ANSELM

Directing: C+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: C+
Music: B

It’s not often that the experience of a film so closely resembles getting a dose of chloroform. I suppose that’s hyperbole, but I was certainly sedated. I truly could not keep myself awake during Anselm.

Art is subjective, right? I hesitate to say this makes Anselm a bad movie. And there were moments, when I managed to stay awake, that I was genuinely astonished and amazed. Anselm Kiefer, a German painter and sculptor who is now 79 years old, is seen in this film working on many of his countless works of art—this guy is incredibly prolific. And makes tactile, three-dimensional pieces on canvases so huge, often twice his height and double again the width, that countless of his pieces are seen, both stored and in progress, in a gigantic warehouse. He gets around the space riding on a bicycle.

In one sequence, Kiefer is seen melting metals down into liquids, then pouring it from a bucket—using a pulley system operated from a safe distance—directly onto a canvas lying flat on the floor. It’s genuinely fascinating, and makes you yearn to find the finished piece, wherever it is now, and touch it. In fact, Kiefer evidently has so many pieces in a quasi-abstract style that is very much my jam, I would be first in line to an exhibit were I to find out there was one near me. Seeing the art in person, I am sure, would be very stimulating indeed, on both visual and tactile levels.

Which is all to say, I don’t think my response to the film Ansel has anything to do with Ansel Kiefer at all. Rather, it has to do with the film’s director Wim Wenders, who once made a name for himself with eighties films like Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire. And, to be fair, the critical consensus with Anselm is very high praise indeed—and I don’t begrudge anyone responding to this film in such a way. Still, I have to speak my truth, and my truth is that this movie literally sedated me.

It’s not like I was operating on lack of sleep or anything. I was perfectly alert before going into the theater, and woke right up when the movie ended (when I was also relieved it was over). There’s something about the smooth, gliding movements of the camera as it passes through Kiefer’s works of art, alternating between a soothing, quiet score, and much longer shots of total silence. It’s the visual equivalent of being rocked to sleep.

The theater where I saw this movie, at 7:30 on a Friday night, was surprisingly full, and I found myself looking around to see if I could get any sense of how the rest of the audience was reacting to it. I couldn’t tell if anyone else was nodding off, but it did strike me that I could not hear anyone eating popcorn. It did feel like, in one way or another, the rest of the audience was also being put under some kind of spell.

It should be noted, also, that Anselm is being presented in 3D. I feel compelled to mention the 2012 documentary Pina, featuring dance tributes to German choreographer Pina Bausch. That film was also presented in 3D, the first documentary feature I had ever seen in that format, and I was truly blown away by it, completely held in its thrall. I actually came to Anselm with Pina very much in mind, thinking: if a documentary must be presented in 3D, an examination of art is the way to do it. How much closer can you get to feeling like you’re in the same room with it, without actually being there?

The stark difference really comes down to tone. Pina was a film of action, a kind of documented series of interpretive dances. Anselm, by contrast, is a visual catalog of stationery objects. I don’t dislike museums, but they do have a tendency to tire me out surprisingly quickly; I get fatigued, as though all that art has tested the limits of my brain function. This was essentially my response to Anselm, just much more severe. I hadn’t been this powerless to sleep since I was anesthetized for a colonoscopy.

My best theory is that it simply had to do with the environmental context: a movie that lulled me to sleep, the 3D format giving it a heightened realism, in a very dark movie theater. I suspect this film, ironically, might be more effective seen in 2D at home. If nothing else, it introduced me to an artist I had never heard of, whose art itself I actually love.

I didn’t actually want to take a nap, I swear!

Overall, what I actually saw: B-

DUNE PART TWO

Directing: A-
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: A
Editing: B+
Special Effects: A

The word “iconic” has been overused for decades. For this reason, I don’t ever use it. Maybe Dune Part Two is the exception that proves the rule. There is a moment in this film that is so visually iconic, it looks like the cover of a pulp science fiction novel come to life. There’s nothing kitschy about it, though; it’s very earnest—a key element of both these movies’ success.

I have to admit, I spent a fair amount of Dune Part Two thinking that it might not be living up to the hype. I wanted to be bowled over, overwhelmed by my love for it, and that wasn’t quite happening. The thing is, that’s just not how Denis Villeneuve operates. This is an artist with such unparalleled skill as a storyteller, you need to regard the piece in its entirely before you can properly judge it. This movie does not disappoint.

There’s something about Dune Part One, released in the fall of 2021—two and a half years ago—that makes it stand apart. I really liked that film when I first saw it, but I didn’t love it. And yet, every single time I rewatch that film, I appreciate it more than the last. I’ve seen it at least four times now, and I still notice new details every time.

It is for that reason that I expect the same thing with Dune Part Two. I’m not yet prepared to declare my undying love for it, but, much like Paul Atreides’s visions, I can see a near future where I’ve gotten to that point. I am genuinely looking forward to seeing this movie again, and will certainly be seeing it many times. This first go-round, I know there is much I did not catch, which is to be expected with films so well adapted from literary source material, but material I have not read. I have started to consider reading it, though.

