Tag Archives: movie reviews

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Star Girl

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Maika: The Girl from Another Galaxy

by Tori Hanes

Mourning the recent loss of his mother, young Hang (Truong Phu) is tasked with helping the recently crash-landed alien Maika (Chu Diep Anh) in her search for her lost extraterrestrial comrade. Director Ham Tran drives the classic setup through otherworldly twists while still steering delicately toward a grounded yet humor-filled reality. 

Maika has one thing pulsing through its veins that bleeds into every aspect: heart. A big, family-friendly, overly sentimental, beating heart.

The film finds beauty in its earnestness but the sincerity can become suffocating, specifically within the first thirty minutes. Hung’s mother has passed away, his best friend is forced to move, his father’s business is failing, his neighborhood is being poached by gentrifiers… you may feel beaten over the head with a lead pipe of ethos.

So, when Maika is introduced and the E.T.-esque romp of intergalactic friendship begins, the audience is relieved. We have suffered sufficiently. 

Once the film is able to find its balance, a fun-loving tale ensues. Billionaire bad guys, sleazy goons, alien technology – it seems obvious that Tran was inspired by the glory days of 80s children’s adventures. 

With this, a unique aspect of what immortalized the Goonies/Gremlins/E.T. generation reveals itself – a willingness to explore with a young audience. This interest in pressing uncomfortable, interesting, and sometimes frightening topics gives children the permission to safely authenticate these emotions and ideas. That is where Maika succeeds. 

Unfortunately, much like its 80s counterparts, Maika meanders. At an hour and 47-minute runtime, the plot drags before picking up breakneck momentum, only to rein itself back to a turtle’s pace. It’s hard to not feel some form of whiplash. Still, the story ultimately succeeds in retaining and respecting the audience’s attention.

At surface level, Maika aims to please. And ultimately, it does just that. But it also wants to feel, to hurt, to explore, and to breathe… and the invitation it extends to the audience to participate is what sets Maika apart.

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Poetry in Motion

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Benediction

by Christie Robb

A languid, disjointed film about British WWI poet Siegfried Sassoon, Terence Davies’ Benediction sets the stage for several exquisite recitations of Sassoon’s poetry.

And the poetry is really the star of the show.

This isn’t to say that Sassoon’s life is boring and without conflict. Not at all. As a lieutenant fighting in France, Sassoon was horrified by trench warfare, and the tone of his poetry shifted from romantic and patriotic to a gritty depiction of rotting corpses, suicide, and a growing sense of futility amidst the mud and gas attacks.

He was awarded the Military Cross for “conspicuous gallantry” and then wrote a letter to his commanding officer (forwarded to the press and House of Commons) refusing to return to active service, condemning the motives of an unjust war. Instead of being shot for treason, he was sent to a Scottish war hospital to recover from “shell shock.”

After the war, he had several love affairs with men (writers, actors, and aristocrats). He married a woman, had a son, converted to Catholicism and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Writer/Director Davies doesn’t give the story of Sassoon a clear focus/narrative arc. It bounces back and forth in time, setting the few jewel-like moments in which the poems are performed among a series of vignettes from the author’s life. In these, he searches for authenticity and connection in a fractured world. Sometimes we wander about through tasteful interiors while people in sumptuous clothing shout about relationships that aren’t completely explained. Occasionally this is intercut with archival footage from WWI.

This experimentation in form and use of stream-of-consciousness is a technique employed by literature in the period after the Great War. It allows us to experience Sassoon’s longing and disappointment as he tries to find meaning and salvation in political action, relationships, family, and religious devotion—all of which fail him.

Both the actors playing Sassoon, Jack Lowden (young) and Peter Capaldi (old), give heroic, emotionally vulnerable performances. My only real criticism here is that there isn’t enough of a throughline connecting Lowden’s open-hearted optimism (even post-war and post-breakup) to Capaldi’s cantankerous hatred of all things modern.

Lowden does such a good job of keeping Sassoon’s emotional self locked behind a façade of genteel wit and English manners that, in the scenes from his later life depicted by Capaldi, the Sassoons seem like two completely different people.

