Movie review by Greg Carlson

Available on Hulu following a world premiere at Sundance and a spring release date in the U.K., director Raine Allen-Miller’s feature debut “Rye Lane” is an ebullient drop of sunshine with more than enough charm to match its fresh and earnest spin on the romantic comedy. Even the rom-com averse will find plenty to like in the story of a meet-cute (or, given the initial sobbing, meet-pitiful) between two twenty-something Londoners reeling from bad break-ups. The title announces the real-life location that will, via the southside districts of Peckham and Brixton, operate as a character while Yas (Vivian Oparah) and Dom (David Jonsson) follow in the cinematic footsteps of role models like Celine and Jessie in the Vienna of “Before Sunrise.”

Unlike Linklater’s classic, “Rye Lane” skips the ticking-clock urgency of a looming flight in favor of a more casual walk-and-talk that unfolds over the course of several increasingly eventful hours. But Allen-Miller’s eye and ear for flirtatious banter (scripted by Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia) and the chemistry between Oparah and Jonsson are often as exhilarating as the best interactions first brought to life by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in 1995. I love Meagan Jordan’s spot-on note that “Whereas F. Gary Gray’s ‘Friday’ was a comedy about a day that gets progressively worse, ‘Rye Lane’ is about a day that gets continuously better, if not funnier and more loving … “

Urination – much less gross than it sounds – bookends the movie. The finale is a hilarious outtake that revels in the limits of a low-budget (and low-angle) special effect, but the inaugural instance refers to the interruption of Yas’s relief by Dom’s vocal sobs in a nearby bathroom stall at an art show opening. Outside the restroom, small talk leads to more conversation. And just like that, “Rye Lane” starts to spark with electrical current that has us yearning for a reason – any reason – to keep these two together so we can discover where things might go. Like Clementine accepting a ride from Joel after a moment of hesitation in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” or the “lifetime sidewalk” talk of Christine and Richard in “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” curiosity and possibility fuel the characters and their viewers.

Alongside that curiosity is an equally important ingredient: vulnerability. During the movie, Yas and Dom will open up to each other in unexpected ways. Allen-Miller exploits the inversion of the historically more common film dynamic in which boy pursues girl. Yas embraces her extroverted impulsiveness by role-playing the part of new girlfriend when Dom meets up to clear the air with his ex Gia (Karene Peter), who cheated with and is now dating Dom’s best friend Eric (Benjamin Sarpong-Broni). Later, the introverted and apprehensive Dom will surprise Yas by mustering the courage to help liberate her copy of “The Low End Theory” from the pretentious Jules (Malcolm Atobrah).

And speaking of music, “Rye Lane” is an aural treat. Complementing the fluid camerawork and vibrant production and costume design, the film’s original score by Kwes makes up for the absence of several cost-prohibitive needle-drops referenced in the story. Allen-Miller’s workarounds include delightful diegetic renditions of “Sign Your Name” (at a backyard party where Dom’s weepy playlist is exposed) and “Shoop” (at an epic karaoke night that brings our potential lovers closer together). The result is another layer of knowing craftsmanship, which “Rye Lane” has in abundant supply.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Dutch photographer, music video creator, and film director Anton Corbijn – now in his late 60s – brings his artistic insider touch to “Squaring the Circle: The Story of Hipgnosis,” an engaging and entertaining documentary examination of the massively influential team responsible for some of the most recognizable album covers of the 1970s. Suited to the likes of rock fans and graphic design geeks (and especially the sizable demographic that includes both), the movie is also the story of the personal and creative friendship between two maverick visionaries: the late Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell.

While Thorgerson and Powell may not be household names to the millions who have purchased one or more albums featuring their handiwork, they are – in several significant ways – rock stars to the rock stars who hired, trusted, and championed them. Corbijn includes interviews with Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, and others who marveled at the stunning results that would come to visually represent groups like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin in equal measure to the sonic signatures inside the sleeves.

