Year: 2024

August 19, 2024 · Watch the official trailer

August is a notoriously bad time for new releases in cinema.

And yet despite this fact, somehow the most outlandish, egregious idea in the latest Netflix film “The Union” is that quintessential Boston guy Mark Wahlberg is from New Jersey having to pretend to be from Boston.

Director Julian Farino’s film is the newest in a long string of nonsensical, big-budget movies from the streamer with A-list actors that are casually made and dumped on audiences with little consideration for quality plot or character development.

When put into the context of a bad movie month, “The Union” fares decently well. The ridiculousness of its plot and the casual breeziness in the ways its “Mission: Impossible” like storyline are more palatable than, for example, the Matt Damon-Casey Affleck misfire “The Instigators” which unceremoniously dropped on Apple TV+ last weekend.

Yet an action comedy starring Wahlberg opposite Halle Berry somehow isn’t even worth attempting to put in theaters when five years ago, either lead would be the centerpiece of a film that would easily net $100 million-plus at the box office.

“The Union” follows Wahlberg as a down-to-earth, journeyman construction worker thrust into the center of international espionage when his ex-girlfriend from high school saunters back into his life asking him to be a stand-in for a black-market auction with global implications.

Wahlberg brings the same sheepish, affable charm that one might come to expect from any number of his everyday guy meets daunting task films such as “Deepwater Horizon” or “Patriots Day” and yet the fish-out-of-water storyline for his Mike doesn’t fully match up with Wahlberg’s physique or the relative ease with which he’s able to stride into increasingly harrowing action sequences.

Conversely, Berry, an actress known for her prowess in both dramatic and action films, is well at home with the physical nature of her character, although the lighthearted comedy aspects of “The Union” don’t always land for her relatively stoic and stiff demeanor as Roxanne.

For a big-budget Netflix film that usually only has room for a single A-lister in top billing such as the Jennifer Lopez stinker “Atlas” from earlier this year, the chemistry between Berry and Wahlberg seems genuine and vibrant, harkening back to the two actors’ real-life friendship spanning decades.

Surprisingly, the decision to keep the romantic aspects between their Mike and Roxanne to a minimum with the expectation that “The Union” would be the first in a series of films seems somewhat problematic and implausible from a storytelling perspective especially given how much stronger the overall quality of a stylistically similar movie like “The Fall Guy” with Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling was just months ago.

The secondary cast of “The Union” is perhaps better than it has any right to be, although Oscar winner J.K. Simmons seems to appear far more frequently in small parts than perhaps might be best with more discerning choices in his post-“Whiplash” career, while the remainder of the ensemble feels largely forgettable as soon as the credits roll.

Action sequences in the film are somewhat generic espionage film fodder, though the opening homage to the original “Mission: Impossible” movie seems almost a straight rip-off rather than honoring a dynamic franchise.

That being said, there is enough casual entertainment, lighthearted humor, and easy-going chemistry between the film’s two leads that might make “The Union” worth turning on in the background on a casual Tuesday night watch.

August 12, 2024 · Watch the official trailer

Perspective in filmmaking matters, especially when it comes to adapting literary works onto the big screen and taking another creative work to transpose it onto a different format.

This is especially problematic with the theatrical adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel, “It Ends With Us,” which debuted to tremendous box office success this past weekend.

The female-centric drama that hard transitions from lighthearted romance to heavy issue film is poorly mishandled by “Five Feet Apart” director Justin Baldoni, whose worldview of this movie is seemingly jarred by the fact that he also cast himself as the film’s leading man turned erstwhile villain.

At its core, “It Ends With Us” is a cautionary tale about ending the cycle of domestic abuse in romantic relationships and the film often feels tone-deaf to these concerns – minimizing or often outright justifying harmful situations – when the female perspective is shown through a male lens.

Blake Lively stars as Lily, a young woman starting her own flower shop in Boston who falls for a charismatic yet standoffish doctor while simultaneously navigating the reemergence of her childhood boyfriend.

If the film focused on the breezy love triangle potentially at play between Lily and her two suitors, Baldoni makes sense as the film’s director. By the second half of “It Ends With Us,” however, his Ryle starts to show the darker underbelly of his personality with no clear explanation.

