Movie review by Greg Carlson

Joon-ho Bong’s “Okja,” currently on Netflix instant watch, competed for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where its premiere — beset by an early aspect ratio glitch — met with jeers and cheers. Critics have been mostly kind to the movie, although Stephanie Zacharek voiced a strong and well-argued negative opinion. “Okja” is nowhere near as rich and resonant as career highpoint “Mother,” but fans of Bong’s wild grab-bags “The Host” and “Snowpiercer” aren’t going to quibble with the film’s blend of extremely broad comedy, unsubtle satire, CGI-abetted action, and heartstring-thrummed melodrama. Nothing can come between a girl and her super-pig.

Thumbing his nose at notions of tonal consistency, Bong knows exactly what he wants, even if the total package never fully comes together. Leading with a meat-is-murder takedown of industrial farming/ranching and capitalist greed that evokes the anthropomorphism and partial plot design of “Charlotte’s Web,” “Okja” swerves from emotion to emotion and genre to genre, alighting on the countless kiddie stories featuring grown-ups in suits threatening harm to darling pets. The title creature is a massive mash-up of solid hippo and floppy-eared, saucer-eyed adorableness. Even if Okja tastes really effing good, who could eat something with such a sweet face?     

One of Bong’s hallmarks is a nutty range of deliberately directed acting styles. On one end of the spectrum is Seo-hyun Ahn’s relatively restrained Mija, the caretaker of Okja whose stoic determination in the relentless pursuit of her beloved companion’s safety keeps the movie grounded. Farther out is Tilda Swinton, playing twins for the second time in the span of a few months. Her Lucy Mirando and Nancy Mirando, heirs to the multinational corporation looking to engineer meat products for the masses, are no less outre than “Hail, Caesar!” pair Thora Thacker and Thessaly Thacker.

While Paul Dano as the somber leader of the quasi-terrorist Animal Liberation Front and Giancarlo Esposito (underutilized) as Swinton’s consigliere keep it relatively under control, Jake Gyllenhaal shakes one up and uncorks as if, according to Bilge Ebiri, “he lost a bet with Swinton.” Arguments over the approach Gyllenhaal takes to the shrill, obnoxious, hyperactive, and grotesque television personality/zoologist Dr. Johnny Wilcox are deeply divided, and Jordan Crucchiola and Kevin Lincoln unpacked the madness in a smart, funny, and highly recommended “Vulture” thread that uses the Wilcox character (“Squealing like an alcoholic teakettle, wearing a child’s shorts and a car salesman’s mustache…”) to critique Bong’s social agenda and figure out just what in the hell is going on.         

“Okja” throws so much at the wall that not everything sticks, but Bong’s go-for-broke filmmaking gusto and imaginative originality deserve to be seen and savored. Bong conjures eye-popping visuals in both the verdant countryside of Korea and the concrete and steel jungle of New York City. Cynics will point to the movie’s most transparent devices — slicer and dicer Armond White calls out, among other things, the movie’s “concentration camp metaphor and a ‘Sophie’s Choice’ moment for extra maudlin flavor” — but Bong’s stylistic verve, coupled with the film’s impressive technical integration of the realistically rendered Okja, recommend a look.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

For her work on “The Beguiled,” Sofia Coppola was awarded the best director honor at the Cannes Film Festival. She is only the second woman in that particular derby to do so in the festival’s seven decades, following Yuliya Solntseva’s 1961 nod for “The Chronicle of Flaming Years.” The title of Solntseva’s film works well as a critique of the gender imbalance at both Cannes and in the film industry in general, so it is no surprise that a great deal of the writing on Coppola’s feature focuses on issues of femininity, womanhood, and sexuality.

Set during the Civil War, “The Beguiled” was first a 1966 novel by Thomas Cullinan, narrated in turns by the eight females who reside at a boarding school near a skirmish that produces wounded Sixty Sixth New York Union Corporal John McBurney, a native of Ireland with a silver tongue to match his home country’s finest talkers. Incapacitated by a mangled leg that will figure heavily in the ensuing suspense, McBurney (played by Colin Farrell) is both beguiled and beguiler, casting a heady spell on the household. The novel cranks up the secrets and lies to a level of feverish intensity. It is weirder, richer, and much more satisfying than either movie adaptation.      