Watching “Squaring the Circle,” one gets the distinct feeling that Corbijn simply made the movie he wanted to see. All the juiciest stories, legendary productions, and thorny conflicts are collected and laid out like a lavishly illustrated, oversize coffee table tome come to life. Undoubtedly, a number of viewers who seek out the film – now available to stream following a 2022 world premiere at Telluride and a subsequent screening at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival – already own one or more of the several books devoted to archiving the Hipgnosis aesthetic.

In a time before Photoshop, Hipgnosis relied on analog tools and fierce commitment to achieve impressive results. Complicated and expensive photoshoots (some humorously recounted here) were standard operating procedure for many of the firm’s collaborations, but post-production image manipulation through airbrushing, multiple exposure, and good old fashioned cut-and-paste contributed to the magic. There are several candidates one could consider for the heavyweight title, but it is in no way possible to fully account for the Hipgnosis phenomenon without mentioning “The Dark Side of the Moon.”

George Hardie’s simple and elegant depiction of white light separated into a rainbow after passing through a prism was inspired by a photo Thorgerson saw in an old physics textbook, but like so many of the arresting pieces to emerge from the Hipgnosis shop, the art worked in complementary tandem with the recording, engaging in a kind of conversation with and extension of the ideas contained in the songs. This interplay could be found in the most successful Hipgnosis projects, which often added humor, puns, and layered meanings – some obvious, some obscure, and some not appreciated by clients – to the experience.

“Squaring the Circle” follows several concert films and underrated narrative features (“Control” and “The American” among them) by Corbijn, who has enjoyed fruitful partnerships with Depeche Mode and U2 that stretch back to the 1980s. His own evocative photography represents a stylistic contrast to Hipgnosis, but the director’s sincere appreciation for their pioneering accomplishments can be seen in the admiration and respect that went into assembling the movie.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As fans dress up and Warner and Mattel executives celebrate box office returns, Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” finally arrives – along with Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” – to jolt attendance and launch thousands of essays on everything from the film’s use of the Old Testament creation myth to its mockery of male fragility and the stranglehold of the patriarchy. A rainbow-colored fantasia not aimed at the intellectual capacity of the principal doll-collecting demographic (tots at the screening I attended repeatedly asked when the show would be over), the curious big-budget object is part cinematic bricolage, part satirical parody, part earnest homage, part metanarrative, and all paradox.

The paradox manifests most overtly in the way that Gerwig managed to secure near carte blanche from the IP overlords to address the misfires, problematics, curiosities, and cultural reinterpretations of the Barbie universe that would normally be squashed by fiscally conservative gatekeepers afraid of anything that might damage the brand’s bottom line. The result of that freedom is right there in the trailer, which promises, “If  you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you.” Gerwig completely gets the way that the constructed feminism of the doll’s many empowerment career offerings (from astronaut to surgeon to entrepreneur to judge) clashes with the longtime arguments about Barbie’s impossible body proportions/beauty standards, white idealization, and unchecked materialism.

The film, which Gerwig co-wrote with partner Noah Baumbach, mostly gets to have its pink-frosted cake and eat it, even if the sobering environmental threat of climate impact exacerbated by the fossil fuel and deforestation requirements that it takes to manufacture the estimated 58 million dolls purchased each year is sold separately. The thankfully subdued appearance of Will Ferrell, in what at first looks to be the umpteenth variation on his exasperated executive, melts into the larger conflict between the utopian, matriarchal comfort of Barbieland and the grim gender inequities of the “real world.”

Margot Robbie is perfect as the so-called “Stereotypical Barbie” iteration of the icon, but a hilarious Ryan Gosling nearly steals every scene in which he appears as the dangerously dim Ken, an opportunistic hippophile who goes wild when he discovers that outside Barbieland, down is up and black is white when it comes to society’s treatment of men and women. Remaking their home as a nightmarish mirror image of masculine overconfidence, the Kens take to mansplaining “The Godfather” and strumming multi-hour versions of Matchbox Twenty’s “Push.” The Barbies plot to dismantle this new toxicity, but will a return to the previous anodyne self-deception make things any better?

