Bullet Trains gets $30 million

For the weekend of August 5-7, 2022, Brad Pitt proved his movie-star bonafides by helping Bullet Train open to #1. Reviews have been mixed, but the only other new wide release (Easter Sunday) had a much lower marketing budget and no one who'd classify as a star.

In limited release, Bodies Bodies Bodies enjoyed a $37,765 per screen average.

The box office should take a big dip over the next few weeks until it's rescued by September titles like See How They Run, The Woman King and Don't Worry Darling.

Opens August 12

MACK & RITA with Diane Keaton and Loretta Devine

EMILY THE CRIMINAL with Aubrey Plaza and Theo Rossi.

Nope - Movie Review

Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yuen, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea and Keith David.

Written & Directed by Jordan Peele.

★★½ 

Jordan Peele knows how to take a benign setting and make it sinister, be it a WASPy dinner party in Get Out or Hands Across America in Us. Here, he points his camera at the outskirts of Hollywood. We follow the Haywood siblings (Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer), who train horses for TV shows and commercials, and we have Jupiter's Claim, a third-rate theme park centered on Ricky "Jupe" Park (Steven Yuen), a child actor now making his living exploiting the projects of his youth.

If you've seen the preview, you know at some point aliens come into play. I'm glad that's the extent of what I knew about them, so I won't reveal more than that. This movie is about how these people on the ground deal with what's up in the sky. It's hard to pin down one theme of the movie. "Spectacle" is one. "Bad miracles" is another. There's also a theme about animals who can go wild, be it the horses who get spooked, or as we see in the opening scene, a chimpanzee gets triggered on a TV set and attacks the crew.

The chimp was on a 1990's sitcom where Ricky was one of the actors, one of the only ones the chimp didn't attack. It's obviously affected Ricky, but I thought the movie would tie the past and present together in some "everything falls into place" way in the third act, and that moment never came. Peele leaves a lot up to the audience to interpret. 

While it had some decent scares in the middle, I'd say Get Out and Us were more suspenseful overall. This is his Signs. Signs was M. Night Shyamalan's third movie, and while it wasn't as good as The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, it was still okay. There's a lot I liked about this movie, but whenever I think about it, its problems are what I think about first. About coincidences, and characters jumping to conclusions that only movie characters would do. And that shoe. We see a shoe unnaturally standing upright in a scene, but it's never explained what made it stand up and why that matters. But it apparently does, because they refer to it a couple times. For some reason...

I think my expectations were too high. 

Thor still #1, Crawdads #3 at box office

For the weekend of July 15-17, 2022, Thor Love & Thunder didn't have to face any blockbusters in its second week and thus was able to easily continue its rule. A 68% drop isn't surprising, but it shows it's not going to catch the most recent installments of Spider-Man or Doctor Strange.

Of the new releases, Where the Crawdads Sing was able to get book-club members everywhere into the theater. Reviews were mixed so I don't expect it to have long legs. Paws of Fury was long delayed, and I expect it to be on Paramount's streaming service sooner rather than later.

Top Gun Maverick only having a 22% drop in its eighth week is amazing. It'll jump The Avengers and The Last Jedi sometime this week to become the 9th highest grossing movie of all time.

Jordan Peele's Nope opens this week, and that should toppled Thor in its third week.

Opens July 22

NOPE with Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yuen.

Emmy Nominations 2022

Here is the list of the 2022 Emmy Award nominations.

Drama Series

“Better Call Saul” (AMC)   

“Euphoria” (HBO)   

“Ozark” (Netflix)   

“Severance” (Apple TV+)   

“Squid Game” (Netflix)   

“Stranger Things” (Netflix)   

“Succession” (HBO)   

“Yellowjackets” (Showtime)  

Comedy Series

“Abbott Elementary” (ABC)   

“Barry” (HBO)

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” (HBO)   

“Hacks” (HBO)   

“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon Prime Video)

“Only Murders in the Building” (Hulu)

“Ted Lasso” (Apple TV+)

“What We Do in the Shadows” (FX)   

Limited Series

“Dopesick” (Hulu)   

“The Dropout” (Hulu)   

“Inventing Anna” (Netflix)   

“Pam and Tommy” (Hulu)   

“The White Lotus” (HBO)   

Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Jason Bateman (“Ozark”)  

Brian Cox (“Succession”)  

Lee Jung-jae (“Squid Game”)   

Bob Odenkirk (“Better Call Saul”)  

Adam Scott (“Severance”)  

Jeremy Strong (“Succession”) 

 

Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Jodie Comer (“Killing Eve”)   

Laura Linney (“Ozark”)  

Melanie Lynskey (“Yellowjackets”)  

Sandra Oh (“Killing Eve”)  

Reese Witherspoon (“The Morning Show”)   

Zendaya (“Euphoria”)  

Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Donald Glover (“Atlanta”)   

Bill Hader (“Barry”)  

Nicholas Hoult (“The Great”)

Steve Martin (“Only Murders in the Building”)   

Martin Short (“Only Murders in the Building”)  

Jason Sudeikis (“Ted Lasso”)  

Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)  

Quinta Brunson (“Abbott Elementary”)  

Kaley Cuoco (“The Flight Attendant”)  

Elle Fanning (“The Great”)  

Issa Rae (“Insecure”)  

Jean Smart (“Hacks”)  

Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Colin Firth (“The Staircase”)  

Andrew Garfield (“Under the Banner of Heaven”)  

Oscar Isaac (“Scenes From a Marriage”)  

Michael Keaton (“Dopesick”)  

Himesh Patel (“Station Eleven”)  

Sebastian Stan (“Pam and Tommy”)   

Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

Toni Collette (“The Staircase”)  

Julia Garner (“Inventing Anna”)  

Lily James (“Pam and Tommy”)  

Sarah Paulson (“Impeachment: American Crime Story”)

Margaret Qualley (“Maid”)  

Amanda Seyfried (“The Dropout”)  

Variety Talk Series

“The Daily Show With Trevor Noah” (Comedy Central)  

“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (ABC)  

“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” (HBO)  

“Late Night With Seth Meyers” (NBC)  

“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” (CBS)  

Competition Program

“The Amazing Race” (CBS)  

“Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls” (Amazon Prime Video)  

“Nailed It!” (Netflix)  

“RuPaul’s Drag Race” (VH1)  

“Top Chef” (Bravo)  

“The Voice” (NBC)  

Television Movie

“Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers” (Disney+)

“Ray Donovan: The Movie” (Showtime)

“Reno 911!: The Hunt For QAnon” (Paramount+)

“The Survivor” (HBO/HBO Max)

“Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas” (The Roku Channel)

Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Patricia Arquette (“Severance”)

Julia Garner (“Ozark”)

Jung Ho-yeon (“Squid Game”)

Christina Ricci (“Yellowjackets”)

Rhea Seehorn (“Better Call Saul”)

J. Smith-Cameron (“Succession”)

Sarah Snook (“Succession”)

Sydney Sweeney (“Euphoria”)

Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Nicholas Braun (“Succession”)

Billy Crudup (“The Morning Show”)

Kieran Culkin (“Succession”)

Park Hae-soo (“Squid Game”)

Matthew Macfadyen (“Succession”)

John Turturro (“Severance”)

Christopher Walken (“Severance”)

Oh Yeong-su (“Squid Game”)

Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Alex Borstein (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)

Hannah Einbinder (“Hacks”)

Janelle James (“Abbott Elementary”)

Kate McKinnon (“Saturday Night Live”)

Sarah Niles (“Ted Lasso”)

Sheryl Lee Ralph (“Abbott Elementary”)