Still, the fragmented structure of the film and the character does a superb job of depicting the trauma sustained by a generation who experienced the unprecedented horrors of what was supposed to be the War to End All Wars.

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Air Wolf

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Wolf Hound

by Rachel Willis

Three American fighter jets are shot down in France by Nazi pilots flying British Royal Air Force planes. One pilot, Captain David Holden (James Maslow) sets off on a mission to save his fellow soldiers.

Director Michael B. Chait, working from a screenplay by Timothy Ritchey, starts with an interesting hook, but fails to hit the right mood with World War II action-adventure, Wolf Hound.

The most exciting and tense moment of the film happens right in the beginning, as our American heroes face off in the air against the Nazis. Amazing stunt work and great visual effects set up a promising film. Unfortunately, the air battle gives way to a one-man rescue mission à la Rambo.

Captain Holden’s foil comes in the form of Nazi Captain Rolf Werner (Michael Wayne Foster). Each pilot has a vendetta against the other, but where Werner is obsessed with Holden, the American is focused on the rescue.

Films sometimes fail to strike the right tone, and that’s the case with Wolf Hound. At times, the movie wants to tackle serious subject matter, but it often embraces high action-adventure. The score emphasizes tension in one moment, then shifts rapidly to melodrama. It leaves you wondering whether to laugh or scoff. A particularly strange scene that sets torture to the sounds of a recorder had me doing both.

Lending to the high-adventure feel is the stereotypical characterization of Nazis. These soldiers are villains, with no shades of grey, no sense of camaraderie, and no qualms about their many war crimes. One even uses his fellow soldier as a shield during a shootout. Villainous, indeed. But also pretty dull with nothing to distinguish one from another.

Much of the action is admittedly exciting, which distracts from the recycled story elements. With little downtime between action sequences, the film moves, even with a runtime of over two hours.

If Chait had managed to strike a better balance or had fully embraced the adventurous elements, Wolf Hound might have been more compelling. Instead, it’s an uneven mix that relegates the one component that sets it apart to little more than a gimmick.

The Screening Room

Screening Room: Top Gun: Maverick, The Bob’s Burgers Movie, Dinner in America, Montana Story & More

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Top Gun: Maverick, The Bob’s Burgers Movie, Montana Story, Dinner in America, A Taste of Whale, Mondocane

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Delicious and Nutritious

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Dinner in America

by Hope Madden

It’s not often you watch a film about a fire starting, drug dealing, lying man on the run from police and his romance with a woman with special needs and think, this is delightful.

But it is. Dinner in America is a delight.

Writer/director Adam Rehmeier delivers an unexpected comedy, sometimes dark, sometimes broad, but never aimless. Simon (Kyle Gallner, remarkable) is a punk rocker hiding from the cops. Patty (Emily Skeggs) is a 20-year-old punk rock fan who lives at home and isn’t allowed to run appliances when she’s alone.

Their stories collide, but by that time Rehmeier and his cast have crafted memorable, believable characters with their own fascinating worlds. Where they go together becomes a little unnerving at times, but Dinner in America surprises with warmth as often as it does with profanity-laced edginess.

Rehmeier’s film calls to mind other misfit romances — Buffalo 66, Eagle v Shark — but sidesteps cliché at every turn. More importantly, or at least delightfully, it embraces the punk rock ethos rather than seeing a coming-of-age opportunity to grow out of it.

Gallner’s magnetic. Whether stalking through suburbia or surrendering to love, he delivers buzzing vitality and surprising depth. Skeggs offers a brilliantly unselfconscious counterpoint. Her awkward, endearing performance is an absolute blessing.

A top-to-bottom impressive ensemble including Pat Healy, Mary Lynn Rajskub and Lea Thompson buoy the central performances. Rehmeier’s sharp yet somehow tender script doesn’t hurt, offering startling opportunities for castmates to shine.

By the time the film digs into its musical numbers, you’re already hooked. In a nice turn of events, the songs are absolutely worth the wait.

Rarely does a film feel as genuinely subversive and darling as Dinner in America, the punk rock rom-com you never knew you needed.

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Mission Accomplished

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Top Gun: Maverick

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

Sentimental, button-pushing and formulaic, as predictable as it is visceral, Top Gun: Maverick stays laser-focused on its objective.

