Movie review by Greg Carlson

With “Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything,” director Jackie Jesko takes on the legacy and legend of the late journalist extraordinaire. One of the year’s many solid, feature-length biographical documentaries, Jesko’s movie premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June before making its way to Hulu. The director highlights career accomplishments and off-camera alliances, avoiding total hagiography by looking at a handful of the transactional relationships that Walters maintained as a power player in the monied circles of NYC’s elite. Jesko also recognizes the enormous influence of Walters on subsequent generations of women (and men) in journalism, laying out her subject’s formidable ability to shatter one glass ceiling after another.

In several significant ways, the rise of Walters as covered by Jesko in the first half of the documentary invites viewers to take a rooting interest in the indomitable newshound. Initially assigned to “women’s stories” at NBC’s “The Today Show” when gender boundaries were ruthlessly defined and fiercely defended by the white men in front of and behind the cameras, Walters (who died in 2022 at the age of 93) narrates key milestones culled from archival material. It will come as little surprise that a number of potent male anchors and co-workers bullied and/or dismissed Walters, seriously underestimating the resolve, grit, and rhinoceros-thick skin required in a workplace rampant with misogyny.

Walters spent more than a decade at “Today” before something akin to fate intervened; host Frank McGee (one of many men who treated Walters with contempt) died of cancer. As a result – thanks to language in her contract – Walters became the first woman to co-host the show. Jesko draws clear lines from one big achievement to the next, even if the feature-length format requires skipping past lots of details. Once Walters was hired with a record-breaking contract to co-headline the “ABC Evening News” with Harry Reasoner, Jesko closes in on the juiciest and most satisfying stretch of her subject’s professional life: the transformative influence of the frequent exclusives Walters landed with show business celebrities and world leaders.

And not just run-of-the-mill interviews, either. Walters fine-tuned the hardball like a major league flamethrower, dazzling fans with an ability to earn trust and still cause jaws to drop with the audacity of some questions (Jesko opens the movie with a fantastic montage of Walters zingers). For decades, we ate it up and asked for more. But whether we realized it or not, Walters was contributing to, if not shaping, the fame-obsessed culture that would undergo another technological (r)evolution when the internet arrived. As a biography attempting to cover a big life, it is probably too much to ask Jesko to carve out enough time for a deep dive on the extent to which Walters weakened her industry by blurring and mixing entertainment and news.

Behind the scenes, Walters would struggle to sustain a healthy relationship with her daughter Jacqueline, although the movie delivers the memoir’s happy ending. Additionally, more than one voice in the documentary alludes to a wobbly moral compass that saw Walters in allyship with unsavory types like Roy Cohn (who assisted her father Lou Walters, a colorful figure in his own right). Jesko touches on many romances, but comes to the common conclusion: making television was the true love of Barbara Walters’ life. Anyone with even a mild interest in the glory years of the networks should make an appointment with this story.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Filmmaker Matt Wolf, whose lovely “Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell” suggests he would be the perfect director to construct the definitive biographical account of the wholly original Paul Reubens, mostly makes good on that promise with the two-part “Pee-wee as Himself.” The story, now on HBO following a Sundance world premiere, has been identified somewhat disappointingly as a kind of “coming out” revelation, even though many fans and followers of Reubens assumed his queerness for a long, long time before it was confirmed. With a total duration of about three hours and twenty minutes, Wolf enjoys a generous enough canvas to examine Reubens in considerable detail. The chronological structure, however, builds toward the inevitable gut-punches of the dual scandals that so unfairly derailed and deflated a singular career.

Reubens, who sat in front of Wolf’s camera for some 40 hours, is every bit as clever and subversive as his (still) more famous alter-ego. The performer, who died of cancer in 2023 at the age of 70, kept his health status secret from all but a tiny circle. Wolf did not know Reubens was sick and never completed what was to be their final on-camera interview. In his “New Yorker” commentary on the film published this May, Michael Schulman provides some crucial context for how this turn of events led Wolf to a new edit of the project. Schulman notes that following the death of his subject, the filmmaker “included more fourth-wall-breaking moments, realizing that his own tug-of-war with Reubens was key to understanding the performer’s bifurcated existence.”

