Na Hong-Jin’s fourth feature directorial effort and first in ten years may be the most perplexing film of the year.

As the credits rolled, I turned to my friend and remarked “I am not sure if that was good bad or bad good” only to find out that is Reactor Mag’s review title. Both 1/10 and 10/10 scores are understandable for Hope. It is the first and possibly the last film to play in competition at the Cannes Film Festival that sits at the exact nexus of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Zack Snyder’s DC films, and Prometheus (complete with another freaky Michael Fassbender). And in today’s era of post-ironic, clinging facetiousness, it is almost impossible to determine where the joke begins and ends.

Saying almost anything about the plot of Hope would spoil all of it. Like my earlier comparison of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Hope is largely noise.

Monsters are attacking the small South Korean village of Hope Harbor and the townsfolk have to mount a desperate effort to save what’s left. About two-thirds of the film’s gargantuan yet surprisingly weightless 156-minute runtime is dedicated to just two action setpieces. Characters are only really texture to the soundwaves, but if there is one thing this movie has, it is texture. For a film with absolutely no character arcs, there are a lot of memorable characters: grannies who appear to reactivate like sleeper agents from the 6-25 Upheaval (Korean War), a weirdo who might secretly be a serial killer, and yep an unrecognizable Michael Fassbender to name just a few. As a sidenote on the film’s top-billed Western cast members, I am not entirely sure some of them have a single line of dialogue.

The two aforementioned action setpieces are thrilling and make the runtime seem far shorter. There are multiple chases – in or on foot, bicycle, horse, and car. Squid Game breakout Hoyeon plays a small-town cop with proficiency in machine gun grenade launcher attachments– of course during a car chase. If you enjoyed the opening scenes of Batman v Superman or A Quiet Place: Part Two, there is over an hour of that kind of human dwarfing, hi-fi Cloverfield destruction. About thirty or forty minutes in, though, we get the reveal of the monster, whose CGI looks so bad that it might be a gag. We are talking slightly above the level of that Chinese animated movie made by a mother and son for $200. The idea that everything is all one elaborate joke is slightly more believable in the same movie where an extended monologue about explosive diarrhea is the best scene.

What the director is trying to convey is equally vexing. In a slightly spoiler-y quote (skip this paragraph and the next if you want to avoid) Na Hong-Jin said to the Korea Times that “I wanted to depict human affairs from the perspective of a god. But putting an actual god in the film seemed awkward, so I turned the figure into an alien”. However, Hope ends exactly when we start to understand the monsters’ purpose and what the film might be trying to say. Allegedly, this is supposed to be the first in a trilogy, but this film is intended to stand on its own. Yet there is something here about the relative insignificance of human drama and society in the face of divine or cosmic drama. The DNA of Prometheus (2011) and Man of Steel (2013) are palpable here.

The first act is peppered with references to North Korean spy paranoia and immigration which made me think we were going to get more commentary around those topics: the Korean divide, refugees, xenophobia, and so on. Again, there may be something said there, but the film never gets to any sort of resolution. The monsters might be misunderstood refugees that instantly receive aggression without any questions asked. At the same time, characters like Hoyeon’s express a rage at the brutal indifference and injustice of the monsters’ attack. Or the monsters are essentially deities whose struggle makes the humans insignificant because they were never remotely on the same playing field and the human response is representative of struggle in the face of natural/economic/transcendent disaster. What are we supposed to take away here? But unlike Batman v Superman or Alien: Covenant, this is all only hinted at. There is not enough to be provocative positively or negatively.

Hope might be a serious attempt at a franchise starter or a cheeky anti-blockbuster that purposely builds you up just to let you down. It is probably both and either way, you are the joke. Almost two decades of self-injuriously self-aware, big budget filmmaking probably culminating in Deadpool & Wolverine has made the difference between the two unclear. 2026 feels like a year, though, where we might be finally moving on from the 2010s model with sincere pictures like Backrooms and The Odyssey making more money than the latest cynical, actually bad pretending to be performatively bad takes on Star Wars, the DC universe, and Masters of the Universe.

As harsh as the preceding paragraph sounds, it might be surprising that I would recommend it to some audiences. The action, even with the terrible digital effects, is great, mainly because everything besides the monsters is joyously tactile and practical. Suspension of disbelief is stretched thin, especially when it comes to the durability of a jean jacket, but even that becomes an entertaining gag in its own right. Stay for a mid-credit scene on that one. The quirky cast of characters are funny and give you just enough attachment to favor them over the monsters. Perhaps the film being non-Western makes the formula cut further from the bone or that my reaction to it was thrillingly puzzled exasperation rather than the usual numbing indifference, but I enjoyed Na Hong-jin’s messy epic far more often than I did not.

Hope is now playing in theaters.

Running over 200 miles is never a small feat. Today, we are proud to highlight a recent documentary produced by Jacob Schmiedicke focusing on one man, who has made it his goal to choose the path less traveled, and in doing so, inspire a generation of young men behind to discover their God-given purpose.

Run So As To Win is not just an entertaining short film but a riveting journey. It’s the raw story of Jonathan Kuplack, a recent upstart in ultramarathons (we’re talking 50+ mile races) and a passionate advocate for young men living up to their God-given potential. In 2025, Jonathan ran “the MAMMOTH,” one of the largest and highest-altitude 200-mile trail races of its kind in the world, through the mountains of northern California.

$20,000 in prize money is awarded at the Mammoth. But Jonathan wasn’t running for cash or glory. As the camera tracks Jonathan and his crew (his wife and a Catholic priest) over the three-day race, you get to feel his motivation up close: radical trust in God. It’s a foreign concept to most audiences, pushing oneself physically to grow spiritually, but this documentary may challenge your concept of body-soul unity.

The film feels dramatic at points but never over-the-top. The storytelling is genuine and will keep even your children on the edge of their seats. But viewer, be warned: you may find yourself lacing up those old running shoes the next day.

There is a scene in Mel Brook’s History of the World Part I when the Roman emperor (hilariously portrayed by Dom DeLuise) is being showered by gifts from all over the empire. One of the gifts turns out to be a bathing basin to which the emperor remarks in an unimpressed manner, “Nice. Not thrilling, but nice.”

I cannot think of a more apt description for The Dog Stars. The film is nice.

Not thrilling, but nice.

Like an empty bathing basin, The Dog Stars in itself is a perfectly fine film, but, sadly, it has no substance. It is an empty, hollow shell of a film that says nothing new about the post-apocalyptic genre. The film does its best to make the viewer feel like you are watching a post apocalyptic film by combining different aspects of the genre and tosses them altogether in an unappetizing way. The Dog Stars merely takes the ingredients of the genre and shuffles those ingredients like a pack of cards and then deals them out in a random order. The hand that is dealt is unsatisfying and underwhelming.

The Dog Stars follows Hig (Jacob Elordi) as he navigates living in a world decimated by a global pandemic. A former mechanic turned pilot, he follows a routine of scouting around his airfield, flying into Denver looking for supplies, visiting his old home, debating his gruff survival partner Bangley (Josh Brolin), and hanging out with his dog, Jasper. When his routine abruptly changes, the film then plays the hand that it dealt for the audience.

The film plays its hand without saying anything new. It displays the cliché of old versus young survival perspectives. The older characters are focused on survival against all odds and distrusting everyone while the younger generation wants to believe that everyone should come together and re-form society. The seemingly hopeful and idealistic community that the main characters are trying to reach turns out to actually be hell. The peaceful community living right in front of them is where they should’ve just gone the entire time.

Nice. Not thrilling, but nice.

The film has absolutely nothing new to say about surviving after a fallen society, survivors guilt, or anything about grief and trying to find meaning in a meaningless world. Male and female characters are essentially the same and they fall in love purely because of common circumstances and shared trauma. There is no actual love that is present. Each character is essentially the same. Bangley and Pops (Guy Pearce) represent the older survival at all costs perspective while Hig and Cima (Margaret Qualley) represent the younger survivalist perspective. Both pairs of these characters are exactly the same outside of having slightly different living circumstances which makes for a boring and uninspired story.

The writing is awful and the script is abrasive as is the dialogue. Characters would randomly start talking without any context which made no sense within the context of the scene. Character motivations were either not overly explained or not explained at all. I think this film is made for fans of the book, not the casual moviegoer. If you read the book and you enjoyed the book you would then enjoy the movie. Reading the novel would provide essential context and continuity that clarify certain character choices and motivations. However, good film adaptations provide context for all viewers whether or not you read the original material.

There are some positives to the film: the cinematography was really good. The shots of Hig’s plane flying through the Rockies and various wide shots of characters walking through nature were really beautiful. The quiet “show not tell” moments paired with Harry Gregson-Williams’ score (Shrek, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Martian) combine for a pleasant viewing experience. Unfortunately, these moments are few and are not enough to carry the film through its two hour run time.

I do not understand why Ridley Scott made this movie. I do not know if he was a big fan of the book or if he was tired of making bad historical epics. I think that he must have found something profound in the story which justified its adaptation. Sadly, he does not convey his motivation through the actual film. The Dog Stars is further proof that he is no longer able to make good films that have any impact on cinema. If you are an average moviegoer, this is a perfectly acceptable film to skip.

The YouTube channel What’s Going On With Shipping? posts almost daily news and discussion about the shipping industry. Surprisingly for such a topic, the team has managed to amass over 700,000 subscribers. It has made maritime trade into the Internet’s second favorite type of shipping. While I am not entirely sure why there is so much interest beyond general geopolitical tension, I can say with relative certainty that real news involving container ships is much more worth your time than the latest Jason Statham action film set on one.

Statham plays Cole Reed, the most nondescript variant of the actor’s usual “man you really do not want to mess with” schtick. He is ex-police, ex-Navy, ex-peaceful harmony and now the beloved bodyguard of shipping magnate Tibu Campallo (Ramon Tikaram). On the eve of the company being sold off, Tibu is murdered with Cole framed for it. To clear his name and uncover why the hit was ordered, Reed must fight his way through a container ship of goons. The cast is rounded out with Annabelle Wallis as the ship’s third mate and only non-goon, Tony Award nominee Adrian Lester as a Navy captain, and the gruff Nordic heavy played by Roland Moller.

Just about every element of the promotional campaign for Mutiny would seem to indicate that it would be at best mildly enjoyable, but, believe it or not, there was reason to be optimistic. Director Jean-Francois Richet’s last effort Plane (2023) was one of that year’s biggest surprises. The Gerard Butler-Mike Colter action film was full of propulsive action and decent drama. A sequel succinctly titled Ship was swiftly put into development only to be cancelled right before filming began when Butler abruptly departed. Even more shockingly, Mutiny is not a rework of that film. But either way, perhaps lightning could strike again.

Mutiny is the worst kind of bad film, the type that you forget immediately rather than hate forever. At least some passion of the heart is involved in the latter. Statham has over two decades of action B-movie material, most of which is at least more entertaining than this. There is the really fun Transporter movie (and its okay sequels), Crank, Hobbs and Shaw, his Guy Ritchie collaborations, and so on. And of course, the crown jewel of them all Meg 2: The Trench where Statham walks on the bottom of the ocean, fights dinosaurs, and 1v1s a megalodon while riding a jet ski.

A couple scenes in Mutiny have within them a few brief moments that are enjoyable. It was fun when Reed fought a dude with a fire axe and a harpoon gun. The problem is less to do with explicit incompetence and more with a lack of care or flavor. Richet films the action fine enough. The cast read their lines without the stilted awkwardness that can sometimes appear in cheap genre pics. One exception is Wallis, who is so dull here that you might be tempted to think the failure of Tom Cruise’s The Mummy (2017) and so the Dark Universe was singlehandedly her fault. The saving grace of the film is the runtime, which is mercifully, if abruptly short.

Two scenarios exist where Mutiny is worth watching. First, you are on an airplane. You have already watched Top Gun: Maverick and The Sheep Detectives. It is time for you to drift off to sleep, but it is hard to do with the guy next to you snoring so loudly. Put this on. Second, you are at a family member’s house where there is television service but no wi-fi or cell service. Their cable package does not include Turner Classic Movies, but this is playing on TNT. Sure, why not.