Juno Temple (“Ted Lasso”)

Hannah Waddingham (“Ted Lasso”)

Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Anthony Carrigan (“Barry”)

Brett Goldstein (“Ted Lasso”)

Toheeb Jimoh (“Ted Lasso”)

Nick Mohammed (“Ted Lasso”)

Tony Shalhoub (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”)

Tyler James Williams (“Abbott Elementary”)

Henry Winkler (“Barry”)

Bowen Yang (“Saturday Night Live”)

Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie

Connie Britton (“The White Lotus”)

Jennifer Coolidge (“The White Lotus”)

Alexandra Daddario (“The White Lotus”)

Kaitlyn Dever (“Dopesick”)

Natasha Rothwell (“The White Lotus”)

Sydney Sweeney (“The White Lotus”)

Mare Winningham (“Dopesick”)

Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie

Murray Bartlett (“The White Lotus”)

Jake Lacy (“The White Lotus”)

Will Poulter (“Dopesick”)

Seth Rogen (“Pam & Tommy”)

Peter Sarsgaard (“Dopesick”)

Michael Stuhlbarg (“Dopesick”)

Steve Zahn (“The White Lotus”)

Guest Actress in a Drama Series

Hope Davis (“Succession”)

Marcia Gay Harden (“The Morning Show”)

Martha Kelly (“Euphoria”)

Sanaa Lathan (“Succession”)

Harriet Walter (“Succession”)

Lee You-mi (“Squid Game”)

Guest Actor in a Drama Series

Adrien Brody (“Succession”)

James Cromwell (“Succession”)

Colman Domingo (“Euphoria”)

Arian Moayed (“Succession”)

Tom Pelphrey (“Ozark”)

Alexander Skarsgård (“Succession”)

Guest Actress in a Comedy Series

Jane Adams (“Hacks”)

Harriet Sansom Harris (“Hacks”)

Jane Lynch (“Only Murders in the Building”)

Laurie Metcalf (“Hacks”)

Kaitlin Olson (“Hacks”)

Harriet Walter (“Ted Lasso”)

Guest Actor in a Comedy Series

Jerrod Carmichael (“Saturday Night Live”)

Bill Hader (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”)

James Lance (“Ted Lasso”)

Nathan Lane (“Only Murders in the Building”)

Christopher McDonald (“Hacks”)

Sam Richardson (“Ted Lasso”)

Variety Sketch Series

“A Black Lady Sketch Show” (HBO/HBO Max)

“Saturday Night Live” (NBC)

Variety Special (Live)

The 64th Annual Grammy Awards (CBS)

Live in Front of a Studio Audience: The Facts of Life and Diff’rent Strokes (ABC)

The Oscars (ABC)

Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show Starring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and 50 Cent (NBC)

Tony Awards Presents: Broadway’s Back! (CBS)

Variety Special (Pre-Recorded)

“Adele: One Night Only” (CBS)

“Dave Chappelle: The Closer” (Netflix)

“Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts” (HBO/HBO Max)

“Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special” (Netflix)

“One Last Time: An Evening With Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga” (CBS)

Outstanding Directing For A Comedy Series

Atlanta (FX) Hiro Murai, Directed by

Barry (HBO/HBO Max) Bill Hader, Directed by

Hacks (HBO/HBO Max) Lucia Aniello, Directed by

The Ms. Pat Show (BET+) Mary Lou Belli, Directed by

Only Murders In The Building (Hulu) Cherien Dabis, Directed by

Only Murders In The Building (Hulu) Jamie Babbit, Directed by

Ted Lasso (Apple TV+) MJ Delaney, Directed by

Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series

Ozark (Netflix) Jason Bateman, Directed by

Severance (Apple TV+) Ben Stiller, Directed by

Squid Game (Netflix) Hwang Dong-hyuk, Directed by

Succession (HBO/HBO Max) Mark Mylod, Directed by

Succession (HBO/HBO Max) Cathy Yan, Directed by

Succession (HBO/HBO Max) Lorene Scafaria, Directed by

Yellowjackets (Showtime) Karyn Kusama, Directed by

Minions: Rise of Gru exceeds $100 million

For the weekend of July 1-3, 2022, Minions: The Rise of Gru was the big winner. It's outperformed all other animated fare this year, and it was the second highest opening in the Despicable Me franchise.

The other new release was Mr. Malcolm's List. It felt like a limited release that was given wide-release treatment in hopes that the popularity of Bridgerton and Downton Abbey might get people out, but it backfired.

Meanwhile, on Tom Cruise's 60th birthday, he can enjoy Top Gun: Maverick still being in second place.

Opens July 8 

THOR: LOVE & THUNDER with Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale and Natalie Portman.

Elvis - Movie Review

Starring Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomas, Richard Roxburgh, Kelvin Harrison Jr, David Wenham, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Luke Bracey and Dacre Montgomery.

Written by Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce & Jeremy Doner.

Directed by Baz Luhrmann.

★★★½ 

Baz Luhrmann is nothing if he is not a showman, and so it seems the perfect marriage of someone like Baz to take on the larger-than-life Elvis Presley in a biopic that's exhilarating and tragic. I don't know how much Elvis has to say to the 21st century, but in a time where carny-type con-men control so much behind the scenes, it feels timely to tell this story now.

Austin Butler, currently best known as the murderous cowboy-hippie Tex from Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, gives a star-making performance here. I eventually forgot about him and felt like I'm just watching Elvis.

Our narrator, however, is not the King himself, but his Svengali manager Col. Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). "There are some who might see me as the villain in this story," he foreshadows in his odd Dutch accent. As soon as you see and hear him, it takes a moment to decide whether or not to accept what Hanks is going for here. I accepted it, and I saw it as a tightrope-walking performance. Parker feels like an anti-hero con-artist at first, and his ambition did help get Elvis into the national spotlight, but Parker is also one who stayed latched on to Elvis's back like a tick, sucking his meal-ticket dry.

Baz bounces through Elvis's childhood, his instant stardom, his unlikely fame, his hypnotic performances that frightened a Greatest Generation of Dads watching their daughters lose their minds to this hip-swiveling greaser. Who was this southern white boy hanging out with Black entertainers in the segregated 1950's, making their rhythm 'n' blues sound go mainstream? (I was glad his friendship with BB King got as much screen-time as it did.) As we get deep into the 1960's, the movie slows down and we get a better idea of who Elvis really is.

I sat there as the credits rolled, grateful for Elvis's place in music history in a way that I hadn't felt before, but also sad at the lost potential. What if Elvis had figured out around 1965 that Parker was a vampire holding him back more than he was helping his career get to the next level? He's the greatest-selling solo recording artist ever, and yet, if he hadn't been filled with drugs and thrown on the Vegas stage every night while filming C-grade movies during the day, how much higher could he have soared?

It's a movie that asks people to examine their own lives. Who really loves you for you vs. who lets you self-destruct because of how they selfishly benefit off of you? Sadly, Elvis didn't figure out the answer soon enough, and he died alone of a heart attack at age 42.

Jurassic World still #1, Lightyear #2

For the weekend of June 17-19, 2022, Jurassic World Dominion managed to stay ahead of Pixar's Lightyear. JWD didn't have as steep drop as anticipated with its negative reviews, and it still looks favored to join other sequels Doctor Strange 2 and Top Gun Maverick to hit the $400 million domestic mark. It'll at least catch The Batman's $369 million domestic.