There’s a lack of understanding and character development necessary to justify the film’s significantly more sinister, mixed tone and the entirely of the latter half of the film comes across as a man interpreting how a woman might feel about being assaulted by her male partner.

Baldoni – and to an extent Hoover as author and Christy Hall as screenwriter – soften the blows of the film’s narrative by playing out scenes in melodrama, where everything feels bathed in an artificial, almost sugarcoated hue and undercuts some of the nuanced character work Lively does in navigating Lily’s reactions to the increasingly aggressive behavior Ryle displays.

Similar motifs are much more expertly handled in the 2022 drama “Alice, Darling” where director Mary Nighy leads Anna Kendrick through the ending of a dark abusive relationship with more significant emotional stakes while better balancing the shifting tones and keeping the film grounded from a female perspective.

What makes “It Ends With Us” work even somewhat is the dynamic effort given by Lively throughout, portraying all aspects of Lily’s character well though the uneven nature of Hall’s screenplay and the woefully misguided direction waste large segments of her performance.

Pivotal scenes in the film’s finale are wholly saved thanks to Lively’s ability to convey passion and resilience in the moment and without her steady presence centering the film, “It Ends With Us” would be a complete disaster of a project.

Jenny Slate does a solid job bringing needed levity as well as portraying the compassionate friend Allysa, and yet, like all secondary characters, the character beats are so thinly written that viewers never really experience any development or growth in anyone other than Lily over the course of two hours.

Baldoni, for his part, is effective at playing the charming louse Ryle with relative contempt in a way that audiences will easily grow to be reviled at his character, though the lack of overall on-screen chemistry he shares with Lively does significantly reduce the emotional impact of Ryle’s darker turn.

The film also interweaves flashback sequences from Lily’s teenage years as a way of balancing out Ryle with her young love interest Atlas as well as introducing her parents’ relationship affecting Lily’s worldview, though the vast tonal shifts this creates in the narrative can occasionally be wonky.

A film that will be watched far more casually than it probably should be, “It Ends With Us” struggles to lift up a solid Lively performance and properly balance heavy issues with light melodrama in an effective manner, making the film something audiences might want to wait until viewing at home or in a setting where the movie’s darker themes can be properly discussed after watching.

August 5, 2024 · Watch the official trailer

If genre filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan could totally pull off the premise of his latest film, it would be quite the thriller.

But unfortunately, only half (or perhaps even just a third) of his newest movie, “Trap,” genuinely works as well as he wants it to, leaving audiences with a haphazard, mildly successful event film for the laziest cinematic month of the year.

“Trap” stars Josh Hartnett as a father taking his teenage daughter to a pop rock concert only to encounter a heavy police presence as authorities seek to capture a well-known, elusive serial killer called The Butcher who was expected to be in attendance.

The best thing about “Trap” is perhaps a career-best turn for Hartnett, a seemingly A-list celebrity who never was able to fulfill the potential of his early career successes in films like “Pearl Harbor” and “Black Hawk Down.” His resurgence here is tremendous as Hartnett balances equal parts concerned parent and elusive killer with ease, flipping back and forth between personas at a drop of a hat with a cerebral, often chilling effect.

The mild affability that Hartnett is able to come across on screen makes it easy to understand why those Cooper comes into contact with would find him charming, yet easily forgettable, which allows him to slip undetected in and around the concert venue with ease. This really comes into play during several interactions with a fellow parent – and especially an unsuspecting merchandise vendor – that highlight Cooper’s social capacity to seduce potential victims.

Yet Shyamalan isn’t as bold as he thinks he is with the overall film and largely wastes the best acting in one of his films in quite some time.

For as good as Hartnett is with an overeager charm that’s equal parts top shelf girl-dad and borderline psychotic, the premise of “Trap” doesn’t fully materialize and by the second half of the film, Shyamalan has written himself into so many corners that the ever more elaborate twists, turns, and reveals that “Trap” makes become infinitely more contrived and do a greater disservice to the terrific character work Hartnett displays.