Mutiny is now playing in theaters.

There’s a scene around the middle mark of Jurassic World (2015) where one of the two main kids, Gray (Ty Simpkins) randomly says to his brother:

GRAY: “If Mom and Dad get divorced, will one of us be with Mom and the other with Dad?”

The older brother, Zach (Nick Robinson) is skeptical, stating that his younger brother “hasn’t been around long enough” until Gray replies: “They get mail from two different lawyers”.

ZACH: “That doesn’t mean anything”

GRAY: “I Googled them. They’re divorce lawyers.”

This is never addressed in the film again.

(One comment on Reddit stated the reason the scene was included was so “all the kids in the audience with divorced parents are reminded that they could get double the movie merchandise.”)

But seriously, why include this scene?

Because, dear reader, adding a random divorce subplot is thought by many Hollywood writers to be the key to making a movie SPIELBERGIAN.

And boy, does The End of Oak Street want to be SPIELBERGIAN.

(Mild spoilers from here on out)

I will grant this movie that it at least has the courage to follow through on its commitment to a shoed-in divorce subplot.

The End of Oak Street follows Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway as hapless parents in the suburbs who are struggling to make ends meet for their two kids. One is a frustrated writer who secretly wishes for the career they never got to have and the other is a slightly stupid but loving parent and spouse who just wants to keep the family together.

It’s really funny because if this had come out in the 1980s when this takes place, Ewan would be playing the frustrated writer and Hathaway the lovable, hapless mother.

But because this movie thinks we are still in “Woke 1”, of course it is the opposite. Hathaway is the one who shoots dinosaurs with a shotgun, and McGregor is forced, Walter White style, to run around humiliated in his tightie-whities.

Because, as Paul McCartney said in his all-too prescient “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”:

Happy ever after in the marketplace
Molly lets the children lend a hand
Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face
And in the evening she's a singer with the band, yeah

I do need to backtrack a bit here: there are dinosaurs in this movie. I won’t exactly reveal how, because that is part of the fun, Twilight Zone nature of this film which I do appreciate. And not an ultra-serious, “save the poor dinosaurs” tone of the recent Jurassic movies, but a bona-fide Flintstones vibe complete with a smoking volcano looming in the background.

Ironically, in an age where movies tend to stick the first and third act more than they do the slogging second, the second act is where this movie shines, particularly due to the fact that it features a healthy amount of really well-done dinosaur action to balance out whatever writer/director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) is trying to do with these characters.

And I should note, there is a touching personal element Mitchell brings to this that I won’t spoil that’s revealed at the end of the film, which makes the whole thing semi-autobiographical. But it ends up feeling half-baked, and ends up coming off as really poor feminist messaging even if that was not the director’s intention. (I should also note there’s probably one of the most forced “this character is actually gay” scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. And I’ve seen The Rise of Skywalker!).

Jurassic Park expertly weaves its family drama subtly, with Dr. Grant going on an arc of learning what it means to be a father. It’s all portrayed in subtext, imagery, and clever dialogue (“Life finds a way”). You get so wrapped up in the plot (introducing the world and mechanics of Jurassic Park which set up the later action sequences) that you don’t even notice the story. That’s masterful storytelling.

I will say, this film does have one of the boldest, wack-o endings I’ve seen in a recent film so I will have to give it props. And the longer you think about it, the darker it gets.

But the whole thing just loses any credibility when it tries to make you care about the family. If this film had been directed by someone like Tim Burton1 or Sam Raimi in the late 80s/early 90s, the family would be hilariously, satirically unlikeable to begin with and the camp would be dialed to 11. It would’ve starred Bruce Campbell and Susan Sarandon as the parents and Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp as the kids, and the neighbor would have been Danny DeVito with wild hair and fifteen cats. The whole town would have memorable characters, some of whom you probably aren’t too sad to see get eaten.

But because we as a society have decidedly become allergic to camp, even silly movies like this one need “an emotional core”.

You made a movie about dinosaurs magically appearing in the suburbs! Have fun with it!

And if you think it’s cooler to emulate Spielberg by adding divorce subplots, remember that you’re trying to emulate the guy who remembered not to take himself too seriously with his dinosaur movies.2

(It’s insane how good this scene looks for 1997!)

I’ve been on a huge Matt Johnson kick this summer. For those who don’t know, Matt is the co-creator and co-star of the show Nirvanna The Band The Show which recently had a revival with the aptly named Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie earlier this year.

Johnson first came to my attention with his 2023 movie Blackberry about the rise and fall of the phone of the same name. This year I finally got around to seeing his prior film, Project Avalanche, a conspiracy thriller about NASA in the 1960s.

Johnson’s films- like the man himself- are characterized by originality, chaotic humor, and, most importantly, an unwillingness to shy away from the real. Now that the show is streaming on Hulu I’ve started watching episodes from the original show and it’s insane the lengths they go through to enact the schemes to play a show at the Rivoli. Every Matt Johnson project has felt like something they got away with; almost like they pranked the studio funding it to make it.

So I was pretty excited for this summer’s release of Tony, about the equally uncompromising, boundary-pushing chef-turned-TV-star Anthony Bourdain. However, when the trailer dropped something felt amiss. Why did this movie from an original director about a very original subject feel so…unoriginal?

I wasn’t sure what to expect, then I ended up working on a movie set (long story) in July with a guy who worked on the film, and although he said he had a great time he couldn’t shake the feeling that Matt was in over his head on this movie.

Tony follows Bourdain (Holdovers breakout Dominic Sessa) in his formative years in the summer of 1975 (timestamped by a screening of Jaws the characters stumble through) as he chases a girl to the town of Provincetown in Cape Cod and winds up working in a kitchen there under the supervision of a no-nonsense cook (Antonio Banderas). Bourdain has desires of becoming a writer, with the hope to write a bildungsroman (which he mispronounces), or a coming-of-age story, much like this film itself. It’s during this fateful summer that he not only finds his love for cooking but finds himself, learning that lying won’t get you very far and that blunt, brutal honesty, especially with one’s self, is the best guide in life.

There’s actually a nice undercurrent about Divine Providence (one of the characters mispronounces the name of the town of Provincetown as Providence) as this chance trip to Cape Cod to follow a girl ends up changing his entire life, and the Providence mispronunciation becomes a recurring joke until Bourdain finally learns its meaning at the end. Also, Banderas’ character takes Bourdain to Church with him despite the latter’s objections (“You don’t believe in God? That is like saying you don’t believe in the air you breathe”) ad there’s a great recurring bit where Banderas has zero tolerance for Bourdain’s frequent blasphemy.

However, despite solid ingredients the film just ends up being a nice, paint-by-numbers biopic of a very complicated man. There are allusions to his later drug use and even a conversation about suicide, but it’s brief and almost feels forced as necessary foreshadowing of Bourdain’s future demise. The film’s cinematography from Michael Bauman, fresh off an Oscar nomination for One Battle After Another, feels very different from DP Jared Raab and Johnson’s usual chaotic, zoom-heavy style and it’s a jarring clash. You would never know that Matt Johnson directed this except maybe for the frequent needle-drops.

Reports on the production give an idea of the extent of this “clash”, with Johnson citing a collision between the American studio style and his own freewheeling productions in Canada, which is relatively low on “red tape”:

Johnson had spent years developing an intentionally loose and improvisational filmmaking style on his early DIY films, “Nirvanna the Band the Show,” and eventually “BlackBerry.” “Tony,” however, was a much larger American production, and much of his regular Canadian crew couldn’t join him because of visa red tape and costs. Without that familiar team, Johnson struggled to recreate the spontaneous, experimental approach he had built his career around.

He recalled a perfect Atlantic sunset and wanting to let Leo Woodall and Sessa exist in the moment while the cameras rolled, only to run into the realities of time and money. “It’s not like there was a single person saying, ‘No, you can’t do that,’” Johnson explained. “I mean, sometimes there was. But the kid in me was not invited to set, to use a metaphor.”

The frustration eventually turned into what Johnson described as “complete and total dread.” Near the end of the shoot, an exhausted Johnson was talking through a scene with Stavros Halkias when the comedian pointed out just how palpable his misery had become: “Oh, man, even you can’t make it seem like this is a good situation anymore.”1

However, as the article points out, Johnson was finally reunited with some of his Nirvanna crew— particularly his editors Curt Lobb and Robert Upchurch and buddy Jay McCarrol for the film’s excellent score— but at this point it must have really just been a salvage job.

At the end of the day, A24 is run by the same kind of executives that any other Hollywood studio has: and they are not going to put out a potential prestige-movie that looks any different from the other prestige-fare out there. There’s just so little room in the American studio system for the kind of wonderful, outside-the-box filmmaking that Johnson is accustomed to.

That’s not to say that the actors don’t give it their all— Antonio Banderas in particular is excellent as Bourdain’s mentor— but they just don’t have much to work with. It’s a fine film, but when you watch Blackberry you will understand what a biopic can and should be. As my friend Dan put it as we escalated down from our Union Square Regal showing in lower Manhattan (one of the few places where the film is currently showing), “I was expecting this to be more punk-rock”.

I would still recommend this as a decent biopic, but don’t expect anything more. Maybe watch Blackberry instead. Or an episode of Parts Unknown.

Tony is currently only playing in NYC and L.A. It will be hitting theaters nationwide on August 21

Death. Taxes. Spider-Man.

A tale as old as time (or Gen Z). Since Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man film brought the character to the big screen, there have been 11 solo projects centered around our “friendly neighbors” from Queens and Brooklyn. The IP has proven time and again to be a major cash cow for Sony, generating $9 billion at the box office over the last 24 years. Audiences have consistently flooded theatres to see the latest project featuring Peter Parker or Miles Morales.

This latest installment, Brand New Day, comes on the back of the most successful solo IP film of all time, Spider-Man: No Way Home, which featured a heartfelt crossover between Tom and the other two live-action Spider-Men, Andrew Garfield and Toby Maguire. That movie, which closed the arc for the high-school version of Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), tied a nice bow around the Jon Watts trilogy (Homecoming, Far From Home and No Way Home) and set up Tom Holland’s character for a sort of “soft reboot” in the next set of films.

Despite the critical, financial, and cultural success of the first three solo Holland films, this was a welcome opportunity for change. While Spider-Man was back on the big screen and incorporated into the larger universe of Marvel, it felt like something had been lost in the emotional resonance of Spider-Man’s earlier films, particularly the Raimi trilogy. Jon Watts, for all the good he did, seemed to fundamentally misunderstand the character of Spider-Man. His life was too simple, too neat. Whereas past iterations of Spider-Man, including the maligned Amazing Spider-Man run with Andrew Garfield, leaned into the complexity, emotional weight, and impossibility of navigating a life as a teenager with a secret identity who is constantly wrestling with the potential of putting his loved ones in danger, Holland’s Spidey’s low point before halfway through Spider-Man: No Way Home was the death of his mentor Tony Stark in a movie that wasn’t even his own, Avengers: Endgame. Watts’ movies featured little drama.

It also never felt like any of Watts’ movies took seriously that Spider-Man is a “friendly neighborhood” hero who is a quintessential New Yorker. Even to the point where an entire movie was set in Europe, which, while it was a great movie, was also definitively the worst Spider-Man film. The most egregious transgression, however, was the lack of imagination in the action sequences. Despite the new technology available to Watts, the web-slinging and fights of his Spider-Man films were below average at best when compared to what the previous Spider-Man films were able to pull off (with far more limited technology).

In the aftermath of Spider-Man: No Way Home’s ending, audiences were given the possibility of seeing a more emotionally mature and evocative Spider-Man film in Brand New Day where Holland’s Peter Parker would wrestle with the consequences of his decision to erase his memory from existence to save those he loved.