I am especially looking forward to the point at which both Dune Part One and Dune Part Two are avaiable to watch together, back to back, as one film. Part One was two hours and 35 minutes long; Part Two is two hours and 46 minutes; the two combined, as one interrupted narrative, would make a five hour and 21-minute movie. When combined, maybe one of the greatest science fiction films ever made.

Has anyone else thought to compare this to Kill Bill Vol. I and Kill Bill Vol. II? Wildly different movies, obviously, but a key thing in common: a first part that ends abruptly, with much of the story clearly left to go—but incredible up to that point. Then the second, concluding part comes out, and even the first part is improved when regarded as part of the whole.

And there’s a lot new to discover in Dune Part Two, particularly when it comes to the cast. Zendaya had all of seven minutes of screen time in the first Dune, and as expected, here becomes a critical part of the story. She is great as expected as Chani, as is Timothée Chalamet as Paul—effectively embodying a young man who is maturing, for both good and for ill, before our eyes—but I simply must mention Austin Butler, as Feyd-Rautha, nephew to the grotesque Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). I could already tell from Elvis that he was a very good actor, but only when comparing that to his performance here does Austin Butler prove to be an astonishing talent. He’s not just the most eminently believable psychotic character in this movie, but he takes it a step further with an incredible vocal performance just similar enough to Stellan Skarsgård’s to make him believable as a relative of his.

There’s a lot of other new famous faces introduced to Part Two: Christopher Walken as the Emperor; Florence Pugh as his daughter, Stellan Skarsgård; Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot Fenring, one of the Bene Gesserit; even Anya Taylor-Joy as a flash-forward of Paul’s little sister. Unfortunately, none of these top-notch actors get much to work with, while Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson (as Paul’s mother, Jessica), Josh Brolin and especially Javier Bardem get all the desert scenery to chew. Anya Taylor-Joy get about one minute, if that, of screen time.

It’s understandable, however, for them all to want to be part of something that is greater than the sum of its parts. There may not be any better example of that phrase than the two Dune movies—and, incidentally, unlike many other franchises, you absolutely need to have seen Dune Part One in order to fully appreciate, or possibly even understand, this movie. They really should be regarded as part of a collective whole, like Kill Bill or The Lord of the Rings.

The special effects, once again, are spectacular. Even more of this film takes place on the desert planet of Arrakis than the previous one did, and still Villenueve makes it a work of art, between the incredible cinematography and the seamlessly integrated visual effects. The fact alone that he manages to render characters riding sandworms without it looking ridiculous is an impressive accomplishment. The sandworms alone give the film an arresting, visual grandeur.

None of this would matter, of course, without such rich storytelling, in a fully realized, wholly separate universe. For much of this film, we see Paul learn the ways of the Fremen, the people native to the desert, fighting alongside them, protesting their insistence that he is their Messiah while also using that faith to his advantage. This film certainly has more to say about religion, a running subtext to the intergalactic political intrigue and fighting between different planetary clans. Which of these “houses” will ultimately gain the greatest power is incidental to the means by which this power is attained.

I will say, I could feel large swaths of the source material left unaddressed, at least not directly, while watching Dune Part Two. But, like Dune Part One, it is denslely packed with information, which no doubt gives greater satisfaction to those familiar with the books, and more easily picked up on by the rest of us with subsequent viewings. “Epic” is another word I try to avoid because of its overuse, but it is unavoidable here. This is an epic film for the 21st century, done right in a way it hasn’t been for decades, a classic that might just be beloved for generations to come.

Just when you wonder when there will be shock and awe . . . it comes.

Overall: A-

DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS

Directing: C
Acting: B
Writing: C+
Cinematography: B-
Editing: C-

Here’s a protip: if you go to the movies a lot, and you see the same trailer before every single one of those movies, that’s a move that smacks of desperation. This is doubly the case if the movie in question opens in February, otherwise known as “Dumpuary,” the month when studios dump their movies they know aren’t going to work. And they they market the shit out of it (Argylle, anyone?), hoping to maximize opening weekend receipts before bad word of mouth can tank it.

Why did I even bother going to see Drive-Away Dolls then, you might wonder? Well, this one has relatively mixed, almost teetering into positive, reviews. And more importantly, it’s directed and co-written by Ethan Coen, writing with his wife and longtime collaborator Tricia Cooke. And Ethan Coen, along with his brother Joel, have long been among my all-time favorite directors—when they are working together. In 2021, Joel branched off on his own to bring us The Tragedy of Macbeth—he went highbrow, while Ethan went decidedly lowbrow. The secret to their success has historically been a unique blend of the two. It’s clear that these two just aren’t as great apart as they are together. Unfortunately, Drive-Away Dolls doesn’t quite work.

I wish I could tell you that Drive-Away Dolls were the “proudly unimportant lesbian comedy” that it was reportedly intended to be. It’s the perfect time for such a thing. This movie, however, could have been a tight, hilarious, 30-minute film short, which Ethan Coen managed to turn into the longest 84-minute movie I’ve ever sat through. How do you make a movie with interstitial scenes that feel like filler? Coen pulls off a genuinely dull magic trick. To be fair, in the end these psychedelic interludes—one of which inexplicably renders a twirling pizza with its toppings floating away—prove to be crucial to the plot. That doesn’t change how inessential and overlong they feel in the moment.