“Trap” is a film that doesn’t know what kind of movie it wants to be, from a serial killer thriller, a concert film, a daddy-daughter movie, or some combination therein. It’s a film that languishes in the conceptual stage rather than forming into something worthwhile.

And though it seems Shyamalan made the film to help propel his daughter’s music career, Saleka Shyamalan is actually a better actress in “Trap” than she is a musical performer as the film’s pop starlet Lady Raven. Her interactions with Hartnett are rich and compelling and the ability for the pair to be foils to each other in pivotal moments of the film is without a doubt the most gripping parts of “Trap.”

Cinematically, “Trap” veers all over the place from elongated wide shots of the concert meant to evoke “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” to the intense closeups and distinct color contrast that highlight Cooper’s psychosis, but the tonal inconsistencies of the film as it flails aimlessly in the back half keep “Trap” muted and unbalanced.

Shyamalan’s latest effort, unfortunately, falls flat based on what it could have been and without a terrific lead performance from Hartnett, “Trap” would be completely meaningless. Potential viewers could absolutely wait to catch this stilted thriller months from now on a streaming platform rather than heading to theaters.

July 29, 2024 · Watch the official trailer

Is Marvel Studios back?

The answer is not quite.

Many prognosticators in Hollywood anticipated that the arrival of Ryan Reynolds’ infamous, foulmouthed Deadpool character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe would spark a resurgence in the franchise that has been wandering aimlessly since 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” concluded a major chunk of comic book lore.

Though it’s true that bringing over Fox properties like Deadpool, the X-Men, Fantastic Four and others back under Marvel’s control opens up worlds of possibilities for the franchise as a whole, there are little indications of a cohesive direction for the MCU moving forward with viewers getting another fan-service heavy film filled with crude jokes and light on plot or character development.

The third film in the “Deadpool” series but the first under the watchful eye of Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige, director Shawn Levy’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” pulls Deadpool across cinematic franchises to integrate into the MCU. Yet the entire film feels like a door closing with a window slightly ajar rather than the gateway into a whole new era of superhero movies.

Somewhat extending off the multiverse ideas brought forth by the Disney+ “Loki” series, Deadpool is confronted by the potential destruction of his timeline as members of the Time Variance Authority convince him to head off on a quest to save his friend from the collapse of their universe.

As with every installment in this series, Reynolds’ general charm and affability bring an earnestness to an otherwise unlikable character who violently slaughters his way through an endless stream of nameless, faceless villains. In without a doubt the bloodiest film in the MCU, this does require a bit of a lighter tone to counterbalance all of the brutality.

Reynolds is able to banter with any character both in a meaningful and lighthearted way as if he’s simply flipping a switch on and off that truly works, especially when paired opposite longtime friend Hugh Jackman, who returns to superhero work for the first time since his seemingly sendoff with 2017’s “Logan.”

Jackman appeared done with the role of Wolverine, a X-Man character he had portrayed eight times over two decades, with the finality that the conclusion of “Logan” brought. “Deadpool & Wolverine” revitalizes the character – and Jackman’s enthusiasm for the role – in such a way that does less to honor his end but highlight everything Jackman could bring to a larger MCU.

Humanity is a nuanced emotion rarely seen in superhero work, but both Reynolds and especially Jackman are able to press upon this touchstone with care and in a way that feels authentic. Even though Jackman is portraying anguish over the deaths of fictional heroes, there is a strong sense of mortality and disillusionment to his Wolverine that perfectly counterbalances Reynolds’ more boisterous, quippy nature.

The film’s best moments, unequivocally, are the duo facing off one-on-one in both physical and verbal combat and the natural charisma and chemistry that the two share is a great riff on the classic buddy comedy motif that supersedes the comic book genre.

Much of the supporting cast should rightfully be hidden under spoilers as Marvel attempts to wrap up large segments of superhero film history with reappearances and sendoffs that work only for ardent Marvel fanatics and longtime devotees to Fox’s superhero film franchises.

The plot in and of itself is bizarre and chaotic, seemingly bounding from one thought to another as the outline of “Deadpool & Wolverine” seems to be battle here, exposition there, another battle here, more exposition there, and three more battles with loose tie-ins to vaguely bind two hours of film together.

