1343 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into French
The Fantastic Four
NetworkNBC,
SimilarGARO, Loonatics Unleashed, Madan Senki Ryukendo, Mirai Sentai Timeranger, Spider-Man, The Batman, The Protector,
While the general world of theatrical comedies remains elusive at multiplexes everywhere, one strain of the genre keeps on chugging in theaters. The Last Vegas/Going in Style/Book Club-style comedy is still going strong. Titles focusing on a wacky trio or quartet of famous actors over 60 persist at Cinemarks everywhere. Even Book Club 2: The Next Chapter’s box office failure last year couldn't stop this subgenre. On the surface, The Fabulous Four looks like another breezy summertime entry in this domain. In many ways, including its flat third act, it totally is. Yet, some distinctive and even downright weird touches keep it from being another Wild Hogs pastiche.
Back in the day, Marilyn (Bette Midler), surgeon Lou (Susan Sarandon), singer Alice (Megan Mullaly), and botanist Kitty (Sheryl Lee Ralph) were best friends growing up in New York City. After a few decades, though, those friendships have grown complicated. Lou and Marilyn, specifically, are no longer on speaking terms. However, that frayed dynamic is about to get “repaired” now that the latter character is getting married. While preparing for a lavish wedding in Key West, she yearns for her best friends to be her bridesmaids—all three of them.
Alice and Kitty tricking Lou into traveling to Key West was only the beginning of their struggles. Once these former pals reunite, tensions clearly haven't frayed between the duo. Unresolved conflict looms over every pre-wedding celebration, even once Lou begins a flirty rapport with local DILF Ted (Bruce Greenwood). Can this quartet reunite and become “the fabulous four” again? Or will yesteryear’s turmoil capsize a once beautiful friend group? Continue Reading →
The Decameron
SimilarAll or Nothing at All, Finland Papa, Martín Rivas, Nuremberg,
Pride and Prejudice The Pillars of the Earth, Tracker, Warera ga Paradise, You Touched My Heart,
To say creator Kathleen Jordan’s adaptation of The Decameron is loose is to enjoy the gift of significant understatement. The source material, an Italian collection of 100 tales “told” to one another by ten characters, was a kind of Canterbury Tales for the plague set. Or, more accurately, Tales was a Decameron for the Brits. The Italian work, after all, has about 50 years on Chaucer’s book. While the TV series does gather ten characters together, initially to celebrate the arranged wedding of Pampinea (Zosia Mamet) and Leonardo (Davy Eduard King), then to try to ride out the Bubonic, it largely ditches the tale-telling.
In its place is a satirical take on today’s class inequalities smuggled onto screen under the veil of a period black comedy. While likely conceived of during or in the wake of COVID’s darkest early days, the tones and themes update nicely to now. It does not reflect our modern situation as literally as it did in, say, April 2020. Nonetheless, it smartly captures how certain global tragedies cannot be dodged and how the rich and powerful will still try at the cost of the larger society. If only it landed its jokes as well.
Zosia Mamet and Saoirse-Monica Jackson learn the importance of decanting from Jessica Plummer. (Giulia Parmigiani/Netflix)
It isn’t for lack of talent. Tanya Reynolds—so good in Sex Education—proves she deserves a bigger stage, stepping into one of the lead roles as the handmaiden Licisca. She finds herself tethered to the vain and selfish Filomena (Jessica Plummer) as they journey to Leonardo’s estate. How the kind and socially conscious member of the servant class evolves in isolation as she tastes luxury and power for the first time is genuinely interesting and well-acted by Reynolds. A scene where she goes from faking kindness to the hypochondriac aristocrat Tindaro (Douggie McMeekin) to genuinely delight with him feels wonderfully organic and honest. Continue Reading →
Lady in the Lake
SimilarA Menina Sem Qualidades, A Touch of Frost, About a Boy,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Better Man, Bleak House, Blood Ties, Bodies, Brides of Christ, Dangerous Liaisons, Die Wölfe, Emily of New Moon, Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway, Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast for Spirits-, Little Birds,
M*A*S*H Martín Rivas, Meteor, Monarch of the Glen, Murder Most Horrid, Number Woman Gye Sook Ja, Nuremberg,
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Piece of Cake, Platform 7, PLUTO, Pope John Paul II,
Pride and Prejudice Prom Pissawat, Quatermass II, Queer as Folk, Rencana Besar, Resurrection,
Sherlock Holmes Sweetbitter, Taken,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, The Boy Next World, The Cicada's Eighth Day, The French Atlantic Affair, The Keepers, The Long Night,
The Lost World The Loyal Pin, The Pillars of the Earth, The Rotters' Club, The Storm, To Kill a Cop, Vanished 46, War and Peace, We Are, White Teeth,
Wycliffe You Touched My Heart, Young Catherine,
For a show set in the mid-1960s, Lady in the Lake explores a basketful of issues relevant to today. From nearly 60 years in our past, it echoes modern “concerns” of all stripes. For example, characters range from dubious to outright hostile to the idea of Maddie (Natalie Portman) working as a journalist or Ferdie Platt (Y’lan Noel) becoming the first black detective in Baltimore. It doesn’t take much to see how that connects with today’s handwringing over DEI—bigotry dressed up to look like worries about the “most deserving person” getting the job. That the most deserving always seems to be a white man, in such concerned citizens’ opinions, is just a coincidence, no doubt.