Attract crowd. Thrill crowd. Please crowd.

Expect bullseyes on all three fronts, as star Tom Cruise and director Joseph Kosinski take a couple cues from the Star Wars franchise in reconnecting with friends and re-packaging feelings.

After all these years in the Navy, Pete Mitchell’s “Maverick” tendencies have kept him from advancing past the rank of Captain. And when Pete blatantly shows up Admiral Cain (Ed Harris), he’s in danger of being grounded until Admiral “Iceman” (Val Kilmer) rescues him with orders to return to Top Gun and whip some new flyboys and girls into shape for a secret mission.

One of those young guns is “Rooster” (Miles Teller), son of “Goose,” who resents Maverick for more than just coming home alive when his father did not.

Against the wishes of Admiral “Cyclone” (Jon Hamm), it is Maverick who will train the 12 Top Gun pilots, and then pick 6 to take out a newly discovered uranium plant that poses a clear and present threat to the U.S.

Who’s doing the threatening? We never know. Does it matter?

Not in Maverick‘s world.

The screenplay-by-commitee doesn’t stretch anybody’s imagination or talent, with early hotshot dialog so phony it feels like a spoof. But nobody came for banter. We came for nostalgia, flight action, and – god help us – Tom Cruise.

He delivers, in his inimitable movie star way. He cries on cue, runs like his hair’s on fire, and burns charisma. What more do you want?

Romance? Here’s old flame Penny (Jennifer Connelly), who now runs that famous San Diego beachfront bar and just happens to be a single mother who might be looking for someone as ridiculously good-looking as she is. As both characters and actors, they click.

Cruise’s chemistry with a mainly underused Teller – who really looks like a chip off the old Goose – finally gets to show itself late in the film, exposing both tenderness and humor in its wake.

And once we’re in the air, get in front of the biggest screen you can and hang on. Kosinski’s airborne action sequences are often downright breathtaking, every moment in the danger zone moving us closer to that Goose/Rooster/Maverick moment that has no business working as well as it does.

It’s emotional manipulation, but not nearly as garish an act as Val Kilmer’s thankless role. Still, Cruise and Kosinski know it’s nostalgia that flies this plane, and Iceman is part of the plan that starts right from that original Kenny Loggins tune heard in the opening minutes.

From manufactured rivalries to shirtless team building to the entrance of a surprise Top Gun instructor from last night at the bar, Maverick sells us back what we first bought back in 1986.

And dammit, it feels even better this time.

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Gods and Monsters

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Men

by Hope Madden

Alex Garland bats 1.000 with his third feature, Men, a terrifying look at the complicated aftermath of trauma.

Jessie Buckley (flawless, as always) plays Harper, a woman in need of some time alone. She rents a gorgeous English manor from proper country gentleman Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear) and plans to recuperate from, well, a lot.

Garland unveils Harper’s backstory little by little, each time slightly altering our perception of the film. The more about Harper we learn, the more village folk we meet: vicar, surly teen, pub owner, police officer, and a naked man in the woods. Each is played by Kinnear—or by actors sporting Kinnear’s CGI face—although Harper never mentions this, or even seems to notice.

Is she seeing what we’re seeing?

All is left open to interpretation. An easy read, given Kinnear’s multiple roles, is simply that all men are the same. And while each of Kinnear’s characters represents a specific and common type of male threat, as bizarre reality begins tipping further into outright fantasy, it seems likelier we are seeing more of Harper than we are of men in general. She is putting a face—the same face—on a lifetime of traumas, large and small.

Garland’s bold visuals—so precise in Ex Machina, so surreal in Annihilation—create a sumptuous environment just bordering on overripe. The verdant greens and audacious reds cast a spell perfectly suited to the biblical and primal symbolism littering the picture.

Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow’s score meshes with Garland’s lush imagery, releasing a blend of music, ambient sound and, at its most eerily beautiful moments, Buckley’s voice. The result is powerful and unnerving.