The one genuinely good thing in this movie is Beanie Feldstein, in a supporting role as a cop ex-girlfriend of one of the two protagonists. The leads, Margaret Qualley as Jamie the thick-accented Texan living in Philadelphia and Geraldine Viswanathan as Marian the repressed bookworm friend, have genuine charisma. They are also both straight women playing lesbians, and Feldstein feels a little like “legit lesbian cred” getting tossed in there for us queer audience members actually paying attention to these things.

(The original title was supposed to be Drive-Away Dykes, and then it got sanitized. And while it’s entirely possible either of the two leads could identify as queer, they are hardly the kind of out-lesbian actors that would have been more appropriately cast in the roles. Furthermore, and I did not realize this when first writing this review and am having to go back and edit a bit, Ethan and Tricia are essentially in a polyamorous relationship, still married to each other but both with other partners, and Tricia partnered with a woman. This would seem to give the film more “queer cred” than I initially assumed, but here’s the thing: it really changes nothing about how this film comes across.)

Feldstein, who was truly wonderful in Bookstmart (in which, ironically, she plays a straight girl best friends with a lesbian), really needs to be cast as the lead in another comedy that’s actually good. It’s what she deserves. It’s what we all deserve.

Should I tell you anything about the plot? It doesn’t matter, you don’t need to see this movie, but whatever. “Drive-away” is a term for drivers for hire who take a rental car from one location to another. Jamie and Marian take a quasi-spontaneous getaway, from Philadelphia to Tallahassee, by means of such a job—and wind up taking someone else’s job by accident, thereby also making off with the horrifying and/or hilarious contents of a hat box and a metal briefcase stashed in the trunk.

Coen apparently called in a lot of favors, because the cast of characters Jamie and Marion encounter on this road trip is truly stacked with stars: Pedro Pascal in a shockingly small part; Colman Domingo as the leader of the trio on Jamie and Marion’s tail; Bill Camp as the car rental clerk; Matt Damon as a Florida senator. For some reason, this movie is set in 1999, maybe so that the many questions Jamie asks at Florida businesses about whether they support queer people won’t feel too politically charged. Except, of course, this movie still exists in 2024, and the references stick out to the point of distraction, especially considering how little it has to do with the actual story.

Which brings us back to that “proudly unimportant” bit. Even proudly unimportant movies should aspire to something better than pointless at best and tedious at worst. More than once I thought while watching this movie, What are we doing? For most of its time, it’s just killing time. And a movie that is just killing time feels like an eternity—not what you want for what’s supposed to be a breezy, quirky comedy. To be fair, it did get a couple of good laughs out of me, especially one visual gag involing a dildo. It comes along far too late, after I grew exasperated with this movie’s inability to settle on a tone.

A collective less than the sum of its lesbian parts.

Overall: C+

PERFECT DAYS

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

I guess you could say Perfect Days is a mood. In which case, your mileage may vary widely, depending on your frame of mind when you approach this film—if you approach it at all. This is another one of those movie where critics predictably adore it, and I know many people who would never have the patience for it.

Director and co-writer Wim Wenders focuses on Hirayama (a wonderful Kôji Yakusho, who is in nearly every frame of the film), an older man who spends his work days cleaning Tokyo toilets. The company he works for is apparently very literal when it comes to their business name: Hirayama’s jumpsuit is emblazoned with the words, in English, The Tokyo Toilet.

And to be clear: we spend a lot of time following Hirayama around, cleaning public toilets around the city. A more conventional film would spend a fair amount of time following him on his routine for, say, one day. And then the next day, maybe some variation. But Wenders really wants us to settle into Hirayama’s world, and we follow him around for multiple days, seemingly nothing of note happening to him. Any small variation that does occur—places he goes to eat, for example—prove to be just as much a part of his regular routine, just not necessarily on a daily cadence.

Watching this movie, I found myself thinking about the surprise #1 movie on the 2022 Sight and Sound list of the best movies of all time: Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Both movies exist to make us feel as though we are living a person’s life with them. The key difference between Perfect Days is that we follow the character outside his home. He spends a lot of time driving through the mass of steel and pavement that is Tokyo—with a great many angles on the 2,080-foot Tokyo Skytree—and even more time cleaning toilets. But, many of these toilets are in city parks, small urban oases of lush greenery. And, in sharp contrast to Jeanne Dielman, whose point of view is ultimately bleak, Hirayama is a deeply contented man, living a simple life to which he is utterly suited. He is a man of so few words, he utters almost nothing in the film’s first 45 minutes.

And, over time, small details creep into notice. Other people passing through his orbit, using the toilets, indicate in very subtle ways how they think of him as dirty. When Hirayama finds a lost little boy and takes him by the hand to find his mother, the mother pays no attention to Hirayama and immediately disinfects the boy’s hands. I must admit to some ambivalence about this depiction, myself. I would also want to wash my hands immediately after, say, shaking the hand of a guy I knew just spent all day cleaning toilets.