As suggested by Schulman’s quotation and the title, the central thesis sees both Reubens and Wolf contemplating the former’s decision to, in essence, operate only as his creation. Reubens speaks at length about treating Pee-wee Herman, the chaotic, off-axis oddity whose blend of childlike exuberance and grown-up cunning appealed to rebels and nerds of all ages, as a real person. For example, the Hollywood Walk of Fame star heralds Pee-wee and not Reubens. The toll taken by the decision to hide behind Herman plays out as a major motif in the documentary, from the actor’s early romantic relationship with sensitive painter Guy Brown, who would inspire several “Pee-wee-isms,” to the catastrophic fallout from the 1991 Florida arrest.

Part of me wishes the order of the episodes would have been flipped, since the pain of both the indecent exposure charge and the even more frustrating results of the 2002 search warrant that police obtained to go fishing for illegal images have a tendency to overshadow the massive creative achievements that beguile both die-hard superfans and Pee-wee newcomers. Thankfully, Wolf and Reubens unpack the most significant milestones in the Pee-wee Herman journey, from the origin of the character while Reubens collaborated with Phil Hartman as members of the Groundlings to the miracle of feature film “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” which remains my own favorite and most revisited piece of Pee-wee media.

It is hard to argue, however, with the impact of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” the cult Saturday morning children’s television series that aired on CBS from 1986 to 1990 for a total of 45 episodes and a beloved Christmas special. Wolf and Reubens recognize “Playhouse” as the fulfillment of Pee-wee’s promise and treat it with the respect it deserves. Many writers have attempted to account for the hidden-in-plain-sight suggestiveness, innuendo, and adult humor – qualities that, while toned down from the stage show, were never fully scrubbed. Like the Reubens/Herman duality, the successful mashup of outré performance art with the formula of midcentury television aimed at kids is rare indeed. The secret word is genius.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As we continue to deal with the ongoing horrorshow of racism, misogyny and transphobia embraced by the current administration, films like “Sally” can serve as an important reminder that love triumphs over hate time and again. News broke just this month that the Pentagon had officially renamed the John Lewis-class oiler USNS Harvey Milk for World War II officer Oscar V. Peterson. National Public Radio reported that “Under [Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth’s guidance, the Navy is reviewing the names of several other ships named after women, Black and Hispanic people.” Should these attacks on equity, diversity and inclusion – all historically valuable attributes that define America and the American dream – continue, it is not hard to imagine future efforts to strip the name of Sally Ride from the elementary schools, sections of highway, and spacecraft described in her honor.

Physicist and astronaut Ride, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2012 at the age of 61, is best remembered as the first American woman to travel to space. Her personal and professional journey is the subject of Cristina Costantini’s feature documentary “Sally,” which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and is now available on Hulu and Disney+. Costantini draws from a rich vein of NASA archival footage (a reliable filmmaking choice for decades of visual storytelling) as well as new interviews with Ride’s colleagues, friends, and family members. The person who figures most prominently is Tam O’Shaughnessy, the love of Ride’s life and her partner of more than a quarter of a century. O’Shaughnessy directly addresses the challenges faced by queer people during an era of suffocating pressure and prejudice.

Along with many typical and traditional markers of the biographical portrait, Costantini inserts re-enactments imagining the ongoing development of the romantic relationship between Ride and O’Shaughnessy from the forging of their early friendship to the end of Ride’s life. None of these scenes add anywhere near as much value as the abundant footage of Ride’s thoroughly photographed tenure at NASA, but they are subtle enough to avoid being a total distraction. More illuminating are Ride’s reactions to members of the press when she is peppered with sexist questions and embarrassing assumptions. Costantini builds an intriguing argument that Ride’s calculated refusal to seek the spotlight worked in her favor, when she was selected over fellow NASA Group 8 member and robotic arm operator Judy Resnik to fly on the seventh Space Shuttle mission and become the first American woman in space.

Resnik would lose her life in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in January of 1986, a grim chapter in our national history placed in new context by Costantini as she briefly examines Ride’s role in hearings conducted during the aftermath of the tragedy. “Sally” is filled with just enough detail on the inner workings of NASA politics to satisfy aeronautics aficionados. And when untangling some of the personal reasons that went into Ride’s long silence, Costantini points to examples like Billie Jean King, who speaks on camera in the film about the cost of public scrutiny during an era in which disclosure could negatively alter or even end careers.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The June 9 death of musician Sylvester Stewart, known much better by stage name Sly Stone, saw an outpouring of tributes, memorials, and appreciations from some who knew him personally and many who never made his acquaintance. The groundbreaking visionary and multi-instrumentalist launched hit after hit into the cosmos, defining and redefining genre boundaries with a core group of players that included Black and white, male and female years before Prince would replicate the technique. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, who won an Oscar for debut documentary feature “Summer of Soul,” a brilliant reconstruction/excavation of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival that featured Sly and the Family Stone, proves to be the ideal filmmaker to honor Sly Stone’s legacy.

