Category: 2026

BIGFOOT WOODS

By Marc S. Sanders

There’s a moment in Bigfoot Woods where a character describes Paul (Rich Sommer) as just a science teacher, not a scientist.  It’s clear that Paul is more than irked by the regard, especially because this person is a believer in the legend of Bigfoot – a Sasquatch fur covered, monstrous figure who’s never been proven to exist beyond its never ending myth.  Paul is a scientist though.  He studied the principles of science.  He researched evidence that describes all the various natures of science.  He’s a high school teacher in the small town of Steamer, Minnesota, but he’s most definitely a certified scientist.  It’s therefore unfortunate his identity is not taken seriously.

This occurs midway through Elizabeth Chatelain’s film.  Paul is already roiling with Bridget, his conflicted fourteen year old daughter (Ambrose Velasco Jenkins).  They are realizing that they are not in fact non-binary.  Bridget is coming to the conclusion that they/them are not the appropriate pronouns.  Going forward, Bridget is certain of being addressed as he/him, and is unequivocally ready to be identified as Jonah.  Paul, and his wife Taylor (Tristen MacDonald) realize they’ll have to adjust.

It’s not even a question of options.  Paul and Taylor love their child.  It’s still a struggle, but that’s okay.  A new job or school or living situation can also require time and patience while adapting.

Chatelain’s film is smart because while Jenkins’ character occupies the most screen time, Bridget/Jonah is not the only one affected by this transition.  How does mom and dad feel about this?  What about friends?  Actually, how does the whole town of Steamer respond when there is primarily a unified mantra in believing in the  Christian values that come with the influence of the church and an ultra conservative mindset of what Jesus Christ stands for?

Steamer, Minnesota is hardly found on a map.  At best, it’s known for being a possible resting place for Bigfoot.  Paul and Bridget have father/child time together by roaming the woods and documenting discoveries in nature.  At best, maybe fifty people watch their series of You Tube videos.  However, that number explodes into the thousands when someone notices a rustling in the trees that could very likely be Bigfoot.  At last, certifiable evidence may exist in Bridget’s footage and attract a wider scope that’ll bring welcome recognition to town.  The folks are giddy over this discovery.

However, Bridget does not stop at what they share with Paul.  Bridget is making a new declaration of self identity when Jonah is introduced, but many folks in Steamer are quick to change their tune.

Bigfoot Woods is simple in its cinematography and editing.  It may operate like an Afterschool Special but that may also be its greatest achievement.  The script by father and trans-son Bruce and Abel Pavalon brings a transparent honesty to trans youth who are developing into who they really are and how family and environment responds.  Despite talent or accomplishments, some will overlook all of that when a trait feels unacceptable.  Others will not get up in arms over how someone chooses to live and will simply welcome the change.  It’ll justifiably become concerning, but they’ll need time.  The script covers a wide range with a small cast and a condensed script.

Bridget/Jonah also suffers from a habitual side effect of cutting.  I’m not here to minimize the character’s physical and mental ordeals.  However, at only a running time of an hour and twenty minutes, I did not think there was ample material to address this ingredient of the story.  Cutting is a very real symptom that needs serious attention.  Either more could have been expounded on that, or it should have been excised from the final product.

One factor I’m grateful for is that Paul, the scientist, does his research on trans topics.  He discovers the anatomical studies that upholds the need for transitioning down to how XX or XY chromosomes operate when another gene comes into play with a person’s DNA.  A majority of those opposed to the idea of transitioning fail to do the research and neither uncover validity or the material that could repute it.  People just make up their minds like it’s an opinion. Bigfoot Woods hinges on facts found in science, not instinctual prejudice.

In all fairness, I’ve done no research on the topic.  Still I trust what’s included in Chatelain’s film.  It’d be foolishly bold of her and the Pavalons to deliver a story that champions transition with unproven or false material.

The performance from Ambrose Velasco Jenkins is winning because there are multiple dimensions to the role.  I didn’t really care for Bridget who was not connecting with their loving parents.  Bridget is off putting and insensitive to mom and dad.  Jonah is very likable though.  It has to come down to an internal peace that Jenkins eventually delivers.  Very good work.

I also really felt for Rich Sommer’s interpretation of a dad who’s a good, well educated father but also confused and lacking the confidence to deal with a change in his family’s dynamic.  Too often men are expected to have all the answers.  This man doesn’t.  Yet, he will not cry about it or give up.  He applies skills that will aid him into deciding for himself with confidence.

Tristen MacDonald offers another kind of identity struggle.  A breast cancer survivor who opted for a double mastectomy.  I recall stories where women feel less of themselves once they have gone through this kind of trauma. Bigfoot Woods tackles a wide berth of identity struggle.  It’s not exclusive to members of the LGBTQ+ community.  MacDonald only has a few lines that address her character’s background but she’s impactful enough to demonstrate self-identity does not stop with gender identity.  It’s a mindset that depends on various factors and situations.

Bigfoot Woods is smart and insightful.  It’s a straightforward account of a teenager ready to recognize internal thoughts beyond outside influence while figuring out who they want to be.  With a curious story of the Bigfoot legend wrapped around it, there’s an intriguing aspect to this collection of three characters who are accepted by some while dismissed by others.  A perfect button on the picture is a nice wink and nod that crosses the last caption before the credits arrive.  I was smiling by the end.

DISCLOSURE DAY (2026)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
CAST: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell
MY RATING: 9/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 79% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A cyber-security expert goes on the run from his own shadowy employer; a TV weatherperson exhibits odd behavior after a close encounter with a cardinal; and an 80-year-old secret ties them both together.

[THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.]


First of all, yes, I’m late to the party for this one, but I didn’t feel qualified to write a review after watching this the first time in June, and I didn’t get around to watching it again until last night.

Second, I am a Gen-Xer whose adolescent life was irrevocably impacted by the films of Steven Spielberg, starting with Jaws (1975) through to Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List (both 1993).  I know enough to realize that his body of work is not perfect, but I am a fervent admirer, so if some of that bias comes through in this review, c’est la vie.

Disclosure Day, released when Spielberg was 79 years old, is so full of ideas that the weight of them occasionally threatens to derail the film’s momentum in some earlier passages, and makes some of the later “revelations” a little less wondrous than they might have been if I had seen this movie when I was a pre-teen or teenager.  But the headlong energy of Spielberg’s direction and the powerhouse acting on display from Emily Blunt swept me along and kept me (mostly) breathless for nearly two-and-a-half hours.  This should go at or near the top of anyone’s list of “thinking-man’s thrillers.”

(I won’t bother summarizing the plot…I’m just going to assume you’ve seen the movie.  If you haven’t, apologies for any spoilers below.)

My favorite aspect of this film is the way it draws straight connecting lines between its sci-fi elements and their religious counterparts, much like The Matrix did in 1999 and Contact did in 1997.  Does that make Disclosure Day an unoriginal rehash of similar ideas from thirty years ago?  Absolutely not.  The fact that everything is filtered through the Spielberg lens permeates every scene, reminding me that this story of paradigm-shifting contact with extra-terrestrials is being presented by the man who brought us Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).  I got the feeling that Disclosure Day is loaded with things that Spielberg has wanted to say for a long time.  I don’t know if that’s factually true, but that’s what it feels like.