Lightyear's stumble out of the gate could mean any number of things. Are animated movies in trouble in these economic times? Other post-pandemic animated movies have been hits (Sing 2) although with lower opening and long legs. Disney's Encanto was beloved but never made $100 million domestic. Would anyone have predicted last year that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 would be more successful than Lightyear? Maybe families know Lightyear will be on DisneyPlus in 2-3 months and have patience. Maybe replacing Tim Allen affected more conservative parents. It's a better opening for Pixar than their last theatrical release 2020's Onward ($39 million) but a far cry from 2019's Toy Story 4's $120 million opening. This makes me more intrigued how Minions: The Rise of Gru will do.

Meanwhile this is the first time since the weekend of June 21, 2013, that the top 3 films each grossed over $40 million (Monsters University, World War Z, and Man of Steel in its second week).

Opens June 24

ELVIS with Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

BLACK PHONE with Ethan Hawke, Jeremy Davies and James Ransone.

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON with the voices of Jenny Slate and Isaella Rosselini.

Jurassic World Dominion is #1

For the weekend of June 10-12, 2022, Jurassic World Dominion managed to out-open The Batman and Top Gun Maverick to be the second largest opening of 2022, behind only Doctor Strange 2. The sixth installment, billed as the final one of the Jurassic franchise, opened just barely below Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom's numbers, but Universal has to be thrilled, especially since it's receiving the worst reviews of the six, even below Jurassic Park III. It will face immediate competition this Friday with Pixar's Lightyear, the first Pixar movie to not go straight-to-DisneyPlus since Onward.

Paramount's pleased with the long legs of Maverick, its third $100 million grosser of 2022 and it'll easily get to $400 million and has an outside shot at $500 million domestic. It's already by far the highest domestic grosser of Tom Cruise's career and will soon pass Mission Impossible Fallout as his highest worldwide grosser.

Opens June 10

LIGHTYEAR with the voices of Chris Evans, Keke Palmer and Taika Waititi.

Under the Banner of Heaven - TV Review

Starring Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Gil Burningham, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Wyatt Russell, Denise Gough, Billy Howle, Chloe Pirrie, Seth Numrich, Adelaide Clemens and Rory Culkin.

Written by Dustin Lance Black, Brandon Boyce, Gina Welch & Emer Gillespie.

Directed by David Mackenzie, Courtney Hunt, Dustin Lance Black, Isabel Sandoval & Thomas Schlamme.

I didn't want to write a review until I'd seen all 7 episodes and saw how they landed the plane. Dustin Lance Black (Milk, Big Love) has taken Jon Krakauer's nonfiction bestseller and fictionalized it for dramatic effect. Did I like the series? Overall, yes. But I'm also so familiar with the culture it's trying to recreate and the history it's trying to tell that I don't know how the show is for people outside of Utah who've never been Mormon. Reviews have overall been positive so I think it's doing its job that way. Let's get into it.

Krakauer's 2003 book took the Lafferty case, where brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty killed their sister-in-law Brenda and their 15-month-old niece Erica in 1984, and used it to condemn The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a whole, primarily the fundamentalist offshoots it inspires. It's fairly straightforward, but it spends as much time on Joseph Smith and Brigham Young as it does Ron and Dan Lafferty.

Here, the miniseries approaches it like a mystery. The central character is a fictitious cop named Jeb Pyre (Andrew Garfield), a believing Mormon whose own faith is shook by the case and the truths he learns about the origins of the Church. The Laffertys had a lot of sons, and he doesn't know if it was Brenda's husband Allen (Billy Howle) or any of the other four Lafferty brothers. They take enough liberties with the 1984 facts that they change the names of one of the brothers and the father. They also use Allen as a Basil Exposition to the whole affair. Allen himself never lost his testimony in the Church in real life, but here he's a deeply cynical widower who seems more concerned about spelling out "the truth about" 1800's Mormonism for Pyre (complete with ominous background music) than figuring how who killed his wife and daughter.

There's a lot of heavy lifting in the dialogue, and for me it wound up being one of the weaker elements of the show. I lived in Utah for part of 1984, but I moved to Texas a few weeks before the Lafferty murders and so have no memory hearing about the case. Culturally they get a lot of things right, but there are anachronisms that could take me out. (Mormons don't say "Heavenly Father" THAT much.) As the series progresses it does a good job of showing how fundamentalism and the mainstream church are at odds. Of course, the only villains in the show I'd describe as cartoonish are the church leaders. (No General Authority in 1984 would bring up the Mountain Meadows Massacre, let alone try to spin it as a positive.)

As far as the facts go, well, I bring up the aforementioned liberties. It puts forth a bizarre theory that Brigham Young and John Taylor conspired to have Joseph Smith killed so Brigham could take over the church. I think even Brigham's staunchest critics would raise their eyebrows to that. (And why on Earth would Taylor be in the room to get shot four times if that was his plan?)

The acting? Top-notch. Garfield really pulled me in as Pyre, and David Mackenzie vet Gil Burningham (Hell or High Water) is great as the non-Mormon Paiute detective who has to tread through all this weirdness to get to just the facts, ma'am, while putting up with bearded dudes calling him a Lamanite. Sam Worthington's journey as Ron from regular guy to fundamentalist killer is calibrated just right, and Wyatt Russell as Dan shows he's destined for future stardom. (His parents Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn must be proud.) Daisy Edgar-Jones made me wish she had more screen-time as Brenda. She's the normal Mormon wife who finds herself trapped in a family that's getting more and more dangerous and doesn't know how to cool the temperatures of everyone involved.

Worth seeing? Yes. There's plenty in here to chew on and debate and discuss, which is part of what makes good TV.

Top Gun Maverick #1 in 2nd week

For the weekend of June 3-5, 2022, Top Gun: Maverick held strong, dropping a mere 32.1% its second week. In fact it's the 8th best second weekend in box office history. It's well on its way to become Paramount's second highest grosser ever, and with these legs, it could catch Titanic. 

But it also benefitted from not much competition. No new big-budget releases this week, only horror flicks and arthouse fare. David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future failed to find an audience, even with Viggo Mortensen and Kristen Stewart headlining it. Vikram, a 3-hour action thriller from India, wound up doing best.

Opens June 10

JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION with Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and Jeff Goldblum.

Every 2022 Movie I've Seen

Here's how I'd rank the 43 movies from 2022 I've seen so far.

1. Best of the Year So Far

2. Thumbs Up

3. Thumbs Sideways

4. Thumbs Down

5. Worst of the Year So Far

===BEST OF THE YEAR SO FAR (5) ===

1. TOP GUN MAVERICK

Starring Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Val Kilmer, Ed Harris, Lewis Pullman, Charles Parnell and Monica Barbaro.

Written by Peter Craig, Justin Marks, Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer & Christopher McQuarrie.

Directed by Joseph Kosinski.

Pretty amazing what they've pulled off here. They revisit a movie over 30 years later, use many of the same story beats, and yet they improve on the original in just about every way. That never happens.

Pete "Maverick" Mitchell is still just a captain well into his 50's, through his habit of angering too many admirals. When he's on the verge of getting kicked out of the Navy for good, Admiral "Iceman" Kasansky calls on him to train the Top Gun pilots for a new and deadly mission. Can the famous authority-bucker instill discipline into students that remind him of himself? And among the pilots he's training is Rooster (Miles Teller), son of his late friend Goose.

I have some nostalgia for the original, but pretty much everything works. The mission and its stakes are clear, we get to know the pilots, and I did tear up at the reunion of Maverick and Iceman, and at the thought of my late father if he'd lived long enough to see this reunion. This is exactly what summer movies are supposed to be.

2. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

Starring Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan.

Written & Directed by Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert.