The stylized onscreen title of Thompson’s film is “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius),” and in context the strikethrough speaks volumes as the director interviews artists who talk about Stone and the unique pressures and unrealistic expectations faced by Black creators in a racist America. That burden is addressed as part of the movie’s contemplation of Stone’s well-documented descent into addiction and his disappearance from both the public eye and (temporarily) cultural relevance. It’s a terrific artistic choice to reframe the Icarus-like fall of Stone outside the lurid tabloid headlines that preyed on Stone’s reclusiveness and eccentricity and made him the butt of wrongheaded jokes for far too long.

Thompson integrates a mix of archival and new talking head interviews with members of the Family Stone, including Cynthia Robinson, Jerry Martini, Larry Graham, and Greg Errico. Their firsthand accounts and recollections of working with Sly speak to the good, the bad, and the ugly in the eye of the hurricane. But it is the presence of Sly admirers and scholars like Vernon Reid, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Andre 3000, Q-Tip, D’Angelo, Chaka Khan, and Mark Anthony Neal that shifts the movie into the kind of high gear that Thompson does best, setting up the ideal circumstances for next-level deconstructions and breakdowns of Sly’s gifts in terms that can be understood by the layperson.

You will marvel, for example, at Jam’s dissection of “Stand!” and Reid’s superb analysis of “Everyday People.” The side-by-side arrangement of Prince’s “1999” and Sly’s “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” highlighting the rotating vocals used to perfection in each song, is another exhilarating example of Thompson’s prowess as a master DJ (I will patiently wait on any kind of Prince documentary Questlove wants to make). The anecdote about the way that “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)” – heard at the right moment in the right restaurant – almost instantaneously birthed Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” quickens the pulse. Another segment lays out the influence of Sly on hip-hop, checking samples by the Jungle Brothers, Beastie Boys, and LL Cool J.

“Sly Lives!” is a marvel of organization, drawing from dazzling archival footage of Sly and the Family Stone at work and play. Sly himself appears in both performance film clips and formal television interviews and talk show guest spots. Thompson uses discretion in the selection of these moments, since some caught our hero when he was as “high as a Georgia pine.” But even under the influence, Sly knew how to avoid being made to look foolish by the likes of Mike Douglas or Dick Cavett. Hopefully, “Sly Lives!” will introduce a new generation of listeners to one of the most vital discographies in American popular music. But Thompson would probably be the first to tell us that will happen no matter what.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Celine Song’s thrilling debut “Past Lives” was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay Oscars. It was one of the most memorable and rewarding films of 2023. The writer-director’s sophomore effort “Materialists” is another triangle-based romance. “Materialists” centers on a successful NYC matchmaker played by Dakota Johnson. Johnson’s Lucy Mason, whose occupation requires a curious blend of deception and candor, finesses her desperate and lovelorn clients into eventual partnerships that sometimes end in marriage. Her front-row view of dating pitfalls and perils informs her own circumspection, putting her in a tricky spot between wealthy “unicorn” Harry Castillo (Pedro Pascal) and ex-boyfriend/struggling actor John Pitts (Chris Evans).

Song’s deconstruction of an entire genre is deceptively simple; how many movies have relied on two suitors representing the poles of economic success? But the filmmaker is a sharp scripter of dialogue and a skillful crafter of how the pauses between words can open up an equally rich visual vocabulary. Lucy meets Harry at the wedding of a couple she brought together. Harry is the brother of the groom. John is serving as a waiter at the same event. Song, whose own experiences working once upon a time as a matchmaker, knows enough about this world to give Lucy the bona fides necessary for viewers to believe. In real life, most of us mortals won’t ever face the exquisite torture of a choice between two people as beautiful as Pascal and Evans.

