Movie review by Greg Carlson

Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” continues to make an award-season push for recognition as it expands to additional screens following its initial premiere in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Grand Prix. Both longtime and more recent fans of the filmmaker will be dazzled by Trier’s command of the cinematic medium. The auteur, writing again with longtime collaborator Eskil Vogt, locates the sweet spot between image-driven storytelling and the intense, dialogue-rich melodrama embodied by a dream cast populated by familiar regulars as well as fresh newcomers to Trier’s cinematic universe. Some followers may prefer the new offering, which shifts focus from a single central character to a multigenerational family saga.

In the kind of arts-and-crafts metanarrative that propelled the likes of Fellini’s “8 ½” (1963) and Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” (2004), “Sentimental Value” introduces viewers to Stellan Skarsgård’s aging film director Gustav Borg, whose surname deliberately matches the one bestowed by Ingmar Bergman on his “Wild Strawberries” protagonist Isak. Gustav, who left his young family years ago, has now circled back to adult daughters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) following the death of their mother. Looming even larger as an actual site of connection is the family home, a spacious Oslo classic still legally owned by Gustav.

Gustav announces his eyebrow-raising plan to shoot a semiautobiographical feature using the house as the principal location. He also offers the lead role – partly based on Gustav’s mother – to Nora, who wants absolutely nothing to do with the production. Nora’s own success as a performer on television and live theatre is quintessential Trier/Vogt: she is introduced in a tour de force sequence tracking a demonic attack of stage fright that sparks with exquisitely excruciating suspense. The mysterious source of Nora’s self-doubt later becomes apparent as we see her in all kinds of painful conversations with Gustav. Neither can easily mend or reconcile personal feelings of abandonment or their family-business competition.

Since Nora sticks to her guns in the unwavering refusal to work with her father, Gustav (mis)casts Hollywood starlet Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) in the part. Communicating all sorts of entertaining inside-baseball allusions to the contemporary landscape of movie financing and distribution – Gustav’s film is being bankrolled at least in part by Netflix – Trier strikes a balance between the Bergman-esque trauma of the Borg family dynamics and a breezier and more humorous examination of life behind the scenes. Fanning rises to the occasion in a demanding role that requires a level of openness and naivete balanced with the willingness to seek deeper connections through character research that Gustav can’t help but mock.

We also learn that when she was a child, Agnes appeared in one of Gustav’s best-received movies (Trier treats us to a clip of the film at a retrospective screening). Now, he wants the son of Agnes, his grandchild, to act in his new movie. The request troubles Agnes, who long ago made the conscious choice to leave behind show business for life as an academic. In one hilarious moment, Gustav inappropriately gives copies of “The Piano Teacher” and “Irreversible” to his pre-teen grandson, a cheeky nod to Trier’s own unrelenting cinephilia. Little touches like these place “Sentimental Value” in the company of “The Worst Person in the World.” And even though the 2021 film is superior, Trier adds another enthralling title to his filmography.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Japanese director Hikari, born in Osaka and originally named Mitsuyo Miyazaki, is poised for a significant stateside breakthrough with “Rental Family,” the new film she co-wrote with Stephen Blahut. Already generating some limited (and possibly wishful) Oscar nomination buzz for lead Brendan Fraser, “Rental Family” joins “The Phoenician Scheme,” “One Battle After Another,” and “Sentimental Value” in a curious group of recent movies dealing to one degree or another with father-daughter relationships. In the film, Fraser plays a Tokyo-based actor who takes a gig at an agency that provides services to clients in need of real-life support. I was previously aware of the phenomenon of paid mourners, one kind of “rental performance” example illustrated in the movie, but Fraser’s Phillip Vandarploeug gets in over his head when he agrees to pose as the previously absent father of a little girl.

From start to finish, Hikari’s direction is unhurried. “Rental Family” spends considerable time laying out the expectations for Phillip’s new roles, giving the viewer an opportunity to make the same adjustments experienced by the character to the unusual new direction in his chosen occupation. In one scenario, Phillip steps in as the groom of a secret lesbian. In another, Phillip hangs out with a lonely man, playing videogames and helping tidy up his apartment. In yet another, Phillip assumes the guise of a journalist writing a career retrospective of an aging actor struggling with dementia. That last thread will become nearly as vital to the plot as Phillip’s most demanding role yet: pretending to be the dad that Mia Kawasaki (Shannon Mahina Gorman) has never known.