That possibility has become a reality. Spider-Man: Brand New Day painstakingly delivers on everything that was missing from Watts’ trilogy, and is thus the greatest entry in the Holland era of Spider-Man (I cannot emphasize this enough; it is in an entirely different stratosphere).

Brand New Day is a grounded, back-to-basics adaptation of the Webhead from Sunnyside, Queens. The multiversal disarray is traded for a heartfelt, weighty, and emotional character-driven drama. It is, as my friend LJ said in his Letterboxd review, “A love letter to NYC and a reminder why Spider-Man IS the face of Marvel.” It is everything good about the previous installments baptized into a refreshing layer of maturity. Brand New Day is enthralling, frenzied, earnest, captivating, and filled with love for the ethos of Stan Lee’s most iconic creation.

There is so much to love about this project, but the following points are some of the stand-outs.

The Positives:

This Spider-Man is Different

I am seeing a lot of instant reactions that compare Brand New Day directly to Spider-Man 2 (2004). While I understand the sentiment, I think it is a disservice to both films and particularly to Brand New Day. As I watched Brand New Day, I saw many similar themes to the early Raimi movies, but the delivery and execution are different. Brand New Day doesn’t just feel like a new type of Spider-Man movie. In many ways, it feels like a new type of superhero movie. I need to see it again to put my finger on specifically what I mean by this, but Brand New Day felt different. The pacing was frenetic and well executed. The chemistry of the ensemble cast was impeccable. New York comes alive and is a character of its own. I think Destin Daniel Cretton deserves an immense amount of credit for just how distinct this movie is from other comic-book movies.

Tom Holland Shines

I have loved Tom Holland as Spider-Man since he first appeared in Captain America: Civil War back in 2016. He is the best Peter Parker ever. He nailed the awkward high school nerd vibe of a young Spidey in the first three movies. As Spider-Man matures in this newest installment, so does Holland’s acting. While I loved The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day confirms to me that Nolan’s biggest whiff outside of Charlize Theron’s Calypso was his utilization of Holland as Telemachus in the film. The beauty, the sincerity, the earnestness and relatability of Peter Parker is elevated by Holland’s line delivery and presence. Only Holland could make a scene where he’s building legos the most moving scene of the entire film (shoutout to male friendship).

Zendaya’s Best Performance

Zendaya is beautiful. We all know this. Zendaya is an actress in high demand. We also know this. But did we know she could do this? You probably did, but I didn’t. That is probably my fault, as I have had limited interaction with her filmography. I have only seen her in Spider-Man films and the Dune franchise. She has been serviceable up until now in Spider-Man, and she was good in Dune: Part Two. This was the first time I have seen Zendaya on the big screen and left the theatre thinking she was potentially the best performance of the film. In this movie, she is at worst a standout. Every time she is on screen, her charm and range are on full display. Her and Jon Bernthal’s interactions are the most entertaining of the project, and her scenes with Peter drive the emotional core of the film. 9.4/10.

Sadie Sink, future face of the MCU?

Sink’s role has been highly speculated in the film for months, but was (officially) kept secret until the film’s launch. I will not reveal who she is, but my friend Sam characterized her performance as “the best character introduction in the MCU since Spider-Man debuted 10 years ago.” I agree. She and Zendaya combined for the best characterizations of the project.

Jon Bernthal

The MCU for years has been plagued by soul-sucking comedy. Since Endgame (and even before that), Marvel has ruined countless scenes with poorly-timed comedy. It seemed like their writers had forgotten how to let a scene breathe on its own, and how to integrate comedy into the film organically through the particulars of characters. Perhaps the best part of Brand New Day, and a sign of its maturity, is that the comedy only serves to advance the plot and development of its characters and their relationships. Nowhere is this more present than the Punisher (Jon Bernthal) and Spider-Man’s partnership. Any time they are on screen together it feels like a buddy comedy I would pay copious amounts of money to experience. In every moment of comedic relief, there is a depth of character revealed. Bernthal is not an arbitrary add-on, but an integral part of the emotional pay-offs of the film’s central theme. More Punisher, please.

Web-Slinging and Fight Choreography

As alluded to earlier, Jon Watts Spider-Man trilogy was severely lacking in on-screen exploration of how new technology in film and editing could truly bring to life Spider-Man’s powers and abilities. Several sequences in here are jaw-dropping. Tip of the cap to Cretton, Holland, and everyone who brought it to life.

These are the biggest successes of Holland’s film, and they far outweigh the negative, but there are two minor problems I had with the film.

The Negatives

MCU Bloating - Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

The additional characters and entities (Hulk, Punisher, Department of Damage Control) add a lot to the film, and the writers did a phenomenal job eliminating any “pre-work” necessary to follow the film. Simultaneously, there is a lot that could have been cut out and everything that could be cut out actively takes away from the more resonant beats of the project’s themes. The Hulk appearance alone was a mess. They could have kept the scenes with Professor Banner as a small cameo, and removed the Hulk. The integration would have kept its purpose and removed the fluff.

Tramell Tillman

I am profoundly disappointed in the script for Trammell Tillman’s character. I had high expectations for his inclusion after his mesmerizing performance as Milchick in Apple TV’s Severance, but he was not given space to shine at all. I hope he is written better in future projects.

While it will most likely not surpass the love most have for Spider-Man 2, my initial reaction tells me Spider-Man: Brand New Day will become my favorite live-action Spider-Man film. It does not change my skepticism about the quality and future of the superhero genre, but it is certainly an exception to the general lack of creativity that plagues recent comic book movies and is worth a trip (or two) to your local theater.

It is more than a welcome addition to the Spider-Man franchise, and scores an 8.4/10.

“You know I’m blind, right?”

With a single sentence, the greatest ancient poet had thrown my movie review plan far off course. What was I going to do now?

I had packed everything I thought I needed for this trip: a ram & a ewe, a carbon-steel knife, a dozen torches, a hammered copper hoplon, a backpacking-size IMAX 70MM projector, a pop-up IMAX screen, an inflatable Dolby 7.2 surround sound system, two folding plush movie theater chairs, candied figs (I knew he probably wouldn’t want popcorn), a sub-zero sleeping bag, and lots of water. I had been told that it was cold and dry on those black Icelandic beaches; was it ever.

It had all begun so well. I had landed in Reykjavik a little after 11 local time and took an Uber to the entrance of the dead. My only miscalculation up to this point was that sunset in Iceland was at 11:08 PM, which gave me plenty of time to set up my screen, projector, and inflatable Dolby 7.2 surround sound system. If I was going to get the interview of the millennium, I wasn’t going to do it halfway.

The ruddy-handed sun dove beneath the horizon, splashing out its last rays on the copper shield; I slit the throats of the ram and ewe. As a movie critic living in Flatbush I hadn’t had much experience slitting sheep throat, but I had watched a couple of YouTube tutorials on the flight over and it was actually pretty easy. The dark blood dripped onto the pan and I waited for my interview with the original storyteller.

I had seen the mistakes made by Odysseus in his trip up here, so I had ChatGPT generate a sign for me that said “For The Original Storyteller” in Ancient Ionic and Aeolic Greek, and placed the sign gently on the ram’s bloodstained horns. I had to shoo away a number of greedy pretenders. Virgil made a strong case and I was almost taken in by Hesiod, but I kept them all away. Finally, he approached. Nothing was going to stop me from getting this story.

As Homer stooped to sip the blood, I spoke my prepared speech:

O greatest bard, I ask thee now to sit

And watch a great retelling of the great

Odysseus, your greatest, boldest, Hero,

Directed by that Christopher of famed

House Nolan, he a mighty storyteller

Who’s sung of dreams, of stars, of magic men,

And of whatever Tenet was about.

Wilt thou recline and watch this film with me?

“You know I’m blind, right?” The right corner of his lips tightened into a smirk and he almost seemed to look through me. I couldn’t speak—my heart was a boiling storm of rage, disappointment, and confusion. Had I done all this for nothing?

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Disclaimer: None of this review will make sense without at least a slight working knowledge of Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you haven’t seen it, Run, don’t walk, and enjoy an amazing thing.

“I know you’re not supposed to cry over spilled tea, but... it’s just so sad.”-Uncle Iroh

Sigh.

Listen. I went into this with an open mind.

I’ve dressed up as Katara for Halloween. I own a Momo plushie. I love the original series. And Avatar Studios made their debut film as a continuation thereof, promising that it was made by true fans, for true fans. So here we are. The intention is to set aside my powerful bias and talk about the movie qua movie. And the intention is also to not bring up The Legend of Korra, the Shyamalan war crime film, or the live action series at all (Though these have all hurt me). I went into Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender with hope, because I understood that it was made by people who loved the original series, and wanted to make something that held up to its predecessor. And I believed in them. Uncle Iroh would want me to.

To set the scene, this film takes place 13 years following the events of the Avatar: The Last Airbender finale. The gang are all young adults, bettering the world in their respective roles, and doing very well at healing a wounded world. But Avatar Aang falls into a quarter-life crisis (happens to us all) about how he is the last airbender and sole keeper of his culture. But! Then he encounters a mysterious other airbender. And a mysterious artifact. And a mysterious group of non-benders with mysterious nefarious intent. So he must reunite the familiar faces of Katara, Sokka, Zuko, and Toph to save the world yet again. And so the stage is set.

It is considered polite when giving one’s critiques to present them as a compliment sandwich: Good, Not-so-good, Good.

The Good Stuff:

The nostalgia hits right away. The theme music from the original series starts up in the opening scenes and you are in, baby. You are on board. You are ready to go, yip-yip!

The visuals are fairly spectacular. Avatar Studios shook up the animation a bit, adding texture and color that was dazzling in certain scenes. It was beautiful, it was exciting. The motion and the composition was visually interesting, and the scale of the world they created was enormous. They were also fearless in the action sequences, creating some incredibly inventive scenarios that were really fun, actually. (Like throwing an airbender into a tornado. Amazing.) The fight scenes were epic, the stakes were high, and the story beats were exciting.

And I’ve got to give it this - it was a tight plot. So tight in fact, that we are now going to gracefully segue into….

The Bad.

If the visuals were the shining star, it came at the steep cost of everything else. Truly, truly, I think this film would have worked if it was a series of episodes. Then at least we could have learned ANY of the supporting characters’ names. And motivations. And reasons to care about them. Perhaps then we could have a plot that didn’t feel like someone picked up pieces from the cutting room floor and then put it on 2x speed. Perhaps then Zuko would have had more than 4 lines in the whole movie, and perhaps Katara would have had more to do then say “But Aang, you’re the Avatar” and hug him in a tragic manner several times. In watching this film you can tell that there was so much more that was supposed to be in it. There were so many scenes that you could feel the absence of, conversations that you can tell were cut to squeeze in another fight scene, and consequences that just never get shown. What we are left with is a breakneck-paced action sequence extravaganza that feels incomplete as a film, but really impressive as a list of ideas on paper.

Also, though I think they did a really good job aging the characters up, it seemed as though they couldn’t decide if they actually wanted the characters to be perceived as adults. What this resulted in was a weird amount of scenes where the characters were looking like Vogue models but acting like the young version of themselves. It was odd, especially since this film has a heavier and more mature tone.

In prioritizing the look of the film, the story and dialogue got beaten up in a dark alley and left for dead. Exposition was, to put it kindly, heavy-handed, and yet somehow, simultaneously, the voice actors were left fighting for their lives with the most repetitive, robotic simple sentences ever gleaned from a Duolingo prompt. Some of that could be forgiven if the essence of the characters remained, if not intact, at least recognizable. And to that end, we gracefully segue back into…

More Good:

They absolutely nailed the facial expressions of the characters. Sokka was spot-on. Toph was exactly the way she should be. The continuity of the world was there. There were moments of heart and charm that convinced me that this was not a mere cash grab taking advantage of a successful franchise, but rather a true passion project that unfortunately had a troubled production and was forced to make compromises. There were subtle and not-so-suble nods to the original series that made me happy. There was a frankly bizarre Spirit World sequence that did not make me happy. We can’t win them all. But we can keep trying, and strive to keep the standards high.