“Deadpool & Wolverine” does not hold back on being the first R-rated installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, liberally taking advantage of profanity and pushing the envelope in action sequences somewhat beyond even the first two “Deadpool” films and more in line with a “John Wick” movie in terms of gore and violence without purpose.

Moviegoers would be well served to see “Deadpool & Wolverine” as soon as possible if they intend to enjoy the film at all, given how widespread conversation and spoilers would ruin much of the experience Reynolds and Levy want viewers to enjoy. Though it’s a marginal, middle-tier film in the MCU as a whole, there’s a lot of casual, mindless fun to the threequel that makes it worth a trip to the big screen.

July 22, 2024 · Watch the official trailer

Decades after Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton rekindled their romance while chasing tornadoes across Oklahoma, Hollywood decided to update one of the most iconic 1990s summer blockbusters with a legacy sequel to the classic movie “Twister.”

Lee Isaac Chung, Academy Award nominated director for his semiautobiographical drama “Minari,” helms a pseudo-reboot of the storm chasing thriller with the larger scale, tech-heavy “Twisters,” now in premium theaters.

This time, rather than simply hunting tornadoes to collect data, rival teams are vying to ride the wind by either showboating inside the storm itself or by launching a polymer into tornadoes to stop them completely.

There’s significantly more nuance to the character work in “Twisters” than one might expect for such a bombastic blockbuster, especially when it comes to the triggers and trauma responses that Daisy Edgar-Jones’ Kate goes through over the course of the movie that both hinders and helps her ability to track and understand tornadoes to save small Oklahoma towns.

Edgar-Jones has a terrific ability to keep things level and grounded emotionally despite often acting against a blank wall or green screen and her ability to process and capture the gravity of each moment is a refreshing change of pace for these sorts of disaster films.

While there’s less nuance to his Tyler Owens, Glen Powell radiates off the screen every frame he appears in in true movie star fashion as his overwhelming charisma offsets the sort of antagonist role that Tyler takes on early in “Twisters.” Over the course of the film, Powell takes some very light emotional work and make it feel authentic and true.

Though it does not sync up in the best chemistry with Edgar-Jones, Powell easily melts into these moments with a genuine affability that deepens and changes the audiences’ perceptions of his character.

Although the rest of the ensemble cast has important secondary roles to play throughout the course of “Twisters,” none of the performances – especially “In The Heights” star Anthony Ramos – have a scene-stealing nature in the same way Philip Seymour Hoffman did in the original “Twister” and much of the plot emphasizes tornadoes as a third lead alongside Edgar-Jones and Powell over any of the other actors on screen.=

Visually, “Twisters” gives off the thrills and chills that one might expect from a two-hour drama about tornadoes though the mass proliferation of CGI technology in moviemaking does leave the film feeling a bit more standard than special. Much of the action sequences have a superficial, almost comic book quality to them that still makes “Twisters” worth seeing on the big screen but perhaps not on a premium or IMAX format.

While Chung keeps the film focused on its central characters in frame, it’s often difficult to see the true massive scale of some of these tornadoes even as technological advancements allow the filmmakers to plausibly place drones in the sky to let audiences see above and around the wind tunnels a bit better.

Largely the production design and filmmaking behind “Twisters” keeps in line with a big-budget action blockbuster and there is a moderate amount of nostalgia to the original film. Although aside from the vintage throwback feel to a mid-90s summer blockbuster, there’s very little tie-in to the first movie and viewers need not to have seen “Twister” prior to heading to theaters for this pseudo legacy-sequel.

Much of the film’s character work and dramatic nuance falls by the wayside at the end of the movie in typical Hollywood fashion, but the lengthy action set pieces stand out enough to make the entire film a drastic improvement over the original “Twister” so much so that viewers should take a chance with “Twisters” on the big screen.

July 15, 2024 · Watch the official trailer

What if the supposed faking of the Moon landing was also a romantic comedy?

It’s the strange, but real premise to the latest dramedy from director Greg Berlanti starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in a vintage, historically somewhat accurate tale about marketing NASA to the American public as the world preps for the Apollo 11 mission.