Mia’s mother Hitomi (Shino Shinozaki) reaches out to Rental Family agency owner Shinji (Takehiro Hira) to help enlist an American to step in as the other parent of her hāfu child with the ultimate goal of securing Mia’s admission to a prestigious boarding school. Films from within and outside Japan have tackled the prejudice and derision faced by mixed-race offspring. Others don’t focus on genetics as a plot driver (see: the title character “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension,” Edna Mode in “The Incredibles,” and Quentin Tarantino’s O-Ren Ishii). Hikari alludes to Mia being bullied, but generally speaking, “Rental Family” joins the ethos of the aforementioned films.

One might imagine that Hikari would draw more deeply on her own acting background to unpack and excavate a variety of psychological layers that swirl around the ethical considerations of constructing an imaginary identity for an unwitting “scene” partner. While the majority of those who hire someone from Rental Family are fully aware of the artifice, several are in the dark. The movie goes out of its way to explain why Hitomi lies to Mia, but some opportunities are definitely missed. On the plus side, Hikari and Blahut make space for a few satisfying surprises involving both Shinji and Phillip’s agency coworker Aiko (Mari Yamamoto).

For the most part, however, Fraser’s warmth and affability does the heavy lifting when “Rental Family” plays safe and predictable, which is nearly the whole of the running time. More often than not, Hikari sands off the sharp edges, resulting in an overall experience more akin to the programming found on the Hallmark Channel than the searing, penetrating depth of Ryusuke Hamaguchi or Hirokazu Koreeda. Even so, “Rental Family” smartly avoids the easy fallback of Phillip’s status as a hulking gaijin/gaikokujin to make any pronouncements about cultural difference versus the universal qualities of love and family – blood or chosen.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In “Hedda,” Nia DaCosta’s bold adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s celebrated 1891 play, the filmmaker reunites with longtime collaborator Tessa Thompson, who starred in DaCosta’s directorial debut “Little Woods” (screened, among other places, in the Fargo Film Festival). DaCosta makes several audacious alterations to the original text, switching the setting from Kristiania (Oslo) to 1950s England. The writer-director also centralizes a queer reading, swapping the gender of Ibsen’s Eilert Lövborg. Now Eileen Lövborg and played by a fiercely good Nina Hoss, the implicit becomes explicit in a stormy and broken lesbian relationship that triggers tragedy.

In Ibsen, the alcohol-soaked party during which Lövborg’s manuscript comes into George Tesman’s possession happens offstage, but DaCosta’s masterstroke is to build almost the entirety of the action around an increasingly feverish soiree held at the grand (and unaffordable) home of the newly married Tesman and Hedda. The manuscript, co-written by Eileen and current lover Thea Clifton (Imogen Poots), continues to function as a perfect MacGuffin, representing the direct threat to George’s more permanent employment as a university professor and to Hedda’s iron-willed sense of self. Additionally, the swirling, roiling waves of the evening blowout buoy the comings and goings of key supporting characters, including Judge Roland Brack (Nicholas Pinnock), who leverages his own power in an increasingly coercive clandestine affair with Hedda.

DaCosta primarily filmed “Hedda” at Flintham Hall in Nottinghamshire, and the opulent estate is every inch as captivating as the Northamptonshire’s Drayton House in Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn” or the Debenham House in West Kensington that Joseph Losey used in “Secret Ceremony.” Alongside the vision of production designer Cara Brower, the film’s art direction, set decoration and costume design combine as a formidable force. For fans and admirers of filmmaking that incorporates a stunning location as a character in its own right, “Hedda” offers nonstop visual riches. Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt’s roaming camera never strays too far from Hedda and her manipulative scheming.

Ibsen’s famous creation is an opportunity for any performer to deliver a tour-de-force, and Thompson joins a venerated shortlist of Hedda Gabler’s finest interpreters. DaCosta imagines this particular Hedda as a complex antiheroine and Thompson fearlessly embraces her with no limit to the pettiness, cruelty, ruthlessness, and rancor that erupt from the ashes of a frustrated and broken heart. Like the most satisfying Heddas, Thompson knows exactly how to communicate the complaint that she needs to be recognized with a singular identity independent of being her father’s daughter or her husband’s wife.