The original series was an amazing show. It was light, it was funny, it was creative, heartfelt, and sometimes deeply profound. It could make a stupid joke as easily as it could make a grown adult cry. And it has proven itself an exceptionally difficult act to follow. But this is what inevitably happens. The stuff we love gets blitzed in a blender and served to us in fresh new ways, because “fresh” and “new” is exactly what a crowd craving nostalgia wants….. right?

While I deeply appreciate that this film is not the worst of the indignities The Last Airbender has suffered, it didn’t do it for me. But I hope it inspires thousands to watch or rewatch the original series. It’s immediately what I started doing after finishing the film, and it made everything better.

“Nolan’s Most Christian Film to Date?” by Joe Wilson

Christopher Nolan's latest film has been accompanied (at least in conservative circles) by no small amount of pre-release controversy, ranging from the casting to the lackluster dialogue featured in the trailers to some strange press tour comments by the cast. It turns out that the film itself is one of the least controversial blockbusters released in recent years; certainly less "problematic" than Nolan's last film, 2023's Oppenheimer. Nolan takes The Odyssey, a story deeply ingrained in the Western psyche, and gives it a loving, largely faithful adaptation to the big screen. Almost all of the story beats of the epic poem are here, and the supernatural elements are treated with awe and reverence rather than shoddily cut out (looking at you, Troy).

It’s almost unnecessary to say that from a filmmaking perspective, Nolan directs with a panache unequaled by any other director of his generation. The cinematography is breathtaking, and Nolan’s commitment to practical filmmaking techniques give certain sequences a visceral quality seldom felt in modern Hollywood. The performances are all generally pretty good, though none stand out as excellent or Oscar worthy except for Samantha Morton’s Circe. It’s a very typical Nolan cast, pace the critics, and he gets the same quality of performance from them that he’s gotten in the past. His trademark non-linear approach to time is tailor-made to adapt ‘The Odyssey’, with its separate timelines, in medias res structure, and multiple story-within-a-story sections.

Overall its a very solid film and a good adaptation of its source material; better could probably be done, but it’s nothing like the fear-mongering that was peddled by content-hungry podcasters and the conservative ecosystem more willing to tear down than build. It’s not the best film in Nolan’s filmography, but it is the closest thing we’ve gotten to a true epic in decades, and I encourage our readers to check it out in theaters.

There are, to be sure, flaws in the film. The dialogue is all very modern in its idiom, which distracts from the epic grandeur of the cinematography and subject matter. This film aspires to be Ben-Hur or Lawrence of Arabia; visually, it comes close but in its dialogue it is more akin to a recent Spider-Man film. Nolan’s best dialogue was in films he co-wrote with his brother Jonathan, and I believe that this film is missing Jonathan’s touch badly. That being said, it’s not distractingly awful like, say, a Disney Star Wars script, and conveys the meaning of the story well enough for a wide 2020s American audience.

I also did not like Nolan’s approach to Penelope, whom he wrote as very human whereas the poem characterizes her as almost saint-like in her patience and faithfulness. Her relationship with Telemachus was fraught at times, though her genuine love does shine through, and although Anne Hathaway gives the performance her all I missed the gentle, strong, feminine Penelope of the original.

Much could be said about the themes of the film and the fact that Nolan seems to actually be trying to “say something” with The Odyssey, something he has rarely done in his filmography. Much of that discussion would drift into spoiler territory, so perhaps it is better saved for a different forum. However, I do believe that it is deeply Christian in its outlook; perhaps Nolan’s most Christian film to date. Ultimately the fears that this would be a “woke” film or a sacrilegious butchery of a foundational Western text are unfounded. Indeed, by using some of these confusing counter-signals in the casting and marketing, Nolan may be trying to signal a deeper message about the decline of Western civilization. My theory that Nolan’s worldview is, above all, deeply rooted in his boyhood Catholicism continues to be vindicated. I’ll be going back a second time; I encourage all of you to at least give it a shot with an open mind.

“An Ancient Story with Modern Problems” by Charlie Scott

I have a complicated relationship with this film, coming up to its release. I went from perhaps the film's biggest fan, to being so disinterested I almost didn't even want to see it, only at the end to have my hopes raised again to be somewhere in between. Well after millions of feet of IMAX footage and months of disastrous press touring from the cast and from Nolan himself, I have finally seen The Odyssey and can say that it is just okay.

Perhaps the biggest pro of this film is that it will undoubtedly get millions of people to read this classic. It in fact inspired me to read it before the film came out, and I can confidently say that I am absolutely in love with it. I had bought graphic novels and Fitzgerald translations in the hopes of teaching it to my students next year, and after reading the Fagles translation I could not be more excited to embark on the journey with my students.

Nolan did an excellent job with picking Penelope and Odysseus' actors, as well as the incredible special effects. He had scenes where he displayed his full brilliance in amazing scenes of horror and awe, and set up some pretty solid sentimental moments. Nolan even explores newterritory by delving into the guilt of how the Achaeans conducted themselves during the fall of Troy (an incident that is extensively covered in ‘The Aeneid’). The film is overall well shot (except the final fight with the suitors was quite hard to see at times), and while it was quality it wasn't quite up to the level of Oppenheimer.

With all of these pros, however, there are some MASSIVE flaws with the film that will keep it from being Nolan's best in the long run. Without a doubt the worst part of this film is the costumes and dialogue. These two aspects together prevented me from hardly ever feeling immersed in this massive 3-hour run time. I was wrong to think that the accents wouldn't bother me, but it turns out that they did. These two things paired with some highly questionable casting decisions led to a tale that hardly felt like it had anything to do with Greece. Multiple highly unnecessary F-bombs are dropped that totally shatter any and all hopes of immersion, including one moment where an African-American shoves Odysseus and exclaims “F*** off”, that had more in common with downtown Chicago than anything that's ever happened within a thousand miles of the Aegean Sea. Time after time the drawing and clunky dialogue would remind me that I'm watching a modern interpretation of The Odyssey, rather than a faithful adaptation.

From the casting of Page and the affirmations of her new gender, to Penelope's hyper modern mini rant about her problems that “only men” can hold the throne, to Jon Bernthal (who is a good actor) pretty much playing a mobster or The Punisher instead of a Spartan King, all of these things added up to prevent me from enjoying it as much as I wanted to. The costumes are always abhorrent, with most of them looking cheap, none of them historically accurate, and the only one that had any effort put into it looks like a Batman costume (Agamemnon).

While Nolan has flashes of great brilliance in the Cyclops scene and the Circe body horror scene, I can't help but feel that these are two of the best scenes mostly because they are the most fleshed out. I am aware that they shot way more footage than was used in the film, and I can't help but think that there is an 8-hour cut of this film existing somewhere that had to be edited down to three. There are numerous good scenes that are cut short and lose their emotional impact because we are only permitted to stay a minute or two at the absolute maximum. One of my favorite scenes from the original story was the moment where Argos and Odysseus finally meet, and the two share an intimate moment as he is the only one who recognizes his master. This moment is given perhaps five seconds, and is used to bypass the dramatic revelation that Odysseus has to Telemachus.

Nolan's Odyssey acts as a CliffsNotes summary of Homer, capturing most of the major details but grazing over any of the finer details, and it shows in some of the character choices. Telemachus, for example, has far less agency and is far less capable than the original. The bad female characters of the original epic are given practically total absolution of any and all evil that they've done. Calypso's highly predatory and deeply unsettling behavior from the original is borderline justified by the film, as she just took care of him, grew to love him, and didn't want him to leave necessarily but was fine to let him go on his own. The unfaithful maids of Odysseus’s house suffer no consequences for their treachery or behavior, despite them being just as complacent in the suitors' plot as the suitors themselves. Instead any guilt within this reimagining is burdened on the men, whereas it seems women can do no wrong. Even Helen of Troy is given a bizarre dynamic with her husband Menalaus, where the film hints that she either ran away with Paris of her own free will or wasn't grateful to be back home. Even Clytemnestra is given total absolution for her actions. This move no doubt has something to do with it being based on the Emily Wilson translation.

I know this is a lot and I could go on about the things I enjoyed and the things I didn't, but at the end of the day I can't say that it's a great adaptation of the Odyssey. This could improve on a second viewing (which I am planning on) or an Extended Cut, and overall is worth seeing in theaters, but I can't endorse it on faithfulness to the source material. As a film it mostly works (and will probably be a little better on rewatch), but as an Odyssey adaptation it doesn't work as well.

P.S. - The giants scene should have been cut; it felt like Monty Python and Holy Grail.

‘The Gospel Hidden in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey’ by Jack Morgan

In July 2023, Christopher Nolan released his twelfth feature film, Oppenheimer, to resounding success. It was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won 7, securing his first-ever victories for Best Director and Best Picture. It was his magnum opus and hailed as the crowning achievement of his career. The themes of guilt, responsibility, and the consequences of hubris explored in Oppenheimer are among the most profound in Nolan’s storied career.

After Oppenheimer amassed $976.7 million at the box office and had its remarkable award season success, all eyes turned towards his future: what was next for the defining director of the 21st century? What mountains were left for him to climb? What stories were left for him to tell? How could he possibly follow up, duplicate, or even come close to the success and critical acclaim of Oppenheimer?

It took a year and a half before Nolan and Universal Pictures announced that his next project, and thirteenth feature film, would be The Odyssey. He was going to adapt a story that Hollywood had, for decades, deemed unadaptable: a 2,800-year-old epic. Nolan has revealed in the past few weeks on his press tour that this is the movie he has always wanted to make. It is the project that his entire career has been building towards.

After seeing it, I can confidently say The Odyssey is an unequivocal triumph. It is a remarkable meditation on responsibility, atonement, remembrance, and faith. Rather than deconstructing one of the founding texts of our Western canon, Nolan’s adaptation of ‘The Odyssey’ was crafted with deep respect and reverence for the source material. A story of the return of the father, the elevation of the son, and the vanquishing of evil.

Still, all adaptations will have differences from their source, and the greatest tweak Nolan makes is to the character of Odysseus. The changes are sensational and deeply moral and appear to reflect the enduring influence of the Christian worldview that shaped his upbringing as a Catholic schoolboy in England. Unlike Homer’s Odysseus, Nolan’s Odysseus is not a prideful man nor a womanizer. He is rather a man of deep integrity and honor, plagued with guilt after living through the unintended consequences of his victory in the Trojan War. A victory he secured through deception and the breaking of Zeus’s Law: the reigning moral code of his day.

Nolan captures something deeply true in his portrayal of Odysseus: even the greatest of men are fallible, capable of immense good and immense evil, often despite their intentions. Greatness, according to The Odyssey, is thus not the possession of an abstract heroic ideal but the lifelong pursuit of virtue despite one’s own failures. Integrity does not mean perfection. What distinguishes the truly great man is not a spotless soul but a persistent desire to atone for his sins, to restore order where he has sown disorder, and to accept responsibility for bringing good into the world while confronting the evil within himself.

In Nolan’s Odyssey, it becomes clear that Odysseus survives not because he is the strongest man, but because he is the kind of man who refuses to surrender to his failures. He is sustained by his sense of honor, his willingness to bear responsibility, and his unrelenting desire for the good. Like every man, he stumbles. Unlike many, he gets back up.

It is in The Odyssey, then, that Christopher Nolan’s Christian upbringing seems to haunt him most clearly. The questions he wrestles with and the themes he returns to could only emerge from the fertile earth of a deeply Christian imagination. His Odysseus is a man burdened by grief and guilt who deliberately chooses the path of repentance, exchanging the warrior’s armor that defines the film’s first two acts for something more akin to a monk’s cowl in the third; a third act which reaches its climax in a scene of confession, where Odysseus recounts his guilt and sins through a screen—a clear homage to the ancient Christian practice of confessing one’s sins to a member of the presbyterate. The most ingenious stroke of Nolan’s adaptation, however, is embodied in the track “Another Name” from the film’s score. The scene it accompanies reveals that the admission of our faults, the acknowledgment of our sins, and the acceptance of responsibility for the harm we have done all serve a greater end: the restoration of communion. Compunction is not an end in itself but the fuel of the all-consuming flame of caritas. In this movement from repentance to communion lies the philosophical and theological heart of Nolan’s adaptation.