What actually appears on screen, however, is a largely forgettable slog that strings together casual laughs with mostly unmemorable moments and the overall breezy quality to the film gives it a hollow, superficial feeling.

“Fly Me To The Moon” stars Johansson as one of America’s top marketing specialists coerced by a shady government employee to revamp the public image of the NASA space program amid the backdrop of the Vietnam War and her frequent interactions and conflicts with the program’s flight director prove fertile ground for classic 90s rom-com fodder.

For a movie like this to work, its headliners need to absolutely shine, and Johansson delivers a vintage charm and wit that has somewhat of a “Mad Men” style to it without being too brash and over-the-top. Her performance over time develops a lot of heart for a character that would normally be played superficially, and Johansson carries much of the movie on her shoulder admirably even when the screenplay around her limits enjoyment to a pedestrian quality.

Conversely, Tatum feels significantly out of place in large segments of “Fly Me To The Moon,” mostly because his character Cole must be played more rigid, almost stoic in a way that limits Tatum’s innate bright charm to shine through. The chemistry with Johansson is questionable at best as it’s hard to see such a rebellious actor play things so by the book and come off as believable as intended.

“Fly Me To The Moon” works better with a convincing straight man who sternly scowls his brow and shakes his finger at the hijinks around him. The film doesn’t work quite as well as Berlanti hopes, when clearly Tatum should be one of the characters causing the chaos rather than being annoyed by it.

Save for Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson as a shadowy government official forcing Kelly and Cole to work together, most of the supporting cast fades into the background of “Fly Me To The Moon” throughout.

However, the film’s best character and the biggest exception to this is an ever vibrant, slightly extra Jim Rash as a film director roped into the situation by Kelly and the moderately bombastic approach Rash takes to the character creates some of the most funny, memorable moments in the least effective storyline in the entire film.

While the production design is solid and in keeping with the late 60s-early 70s era it aspires to, there’s nothing spectacular about the ways in which the film is made and its cinematography is largely unobtrusive, except for certain moments as rockets are launched into space where it’s unclear whether these scenes are CGI reproductions or actual newsreels from the time.

A film clearly meant for an older audience or for those seeking something to stream at home, there isn’t a particularly necessary reason why viewers would need to rush out to theaters to catch “Fly Me To The Moon” but Berlanti’s film has enough light-hearted humor and mild charm that it might be worth a breezy watch on a Tuesday evening at home months from now.

July 8, 2024 · Watch the official trailer

As has been the case in Hollywood for several years now, the Fourth of July weekend was filled with franchise sequels and reboots.

Families flocked to cinemas for “Despicable Me 4” while fans of classic action-comedies loaded up Netflix for the fourth installment of the Eddie Murphy-led “Beverly Hills Cop” series.

In rarer and rarer occurrences, authentic and original filmmaking seems to become a lost art in the summer months and even celebrated auteurs and Oscar winners aren’t able to drive audiences to the theaters.

Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos – fresh off his award-winning, twisted take on Frankenstein’s monster with last year’s “Poor Things” – returns with a comparatively more grounded, yet equally unsettling anthology film, “Kinds of Kindness,” which debuted in moderate release to little fanfare this past weekend.

Led by two-time Oscar winner Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Jesse Plemons, and Margaret Qualley, “Kindness” is a bizarre, reserved, and strange piece of cinema that will probably prove to be too outlandish for a majority of moviegoers but ardent cinephiles who are fans of Lanthimos’ eccentricities should find “Kindness” a more restrained, thought-provoking effort.

The film is split into three distinct 50-minute segments, each with its own unique tale and characters though the same lead cast is featured in all three parts as each segment becomes even more bizarre and twisted than the last.

“Kindness” follows a man without choice longing for freedom from a predetermined life path, a cop questioning his wife’s return from an apparent drowning, and a woman determine to find a specific person destined to be a prodigious spiritual leader.