The fulcrum for a yet-to-be-discovered third path is delivered by America Ferrera’s Gloria, a Mattel employee sympathetic to Barbie, in a terrific, quintessentially Gerwig-ian monologue that has instantly become the film’s signature moment. The heartfelt expression of frustration at the unresolvable conundra of contradictory expectations for women, no matter how recognizable and familiar to so many viewers, is a show-stopping tour de force delivered with a potency that has resulted in reports of everything from cheers and applause to tearful, stunned silence. It’s anything but plastic.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Laurel Parmet’s feature directorial debut “The Starling Girl” arrives on demand following a Sundance Film Festival premiere and a short theatrical window via Bleecker Street. Finding fresh ways to depict coming-of-age stories involving matters of socially taboo topics is a tall order, but Parmet handles the story of a 17-year-old girl and her predatory youth minister with a strong sense of emotional authenticity. Eliza Scanlen anchors the drama as Jem Starling, the eldest daughter in a close-knit family of Christian fundamentalists in rural Kentucky. Jem’s growth into adulthood is complicated by the intersection of her own intellectual curiosity and the expectations of her deeply religious family.

Many – if not most – of the individual conflicts cover familiar genre territory. Parmet shrewdly sticks to Jem’s point of view, a strategy that makes room for viewers to squirm at the predictable march toward wrongdoing without losing sympathy for the protagonist. As Owen Taylor, the charismatic heir to church leadership, Lewis Pullman seizes the opportunity to illustrate the privileges of his position within the patriarchal structure of the community to which he has just returned from missionary work in Puerto Rico. That separation from the otherwise overwhelming insularity of Jem’s tightly monitored and controlled world represents just the kind of “exotic” fuel to fire her imagination.

Parmet has spoken about the ways in which “The Starling Girl” was partially inspired by her own teenage experience with an older man. Later, while doing research for another project, the filmmaker spent time with some women from a patriarchal church, turning her shock at their submissive beliefs into a thoughtful and considered examination of the commonalities she shared with them. The resulting sympathy for characters more typically depicted in the movies as backwards and out of touch with reality enriches the viewing experience. Ultimately, Parmet makes clear that the gender-based control of Jem by her fellow parishioners corresponds to the way that society in general shames young women for autonomous self-expression – sexual and otherwise.

In addition to the terrific and convincing work by Scanlen and Pullman, the rest of the supporting cast members flesh out vivid characterizations no matter how small the role. Away from the ever-building erotic tension and temptations of the relationship Jem develops with Owen, Parmet presents robust subplots that sharply explicate Jem’s internal struggles. Parentally-arranged “courtship” pairs the reluctant Jem with Owen’s little brother Ben (Austin Abrams). The contrast between the siblings could not be more obvious, both for Jem and the viewer.

Deliberate or not, Parmet makes clear distinctions between Jem’s interactions with the men around her and the more caustic and judgmental women who almost seem to take pleasure in draining the joy from Jem’s life (she is humiliated for wearing a shirt that isn’t opaque enough to fully conceal her bra and the choreography she introduces to her fellow praise dancers is deemed too “prideful”). One of the filmmaker’s smart decisions is to fill out the history of Jem’s father Paul (Jimmi Simpson), whose depression and reliance on alcohol are exacerbated by the death of a friend with whom he played in a band years ago. Not surprisingly, it is the more realistic past of Paul and not the fantasy of Owen that provides Jem with a more grounded vision of a life outside the suffocating world she inhabits.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Writer-director Celine Song’s feature debut “Past Lives” premiered to much acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Beautifully photographed by Shabier Kirchner on 35mm film, the thoughtful and contemplative drama might be as destined for award season accolades as the star-crossed childhood sweethearts are for paths that twine together and grow apart over the course of the near quarter-century explored in the narrative. Song’s powerful imagination and confident command of pace and rhythm suggest the work of a veteran filmmaker with decades of experience. One of the year’s best films – a deeply rewarding journey of love and friendship – “Past Lives” is not to be missed.