This is the key to understanding every scene on Calypso’s island, which serves as a home base and reference point for the whole film. Even while trapped in a mind-altering haze, Odysseus continues to long for something beyond the shores of her island. That longing is not merely for Ithaca but for reconciliation—with his home, with those he loves, and ultimately with the man he is called to become. His desire to leave Calypso’s paradise is inseparable from his repentance.

The Odyssey is not without its flaws, but at its core, it is breathtaking—arguably the most spiritually resonant of Nolan’s films. It is a genuine spectacle, yet its greatest strength lies elsewhere. As the archetypal story of the return of the king, it carries the emotional weight necessary to do justice to one of the foundational themes of Western literature and, indeed, of every story that strives toward the good, the true, and the beautiful. It deserves to be seen in theaters, and more than once. Like Nolan’s best work, the film rewards repeated viewings, revealing new layers and connections each time. For me, The Odyssey is a 9.8/10 and immediately earns a place among my five favorite films of the 2020s.

As a little bonus, I want to shout out some of the standout performances from the film:

(For paid subscribers only)

I have already seen The Odyssey twice and will probably see it several more times before its theatrical run is over. I’m confident that in a few weeks, I’ll regret something I overlooked or failed to include in this review. But if you take only one thing away from it, let it be this: if you weren’t already planning to see The Odyssey, make room for it on your summer to-do list. You won’t regret it.

(250 year old spoilers follow)

It’s the Fourth of July, a day right after this film is released, and I am on my way to offer two hours of my day to Angel Studios in exchange for an exciting and hopefully inspiring biographical drama about the life of George Washington in his younger years as a general.

While I was waiting outside the theater, an older gentleman excused himself while he passed us into the theater wearing a hat and shirt with “250 Years of America” on it. I caught a glimpse of the kind of crowd I was about to belong to. When I finally stepped inside the theater I was surprised to find the whole theater packed with Virginians wearing their proud red, white, and blue. This was going to be something. As I watched the few trailers of Angel Studios branded films that preceded the film (all consisting of similar conservative historical dramas with random B-list actors you would never expect) among the crowd of patriots, a suspicious feeling began to sink in.

Where had I felt this feeling before? As the film began, it opened with something that would mark the rest of my experience watching the film:

“This Film is Approved by the Angel Guild”

This will be of great importance to remember in a bit, but for the meantime the movie is about to start. Very soon into the film, the rather young Washington appeared on screen, to which I was expecting something like a crowd cheer by the way other characters had kept mentioning the name “Washington”. Constantly it was brought up and treated with great emphasis; it was almost as if the actors were trying to directly give the crowd goosebumps every time it was spoken. This was a pattern that repeated throughout the entirety of the film.

This subtle, yet noticeable awareness of the audience throughout scenes gave the whole film a sense of inauthenticity and unbelievability in its telling of the George Washington story.

The best way I can describe it is in a particular scene when George Washington is meeting up with his love interest Sally Fairfax (Mia Rodgers). During the course of the scene a famous classical piece by Bach is playing in the background, seemingly coming from somewhere in the room. The characters don’t seem to notice it. It most likely would not have even been played during that time in history. And yet it is a popular classical piece that people would associate with high class and so… it is used in the scene because it is expected.

Throughout the film, Washington’s journey is marked by clichés. Rushed romance and action kept just under enough control and within the sight of the camera to give the illusion of a vast raging and violent battle. The ending finally moves young George from a passive to active character…far too late.

A vivid sense of unbelievability grew larger when I could sense everyone in that theater nudging to their neighbor when Andy Serkis (as Edward Braddock) or Ben Kingsley (as Robert Dinwiddie) popped on to the screen to give the most mediocre performance I’ve seen from them. It was almost as if it didn’t matter that they were playing characters in a story, but rather that their mere presence as professional actors in this “Christian Film” was enough to make the Angel Studio fans feel like “they’ve made it with Big Hollywood” despite whether the film turned out to be good or not.

This very goal towards primarily being a “better Christian adaptation” of what would normally be a “secular film” proved greatly detrimental in providing the audience with believable and real characters and a story that is worth investing in. Instead what was presented was an hour and a half of “Young Washington” failing in his positions of authority, without clear responsibilities or agency on the part of his character, all while his personality is kept crystal clean of any emotions lest his legend be stained of any genuine human flaws.

Earlier in the essay I mentioned the opening title of the film which mentioned an approval by the Angel Guild and after some quick searches online, everything that I had experienced just recently made sense. Unbeknownst to me, Angel Studios has a system called “The Guild Score” where any member can vote on a certain project they would want to see Angel Studios produce.

“A measurement of the audience’s passion for and support of a potential film or show, the Guild score is the deciding factor that determines whether a project will either come to fruition or will need to be refined and resubmitted for further voting. The Guild score will also closely predict what a potential film’s Rotten Tomatoes audience score would be”1

All that I had just spent watching for the past 2 hours was the product of a film so heavily influenced, refined, and finally approved by over a million guild members that by the end of it, had lost all sense of personality and expression.2 In the end I was greatly disheartened by a film which promised more than a regular production studio, and delivered not even a quarter of it.

It was a heavier blow to take once I realized that over 100 of the shots filmed were made using generative AI (a fact that was made obvious during the course of watching the film and that I just had to confirm afterwards). Although the use of AI is implemented in various ways, such as for establishing shots or for adding the firing effect to the canons, it is most prominently used in creating the illusion of a freezing cold river during one of the action sequences. The director argues for the use of generative AI to “make something safer and more affordable in that scope to a project like this”.3 I can’t help but see the usage of it within this context be nothing other than a waste of potential talent and creativity in a film which already is largely lacking in such.

In the end, Young Washington is a prime example of Angel Studio’s anxious concern with providing the expected at the risk of losing what is needed within a story.

100 Movies Every Family Should See

Minions & Monsters Serves Satisfying (Enough) Ode to Film History

Those brave enough to proclaim the Minions of Despicable Me fame as a hilarious reprisal of the sub-verbal slapstick comedy that permeated early Hollywood finally get to see the quiet part said aloud. The third Minions and seventh overall Despicable Me…

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2 months ago · 1 like · Dean Robbins

In 2022, after a disastrous run of films in their first iteration of an “expanded universe,” DC Studios announced it would be rebooting their cinematic universe with rival Marvel talent James Gunn as its head. At the time, it was easy to see why DC decided to make such a move. Gunn was an accomplished director who had taken the D-list characters of the Guardians of the Galaxy source material and turned them into a fan-favorite, critically acclaimed trilogy. However, a few controversies surrounding discontented fans of the previous DC Extended Universe (DCEU) and a relatively silly first Superman teaser trailer released in late 2024 led to significant skepticism about whether Gunn had the chops to create a fully blown cinematic universe with a diversity of tones.

With this buildup, I myself was pleasantly shocked by how much I enjoyed the inaugural film of the new DC Universe (DCU) in 2025: Superman. The casting of David Corenswet as Superman and the Boy Scout, “All American,” take on the Man of Tomorrow was a home run. Critics and audiences were clearly pleased, with a 83% critic score and a 90% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, grossing over $600 million at the global box office and outperforming all three Marvel movies in 2025 (Captain America, Thunderbolts, and Fantastic Four: First Steps). The DCU was off to the races, or so it seemed.

In life, a good first impression buys you a runway; how long that runway is completely depends on the success and reception of what follows. Enter Supergirl (2026), the DCU’s second feature film starring Milly Alcock in the titular role with Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya; Dumb Money, and Cruella) in the director’s chair. Last night, I went to see a “Fan First Screening,” hoping it would measure up to its predecessor. So, does it?

In short, yes and no. Supergirl is a mixed bag. A confused and muddled mess. It’s the extremely naturally talented athlete who has no discipline or refinement to his or her game whatsoever. I have never been more conflicted about a movie during my initial screening. Some elements are outstanding. Some are less so. In the hour and 48-minute run time, my emotional experience ranged from tearing up at one of the more Catholic scenes I have seen in recent cinema to being completely taken out of the movie when, quite possibly, the worst needle drop in cinematic history happened in the film’s climactic action sequence. I left the film feeling like I want to see more of Supergirl and Superman, but also questioning whether or not I want to see James Gunn continuing to head this new expansive universe.

Since my emotions are so mixed, I think it would be good to highlight the highs and lows of the film.

Highs

1. Milly Alcock is superb as Supergirl. Genuinely, they knocked it out of the park with this casting. She plays the role of Superman’s traumatized, cynical, Kryptonian cousin extremely well. She’s charismatic and has profound chemistry with everyone in the film. Alcock’s performance even makes Eve Ridley’s Ruthie bearable in their scenes together, despite Ruthie being one of the more annoying and forgettable secondary characters in a comic book movie in recent memory. The highlight of Alcock’s performance was in the flashback scenes to her time on Krypton and Argo before arriving on earth. To play an immersive Kara Zor-El, Alcock learned a made-up Kryptonian language well enough to deliver several of the best-performed emotional scenes in comic book movie history; the one between her and her dad, Zor-El particularly stood out for me as profoundly Catholic in its anthropological philosophy (and was equally tear-jerking).

2. Jason Momoa as Lobo was also a standout. Every time he was on screen as the murderous immortal bounty-hunter god of the DCU, I wanted him to never leave. His chemistry with Alcock was a highlight, and he, too, elevates scenes he has with Ruthie. “I’m so proud of (him).” Inside joke - watch the movie.

3. David Corenswet as Superman. There are several cameos from our newest Supes in this film, and in every scene, you are reminded of why he IS Superman. I just adore his “gosh, golly gee” humane (and apparently comic accurate) take on Superman compared to Cavill’s more godlike interpretation in the Man of Steel. I left the theater more excited to see him return to the role in Man of Tomorrow.

Lows

1. The plot is not compelling. Everything feels rushed. I was excited for this movie specifically because the pitch and marketing for this film centered around Supergirl dealing with the trauma of watching Krypton be destroyed, and having to save the only living memory she has of Krypton: Krypto. Unfortunately, all of these plot points are severely undercooked. It reminds me of the Bill Burr skit where he makes an analogy between cake and abortion (surprisingly, in defense of the pro-life position); Gillespie prepared the batter and put it in the oven, then took it out halfway through and scattered it across the kitchen floor. I was actively upset during several moments of the film because of how much potential the film had, and how egregiously underrealized it was.

2. The villain has literally zero backstory or motivation. A weak villain is not something I usually care about in individual superhero projects. However, in all the superhero projects I have seen, there is at least SOME motivation given for the villain. In Supergirl, Krem of the Yellow Hills, the brigand warrior chief, is quite literally just a plot device.

3. James Gunn. There is a needle drop during a fight scene in this movie, which caused me to say, out loud in the theatre, “there’s no freaking way.” It was that bad. However, it is typical of Gunn films to add needle drops to fight scenes, so it wasn’t surprising even if it was disappointing.

All in all, I give Supergirl a 6/10. I am glad I saw it, and I am thoroughly pleased with the casting of Milly Alcock. I want more of her and David Corenswet’s Superman on screen in the near future. I also think the highs outweigh the lows enough for it to be worth a viewing experience. Whether that viewing experience is in a theatre or later this fall when it arrives on streaming is another question. You can decide, but if you only have the budget for one or two movies this summer, I’d sit this one out for Nolan’s The Odyssey and with the hope that Spider-Man: Brand New Day lives up to the hype.

The quick phrase someone might use to describe the work of Spielberg is movie, or blockbuster, magic. The great American auteur has used this magic time and again to deliver tales about the moral truths of reality– that the Ark of the Covenant is not to be taken lightly, that science should ask whether it should before whether it could, and that Mark Rylance looks a little off as a CGI big friendly giant. Disclosure Day is Spielberg’s most important work insofar as it communicates most clearly his belief in the healing power of the cinematic image and his hope in the future of humanity. Alongside The Fabelmans, his latest take on the alien invasion genre may be his most personal, too. There are a few odd directorial and narrative choices, but the hits off his wild swings redeem the misses.