The core of “Kindness” is veteran character actor turned breakout star Plemons, who keeps things from going too off the rails with a very stoic, yet nuanced turn that helps audiences feel like all the strangeness happening on screen is relatively normal. This is especially true in the ways Plemons’ matter-of-fact line delivery and cadence make the characters he plays feel as if events are completely mundane, everyday occurrences as he is required to cause a car crash, for example.

There’s a fluidity to the ways Plemons ebbs and flows his characters over the course of the entire film with his hand firmly on an emotional volume meter that never really rises above five but is ever so slightly tweaked to the moment.

Conversely, so much of Stone’s raw, magnetic performance lies within her demonstrative eyes that keeps audiences’ attention while Lanthimos prods her to do increasingly strange things in each segment of the film. While she has been her director’s muse for several films now, Stone has a much smaller, more subdued role to play here with the focus largely gravitating towards Plemons.

Dafoe serves largely as a background player in “Kindness,” but the weight and gravitas he brings to “Kindness” to emphasize the strangeness make him functionally the film’s structural backbone, especially in the first and third segments.

“Kindness” is also the first film in which young star Qualley is able to showcase the breadth and depth of her acting talent, even going so far as to play twins in the same segment. The ways in which she’s able to transform into four uniquely distinctive characters within short periods of time prove her vast potential as a lead actress.

The film’s cinematography from Robbie Ryan is muted and unobtrusive, giving “Kindness” more of a nostalgic, lived-in feel that often has the anthology seeming to be a series of fever dreams from the eccentric auteur.

“Kindness” is unlikely to be heralded come awards season like Lanthimos’ prior works, due to the timing of the film’s release, its underwhelming popularity in theaters and the likelihood that Searchlight Pictures might put their weight behind a fall release like indie dramedy “A Real Pain.”

“Kinds of Kindness” is far from an easy crowd-pleaser, but those who are attuned to the avant-garde oddities of Lanthimos’ filmmaking style will appreciate both the quality of the cinema as well as the depth and strangeness of the acting performances that make the film worth seeking out in theaters.

July 1, 2024 · Watch the trailer

It’s nearly impossible to say if Kevin Costner’s three-hour western epic is worth seeing in theaters because audiences will have to wait another six weeks to get into what feels like the second act of his story in spite of the immense run time.

A lot of plot takes place over the course of 181 minutes in “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter One,” but at the same time, almost nothing of consequence happens.

It’s a languishing film and first in a planned series of four installments that revels in nostalgia and yet somehow meanders aimlessly through the wilderness for a good chunk of its running time.

In spite of terrific cinematography, the film’s wonky narrative structure will leave less engaged audiences jarringly thrown off at various points as Costner freewheels his way through multiple, disjointed storylines that appear to possibly connect in a future installment in the series thanks to an awkwardly placed teaser reel in the film’s final moments before the end credits giving small snippets out of context of what’s to come.

In a general sense, “Horizon” is a classic drama about the expansion into western territory of the United States during the 1860s-1870s where settlers gamble their livelihoods and often their lives for a chance at a better tomorrow in the American frontier only to be violently confronted by Apaches numerous times.

The three major segments of “Horizon” which disjointedly overlap follow a woman and daughter alone after their town is attacked, a rustler rescuing a woman and child from a band of outlaws, as well as a wagon caravan heading towards the promise of a new land.

While Costner is the centrifugal force that keeps this entire project afloat as writer, director, star, and primary financier – Costner has reportedly spent $38 million himself on the film – he doesn’t appear in “Horizon” until the film’s second hour as audiences bound around the world in sort of a meandering prologue filled with indiscriminate violence and picturesque landscapes.

When he does arrive on screen, Costner is less his “Yellowstone” character John Dutton in the Old West and more a modern twist on the vintage “Man with No Name” character made famous by Clint Eastwood, an auteur actor/director that Costner clearly looks up to in the making of this film.

He tries hard to blend in a bit with the rest of the solid ensemble cast, but the imbalance of his star power makes it feel that segments without his Hayes are less important in the long run of the “Horizon” narrative, especially given that the weight of the other two segments of the film are placed on the shoulders of a more subdued Sienna Miller and an out-of-place Luke Wilson.