Basing her script on the book as well as the screenplay for the 1971 Clint Eastwood vehicle directed by Don Siegel, Coppola almost always aligns with the latter. Most obviously, she retains the Siegel film’s device of combining two of the novel’s key characters into one. Edwina, played here by Kirsten Dunst, is a student but retains key elements of Harriet Farnsworth, the sister of headmistress Martha (Nicole Kidman). One of the novel’s great pleasures blossoms from the increasingly antagonistic relationship between the bitter and competitive siblings, and the new film version might have been refreshed and invigorated had it restored that key dynamic.

More attention has been paid to the troubling decision to eliminate Matilda Farnsworth, a slave owned by Martha (and also to skip dealing with the issues of a mixed race character who “passes” as white). Renamed Hallie and portrayed by Mae Mercer in the Eastwood film, Matilda is indispensable in Cullinan’s telling of the tale. Coppola’s erasure, which has been called out as whitewashing in Slate, Teen Vogue, the Root, the Mary Sue, the Washington Post, and scores of other outlets, emerges as only one of the movie’s liabilities, but it is the most egregious.  

As Charline Jao asserts in her excellent essay on “The Beguiled,” “the ‘Southern belle,’ especially, is a figure that romanticizes the economic prosperity that rises from slave labor — she cannot exist without the slave. Their so-called ‘proper’ femininity cannot be separated from that of the black woman, as invisible as she is in the film.” Jao goes on to a nuanced assessment accounting for the film’s strengths without excusing its weaknesses. Her comments, like the comments of Clarkisha Kent, illuminate a problematic pattern that stretches far beyond the filmography of talented Oscar-winner Coppola. Unfortunately, Coppola’s Cannes victory will likely be a mostly hollow one; “The Beguiled” is nowhere near her strongest work and will be chiefly remembered for what it didn’t include rather than for what it did.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Less successful but no less important than “The Internet’s Own Boy,” “Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press” marks another David-versus-Goliath call to action in the filmography of writer-director Brian Knappenberger. Originally saddled with the even more cumbersome title “Nobody Speak: Hulk Hogan, Gawker and Trials of a Free Press,” the documentary begins with the salacious sex video case involving the once popular professional wrestler and ends as a cautionary warning about the chilling power wielded by the super-wealthy in a contemporary media landscape where oxymoronic absurdities like “alternative facts” are asserted by White House spokespeople.

The Orwellian doublethink and doublespeak spewing from the current administration comes back closer to the film’s conclusion, but the long shadow of Donald Trump’s bizarre relationship with television and print outlets thematically informs Knappenberger’s broad thesis. In the film’s opening sections, Knappenberger lays out the strange case known as Bollea v. Gawker, in which Hogan sued the gossip website and several of its employees for invasion of privacy, infringement of personality rights, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. At issue was Gawker’s post of an explicit recording of Hogan, also known as ”Terry” Bollea, and Heather Clem, the spouse of Todd Clem, a radio personality known professionally as Bubba the Love Sponge.

The revelation that billionaire Trump supporter Peter Thiel, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal, had financed the prosecution in the Bollea v. Gawker trial temporarily sharpens Knappenberger’s focus. Established precedent regarding public figures, the boundaries of journalism, and the basics of a free press are swallowed up as Hogan’s team successfully builds an argument that Hogan and Bollea can and should be treated as two distinct entities. Gawker defendant AJ Daulerio also digs his own grave with ghastly deposition comments creating the impression of ethical corruption.