I grew up in a Baptist Christian home from kindergarten through four years of Christian college.  This movie spoke to me in a way that Contact touched on, but much more directly.  At one point, the character Jane Blankenship (Eve Hewson) asks a nun: “If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, PROVED it to you…would that frighten you?”  Contact has a theoretical answer which seemed pretty reasonable, but Disclosure Day adds an extra dimension by asking this question to a nun, whose conviction that we are, in fact, NOT alone is central to her identity.  (She has a great answer that I won’t spoil here.)

I wondered about this question.  Any religion I can think of is centrally based on faith, which, according to the book of Hebrews, is “the evidence of things not seen.”  Well…would happen if, one day, at the Vatican or Jerusalem or Mecca, the clouds parted, the skies opened up, and a celestial figure descended to Earth and told everyone present that, yes, I am God, you’ve been right this entire time, congratulations.  How would the faithful react?  I believe many would bow or kneel and weep with joy…but would they ALL react that way?  Might there be some who became even more fearful than before?  Would some believers rebel at the thought that faith is no longer needed?  After all, there He is.

This question occupied my mind for weeks and months after watching Disclosure Day for the first time.  I drew parallels between religion and the belief in extra-terrestrial life.  If someone proved to me, PROVED it beyond the shadow of a doubt, that alien civilizations are real and have been visiting Earth since 1947…how would I respond?  Would I rejoice in the fact that something I’ve hoped for since childhood was actually proven correct?  Or would this revelation make me feel even smaller compared to the vast cosmos?  If I had that kind of information, would it be my responsibility to tell everyone, to spread the word, as it were?  Or would it be more prudent to keep that information to myself, lest it create a panic?

When a movie makes me ask those kinds of questions, without necessarily providing stone-cold answers, I celebrate it.  Too many films lose faith in the viewer’s intelligence from the get-go.  Spielberg never talks down to his audience with this film.  Right from the beginning, he and screenwriter David Koepp demonstrate their trust in the audience’s ability to keep up by starting the movie in the middle of the action.  No set-up, no narrated prologue, just boom, here’s a guy with a backpack getting kidnapped and there’s his girlfriend and why is everyone scared of a stick of silver metal and who are these people, anyway?

Watching this movie a second time, I was once again blown away by Emily Blunt’s performance.  I am not 100% sure she’ll get an Oscar nomination or anything, but she is heartbreaking when she acquires these abilities she can’t understand or explain, then breaks down late in the film when others look to her as some kind of spiritual figure.  She doesn’t like these abilities.  She doesn’t WANT these abilities, and she certainly doesn’t want anyone revering her because of them.  “I will NOT be anyone’s religion!” she cries out, and I was immediately reminded of the Biblical story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, raging against God for forcing Him to go through the unimaginable trials to come.

There are many other scientific/religious parallels in the film.  Even the concept of demon possession comes into play when the main bad guy, Scanlon (Colin Firth), is able to “dive” on people remotely, either speaking to them across vast distances or able to literally control their bodies.  When Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo) explains to someone that the aliens believe that empathy is the highest form of evolution, as a former practicing Christian, how could I not think of the Golden Rule?  (“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”)

On the surface, Spielberg is asking people to consider the idea that alien life need not be a scary proposition (War of the Worlds [2005] notwithstanding, of course).  Below the surface – not exactly hidden, of course – he’s asking us to consider the idea that empathy for our fellow man could literally save the world.  Impractical?  Maybe.  But a hopeful message regardless.

Disclosure Day is a worthy addition to Spielberg’s impressive filmography, and one of my new favorite films, not because it’s as thrilling as a roller coaster (which some parts of it are), but because it’s as cerebral and rewarding as solving a crossword puzzle in pen.

COYOTE VS. ACME

By Marc S. Sanders

It’s ironic and a bit reflective to think about how Coyote Vs. Acme eventually made it to theaters.  Along with an anticipated release of Batgirl, featuring another return for Michael Keaton as Batman, the Looney Tunes feature was abruptly shelved by Warner Brothers as a tax write off.  Corporate America was exercising its accountant’s bloody fist in order to amplify the books.  However, the people have spoken and the animated rascal would eventually have his day in court.  Batgirl seems to have not survived the Joker’s man-eating Venus Flytrap, however. (That was actually an episode from the ’60’s TV series that scared the bejeezus outta me when I was a kid…but Robin got eaten, not Batgirl.)

The mega-conglomerate known as Acme is arguably bigger than Amazon, Walmart, Disney, Apple and the world’s crop supply of Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice combined.  Why?  Well, because they have John Cena as their attorney with a bolo tie and cowboy hat to boot along with the shrewdest…I say…I say the shrewdest rooster known to mankind, Foghorn Leghorn as its current CEO.  One thing these guys know how to do is circumvent the faults of their products by executing small settlements or finding loopholes to escape from liability.

Wile E Coyote has had enough!  He’s invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in anvils, slingshots, gigantic magnets, rocket skates, and falling pianos.  Yet, his targeted prize – the meep, meeping Road Runner – evades captivity.  It’s time Acme bear some responsibility and pay.  So, he hauls all of his defective purchases into a handkerchiefed sack tied to a stick on his shoulder and hires an injury attorney for the cartoon community to represent him – a sad sack in a brown suit named Kevin Avery (Will Forte), assisted by his capably, confident, crusading niece Paige (Lana Candor).

The little man – ahem, rodent – is finally gonna sock it to Goliath corporation.  Suck it WB—-I mean Acme!!!!!

Coyote Vs. Acme is what you’d expect from Looney Tunes.  Everything is ridiculous and welcomes immense laughter with sight gags that only their brand of animation can offer.  No matter how many times poor Wile E. finds himself suspended in midair before suffering an enormous drop below, I love to see the dust cloud poof up and hear the “wampf” foley sound as he slams into the ground.  Being that the Road Runner/Coyote shorts were always my favorite of the Tunes, I never got enough of their routines.  The painted hole in the ground – you know to fall through? That’s here too.

None of the characters are reinvented.  They are just slotted into a courtroom liability suit that’s as familiar as what the Ford Corporation was culpable of when they knowingly left potentially explosive cars on the lots.  (See my review of Class Action found on this site.) 

Why? 

Because monetarily speaking the settlements would be more cost effective than a widespread product recall.  Well, as Wile E, Paige and Kevin will discover, Acme has a similar mindset for the cartoon community.  This makes for good courtroom drama such as the Tasmanian Devil’s raucous, indecipherable testimony (hilarious by the way) or the clandestine secrets that Tweety Bird and Bugs Bunny might be holding on to.  

Daffy Duck likely will not be a reliable witness, though.  DAMN YOU ACME!!!!

Coyote Vs. Acme is great entertainment that you can take your kids to while you laugh and nod your head at the newsworthy stories that inspired this plight of the plaintiff, Mr. Coyote.  Believe it or not, there’s a message mixed within all of the insanity.