Despite key limitations corresponding to the privilege of its author and the time and place in which it was originally conceived, “Hedda Gabler” has been a sturdy site of feminist interpretation and reinterpretation. The play has led academics to ponder everything from suicide and unfulfilled desire to the rejection of patriarchal ideology to “female masculinity” and gender performativity to Hedda’s suitability for motherhood and on and on. One theory that has refused to go away is the suggestion that Hedda is afraid of sex. In an excellent 2016 essay by Jenny Björklund, the scholar rejects that reductive reading. DaCosta and Thompson, rather emphatically, do as well. Their Hedda is as hot as a pistol.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Scottish moviemaker Lynne Ramsay adds the fifth feature to her filmography with “Die My Love,” an adaptation of Argentine writer Ariana Harwicz’s 2012 novel. Co-written by Ramsay, Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, the movie eavesdrops on the unraveling of a young woman struggling to adjust to life following the acquisition of a new husband, a new home, and a new baby. Jennifer Lawrence, in an expectedly committed performance, plays the tellingly named Grace, whose crushing loneliness and palpable discontent mark every minute of the film’s two hours. Robert Pattinson is Grace’s husband Jackson. Sissy Spacek, LaKeith Stanfield and Nick Nolte appear in smaller supporting roles.

Since her brilliant 1999 debut “Ratcatcher,” Ramsay has demonstrated a remarkable gift for visual storytelling. “Ratcatcher” remains Ramsay’s only original screenplay to date. All four of her subsequent films have been based on books. Ramsay ditches Harwicz’s first-person narration, resisting any temptation to integrate voiceover that might have offered different access to Grace’s experiences or a more intimate and subjective point of view. Not everyone will respond favorably to Ramsay’s rather fearless allegiance to this arm’s-length portrait of her protagonist’s misery. In the director’s stylebook, showing and not telling is taken to the extreme, even to the Bressonian extent that an abundance of scènes nécessaires/scènes à faire are withheld.

For those who choose to tune in to the wavelength on which Lawrence and Ramsay operate, “Die My Love” can yield some spectacular epiphanies. It is certainly fair to claim that the raw clay from which this tale is sculpted takes the shape of a particular kind of hopelessness and terror linked to postpartum depression/postpartum psychosis. But that does not mean the movie is strictly about that phenomenon. “Die My Love” fights against reductive readings at each step, investing in the routines and repetitions described by Harwicz as opposed to a more conventional movie-melodrama rendering. Jumps in time also contribute to the feeling of disorientation.

Postpartum depression has been the subject of fiction and documentary, from the bleak comedy of Jason Reitman’s “Tully” to controversial takes like Amy Koppelman’s “A Mouthful of Air” and the advocacy of Jamielyn Lippman’s “When the Bough Breaks.” The best companion piece to “Die My Love,” however, is Elizabeth Sankey’s essay film “Witches,” a bracing and innovative feminist argument that makes an intriguing connection between what I originally described as “centuries of cultural expectations revolving around motherhood [that] have taken an unfair toll on women” and the iconography and mythology of witchcraft. Side by side, “Witches” and “Die My Love” complement one another.

In his negative review, Richard Brody takes Ramsay to task, writing that “The movie both sensationalizes those [postpartum depression] dangers and subordinates them to a general, social-existential vision of women’s frustrations and subjugations in marriage.” I would argue that Ramsay knows exactly what she’s doing, even if the result doesn’t aim to please. While Brody laments the absence of any scene in which Grace’s baby is placed in genuine danger – he refers to the newborn as “the implausible eye of the storm” – I think the director’s choice in this regard is inspired. The dread and anxiety we conjure from the steady thud of Grace’s actions are on point.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As a reflection on our perilous political landscape, “Bugonia,” from the ever curious and boundary-stretching auteur Yorgos Lanthimos, joins several other 2025 releases that have something to say about a deeply divided populace and the fine line between order and chaos. Landing somewhere between “One Battle After Another” and “Eddington” on the “both sides are bad” spectrum, “Bugonia” is smaller in scale than either of those movies, even if its ideas are equally intriguing. One of the producers of “Bugonia” is Ari Aster, who cast frequent Lanthimos collaborator Emma Stone in a thankless and arguably insulting role in his “Eddington.” Stone is on much firmer footing here, adding another wild, even astonishing performance to her filmography.