“Nobody Speak” jumps from the Gawker trial to the purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal by Sheldon Adelson. Like Thiel, fellow billionaire Adelson has aligned himself politically with Trump, and Knappenberger could easily have made an entire feature on the casino kingpin. Instead, a lengthy aside covers Adelson’s attempt to keep his purchase private. Ken Doctor summarized the curious scenario, writing, “the paper’s own reporters and editors attempting to report on the sale — and to question the potential editorial impact and brand damage of the ‘secret’ sale — reportedly saw their online-first story significantly changed, and the presses subject to a brief halt, as the paper re-plated with a new version of the suspect story.” In other words, an awful lot of people thought that Adelson bought the paper to make sure it no longer published content critical of him or his interests.   

Not all of Knappenberger’s pieces fit together seamlessly, and the timeliness of Trump’s election win appears to have inspired some late modifications to the film. Advocacy storytelling focused on the outsize antics of the president will very likely populate film festivals for the foreseeable future, and “Nobody Speak” joins titles like “Michael Moore in Trumpland,” “Get Me Roger Stone,” and “Trumped: Inside the Greatest Political Upset of All Time” to make sense of the unorthodox policies that terrify one segment of the population and energize another.   

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Now available on Netflix following a lengthy film festival run, Alex Infascelli’s “S Is for Stanley” is required viewing for Kubrick obsessives and cinephiles. Based on Emilio D’Alessandro’s memoir “Stanley Kubrick and Me,” the documentary presents a chronological account of the relationship between the legendary filmmaker and the unassuming family man and driver who would labor as Kubrick’s courier, chauffeur, gofer, and personal assistant for three decades. D’Alessandro went to work for Kubrick in too-good-to-be-true fashion: he made a safe and timely delivery in inclement weather of the “rocking machine” — the penis sculpture/murder weapon brandished by Alex in “A Clockwork Orange” — and the rest is history.

Like some of the anecdotes shared in Jon Ronson’s fascinating, parallel “Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes,” the stories expressed by D’Alessandro — which often speak to Kubrick’s fastidiousness, intellect, and obsessive note-writing — are illuminated with complementary images of both the daily minutiae of SK’s longhand and typed instructions as well as numerous physical objects and artifacts accumulated over the years by D’Alessandro. Kubrick fanatics will love the goofy, endearing missives about getting fussy jacket zippers repaired just as much as the supply of tasks directly related to film productions from “Barry Lyndon” to “Eyes Wide Shut.”  

D’Alessandro dispels no myths governing Kubrick’s reputation as an eccentric, offering multiple examples of the spectacularly high expectations set by the director for the devotion, competence, and all-hours availability of those in his employ (one comical aside relates Kubrick’s desire to have D’Alessandro install a telephone in the latter’s farm tractor so that he might be reachable in the field). But Infascelli and D’Alessandro also take care to reveal Kubrick’s largesse and magnanimity, including an offer of help following a devastating accident that severely injured D’Alessandro’s son.

Infascelli makes good choices with regard to organization and pacing, and displays confidence and comfort in his reliance on D’Alessandro’s on-camera interview as the backbone of the narrative. Kubrick’s presence, of course, is every bit the movie’s main attraction, and Infascelli uses voiceover by Anthony Clive Riche (and Roberto Pedicini in the original Italian language version) as Kubrick whenever key text is read aloud. D’Alessandro’s wife Janette Woolmore is the movie’s only other significant subject to appear in content newly shot for the film, and she contributes several insights that whet the appetite and fire the imagination for thousands of fans who will marvel at the simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary world built by Kubrick (a great example of which is carpet from the Overlook Hotel set of “The Shining” that still covers the floors of the home shared by Woolmore and D’Alessandro).