Also spotlighted in Lady in the Lake are questions about women’s autonomy over their own bodies, grooming, legalized gambling, antisemitism, and politicians throwing over the people that got them elected for “respectability”. Homophobia, stranger danger, and the ramifications of untreated childhood trauma also receive small but prominent moments of attention.
Moses Ingram's too good to get lost in this series' chaos so often. (AppleTV+)
If that sounds like a lot for a television series to tackle in a single seven-episode season, well, it is. As a result, the show frequently —particularly the first two to three episodes—lapses into a sort of controlled but still frantic chaos. In its efforts, led by creator Alma Har’el, to wrap its arms around everything it wants to be about, the viewer can feel battered by incidents. The series’ occasional dalliances with hallucination and visual metaphor don’t help in this regard. They’re fascinating for certain. The sixth installment’s near episode-length exploration of Maddie’s psyche stands out as a season-high. However, they also sometimes make it overly difficult for the audience to find solid footing in the narrative. Lady in the Lake’s ambition is worthy of praise, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into good television. Continue Reading →
Skywalkers: A Love Story (In French: Skywalkers : D'amour et de vertige)
Eons ago, a wise philosopher named Scott Stapp turned his head to the heavens and screamed, "Can you take me higher?/to a place where blind men see/Can you take me higher?/to a place with golden streets?". Whether or not he ever got to those grand heights is unknown. However, daredevil Russian climbers Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus took a different, more active route to reaching those beckoning skies. They’ve dedicated their lives to climbing incredibly tall skyscrapers without harnesses or safety nets. Imagine if the Free Solo guy was also Ethan Hunt mounting the Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. That's this romantically infatuated couple.
Rooftopping is the name of Beerkus and Nikolau's game, and it's most certainly a dangerous exercise to which one's life is devoted. However, for this duo anchoring the new Netflix documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story, the unthinkable is just ordinary reality. Nikolau, especially, was destined to push boundaries and put her safety in jeopardy. After all, she grew up in a circus family, with her bravura mother serving as her idol for how one should exist. Once she got into the rooftopping game, though, she needed a mentor. This is where the experienced Beerkus came into play.
Eventually, their dynamic transformed into something more romantic. Simultaneously, their scaling of iconic massive landmarks turns the duo into celebrity sensations. Everyone loves the couple that smooch and defy vertigo with equal ease. Come 2022, though, Beerkus and Nikolau’s finances are dwindling, and their relationship is under enormous duress. It’s time for “one last job.” The Warisan Merdeka Tower in Malaysia (the second-tallest building in the world) is calling their names. Their skills and love are about to suffer enormous challenges. Continue Reading →
Those About to Die
NetworkPeacock,
Similar'Cause You're My Boy, A Gentleman in Moscow, A Touch of Frost, About a Boy, Aftershock: Earthquake in New York,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Black Raven, Bleak House, Blood Ties, Blossoms Shanghai, Bodies, Dangerous Liaisons, Emily of New Moon, Evergreen, Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway, I Feel You Linger in the Air, If Tomorrow Comes, Jane Eyre, Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast for Spirits-, Kamenskaya, Kiss Me First, Lady Chatterley, Little Birds,
M*A*S*H Martín Rivas, Miracle Workers, Monarch of the Glen, My Hero Series, Nice Work, Nuremberg,
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Os Maias, Piece of Cake, Place of Execution,
Planet of the Apes Platform 7, PLUTO, Rencana Besar, Resurrection, Rivals, Shangri-La,
Sherlock Holmes Shining Girls, Soul Land, The Boy Next World,
The Lost World The Loyal Pin, The Night Sister, The Old Man, The Pillars of the Earth, The Rotters' Club,
The Shining Transformation, Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky, Vanished 46, Villain: Perpetrator Chase Investigation, War and Peace, We Are, White Teeth, Wolf Pack,
Wycliffe You Touched My Heart, Young Catherine, Каменская - 3,
There’s probably something meaningful to say about the current state of politics and the seeming revival of the swords and sandals genre; unfortunately, Peacock’s new series Those About to Die engenders very little desire to engage with its material on any deeper level. Created by Robert Rodat and directed by Roland Emmerich and Marco Kruezpaintner, Those About to Die is a historical drama centered around the fading rule of Emperor Vespasian (Anthony Hopkins), his sons Titus (Tom Hughes) and Domitian (Jojo Macari, eating every piece of available scenery), and the bloody and politically treacherous world of chariot racing.
