Lot 36 (2022) | Directed by Guillermo Navarro

 3/5

Guillermo Navarro’s Lot 36 is a solid short horror film (part of Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities), telling the story of “a terrible person gets their comeuppance.” There’s something immensely satisfying in watching a racist and xenophobic opportunist face terror of his own making during the course of this short. There’s also something intriguing about setting the tale nearly 20 years ago – it’s easy for white liberals to believe that times have only gotten bad since Trump was elected, but stories like this remind us that the recent rise in white nationalism, racism, and grievance politics isn’t anything new. The way Tim Blake Nelson’s embittered racist ends up aligning himself with a very particular political group is especially pointed and has so many parallels to what is happening with white men today. While we’re never completely sure what kind of horror will be lurking within the titular storage unit, the short does telegraph all of the steps the characters will need to take to discover the horror, so there isn’t much in the way of genuine scares, suspense, or even surprise. Still, it has solid performances, decent atmosphere, and a recurring bit with the timed lights that’s incredibly effective.

Where to Watch

Copenhagen Cowboy (2023) | Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

 4.5/5

Nicolas Winding Ref’s Copenhagen Cowboy employs the filmmaker’s trademark visual and aesthetic style in a stunning and evocative manner, all while transplanting them into a serialized format. It’s a work that is more interested in creating mood and atmosphere; the plot becomes secondary in Refn’s desire to help us settle into a more contemplative headspace through the measured pacing, the time to breath and ruminate during conversations, and the rhythms of the score – paired with the shifting neon hues that draw us deeper into the atmosphere. Angela Bundalovic’s performance as Miu is outstanding, impassive and silent for so much of the series, yet conveying incredible emotion with the shift of her eyes or a turn of her head. Refn’s focus on mood is helped by the very slow reveal of his protagonist’s history, her abilities, and her eventual plans. And for those with patience enough to engage with the story that is being presented here, there’s something endlessly compelling about the way Miu attempts to protect and avenge those who are being exploited by the powerful in a system that provides few options to the undocumented, women, and immigrants. In a work that uses the exploitation of others as its inciting incident, it’s refreshing so see that Refn doesn’t shoot these scenes exploitively, or for the audience’s visual pleasure or gratification. At the same time, the skewering of male bravado and narcissism is sharp, pointed, and so accurate. This blending of the supernatural mystery and the crime thriller, alongside philosophical ruminations on exploitation, vengeance and justice, and the fragile egos of men is a unique and singular viewing experience.

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Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021) | Directed by Dean Fleischer Camp

 5/5

Dean Fleischer Camp’s Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a lovely, unexpectedly insightful, and incredibly funny animated film. Camp and his co-writers (Jenny Slate, Elizabeth Holm, and Nick Paley) effortlessly capture the beats, rhythms, and spontaneity that you find in traditional documentaries – and yet the rigorous craft and skill it takes to combine the stop-motion animation with live action, all while still making room for improvisation, is stunning. Slate’s performance is outstanding, bringing so much heart and soul to a character that could all-too-easily be written off as cutesy or insubstantial. The camerawork has a warm, rich, and textured look that comes from this marriage of stop-motion and live action, and it captures the light in such a way that it mirrors the film’s own inner warmth and sense of peace and harmony. It’s delightful to see the way the film interrogates the role of “filmmaker” throughout (in its own very subtle and gentle manner), constantly challenging the notion that Dean, the human filming Marcel’s life, can remain a detached and uninvolved observer. The film also provides a sly skewering of the ways social media can push us into performing for one another, making shows of connection without every truly knowing or being known. And really, community is at the core and the essence of the film – can you ever find it again once it’s been lost? This theme is expertly threaded throughout the film – whether it’s Marcel’s quest for his family or Dean coping with the loss of his marriage. This is a lovely, joyous film.

Where to Watch

Moonfall (2022) | Directed by Roland Emmerich

 2/5

Nearly every beat of Roland Emmerich’s latest sci-fi/disaster film, Moonfall, borrows heavily from the tidy formula he’s established in his previous spectacle-laden blockbusters – from the disgraced hero brought back to save the day to the crackpot scientist who knows more about what’s really going on than the actual experts. Not to mention the world-ending destruction amped up to the largest scale imaginable. While Emmerich has dabbled in pseudo-science in his previous films, it seems unwise it is to indulge so heavily in conspiracy theories like the one that anchors Moonfall’s plot – especially at a time when distrust of science is at an all-time high. There are a handful of stunning images sprinkled throughout the ugly and incomprehensible CGI-action sequences – the “gravity waves” that arrive during a space shuttle launch is especially inventive. But the rest of the film succumbs to the “more is more” maxim of modern filmmaking and becomes so busy and cacophonous that it’s hard to care about what we see on the screen. It doesn’t help that green screen exteriors and shoddy interior production design give the film an artificial blandness throughout. Attempts to inject humor into the narrative fall flat, and both Patrick Wilson and Halle Berry do what they can with their roles, but the entire film is full of one-note, paper-thin characters that consistently drain the life out of every scene. The film’s final act gives us a last-minute info dump of exposition spelling everything out, resolving any lingering mystery, and pushing the narrative from the absurd into absolute silliness. There is the skeleton of a decent idea here – if it had been tightened up throughout and the script didn’t launch us into the disaster without taking the time to effectively pace out its opening scenes – there was the potential for this to be a lot of fun rather than the goofy slog it ended up becoming.