I admire this movie's chutzpah, its creativity, and its balls-to-the-wall willingness to thrown everything out there. It does more with the multiverse concept than Doctor Strange ever thought of. Had a blast, and good for Michelle Yeoh to finally be the star of an action comedy.

3. THE BATMAN

Starring Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Colin Farrell, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Andy Serkis and Peter Sarsgaard.

Written by Matt Reeves & Peter Craig.

Directed by Matt Reeves.

A brooding ponderous take on Gotham's favorite marsupial-based superhero, this one takes its time establishing the city as its own character. I didn't mind the running time at all, as it was willing to linger on those shots of dark shadows, forgotten pages, and so forth. Each villain gets their own scene to shine; I hope next time around they give Robert Pattinson a little bit more to do.

4. ELVIS

Starring Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomas, Richard Roxburgh, Kelvin Harrison Jr, David Wenham, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Luke Bracey and Dacre Montgomery.

Written by Baz Luhrmann, Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce & Jeremy Doner.

Directed by Baz Luhrmann.

Baz Luhrmann is nothing if he is not a showman, and so it seems the perfect marriage of someone like Baz to take on the larger-than-life Elvis Presley in a biopic that's exhilarating and tragic. I don't know how much Elvis has to say to the 21st century, but in a time where carny-type con-man control so much behind the scenes, it feels timely to tell this tory at this time.

Austin Butler, currently best known as the murderous cowboy-hippie Tex from Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, gives a star-making performance here. I eventually forgot about him and felt like I'm just watching Elvis.

5. PREY

Starring Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Dane DiLiegro and Stormee Kipp.

Written by Patrick Aison & Dan Trechtenberg.

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg.

It was never intended to be Best Picture material, but a really well-done genre picture can be just as fulfilling. Predator is a basic classic from 1987 that's seen many inferior sequels and spin-offs, but this prequel is easily the best follow-up of all of them. This takes place in 1700's America, and Amber Midthunder plays Naru, a young Comanche who first sees this Predator and must warn her people about this thing she saw she can't fully comprehend.

===THUMBS UP (18)===

THE OUTFIT

Starring Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Dylan O'Brien, Johnny Flynn and Simon Russell Beale.

Written by Jonathan McClain & Graham Moore.

Directed by Graham Moore.

This puzzle-box feels like it was adapted from a stage play, and that's not a bad thing. Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies, Dunkirk) is front and center as a cutter (maker of fine suits) in 1956 Chicago whose main clients are in the mob. Over the course of one night, the mild-mannered shop-owner must deal with increasingly cagey gangsters who believe they have a rat in their crew. I really enjoyed watching the layers being pulled back and seeing which characters have ulterior motives.

MAD GOD

Starring the voices of Alex Cox and Nikita Roman.

Written & Directed by Phil Tippett.

This dialogue-free stop-motion animated picture is like being trapped in a nightmare written by HP Lovecraft & George Orwell, produced by David Cronenberg, and directed by Terry Gilliam. This descent into madness is not so much a movie as an Experience, one you have to see to believe. There's nothing else out there quite like it.

THE SEA BEAST

Starring the voices of Karl Urban, Zaris-Angel Hator, Jared Harris, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Dan Stevens and Jim Carter.

Written by Chris Williams & Nell Benjamin.

Directed by Chris Williams.

Netflix has been improving its original animated feature offerings. This straightforward action-adventure has a real Master & Commander flavor to it, following a crew who hunts sea monsters, but an orphaned girl stows away on the ship to watch the crew in action. It's predictable but the creatures are fun and it has a grittiness not usually felt in children's fare.

TURNING RED 

Starring the voices of Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, Ava Morse and James Hong.

Written by Domee Shi, Julia Cho & Sarah Streicher.

Directed by Domee Shi.

Pixar's latest is like a caffeinated gender-swap update on Teen Wolf. Meilin is a good student, good daughter, good friend whose life gets turned upside-down when she learns the hard way that the women in her family occasionally transform into a red panda once they hit puberty.

DEATH ON THE NILE

Starring Kenneth Branagh, Gal Gadot, Emma Mackey, Armie Hammer and Annette Bening.

Written by Michael Green.

Directed by Kenneth Branagh.

Kenneth Branagh's second outing as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is a slight improvement over his previous effort, so I therefore hope we eventually get a third. 

THE BLACK PHONE

Starring Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies and James Ransome.

Written by Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargill.

Directed by Scott Derrickson.

From the guys who brought you Sinister and Doctor Strange! This is based on a short story by Stephen King's son Joe Hill, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. There's been a rash of kidnappings in a small town in 1978, and we follow Finney (Mason Thames), the latest victim of the masked man known as The Grabber (Ethan Hawke). He is kept prisoner in a basement that has a rotary black phone on the wall. The phone supposedly doesn't work, but when it rings, he answers it, and he's able to converse with the Grabber's previous late victims.

This does a good job of blending realistic-feeling horror with supernatural elements. Hawke could just let the mask do the work, but he adds a level of malevolence that makes us truly fear for Finney's safety.

DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Benedict Wong.

Written by Michael Waldron.

Directed by Sam Raimi.

Sam Raimi puts his stamp on the MCU, with elements more resembling his horror efforts than his Maguire Spider-Man trilogy. The good doctor finds himself battling against one of the universe's most powerful Avengers, and he has to hop to different universes to figure out how to stop her.

THE NORTHMAN

Starring Alexander Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke and Bjork.

Written by Sjon & Robert Eggers.

Directed by Robert Eggers.

Robert Eggers (The VVitch, The Lighthouse) likes things dark and mystical. Here we get the story of Amleth, a Viking prince whose uncle kills his father. He escapes and spends years vowing revenge. Alexander Skarsgard shines as the determined, eternally angry prince, and Eggers regulars like Anya Taylor-Joy and Willem Dafoe show up to keep things interesting. It's one of the most brutal movies I've seen in a while. It's said that this tale was inspiration for Shakespeare's Hamlet, and I can see that.

THE BAD GUYS

Starring the voices of Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Awkwafina, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Zazie Beetz, Richard Ayoade and Alex Borstein.

Written by Etan Cohen

Directed by Pierre Perifel.

I'm not familiar with the source material, but this is based on a series of children's graphic novels about the "bad guys" in the animal kingdom who get the opportunity to be good for a change. The breezy plot is easy enough for kids to follow, while it heartily winks at the heist films of Soderbergh and the crime films of Tarantino for parents. I'd see a sequel.

THE MAN FROM TORONTO

Starring Kevin Hart, Woody Harrelson, Jasmine Mathews, Kaley Cuoco and Ellen Barkin.

Written by Robbie Fox, Chris Bremner & Jason Blumenthal.

Directed by Patrick Hughes.

Mistaken identity comedy with genuine laughs thanks to the chemistry between the two leads. Kevin Hart plays a hapless salesman who is mistaken for a world-class assassin known only as The Man from Toronto (Woody Harrelson). He then has to keep pretending he's the hitman in order to stop a terrorist plot.

SCREAM (2022)

Starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Jenna Ortega and Jack Quaid.

Written by James Vanderbilt & Guy Busick.

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett. 

It's technically Scream 5, and I find it obnoxious they just named it Scream so from now on we have to put the year after the title when referring to this in relation to the original. Anyway, Ghostface still has it. It's about as good as any other Scream sequel, and I like the new rules for the reboot.

THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Tiffany Haddish, Sharon Horgan and Ike Barinholtz.

Written by Tom Gormican & Kevin Etten.

Directed by Tom Gormican.