Granted, there could be a cultural difference here. Hirayama cleans an astonishing number of single occupancy public toilets, and at least as depicted here, they look remarkably clean even before he gets to them. Whether this is typical of Japanese society or just a contrivance of this film, I have no idea. I just know that if these toilets were in the United States, they would look like a sewer exploded inside them within hours.

Hirayama indicates a tendency to notice and appreciate small pleasures, often while he’s doing his work. He takes photos, with an old camera that uses film, of branches overhead from his lunch bench in the park. He appreciates colorful reflective light under an overhanging roof of a toilet next to a busy street. The point is, if you are receptive to the specificity of what Perfect Days has to offer, it takes on a warmly compelling quality.

And, eventually, certain character details emerge. Hirayama’s young niece, Niko (Arisa Nakano), shows up unexpectedly, having run away from home. Hirayama is a man of so few words, he accepts this stoically, although he does call his sister soon enough. If this were an American movie, the niece would show up on day two. Here, the movie must be half over before she appears, interrupting Hirayama’s comfortable routine, but in a way that he accepts with passive grace.

Perfect Days is somewhat long, particularly at the pace it unfolds, at two hours and three minutes (counting the credits). But two key scenes occur in the last quarter of the film, and I am unconvinced that their impact would be quite as effective if we hadn’t spent all that time with him beorehand. One of them involves his sister, and one involves the ex-husband of the lady who runs one of the restaurants he frequents. Neither of them are major surprises—nothing in Perfect Days is jarring—but neither of the scenes that unfold are quite expected either. In a way, they just further enrich Hirayama’s world, whis is explicitly described to Niko as wholly separate from her mother’s. I found them to be unexpectedly, almost sneakily moving.

They don’t particularly change the mood, either. Perfect Days takes on a tone that evokes those days you spent out and about in a solitude you find yourself particularly enjoying. Hirayama has made that his way of life. We’ve just been granted the privilege of a brief visit into his world.

It’s a lovely day in the park. And in toilets.

Overall: B+

THE TASTE OF THINGS

Directing: A
Acting: A-
Writing: A-
Cinematography: A
Editing: A

It’s been said that you shouldn’t watch The Taste of Things on an empty stomach—and that is precisely what I did. And then I sat through this lengthy, gorgeously shot, expertly choreographed opening sequence of an elaborate dinner getting prepared in a large, late-nineteenth-century French kitchen.

Here’s the thing. If you are a carnivore, you might have greater need to heed such a warning: there is a lot of meat and seafood prepared in this movie. I am, however, a vegetarian—I don’t even eat seafood. I could appreciate the vividly shot food, clearly actually cooked on set, on a purely aesthetic level, but it certainly didn’t have me salivating.

Here’s what it did do. It made me think, a lot, about the way we eat our food. It made me long for a meal prepared with such intricate care, from ingredients sourced from the garden right outside the door. The film’s opening shot, in fact, is of Eugénie (a luminescent Juliette Binoche, still a genuine stunner at age 59) harvesting produce straight out of the dirt. We throw phrases around like “farm to table” as though it’s a marketing concept, and then we witness it occurring onscreen in this movie, almost in real time. And here, in the real world, 140 years after the setting of our movie, we pass our days eating food made quickly or cheaply or, in most cases, both.

The Taste of Things is populated with characters for whom flavor is more important than anything. I marveled at the technical proficiency already achieved by the 19th century, the myriad combinations of ingredients and cooking techniques, and the amount of time that it takes—and took—to master all these dishes.

As I said, the meat based dishes—beef, veal, fish, you name it—still failed to make me salivate, in ways I am certain it will most audiences. And then Eugénie whips up this Baked Alaska dish and I nearly cried with desire: Holy fuckballs that looks amazing! And I don’t even like meringue. The men Eugénie serves this dessert to discuss the physics of how the ice cream stays frozen inside, and I was rapt. This was one dish with meringue I could imagine using as skin cream. I wanted to bathe in it.

The Taste of Things is about much more than vividly shot food preparation, of course. At its heart, it is a love story, between Eugénie, a longtime cook, and Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel), the restauranteur Eugénie worked for for many years. They now live together in a kind of perpetual romance, Dodin regularly proposing to her, and Eugénie regularly insisting she prefers things as they are. Their love and affection is quite overtly represented in the deeply rooted history and skill in the food they share. This includes both cooking and eating it, although Eugénie does most of the cooking.

There is a bit of sadness thrown in, and I won’t spoil exactly what that is, although it gets alluded to pretty early on, in the middle of the aforementioned, extended opening sequence. It’s easy to focus on that sequence, because of the incredible blocking and choreography and camera work, but most scenes in this film involve cooking, and without exception the food is shot with a cozy, loving eye. Beyond the focus on the food, the story is deceptively simple. But it stays with you.

There is a somewhat curious separation of genders in this film, and the heavy focus on Binoche notwithstanding, I kind of wish there were more women in it. Besides Eugénie, the only significant female characters are two younger cooks who work with her: Violette (Galatéa Bellugi), who evidently has relatively mediocre still; and Violette’s niece, Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire), who has an astonishing, precocious talent for gastronomy. Dodin, for his part, has a group of about five men friends who populate many scenes, often to pontificate on the prepared food or to provide support to Dodin, as needed.