D’Alessandro is not shy about naming famous names, and Kubrick would frequently ask his opinion of the actors selected for important roles, but Infascelli holds the gossip to a minimum. Jack Nicholson is torched by D’Alessandro for the twin vices of sexual conquest and cocaine. Tom Cruise shared a brief silver screen moment with D’Alessandro when Kubrick asked the latter to appear as a news vendor. And even though little detail is offered, D’Alessandro and Matthew Modine bonded like father and son. Aside from the celebrities, Infascelli projects warm regard for Christiane Kubrick, who introduced the documentarian to D’Alessandro. Disappointingly, although not surprisingly, “S Is for Stanley” does not discuss Kubrick’s more well-known personal assistant Leon Vitali, leaving aficionados to speculate as to the nature of the relationships within Stanley Kubrick’s trusted inner circle.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

First-time feature filmmaker Cory Finley adapts his own play and comes up with one of the year’s most diabolically pleasurable movies in “Thoroughbreds,” a taut exercise in moral darkness. One of the most sure-footed debuts at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, the movie is certain to attract a devoted audience when distributed by Focus Features. “Thoroughbreds” injects jet-black comedy into the tightly and deliberately constricted premise of carefully plotted parricide, placing the sensibility closer to the dreamlike fantasies of “Heavenly Creatures” than to psychological devastation of “We Need to Talk About Kevin.”

Anya Taylor-Joy’s Lily and Olivia Cooke’s Amanda are wealthy, East Coast nightmares of entitlement and privilege. Childhood acquaintances (and maybe even once upon a time friends) brought together again by parental decree, the girls initially circle one another carefully, poking and testing for weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Both are troubled: Lily has been busted plagiarizing an essay and Amanda is a social pariah after an “Equus”-like incident with a valuable horse. The former has been retained to tutor the latter, but just who is the teacher and who is the student proves too slippery to guess as Finley toys with audience expectations.

As Lily and Amanda spend more time together, they progress toward a stomach-turning conspiracy to murder Lily’s stepfather Mark (Paul Sparks), and Finley constructs a perfect storm of paranoia and dread as the stakes get higher. We are constantly unbalanced by the dangerous unreliability and untrustworthiness of the young women, who could as easily be playing each other as working together. The addition of small-time drug dealer Tim, engaged by the girls to dispatch Mark, escalates the suspense and, like classic noir, multiplies the ways things can go sideways. Tim is played by Anton Yelchin in one of his final roles, and the actor brings an excitement to the screen that will be missed.   

While the virtually single location dialogue underscores the drama’s stagebound origins, Finley capitalizes on the noteworthy skills of his collaborators. In addition to the perfectly modulated performances of his dual leads, the director transforms the elegant mansion where the action is set into a recognizable character, working with talented cinematographer Lyle Vincent, whose contributions to “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” testify to his expertise. Louise Ford’s editing, Jeremy Woodward’s production design, and Erik Friedlander’s score form another cinematic hat-trick. Roland Vajs’ sound design, especially the evocative, Poe/Melville-worthy relentlessness of Mark’s rowing machine, adds another layer.  

Taylor-Joy and Cooke make a formidable pair, exploring the thematic contours of amorality with arresting ease. Amanda, who practices a terrifying ability to feign empathy every time she gazes in the mirror with her dazzling but phony smile, can simulate emotion for any occasion. A scene in which she offers a master class in on-demand tears is one of several that elevate “Thoroughbreds” into a sly metanarrative exploration on the nature of acting and performance. That sort of icebox talk, so closely associated with Alfred Hitchcock (as well as obvious inspiration Clouzot in “Diabolique”), often manifests as imitative flattery, but in Finley’s case, the comparison to earlier masters is to be taken as a compliment.      

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Since 1941, Wonder Woman has been so many things to so many people that the decidedly mixed bag of her long-delayed big screen headliner comes as little surprise. Directed by Patty Jenkins following a disheartening gap of years since 2003’s “Monster,” “Wonder Woman” at least makes good on its promise to expand the long(ish) term prospects of the DC cinematic universe. And no true fan will root against the sorely needed step in the direction of gender-based superhero egalitarianism at the multiplex. But the film’s screenplay, by comic book and television veteran Allan Heinberg, fails to sustain the excitement generated by the promising opening acts, relying for the umpteenth time on a by-the-playbook climax confrontation that we’ve all seen over and over again.