Nicolas Cage's most meta movie since Adaptation. He plays himself, a hard-working actor who nevertheless keeps losing his money, so he agrees to spend a weekend with his biggest fan for $1 million. Trouble is, his biggest fan is suspected to be the head of the cartel. The more Cage movies you've seen, the more enjoyable it is.

FRESH

Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan.

Written by Lauryn Kahn.

Directed by Mimi Cave.

This darkly funny horror flick feels like a send-up of the pitfalls of modern dating. It starts out like a bland meet-cute rom-com, but once the girl goes to the boy's home, we get to the first big twist, and her evening turns into a nightmare. There is sufficient gore and queasy parts, and the movie sails by based on the charisma of its two leads.

DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA

Starring Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery, Jim Carter, Hugh Dancy, Allen Leech, Dominic West and Sophie McShera.

Written by Julian Fellowes.

Directed by Simon Curtis. 

We return to 1920's England in the second film chronicling the life of the Crowleys, and I enjoyed this one a little more than the first one. The twin plots involve Lady Grantham (Maggie Smith) inheriting a villa in the south of France from an old beau, and then a Hollywood film crew desiring to use Downton as a location. Doesn't sound like much story, but when you have 30-something characters to juggle, it doesn't need much more than that.

CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH

Starring Dakota Johnson, Cooper Raiff, Leslie Mann and Brad Garrett.

Written & Directed by Cooper Raiff.

Quirky dramedy about a 22-year-old who hasn't figured out what career path he wants who gets a side-job as a bar mitzvah party-starter who gets the shy kids out on the dance floor. While doing this, he falls for the mother (Dakota Johnson) of an autistic girl. As writer, director, and star, Raiff hogs a lot of camera time but he's able to balance it out by giving his co-stars chances to shine, in particular Johnson.

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2

Starring Jim Carrey, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Ben Schwartz and Idris Elba.

Written by Pat Casey, Josh Miller & John Whittington.

Directed by Jeff Fowler.

About as good as the first one, and I kinda liked the first one. Sonic is getting used to life on Earth, but a porcupine-looking warrior named Knuckles has crossed the galaxy to find him, believing Sonic holds the key to ultimate power. Dr. Robotix (Jim Carrey) hears this and offers to help. They find a way to sideline James Marsden for most of the film, like an Alvin & the Chipmunks movie that doesn't want too much Dave to get in the way.

HUSTLE

Starring Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Juancho Hernangomez, Robert Duvall, Ben Foster, Kenny Smith, Anthony Edwards, Jordan Hull, Heidi Gardner, Jaleel White, Willy Hernangomez, Jordan Clarkson, Doc Rivers and Julius Erving.

Written by Will Fetters & Taylor Materne.

Directed by Jeremiah Zagar.

This is good Adam Sandler. While he's put out a bunch of very skippable comedies on Netflix, Sandler has also appeared in some genuinely good films lately, like The Meyerowitz Stories and Uncut Gems. Here he's in the mode for quality, and it's decent. Super predictable, but still entertaining.

Here he plays a longtime scout for the Philadelphia 76ers. He'd like to fulfill his dream of becoming an assistant coach, but he has one more season to find a gem for the team. He stumbles upon a green player balling in a park in Spain. The Utah Jazz's Juancho Hernangomez plays Bo Cruz, not asked to do too much but nails the scenes where he needs to stretch. I was even more impressed by the Minnesota Timberwolves' Anthony Edwards as the movie's cocky villain, projected lottery pick Kermet Wilts.

The movie is FULL of NBA vets, current and former. I got a kick out of Kenny Smith playing an actual character, but there also being a scene from the NBA on TNT with Ernie, Chuck and Shaq (but no Kenny!) As I said, you'll see every twist and turn coming, but it still hit the emotional beats just right.

THE LOST CITY

Starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe and Brad Pitt.

Written by Oren Uziel, Dane Fox, Aaron Nee & Adam Nee.

Directed by Aaron & Adam Nee.

It mostly resembles an update of Romancing the Stone, but if Michael Douglas' character was really the cover model for Kathleen Turner's adventure-romances books. Sandra Bullock is the author here, and she and her books' cover model (Channing Tatum) get kidnapped in order to look for a buried treasure that an eccentric millionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) is convinced is real, as it was in one of her books. I liked it a little more than Uncharted, but it feels like the exact same genre.

===THUMBS SIDEWAYS (9) ===

X

Starring Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Brittany Snow, Martin Henderson and Kid Cudi.

Written & Directed by Ti West.

The first half of this movie is very clever with its playfulness in 1970's slasher-horror tropes, but once the killing starts, it just becomes a string of clichés. Plus I couldn't get over Mia Goth playing two roles. Seeing her in old-age make-up yanked me out every time.

NOPE

Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yuen, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea and Keith David.

Written & Directed by Jordan Peele.

Jordan Peele knows how to take a benign setting and make it sinister, be it a WASPy dinner party in Get Out or Hands Across America in Us. Here, he points his camera at the outskirts of Hollywood. We follow the Haywood siblings (Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer), who train horses for TV shows and commercials, and we have Jupiter's Claim, a third-rate theme park centered on Ricky "Jupe" Park (Steven Yuen), a child actor now making his living exploiting the projects of his youth.

If you've seen the preview, you know at some point aliens come into play. I'm glad that's the extent of what I knew about them, so I won't reveal more than that. This movie is about how these people on the ground deal with what's up in the sky. It's hard to pin down one theme of the movie. "Spectacle" is one. "Bad miracles" is another. There's also a theme about animals who can go wild, be it the horses who get spooked, or as we see in the opening scene, a chimpanzee gets triggered on a TV set and attacks the crew.

The chimp was on a 1990's sitcom where Ricky was one of the actors, one of the only ones the chimp didn't attack. It's obviously affected Ricky, but I thought the movie would tie the past and present together in some "everything falls into place" way in the third act, and that moment never came. Peele leaves a lot up to the audience to interpret. 

While it had some decent scares in the middle, I'd say Get Out and Us were more suspenseful overall. This is his Signs. Signs was M. Night Shyamalan's third movie, and while it wasn't as good as The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, it was still okay. There's a lot I liked about this movie, but whenever I think about it, its problems are what I think about first. About coincidences, and characters jumping to conclusions that only movie characters would do. And that shoe. We see a shoe unnaturally standing upright in a scene, but it's never explained what made it stand up and why that matters. But it apparently does, because they refer to it a couple times. For some reason...

I think my expectations were too high. 

THOR: LOVE & THUNDER

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Russell Crowe and Taika Waititi.

Written by Taika Waititi & Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.

Directed by Taika Waititi.

This film doubles down on the humor from Thor: Ragnarok to uneven results. It became so silly and unserious that it grew tiresome. Christian Bale brings some real gravitas to Gorr the God Butcher but every scene he's not in might as well contain a laugh track. If Thor had started singing to cartoon birds, it wouldn't have felt out of place. I did enjoy sections of the movie here and there, but when you look at weaker MCU fare, if Eternals was too ponderous, this was too empty-headed.

THE GRAY MAN

Starring Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Arnas, Billy Bob Thornton, Jessica Henwick, Rene-Jean Page, Alfre Woodard, Wagner Moura, Dhanush and Julia Butters.

Written by Joe Russo, Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely.

Directed by Joe & Anthony Russo.

The action scenes are competent, the dialogue is quippy, the cast is charismatic, but the ingredients never add up to a satisfying whole. It doesn't feel substantive enough to have been based on a book. Ryan Gosling plays Six, an off-the-books assassin for the CIA who learns his latest target was an ex assassin like himself who had evidence that'll bring down the top brass in the CIA. Six goes on the run, and he's being targeted by Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), a scruple-free assassin in his own right who has no problem torturing and killing to accomplish his goals.