Men is more of a head-scratcher than either of Garland’s previous films. Yes, even Annihilation. It’s far more of a horror film, for one thing, and far less of a clearly articulated narrative. Rather than clarifying or summing up, the film’s ending offers more questions than answers. But if you can make peace with ambiguity, Men is a film you will not likely forget.

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Honky Tonk Angels

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Torn Hearts

by Hope Madden

Heartbreak, hardship, hard living and broken dreams — that sounds like a country song.

How well does it work for a horror movie? Director Brea Grant (12 Hour Shift) finds out, with an assist from effortless badass Katey Sagal in the Music City thriller Torn Hearts.

Sagal plays Harper Dutchess, country music legend and what remains of the Dutchess sisters, a duo that made it big in the 90s, before tragedy hit. Now a recluse in her Nashville mansion, Harper is none too happy to see upstarts Jordan (Abby Quinn) and Leigh (Alexxis Lemire) show up at her door hoping to record a song with her that will put them on the path to stardom.

Screenwriter Rachel Koller Croft stumbled into something fresh with the country music angle. Horror is no stranger to rock music, disco, techno, metal, punk, but country? That’s new.

Unfortunately, she repackages a lot of familiar ideas inside that Western fringe. But Grant finds ways to keep things interesting.

An authentic soundtrack of music penned by Brittany Allen grounds Torn Hearts in authenticity, while Yaron Levy’s cinematography works the creepy Dutchess mansion for all its gothic, garish Nashville weirdness.

Both Lemire and Quinn fit their roles well. As Harper picks away at the young duo’s insecurities, each performer gets the chance to show some range, both physically and emotionally.

Sagal steals the show, though. The picture of hard living, Harper manipulates the young musicians with sometimes sadistic ease. Sagal relishes the contempt, crafting a formidable central figure and ensuring rapt attention, no matter what weaknesses the film has in store.

Torn Hearts layers its somewhat rote plot points with context about the harsh misogyny of country music, points Sagal’s performance drives home.

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Evil Strange

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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

by Brandon Thomas

Welcome back, Sam Raimi. 

The madcap director of the Evil Dead series, Darkman and the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films, makes a triumphant return to the big screen with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. 

Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has battled other sorcerers, alien threats and even villains from alternate realities. All of them pale in comparison to the dark entity chasing young America Chavez (Xochil Gomez) across dimensions. As Strange fights to protect the young girl, he finds that the line between good and evil can easily be blurred – and sometimes even compromised by the best of intentions. 

The jump in quality between the first Doctor Strange film and Multiverse of Madness is more of a leap than a step. The first film sets it up well enough, but like many of the Marvel origin stories, it takes a while to get to the good stuff. Raimi’s film has no such issues. Cumberbatch is more comfortable in the role now, having appeared in two Avengers films and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Despite having a packed to the gills story, there’s still a lot of meaty character work for Cumberbatch to latch onto. 

Speaking of the story, yes this is another Marvel film with lots of tie-in to movies that came before and movies that will come after. Like the more successful Marvel Cinematic Universe endeavors, Multiverse of Madness delicately threads the needle and never feels too chaotic or unfocused. Raimi fought that battle and lost once before with Spider-Man 3.

There are plenty of surprises in the film. The marketing team behind the trailers should be commended for spoiling next to nothing – not even the main villain. Surprises are a big selling point for these MCU movies, and Multiverse has plenty of them up its sleeve.

Multiverse of Madness is Raimi firing on all cylinders. The movie absolutely crackles with the filmmaker’s energy and signature style. I nearly jumped out of my seat in delight when a couple shots of doors slamming in dutch angles appeared on screen. Few directors attack action sequences with the inventiveness and fun that Raimi does. You can feel the director’s personal flourishes coming through in those scenes instead of pre-visualized dreck from VFX artists in Vancouver.  

The film also leans into horror. Like his skill with action, horror carnage is a specialty of Raimi’s. Witches, demons and undead sorcerers pop up, and Raimi delights in tossing them at Cumberbatch’s Strange. I doubt the director tortured Cumberbatch like his friend Bruce Campbell in the Evil Dead films but it is fun to speculate. 

By embracing the character’s more horror-centric roots, and letting director Sam Raimi cut loose, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness offers up one of the most exciting – and different – films in the MCU so far.