Johnson has for some time been a much better performer than critics would have you believe. Lucy is one of her juiciest roles yet. Together, Song and Johnson must convince us that Lucy, as a former actor, balances on the tightrope between charming, persuasive selling and whether she buys into these fantasies being peddled to others. “Materialists” works its most magical spells in the space where we can see Lucy struggling with the complexities of relationship-building as it rests on a spectrum that runs from stupid, crazy attraction to the more sober calculations of business partnerships and sound investments. Song’s excellent expressions on these matters routinely delight by undercutting obvious choices.

It is a bit disappointing, then, to unpack some of the less successful plotting that revolves around an assault perpetrated by a prospective date against a client played by Zoë Winters. While the grim and previously invisible realities of the job come roaring at Lucy hard enough to make her seriously question the ethics of her vocation, the resolution of this storyline strains the credulity previously established by Song. The heaviness, in my opinion, disqualifies “Materialists” as a potential romantic comedy. There is some warmth and some humor, but no evidence of the effortless type of Lubitsch Touch as presented in masterworks like “Trouble in Paradise” and “Design for Living.”

I was frustrated that Song did not include clearer character development for John and especially Harry. It makes some kind of sense that Lucy keeps her own cards close to the vest, since her deep knowledge of the dating pool necessitates exercising a lot of caution and because the filmmaker wants to maintain some level of “who will she choose?” tension. But there is no reason we couldn’t get a stronger sense of Harry. There is one scene of vulnerability in which the audience is allowed a glimpse of Harry’s own insecurities, and Pascal is especially great, but it is not quite enough.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Wes Anderson’s twelfth full-length feature, “The Phoenician Scheme,” sees the idiosyncratic auteur pull back from the elaborate storytelling scaffolding and structures of “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Asteroid City,” movies that dazzled viewers with metanarrative gymnastics nesting stories inside stories. Even so, “The Phoenician Scheme” bears enough of the familiar stylistic rigor identified with Anderson to be instantly recognizable. Fans and followers will be watching closely to see how Anderson’s first live-action movie without regular DP Robert Yeoman will compare to the eye of cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel. In front of the camera, ensemble newcomers Mia Threapleton and Michael Cera fit right in with the Anderson regulars who show up time after time.

Benicio del Toro leads the sprawling cast as unscrupulous business titan and war profiteer Zsa-zsa Korda. Frequently targeted for sabotage and assassination by his many enemies, Korda plans to put together the financing for a massive infrastructure project in the imaginary nation of Phoenicia with the help of his young adult daughter Liesl (Threapleton), who has taken vows to become a nun. Along with newly acquired administrative assistant Bjørn (Cera), Zsa-zsa and Liesl meet with a lineup of eccentric potential co-investors to cover the budgetary shortfall Korda refers to as “the Gap.” In keeping with his affinity for onscreen text, charts, maps, headings, and diagrams, Anderson dutifully apprises the audience of the ever-changing share percentages pledged by Korda’s associates.

Set in 1950, the tale of adventure, espionage, price-fixing and revolution develops themes of redemption, forgiveness, and spirituality as another of Anderson’s “bad dads” comes to a better understanding of himself through a complex parental relationship. At the risk of identifying the less fanciful and more emotionally-grounded contents of the movie within the parameters of an autobiographical reading, Anderson dedicates the movie to his late father-in-law, Fouad Mikhael Maalouf, whose initially intimidating demeanor inspired elements of Korda. In press interviews, Anderson has also mentioned his relationship to his own mom and dad. And of course, the director has been a father since 2016.

Certainly, the homage paid by Anderson to Ernst Lubitsch at least as early as “The Grand Budapest Hotel” ignites the harder-than-it-looks blend of screwball comedy, romanticism, and moments of shining emotional transcendence that fuel “The Phoenician Scheme.” The similarities extend to the central triangles composed of the former movie’s Gustave/Zero/Agatha and the latter’s Zsa-zsa/Liesl/Bjørn. Devoted Anderson disciples will have a ball debating their favorite laugh-out-loud moments, which run the gamut from outrageous slapstick pratfalls and hand-to-hand combat to ridiculous and sublime dialogue. While subject to change with multiple viewings, my current favorite is Bjørn’s awkward declaration to Liesl onboard yet another ill-fated Air Korda plane.