Along with Stone, who portrays high-powered, take-no-prisoners pharma/chem CEO Michelle Fuller, Jesse Plemons re-teams with his “Kinds of Kindness” pals as Teddy Gatz, an angry and frustrated conspiracy theorist whose mother’s illness and coma he blames on Fuller and her profits-over-people practices. Along with his neurodivergent cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), Teddy kidnaps Michelle. When she regains consciousness in the basement of the rural home shared by her abductors, Michelle – now covered in an antihistamine cream and with her head shaved – is informed by Teddy that he believes she is an extraterrestrial from the Andromeda galaxy who has terrible plans for the humans of Earth.

This set-up, which featured prominently in the film’s trailer, gives two electrifying actors a nifty sandbox to practice their craft and show off their chops. Stone and Plemons are compelling, shifting effortlessly between the worst and the most humane aspects of Fuller and Gatz. A great deal of the action is slow-burn magic (occasionally reminiscent of the otherworldly magnetism of Lanthimos breakthrough “Dogtooth”) in which Teddy, smarter than he initially appears, struggles to keep pace with the steel-nerved Michelle, who somehow manages to be intimidating and nearly in control even though she is the one tied up and held against her will.

Stone and Plemons have the lion’s share of big scenes and dialogue, but Delbis is terrific in a key role. Even though the viewer assumes that Don is willing to go along with Teddy’s plans without challenge, he surprises us more than once with insights not within the grasp of his relative and closest companion. Lanthimos also escalates narrative tension with the introduction of Casey (Stavros Halkias), a local law enforcement officer whose grim personal history with Teddy colors their exchanges during the Fuller disappearance investigation. Halkias, known for his sharp stand-up crowd work and provocative podcast commentary, notches another outstanding turn here, following his hysterical and fearless role in last year’s underseen “Let’s Start a Cult,” which he co-wrote.

The script for “Bugonia” was written by Will Tracy as an adaptation of the South Korean film “Save the Green Planet!” That 2003 movie’s director Jang Joon-hwan was originally attached to the English language remake prior to Lanthimos coming to the helm. Not to be confused with its floral homonym, “Bugonia” refers to the ancient folk practice built on the myth that bees spontaneously generate from the flesh of dead cows. Teddy’s work as a beekeeper is one of a small handful of clues regarding the title’s connection to the thematic subtext known only to Lanthimos in full form. For the rest of us, “Bugonia” is an often wondrous and frequently inexplicable cosmic trip ready to delight anyone willing to tune in to its peculiar wavelength.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Noémie Merlant, working from a script she wrote with Pauline Munier and her “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” collaborator Celine Sciamma, directs herself in “The Balconettes” (the clever/cheeky English-language retitling of the original French “Les femmes au balcon”). An antic and frantic feminist horror-comedy thriller, “The Balconettes” nods to Hitchcock’s classic “Rear Window” by way of Pedro Almodovar’s many candy-colored visions of women on the edge. The movie begins with a tantalizing prologue in which a harried and victimized spouse named Denise (Nadege Beausson-Diagne) reaches a domestic breaking point that ends with the sharp edge of a dustpan connecting with the back of her awful husband’s cranium. The incident serves as an omen and a warning.

Denise’s apartment neighbor Nicole (Sanda Codreanu) is a writer whose imagination will soon kick into high gear and stay there. Frustrated and horny, Nicole works on her craft in what appears to be a largely worthless online group workshop with a paid “mentor,” even though the adventures about to unfold should offer more than enough inspiration for dynamic storytelling. Nicole’s roommate Ruby (Souheila Yacoub) is a free-spirited camgirl whose morning-after canoodling with a pair of lovers points to an appetite for polyamory in sync with the expressive pasties, mesh tops, piercings, and stick-on rhinestones that draw attention from online clients and those encountering her in the real-world.

Merlant’s sweaty Elise soon arrives from Paris to join her pals in Marseilles. An aspiring actor initially decked out like Marilyn Monroe, Elise struggles to communicate with Paul (Christophe Montenez), her drip of a husband who cannot leave her alone or respect her personal space and her physical body. Throughout all of the expository set-up, “The Balconettes” shows an abiding interest in the gender-specific power dynamics that soon take up the principal plotline. Following a sexual assault that unites the trio in a farcical and outré mission to dispose of the deceased rapist’s corpse, Merlant elects to spin several plates at once.