Miller is good despite being majorly overshadowed by a major action sequence shot entirely at night that disorients the audience in the panic of an Apache attack, and by the time Miller is able to establish her character, Costner has swiftly and broadly painted her into a corner with a romantic relationship with an Army captain.

Wilson, on the other hand, is given a wide berth as the leader of a wagon train heading towards Horizon, although for as much time as this segment of the film is given, the least actually happens and feels like yet another prologue in a movie with too much aimless exposition.

There are numerous sequences throughout “Horizon” that will keep audiences engaged in spite of these lulls, most notably the night raid in the film’s outset, a harrowing conversation between Hayes and a potential assassin on a hill, and a showdown in a trader shop that puts a young boy behind the trigger and face to face with an Apache.

The technical aspects of “Horizon” are solid and yet often feel less cinematic than they should, perhaps due to the decision to shoot a classic western tale on digital rather than traditional film. This in part, along with the narrative structure, makes the entire endeavor feel more like the long beginning to a television miniseries rather than the grandiose movie drama that Costner has clearly envisioned in his head for decades.

Yet, deciding whether or not to see “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter One” on the big screen is difficult to say without getting a clearer picture of where Costner’s upstart franchise is headed and many cinephiles might be better off waiting until August 16 when the second installment is slated for release to see the larger world unfold properly.

June 24, 2024 · Watch the official trailer

Everything about Jeff Nichols’ new film feels vintage.

It isn’t just that his latest drama is centered in the 1960s with period clothing, faded and weathered cinematography, and firmly implanted in a bygone era. There’s a cinematic quality in a “they don’t make movies like this anymore” sensibility to “The Bikeriders,” a nuanced, slow-burn, episodic drama, that allows some of Hollywood’s best chameleons to sink their teeth into fully formed characters.

Inspired by a photo book following on a Midwest motorcycle gang in the 1960s, “The Bikeriders” is a wonderful amalgamation of Americana culture, filmmaking styles of the 1970s, and cinema that just allows the aura around its performances to radiate off of the screen.

Somewhat surprisingly, the film revolves around a young woman, Kathy, who struggles to immerse herself in the world of her boyfriend Benny’s motorcycle club and its father figure leader Johnny. As the club grows over the course of a tumultuous 1960s, Kathy must compete with Johnny for Benny’s waning attention.

From the opening moments of the film, audiences will clearly know that they’re in for something special and not what they’re used to seeing in theaters these days.

Austin Butler arrives on screen in the early moments with a gravitas easily likening to Steve McQueen or, more aptly, James Dean as a younger rider refusing to take off his colors and the ways in which it sets the stage for the film’s more nuanced, introspective take of a lesser examined segment of 1960s America is utterly phenomenal.

While the upstart actor is best known for encapsulating Elvis Presley, his work here as Benny is equally as transfixing and the charisma that he exudes naturally on screen with a strong, yet subtle physicality and quiet cadence to his vocal performance makes it clear why Kathy and Johnny are equally enamored with him for wildly different reasons.

It’s a performance on which the entire film hinges as Benny creates the needed balance of an erstwhile protagonist of the film, yet Nichols and Butler develop a masterful distance that feels just out of reach for audiences and other characters in the film, as if Benny is more legend than he is man.

Conversely, Tom Hardy as the gang’s leader Johnny attempts to be more stoic than he’s capable of as Hardy portrays the character almost as if he’s pretending to be the leader of a motorcycle gang that someone like Marlon Brando would inhabit rather than actually living the life out fully.

This creates a slightly jealousy and more demonstrable awe in Hardy’s turn as Johnny, with the character essentially seeking a platonic closeness to Benny in order to be freer and more rebellious by association.

Ever the subtle actor, Hardy slowly and methodically reveals this side of Johnny through character work instead of broad stroking the relationship, furthering the ways in which Johnny and Kathy essentially vie for Benny’s time.

Jodie Comer bridges the gap between audiences and the club with a commanding performance on par with her two male counterparts, something rare for a film in this genre but in the same ways Comer more than held her own against Adam Driver and Matt Damon in “The Last Duel.” Comer melts into the part of a midwestern ingenue and gives her far more gravitas than other actresses might in the same role.