Cybersecurity whiz Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) has proof that intelligent life exists outside of Earth and firmly believes that humanity ought to know. Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), his former boss and the head of shadowy government contractor Wardex, believes such information is too dangerous for the public. At the same time, weather reporter Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) finds herself suddenly experiencing strange phenomena after an odd encounter with a bird. These three characters all intersect as the truth of the universe threatens to come out.

Without getting into exact spoilers, the narrative heavily hinges on a sense of purpose or fate that guide the characters. What I did not expect going into the film was how theological the narrative gets. Alien powers become stand-ins for the difference between good and evil supernatural powers. One character wields the power in the form of possession while another is able to perform miracles of wisdom. The distinction is faith and love. The first wants to control the power beneath their ego and the other abandons themselves to providence. It is this distinction that is the driving force of the film.

Daniel’s girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) initially doubts the need to reveal the existence of aliens. She holds that it would undermine people’s belief in God, which she thinks is necessary for society even if it might not be true. Her faith is immature, and as the film states explicitly through Catholic nun Maura (Elizabeth Marvel), the real concern is her loss of faith in the power of God’s Divine Providence. The characters must learn to trust in this to accomplish their goals.

My review of Backrooms touched on some parallels with Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas. If that film spoke to some of the concerns there, this is greatly suffused, unintentionally although remarkably so, with the spirit of that document. Most explicitly, Disclosure Day is about “truth as a common good”, not only in the dimension of it needing to be disclosed but also in the sense that “it is deeply relational, built through bonds of trust and shared practices, as well as an honest exchange with others and with the world” (#132). It takes on how technology can be a force for good so long as it reflects the anthropology of the person, rather than the will to power. All of this takes place in the film amidst the background of impending nuclear war. At the brink of annihilation, the hope of building a civilization of love can still stand.

Disclosure Day is additionally a significant piece in Spielberg’s own ongoing struggle with cinema and the lasting effects of his parents’ divorce. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which this film is essentially a spiritual sequel to, the aliens represent a deeply-held truth that struggles to be realized and even then at the cost of tearing apart families. The sculptures Roy (Richard Dreyfuss) makes based on his extraterrestrial experience repeatedly fail to live up to their source. One can see Spielberg’s own creative struggles, especially with Jaws (1975), there. Disclosure Day presents a cathartic answer to that frustration in the form of a genuine hope in the capacity of humanity to seek and realize the truth. This hope may come across as maudlin to many, a reflection more on the present day than the hope itself. Can a single disclosure or revelation really save humanity? Perhaps it can (and already has). Spielberg seems to be posing this question about cinema itself, too.

Does film really have the power to save us? What is the catch then?

Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park), who was raised Catholic, have a rich allegory here that also ties beautifully into the auteur’s career. Unfortunately, there are times where the quality of the narrative feels too secondary to the allegory. The characters are more representations of an idea than people. Colman Domingo is great as always even if his character is barely developed, as one example. Getting characters from one place to another happens a few times thanks to some disbelief-testing conveniences and cliches. There are definitely several intentionally goofy moments and maybe a couple unintentional ones. I got a general sense of a constrained budget, too. Do not expect a whole lot of action as well as a dash of hokey CGI. The greatest films of all time do manage to seamlessly blend themes and None of these elements significantly hurt the script’s great ability to build tension and emotional resonance.

And when Disclosure Day sings, it really sings. I was initially skeptical of the muted bluish color palette and there are certainly a few times where the color grading and lighting are a tad off. Nevertheless, the cinematography by Janusz Kaminski (Schindler’s List) is regularly breathtaking in its compositions and usage of reflective surfaces. The cast is likewise great, especially Emily Blunt.

One controversial element of the film that should be addressed is how it treats the aliens. If you want no spoilers about them, skip to the last paragraph. Sister Maura asserts that Genesis only says humans are the supreme beings on Earth, rather than the whole universe, which then allows for the possibility of aliens being smarter than us. It is fair to say that this goes further than some of the Church teaching on the matter. According to Catholic Answers, various saints and leaders have professed that the existence of extraterrestrial life is not incompatible with Church teaching. Pope St. John Paul II stated that “they are children of God as we are”. Statements even more extreme than the ones in the film have also circulated. St. Padre Pio allegedly said that “other beings exist on other planets who did not sin and fall as we did”, according to the article.

Dismissing the film on this ground alone is foolish in my view. Furthermore, within narrative context, it is a piece of a larger, more faithful puzzle. One character describes the aliens as “closer to God”, which again may seem controversial. But what is important is that the film is not about the aliens, it is about us. The aliens relay a truth of the universe that comes from God, not them, that says something about us that we cannot tell ourselves. To take a metaphor I alluded to before a little further, aliens are like the revelatory power of great art. It is a conduit for truth, not the truth itself.

For those of you who read my review of Backrooms or saw the movie, I would like to briefly mention several significant parallels between the two films. Pay attention to the usage of a childhood house in both and the themes of repetition and transcendence. This is in addition to both tapping into the current cultural moment around conspiracy theories, government coverups, and clandestine contractors.

If Kane Parsons’ horror movie is the Inferno, this is the Paradiso.

In the former, the past and our own fantasies surrounding it become a prison. In the latter, the past when taken up properly as a call to present action becomes the pathway towards transcendence. They each represent the good and bad sides of human ingenuity and creativity.

In today’s climate of nihilism and despair, a passionate argument in favor of hope and faith, even if done a little clumsily, is a welcome sight. Art matters, love matters, life matters. Only when we learn to accept the mystery of life and the grace of God can we know our place in the universe. As Pope Leo XIV puts it:

Herein lies the radical departure from Promethean dreams: what saves humanity is not enhanced self-sufficiency, but a relationship that liberates, a communion that transforms (#128).

You remember He-Man, right? The 80s toy franchise-turned-cartoon?

No?

Well this film is counting on you to remember and absolutely love He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, because it is an unapologetic nostalgia trip trying to be Barbie, but for boys.

And sometimes, it actually works. In spite of itself.

Masters of the Universe (2026) follows Adam, a Prince of Eternia who was sent to Earth as a young boy following the conquest of his father’s kingdom by the nefarious Skeletor. For fifteen years, Adam searches for the sword he lost on the journey which has the power to take him home, while also trying to navigate a corporate job and the mundanities of modern life. The first 20 minutes or so of this movie are incredibly satirical, essentially portraying our own planet as a dystopia and openly mocking HR culture, preferred pronouns, and the metrosexual masculinity that has dominated American city life for at least 15 years now. He-Man is not allowed to become a man, instead staying a stunted man-child obsessed with childish drawings and unable to make meaningful connections with others. I was honestly shocked by this particular sequence: it is so counter-cultural and honestly critical of our current cultural zeitgeist that I was stunned I was seeing it on a movie screen.

The return to Eternia is also quite fun and the film introduces its incredibly wacky cast of characters with a respectable balance of seriousness and humor, not completely undercutting the narrative but ensuring we know the filmmakers are in on the joke. There’s a shoddy nobility to the whole enterprise which is admirable, and despite myself I began to thoroughly enjoy the film, despite how hit-and-miss the writing and muddled the message is. Skeletor is appropriately campy, playing the evil villain with panache and even a twinge of pathos that was unexpected in a movie this obviously shallow.

The movie’s biggest problem is that it is at war with itself. On the one hand, it contains a good bit of honest satire about the mess that is urban American masculinity in 2026 and a call to recover some of the manly virtues of the past, including a willingness to sacrifice and protect the good of civilization. On the other hand, it wants to give a mealy-mouthed sermon about how dialogue is always better than violence and we have to try and understand everyone and get along and tolerate each other. On the other other hand, it recognizes that some people are just downright evil (one clue could be the naked skull for a head) and need to be punched into oblivion in order to defeat them. Tonally and thematically it’s all over the place, like a secret trad conservative dude wanted to make a cool movie about He-Man but the studio HR overladies made him put corporate-approved power of dialogue messaging in it. And then made sure it was marketed horrendously so no one would see it anyway.

It’s a shame because when the movie is good, it’s quite enjoyable and even (gasp) thematically rich, but it undercuts itself at every turn leaving the viewer confused and at times uncomfortable. I’d still encourage people to go see it (older teens and up; there is some PG-13 cussing throughout) because it is overall entertaining and I think there is some value to be gleaned from it. And the soundtrack absolutely rocks.

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When I first saw that Amazon was giving Spider-Noir a live-action spin-off show starring Nicolas Cage as a classic private dick AND that it was being filmed in black and white (with the option for color), I could not have been more excited. It seemed to me, as I’m sure it seemed to many people, a match made in heaven. It had never occurred to me to want it, but I immediately felt that the annals of cinema could not be complete without it. I was so excited that I didn’t even begin to worry, as I usually would, that it could be a disappointment. Fortunately, it is not. Is it a perfect show? No. But it delivers pretty much exactly what the concept promised, a concept so outrageously unlikely, when you stop to think about it, that I simply feel lucky to live in a time when such a show is even possible. After I finished watching it, I did have second thoughts about its enduring value, but while watching Spider-Noir I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Cage himself is the star of the show and the eight-part series to some extent rides or falls on how much you like him as an actor. The idea is a passion-project for him, and he clearly relishes the opportunity to emulate idols such as Bogart and Cagney, while remaining uniquely himself. It seems obvious in hindsight that Cage would make a wonderfully quirky Noir detective, and the show is worth watching for him alone. This is not to say, however, that there are not other good performances as well. The show features a strong ensemble, including solid performances from Larmorne Morris as Robby Robinson, an out of luck reporter, and Li Jun Li as Cat, a nightclub singer. The actor who stole the show for me, though, was Brendon Gleeson as Silvermane. The Irish booze kingpin and principal villain dominates every scene he is in, even those he shares with Cage, and by the end I almost sympathized with him. He, of all the actors, seemed to me to deliver a performance which could survive in a more serious project.

The real star of the show, however, is the visuals. The production itself is nice, but the cinematography in particular is gorgeous, both in black and white and color. Obviously the black and white version is more unique and impressive because it takes a different kind of lighting and camera work, but I was impressed that the show had been created for both formats at the same time. Cage in an interview said that he and the director of photography, Darran Tiernan, wanted to make the color version look like an Edward Hopper painting, and there were moments when I could see it. The colors and textures of clothes, backgrounds, and sets are vibrant and are even more noticeable when contrasted with the B&W version and gives it a neo-noir look.

While the lush cinematography does the heaviest lifting in creating a 1930s atmosphere, I was also pleased to hear Bing Crosby and a few other period singers in the background, which mostly makes up for the glaringly modern song performed by Cat near the beginning of the first episode. The plot itself is fairly unremarkable, and even predictable. It hits many of the tropes you would expect from a noir film with surprise twists, negotiations, betrayals, and LOTS of smoking indoors. Many of the characters, too, could fit right into a 40s film, including Reilly, Silvermane and even Cat. The vintage illusion, however, was broken occasionally by characters like Reilly’s secretary Ruiz, who fills a traditional role but with a 21st century brand of sass one would not expect in say The Maltese Falcon.

As a Spider-Man show, Spider-Noir manages to incorporate many elements viewers might be familiar with from other Spider-Man movies and storylines – as George Lucas might say, it rhymes with other depictions of the characters. I myself came to it from the perspective of a fan of noir classics and Nicholas Cage rather than of Spider-Man, and for this reason I occasionally found myself wishing for less Spider and more Noir. As I said, the show has to balance both, but the need for balance did make me reflect on the difference between a genuine film-noir or even neo-noir, and a show like Spider-Noir, which is essentially a superhero show with a vintage flavor. I suppose it is to the credit of the show that I occasionally thought I was watching the former, or wished Nicolas Cage had simply made a Philip Marlow movie instead. It was a reminder that most superhero films are simply entertainment and not works of art; adding a noir lens does not change that reality.