While there is no doubt that Merlant could have used some of Sciamma’s more sophisticated filmmaking skills in the execution of the movie, “The Balconettes” digs into its world with considerable audacity. If we can suspend enough disbelief to accept that the women would make the questionable decision to not call the police, other threads make just as much narrative sense – even when Merlant fails to fully engage or drill down. For example, Nicole is pestered by visions of the ghosts of abusive men in an intriguing premise for a writer seeking her voice. It’s a strong enough idea to support more prominent exploration.

Overall, Merlant’s “see what sticks” approach strikes enough satisfying notes to recommend the film, culminating with some body-positive, free-the-nipple energy that struts proudly through the denouement . Visual expressions of sweltering heat waves invoking mercury-busting emotional intensity have been a filmmaking staple for decades. Think of the perspiration on display in “Lawrence of Arabia,” “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Cool Hand Luke,” “Body Heat,” “Do the Right Thing,” “Barton Fink,” and “Rear Window.” “The Balconettes” doesn’t reach the same rewatchability of any of those titles, but you’ll still want to mop your brow.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Now available on Amazon Prime following its world premiere last month as the opening night selection of the Toronto International Film Festival’s golden anniversary, “John Candy: I Like Me” is a heartfelt and star-studded appreciation of the late actor, who died in 1994 at the age of 43. The movie’s director is actor/filmmaker Colin Hanks, and his connections prove most valuable in attracting a phenomenal gallery of household-name talent who worked with and admired Candy from the very beginning to the very end. In a savvy maneuver to confront the anticipated (and inevitable) accusations of a hagiographic anointing of Saint John, the movie starts with Sahara-dry and predictably hilarious Bill Murray, who later cites an instance of his friend “milking” a scene in a show they did together as evidence of Candy at his worst.

Along with Murray, many others testify to Candy’s decency, graciousness and largesse as much as his seemingly effortless on-camera skill. Players who shared his orbit include some of the biggest and best names in comedy: Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Andrea Martin, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Martin Short, Mel Brooks, Dave Thomas, Conan O’Brien and Macaulay Culkin are among those who pay respects with remembrances that Candy faithful will be thrilled to hear. “I Like Me” is not a critical biography, but each time Hanks makes space for Candy’s fellow pros to describe their favorite characters and bits, the movie takes flight.

Along with that famous fraternity, Hanks talks to Candy’s wife Rosemary and their adult children Christopher and Jennifer to fashion a behind-the-scenes thread that thematically links Candy’s premature death to the loss of his own father Sidney, who died at the age of 35 on John’s fifth birthday. The filmmaker strives for the right balance of commentary on Candy’s physical size, especially as related to the implications that eating, drinking and smoking functioned as coping mechanisms for his insecurities and fears. Rosemary points out that when John lost weight, studio executives would pressure him to stay big. O’Brien captures the essence of that downside: “This industry is very unhealthy for people-pleasers.”

Hanks covers Candy’s entrepreneurial ambitions by unpacking the actor’s ownership stake in the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts, a chapter which also dovetails with a motif regarding the close identification that fellow countrymen felt with Candy as proud Canadians. The film’s title derives from what is arguably Candy’s signature performance in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” for writer/director John Hughes, yet another close friend. Culkin argues that even though people tend to think first of Molly Ringwald, Candy – who was in more films written, produced, and/or directed by Hughes than any other performer – was that filmmaker’s ultimate representative.

In strategically selected spots, Hanks includes footage of Candy’s memorial service, highlighting Catherine O’Hara’s moving tribute and audio of Dan Aykroyd’s beautiful encomium, in which Candy’s “allied professional, creative brother and fellow Canadian” remembers a “titan of a gentle, golden man” in what is surely one of the most stirring eulogies I have ever heard. If space permitted, I wouldn’t hesitate to reprint the entire text, in which Aykroyd eloquently describes Candy as “magnificent of visage, eyes and frame,” and ultimately “the sweetest, most generous person ever known to me.” I urge you to locate and listen to the entire thing. I additionally hope that we will all be so fortunate to have someone as munificent in our own lives.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Dream-factory documentarian Alexandre O. Philippe connects with a Hollywood legend in “Kim Novak’s Vertigo,” the latest in a series of features exploring the filmmaker’s many movie-related passions and obsessions. In my 2022 review for the fascinating and accomplished “Lynch/Oz,” I wrote, “Philippe has continued to develop a confident storytelling voice somewhere between the accessibility of Laurent Bouzereau and Jamie Benning and the erudition of Mark Rappaport and Thom Andersen.” The Novak exercise falls squarely in the Bouzereau school (not a bad thing at all), missing some of the headier Rappaport-style scholarship of his most penetrating work. On the other hand, wouldn’t you like to hang out with Kim Novak?