I grew a little tired with the middle portion of the movie, and I could have welcomed some more antics within the courtroom that feature an underused Luis Guzmán as the judge.  The stakes of Kevin’s practice going under ring true of material from A Civil Action and Erin Brockovich as the case becomes more insurmountable.  Didn’t really need this frankly.  I don’t care about Kevin.  Just let Kevin do his job in court.  His insecure schlub slows the picture down some, even if Will Forte has cute chemistry with all of the characters.

I love that Tweety’s granny made it into the picture, but where was Sylvester? He’s in the background, having a catnap in the family room, but otherwise he’s got nothing to do.  That was a shame.  

Minor quibbles aside, Coyote Vs. Acme is refreshing animation combined with live action.  The artwork is thankfully not the newly updated computer graphics of Pixar and Minions fare.  I know the Looney Tunes were likely not hand drawn for this feature, but at least their images and actions are preserved in their original fashion.  If it ain’t broke don’t fix it and this is one thing that Acme, Warner Brothers and producer James Gunn keep intact.  Everything looks great with a perfect blending of human characters falling into complicated Looney Tunes traps. The conversations between the animated and human communities are seamless.  John Cena trying to decipher through Tweety’s speech impediment is winning.  I even applauded how the writers approach the now taboo character of the perverted and horny Pepe Le Pew.  The little stinker can actually still serve a purpose in a post Me Too climate.

I hope Coyote Vs Acme opens doors for more material.  Put the guys in a police station, or a hospital.  Have them enact a Law & Order episode.  Any one of them can run for President against Kelsey Grammar or Sean Penn or Mark Ruffalo for example.  These guys can easily operate in an internet world crowded with confusion and identity.  Keep the locomotive going, and if you get run over, dust yourself off, step off the tracks, and sift through the Acme catalog for the next novel invention.

Something has gotta work! Right Doc?

MEEP MEEP!!!

DON’T SAY GOOD LUCK

By Marc S. Sanders

Adam Sandler’s production company, Happy Madison, has released a new film for his daughter, Sunny Sandler, to star in, and like her their previous collaboration, You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah, it’s an engaging, comedically emotional hit.  Don’t Say Good Luck is not as strong as the family dramas that are built on blocks of biting sarcasm like Terms Of Endearment and Steel Magnolias, but the cast and writing devote at least the same level of emotional maturity to the product.  

You might argue that Sunny Sandler falls under the category of a “Hollywood nepo-baby,” but the actress’ talent in performance, accompanied by show stopping singing, demonstrates that she deserves to be on stage and/or in front of a camera.  She’s a dynamo that I find far more appealing than I ever gave her comedic father credit for.

Laura Hankin wrote this screenplay based on her experience as an eighth grader who was cast in the school play while dealing with a terminally sick relative at home.  Sandler portrays Sophie who only hopes to get cast as the supporting role in the school’s upcoming production of Waitress: The Musical.  Following call backs, Sophie learns that she’ll be playing the lead.  It’s exciting, unexpected and certainly challenging, especially because she’ll romantically be playing opposite the cute boy in school and they’ll have to kiss on stage.  Yet, it’s also bittersweet because she has to accept her best friend Carolyn (Scarlett Estevez) has dropped out of the show while not being entirely forthright with Sophie, and Carolyn’s new friendship with Erin.  

Sophie’s happy home life is also compromised because mom’s cancer has returned and the forecast for survival is not likely.  Mom is Elizabeth, played with beautiful sensitivity by Melanie Lynskey.  Lynskey and Sandler make a perfect mother/daughter pair with outstanding chemistry.  Their pace is marvelous either when they are putting on southern belle acts for strangers in the mall or struggling with Elizabeth’s decline.  They make you laugh and cry.  I’m bold enough to declare that Sunny is much more entertaining than her successful father Adam, who I’ve never been that drawn to. Lynskey’s performance is contained with an energy to remain as an active mom. She relies on the convincing makeup to gradually show her decline while not crutching upon a weakened voice or droopy body language. That happens too often. This portrayal is welcome and convincing as one of those people who say “I’m gonna fight this.”

Don’t Say Good Luck is a refreshing coming of age comedy-drama that treats its young actors with authentic respect.  Following …Bat Mitzvah and now this film, I gratefully believe that Adam Sandler seeks out these scripts because they are not exclusive to just the two or three leads.  Hankin’s screenplay fleshes out the other kids in the musical’s cast.  Every actor with at least one line of dialogue appears to serve a meaningful purpose to this film. With so many active participants in the cast the setting’s community is on a solid foundation. There’s life within this high school where the kids go through the theatre games followed by musical choreography and vocal warmups. Even the quirky musical director, who has few lines, has a characterization that is relatable. This is rarely seen, and hard to accomplish in most movies, especially with a brisk running time of only ninety minutes.

Claire Scavone stands out as the enthusiastic actor freshman with the big smile, big glasses and BIG VOICE who absolutely loves theater and the kids she performs with.  She’s an outstanding escape from the heavier moments of the film.  The typical, blond popular girl (Elyse Bell) who always gets the leads is not the staple enemy of the picture. She’s got the privileged ego at first sight, but then there’s a quick reveal to how she relates to Sophie. Don’t Say Good Luck is not that movie where the snob gets her comeuppance. None of us should love to hate a kid. Sandler’s production knows this.

Adam’s friend Steve Buscemi has reached the stage of playing a grandfather and paired with Bebe Neuwirth as his wife who comes home to help their daughter with family tasks.  Buscemi is not trying to steal any scenes.  Neuwirth is the mother who oversteps her offers to help but rattles the discomfort that comes when cancer is killing a loved one.

Stephanie Beatriz does more with the theater teacher role than you’d find in typical Nickelodeon or Disney fare.  She emulates what is rewarding about teaching with encouragement and respect for her class.  As a community theater actor/director/producer, I related to every issue that comes her way from tech issues to sets coming apart and especially to instilling confidence in her student actors.  My daughter missed out on this experience in her high school productions.  This film reminds me of what I absorbed when I took up theater in school.  I also appreciate that the kids are not heightened to be smarter than standard dimwit adults that so many other films rely on.  

Max Greenfield as dad might have been worthy of a more expansive role.  The guy who runs the sandwich shop with Jon Lovitz, while balancing taking care of his terminally ill wife and a pair of rambunctious twin boys.  However, like Endearment and Magnolias, this film hinges on the mother/daughter perspective.  So, I can forgive this shortcoming.

Don’t Say Good Luck is schmaltzy with the inevitable sappiness found in tear jerkers, but the dialogue does not appear wasted, and director Julia Hart finds those perfect beats with her ensemble of mostly young actors and extras.  She also captures heart wrenching close ups of Sunny Sandler whose dynamic performance must respond to first love, friendship challenges, domestic drama, exciting opportunities and a likely potential for loss.  If you are not completely engaged in her closing song performance that wraps up this piece, you left behind several pieces of both your heart and soul somewhere. She belongs on the charts.