The Russos have directed Evans in some Captain America/Avengers movies, and he's having fun here as the villain. Everything on paper says this movie should have worked. It just evaporates as soon as it's over.

AMBULANCE

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eiza Gonzalez, Garrett Dillahunt and Keir O'Donnell.

Written by Chris Fedak.

Directed by Michael Bay.

Well, it's certainly better than 6 Underground. Michael Bay is at his Bayest in this movie about a bank robbery that goes wrong, and two of the thieves take an ambulance, including a paramedic and a wounded cop, on one long, long car chase through Los Angeles. Most of the chase is entertaining, as is Gyllenhaal clearly having fun as the more-unhinged robber, although I had a hard time believing this ambulance could just keep finding clear roads to drive on in the famously gridlocked city of LA. Not to mention, did it really need to be 135 minutes? Spoiler: never at any point does the ambulance transform into an Autobot.

SPIDERHEAD

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollet.

Written by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick.

Directed by Joseph Kosinki.

Kosinki reunites with his Top Gun: Maverick star Miles Teller to tell a smaller tale of a low-security prison in the near future that gives its inmates a lot of luxuries in exchange for their voluntary participation in drug-test trials that affect their emotions. Hemsworth is the smiling yet sinister scientist running the experiments, while Teller is the main inmate who starts to wonder what these tests are really accomplishing. It's based on a short story, and if it had been pared down to an hour, it would made for a pretty cool Black Mirror episode. As is, it's fine. Like most Netflix movies these days, it goes down pleasantly without much that sticks on the bones once it's over.

THE ADAM PROJECT

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Zoe Saldana and Walker Scobell.

Written by Jonathan Tropper, TS Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett & Mark Levin.

Directed by Shawn Levy.

Ryan Reynolds in straight-to-Netflix mode, as a man who goes back in time and meets his 12-year-old self. There were enough twists to keep me interested, but corners were definitely cut when it came to the special effects.

JACKASS FOREVER

Starring Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Ehren McGhehey and Eric Andre.

Directed by Jeff Tremaine.

I haven't seen the others, but I think y'all know what these are. Friends get together and torture each other with pranks and stunts that involve more than one groin injury. Sometimes the laughter is infectious; sometimes you just want to cover your face.

UNCHARTED

Starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas and Sophia Ali.

Written by Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, Jon Hanley Rosenberg & Mark D. Walker.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer.

It's about as deep as a National Treasure sequel but it's light-hearted and fun for a lot of the time too. Director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) knows how to keep things moving, even when the logic doesn't matter.

==THUMBS DOWN (7) ===

JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION

Starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, DeWanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie, Isabella Sermon, Campbell Scott, BD Wong, Omar Sy and Justice Smith.

Written by Derrick Connolly, Emily Carmichael & Colin Trevorrow.

Directed by Colin Trevorrow.

The filmmakers wanted to make an epic conclusion to this Jurassic franchise 30 years in the making, and there is some clear global Mission Impossible style ambitions here. The problem is that it largely forgets about what we're all here to see - the dinosaurs!

Lewis Dodgson, the guy who wanted to steal some dino DNA and handed the fake shaving cream can to Nedry (Wayne Knight) in the first Jurassic Park movie, has managed to become the CEO of Biosyn, the global leader on dinosaur DNA research. He's now played by Campbell Scott, and of course he's also hired the scruple-free Dr. Wu (BD Wong) to help him out, but this time they may have gone too far. They've engineered some killer locusts with dino DNA and they've broken free and are destroying crops on a massive scale. And Wu might feel bad this time.

But that's really the third subplot. We have dinosaurs running loose all over the world thanks to the events of the previous film, and Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) are living a secluded domestic life keeping human clone Maisie Lockwood from being found and exploited for her genes. Eventually though she gets kidnapped by mercenaries, and they go on the run to try to save her.

Meanwhile, Ellie (Laura Dern) has hunted down Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to help her study these giant locusts and track down proof that Biosyn is somehow behind it. They have an 'in' at the company. Turns out Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is a paid consultant at Biosyn.

There's a lot of globetrotting, chase scenes, run-ins here and there with the dinos, but nothing for the first 100 minutes or so really gets the blood pumping. The special effects aren't any better than they were since the first trilogy, and the dinosaurs are such an afterthought that the entire marketing campaign feels like a deception. It's really the last half-hour when all of the characters meet up and we have a sustained rollercoaster of outrunning dinosaurs while trying to keep Maisie alive and keep the proof safe so Biosyn can be exposed for what they're doing.

It's not the worst Jurassic movie (that honor still belongs to Jurassic Park III), but as epic conclusions go, it's certainly a letdown. Then again, it's making so much money they could make another one if Universal so wanted.

BIG BUG

Starring Elsa Zylberstein, Isabelle Nanty, Claude Perron and Youssef Hajdi.

Written by Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Guillaume Laurant.

Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

Bizarre French sci-fi flick set in the near future when AI robots run the government, resulting in oppressive rules for human citizens. It all takes place in one house and its low budget shows. Some of the robots look like cast-offs from MST3K. 

THE BUNKER GAME

Starring Gaia Weiss, Lorenzo Richelmy, Mark Ryder and Tudor Istodor.

Written by Manuela Cacciamani, Francesca Forristal, Davide Orsini, KT Roberts & Roberto Zazzara.

Directed by Roberto Zazzara.

A group of people role-play as Nazis surviving in a post-1945 bunker, but when their game is over, people actually start dying, possibly by the hand of ghosts of Nazis past. Features a lot of characters wandering off by themselves to get offed one by one.

WINDFALL

Starring Lily Collins, Jesse Plemons and Jason Segel.

Written by Charlie McDowell, Jason Segel, Justin Leder & Andrew Kevin Walker.

Directed by Charlie McDowell.

Felt like it was conceived and shot during COVID. One man (Jason Segel) trespasses at the vacation home of a tech billionaire and holds him and his wife hostage when they come home early. A lot of talking ensues. It stays on the same level until the abrupt climax.

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2022)

Starring Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Alice Krige, Jacob Latimore and Olwen Fouere.

Written by Chris Thomas Devlin, Fede Alvarez & Rodo Sayagues.

Directed by David Blue Garcia.

This wanted to be what the latest Halloween movie was, complete with bringing back original survivor Sally (played by a different actress since Marilyn Burns died a few years ago), but it doesn't distinguish itself enough from any other Chainsaw reboot/remake/sequel. 

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 4: TRANSFORMANIA

Starring the voices of Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kathryn Hahn and David Spade.

Written by Amos Vernon, Nunzio Randazzo & Genndy Tartakovsky.

Directed by Derek Drymon & Jennifer Kluska.

Adam Sandler and Kevin James didn't return for this one so it went straight to Amazon Prime (although it did go to some theaters later). This franchise has never been that strong on the quality side and it was so frenetic I felt like pausing it just to relax my heartbeat.

THE PRINCESS

Starring Joey King, Dominic Cooper, Olga Kurylenko and Ed Stoppard.

Written by Ben Lustig & Jake Thornton.

Directed by Le-Van Kiet.

A princess must battle her way to safety after she's been kidnapped. And as fun as it is to see Joey King (The Conjuring) dispatch villains while in her gorgeous white dress the first few times, the novelty wears off after a while. But the whole movie is pretty much one long chase scene with set pieces that seem straight from Kevin Sorbo's Hercules. The acting by everyone else is about that level too.