With few exceptions, including a surprise appearance at the 2014 Oscar ceremony to co-present with Matthew McConaughey and the recent in-person acceptance of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, the largely private star has remained away from the public eye for decades. She expressed disappointment in her unhappy experience making “Liebestraum” with writer-director Mike Figgis in 1991, walking away from onscreen work to concentrate on painting and writing poetry from the quiet of her Oregon ranch. Her husband of 44 years, the veterinarian Robert Malloy, died in 2020.

Clearly, Philippe earned the trust and confidence of Novak, who welcomes the filmmaker into her home and her life. They sit together for several intimate conversations that invite viewers to eavesdrop on all sorts of revelations and reflections on a glorious career that peaked in an era when young women faced grim harassment and misogyny just doing their jobs. Valued primarily for box office potential driven by perceived sexual attractiveness to the powerful men inside the film industry and the common men purchasing tickets, pinups and fan magazines, actors like Novak were commodified. Clearly, little has changed (see Novak’s post-Oscar telecast open letter, in which she called out the bullies who commented on her physical appearance).

Unlike Philippe’s earlier Hitchcock deep-dive “78/52,” which closely examined the “Psycho” shower scene in microscopic detail, “Kim Novak’s Vertigo” doesn’t stay trained on the impact and influence of his 1958 masterpiece for the duration of the documentary’s tidy 76-minute running time. In some sense, it’s a missed opportunity, especially in comparison to work like “Chain Reactions” and “Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist,” since superfans of the Master of Suspense are ready to gobble up any and every new morsel. Both Novak and Philippe refrain from any negative takes on the controversial auteur.

Even though Novak has not acted in a film for more than three decades, she clearly applies many well-earned lessons to the construction of this new “performance” for Philippe. In what could be the most memorable single sequence in the documentary, Novak unboxes her iconic gray Edith Head-designed wool pencil skirt and single-breasted jacket, drinking in its aroma as Philippe emphasizes its powerful aura as one of cinema’s enduring costumes. It’s a theatrical moment that links together Novak, Hitchcock, Philippe, and the viewer. And even if our once-and-forever Madeleine/Judy lays it on a little thick, “Kim Novak’s Vertigo” reminds us exactly why certain movies make us dizzy.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The multiple meanings of the title location in Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s “Bone Lake” cover the sex and death spectrum that will flummox Diego (Marco Pigossi) and Sage (Maddie Hasson) as soon as they discover their well-appointed getaway rental has been double-booked to Will (Alex Roe) and Cin (Andra Nechita). Well before the age of Airbnb and Vrbo, storytellers have enjoyed toying with the possibilities of frustrated travelers who must figure out how to navigate the inconveniences of overlapping dates on the calendar. And despite showing up in romantic and screwball comedies as well as other genres, horror has been a regular landing spot for the conceit: “Barbarian,” “Gone in the Night,” “Holistay,” and “Double Booked” are a few of the recent movies that put a twist on the durable set-up that owes a cinematic debt to loose thematic variants and variations going as far back as James Whale’s spiritual touchstone “The Old Dark House.”

Morgan, working from a script by Joshua Friedlander, pays stylistic homage to the vibes of the lurid 80s and 90s erotic thriller, leaning heavily into the cheese and cheesecake with a wink and a curled lip. Temptation, jealousy, kink, infidelity, commitment, and horniness swirl in the air as Will and Cin play head games with their comely new friends. Morgan tightens the screws with an effortlessness that would be at home in a big-budget studio-backed movie with well-known stars. That said, the relatively little-known Hasson, Nechita, Pigossi, and Roe combine as a formidable foursome game for the increasingly over-the-top complications that pay dividends for horror hounds ready to see some contusions and lacerations.