Where to Watch

Don’t Worry Darling (2022) | Directed by Olivia Wilde

 2/5

Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling is glossy and beautiful looking but inert, would-be thriller with no stakes or any sense of threat or danger. From the very beginning, the film lets us know that something sinister is happening under the surface of this “picture-perfect” community (the only real mystery in the narrative is the specifics) blunting any sense of dread it tries to create. Every plot point is telegraphed early in each scene or section, but the film belabors these points and drags them out (as if we’ll be surprised by what’s to come) which only further reduces any tension or sense of surprise or discovery. Because tension and dread are so poorly deployed throughout the film, the final revelation lands with a shrug rather than a knowing shock of recognition. It all feels so obvious – even if the mechanism is something we couldn’t puzzle out for ourselves. Florence Pugh and Chris Pine are fantastic (as to be expected), and they’re especially electrifying the few times they share the screen together. The punishing, sun-scorched cinematography, combined with the eerie sameness of the set design, gives us the visual sense of dread and unease that the plot is unable to sustain. It’s nice to see a major Hollywood motion picture explore coercion, male fragility, and control in abusive relationships, but it would have been nice to see those themes explored in a more substantive and better constructed film.

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Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) | Directed by James Cameron

 2/5

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water is punishingly long, with so many narrative digressions and self-indulgent, disconnected sequences that the film pushes itself into a tedium that never earns its runtime. While the film’s computer-generated effects and motion captured performances are frequently stunning throughout much of the film, the moments in which the effects aren’t seamless truly stand out. Cameron stages a few truly spectacular action scenes that are well-choreographed and nicely paced, but far too many of them go on for too long and begin to lose the clarity of action that makes them so compelling early on and differentiates them from other modern action scenes. The Way of Water also falls into the problem that far too many “serious” action films succumb to – making depictions of an atrocity appear to be exciting and thrilling through the use of traditional action editing, bombastic music cues, and favoring the viewpoints of the perpetrators of violence.

The narrative itself is too thin to support the grandiose scale that Cameron is trying to achieve here – characters are constantly making unmotivated decisions for plot convenience and to advance the story to the next moment of visual spectacle. The patriarchal “father protects his family” worldview gets tiresome quickly, and the potpourri of Indigenous cultures that Cameron borrows from with no sensitivity and little understanding is backwards and regressive. Cameron continues to show that he is unable to write convincing dialogue – conversations are wooden and plodding, with the same lines and even series of lines repeated over and over again. Zoe Saldaña‘s performance through motion capture is very strong, and while there are a few inspired sequences and ideas throughout the film, but those ideas are never developed and those sequences are diluted by being drawn out far too long. This is a film (and franchise) with so much squandered potential due to Cameron’s problems with story, pacing, and dialogue, as well as his own inability to see outside of his own limited experiences.

Where to Watch

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) | Directed by Edward Berger

 5/5

Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front is a brutal depiction of war, unrelenting and bleak, that never allow viewers to settle into the comfortable or familiar spectacle of violence. This is a film that constantly finds ways to complicate and humanize enemy soldiers so that the killing is never easy, it always comes at an emotional and spiritual cost to the characters we follow through the narrative – as well as ourselves. Because the film is so brutal throughout and places us so often in close point of view of soldiers at the front, it can come across as emotionally cold and distant, giving itself over to dread and terror more than the sadness and grief over all these wasted lives. Still, that’s preferable to the often mawkish and overly sentimental depictions of war and combat that we’re often presented in cinema. The true villains of the film aren’t enemy soldiers, but the generals and powers-that-be sending these young men off to die – depicted as grotesque, out-of-touch, blinded by the safety and security of their opulence and privilege. The sound design here is exquisite and essential to enveloping us in the terror of battle, contrasting it with the quiet times in between. This is a magnificent film – hard and challenging, but a powerful statement on the cruelty of war.

Where to Watch

Save Ralph (2021) | Directed by Spencer Susser

 4/5

Spencer Susser’s Save Ralph is a thoroughly compelling stop-motion animated commercial for the Humane Society International that is part of its efforts to stop all animal testing. The mockumentary framework, beautiful animation, and the cutesy style provide a stark counterpoint to the short’s grim subject matter. Since this was crafted as a commercial and a piece of activism, it may not be fair to judge it based on the transparency of the message, but all the same, it’s rather blunt. Regardless, the dark humor is compelling and effective, even if it does only reach those of us who already agree with its message.

Where to Watch

Happiness Is £4 Million (2022) | Directed by Weixi Chen and Kai Wei

 3.5/5

Weixi Chen and Kai Wei’s Happiness Is £4 Million is a perfectly fine short documentary that uses the intriguing tactic of paralleling the story of a predatory real estate tycoon with that of the young journalist writing about him at the beginning of her career. The filmmakers ask solid interview questions of the reporter, leading to some insightful soul searching from the young journalist profiled in the documentary. The film needed to explore more of the societal forces that allowed the tycoon’s predatory practices to flourish – but the filmmakers’ approach to him is surface-level. While the structure is a bit jumbled and the insights a bit shallow, the conclusion is incredibly satisfying.

Where to Watch

The Vast of Night (2019) | Directed by Andrew Patterson

 4/5

Andrew Patterson’s The Vast of Night is one of the more effective low-budget sci-fi films of recent years, using lo-fi, simple techniques to create mood, atmosphere, and dread throughout. The slow burn of the film’s narrative is especially satisfying as the characters’ quest for truth keeps slowly shifting over the course of the film and transforms into something entirely different by the end. Grounding much of the film in conversation, monologue, and storytelling is a risky move in cinema, but the cast here is up for the challenge of bringing these stories to life with subtle, layered performances that Patterson manages to keep visually interesting through slow push-ins on both speakers and listeners. The only real misstep here is framing everything as an episode of a retro TV show ala The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits – the film switches back and forth between widescreen color and black-and-white television monitor quality with little rhyme or reason. However, that’s a small complaint in such a compelling and unique work of science fiction that looks at the ways in which small-town outsiders can find themselves isolated and vulnerable in communities that value conformity.

This review was sponsored by Patreon supporter Matthew Watson.