A film may, like The Batman, successfully utilize noir elements in order to create a film which stands on its own. Spider-Noir perhaps runs the risk of leaning too heavily into genre as a gimmick, creating something which is unique and entertaining, but also not quite fish nor fowl. It has the sleek exterior of a golden-era Hollywood film, but when you peer under the hood, it lacks a film noir’s grim core. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to be hard on Spider-Noir; I’m glad Cage got to do his thing, and as long as streaming studios are pumping out all kinds of experimental shows, I’m glad they finally made one which caters to me. The show promised to give me Nicolas Cage as a 1930s detective Spider-Man, and by golly it did, and I enjoyed it. The fact that it is not more than that ultimately cannot be held against it.

If you enjoy Nicolas Cage, classic Hollywood films, or Spider-Man, you are almost certain to like this show. Have fun, and if you are left at the end wanting more, just throw on The Big Sleep or Chinatown.

After two months at the top of the Billboard singles chart, the band The Police was interviewed about their new hit song of 1983 to which songwriter and singer Sting remarked:

I think it’s a nasty little song, really rather evil. It’s about jealousy and surveillance and ownership.

It’s about an unhealthy relationship rooted in a possessive mindset that smother loved ones by either suffocating with love through affection or rage.

Its about obsession.

The song was “Every Breath You Take” and, while many were distracted by the earworm tune, the subtly disturbing lyrics crept in. Horror is one of the best film genres for this same phenomena to occur.

Film of the horror genre will attach to someone’s emotions through fear, and then leave the terrified viewer susceptible to the moral, messages, and themes of the story. Well-crafted horror, like that which Curry Baker has crafted here, utilizes the genre to connect to an audience in that very way. Most great horrors root themselves in distorting some natural or common element of everyday life. In this case, Baker makes relationships the subject of distortion. Its an act of genius, as disturbing as it may be.

It is by no means a film for the faint of heart, although most film of such serious nature are. My brother and I spent duration of the film covering our eyes and screaming, occasionally at the scares but more so at the decisions being made. Its a vulgar film that concerns itself with a vulgar topic on an extreme level, which makes it difficult to blindly recommend.

This intensely vivid fable-like storytelling makes it difficult to even consider rewatching the film, which has left me asking myself: why do we as an audience feel the need to judge a film on rewatchability. I myself can think of many films that I’ve seen and have no desire to watch again. Of course, some film were simply bad and not worthy of a rewatch, but these should not be confused with those films so great that a rewatch is not necessary, at least not for a long time. The Human Condition is a particular film, or film series rather, which I have only ever watched once and will likely never watch again unless showing them to someone else. This disinterest isn’t rooted in contempt or poor quality, but the exact opposite; The Human Condition was so perfectly crafted and powerfully depicted that there be no need to rewatch it again, as it hurts too much to see and it was memorable enough to never forget.

There isn’t a month that goes by that I don’t think about those films. Obsession will be another one of those film that I will likely never watch again, not because of a low quality, but because of its extremely strong presence. Yet, due to its thematic importance, it almost seems important to watch for those in a relationship, as the film calls self-awareness and serious consideration to the quality of relationships almost like an examination of conscience via a demonstration of what not to do. It unpacks common issues like codependency, separation anxiety, attachment disorders, borderline personality disorder, and even (the modern age king of all) FOMO.

To obsess is to allow an obsession to surpass all else. God, health, friend and family, all fade out of view as obsession takes control of every thought and action. Baker clearly demonstrated the destructive nature of an obsession, and how it selfishly prioritizes ones own feelings above the feelings of another. He loads this film to the brim with toxic, unhealthy behavior, calling attention to the absurdity. Characters commit the fallacy throughout of justify their own actions by comparing themselves to the equally poor behavior of others. The depth of their relationship is the time spent together in bed. He cares not for her soul, as very deliberately demonstrated at a midway turning point.

Ultimately, for a film so upsetting and disturbing, within lies a resounding message to seek mental help and healthier relationships. It is great seeing a modern ‘Twilight Zone’ adventure in theaters.

(Also, great design of the One Wish Willow box)

Backrooms has been a long time coming. It remains shocking to me how long it took big-budget Hollywood to wake up to the phenomenon of analog horror. The cultural interest in dead malls peaked years ago alongside vaporwave music and Sonic.exe. And if that made no sense to you, you had to be there. None of those made their way into cinema, unless you count Severance. But luckily, Backrooms also arrives at the absolute perfect time, serving as a terrifying encapsulation of a generation and an art medium stuck in a limbo of a potential impending technological catastrophe, government conspiracies, therapyspeak, and a longing for the world before the Internet changed everything.

Viewers unaware of the concept of the backrooms can enjoy the film, but a little historical context might be helpful. The idea originated from a post on 4chan, a social media platform like Reddit but with users that are somehow worse. It is a similar image to the one on the review cover. As would be discovered later, the photo was of an empty furniture store. Via its quiet, outdated emptiness, a whole Internet subculture was spawned. It quickly became more complex through fan-fiction and theorizing, turning into a realm of infinitely repeated “backrooms” of a store. Quickly, new types of liminal spaces joined in: fast-food playgrounds, indoor swimming pools, and more.

YouTuber Kane Pixels, or Kane Parsons, created a YouTube series based on the original Backrooms image using the computer graphics software Blender. The first video, released in January of 2022, has now garnered over 75 million views. A feature film adaptation was confirmed in 2023 and Parsons became the youngest A24 director. Alongside Iron Lung and Obsession, this new wave of YouTuber-made horror has taken over the box office and even surpassed the latest Star Wars entry.

Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Clark, the owner of a failing furniture store and a recently divorced alcoholic. Lukita Maxwell and Finn Bennett also appear as employees of the store, who are mostly there to be the type of dumb young adults that populate slasher movies. Clark is undergoing therapy with Mary (Renate Reinsve) when he discovers a mysterious portal in the basement of his store. Backrooms ensue. The relationship at the heart of the film is between therapist and client, a dynamic not usually depicted.

As a clinical psychology doctoral student, the foregrounding of therapy and psychology as critical elements here could have gone terribly for me as I have more of an eye for errors. Therapy is rarely represented accurately and the themes around mental illness and trauma could have gone “I’m twelve and this is deep”. The screenplay by Will Soodik and director Kane Parsons thankfully avoids that to create something that will probably be a perennial watch in my corner of the field. In fact, there is a non-zero chance that I (and many others) will integrate the film into future research projects.

The general metaphor that the backrooms represent is rather obvious, although it touches on many subthemes subtly in a way few seem to have noticed. What is smartly done, however, is that just enough ambiguity is kept to allow for a variety of interpretations. Some critics have accused the third act of overexplaining, which is their prerogative, but I ultimately disagree that it either a) actually overexplains the mystery and not just explains it more or b) disrupts the overall film. There are definitely odd, unexplained disjunctions in the narrative that may be frustrating to viewers craving realism and logistics. My advice would be to expect a surreal dream-logic along the lines of Tarkovsky’s Stalker, Charlie Kaufman’s I’m thinking of ending things, or David Lynch. There are complicated lore explanations out there if you want to understand it on that level, most of which appear to be in the YouTube series. In my view, trying to fully rationalize the backrooms ruins the mystique and the emotional and thematic threads do hold up in the end.

Trying to sum up what is so culturally and philosophically resonant about Backrooms is, to quote one character, like trying to describe a dog to someone who has never seen one before. What I will say is that it is tapping into the many of the same concerns that Magnifica Humanitas addressed. There is one passage worth quoting in full from the encyclical here:

“Finitude, when truly accepted, does not diminish us but opens us to recognizing the face of God and others. Indeed, precisely because we experience limits — vulnerability, suffering and failure — we can recognize the inviolable dignity of every person, both our own and that of others. In this same experience, we remain capable of intuiting a fraternity greater than ourselves and of perceiving injustice as a scandal. Authentic culture and art preserve this spark, resisting the normalization of evil. For this reason, certain works have taken on an almost prophetic significance: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony can be seen as a desire for unity; Guernica as a denunciation of dehumanization; Schindler’s List as a call not to consign the past to oblivion.” (#122)

Backrooms may have that “almost prophetic significance” as it brings to unflinching life the consequences of succumbing to one’s own delusions, to the fragmented vision of reality technology tries to keep us in, and ultimately to the most monstrous, carnal elements of our ego. The odd allure of analog horror’s liminal spaces is the same allure of sin. Servant of God Luigi Guissani writes in The Risk of Education that sin is “the fact of identifying our own definitiveness with an idol”. These spaces are initially nostalgic and even comfortingly recognizable. We may cling to the past and fall into old bad habits. What we may not realize amid our delusion is that the place we remember is not the same anymore and, in fact, never was what we have now reconstructed it as and reduced it to. The idol can never be all that we want or need it to be. We become trapped in a liminal space of our own making. Our only way out then is love (and grace), the very thing that the two leads seem incapable of.

Backrooms does not offer transcendence or salvation. Like Guernica, it depicts the suffering and horror of evil as it really is that ought to be a wake-up call to participate in the building of the “civilization of love [that] will not arise from a single or spectacular gesture, but from the sum total of small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization” (Magnifica Humanitas, #213).

In addition to the underlying ideas of Backrooms, it is a nerve-shredding, jaw-dropping genre epic on purely technical terms. The production design is in contention to be the best ever put to film and the excitement of discovering new variants of the backrooms is one of the experience’s greatest joys. There are several spaces here that will probably permanently remain in my subconscious. The score and sound design are exceptional, too. Director Parsons, gives an incredibly assured and competent debut for a twenty-year-old. The cast is solid, too. Ejiofor and Reinsve turn in expectedly strong takes on outward and inward disintegration. Maxwell and Bennett do the needed work for their minor roles. Mark Duplass has a small yet significant role, too, and is at his skeeziest.

For those on the edge about seeing a horror movie, Backrooms is genuinely scary, but it does have restraint when it comes to graphic violence. Several scenes pull back when they are on the edge. That is not to say it is peaceful, too. I would still not recommend it to anyone who is especially faint of heart.

My current opinion is that Backrooms will be an enduring classic engendering analysis and discussion for decades to come. This is the real deal. If you can handle horror, see Backrooms on the biggest screen possible near you.

Dave Filoni is a creatively mad genius.

Anyone who grew up watching The Clone Wars knows that he just GETS the Star Wars universe and how everything fits together. This is especially apparent in his recent treatment of the character Darth Maul (Sam Witwer) in his brand new solo series, Maul: Shadow Lord. The show sees Maul attempting to move on from the end of the Clone Wars and make a comeback with his criminal enterprise, only to be sidetracked when he finds a potential apprentice named Devon Izara (Gideon Adlon). Devon is a former Jedi padawan on the run with her Master, Daki (Dennis Haybert), both of whom are caught up in Maul’s antics, when the Empire and its Inquisitors arrive. This adventure provides the audience with closure for a handful of characters, adds depth to the story of Darth Maul and the early Empire, and most importantly, explores Maul’s psyche post Order 66. The story, combined with the stunning animation and visual choices by Filoni and his production team, makes for what is easily one of the best seasons of a Star Wars show ever released.

After the events of The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul was lost and eventually found by his brother, Savage Opress (Clancy Brown), and together the two plot their revenge against the Jedi and Darth Sidious. They start a massive criminal empire, with the help of Deathwatch, and eventually come to rule Mandalore, before Sidious steps in, killing Savage but keeping Maul alive and letting him stay in power. This results in the eventual Siege of Mandalore, after it’s realized that the only way to dislodge Maul and the Deathwatch is with a Republic invasion, led by Captain Rex and Ahsoka Tano. Maul is eventually beaten and captured, but in the pure chaos of Order 66, he manages to escape and flees back to the remnants of his once proud crime syndicate. Maul: Shadow Lord picks up just a year after the conclusion of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and there isn’t a single beat wasted in this show. Each layer of the plot is clear, concise, compelling, and involves high stakes. Maul and his crew are the clear-cut A plot of the show, while the story of Devon and Daki is the B plot, both of which merge seamlessly by the conclusion of this season.