During the ride, Morgan shifts gears from sexual electricity to fight for survival. Revealing one major and messed-up twist late in the game, the filmmaker weaves together the macabre with the surprise violation of a cultural taboo that feeds into the world-building lore of the haunted setting. For those who have embraced the unhinged events to this point, disbelief has long been suspended (in a good way). Outside the spiral of dread, the frustrations of Sage and Diego as a couple working hard to preserve their relationship in the face of career and life-related challenges is completely believable and grounded in language familiar to anyone who has maintained a long-term romantic partnership.

One of the most satisfying aspects of “Bone Lake” falls into the category Alfred Hitchcock sometimes called “icebox talk.” For an exquisite little stretch, Morgan teases the audience with dangling threads edited in a way to introduce doubt in the mind of the viewer as to whether Will and Cin “will sin” to successfully seduce the new arrivals. Morgan might have pushed even harder with the cunning hypotheticals (despite one particular car scene being near perfect). Of course, aficionados of the weird and the sick might have desired even more libidinous explicitness to accompany the violence. Like most American genre films, “Bone Lake” chooses raw gore over raw flesh.

“Bone Lake” world-premiered at the 2024 Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, where it was one of the most crowd-pleasing experiences I enjoyed. In my original notes, I described the movie as a dirty cocktail blending straight-to-video energy with trashy Lifetime melodrama that is as funny as it is untethered from reality. At the screening, the promotions team handed each guest an elaborately decorated cookie shaped like a severed digit complete with engagement ring, perfectly capturing the film’s tongue-in-cheek, or perhaps finger-in-cheek, attitude.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“One Battle After Another,” the brilliant new masterwork from Paul Thomas Anderson, joins Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme” on the short list of the year’s best films. Along with the shared directorial surname and the perfect casting of Benicio del Toro, the two movies balance rich text/subtext with vital father-daughter narratives (not to mention huge laughs and several tears). The films make a handsome double feature. The Andersons are notable cinephiles who constantly pay homage to favorite movies and moviemakers, both famous and obscure. But they are also distinctive individual voices worthy of the auteur label and are among the finest cinematic storytellers working today.

Loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 postmodern novel “Vineland,” “One Battle After Another” conjures memories of any number of big screen paranoid thrillers that thrust the viewer into a breathless chase broken up by fleeting moments of intimacy and quiet. Anderson’s subject matter suggests the artist is downright clairvoyant. A fried left-wing revolutionary, whose activities would certainly be labeled antifa by the current administration, tangles with an old nemesis and bête noire aligned with a Christian-fascist cabal of powerful racist puppetmasters over the fate of his child, who has grown up without her mother.

With hints of Javert and Jean Valjean represented by the cat-and-mouse pursuit of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson by Sean Penn’s Col. Steven J. Lockjaw, as well as Hugo’s affinity for marrying political philosophy with themes of familial love (not to mention the author’s emphasis on classic surrogate and blood maternity and paternity), “One Battle After Another” owes something to “Les Misérables.” But equally compelling is Anderson’s instinct for making his viewers believe in all sorts of utterly cartoonish ridiculousness without a whisper of doubt in the emotional authenticity of his characters. In this sense, “One Battle After Another” echoes the frequent modus operandi of Stanley Kubrick, whose “Dr. Strangelove” is paid righteous tribute.

Throughout his entire filmography, Anderson’s passion for actors has manifested in any number of career-best turns. Here, DiCaprio and Penn put on a clinic, going big and going for broke with wild choices wholly committed to the bit and committed to the bite. The wickedly propulsive rhythm of “One Battle After Another” quickens the pulse; absolutely anything could happen at any moment (and often does). But Anderson knows exactly how to nest the anxiousness within the twin pursuits of outrageous laughs and genuine pathos. Many critics have noted poignant autobiographical self-reflection from the father of four. Each and every scene DiCaprio shares with newcomer Chase Infiniti is pure magic and unconditional love.

Even though DiCaprio, Penn and Infiniti form the crucial triangle at the beating heart of “One Battle After Another,” Anderson, true to form, comes up with juicy roles for the rest of the ensemble. Del Toro walks off with every scene in which he appears and Teyana Taylor, as Bob’s lover and collaborator Perfidia Beverly Hills, is pure fire. Even with fleeting screen time, the members of the radical French 75 and the horrifying Christmas Adventurers Club punch well above their weight class. It is impossible to watch “One Battle After Another” without thinking of the current dismal assault on due process, decency and democracy, but Anderson makes good on the ceaseless struggle indicated in his title by crafting something both timely and timeless.