An absolutely phenomenal Greta Lee plays Na Young, a South Korea-born writer whose family moved to Toronto when she wasn’t quite a teenager. Known now as Nora, she reconnects with Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) after discovering that her cherished classmate had reached out in search of her through a Facebook post. Twelve years have passed, but Nora and Hae Sung reconnect using Skype. Now living in New York City and committed to developing her craft, Nora can’t accept Hae Sung’s invitation to travel to see him. She proposes he visit her, but his own plans include imminent language study in China.

Choices made, Nora soon meets and marries Arthur (John Magaro), even if Hae Sung never fades from her imagination. The particularities of the protagonist’s unique association to each man are developed by the director through the sharp script, which never resorts to duplicity or deceit to manufacture or escalate conflict. Instead, the honesty cuts like a scalpel, especially when Hae Sung finally makes it to America and all three key players expose raw vulnerabilities in public and in private. Arthur and Hae Sung each know a part of Nora inaccessible to the other.

Like Davy Chou’s equally moving “Return to Seoul,” “Past Lives” offers a detailed and in-depth consideration of Korean identity through personal connections inside and outside the country. Both films were, in part, based on incidents from the real lives of their creators. And both movies feature world-class performances from the lead actors. But hidden in plain sight next to those gorgeously realized humans are the notions of time and of place. Relocation, displacement, and the complexities of rootedness (and its lack) give us much to consider beyond the action, such as it is.

While the triangle and loving-the-one-you’re-with practicalities pay homage to “Casablanca,” “Past Lives” differs from the legendary Oscar-winner in several ways. Unlike Rick and Ilsa, Nora and Hae Sung never completely know one another as lovers. At least not physically. Song cinematically renders the longing, the aching, and the yearning with the exquisite torture of memorable moments in “The Remains of the Day,” “In the Mood for Love,” and “Brief Encounter,” to name a few. The cycles of twelve years (depicting the ages of 12, 24, and 36) that Song uses to structure the story focus viewer attention on thematic questions of roads not taken just as much as the possibility/impossibility that Nora and Hae Sung might finally get together.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

An online search for articles about David Gelb’s documentary “Stan Lee” returns a lengthy list of headlines summarizing what has been, for many years, the story about the story. Even many non-fans know that the recognizable face of Marvel Comics was an opportunist and self-promoter, often reluctant to share the proper amount of creative credit with giants like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. But Lee’s influence on the industry he helped build is as undeniable as his affinity for purple prose. Decades of mythmaking and the careful retelling of core talking points have polished Lee’s biography to shine as brightly as the inevitable outcome of any Horatio Alger plot.

So if you are looking for a critical examination of Lee’s life and work, or a thoughtful consideration of his failures and shortcomings, Gelb’s movie is not for you. That said, the filmmaker – whose “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” remains a delight – deserves some credit for at least acknowledging the partnerships that yielded colorful 20th century icons like Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Hulk. Similar to the approach used by Davis Guggenheim in the much sharper and more affecting Michael J. Fox documentary “Still,” Gelb builds the on-camera and off-camera narration almost entirely from a single voice. In this case, the voice belongs to Stan Lee.

Unsurprisingly, Kirby family members issued a statement calling out the film for the continuing erasure of Jack Kirby’s true contributions from the historical Marvel record. Neal Kirby writes, “Stan Lee had the fortunate circumstance to have access to the corporate megaphone and media, and he used these to create his own mythos as to the creation of the Marvel character pantheon.” Kirby also noted that a long life also advantaged Lee. In the movie, Gelb excerpts – without comment – part of the infamous WBAI “Earthwatch” radio show interaction between Lee and Kirby that happened on the occasion of Kirby’s 70th birthday in 1987.

Completists know that “With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story” (2010) is another valentine – one that does go heavy on the gushing celebrity admirer soundbites. In the new film, Gelb’s access to the massive trove of historical photos (which show without fail the wild evolution of Lee’s wigs, toupees, and hair plugs), television appearances, and of course, the pages of comic books and related artwork, provides a handsome look, although the decision to use so many inserts of model train-like scale dioramas of banal office scenes is less clear. Sections detailing Lee’s longtime partnership with wife Joan and the arrival of Flo Steinberg to the Marvel team temporarily break up the boys club.