Anderson’s films are a repository of his passions for fine art, music, and cinephilia. “The Phoenician Scheme” makes inspiring use of Stravinsky and Mussorgsky alongside Glenn Miller and Gene Krupa. A monochromatic series of holy dreams/visions conjures up Luis Buñuel. And in another stroke of Andersonian ambition, several original paintings – not reproductions – bring their aura to the screen in cameo appearances, including a Renoir once owned by Greta Garbo. The masterworks are even given dedicated credits. All of these meticulous details contribute to a whole experience that beautifully concludes with a powerful epiphany: Korda’s real Phoenician Scheme is not a failure at all.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The writing/directing partnership of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck has to be one of the most curious cases of crazy connect-the-dots career moves in recent cinema. From short documentaries and safe-sex content for the Centers for Disease Control to television work, Boden and Fleck broke through in 2006 with the fantastic feature “Half Nelson,” adapted from their own Sundance prize-winner “Gowanus, Brooklyn.” “Half Nelson,” a captivating portrait of a troubled middle school teacher, snagged an Oscar nomination for actor Ryan Gosling. Underrated follow-up “Sugar” didn’t catch fire. But a couple movies later, Boden and Fleck took the helm of the MCU’s “Captain Marvel, “ which would gross more than a billion dollars.

A love letter to the Bay Area set during the second Reagan administration, “Freaky Tales” premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival before landing a wider release this April. Telling four separate stories that all intertwine and overlap, the new movie owes both structural and stylistic debts to Quentin Tarantino. “Freaky Tales” doesn’t manage to achieve the remarkable sense of tone that defines QT’s genre-hugging fireballs, but the raucous and giddy historical revisionism that fueled major plot points in “Inglourious Basterds” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” turns up in a wild reimagining of the night of the fourth game of the NBA’s 1987 Western Conference Semifinals between the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers.

In a huge swing for the fences, the filmmakers turn real-life Warriors guard Eric “Sleepy” Floyd (Jay Ellis) into a mystical swordsman prepared to avenge a horrific wrong committed against his family by Nazi biker gang thugs aligned with a corrupt and racist police officer known as “the Guy” (Ben Mendelsohn). Over-the-top mayhem echoes the Bride’s singlehanded battle versus the Crazy 88 in “Kill Bill: Vol. 1,” with the added bonus of a rooting interest against the kind of intolerant xenophobes who seem to be affiliated these days with a particular slogan stitched on their red baseball caps. While this final segment is the movie’s clear showstopper, the preceding storylines make up a trio of tantalizing glimpses highlighting Oakland’s colorful character.

Superstar Pedro Pascal will attract the most attention as underworld enforcer Clint, toplining third story “Born to Mack,” a classic “one last job” tale. Unless you have instincts and skills on par with Wes Anderson, it’s surely a risk to cast a big name in a small(er) role, but anthology-style moviemaking’s all-for-one spirit brings together A-listers and lesser-known performers. Bay Area kid and Skyline High graduate Tom Hanks, for example, pops up as a grouchy video store proprietor. Additional bona fides come courtesy of Too Short, whose narration guides viewers from story to story. He also portrays Mendelsohn’s work partner and in turn is played as his younger self by DeMario “Symba” Driver in “Don’t Fight the Feeling.”

That second story depicts elements of Too Short’s breakthrough hit, the epic track for which the movie is titled. Its over-the-top braggadocio lays out a pimping parody that was embraced by listeners entertained perhaps a bit too easily by the sexually explicit misogyny, and Boden and Fleck manage to rewire some of the boys club dominance with characters Entice (Normani) and Barbie (Dominique Thorne), who can go toe to toe with the fellas. My own favorite tale, however, is the inaugural account of punks versus skinheads at the Berkeley venue popularly known as the Gilman. Smoothly mixing the political and the personal, the directors build enough interest around the adventures of Ji-young Yoo’s Tina to keep viewers hooked.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Filmmaker Antonella Sudasassi Furniss constructs an engaging sophomore feature with “Memories of a Burning Body,” selected by Costa Rica to be entered for consideration as a possible Oscar nominee for Best International Feature Film. While the movie would not go on to make the final roster of Academy Award hopefuls, its spot as an art house attention-getter was already secure. “Memories” won the audience award for best feature in the Panorama section of the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival. Sudasassi Furniss, who also wrote and produced the movie, makes a compassionate statement supporting a sisterhood of previously silenced voices.