Because this film is inspired from a photo book, iconography plays an important role in “The Bikeriders” as the way the bikers are staged, framed, and clothed creates a larger-than-life visual to match the singular images of the book.

Cinematographer Adam Stone brilliantly lights and shoots the cast to such a masterful degree that individual frames of the film feel ripped straight out of the pages of its inspiration and there’s a flawed, almost fractured nostalgia and sentimentality to the visual world Stone and Nichols create in the film.

“The Bikeriders” debuted in cinemas far too soon to be strongly considered come awards season, although this is clearly the type of film that could do well if it lands deserved nominations for Butler, Comer and the iconic cinematography and other technical aspects.

Although moderately paced and somewhat lacking in plot, “The Bikeriders” has a kinetic vibe, an effortless coolness to its narrative that makes the period drama something ardent cinephiles should seek out on the big screen.

June 17, 2024 · Watch the official trailer

Since the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world into their homes for the better part of a year, conversations about mental health and what must be done to create a positive, stable sense of worth have skyrocketed globally.

While this is a very mature, adult conversation to be had, it can be hard to extend that needed discussion to younger children who are still figuring out their emotions and ways in the world, processing new and everchanging things daily.

Up until this point, a terrific way to bridge the gap in the conversation between kids and adults about mental health has been the 2015 Academy Award winning animated Pixar film “Inside Out” from director Pete Docter, which found a young girl’s emotions on the fritz as depression overwhelmed her and joy left.

Though “Inside Out” simplifies complex emotions for younger audiences, it does not paint a fuller picture of changing, evolving mental health issues in ways that conversation can be truly had in a post-COVID world. Almost ten years later, a sequel to this animated classic debuted in theaters this past weekend as “Inside Out 2” further expands its world, introducing more novel, complex ideas about the fragile nature of the mind with a focus on the ways that anxiety can radically change a person.

The film follows Riley, a young girl transitioning from middle school to high school embarking on a summer hockey trip with her friends only to find anxiety about those changes taking over her core being. The original emotions from the first films, led by a relentlessly energetic Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler), are set on a quest to regain control of Riley’s mind after they have been suppressed and bottled up by Anxiety and other new emotions brought on by puberty.

The heart of the film comes from Poehler’s magnetic, dynamic vocal work as Joy that holds the screenplay together and gives younger viewers a bright, wide-eyed protagonist to follow while much of the story plays out in Riley’s mind.

Phyllis Smith and Lewis Black do excellent work in their return as emotions Sadness and Anger, respectively, but it’s newcomer to the franchise Maya Hawke as Anxiety who brings a manic quality to her vocal performance that almost feels like the opposite side of the same coin as Poehler’s Joy and truly brings the entire film together in a cohesive way.

What sets “Inside Out 2” apart from the average animated film is the nuanced complexity of the narrative. On the surface level, there’s a straightforward story to be told about how Joy and the other original emotions must get back to the command center to help Riley regain her sense of self. But from a larger perspective, the ways in which the narrative allows audiences to think about and examine the parts of the mind that feel commonplace is a much more intuitive, deeper, introspective, and thoughtful examination of mental health.

The evolution of simple memories in Riley’s brain developing into core beliefs that guide every action she takes is a masterful way of creating complexity in a film’s narrative while also feeling authentic to the human experience in ways animation usually does not.

Through the use of the Anxiety character, the sequel’s director Kelsey Mann and the filmmaking team show how seemingly negative emotions like anxiety, shame, and guilt can create an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and unworthiness that leaves one functional but almost incapable of feeling joy or happiness.

After the original film was nominated for two Oscars including a surprising original screenplay nom and unsurprising win for animated feature, it comes with little shock that the sequel is unquestionably a frontrunner in animated feature with the potential of repeating a screenplay nod as well in a much more competitive adapted category.

For viewers able to understand and follow the complexities of the emotions behind such a simple story, “Inside Out 2” is a cathartic cinematic experience that will leave adults vulnerable by the end of the 90-minute run time. This Pixar sequel is without a doubt one of the year’s best films – animated or otherwise – and certain to be among the most poignant, emotional movies of 2024.