Author Abraham Josephine Riesman, who wrote the Eisner- and Hugo-nominated “True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee,” is one of many to criticize Gelb’s movie as a corporate hagiography. In a piece for “Vulture,” Riesman takes issue with, among other things, the way in which Disney and Gelb let Lee’s elder “abusers off the hook by deleting them and their actions from Stan’s life.” Riesman understands that Lee was both “a towering American original” and “a trademarked brand.” Gelb’s movie could have used a lot more reflection to account for the complex terrain between those poles.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Filmmaker Lana Wilson’s “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” uses two parts (now on Hulu following a world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival) to explore the career of its title subject, the well-known model, actor, performer and celebrity. Life in the spotlight began for Shields when her mother Teri supposedly announced – just five days after her daughter was born – that she intended to guide the child into show business. True to her word, Teri soon booked an Ivory Soap gig when Brooke was eleven months old. Wilson, who previously directed “After Tiller,” “The Departure,” and “Miss Americana,” continues to show a keen critical interest in mental health, society, and gender, but this latest project might be the least successful of the set.

In contrast to Davis Guggenheim’s outstanding “Still,” in which virtually all of the onscreen and offscreen talking is done by Michael J. Fox, Wilson opts for the more typical approach in which a sizable number of friends, associates, and cultural commentators lend their voices to sound bites large and small. As a result, the noise often obscures, rather than illuminates, the “meaning” of Shields in her various guises, iterations, and public personae. Not surprisingly, Shields blows each and every one of the other talking heads out of the water; she’s easily and confidently her own best interpreter and authority.

Additionally, Wilson’s decision to arrange the events in roughly chronological order means that the most intense and fascinating content unfolds during the first episode. By the time we have caught up to the mature Shields as she deals with feelings of guilt and frustration accompanying postpartum depression (over which Tom Cruise publicly made an utter ass of himself), the individual segments have become wobbly and out of balance. As Susie Bright describes it, the vibe “plays out like a VH1 ‘Behind the Music’ episode” and “By not meeting the moment, the biopic deadends in ennui.” The movie’s lack of candor in several areas is most likely the result of demands made by Shields to secure her participation, even though Wilson has claimed that nothing was off limits.

In the introduction of his March 2023 Shields interview in “The New Yorker,” Michael Schulman identifies what I think is the turning point in the public perception of the star. The release of the ghostwritten college advice book “On Your Own,” “revealed that [Shields] was a virgin, a fact that transformed her from a symbol of libertinism into one of Reagan-era chastity.” Setting aside the creepy, obsessive nonsense surrounding the very concept of “purity,” which looks an awful lot like another mechanism used by men to control women, none of the participants nor Wilson adequately account for the shift. Instead, there is an oddly distancing rundown of relationships with Michael Jackson, Dean Cain, and Andre Agassi.

Wilson goes to great lengths to acknowledge – if not completely reckon with – the spectacle of sexualization Shields experienced as a child and a minor. For her part, Shields maintains to this day the same steadfast refusal to accept any shame or regret for “Pretty Baby,” “The Blue Lagoon,” “Endless Love,” and the controversial Calvin Klein spots. Her on-camera poise, evident from childhood and demonstrated in multiple talk show clips of older men commenting on her physical appearance, communicates an astute awareness of the unusual circumstances of her entire life. Brooke Shields has never known a time without fame and the punishments and privileges that go with it.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A vibrant troupe including several precocious brainiacs, their parents, military personnel, astrophysicists, singing cowboys, a grieving widower, a movie star, and a trio of tiny witches and/or vampires-in-training converges on Asteroid City (population 87) for the 1955 Junior Stargazer Convention in Wes Anderson’s gorgeous new feature. As quintessentially Andersonian as any of his previous movies, “Asteroid City” gracefully combines the considerable talents of its sprawling ensemble and the technical prowess of the filmmaker’s production team to realize a cosmic fantasia of romance and hope, sadness and bereavement, and the astral realms of the real and the imagined.