But, it all comes back to Eugénie and Dodin, every other character serving their story. One of the great many things I love about The Taste of Things is the way it naturally veers away from any of the typical film tropes. Just because of the way I’ve been conditioned by decades of movie watching, I kept expecting one of the apprentice cooks to trip while climbing the many staircases in the house, or for one of the men to creep on young Pauline. But, nothing of the sort happens in this story, which is only about two character who are, as Dodin puts it, “in their autumn years,” and their earnest devotion to each other. Sometimes the simplest stories are the most moving and beautiful, and this is certainly one to savor.

Don’t insult this movie by eating cheap popcorn while you watch it!

LISA FRANKENSTEIN

Directing: B-
Acting: B-
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-

The funniest thing about Lisa Frankenstein is its release date, nestled up against Valentine’s Day as though it’s a sweet romance. This is a romance between an eighties teen and a reanimated corpse.

It is amusing that Diablo Cody, who wrote the script, has a mind as bent as one that thinks up the absurdist, gross-out gags that are sprinkled throughout this film. Cody lives to defy stereotypes. Lisa Frankenstein was also directed by Zelda Williams, daughter of Robin Williams, setting the story the year she was born (1989). If this and her previous film, Kappa Kappa Die (2020) are any indication, she has a real taste for old-school camp. (There are even cop characters named Officer John, and Officer Waters.)

But, nailing the tone in a film like this is the real tricky part, and Williams doesn’t quite make it. We get introduced to our young heroine, Lisa (a lovely Kathryn Newton), her blithely affectionate stepsister Taffy (a bubbly Liza Soberano), her indifferent dad (Joe Chrest) and her weirdly cruel stepmother (Carla Gugino, chewing the contrived scenery), and establish ourselves in their slighty off-kilter world for just a bit too long before we ever even meet “The Creature.”

“The Creature” is played by Riverdale’s Cole Sprouse, who apparently took months of mime lessons for months to prepare for this role, in which he has (mostly) no lines. He does a fine job for what it is, but I’m not sure he couldn’t have done just as good a job without so much effort. He’s playing a man dead for at least a century or two, and Lisa Frankenstein does very little to explain his reanimation—Lisa is just a high school kid with a crush on the bust of his tombstone, who wishes to “be with him,” and then a sudden burst of lightning results in him showing up at her house.

This is a deliberate lack of depth, of course; it’s very much the point. Lisa Frankenstein is a cross between Heathers, Beetlejuice, and Mommy Dearest, but minus the depth, the cleverness, or the biting satire. Lisa Frankenstein has some cleverness, to be fair, and it’s all in service of camp, to varying degrees of success. I enjoyed it most when its humor is darkest, as with a great gag involving what amounts to a penis transplant.

There weren’t a lot of people in the theater when I went to see this, maybe twenty people—and yet, in spite of how critical I am of it, oddly, in the smattering of moments I found genuinely funny, I was the only person there laughing. That was an odd experience.

There is a very specific sensibility Zelda Williams is going for here, and mileage will definitely vary depending on what you’re looking for. I suppose it could be said that Lisa Frankenstein delivers on its promise; I just wanted a better promise. Its sort of “camp lite” aesthetic gets tired pretty quickly, and that happens before The Creature even shows up. There’s a physical journey he goes on, getting less and less gross as Lisa, an established seamstress of skill, systematically sews him up. Conversely, Lisa starts off withdrawn and then becomes sexily confident over time, but also oddly selfish, using The Creature for assistance with another boy who is her crush at school. I guess we’re supposed to feel bad for The Creature, except of course, he’s a reanimated corpse. I don’t know about you, but I’ll never have any interest in fucking an undead guy, I don’t care how cute he is.

In the end, Lisa Frankenstein has its fun, if tonally inconsistent, moments. The casting is very much in its favor, and I particularly look forward to seeing Kathryn Newton—who was also fantastic in Freaky (2021)—in other things. They make the most of the slightly undercooked ingredients they have to work with.

I guess it’s not terrible, as meet-cute body horror goes.

Overall: B-

I.S.S.

Directing: C+
Acting: B+
Writing: C
Cinematography: B
Editing: C
Special Effects: B

I.S.S. isn’t smart enough to be a clever thriller, and it isn’t dumb enough to be “dumb fun.” Didn’t these astronauts ever learn about the “Goldilocks Zone”?

At least The Beekeeper has the decency to feature exciting fight choreography, fun explosions, innovative death scenes, and groan-worthy “protect the hive” metaphors. I.S.S. seems to think it can skate on the supposed novelty of its premise, with all of six characters—three of them American, three of them Russian—directed to “take control” of the International Space Station after nuclear armageddon occurs on the Earth below.

Here’s the question I couldn’t let go of. What’s the fucking point? Writer Nick Shafir and director Gabriela Cowperthwaite would have us believe it’s a sensible expectation that some of these characters have hope of returning home. They want to see their kids again!