Don’t Say Good Luck pulls Sunny Sandler out of Adam’s large shadow.  She gives an emotionally strong, breakthrough performance that might earn her at least a Golden Globe award in the Comedy/Musical category, as well as trophies in the young actor awards ceremonies.  

Don’t Say Good Luck is now streaming on Netflix.

THE DRAMA

By Marc S. Sanders

A happy couple ends up not so happy when they get a little too honest with each other.  

After watching Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama, I’m left unsure of what was supposed to be learned or what I’m supposed to take away from his picture.  Is he telling me that when you are on the cusp of walking down the aisle, if you see a red flag, you should hike it and run, or should you literally drop your betrothed’s pants and call do-over? 

After a cold open of meet cute cuts where the characters speak with one another and the film “stylistically” edits sudden breaks so that sentences of dialogue are interrupted for quick cut moments in time (I really don’t know why, because this routine got old really fast.), Borgli’s picture makes itself much clearer by showing that Emma and Charlie (Zendaya, Robert Pattinson) are the meet cute couple with successful careers, a million dollar New York apartment in the Village and a gorgeous wedding on the horizon.  

While at a wine tasting evening with the Matron of Honor and Best Man, Rachel and Mike (Alana Haim, Mamoudou Athie), a game is played where the four challenge one another to confess the worst act they have ever committed.  Emma is clearly the most reluctant to participate and thus the last one to go.  Comparatively speaking, Mike’s act is quite tame when measured against what Charlie and Rachel admit, especially Rachel.  The three laugh about it all though.  I found Charlie to be an asshole for giggling over what came of his actions.  I found Rachel to be a heartless fuck for dismissing her sick deed, as well.  These were not immature hang up crank calls.  When Emma admits to only planning her worst act but never following through, the dynamic shifts in the worst way imaginable.  

I will not spoil what she reveals.  What Emma planned when she was teenager is repulsive.  Yet, unforeseen circumstances stopped her from execution, and she explains that her life went in a completely opposite direction of nobility from that point on.  Nevertheless, Charlie cannot look past Emma’s confession, and he randomly grows startled by her while also envisioning his fiancée in unflattering scenarios inconsistent with the woman he thought he knew and loved.

Rachel is even less tolerable or accepting of Emma, and does not hide her bitterness (again) at only what was planned but never happened. Rachel’s mindset goes to a cousin who was a victim of a terrible incident that Emma has nothing to do with.  This allows one of several personal conflicts to remain at the top rather than just drift away.

The Drama runs out of road very fast.  The confessions around the table are interesting and left me curious as each person steps up to share. Afterwards though, when the evening is over, characters have sobered up, and simply because Borgli’s script contrives it to be, the anguish mires on and on and on.  

Borgli thematically uses alcohol consumption as a way to keep his characters repulsed with themselves and each other.  I guess he figures if these people are drunk they can vomit over and over with endless guilt and conflict.  If they sobered up they might start making sense, own up to their faults and move past this with no further judgement or resentment.  

Wouldn’t that be a lousy movie? 

Emma first explains and apologizes when the response does not go over favorably.  Later, she explains to Charlie how she turned her life around and did something positive with herself and the greater good.  Charlie seems to be deaf to what’s told to him.  (Ironically, it’s Emma who is deaf in one ear but remains much more attuned to what’s happening.). Moreover, he never considers relaying Emma’s explanations to Rachel, who really elevated this beyond reason.  If he had, then Borgli’s movie would have ended at the forty-five minute mark.  

With twenty minutes left in the movie, Charlie’s anguish cannot be contained. As the wedding day gets closer, he temporarily lets his guard down and loses a moment of commitment and clarity.  The math adds up to bloody and disastrous proportions at the wedding as toasts are drunkenly made by both Charlie and Rachel.  Poor Mike is delivering the cringe expressions that really belong in a bedroom farce and not in a movie called The Drama that reveals a lot of unwanted, meritless drama for the sake of earning movie ticket admission fees.

None of what you see in Kristoffer Borgli’s film is necessary.  It’s like an episode of Three’s Company.  If just one person would simply stop, think and clarify then all of this would be behind them.  Borgli doesn’t allow his characters to do the most obvious and sensible actions though.  He dumbs his characters down to persist the drama of The Drama.  

The end of the story lacks a payoff.  It’s never clear if all of the truth comes out or if any of these four characters see reason.  All that Borgli does is have Emma and Charlie reunite and try another reset method that they both attempted to do three separate times earlier in the movie.  Am I to believe that this time it’ll work because tears were shed and someone has a bloody nose?

I dunno!

Borgli seems to have painted his screenplay into a corner that he can’t escape.  So, he opts to go in a proverbial loop. If a band aid on a leaky pipe is not going to work the first time, why are you trying to put a new one on after that, and then another, and then another?  

THE END OF OAK STREET

By Marc S. Sanders

I look at a movie like The End Of Oak Street and I think to myself didn’t we once have all that we needed?  As kids raised in suburban life, we had our share of turmoil when mom and dad wouldn’t stop bickering and the neighborhood bully wouldn’t leave us alone.  However, Superman bedding, books on dinosaurs and the solar system, and a dog named Starbuck, along with neighborhood barbecues and a local library made up for a lot.  Movies like Gremlins, The Goonies and E.T. from the early 1980s were spared the onslaught zombified characters brainwashed by the World Wide Web, delivered by means of portable electronic devices.  In order to escape danger, you ran or pedaled as fast as you could while screaming your head off.  When you had a moment of respite, you stretched your imagination to logically surmise why the science fiction you always read about was actually coming true.  

When I saw those movies in the theaters and later rented from the video store, I didn’t have to reflect.  These were fresh tellings of new adventures with honest and relatable issues that might have been happening in other homes, just like they occurred in my house.  The End Of Oak Street invites you to reminisce while welcoming today’s generation to look beyond their Play Stations and A.I. reliance.  It’s a simple and familiar film not out to challenge you like a complex standardized test.    Writer/director David Robert Mitchell only wants to thrill your discoveries as they follow a terrifying, inescapable journey.

The Platt family do their best to maintain a family nucleus.  Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella, Christian Convery) are siblings who rely on each other while their parents, Denise and Greg (Anne Hathaway, Ewan MacGregor) seem like they are teetering on the unheard of D-word.  When I was growing up, only one kid in my school had divorced parents – far from what my daughter witnesses.  The family’s slivers of divide, along with that pesky bully and an irate neighbor who literally threatens to shoot Starbuck, take a back seat to strange occurrences of flashing lights at night and mounds of animal poop in the backyard.  There’s also plant life that grows quickly out of the ground, yet is of unknown origin. 

The day after the biggest flash happens, the Platts discover that their suburban neighborhood has been transported to prehistoric times when dinosaurs run amok.  Like a familiar franchise, these animals are ready to chase, roar and eat the neighbors.  The Platts seem to have the best luck at surviving though.  Now they have to figure out how to stick together, stay alive, hope that Starbuck comes home, and get back to present day, 1982.

