8 Best Movies To Watch After Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
Uglies
In the future of Uglies, adapted from the YA series by Scott Westerfeld, humanity has survived death by its own hands. First, a vaguely defined but elite corps of scientists developed a new, apparently infinitely renewable energy source. That cured us of our dependence on fossil fuels. (Sidenote: it’s hilarious that the only way people can quit fossil fuels is by developing something else to consume instead of, you know, wind, water, or solar power.) However, humanity’s natural tendency towards tribalism continued to raise its ugly head. The solution there? Get rid of the ugly! A procedure, done on sixteen-year-olds, eliminates all imperfections, physical and psychological. That means, on the eve of your 16th birthday, maybe you are a kid with an overbite and a burgeoning anxiety disorder. After your birthday day “surgery” though? Your jaws align perfectly and your heart rate stops spiking out of nowhere. Yes, even when you think about that time you said something dumb at that party. Oh, and your eyes are gold now, too. For funsies. One sure sign Laverne Cox is evil? White after Labor Day. That's just madness. (Brian Douglas/Netflix) On first blush, Uglies is a hodgepodge of dystopian fiction, especially of teen variety, remixed and reheated in a new mediocre shell. Pick your favorites of the genre and chances are this film will include at least one moment of “homage” to it. Enjoy a restriction on literature like found in Fahrenheit 451 or 2002’s “better than the Matrix” (real ones will get it) Equilibrium but want it to only ever so slightly mentioned? Uglies has you. Garish displays of beauty as a sign of elitism as in the Hunger Games? Check! A sort of return to the land, noble savage theme ala Brave New World? Got it. A have-and-have-nots society based on perceived genetic superiority akin to Gattaca? Of course. Better living through the elimination of pesky emotions? Well, you get the idea. Uglies has them all in the least thoughtful, most set-dressing way. Continue Reading →
Cuckoo
We’re in an era where audiences are starting to sour on heavy, blunt-force, metaphorical horror, especially when seemingly all metaphors lead to trauma. Luckily, the haters can find respite with Cuckoo, just not for the reasons you’d hope. It’s hard to pin down exactly what Cuckoo wants to be about. It’s a movie that doesn’t seem able to decide if it’s really about much of anything. There are mothers and daughters and references to births and blended families and, of course, blood and vomit and tears. It’s the last box you pack when moving, a hodgepodge of odds and ends you’re pretty sure you didn’t want to leave behind, even if you can’t really remember why. Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) doesn’t feel like a real part of her family, and maybe that’s why we meet her sitting shotgun in the truck with the movers, while her half-sister, father, and stepmom drive ahead in the station wagon. Hell, even the dog is riding in the car with them. Gretchen’s the odd one out. She lived with her mother after her parents’ divorce. Meanwhile, Dad went out and started a new family. But with her Mom's death, Gretchen’s dropped in the middle of a new family unit. She doesn't know how to adapt to them. She's in a country whose language she doesn't understand. It all has her feeling more isolated than ever. Continue Reading →
Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos directs a sumptuous adult fairy tale featuring Emma Stone at her very best. Here’s the thing about Yorgos Lanthimos: you’re either on board with him, or you’re not. Even in The Favourite, arguably his most accessible film, there’s a sort of joyful grotesqueness to it, leaving the audience laughing and wincing simultaneously. His latest offering, Poor Things, is his most visually dazzling film yet, with moments of stunning beauty and bittersweet insight, but still isn’t afraid to test the audience’s sensibilities. It’s a film about what it means to be alive, every little disgusting aspect of it. Based on Alasdair Gray’s novel of the same name, Poor Things opens in dreary black and white London, where eccentric scientist Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) is overseeing an experiment that’s both miraculous and horrifying. Baxter, whose face looks like it was carved into several pieces and then put back together the wrong way, has brought a woman back to life after she committed suicide. The woman, whom he’s renamed Bella (Emma Stone, with a magnificent pair of eyebrows), initially has the mind of a toddler, but she’s learning and maturing at an astonishing rate. Bella refers to Godwin as “God,” and so far knows no one and nothing else but him and their home together. Continue Reading →
The Marvels
Most films don’t come with homework. The same cannot be said of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s new movie, The Marvels. Unless you’re a devoted MCU fan with an encyclopedic knowledge of both the movies and the Disney+ TV originals, it’s difficult to understand the mechanics of this disastrously convoluted entry in the floundering franchise. It feels like being dropped headfirst into a crossover episode based on three shows you’ve never seen -- mostly because it is. The Marvels kicks off with a bit of genuine visual interest (that never appears again) in the form of hand-drawn comics created by teenage superhero-slash-Captain Marvel fangirl Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), aka Ms. Marvel. Vellani, who previously appeared as Kamala on the little-seen Disney+ series Ms. Marvel, is a spunky, hilarious teenage heroine whose impressive comedic timing buoys the leaden, disjointed script. She so thoroughly steals the show that it’s disappointing this movie wasn’t just about her; instead, it's a confused mix of storylines involving Kamala, Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), and astronaut Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris, Candyman). It feels like the powers that be made a huge mistake in consigning her story to a poorly publicized streaming original, instead of letting her headline a film on her own. Continue Reading →
The Hunted
At the risk of making a "getting a lot of Sorcerer vibes from this" guy out of myself, The Hunted—William Friedkin's 2003 old-master-hunts-rogue-student thriller really does make for a fascinating counterpart to his earlier men-on-a-desperate-mission masterwork. Both delve into the lives of damaged, forlorn, isolated men on perilous quests for deliverance. And both of those quests lead deep into madness. Both pointedly contrast man-made, flame-choked hellscapes (Sorcerer's exploding oil well, The Hunted's secret mission amidst the Kosovo War) with the vast, amoral green of the deep forest (Columbia and Oregon, respectively). Both turn on setpieces that thrill while maintaining a grounded (if not necessarily "realistic") feel and weave surreality in with care. Continue Reading →
Rampage
Even before the internet, certain movies had reputations they didn’t quite live up to. Some, like Salo or 120 Days of Sodom, earn their mythical status as movies designed to make your skin crawl and your stomach clench. Others, like the Faces of Death series, while unpleasant to watch, were just empty, acting as a controversy delivery devices and nothing more. Others still, like William Friedkin’s Rampage, never courted outrage. But unlike those others, whatever reputation it earned before the public got a chance to see it didn’t much help. As a result, at least partially, it remains one of the more obscure releases in Friedkin’s filmography. Continue Reading →
Westworld
My mother was not much of a movie fan. They just never interested her that much, but when it became obvious that I was obsessed with them by the time I reached preschool age, she did nothing to discourage me. Every once in a while she'd let me know that the feature on the The 3:30 Movie (my primary outlet for watching films in those pre-cable, pre-VCR days) was something that I had to watch. Oddly, her instincts often proved to be correct and I was exposed at a very early (perhaps inappropriately so age to such films as The Producers, Duel and the Joan Rivers-penned TV movie The Girl Most Likely To. . ., all of which would be long-standing favorites of mine. Continue Reading →
Jules
In a media landscape with fewer and fewer options actually targeted toward adults (often tied to the death of the mid-budget movie), audiences take the scraps they're given and make the best of them. This is the space that Jules occupies, a sci-fi fairy tale about the specific loneliness of senior citizens who feel isolated, ignored, and afraid. It’s also a thin, often ham-fisted take on a tale that could have had real legs in more capable hands. Continue Reading →