Earth to I.S.S. crew! Your kids have been incinerated! Not once does any one of these characters even entertain this as a possibility. The nuclear flashes seen on the planet’s surface below are in the dozens, do they think all that radiation is just going to mind its own business on one side of the Earth?

Cowperthwaite once directed the very good 2013 documentary Blackfish, about the tragic consequences of keeping orcas in captivity. What the hell is she doing here? I’d say this is the cinematic equivalent of a corporate CEO winding up living in a ditch, but I should be fair, that’s a little harsh. It’s more like a corporate CEO winding up the manager of a regional Sizzler.

I suppose these metaphors are a little random. They’re definitely more creative than any of the boilerplate ideas presented in I.S.S., which seems on the surface like it’s . . . fine. If you’re at or below average intelligence, this movie might work for you. If you think about it for a minute, you might realize this movie is insulting your intelligence. You might be forgiven for missing that, given all the actors have a charismatic and competent screen presence. They’re kind of fun to hang out with, even if nothing they do or say ultimately makes a great amount of sense.

The story begins with two American astronauts in transport to the I.S.S.: John Gallagher Jr. as Christian Campbell and Ariana DeBose as newcomer bioengineer Dr. Kira Foster. I was skeptical of this film’s logic from the start, given a book I read recently that covered how strict NASA is about bringing personal effects into space, as the slightest added weight comes at exorbitant cost. But, Campbell rides the rocket with one of his kids’ squeeze toys in his hand.

Sure, I came in hot with the nitpicking: it’s just a movie, right? So, these two join the four others already on the station: Gordon Barrett (Chris Messina), evidently the highest ranking American astronaut; and the three Russians cosmonauts: Weronika Vetrov (Masha Mashkova); and brothers Nichoai Pulov (Costa Ronin) and Alexey Pulov (Pilov Asbæk). I guess I’ll give I.S.S. points for casting actual Russian actors.

We see them all settle in; Foster has brought some mice with her. We see the six of them pal around, exchange Christmas gifts. None of this is particularly interesting. The script neatly sidesteps any details about what might have prompted the assured mutual destruction: “We don’t ever talk politics,” they say. “And we definitely don’t talk about what’s going on down there.” What is going on down there, anyway? People gettin trigger happy, apparently.

To me, the most astounding thing about I.S.S. is that no one responds to the unfolding events with any kind of existential crisis. Somehow being stranded on a space station during a nuclear annihilation makes them all safe? Oh wait, one of the scientists on board was working on a radiation treatment! Okay, but why the hell would that research need to be done in space? No matter, we have four or five vials of it to return to the surface and save humanity!

This treatment is just used as a minor plot turn somewhere in the second half of the movie. What Cowperthwaite wants us to focus on is the idea of global conflict distilled down to these six characters, three on each side, with shifting allegiances. In more capable hands, this actually could have been a taut, gripping thriller, an exploration of the human psyche under extraordinary and desperate circumstances. Instead we’ve just got an entire film crew phoning it in.

I.S.S. could have been much, much worse. The script could have been utter garbage instead of just blandly ridiculous. They could have cast bad actors instead of the clearly talented ones here, evidently just getting a paycheck. Good for them, get that cash! If anything were to save this movie, it would be this cast. Unfortunately, once I finish writing this review, I’m going to forget this movie completely and just move on with my life.

Hang in there! This movie might get better. JKJK

Overall: C+

ORIGIN

Directing: A-
Acting: A-
Writing: A-
Cinematography: A-
Editing: A

Origin isn’t so much an adaptation of the 2020 book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Isabel Wilkerson, as a telling of the story of Wilkerson, clarifying the ideas for and then writing that book.

It’s a clever conceit, which works surprisingly well, as it then works as Wilkerson herself, portrayed wonderfully here by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, presenting her thesis and arguments, both to her family, friends and colleagues—many of whom take some time to understand what she’s getting at—and to us as the audience. The basic premise is that American racism does not exist in a vacuum in the world, but is rather an aspect of caste systems with common pillars in many societies.

Specifically, though, she finds “connective tissue” (her words, or at least her character’s words in this film) between the legacy of American racism dating back centuries to enslavement; the Nazi demonization of Jewish people; and the persecution of the Dalit caste, historically regarded as “Untouchables” in India. And there are some mind-blowing revelations in there, which present irrefutable evidence of that connective tissue. Documented evidence of the Nazi Party in Germany using American Jim Crow laws as a blueprint for what they did, via legal processes, to the Jewish people. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s visit to India informing the commonality between “Untouchables” there and the dehumanized status of Black people in America.

Origin features a minor flaw overall, one that informs a separate discussion about the nature of adaptation. It may very well be that writer-director Ava DuVernay has presented us with the best film version of this story, and these ideas, there could possibly be. That doesn’t change the fact that reading a book about all these things is far more likely to dig deeper, more permanently into our brains. I have not read the book, and it seems clear that I should. On the other hand, I am also, like many other people, getting the most immediate, and possibly the only, direct exposure to these concepts via watching this film.