The dinosaurs resemble the creatures of the Jurassic Park/World pictures.  David Robert Mitchell introduces some new breeds with toothlike delights, though.  My favorite was some kind of giant snake or eel that can gracefully enter a home from the upstairs bedroom and silently wind its way through the hallways, staircase and down to the kitchen before it quietly opens its wide maw with enormous fangs that are ready to bite down on Anne Hathaway.  Outstanding work!

There are triceratops and raptors and “veggies-saurouses,” and pterodactyls that claw and nibble and bite and roar and chase.  It’s nothing novel after twenty Jurassic movies.  Still, the time period and setting are new to this standard and the cast is genuine, well mostly.  Anne Hathaway hearkens back to the stressed suburban mom that Dee Wallace Stone delivered in E.T.  She’s a good housemaker at her wit’s end with a dream for another kind of life.  Ewan McGregor’s European dialect is hard to ignore.  So, he doesn’t exactly feel like that dad with the Adidas shorts, tube socks and white tennis shoes.  Greg delivers pizzas to make ends meet. It was hard to buy a guy with an accent designed for highbrow Shakespeare dropping off a large pie with everything on it. The character is drafted well as the paternal figure who is not the king of his castle and lacking all the answers. McGregor just feels more intelligent than Brian Platt is supposed to be.  In this movie, dad doesn’t drive.  Mom drives the car and wields the gun.  Craig T Nelson (Poltergeist) would never stand for that. Oscar Isaac was originally meant to play the role. He would have been a more appropriate choice.

The End Of Oak Street works like a rainy Saturday afternoon picture at the neighborhood theater when you’d be dropped off at the mall by mom while she ran her errands.  Bicycles and homemade bows and arrows fend your way through the made-up adventures in the woods or between the homes and within the backyards.  

Again, dinosaurs are nothing new or novel anymore, but David Robert Mitchell sets up a handful of shocking moments that will drop your jaw as some characters wind up in unexpected peril.  Other times you laugh as the Platts can only run across well mowed lawns, from one end of the street to the other.  It’s adventure, but this family also has time to come to grips with their hang ups while running out of food and avoiding being consumed by their unfamiliar environment.  

Anne Hathaway is especially right in this time period, and she only makes McGregor look more suitable in this middle Americana period setting.  When he speaks, I hear Obi Wan Kenobi and Trainspotting, but at least Hathaway keeps him engaged as a husband device for her performance as the frustrated, neglected housewife.  

The End Of Oak Street is a welcome passage of escape to a time when visual effects were being embraced as a means to tell wondrous stories of imagination.  It’s fortunate, that on the surface, its technology stops at the chapter of a once familiar now, when social media wasn’t needed to save your life, much less solve your problems. The family had to sleep on the family room floor together, and then assemble in a circle to talk to one another about whatever was bothering them.

JJ Abrams’ studio Bad Robot produced this film.  He also directed Super 8, a clear salute to Steven Spielberg’s alien adventures that’ll thrill you and make you ugly cry.  This is the director/producer’s specialty-to echo how much these films shaped so many of us into adulthood.  I hope Abrams and his production crew stay on this trajectory.  I’d like to play in the past a little more before I head back to my future.

THE ODYSSEY

By Marc S. Sanders

It seems that Christopher Nolan is left challenged by one thing – himself.  In less than thirty years this director/producer/writer has moved from the simplest of filmmaking with limited funds (Following, Memento) to enormous heights in bonanza showmanship like The Odyssey, the first movie to be completely shot with IMAX cameras.  These devices are expensive and according to Nolan, they are also heavy and overbearingly noisy.  Yet, IMAX accommodated the filmmaker with specialized boxes to contain their equipment and muffle the sound interference.  As such, The Odyssey is a wonder to the eye.  Frankly, as impressed as I was with the film, on the most ideal IMAX screen available, I still didn’t see anything that felt any grander than the latest Dune offerings.  I mean how far are my pair of 20/15 LASIK eyes supposed to decipher?  Don’t get me wrong.  I am impressed.  However, was I as impressed as I was supposed to be? Should I be nitpicking pixels here?

IMAX says it all though.  The landscapes of open desert plains and vast open waters are brilliantly captured.  I could never tell you of any inconsistencies or shortcomings.  Costumes serve just as any sword and sandal picture that came before.  The sound, especially in an IMAX theater, is immersive and deafening as expected. Tidal waves within blinding rainstorms demonstrate this wholeheartedly.  The cast is stacked with some of the best talent available. The Odyssey has everything it demands of its legacy and what’s expected of a Christopher Nolan film.  Yet, I was never emotionally invested in the picture.  Understand that Christopher Nolan knows how to reach an audience on a primordial level of emotions. Think back to Matthew McConaughey’s tearful moment in Interstellar or how he shares scenes with young Mackenzie Foy. Look at Christian Bale’s anguish during the middle section of The Dark Knight. Hugh Jackman and Bale compete for moments of deep rage and sadness within The Prestige.

Nolan wrote his adaptation of Homer’s poetically romantic adventure.  I recall reading it in high school.  The fat, floppy, black paperback that weighed down my book bag has never been forgotten.  The highlights of the story remain in my consciousness from the Trojan Horse to Helen Of Troy (the face that launched a thousand ships), and of course the central plot of having the famed Odysseus making his long awaited journey home.  It’s all here, and then there’s more including the towering Cyclops and Circe, the witch who can turn men into pigs.  Nolan’s film goes from chapter to chapter, beat by beat.  This easily could have been a ten-episode miniseries on HBO MAX, and people would eagerly watch every Sunday night.

I favor Nolan’s choice to rely on modern dialogue, without rooted domestic accents or dialects. It’s a wise choice when delivering a poetic opus to the screen. This movie is a story. It likely would not relate to audiences on a poetic level structured in stanzas. Homer’s work does not lend to dialogue like Shakespeare or Mamet. A friend took issue with referring to Odysseus and Penelope as “mom” and “dad.” I get it. Nolan’s picture is much bigger than Harry Potter. However, the characters are bonded as family. So, it’s a pick your preference kind of situation. You either embrace or it takes you out of the story on occasion.

I’m not sure what I can say that this beast of a film says for itself.  If you’re not dazzled by simply one shred of a moment in this picture, then you are impossible to satisfy. Consider me wowed, but I was not moved.  The same way that I was never absorbed with Homer’s piece.  It was a homework assignment that spanned a long month of my junior year.  As a film lover, it’s inevitable that I see this picture. If it’s the first complete IMAX picture from beginning to end, then yeah, I’m spending the extra money to see it that way.  Am I going to watch it on repeat, on home video 4K? Probably never on a whim.  It’s a chore.

First, the picture seems to presume the viewers have prior knowledge of elements like the battle of Troy and why the war took place before we see how the famed Trojan Horse led to Odysseus’ (Matt Damon) victory with his army.  I don’t recall all that merited the action, but Nolan’s footage is astounding, especially that enormous horse on its hind legs.  On screen, the figure is as towering as the Statue of Liberty. No wonder the thing is being sold as a popcorn bucket.  

