. An Army of Women follows these people and a pair of lawyers challenging that status quo. Needless to say, that undertaking proves enormously difficult. 

Director Julie Lunde Lillesæter doesn't shy away from capturing how gut-wrenching it is to have to stand up for your basic rights day in and day out. In the middle of all that turmoil, though, An Army of Women makes time to flesh out these women beyond their trauma as well as depict them bonding through their legal process. Scenes of these survivors growing closer to one another reminded me of similarly impactful sequences from I'll Be Gone in the Dark chronicling survivors of a serial killer developing friendships with one another. In the face of overwhelming trauma, human bonds endure. These women are not alone. Focusing on that concept and the complex road to suing an attorney general and police department allows An Army of Women to truly register as transfixing.

2. Ghostlight

In its first act, Ghostlight (helmed by Kelly O'Sullivan and Alex Thompson, the creative team behind the excellent 2020 indie Saint Frances) had me worried. This story of a family, father Dan (Keith Kupferer), mother Sharon (Tara Mallen), and troubled daughter Daisy (Katherine May Kupferer), recovering from an initially unknown tragedy begins in media res. It also kicks off with a tone that starts off on a wobbly note. O'Sullivan and Thompson struggle with balancing broader moments like an extended fart gag or Daisy's most outsized outbursts with heavier material related to coping with immense sorrow. However, O'Sullivan and Thompson also consistently reaffirm their keen eye for depicting subtly lived-in human behavior and nuanced sense of morality from Saint Frances. 

Those retained elements from their earlier film keep one latched into Ghostlight until it finds its stride. Once bottled up Dan finds himself cast in a local production of Romeo & Juliet, Ghostlight discovers its voice as an exploration of coping with grief. The cramped darkened room where rehearsals are held is a a great realistic backdrop for Dan's navigation of the trauma he's kept inside. The assorted actors in the play (including Dolly de Leon as the forceful and endlessly charming Rita) are endearing personalities to be around. I love how they each feel like such distinctively different souls even when they only deliver a single line in a scene. Meanwhile, the quiet depictions of Dan bonding with these other actors demonstrate an impressive level of restraint on the part of O'Sullivan and Thompson. They're willing to eschew lengthy pieces of dialogue and Quinn Tsan's original score in favor of just letting hugs, short phrases, or physical gestures take center stage. The sparse execution of these moving moments lets the underlying emotions really flourish.

By the time the third act of Ghostlight rolled around, the messier first 20-25-ish minutes had largely vanished from my mind. When a movie gets me this emotionally invested, it's doing enough right to mitigate its weakest spots. The greatest microcosm of how Ghostlight evolves into something special across its runtime has to be the performance delivered by Katherine May Kupferer. In her first bursts of screentime, I was so worried about the character of Daisy. Was this going to turn into another instance of Sadie Sink's role in The Whale, where an adult drama has a cringe-inducing portrait of teenage girls? As the movie goes on, though, May Kupferer is given some downright fascinating dimensions to handle with Daisy and she executes them with such finesse. The mixture of rebellion and yearning for connection within this teenager is vividly rendered in the hands of this impressive performer. Like Ghostlight as an entire movie, Katherine May Kupferer's performance initially left me worried before thoroughly impressing me.

1. Sing Sing

John "Divine G" Whitfield (Colman Domingo) resides in the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York State. One of the many fantastic touches in Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar's Sing Sing screenplay (the latter of whom also directs) is how the story begins decades into Whitfield's prison stint. The idea of living in captivity is still confining to him, but it's not a new sensation. There's a lived-in quality to how he and his fellow inmates navigate day-to-day life here. They have their routines. They have their spots they go to for comfort. There's a real naturalism to this depiction that eschews clumsy expository dialogue in favor of observational sequences of characters like Whitfield and Mike Mike (Sean San Jose) sitting under a tree. The point here isn't to bend this world so that it's constantly holding the hands of moviegoers. Sing Sing is a film about humanizing the people on-screen through intimate and nonchalant means. That's the focus and one it accomplishes with remarkable success.

Such humanization largely comes from the exploits of Whitfield and his fellow prisoners in Sing Sing's theater program. I'm always a sucker for a "let's put on a show!" movie and Sing Sing is a great manifestation of that endearing narrative mold. Just watching Whitfield interact with his fellow actors (many of whom are former Sing Sing inmates and veterans of this theater program playing themselves) is incredibly transfixing. The standard exercises stage actors do to get comfortable with each other prove richly rewarding for these inmates. Divulging their dream destinations or getting outside of their default personality forces them to be vulnerable with others. The walls they've built are slowly crumbling. Kwedar's writing and direction depicts those alterations in a terrifically realistic gradual fashion.

Sing Sing is chock full of small moments that profoundly touched me. Supporting player Sean "Dino" Johnson going over his lines while playing basketball or eating in the cafeteria, for instance, is such an instantly moving sight. The dedication he's exhibiting to his craft is so readily apparent and I love that we get to see that quality while getting glimpses into his life outside of the stage. The rapport between Whitfield and newcomer to the troupe Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin is similarly richly detailed. Their dynamic goes down a flurry of different avenues, with those nuanced interactions accentuating the sense of realism permeating all of Sing Sing. Kwedar and cinematographer Pat Scola heighten the authenticity of this feature by capturing everything on 35mm film. The textures and bursts of natural lighting feel extra alive through embracing traditional filmmaking techniques.

None of us can exist on our own. We need community and vulnerability to properly function. Sing Sing is a stirring testament to these truths. The proceedings are made all the more engrossing thanks to the presence of leading man Coleman Domingo nailing the lead role of Whitfield. He alone is enough to make Sing Sing a must-see. Luckily, there's so much more to this movie than even one outstanding performance.