And this film, while arguably a little slight on plot, is packed with scenes that are likely to stay with you a long time. Consider the conversation Wilkerson has with a couple over dinner during a visit to Germany. This German, White woman argues to the American Black woman that the Holocaust and the American legacy of slavery are too different to be compared, that they are not based on the same underlying precepts. She clarifies that slavery is about subjugation, and the Holocaust was about extermination. This conversation could perhaps have been better informed with more direct reference to the American genocide of Indigenous people, which absolutely was also about extermination.

What Wilkerson argues is that, whether it’s subjugation or extermination, it’s the pillars of caste ideology that gets used to justify the action. One of the great things about this film is how it lays out this argument, but allows us to spend some time pondering them. This is not a film spending time insisting on its rightness, but making its case. I even left the screening I attended not having taking it in quite the same way as the person I saw it with.

Origin has a fairly lengthy, 141-minute run time, with an even pacing that justifies it. It opens on Trayvon Martin (Myles Frost) walking the neighborhood after visiting a convenience store. It explores the concept of “endogamy,” the practice or romance or marriage as limited only to within one’s own defined clan or tribe, partly through Wilkerson’s own interracial marriage to the late Brett Hamilton (Jon Bernthal). Wilkerson is encouraged by her editors (one of whom is played by Vera Farmiga) to write something about the Trayvon Martin case, while she is considering a hiatus to take care of her elderly mother (Emily Yancy).

There’s a particularly memorable scene, of Wilkerson with her husband and her mother, discussing the Trayvon Martin case. Isabel and Brett argue that Martin should never have had to answer to another man questioning his presence walking through a neighborhood, a sensible argument. Isabel’s mother argues that if Martin had just answered the question, he might well still be alive, also a sensible argument. In a later scene, we see an interaction between Isabel and a plumber (played by Nick Offerman), investigating a flood in a basement. The plumber is wearing a red MAGA hat, and Isabel quite understandably looks upon him with unease. Still, she connects with him by mentioning her late mother, and asking about his parents. The scene seems simple on the surface, but it presents the same question: Isabel diffuses tension by taking the initiative to connect, but should she have to?

Origin spends a significant amount of time on the three societies Isabel Wilkerson explores, with conversations with “real people” in her personal life at home (including her cousin, played by Abbott Elementary’s Niecy Nash, and a close friend pointedly named Miss Hale, played by Audra McDonald), as well as extended visits in both Germany and India, wildly different societies with commonalities of oppression that are all too easy not to see.

It would be a fascinating exercise to see particularly how this film plays with German, Indian, or Jewish audiences, as it explores very disparate histories, and then connects dots, between them. These are issues very personal to people, as with the White German woman who is unable to see the similarities—something Isabel’s cousin also struggles with. This all just provides Isabel Wilkerson multiple opportunities to clarify her thesis, which the film Origin then imparts to its audience very successfully. It provides a huge amount of provocative food for thought, and I left the theater feeling very grateful to have been presented with it.

When different underclasses are not so different: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Isabel Wilkerson, visiting the site of the oldest example of it.

THE COLOR PURPLE

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B-
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B
Music: B+

Here I’ve spent many a year insisting any given film should be judged on its own merits, and then I go and watch this current iteration of The Color Purple directly after watching Steven Spielberg’s original 1985 adaptation.

I do not recommend doing this. It colors everything about how Blitz Bazawule’s current adaptation gets received, and it is unfair to this newer film. It can become difficult to draw the line between whether I’m not responding to it quite as well as I’d hoped, either because it is genuinely a weaker adaptation, or I simply like the earlier film better. And there is no question, I like the earlier film better.

A key difference between the two films is that the new one is a musical—not that you’d know that from its promotional campaign. Fans of Broadway will surely know it, as it may be a surprise to discover the Broadway musical adaptation is itself pretty old now: it debuted in December 2005, nearly two decades ago; ran through 2008; and then had a highly acclaimed revival run from 2015 to 2017. The latter would clearly be what then promoted this film adaptation of the stage musical, which I never had a chance to see but can easily imagine it being a fantastic, powerful experience.

The sticking point for me here is that storytelling works differently in different mediums. This is something too many directors forget when adapting books into films, and the same goes for adapting stage plays into films. Spielberg’s movie covers a great many years, and really lets the story simmer within each phase of Celie’s life, making each key occurrence all the more poignant. The Color Purple, the movie musical, covers just as much ground, but has a run time thirteen minutes shorter than the previous film, and it makes so much time for music sequences that the rest of the story, simply by definition, gets truncated and rushed through.

The actors portraying Celie and her sister Nettie as children (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi and Halle Bailey, respectively) don’t even look that young, thereby undermining the very point of their portrayals. Nettie then does not get near enough screen time, regardless of who is portraying her, which undercuts the intended emotion of the sisters’ eventual reunion after many years of separation. We hardly get to know Nettie here, and so have less reason to care.

All that said, there remains a lot to like about this Color Purple—particularly, somewhat ironically, the music. Your mileage may vary as to whether it’s worth trading effective storytelling for really good music, but at least when the music numbers are being performed, you’re happy to be there. We’ll just set aside how incongruous it feels to have characters breaking out into rapturous song in the middle of a story like this, which features fairly regular domestic abuse.