===WORST OF THE YEAR SO FAR (4)===

40. THE 355

Starring Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong'o, Sebastian Stan, Bingbing Fan, Edgar Ramirez and Jason Flemyng.

Written by Theresa Rebeck & Simon Kinberg.

Directed by Simon Kinberg.

Amazing cast wasted on a third-rate 007 script that features female spies who can't hit the broad side of a barn when they shoot, and a lot of people get shot here. It's merely mediocre for most of it, but then the main villain does something so staggeringly stupid that it yanked me out for the rest of the movie. Simon Kinberg may be a really good producer (The Martian, Deadpool) but he's now directed Dark Phoenix and this, and my guess is he sticks to producing for a while.

41. FIRESTARTER

Starring Zac Efron, Ryan Keira Armstrong, Sydney Lemmon, Gloria Reuben, Kurtwood Smith and Michael Greyeyes.

Written by Scott Teems.

Directed by Keith Thomas.

The original wasn't that good, so I didn't see an issue with remaking it, but they weren't able to update the dated plot points for the 21st century in a way that made the story better. In fact, in many ways they made a worse movie. No supporting powerhouses like George C. Scott and Martin Sheen are here to lend gravitas to the film, and while I think she can have a future in acting, Ryan Keira Armstrong doesn't have the instant child-star-power Drew Barrymore did in the 1984 version.

42. MORBIUS

Starring Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Jared Harris, Adris Arjona, Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal.

Written by Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless.

Directed by Daniel Espinoza.

The central problem with this movie? Jared Leto, the screenwriters, and the director forgot to make the main character remotely interesting. He's a doctor who infects himself with something that make him vampiric, and Matt Smith is along for the ride to at least try to have fun as the villain, but it's all paint-by-numbers predictable from beginning to end.

43. THE ICE AGE ADVENTURES OF BUCK WILD

Starring the voices of Utkarsh Ambudkar, Sean Kenin, Aaron Harris and Simon Pegg.

Written by Jim Hecht, William Schifrin & Ray DeLaurentis.

Directed by John C. Donkin.

This straight-to-DisneyPlus sequel is as bad as any random early 1990's straight-to-DVD animated sequel Disney used to cynically crank out. If Ray Romano, Denis Leary and John Leguizamo won't come back to the do the voices, just don't do the movie.

Doctor Strange 2 is #1 for 3rd Week

For the weekend of May 20-22, 2022, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness continued to dominate in its third week. It portends well for the blockbusters coming later this summer that this will at least be better than 2020 or 2021. 

Of the new releases, Downton Abbey: A New Era didn't open as well as the first one, but with its modest budget that may not matter. They'd be justified in greenlighting a third if they so chose.

Men was a low opener for Alex Garland (Annihilation, Ex Machina) but I wonder how much better it would have done with a bigger name in its lead. Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter) may be an Academy-Award nominee, but how many casual moviegoers knew that or even know who she is?

Opens May 27

TOP GUN MAVERICK with Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller and Jon Hamm.

THE BOB'S BURGERS MOVIE with the voices of H. Jon Benjamin and Kristen Schaal.

Morbius - Movie Review

Starring Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Tyrese Gibson, Al Madrigal and Zaris-Angel Hator.

Written by Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless.

Directed by Daniel Espinoza.

★½ 

Sony just isn't as good as Disney when it comes to the MCU, and Morbius is Exhibit A. Take, for example, the writing team. Yes, Sazama & Sharpless know how to write special-effects movies, like Dracula: Untold and The Last Witch Hunter and Gods of Egypt. But there's nothing on their resume that suggests they can deliver anything better than a thumbs-sideways flick you're better off renting rather than seeing in a theater. I mean, did anyone even see their Power Rangers movie?

The script never really breaks through from its origin-story beats. Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) has a rare blood disorder he's trying to cure; the cure gives him vampire-like powers but also a taste for human blood; his surrogate brother Milo (Matt Smith) takes the cure too, and while Morbius feels bad about his powers and doesn't want to kill, Milo has no problem feasting on humans and enjoying his new lease on life. And so on.

Leto is uninteresting as Morbius. This film reminded me of Venom a lot, if Venom had no charismatic star and no attempts at humor. I could liken it to the Miles Teller/Kate Mara version of The Fantastic Four, where the body horror isn't engaging and the movie forgets to give us a reason to care about these characters. The imminently watchable Jared Harris is here in the father-figure role but they give him nothing to DO. 

Most good action or sci-fi movies have scenes that elevate the story to the next level, or have that memorable chase sequence. Something. Not this.

Side note: The first trailer for this movie made sure to have a scene showing Michael Keaton, reprising his role as Vulture. But he doesn't actually show up until the middle of the closing credits.

The 94th Academy Award Winners

Well, it was more eventful than last year's show.

They gave eight awards out ahead of time, then edited the acceptance speeches into the show. A little awkward, but I didn't hate it as much as I thought I might. This led the producers to think we had enough time for two musical numbers from Encanto.

The three hostesses (Wanda Sykes, Regina Hall, Amy Schumer) juggled comedic duties. I thought Hall's bit about privately testing the singles actors like Bradley Cooper and Tyler Perry backstage for COVID was funny, and Schumer had some good lines in her own monologue. ("Being the Ricardos is like if they did a Michael Jordan biopic but only showed the bus rides between games.") Sykes's pre-recorded detour of the new Hollywood museum should have been cut in half or dropped.

But the one they're going to be talking about is the Will Smith altercation. Chris Rock poked fun at a couple celebs but then joked about Jada Pinkett Smith preparing for G.I. Jane 2. At first Will laughed along but then he saw the look on Jada's face. Some back-story: Jada has alopecia. Smith marched up to Chris Rock and gave him a full slap on the face. American audiences didn't see the next ten seconds but clips from other broadcasts have gone viral to show that Smith stayed upset ("Keep my wife's name out of your f---ing mouth!") Rock then introduced the nominees for Best Documentary.

And then a half-hour later, Will won. It's quite something to behold his speech. He did ultimately apologize to the Academy, but not to Chris Rock. I'll be fascinated to see what tomorrow's headlines are like.

The winners:

BEST PICTURE - CODA

BEST DIRECTOR - Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog

BEST ACTOR - Will Smith, King Richard

BEST ACTRESS - Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - Troy Kotsur, CODA

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Ariana DeBose, West Side Story

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY - Sian Heder, CODA

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY - Kenneth Branagh, Belfast

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE - Encanto

BEST DOCUMENTARY PICTURE - Summer of Soul

BEST FOREIGN PICTURE - Drive My Car (Japan)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY - Dune

BEST COSTUNE DESIGN - Cruella

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS - Dune

BEST ORIGINAL SONG - "No Time to Die", Billie Eilish

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE - Hans Zimmer, Dune

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN - Dune

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING - The Eyes of Tammy Faye

BEST EDITING - Dune

BEST SOUND - Dune

BEST ANIMATED SHORT - The Windshield Wiper

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT - The Queen of Basketball

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT - The Long Goodbye

X - Movie Review

Starring Mia Goth, Jenny Ortega, Martin Henderson, Brittany Snow, Scott Mescudi, Owen Campbell and Stephen Ure.

Written & Directed by Ti West.