As the Amazonian demigoddess brought to life from sculpted clay (and later reimagined as the daughter of Zeus), Gal Gadot successfully navigates the considerable challenges required of the tiara. Wringing pathos, strength, and humor from dialogue that capitalizes on Diana’s fish-out-of-water status in World War I-ravaged Europe, Gadot consistently balances on the tightrope that affords her the classical knowledge of the ages — she is fluent in hundreds of languages and displays a commanding grasp of the detailed biological and physical components of human sexual intercourse — but renders her a babe in the woods when it comes to the magic of ice cream and the politics of war.

As detailed in Jill Lepore’s indispensable “The Secret History of Wonder Woman,” the character’s creation by William Moulton Marston is a saga as farfetched as any of the adventures contained within the pages of All Star and Sensation Comics. Diana’s accoutrements, from kinky boots to bulletproof wrist cuffs, hint at the erotic inclinations of Marston’s devotion to a matriarchal philosophy of female-led domination and submission. And despite a lighter tone than other recent DC properties overseen by Zack and Deborah Snyder, Jenkins unsurprisingly scrubs out camp and kitsch, notwithstanding the tantalizing prospects of the Lasso of Truth applied to a reluctant Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) and the presence of Lucy Davis’ delightful but underused Etta Candy.

With the exception of Diana’s progressive attitudes about no-strings-attached sex with Steve, Jenkins gravitates to the ass-kicking bona fides that elevate Wonder Woman to the top tier of the Justice League (and/or Super Friends, depending on your flavor). The set pieces that visualize her combat abilities, including a swords, spears, and arrows-versus-guns shoreline skirmish on Themyscira/Paradise Island and a one-woman advance through the “No Man’s Land” of the Belgian front lines, provide the movie’s deepest emotional satisfaction, a feat not quite duplicated with Diana and Steve’s abbreviated romance/friendship or the diluted soup of too many villains and, as Sheri Linden observed, a “one-on-one showdown that turns into an endless conflagration [that] grows less coherent as it proceeds.”

The demands of the massively budgeted studio franchise entry leave little wiggle room for experimentation, but I am not the only one who would have been interested in a more intimate and shorter experience either confined to the “utopian gynocracy” (as Dana Stevens puts it) of Themyscira or a deeper exploration of the Diana Does London chapter. What kind and size of role will Wonder Woman play when she lines up next to the males that form the rest of the JLA? Hopefully, something worthy of her status in the pantheon. The outlook for her solo efforts is more promising, even if those films never take full advantage of the period prospects of Diana’s centuries-spanning longevity. Either way, things are a lot more exhilarating when she’s around.   

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The prodigiously gifted team of collectors, archivists, programmers, and aficionados of movie madness operating as Cinefamily celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of George Lucas’ game-changing blockbuster with “Star Wars Nothing But Star Wars,” a wildly entertaining mixtape of gems, oddities, outtakes, clips, interviews, fan films, newscasts, commercials, public service announcements, and all sorts of other media devoted to one of the most durable franchises in motion picture history. Made available online to coincide with a trio of public screenings at the Cinefamily headquarters in Los Angeles, the nearly 95-minute feature is an eye-popping, brain-melting phantasmagoria of the nooks and crannies of the Death Star’s attic and the Sandcrawler’s storage bins.

Loosely organized both chronologically and thematically, the mash-up concatenates the familiar and the obscure, reminding us of the unprecedented pop culture earthquake that shook the weeks, months, and years following May 25, 1977. The most rabid fans will have seen (and in some cases, personally amassed) a great deal of the source material, from the “Star Wars Holiday Special” to the Underoos advertisement to the sour, curmudgeonly, and tone deaf critique provided by noted hater John Simon. But no matter how deep your knowledge and love, the rapid-fire montage parade unearths delights and surprises that, in the Cinefamily tradition, carom from the awkward and the embarrassing to the glorious and the sublime.