The logline of Giorgia Del Don’s early Berlinale coverage summarizes the essence of the film by describing it as an “emancipatory cry uniting different generations … held back by limits set by the patriarchy.” Sudasassi Furniss recorded audio testimonials and conversations with a trio of anonymous older women willing to open up and reflect – essentially for the first time – on a variety of challenges, traumas, and eventual triumphs directly related to their personal journeys. The suffocating expectations governed by gender and social position inform each of the stories, which Sudasassi Furniss organizes and dramatizes with a composite character (depicted by a trio of performers) representing different ages and life stages.

Paying homage to the artistry and cinematic storytelling of heroes like Chantal Akerman, whose work is visually referenced several times throughout “Memories of a Burning Body,” Sudasassi Furniss begins her movie with a shot that exposes the filmmaking process by showing lead Sol Carabello (younger versions will eventually be played by Paulina Bernini Víquez and Juliana Filloy Bogantes) moving through the main domestic set while busy crew members place lights and prepare equipment. In combination with the voiced excerpts of the women we hear on the soundtrack, Carabello’s presence partly suggests the kind of bold blend of fiction and nonfiction devised by Clio Barnard for her brilliant 2010 documentary “The Arbor.”

Regressive approaches to sex education further delay the enlightenment that, Sudasassi Furniss seems to argue, can only be gained by reaching the status of septuagenarian. “Memories of a Burning Body” belongs to a group of films pondering gerontological concerns with a degree of dignity and curiosity rarely seen in an industry that usually makes comic sport of older people when not ignoring them entirely. A few critics have argued that the film’s lack of “connective tissue” and tendency to float from one topic or scene to another is a deficiency. I saw those elements as strengths.

Sudasassi Furniss comprehends the value of shaping and staging quotidian life events in a way that crystallizes their raw intensity. For example, the director chooses not to explicitly visualize the horror of marital rape endured over a lengthy time period, knowing that the spoken words we hear will reverberate with great power alongside images of an angry, frustrated, and cruel spouse unconcerned with his wife’s feelings and ignorant regarding her own dreams and desires. By mostly avoiding any kind of literalization of sexual awakening, Sudasassi Furniss can focus instead on developing overarching themes that coalesce from the accumulated vignettes. We witness the glory of release, deliverance and salvation discovered through the eventual recognition of one’s self-worth.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In a Sundance profile for feature debut “The Ugly Stepsister,” which opened the festival’s 2025 Midnight section, filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt described growing up “in a tiny village above the Arctic Circle on the rough coast of northern Norway” where her parents initially chose books over movies. By her early teens, however, repeat viewings of “Amelie” and the galvanizing impact of “Dogville” inspired the future storyteller. Blichfeldt’s film, which handily and truly earns the description of “dark and twisted,” reimagines the Cinderella story with gruesome attention to Brothers Grimm-inspired detail. Assuredly not for the squamish, the handsomely photographed movie makes good in several ways on promises to bring beauty and ugliness into close proximity.

While many film adaptations of the “Aschenputtel” (little ash girl/Cinderella) folktale have been designed to appeal to both children and adults, a smaller set is aimed exclusively for grown-up viewers. Blichfeldt’s version is not the first to embrace the horror genre, but “The Ugly Stepsister,” inspired in part by the grotesque bodies of David Cronenberg (as well as several lurid giallo classics from masters like Argento and Fulci), stages enough gore and violence to satisfy aficionados seeking top-level effects that rely on blood, viscera, vomit, and other unpleasantness. I don’t want to spoil the fun, but if you don’t want to see what results from the deliberate swallowing of a tapeworm, “The Ugly Stepsister” might not be for you.

In lead Lea Myren, Blichfeldt finds an ideal collaborator. Embracing the overarching “beauty is pain” theme with total commitment, Myren’s performance as the hapless, tragic Elvira rhymes with the parallel intensity of Mia Goth’s work in Ti West’s “X” trilogy (especially the raw desperation displayed in “Pearl”). Despite Myren’s real-life occupation as a part-time fashion model, Blichfeldt attempts to play with the Disneyfied equation of inner and outer beauty by transferring audience identification from the beleaguered Cinderella figure to one of the two step siblings. The traditional Cinderella in this variant is named Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss), and like the majority of her predecessors, she has the great misfortune to acquire a cruel stepmother.