As complex as Christopher Nolan’s films can be (Interstellar, Inception), I always thought he was great at spelling out his unique brands of formula.  It took me a good hour or more to pencil down who everyone is playing and what purpose they serve in The Odyssey.  It boasts a big cast of celebrities who are all given their moments to shine.  I was especially taken with Samantha Morton’s Circe, introduced as a helpless woman grotesquely ready to reveal something more.  Robert Pattinson is Antoninus, a bratty and cowardly adversary ready to assume rule now that Odysseus has not returned.  He truly owns the picture when the focus turns back to him amid the rest of the cast and extras that occupy the room.

Anne Hathaway as Odysseus’ wife Penelope demonstrates nice range away from her Prada films and warm-hug kinds of pictures.  She looks quite unfamiliar while leaning into what you’d expect from Cate Blanchett.  Tom Holland drops the adolescent mischief of Spider-Man to play Telemachus, the son who takes it upon himself to uncover where his father could be after being gone for two decades.

Lupita Nyong’o may not look like she belongs in a story originated in Greek fiction, but she serves her small but significant role(s) with fierceness.  I’m not petty enough to let the appearance or history of an actor diminish my experience of seeing a sensational performance.  The same goes for Elliot Page in a crucial cameo.  As an aside, knock it off with the woke protests. Theatre is theatre and this is centered in mythology with a Cyclops of all things. If the Romans of Gladiator can speak with English accents, then in the fiction of Hollywoodland, casting has no limits.

I do not think the finished product The Odyssey is a new kind of novelty for filmmaking.  Christopher Nolan is taking advantage of the latest advancements that Peter Jackson did with his Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit trilogies.  If Nolan didn’t make this movie, Jackson would likely step up.  The swordplay and battles are as similar as most anything else that’s sent out each year.  Nolan has not reinvented the wheel in that aspect.  Likely he’s done it with how he made this picture.  That’s a blessing and a curse.  

The Odyssey is seamless, but how am I to recognize what’s done better here than what Jackson or Denis Villanelle has accomplished with their works?  I guess I had to be on set.  Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and company testify to how astounding the experience has been.  I choose to believe them though I can’t compound what was embarked. For example, the actors enthusiastically celebrate the director’s idea to have then perform speaking to the mirror image of their scene partners. The mirror was mounted next to the IMAX lens and thus reduced time and cost for reshoots with the bulky and expensive equipment. Something like that. See, I do not see the advantage of this technique when I’m sitting in the theatre. There it is, though. Amazing! Incredible! It can be the greatest hot dog I’ve ever savored. Yet, I never went to the sausage factory.

I know my enthusiasm does not measure up to what so many others are saying.  The Odyssey is just an overwhelming picture.  The storytelling seems all too familiar, and yet not everything feels completely clear and decipherable.  Visually, it will always be stunning, even on a 55-inch flat screen. I wish Nolan offered more definition to the giant Cyclops (played by the master of mime and body manipulation, famed Ringling performer Bill Irwin who was TARS in Interstellar).  The movie will easily sweep all the technical awards while only earning acting nominations for Morton and maybe Hathaway.  Matt Damon earns recognition for exerting himself like never before in muscle mass. He’s only improved what he’s physically done in the Bourne films, for example.

This is a major hurdle that Christopher Nolan has elevated to, and a new bar has been set at a taller height.  Still, this picture never stayed with me like his Dark Knight trilogy that covered everything from sensational action to questions of morality. His brainy science fiction challenged protagonists to extend themselves towards sheer impossibilities of comprehension like Inception, Interstellar, or The Prestige.  Even a biographical story like Oppenheimer left me more emotionally consumed than The Odyssey, because the title character served as a puppeteered villain to everyone else, including himself internally.  Odysseus leans on Athena for solace, played by Zendaya, serving as an imaginary friend to the hero. He’s marooned with Calypso (Charlize Theron) serving as a sounding board while Odysseus struggles to recollect the memories of his adventures. All the parts are here like a grocery shopping list, but the connections just don’t feel as warm as they were in Nolan’s other pieces.

That’s okay though.  We all have our favorite flavors of ice cream. Just like we all have our favorite efforts of Christopher Nolan.

What’s this guy gonna do next? I cannot wait to find out because it’s never simplistic and always challenging with a sense of thrill and knowledge.

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY

Tom Holland’s fourth stand-alone film as the most famous web slinger of all time is his best installment and easily ranks at the very top of the very long list of MCU films.  Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a movie full of emotion, depth, and conflict ablaze in outstanding action sequences that reach new heights.  Finally, the Kevin Feige machine serves Tom Holland a hundred percent correctly.  There is not one weak moment in this new picture.  If anything, it serves as a reminder of what the recent Supergirl neglected in its construction. 

The story jumps to around four years after the complicated events that overflowed with experimental multi-dimensional fun in the last picture, No Way Home.  That movie opted to surrender to fan service with every favorite Christmas ornament on the tree.  Brand New Day delivers an assortment of new characters to progress a solid storyline of curveball surprises.  Thankfully, the narrative stands on its own with a grounded sense of maturity.  Tom Holland is no longer portraying Peter Parker as a klutzy dweeb whose silly carelessness leads to mountains of unamusing mishaps.

A sinister new kind of villain is terrorizing Peter/Spidey in a post age where no one has any recollection of Peter Parker, including his love interest MJ and his best friend Ned (Zendaya, Jacob Batalon). As well, his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) has now passed on while he’s left only with daily visits to her grave to offer solace.  Peter’s isolation as a super-hero crime fighter in New York is now that much more troubling as he cannot fathom how to approach this new antagonist who has a novel way of hiding within the populace of the city while staying right on Peter’s tail with disturbing torment. 

As well, returning writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers weave in a very popular storyline from the classic silver age comics as poor Spidey seems to lose concentration of his powers and thus some frightening inconveniences occur.  To aid the web head with these new challenges is the acerbic anti-hero Frank Castle aka The Punisher (Jon Bernthal, graduating from the Netflix/Disney + Marvel streaming series) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) who seems to have a proper stronghold on his Mr. Hyde, green goliath persona. For now!!!! There’s also the superhero clean-up crew known as the Department Of Damage Control, led by actor Tramell Tillman (from the inventive Apple + series Severance, which I strongly recommend).  A phone call away is a likable police lieutenant (Liza Colón-Zayas) and the new Black Widow aka Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) has an unsuspecting “office” nearby.

Everything looks improved in Brand New Day.  The Hulk is bigger, fiercer and angrier.  He’s much more well defined in his action scenes.  Frank Castle is not a hi & bye character.  He blends into the storyline of the film, with just enough backstory to care about his relationship to Spider-Man, unlike the fruitless contribution of Lobo in Supergirl.  All other characters are served valuable purpose to the transitions of the screenplay. 

Spider-Man actually occupies most of the film with the mask on.  Finally!!!!  What frustrated me tremendously about the first two Holland films was that the hero was hardly shown wearing the familiar threads of bright blue and red with the web stitching.  When I am watching a Spider-Man movie, I want to see Spider-Man.  At last, McKenna, Somers and new director to the franchise, Destin Daniel Cretton get it right.  The mask stays on.  The costume stays on.  Webs are shooting out all over the city and their various designs are wildly imaginative found in the best comic book issues. 