In one deeply satisfying and pleasurable section, the dangerous watering hole known to die-hards as Chalmun’s Cantina lives up to Ben Kenobi’s “wretched hive of scum and villainy” admonishment/warning regarding Mos Eisley spaceport. Bea Arthur’s Ackmena, a Rainier Beer spot, a “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” PSA, and a sketch from “The Richard Pryor Show” (featuring the legendary comic’s colorful way with words) all make a case for the kegs of inspiration supplied by the most notorious tavern on Tatooine. And while the Cinefamily assemblage sticks close to period content, a few prime selections of more recent vintage, such as the Sid Lee agency’s 2010 Adidas Originals World Cup promo featuring Daft Punk and Snoop Dogg, are worthy additions.

As an unauthorized work, “Star Wars Nothing But Star Wars” also takes perverse joy in drawing on the sleazy, seedy, and lurid adaptations of the mythology, which unsurprisingly go hand in velvet glove with the disco-era vibes of outwardly wholesome tributes like the spectacular episode of “Donny and Marie” in which the Osmond siblings (as Leia and Luke, presciently) interact with Kris Kristofferson as Han Solo, Redd Foxx as Obi-Wan, and Paul Lynde as Darth Vader. The family-friendly atmosphere of innocence cultivated by Lucas on the big screen collapsed almost instantly, and Cinefamily has the pornography to prove it. “Star Babe,” the inaugural “sexual space fantasy” homage, kicked off a long line of lewd cash-grabs, but “Star Wars Nothing But Star Wars” adroitly includes “The Empire Strikes Back” outtakes in which the farmboy and the princess move in for a romantic (almost?) kiss long before a major act of retroactive continuity would cast them as siblings.     

Alongside Luke and Leia’s scuttled ecstasy, the document uncorks a trove of completed and semi-completed scenes that never made it to the final prints. Devotees have previously studied the early looks at Luke interacting with Biggs (and Koo Stark’s dismissive Camie) and the awkward wampa attack inside the Rebel base on Hoth, but these cutting room artifacts are — in their stilted, pace-killing roughness — ideal corresponding partners to the incredible homemade tributes, like Itami Rose’s beautiful interpretation, that, in the wonderful galaxy of remix culture, would pave the way for marvels like the “Star Wars Uncut” project.  

Movie review by Greg Carlson

WARNING: The following review reveals plot information. Read only if you have seen “Everything, Everything.”

Planted squarely in the heart of YA-adapted teen fantasy, Stella Meghie’s film of Nicola Yoon’s 2015 novel “Everything, Everything” doesn’t always capitalize on its absolutely bananas premise, but logs excellent mileage from charming lead Amandla Stenberg. Following in the contaminant-free footsteps of “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble” and “Crystal Heart” (but not so much “Bubble Boy”), the story follows Maddy Whittier, confined for 18 years to the sealed safety of her protective physician mother’s (Anika Noni Rose) designer home. Diagnosed with SCID (severe combined immunodeficiency), the rare genetic disorder made famous in part by Ted DeVita and David Vetter, Maddy falls for boy-next-door Olly Bright (Nick Robinson), and decides to risk her life for her new love.

The cases of DeVita and Vetter, which inspired Randal Kleiser’s made-for-TV movie “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble,” fueled popular interest via the medical ethics and built-in pathos of children who could not experience one of the most basic human expressions: skin-to-skin contact with their own family members. Maddy’s circumstances are less severe, as she spends time in face-to-face proximity with both her mother and her longtime nurse Carla (Ana de la Reguera). Meghie, working from a screenplay by J. Mills Goodloe, filters the viewing experience through Maddy’s eyes, coming up with some visually appealing ways to supplement the text balloons that commonly convey contemporary communication in cinema.

“Everything, Everything” is not the sort of exercise that holds up under close scrutiny, and those viewers preoccupied with logic over lovemaking will come away disappointed. For example, Maddy’s compliant and well-adjusted attitude incongruously clashes with her curiosity about the world and her place in it. She verbally cites internet access as a balm, but given the wealth and resources at her mom’s disposal, one might imagine that a desire to explore the world outside would have at least inspired some mother-daughter conversation about ways to make that happen (the presence of a fantasized astronaut alludes to the space suits worn by DeVita and Vetter when they ventured outside their “bubbles”).