Expectedly, the setting is as much a character as any of the familiar players, and Anderson conjures a miraculous theatrical framing conceit that makes the head spin and race to keep up. The filmmaker has always expressed an interest in the boundaries between presentational artifice and the authentic emotions experienced by the inhabitants of the diegetic space. Max’s “hit play” adaptation of “Serpico” and the chapter introductions from a book called “The Royal Tenenbaums” are two examples, but “Asteroid City” extends well beyond similar devices in “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “The French Dispatch.”

We have witnessed Anderson’s successful execution of this approach to nested story-within-story before, but the effect on the viewer here may be its apotheosis – at least until Anderson devises another level. The narrative events of “Asteroid City,” as best as we can make sense of them, suggest a nonfiction “Playhouse 90”-esque television show depicting the behind-the-scenes creation of a stage production then realized as a 360-degree panorama unencumbered by the limitations of interior space. And once we get outside to marvel at the startling azure skies and the ochre buttes – complemented by the teals and oranges of the human-made objects – we are exactly as dazzled and beguiled as Anderson intends.

The mixed reactions following the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival come as little surprise to the devoted fans who can only sigh. Who else makes movies like Wes Anderson? In 2014, scholar Peter C. Kunze listed several of the particularities that “make Anderson’s films so charming and infuriating, distinctive and derivative, pleasing and exasperating,” concisely summarizing the poles of adoration and denunciation expressed by audiences and critics. Now, almost a decade later, Kunze’s thoughts on the Anderson binary that pits irony against sincerity are just as apt. I for one remain at home in my firmly-staked Khaki Scouts tent, my private berth aboard the Darjeeling Limited, and my deck chair on the Belafonte.

An initial viewing of “Asteroid City” can be overwhelming, especially given the question of how the expanding roster of regulars (Schwartzman, Swinton, Goldblum, Dafoe, Norton, Brody, Revolori, etc.) and newcomers (Hanks, Robbie, Carell, Hawke, Dillon, Davis, etc.) will be balanced in an enterprise with so many speaking roles. But Anderson’s history and this movie’s conceptual scheme of actors playing actors – and in some cases, actors playing actors playing actors – affirm that there are no small parts. Jason Schwartzman’s combat photographer Augie Steenbeck is paired with Scarlett Johansson’s Marilyn Monroe-like Midge Campbell, but the relationship between their kids – Augie’s son Woodrow (Jake Ryan) and Midge’s daughter Dinah (Grace Edwards) – is treated with equal interest and respect by Anderson, who shares story credit with longtime collaborator Roman Coppola.

Wes Anderson has come to represent a kind of genre unto himself, so the choice to frame his thematic concerns within the otherworldly realm of science fiction is just another one of the special attractions of “Asteroid City.” Admirers will come to the movie already prepared for the artful manipulations communicated through the auteur’s fascination with intertext and metanarrative. At one point, someone asks “Am I not in this?” In another moment, a director encourages an actor to “Just keep telling the story,” while we catch a glimpse of the dream within the dream.

And did I mention the UFO?

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize Winner “A Thousand and One” is a vital New York story that unfolds over the course of a decade. And even though its spot-on period detail situates the drama in the place Toni Morrison called “the last true city,” the emotional weight of a mother’s love for a child is universal. The movie’s history-by-suggestion covers the mayoral tenure of Rudy Giuliani and stretches to include an audio excerpt of Michael Bloomberg’s January 1, 2002 inauguration address – the very line that references Morrison’s claim. Writer-director A. V. Rockwell’s first feature marks an auspicious debut. “A Thousand and One” is powerful and personal filmmaking.

Throughout the movie, Rockwell incisively critiques a number of structural systems that disadvantage those fighting for survival on the economic margins. But the struggle of the principal characters is never buried by the social commentary; the world inhabited by Teyana Taylor’s Inez is precise and charged with genuine urgency. Taylor is already well-known in the entertainment industry for her work as a busy recording artist, choreographer, writer, and actor. Her performance here as a woman who refuses to be chewed up, refuses to give up or give in, feels like a turning point or a breakthrough.