The choreography of the action sequences is superb frame for frame with punches, kicks, acrobatics and deflections.  Web swinging goes to new heights and across wide diameters.  Everything looks like a perfect design.

The second half of Brand New Day opens up some wonderful twists that lead the film down new paths.  What I’m grateful for is that this time Peter Parker works to solve all the dilemmas on his own.  He doesn’t turn to guys like Iron Man, Dr. Strange or Happy Hogan.  There is a wealth of Marvel favorites here, but this picture truly belongs to the title character Spider-Man following a promising formula used with Chris Evans in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Cretton wisely closes the film with a feel-good salute to Spidey’s hometown of New York City.  No special visuals or dazzling sci fi or animation.  Just sites of the most popular city in the world.  After a whirlwind experience of a breezy two and a half hours, this was the most suitable way to close out this outstanding chapter.  No needle drops of pop music.  Rather, sensitive instrumentals and bright visuals that lend to positive outlooks for the world we all share together.  Movies are not just for escape. Movies also have the magic to make us feel good about ourselves.

Tom Holland has wonderful chemistry with the whole cast.  I believe the scenes he shares with Zendaya are the couple’s best to date.  On rooftops high above the city and later in a confined room, the two actors have focused emotions accompanied with dialogue that never feels hammy or something built for daytime soap opera.  Just great acting from both leads who embrace how serious millions of fans are about the best in comic book film adaptations.  No one in this cast is cashing in a paycheck here.  They are looking to do great work that will stand the test of time when this movie is popped in the blu ray player ten or twenty years from now.

As the third act of this film began, I told myself this is easily in the top five best films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and without question the best Spider-Man film to date.  Anyone who frowns on comic book movies (Martin Scorcese, Terry Gilliam) need to become more open minded.  The best ones look for internal conflicts, remorse, love, hate, insecurity, trauma, grief, happiness, duty and responsibility.  Spider-Man: Brand New Day covers all of these bases.

One of the year’s best films.

SUPERGIRL

By Marc S. Sanders

I don’t understand it.  A billion-dollar movie studio like Warner Brothers, with DC Studios, has all of the resources imaginable and nearly ninety years of source material to draw from and they opt for absolute dreck populated with three literal vomit scenes.  In the first twenty seconds of the movie, the hero’s dog urinates on the floor!  This is Supergirl, and this is the best they came up with?

Milly Alcock is a fine actress. She’s got an unusual tomboy appearance (that is unfairly and cruelly being ridiculed online) and she’s ready to offer gusto and nerve. Unfortunately, with her first big marquee picture, she is wrongly lent a disservice with a terrible script written by Ana Nogueira (The Vampire Diaries).  The story is simple and that’s not a complaint.  Basically, a villain called Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), who looks like a foreground extra from a Mad Max picture, gets his spot in the limelight when he slaughters the family of a young girl named Ruthye (Eve Ridley) and poisons the super terrier dog Krypto.  Kara Zor-El (aka Supergirl) has 72 hours to find Krem and recover the antidote or the lovable mutt will die.  Plus, she has to discourage Ruthye from slaying Krem out of a means of revenge.  While they are at it, Kara might as well try to break up a trafficking ring of young girls held in captivity. The pair hop from one seedy bar to another in their quest and encounter the ugliest alien beings imaginable.  These are all Star Wars rejects of the worst looking kind.  None of these characters would even make good action figures.

Spliced within this main plot line, Kara recalls her origin on Kryton, followed by her arrival on Earth where she meets Kal-El, aka Clark Kent/Superman (David Corenswet), for the first time. These flashbacks are the best parts of the picture. Kara struggles with staying by her dying family or leaving them to survive and prosper as a hero.  The demise of Krypton is covered again but then there are residual moments that pertain specifically to Kara that were not extensively covered in other films.

Otherwise, this gal is a miserable drunk, wanting to celebrate her twenty-third birthday by herself, because that’s entertaining and healthy. When she’s not drunk, she’s just hungover.  How is any of this fun or appealing?  Moreover, this is Supergirl. So, I want to see her dressed as Supergirl.  The imagery sells these comic book characters, right.  It’s about pictured aesthetics first.  Kara allows her oversized trench coat to drape sloppily over her hair and untucked Blondie t-shirt.  Bubble size sunglasses hide her red eye. It’s like the costumer and creators are trying as hard as they can to make her as repulsive as possible. Are we meant to enjoy this? Supergirl is not John Belushi in Animal House. He made drunkenness an art form.

Kara’s Kryptonian mother gets sick.  So, she throws up.  Kara gets poisoned.  So, she throws up.  Kara pees with the door opened.  She munches on alien poop and then realizes it tastes like shit.  Duh!  Ruthye spits on Krem. Krypto pees on a Superman newspaper article.  Every bodily fluid imaginable is presented to disgust your pallet, and if it is done for bathroom humor it’s not funny and if it is done for dramatic heights, it really was never, ever necessary.

Jason Momoa is back as Aquaman…I’m sorry Lobo, who’s basically Aquaman now, but caked in black vampire makeup and equipped with a cigar and a motorcycle.  He’s a b-character from the DC comics. An anti-hero that I think enthusiasts celebrate like they do with Deadpool.  The guy looks like a KISS rocker from outer space.  Though I don’t know what he contributes to this movie with the exception of finally bringing the ever so famous Lobo to life.  The guy never turns the tides on the narrative.  He has nothing funny to say like Deadpool might.  His motorcycle doesn’t perform any outstanding stunts.  His cigar lights up without a match, and he sits in a prison cell.  That’s it! He’s muscle but with no expressive superpowers. He observes, rather than participates. So, what’s he doing here?

After all of the Superman iterations and spinoffs, why does James Gunn, who is blessed with creative control of the entire DC franchise, stay away from the wide gallery of rogue villains offered over the last century of comic books. There’s Braniac (who I’ve read will finally arrive in the next Superman film), Metallo, and Mr. Mytxlplyk.  The Toyman too. Heck, Jerry Seinfeld introduced the backwards/opposite functioning Bizzaro Superman in his sitcom about nothing.  These are all drawn from the weird cloth that I’d think Gunn would encourage since his success with Guardians Of The Galaxy.  Instead, we are dealt an unappealing, truly ugly and uncool, one-dimensional adversary with spikes in his face, dressed in leather.  I read that Krem is a featured bad guy in recent comic iteration of Supergirl. I don’t care. This storyline adaptation is a terrible option to follow. The day after seeing this movie, I can’t even recall what accent this guy Krem uses.  He’s positively forgettable and I think as unimaginable an invention as that nuclear dude from Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.  

Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) has not assembled a good film.  I saw it on IMAX, and the enhancement did his picture no favors. Supergirl punches and kicks more than she flies.  She shoots the lasers out of her eyes and uses the x-ray vision, but where’s the super breath?  Where’s the super speed? The super hearing? Couldn’t we see her fly more?  The fight choreography is clunky and at times hard to decipher through dark CGI moving at too many frames per second.   Gillispie’s team only makes up for that by deliberately concealing Kara kicking ass and focusing on Ruthye shuddering under a table during a barroom brawl.  Not cute.  Not funny.  Just lazy craftsmanship.

There’s no wit to anything said.  Krypto is cute as a misbehaving rascal, but there’s nothing to laugh or cheer for in the rest of the film, and when Supergirl finally defeats Krem, her last act is offensively anticlimactic.  Actually, it’s obscenely hypocritical to the doctrines she tried to instill in Ruthye over the course of the film, and it crudely defies what the Superman/Supergirl mythology has always stood for.  I wanted to throw my popcorn at the screen.

Supergirl is not a total failure thanks to Milly Alcock.  She looks great in the costume and has a heroic appeal in the limited time that’s offered from the script.  Krypto is a precocious troublemaker and the Kryton footage and background look sharp, even if unoriginal. Efforts to make the alien dialogue feel authentic works nicely and enhances the fantasy/sci-fi demands.  Yet, these are just small ingredients in a stew lacking anything savory.  

Since 1984, Kal-El’s cousin has been done criminally wrong now for the third time (don’t forget The Flash from a few years ago) on the big screen. On all occasions it’s clear the filmmakers didn’t even try to research and explore what was easily at their fingertips.  Instead, they just literally vomited, shit, spit and pissed out whatever popped into their heads first – a John Wick storyline with a failed Mad Max villain, drenched in an assortment of bodily fluids.

Fly away from Supergirl. 

OBSESSION

By Marc S. Sanders

Curry Barker is a director that I intend to enthusiastically follow just as I did when Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan were building their astonishing careers. Those guys reshaped the conventions of filmmaking.  Curry Barker has done the same by simplifying the horror genre, hiding his subjects in eerie darkness, holding his shots and relying on very, very good young actors, capable of comedy, drama and absolute unpredictable terror.  He’s done all of this for under a million dollars.

The more often I stick to my guns and not read or watch anything about an upcoming film before seeing it, the likelier it is I walk out immensely satisfied.  With Obsession, I only knew it has become a monster, must-see sleeper hit and it’s a horror movie.  The title implies another Fatal Attraction rehash. Yet, it is something else entirely.  It operates like a short story ghost tale whispered around the campfire and stretches a long, long way.

Barker directs his script that covers a shy and geeky twenty something kid named Bear (Michael Johnston) who lacks the gumption to profess his love for his co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarrette).  He enters an unusual charm shop looking for a token of his affection for her and comes upon a novelty item called a “One Wish Willow.”  Take it out of the box, make a wish, snap it in half.  

Bear still can’t find the words to talk to happy go lucky Nikki, but he uses the opportunity to make his own wish. Instantly, things take effect and Nikki develops an unexpected attraction to Bear that surprises him and their friends.  Yet, the fondness Nikki has seems to enhance with extreme oddity while gradually becoming terribly unhealthy.  Bear loves this instant attention, but he’s got to set some boundaries that he and Nikki should abide.  If only Nikki could understand, but she cannot help but whine about her extreme wants and desires, and when I say whine, I mean WHIIIIIIINE!!!!!!  However, a wish is a wish.

Like most horror movies, a supernatural entity or monster drives the threat.  In slasher schlock, the horny, teenage would-be victims run and cry while Jason or Michael pursue them with a machete.  They can’t be reasoned with because they don’t speak.  They only hack and chop and bloodlet.  Nikki functions on personality disorders that run wild.  You can talk to Nikki, and she’ll smile and nod and lovingly agree, but it may not be enough.  Nor it will not contain other abnormal behaviors.  Bear can try leaving for work in the morning.  The door is right in front of him and Nikki is only wishing he has the best day ever, but what has Nikki done to the door???? Anyway, she’s packed him a delicious lunch.  

The first ten minutes of Obsession are a bit of a chore to get through.  I did not think the characters were carved out well at the start and Barker directs and writes Johnston’s character, Bear, with an excessive amount of stuttering and bashfulness while not allowing much to happen with Nikki.  Yet, once the wish is made every moment of the rest of this film performs with dread, shock and surprising uneasiness.  

Barker finds simple ways to shoot Inde Navarrette in silhouette from the neck up with darkness in the background.  Her eyes will then illuminate through black.  Unusual body language on the far side of the bedroom implies that something is amiss.  Navarrette is a superb character actress who can shape shift facial expressions and maintain concentrated stares as well as Jim Carrey.  Barker holds his camera on Navarrette for long close up takes that make you feel awkward, nervous and scared.  She has an ability to work with her dimpled cheshire cat smiles and EXTREME frowny faces that quietly scream abnormality.  This is an astonishing introduction for a developing new actress capable of doing heavy drama and broad comedy.  I would not be surprised if the Farrelly brothers or Judd Apatow seek her out for their notable raunch/riot fests.  Momentum of awards consideration for her performance is building and rightly so.  Inde Navarrette is as compelling and strong as recent Oscar winner Mikey Maddison in Anora.  Between Emily Blunt (Disclosure Day), Rachel McAdams (Send Help) and Inde Navarrette, actress categories for this year could consist of horror/sci fi contenders, making it hard to single out one from the other.  

Michael Johnston gets better as Barker’s script carries on.  His character is not meant for great accomplishments, and the actor is quite good at showing helplessness with limited intellect and instinct.  I imagine this fresh faced actor is much smarter and wittier than the craft of his character.  At least, Barker’s writing gets stronger with this dweeb after the first few pages of the screenplay.

Obsession works like a disturbed antithesis to an animated Disney movie, and reinvents the deal with the devil motif.  I read that the writer/director recruited his father to write a monologue for possessed Nikki that references the Grimm elements of Hansel & Gretel.  It’s no wonder that story about the children who are lured into an enticing gingerbread house is rarely adapted.  Inde Navarette beautifully captures your fear as Barker allows her all the time in the world to express Nikki’s descriptive, yet nonsensical, mindset.

The suspense in Obsession holds through the entire course of the movie and I was asking simple questions to resolve Bear’s dilemma.  Eventually Curry Barker logically offers satisfying answers.  He abides by the rules of his supernatural fiction and doesn’t cheat the audience with a quick escape plan or a Hail Mary invention to wrap up his hanging threads.  Jump scares consistently serve the story, with one especially pulpy and unforgettable moment that should leave you screaming with horror and laughter.  This new filmmaker has thought everything out with dark and murky photography and a shrilling assembly of sound meant to chaotically startle you.  Again, everything technically found in this picture, made on shoestring budget, effectively builds and enhances the story.  The whole of everyone’s crafts and specialties show beautifully.

I saw Obsession a week ago and have not stopped thinking about it since.  

Try to see this in theaters.  It deserves your attention with a great surround sound system inside the darkest viewing arena you can find.  The more crowded the theater is the better the experience should be.  

Obsession is one of the best pictures of the year.