★★½ 

Ti West's horror movies have always been more about atmosphere than actual scares. I was reminded of this during the second half of the movie, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

His House of the Devil was homage to satanic-panic films like Rosemary's Baby, and his The Innkeepers was homage to haunted-hotel movies like The Shining. This is his homage to 1970's slasher flicks like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

It's set in 1979, and West uses stock changes and quick edits to give it that grindhouse feel. The scene is set when we see some Texas police officers surveying a bloody scene at a farmhouse. Dead body in the front yard, blood all over the porch, more gruesomeness inside. Then we rewind 24 hours to see how we got here.

We meet aspiring actress Maxine (Mia Goth), her adult-film producing boyfriend (Martin Henderson), auteur-wannabe RJ (Owen Campbell) who believes smut films can be made artfully, and three others along to help. They've rented a guesthouse on a farm in rural Texas to make their own porno The Farmer's Daughters. They haven't told the old Christian couple they're renting from what they're doing, and the first half of the movie is about building the tension, but once the killing starts, the suspense and atmosphere masterfully woven gives way to tongue-in-cheek gore.

I can't say it's ever scary. Suspenseful, yes. Scary, no. When I think of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, there's that scare of the first kill, and the scares build from there. Here, these young people get separated too easily, going off one by one to look for the others that are missing. I was also distracted the entire movie by one baffling decision. Rather than get an older actress to play the wife, Mia Goth plays the role in heavy old-age make-up. Why? It's obvious it's a younger woman in old-age make-up. Could never suspend my disbelief on that one. (The answer actually comes in a hilarious post-credits stinger).

So... I admire the craft. The cast. The editing. The music. I suppose we're in a new era. It seems like it's not possible for slasher flicks to be scary anymore. Maybe I'm jaded. At least the occasional supernatural horror movie can still land.

The Batman - Movie Review

Starring Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, John Turturro, Andy Serkis, Peter Sarsgaard, and Jayme Lawson.

Written by Matt Reeves & Peter Craig.

Directed by Matt Reeves.

★★★½ 

There are several familiar elements that get swirled together in this dark walk through the irredeemable Gotham City. It honors the Nolan trilogy while borrowing just as much from David Fincher, particularly Se7en and Zodiac. I liked Matt Reeves' desire to emphasize the detective elements of Batman. This has always been a strong trait of him in the comic books, but maybe it hasn't been emphasized as much in the films.

Batman is allowed into crime scenes. Somehow this masked vigilante, who's only been doing this two years, has the trust of Lt. Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), though most of the other cops think it's out of line. Gotham is being plagued by a serial killer named the Riddler (Paul Dano), leaving clues along the way as to whom his next victim will be. 

The theme of Gotham is rot. It's a metropolis where too many cops, lawyers, and politicians have been corrupted, to where a known crime boss like Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) can peddle his wares without fear or retribution. Batman deals with criminals his way, and they're usually ground-level thugs, but the Riddler wants to expose and kill the biggest targets he can find.

The screenplay doesn't let Pattinson do much besides brood as Bruce Wayne. In many ways, he's more in character as Batman. The suit does a lot of work, but he has the "presence" one needs in a suit like that. Every supporting actor has at least One Scene where they go toe-to-toe with Pattinson and are allowed to shine. Batman's felt a lot like the host of the coolest rogue gallery out there and that's true here. 

Dano is nice and creepy as Riddler and it's deep into the movie before we see him out of disguise. His showdown with Batman really does it. Behind his glasses, he has an unnerving serial killer smile. Farrell is terrific as Penguin. If you'd just told me "someone famous" is playing him, I don't know if I could have figured out it was him. The makeup's tremendous, and under that disguise, Farrell most resembled DeNiro's take on Al Capone from The Untouchables. It really is a shame they wouldn't Penguin smoke in the movie. This guys "needs" to be chomping on a cigar while he does business.

I'll be curious how it holds up under a second viewing. It'll be on HBOMax in about 35 days, so that's when we'll see.

Uncharted - Movie Review

Starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle, Steven Waddington and Pingi Moli.

Written by Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum & Matt Holloway.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer.

★★½ 

Uncharted follows the tradition of National Treasure and Red Notice, of people hopscotching around the world looking for valuable treasure in a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously, nor does it try to elevate the genre. It is what it is and no more.

Tom Holland plays Nathan Drake, a young man who studied Magellan with his brother but is now a bartender/petty thief. He gets a job offer from Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg), a treasure hunter who knew Nathan's long-lost brother. He wants Nathan to help him find Magellan's treasure. 

There's a lot of double-crosses in the film, and they never really explain why Nathan's so good at hand-to-hand combat. A brief shot of him exercising covers it, I guess. The final chase scene / fight showdown would have been comfortable in Jungle Cruise.

It held my interest throughout, and it's fun to watch Tati Gabrielle (You) play a heavy. It leaves itself wide open for a sequel with two mid-credits stingers at the end. It's fine. It's okay. I've never played the game so can't speak to how faithful or unfaithful it is with the source material. Catch a matinee or wait for it to stream.

SAG Award Winners

The SAG Awards are on of my favorites. Not too many categories, so it's all done in two hours. In Memorium is only actors, so no agents or attorneys in there. Many shout-outs to Ukraine, whose president is a "fellow actor". Just about every acceptance speech was good; had some real teary-eyed gratitude come from Will Smith, the Squid Game crew, the CODA crew, and most moving was Michael Keaton, who lost his nephew to a drug overdose.

MOVIES

Best Cast - CODA

Best Actor - Will Smith, King Richard

Best Actress - Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Best Supporting Actor - Troy Kotsur, CODA

Best Supporting Actress - Ariana DeBose, West Side Story

Best Stunt Ensemble - No Time to Die

TV

Best Cast Drama - Succession

Best Cast Comedy - Ted Lasso

Best Actor Drama - Lee Jung-jae, Squid Game

Best Actress Drama - HoYeon Jung, Squid Game

Best Actor Comedy - Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso

Best Actress Comedy - Jean Smart, Hacks

Best Actor Miniseries - Michael Keaton, Dopesick

Best Actress Miniseries - Kate Winslet, Mare of Easttown

Best Stunt Ensemble - Squid Game

Lifetime Achievement Award - Helen Mirren

Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Netflix Review

Starring Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, Moe Dunford, Jacob Latimore, Olwen Fouere, Nell Hudson, Alice Krige, and Jessica Allain.

Written by Chris Thomas Devlin, Fede Alvarez & Rodo Sayagues.

Directed by David Blue Garcia.

★★

Well, I guess it's about as good as any other TCM sequel. Which isn't saying much. I've see almost all of them. The only one I haven't seen is the one with Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellweger. 

The original had that creepy surprise, not just of Leatherface, but there was this whole family of messed-up psychos. This outing is claiming to be a sequel to the original while ignoring all the other ones, like Halloween did a few years ago. It tries so hard to copy the Halloween model that they give Sally, surivvor of the original, the same long white hair Jamie Lee Curtis sports. But it also misses on being an actual sequel. In this one, Leatherface was in an orphanage. Huh?

This one centers on four idyllic college students who are seeking to resurrect a ghost town in rural Texas and turn it into some sort of utopian commune. Naturally the locals lay their accents on thick so that these city-slickers know their kind ain't welcome here. The trouble begins when they dfind that one resident, the old owner of the orphanage, has not vacated, and she has a silent giant who stands in dark shadows in the background. When the old woman dies, the giant loses it. He removes someone's face and wears it as his own, then goes to find his long-hidden chainsaw.

The gore is as extreme as gorehounds could hope for. There's one scene on a bus where passengers are sliced in every way one could be with a chainsaw. 

It's not the worst of the Chainsaw sequels/remakes, but this franchise to me is like Terminator. Just let the thing die already. Unfortunately it'll probably do well enough on Netflix that we'll get another in 2024.