In just a few well-chosen compositions, Rockwell introduces Inez with pinpoint economy. Finishing a short sentence at Rikers Island (Rockwell confidently skips right past the traditional and expected release sequence), Inez quickly locates six-year-old Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola). This little boy, who we learn was placed in foster care while Inez was incarcerated, is too young to fully understand everything that is going on. But his presence motivates and energizes Inez, who, in essence, kidnaps him and disappears into Harlem. It is instantly clear that she will do whatever it takes to provide the kid with access to the tools for a better life.

Rockwell and Taylor combine forces in a way that steadily builds dramatic tension. Inez’s decisive act taking Terry away from legally-appointed guardianship carries with it a looming sense of dread at their possible discovery. As long as he is a minor, the family’s day-to-day requires vigilance, subterfuge and obfuscation to hide Terry’s identity from anyone who might find out what happened. But along with this centralized pressure, Rockwell illustrates the oppressive features of sweeping changes that brutalized – even criminalized – the poor under the guise of making things better and more livable for all.

From controversial and humiliating “stop and frisk” policing to the unconscionable tactics of cruel landlords who would profit from gentrification opportunities, “A Thousand and One” can suggest a David and Goliath battleground that threatens hopelessness. But Inez refuses to blink, even when a shocking revelation changes everything. Near the end of the movie, Inez says to the now 17-year-old Terry (Josiah Cross), “Nobody else give a shit about Black women except for other Black women, and even that shit get messy.” It’s yet another of Rockwell’s piercing observations, all the more potent for the way it alludes to the extraordinary sacrifices known only to a mother.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Until I saw “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” I really thought the cinematic expression of the multiverse concept had peaked with the triumphant Best Picture Academy Award for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a movie that catapults us – as I wrote in my original review – “onto the tracks of a rollercoaster careening through a dizzying set of alternative (sur)realities.” But the new superhero film, which continues the onscreen story of teenagers Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, and a whole army of colorful Spider-people that began in 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” is a glorious follow-up. “Across the Spider-Verse” is to the original installment as “Toy Story 2,” “The Godfather Part II,” and “The Empire Strikes Back” are to their franchises.

Last year, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” arrived in theaters just ahead of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” And here we are again, as “The Flash” – yet another multiverse-oriented movie – lands in two short weeks. The concept of parallel worlds has been evolving since at least the ancient Greeks, and Marvel has been steadily laying the groundwork for even more of it. In the narrow corridor of contemporary media, fatigue has been the common F-word when it comes to superhero cinema. “Across the Spider-Verse” presents a strong argument that there is still plenty of gas in the tank.

Admittedly, it helps if you’re already a fan (of comics, graphic design, animation, cinema, intertextuality, etc.), but directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, working from a screenplay by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and David Callaham, locate the emotional core at the heart of the saga and never let it get smothered or obscured by the stunning visuals. The Spider-Man brought to life by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko is arguably the greatest hero of the Silver Age. Even average citizens have likely heard some variation of the aphorism “With great power comes great responsibility.” And one of the triumphs of this iteration is the way it creates a conversation between the old and the new.

The filmmakers pack a lot of story into the movie’s 140 minutes, introducing another set of web-slingers who either assist or oppose Miles – for any number of reasons made clear along the way – once he leaves Earth-1610 through a portal and unwittingly threatens a canon-disrupting event. Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld, as Miles and Gwen, interact with a dazzling ensemble that includes Oscar Isaac’s Spider-Man 2099, Daniel Kaluuya’s Spider-Punk, Issa Rae’s Spider-Woman, Karan Soni’s Spider-Man India, and several others involved in the complicated business of the Spider-Society. To paraphrase Shakespeare from “The Merchant of Venice,” everyone plays a part.

But for all the head-swiveling action sequences and clever homages (including several direct tributes to “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), “Across the Spider-Verse” successfully reimagines the character while retaining the things that have made Spidey great since 1962: coming-of-age questions of identity, the challenges of personal growth, conflict with loved ones, the pain of sacrifice, and the uncertainties and anxieties that exist in the liminal space between adolescence and adulthood. Contrary to the racist objections that have been playing out since the introduction of Miles Morales in 2011, all the differences and updates take absolutely nothing away from Peter Parker. And that’s amazing.