When The Phantom Menace first came out, Maul appeared to be merely written as a cool villain for Obi-Wan to kill during the movie’s climax. However, he wound up being the most memorable part of it, despite it never being explained where he came from, what he had been through, what made him so powerful, and so on. That’s what made bringing him back such a HUGE risk for Dave Filoni to take with Clone Wars, but it paid off immensely. This was due in part to the incredible talents of voice actor Sam Witwer, who manages to capture the perfect amount of terror, charisma, and sheer emotion in his performance. Giving Witwer, who is now synonymous with Maul, his own show was also a major step for the franchise because Witwer was already so intertwined with the fandom, and it provided Dave Filoni the perfect opportunity to do a project that was entirely their own. This is, of course, due in large part to Filoni’s new role as both President and Chief Creative Officer at Lucasfilm. Each plot point and character choice has meaning and a sense of purpose; there are no cheesy sidequests or random throwaway call-backs, every beat of the show has something at stake or is used to further develop the characters onscreen.

One of the best points in the series follows Maul from the end of episode seven through episode eight. Filoni and Witwer present a side of Maul that we as viewers have never seen before. After being all but beaten in a duel with the First and Eleventh brothers, Maul spends most of episode eight working his way back to Rook and his team to regroup. Along the way, he encounters various environmental obstacles, but most curiously, we see him talking with his reflection, once before he begins his trek, and once towards the end of it.

The first time, Maul is looking down at a puddle as a drop of water falls and changes his reflection to resemble his younger self. He begins to break down and swats it away, exclaiming, “I hate you!” causing it to change back. He then encounters a series of Force-induced flashbacks while buffering a sandstorm, causing him to basically relive his past. And then we see his reflection a second time. Maul is tired, broken, and realizes what he’s become, how his life has been wasted, and how he has always lived as a failure. His reflection once again resembles his younger self, and it says to him, “I’m sorry,” as both begin to cry. Maul responds by calming himself and assuring him, “I won’t let him do this to anyone else”. This use of Maul’s reflection to help signify his guilt and regret is exceptionally clever and grounding, helping to display characteristics that have never been explored before.

The overall style of Maul’s journey and character development in episode eight, The Creeping Fear, and the significance of his reflection gave me pause during my first viewing; it felt incredibly familiar. My suspicions were proven correct when a very close friend pointed out that the writers of Maul were heavily influenced by progressive rock and heavy metal music, specifically Iron Maiden, Tool, and Queensrÿche. As a fan of these genres, it became very apparent that events of Maul’s perspective and just the overall aspects of his character have remarkable similarities to Queensrÿche’s Operation Mindcrime, widely considered to be one of the greatest rock operas of all time. The fictional story is based around a man named Nikki, a drug addict who’s become disillusioned with society and has been brainwashed by a man named Dr. X, who intends to use and manipulate him to assassinate key political figures. More to the point, the final song, “Eyes of a Stranger”, primarily focuses on a defeated Nikki staring into the mirror, having an epiphany, as he begins to realize that he is nothing more than a broken man who has wasted his life. Having been arrested and placed in a psychiatric ward, he has a series of flashbacks and longs to go back to a normal life, regretting ever giving his life to Dr. X’s cause.

The similarities between Maul’s and Nikki’s epiphanies are quite remarkable, and the emphasis on physical reflections as a means of conveying the ideas of self-reflection and self-awareness is an extremely humanizing tactic by the writers and production team. One of the repeating lyrics in “Eyes of a Stranger” is “I’ve always known that the mirror never lies”, and that concept is on full display in this show. Like Nikki, Maul has fallen into a place where he’s questioning both the life he once led and the life he’s heading towards. It shows that the writers, in particular, were determined to find a way to make Maul a more relatable character without diluting his core nature and personality. This musical influence is prevalent throughout the show, from the visuals to the overall mood of the scenes; you can feel the high octane and angst from the very first frame to the very last.

There is a great sense of uncertainty throughout the last two to three episodes concerning who may survive and where Maul’s and Devon’s stories will lead. This is especially the case after the reintroduction of Dryden Vos, an intergalactic crime lord and the main antagonist of Solo. It leaves the door open for Maul’s future in an exciting way, without diving headfirst into more prequel content too fast. With more to be explored in terms of Maul’s character and story progression, it’s no wonder fans are currently left waiting, all too eager for season two.

Stream Season 1 now on Disney+

Hang on, what does he mean, Wikipedia movie?

By ‘Wikipedia movie’, I mean a film that’s plot summary closely corresponds to the Wikipedia sections of a notable person, place, or thing.

You might also be thinking, “this just sounds like you described a biopic” but let me tell you something: not all biopics are created equal. And odds are, you’ve probably seen one in the past couple years. Besides recent musical biopics like Bohemian Rhapsody (same producer as this film), Elvis, and A Complete Unknown, there have been countless movies like Flamin’ Hot, Tolkien, and King Richard that have had varying degrees of success.

Let me actually use the last film we added to our list as an example of a biopic that’s NOT just a Wikipedia movie: Moneyball. Real events based on a real person’s life: but focused on a specific period of his life. It does not give us a womb-to-tomb account of the life of Billy Beane, but smartly makes allusions to his past through dialogue and brief flashbacks.

Steve Jobs picks just three key events in the life of Apple’s founder, Dunkirk takes place over the course of a week, and Dog Day Afternoon…well you get the idea.

It’s not necessarily wrong to try to be ambitious and to attempt to cover an entire life: Jesus of Nazareth does this very well, but also Jesus of Nazareth is about six and a half hours long and was made as a four-episode TV miniseries. Mel Gibson smartly focused on the most important moment of Jesus’ earthly life for The Passion of the Christ, a movie meant to be seen in theaters. Many movie suffer from attempting to cover to wide a berth of someone’s life, or in some cases, focusing on the wrong aspects (ahem, Oppenheimer).

Antoine Fuqua’s Michael is certainly a Wikipedia movie, although it’s only half (or maybe a third?) of a full one. It covers Michael Jackson’s life from the early ‘60s as a part of “The Jackson 5” to the debut of his hit song ‘Bad’ in 1987. Two actors play him: Juliano Krue Valdi in his youth and Jackson’s own nephew Jaafar Jackson for the rest of the film.

And let me just say, this movie does not work without Jaafar.

Watching this movie truly is a surreal experience because Jaafar not only looks so much like his uncle but has truly captured his voice, mannerisms, and- most importantly- his moves. This movie would not work with any other actor; it’s likely he has been preparing his whole life for this. Your brain shuts off that you’re watching an actor and it just feels like you’re watching a documentary about Michael Jackson.

The other half of what makes this work is Coleman Domingo as Joe Jackson, the paterfamilias of the Jackson clan. I would not be surprised if Domingo snags an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for this. His domineering, manipulative performance reminded me a lot of Holt McCallany’s recent performance as the head of the Von Erich family in 2023’s The Iron Claw (which is a much better, although definitively darker film).

As to the actual film as a whole, it should be noted that the Jackson family are producers on this: therefore this is definitely the “sanitized” version of the Jackson origin. It doesn’t shy away from the harsh way Joe treated his sons, and deals with Michael’s delving into plastic surgery and his burn wounds during the infamous Pepsi commercial filming, which some say was the beginning of Jackson’s mental unraveling for the rest of his life.

It also should be noted that the entire third act- which was supposed to deal with the allegations of child abuse against Jackson- was reshot and is allegedly being saved for a later film. I’ve never looked into these allegations although I am aware of the documentary Leaving Neverland, which delves into detail on the particular case which was levied against him. All I know is that any child star who was never given a chance at a normal childhood is bound to be pretty messed up and this film definitely shows how someone can go from being a normal kid from Gary, Indiana to someone completely warped by fame on a level no other human has ever experienced.

So do I think you should watch this movie? I think it’s best enjoyed as a concert movie. If you enjoy Jackson’s music (as I do) I think it’s the closest thing you could ever get to a time machine to see him in concert. The movie’s been out for four weeks, and the theater I went to was still packed and everyone had a great time. Antoine Fuqua did such a great job directing this (minus the reshoots, which were done by producer Graham King although they’ve been pretty seamlessly inserted into the film).

But I also think if you’re looking for something more objective, and more grounded in the facts, there are better documentaries, books, and of course, Wikipedia pages out there for you to get the full story.

Directed by Kyle Balda. Starring Hugh Jackman, Emma Thompson, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd.

By its premise alone, The Sheep Detectives seems like it would be a very silly movie. A flock of talking sheep sets out to solve the murder of their shepherd—produced by Amazon, no less! I can’t say I had very high hopes for this film as I entered the theater.

When I exited, I had to sheepishly admit that it was one of the most fun, heart-warming, and genuine films of the year. Its gentle charm won me over very quickly and I became thoroughly invested in the story of these sheep trying to see justice done for their beloved shepherd, George, and pulling a bunch of wooly-headed humans along to the correct solution. It has lots of laughs, some surprisingly Christian allusions and visual imagery, endearing characters, and an earnest sweetness that has been long-absent from cinemas. It’s a cozy mystery the whole family can enjoy, a thoroughly good time at the movies. It might be hard to baa-lieve, but in this writer’s opinion The Sheep Detectives is one of the year’s best so far.

We follow a flock of sheep led by their beloved shepherd, George Hardy (Hugh Jackman). Each sheep has their own personality and has been given a name by George, indicating his love for each of them. Some of the most notable sheep are Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss), the most intelligent and a leader among the flock; Mopple (Chris O’Dowd), the sheep with the best memory; a small winter lamb (Tommy Birchall), cast out from the rest of the flock because of a sheep tradition preferring spring lambs; and Sebastian (Byran Cranston), a loner ram with a dark past. There’s a surprising amount of world-building done in such a short movie, with the sheep having different traditions and legends, social hierarchies, and the ability to forget anything unpleasant at will (with the exception of Mopple, who remembers everything). All of this sheep lore is in addition to the human characters and suspects in the murder, all of whom get an adequate backstory and motive for killing George. The writing is incredibly efficient and is especially good at revealing more and more about the characters (and especially about George) as the film progresses, drawing the viewer further into the drama and intrigue and creating a surprising about of empathy for its characters, human and ovine alike.

Hugh Jackman’s George is an absolute stand-out here. He radiates peace and love, showing a gentle side to his sheep and his friends while possessing a quiet strength and even righteous anger in certain situations. He’s been beat down by the world and yet is a beacon of goodness, tending to his flock and searching for his two lost children, given up for adoption years ago. His warm, loving presence and the composition of certain shots inevitably bring to mind depictions of Christ, the Good Shepherd, in a way that cannot have been unintentional on the part of the filmmakers. Indeed, there is a brief theological discourse (muddled by the sheep’s inability to understand metaphors) that makes an explicit allusion to the Good Shepherd. I hesitate to mine too deeply into The Sheep Detectives for grand theological insights, but the imagery is there and George is indeed in many ways a Christlike figure.

The film is also incredibly family friendly. It is thoroughly clean, devoid of the sort of potty humor that unfortunately seems to dominate “kids” movies these days. There is, of course, a murder, but there is minimal violence, no language, no sexual content, not so much as a fart joke. Between this, Solo Mio, and Project Hail Mary,1 2026 is shaping up to be a great year for clean, family-friendly films. There is plenty of silliness for the kids, but also more sophisticated laughs for the adults and lots of heart to go around for all ages. The mystery is well laid out, engaging, and has a twist which is both surprising and makes sense given the clues we had before us the whole time. These sorts of movies seemed to be going extinct over the last 15 years or so, at least in theaters; I am very happy to report that there seems to be a comeback in clean, four-quadrant theatrical releases and I for one could not be more excited about it.

Go see The Sheep Detectives in theaters. Bring the whole family.

Ewe wooln’t have a baaaaad time.

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