And even if the acquisition of a credit card is easy, Maddy’s reckless flight to Hawaii would require state-issued identification, something Maddy lacks (as pointed out by Susan Wloszczyna) if, as emphasized, she has never left the house. The potentially predictable twist that Maddy does not, in fact, truly have SCID but has been cruelly imprisoned by her unstable mom is the bombshell that rips the largest hole in the tale’s credulity — not because it lies outside the realm of possibility but because the film seemingly can’t be bothered to develop Rose’s Dr. Pauline Whittier as a complex and complete character.

In spite of the lapses, “Everything, Everything” effectively navigates the romance at its rapidly beating heart. Stenberg and Robinson flirt and kiss and communicate and show concern for one another with the earnest intensity of a thousand true-blue TV couples, making the most of lines like “When I talk to him, I feel like I’m outside” and “My life is better with you in it.” From “Love Story” to “A Walk to Remember” to the more recent “The Fault in Our Stars” and “The Space Between Us,” the familiar contours and durability of the illness and/or health-risk meet-cute genre finds no shortage of contestants, but the presence of the progressive Stenberg, a self-described intersectional feminist, brings to “Everything, Everything” a welcome blast of fresh air.   

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Colossal,” Nacho Vigalondo’s highest profile film to date, mashes genres with a premise so otherworldly that it nearly gets away with its distressing supply of missed opportunities. The gonzo suggestion that the actions of a giant monster looming over Seoul, South Korea are directly, psychologically linked to an American alcoholic will attract curiosity seekers. Others will be intrigued by the presence of Anne Hathaway in the lead role of Gloria, whose booze-soaked irresponsibility finally drives boyfriend Tim (Dan Stevens) to boot her from the New York City apartment they share.  

Gloria retreats to the small hometown of her childhood, seeking refuge from her messy personal crisis in a vacant family house. She soon encounters childhood pal Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), a bar owner who offers Gloria a job at his tavern. Despite, or perhaps because of, the proximity to liquor, Gloria accepts. Oscar’s romantic interest in Gloria is not reciprocated, and she takes an interest in Oscar’s friend Joel (Austin Stowell), another regular who hangs out with mutual buddy Garth (Tim Blake Nelson). While Vigalondo fills in the blanks of the interpersonal relationships, a much weirder drama unfolds in the foreground.  

Reappearing a quarter century after its initial sighting, a strange creature towers over the urban cityscape thousands of miles from Gloria, materializing out of thin air during a precise time window. It dawns on her that the kaiju, somehow, mirrors her movements within the boundaries of a local playground. She confides the unbelievable truth in Oscar and her new friends, and Oscar figures out that he, too, can get in on the action as the controller, ala “Pacific Rim”-style “drifting,” of a giant robot. Richard Brody generously maintains that “Colossal” is “a gender-centered trauma involving the physical force exerted by males (of any age) against females,” but Vigalondo’s preoccupation with the rules of his game limit that exploration.    

Working from his own screenplay, Vigalondo sustains an air of believability through the combined efforts of the play-it-straight ensemble and the solid special effects. “Colossal” falters, however, in several lapses related to the demands invited by Vigalondo’s foray into magic realism. Gloria only superficially accepts that she personally caused the deaths of hundreds of innocents, and Vigalondo fails to convey a level of guilt, shame, horror, and revulsion that would deepen and intensify the character (not to mention anything close to a passing thought that someone, for good or ill, might reach out to the police, or a scientist).

One of the primary features of the Japanese “strange beast” genre is that the kaiju can be protagonist or antagonist, and Vigalondo flirts with the relative good/evil perception of the monster and the robot. But given the film’s tone, how should we wrestle with the massive-scale death and destruction wrought by Gloria and Oscar? Cinematically speaking, we are conditioned not to think about such things. Dan Rubey, writing about “Star Wars,” noted, “…Obi-Wan Kenobi’s brief attack of heartburn does not convince us that something tragic has happened. We do not experience the deaths of the people on [Alderaan], and thus those people do not exist in the film.”