Blichfeldt’s outright refusal to align sympathy with either Elvira or Agnes has flummoxed multiple reviewers who have critiqued that particular choice as the movie’s central shortcoming. Those viewpoints are not necessarily wrong, but it is surely fair to read the film’s “sour air” as a means for the director to confront the no-win situation demanded by the impossible expectations placed upon women across centuries. In this sense, a more detached and cerebral contemplation of Blichfeldt’s intentions could partially excuse the movie’s lack of empathy for Elvira as she is drawn deeper and deeper into her dilemma. The other stepsister, Flo Fagerli’s altogether pleasant and level-headed Alma, rather unfortunately remains in the background.

While Blichfelft gleefully fixates on some gnarly visuals (beware to all who flinch at sustained and close-up eye trauma), the straightforward plot unfolds with few surprises or innovations beyond the principal POV switch away from Cinderella/Agnes and the amped-up mutilations. Occasionally, “The Ugly Stepsister” shows glimpses of a more sophisticated and layered approach to its outwardly feminist themes. The clandestine late-night coupling between Agnes and stable boy Isak (Malte Gårdinger) suggests a possible fresh direction that is immediately doused. That level of pleasure-seeking and self-determination has rarely been bestowed on the typically virginal and innocent Cinderella.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Of the many photographs that help tell the story “I Know Catherine, the Log Lady,” the one of David Lynch dressed as FBI Regional Bureau Chief (and later Deputy Director) Gordon Cole saying something amusing to a laughing, slightly out of focus Catherine E. Coulson is my favorite. Director Richard Green, Coulson’s friend of decades, has access to many images and uses dozens – from childhood portraits to surprisingly saucy candids – that add depth to a feature documentary eulogizing a vibrant and creative light. Made with more love and heart than technical polish and filmmaking skill, Green’s movie opened May 9 in Los Angeles ahead of streaming availability this summer.

Obviously, die-hard fans and followers of Lynch and “Twin Peaks” will seek out Green’s portrait, especially because so much of it concentrates on Coulson’s best-known role: wise and watchful Margaret Lanterman, the sphinxlike seer whose presence as the Log Lady made her an enduring favorite throughout the original series, the feature “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me,” and “Twin Peaks: The Return,” the thrilling, 2017 incarnation of the show that operates as a third season suspended for a quarter of a century. Coulson’s death at the age of 71 from complications related to lung cancer also interrupted her stage career, and Green includes testimonials of his subject’s determination by Oregon Shakespeare Festival collaborators and other friends.

Lynch’s death in January links his own mortality to Coulson’s, especially since some of his onscreen commentary addresses their personal interactions when it became clear that her diminished health would make it impossible to travel to film any scenes on location. Green devotes a major section late in the film to a detailed explanation of how the last Log Lady appearance was collected: Lynch directing a local crew over video chat along with the realization for all in attendance that they were witnessing the final communication between old friends. Close since her title appearance in Lynch’s 1974 short “The Amputee,” Coulson’s tireless work on “Eraserhead” cemented her place within Lynch’s filmmaking universe and set the stage to launch her own career as a valued camera operator and focus puller.

Despite the often jumbled and disjointed assembly of events, Green does not downplay Jack Nance’s abuse of then-spouse Coulson during the creation of “Eraserhead.” And to that end, neither does Lynch. Coulson’s later romances and second marriage (especially in relation to her intense love for daughter Zoey Sirinsky) are threaded throughout the film with as much weight and consideration as Green gives to the aftermath of Coulson’s diagnosis and the marquee draw of Log Lady fandom. Along with Lynch, many key “Twin Peaks” cast members sit for interviews, including Kyle MacLachlan, Kimmy Robertson, Michael Horse, Charlotte Stewart, Dana Ashbrook, and Grace Zabriskie.

The likeliest viewers of “I Know Catherine, the Log Lady” will already be enthusiastic consumers of black coffee and cherry pie. One can hope, however, that the uninitiated who stumble upon the doc might be drawn to the mysteries surrounding the life and death of Laura Palmer through the cosmic gateway unlatched by the idiosyncratic Margaret Lanterman. Green makes sure to include a somewhat abbreviated account of the Log Lady’s origin story via Lynch’s long-ago plan to hatch an episodic series called “I’ll Test My Log with Every Branch of Knowledge,” a title committed to memory by fans who still dream about the log’s educational visits to the dentist and other professionals while in the loving arms of Ms. Coulson.