Furthermore, the actors can’t be blamed for what they’ve been given to work with, and The Color Purple is objectively well cast: Fantasia Barrino is effective as the older Celie (even if her incredibly distinctive voice bears no resemblance to Phylicia Pearl Mpasi’s). Colman Domingo is uniquely sinister as Mister, the man Celie is forced to marry; Taraji P. Henson is electric as Shug Avery, the blues singer with whom both Mister and Celie are enamored; H.E.R. is arguably underused as Squeak; and Danielle Brooks absolutely justifies her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Sofia, belligerent wife of Mister’s son, Harpo (Corey Hawkins).

Of course, here is where a generational divide creeps in again: none of these current actors can’t really compete with the indelible 1985 performances by then-newcomer Whoopi Goldberg as Celie; Danny Glover as Mister; or Oprah Winfrey as Sofia. The more relevant question might be how many people among 2023 audiences know or care about the 1985 film—they’ll certainly know who both Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey are, if not Danny Glover. The one performer who truly improves on the character in the current iteration is Taraji P. Henson, who truly lights up the screen.

There’s also the valid argument that Steven Spielberg, a rich White guy, was an inappropriate choice for directing this particular story—something he was actually insecure about even in 1985, only taking the gig once Quincy Jones convinced him to. Production of films about Black people plays out in this way less and less anymore, and it’s only right that a Black director should take on this film. It’s somewhat of a bummer, then, that a Black director could not have been given the chance to make just as good a film in 1985, and that the Black director who did direct the film in 2023 did a fine job but still not quite as good.

I do rather wish now that I could have watched 2023 The Color Purple in a bit more of a vacuum, without the 1985 film so fresh in my memory, from literally minutes before. I might not be quite as hard on it, although I feel pretty strongly I still would have given it the same rating, given its strong performances among tonal inconsistencies.

It’s hard to be as timid as the story really calls for when you’re regularly bursting into song.

Overall: B

THE BEEKEEPER

Directing: B-
Acting: C+
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

There are countless legitimate reasons to shit on The Beekeeper, to bury it in a . . . a swarm of criticism—but I have to be honest: my heart isn’t in it. I had too good a time watching this objectively idiotic movie.

So, well, why not judge a film on its own terms? The Beekeeper knows exactly what it is, which is both a b-movie and a bee movie (get it?), with its own rules of logic, which it basically follows to the letter. It may be a by-the-numbers revenge action movie, naturally starring Jason Statham, but somehow, it still manages to be way better than what it could have been.

I’ve seen some disappointment that this movie doesn’t lean into the “so bad it’s good” genre, but being disappointed on that level entirely misses the point. Have we learned nothing from Snakes on a Plane? When a movie self-consciously tries too hard to be “bad,” it tends to land with a thud. The “so bad it’s good” vibe only really works when the people making the movie were genuinely convinced they were making something good.

The Beekeeper is something different, ironically by being exactly the kind of movie it’s designed to be: it’s pretty stupid, but not too stupid. The actors are all kind of phoning it in, but none of them are being lazy. The action is well choreographed, just clever enough, and consistently entertaining.

Admittedly, even I went into this movie, about a literal beekeeper (Statham) who turns out to be retired from a nebulously defined, top secret program of people also codenamed “beekeepers,” kind of hoping it would be relentlessly stupid. That can be fun, right? And it is stupid, just not relentlessly so. It’s also got a healthy dose of onscreen charisma, a modicum of wit, and a subtle self-awareness as a film that refuses to take itself too seriously.

I sometimes wonder what a stacked cast was thinking when they read the script for a movie that clearly doesn’t work. And no one here is exactly turning in Oscar-worthy work here, in a cast including Josh Hutcherson as the misguided “brains” behind a company that scams elderly people via their computers, Jeremy Irons as the company’s head of security, Phylicia Rashad as one of the company’s victims, and Minni Driver, getting disappointingly little screen time as the director of the CIA. One thing they all have in common, though: they’re having a good time. And so is the viewer.

The Beekeeper does lay it on a little thick with all of its many “hive” metaphors, not always with full coherence (Statham’s Adam Clay is somehow just “protecting the hive” with all the countless people he dispatches), which ultimately is part of its charm. No one set out to make a “smart” movie here, and no one watching it expects one. This is a rare instance of movie marketers being full forthcoming with the kind of movie they’re offering, likely because anyone going to see it only wants exactly that.

In a way, The Beekeeper is just a Fast and Furious movie without any racing cars. You might expect that to make it less exciting, and I suppose arguably it is—but not by much. It’s still got plenty of violence, well staged combat scenes, and at least relatively inventive scenes of either dismemberment or death. What more could you ask for? If you want Oscar bait, there’s still more than plenty of that to go around. If you want heightened action ridiculousness, with an inexplicably indestructable hero bent on avenging the victims of elaborate phishing schemes, there’s The Beekeeper.

It should also be noted: January and February are historically notorious dumping grounds for cinema garbage. What the makers of The Beekeeper seem to understand is that, they can make something in keeping with the vibe of this time of year that’s actually worth the time, if all you’re looking for is knowingly mindless but well-executed entertainment.

If you leave your intellect at home, you’ll have a blast.

Overall: B