Rubey goes on to argue that the explosions of Alderaan and the Death Star are presented in such a way that the viewer is invited to enjoy them aesthetically. The recent critique of Brian Williams for his unironic application of a Leonard Cohen lyric to describe the April airstrike in Syria by the U.S. military as “beautiful” is another example of Rubey’s concept of the “abstract and generalized” romanticizing of mayhem. One could claim that certain genre films deliberately obscure the costs of battle — the post-9/11 depictions of rolling dust clouds and collapsing buildings in superhero movies, for example, provide a bounty of case studies.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Immediately following the dizzy, frightening, ambiguous, disorienting final scene of Oren Moverman’s “The Dinner,” which ends with a character saying “I love you” and a cut to black, the credits roll while Savages’ “Fuckers” nails the prevailing mood on the soundtrack. Jehnny Beth sings, “Don’t let the fuckers get you down, don’t let them wonder why you frown,” as the audience stumbles into the light, hopefully to do a good deed or maybe take a shower. The song perfectly complements the movie’s satirical portrait of topics ranging from white privilege to sibling rivalry to mental illness to the sometimes grotesque blind spots of parents for the sins of their children.  

“The Dinner” was at one point planned as Cate Blanchett’s directorial debut. Based on the novel by Herman Koch (which has already been filmed twice), Moverman adapted the screenplay and ended up at the helm. He enlists a talented ensemble to explore the morals and ethics swirling around the aftermath of a horrific crime: do the wealthy and powerful parents of teenage boys responsible for a ghastly homicide conceal it or face the consequences and pursue a path of transparency and answerability?

The grown-ups, such as they are, include brothers Paul (Steve Coogan) and Stan (Richard Gere), Paul’s wife Claire (Laura Linney), and Stan’s wife Katelyn (Rebecca Hall). Paul, a onetime high school teacher of history whose debilitating emotional struggles appear to be compounded by Stan’s successful political career, will take center stage as the group meets at a chic and expensive restaurant to strategize. Stan, a congressman running for governor, surprisingly emerges as the voice of reason and honesty, an irony not lost on many viewers (and Moverman himself) quick to draw parallels between the timing of the film and the blatant dishonesty and chicanery of the Trump administration.   

Moverman gets away from the restaurant in a series of flashbacks. In one, Paul and Stan argue and clash in and around the Gettysburg National Military Park, and the director draws on Stephen Lang-narrated audio excerpts and eerily shot imagery that subjectively intensify Paul’s rapid deterioration. Paul’s poisonous classroom monologues, also on the topic of the Civil War, are less effective. Some have read the Gettysburg interlude as a rather broad metaphor framing fraternal discord, but “The Dinner” also hints at the legacy of slavery in America. Unfortunately, the racist insults inflicted on Stan’s adopted son Beau (Miles J. Harvey) by members of his own family are not deeply investigated.

The mysterious conclusion of the film indicates a deliberate open-endedness meant to provoke thought, but the most damaging flaw of “The Dinner” resides in the enigmatic portrayal of the male cousins before, during, and after the murder. The boys remain unknowable, unreachable, and, in the case of Paul and Claire’s son Michael (Charlie Plummer), frighteningly immoral. Claire’s unwavering support of her boy is more chilling as a result, and Linney — as usual — is tremendous. Each member of the principal cast feasts on juicy moments, and supporting work by the reliably excellent Adepero Oduye as Stan’s aide and Michael Chernus as the restaurant’s lead staffer, elevates the bleakly comedic aspects of the story. The latter’s hilarious running commentary on the farm-to-table/French cuisine mash-up menu items fully exploits the decadence of the rich. When presenting a cheese course, Chernus brags about the previously FDA-quarantined Mimolette, crowing, “But we have it for you tonight.”