Set in 79 AD (reading up on that year will provide some spoilers if history is a spoiler), Those About to Die wants to have it all. It’s a drama! It’s an epic! It’s historical fiction! It’s sexy! It’s violent! Well, sure, it’s all of these things, but sadly none are enough to raise it above its vaguely ‘90s television miniseries feel. The series sags under the weight of its scale. Feeling at times like nothing so much as “James Michener’s ROME," Those About to Die features no fewer than 15 primary characters, many of whom fade into the background and reappear with such little fanfare that the audience struggles to keep track.
Though the storylines blend fairly swiftly after an overpacked premiere, the characters make so many rash and death-defying decisions per episode that nothing seems to carry any sort of weight. Anything dramatic that can happen does but with varying (and unearned) degrees of consequence. There are attacks on characters but then they’re fine; characters lose money and then get more. When it feels like everyone has plot armor until a “surprise,” nothing is a surprise anymore. Continue Reading →
Me
SimilarBlack Butler, D.N.Angel,
Eureka Seven I'm a Virgo, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Trickster,
StudioApple Studios,
As metaphors for one’s tweens and early teens, a superpower that changes your body, often without your control or knowledge, and leaves you questioning who you truly are at any given moment isn’t exactly subtle. But when it comes to chronicling the travails of middle school, perhaps subtlety isn’t the best way to approach the problem anyway. It’s the metaphor Ben (Lucian-River Chauhan) finds himself living as a seventh grader in Me.
At school, he’s the new kid, an easy target for Jason (Brock Duncan), the bully who positively bristles with overcompensation. At home, he’s a visitor trying to become a resident as he and his mom, Elizabeth (Dilshad Vadsaria), move in with his stepdad Phil (Kyle Howard) and older stepsister Max (Abigail Pniowsky). His father is nowhere to be seen and quickly dismissed when mentioned. Max’s mom is a constant presence, even if it is usually just by mention. Then, one morning, Ben wakes up looking like Max’s friend (Jeremiah Friedlander). Like the mutants of Marvel’s X-Men, his superpower has kicked in just as adolescence is gearing up.
"What do you mean, we aren't allowed to say cap?" demanded Kyle Howard and Dilshad Vadsaria. (AppleTV+)
That bit might resemble the lives of Cyclops of Jean Grey, but in most other ways, Me feels a lot more like a junior version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the Gen Alpha set. Like Buffy’s Slayer mantel, Ben’s shapeshifting abilities become a gateway to a far stranger and more dangerous world existing just under the surface of his new home. And just like that series, Me plays best when it focuses on the growing pains of adolescence. Continue Reading →
MaXXXine
SimilarAmerican Psycho (2000), Bad Education (2004), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Blue Velvet (1986), Chinatown (1974), F9 (2021), Fargo (1996), Freaks (1932), Frenzy (1972), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Happy Death Day 2U (2019), Insomnia (2002), Jaws: The Revenge (1987), Léon: The Professional (1994), Memento (2000),
Mississippi Burning (1988) Mystic River (2003), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006),
Primal Fear (1996) Rope (1948), Se7en (1995), Secret Window (2004), Silent Hill (2006),
Strange Days (1995) Street Kings (2008), Swimming Pool (2003), Taxi Driver (1976), The 39 Steps (1935), The Big Lebowski (1998), The Omen (2006), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Usual Suspects (1995), True Romance (1993), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988),
Watch afterA Quiet Place (2018), Poor Things (2023),
StarringGiancarlo Esposito,
It’s disappointing and fitting that director Ti West’s MaXXXine is undone by its sheer ambition. Throughout West’s licentious slasher series, his films have always featured titular heroines whose dreams were never commensurate with the limitations of their present circumstances (cue Mia Goth’s iconic “Please, I’m a star!” diatribe in 2022’s Pearl). In a similar vein, MaXXXine follows Maxine Minx (played once again by a show-stopping Goth) as she struggles to make a name for herself in Hollywood despite a less-than-savory past (for starters, she’s the sole survivor of a brutal massacre, as depicted in the first film of the series, X).
Like its titular protagonist, MaXXXine has high ambitions, attempting to weave in commentary about the dignity of sex work, the glamor and exploitation of Hollywood, the soul-crushing dogmas of conservative Christianity, and the pitfalls of fame all while delivering bloody genre thrills. It’s an admirable attempt, but, unfortunately, that desire to cover so much thematic ground does a disservice to the film as a whole, ultimately rendering MaXXXine a sizzle reel of iconic 1980s set pieces in a desperate search for a more compelling story to thread them together.
Taking place in 1985 and six(xx) years after X, the film follows Maxine as she carves a successful name for herself in the pornographic film industry. Still, she’s convinced that she’s meant for greater things, hoping to make the leap into non-stag films. She gets her big break when she lands the lead role in the horror film The Puritan II, but cannot rest on the laurels of her inchoate movie career. A serial killer known as the Night Stalker has been brutally murdering young LA hopefuls, and after three of the victims have a direct connection to Maxine, she realizes that her past has caught up with her. In between her blossoming movie career, she strives to stop the Night Stalker, lest her dreams are thwarted. Continue Reading →
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (In French: Le Flic de Beverly Hills : Axel F.)
SimilarAmélie (2001), Armageddon (1998), Barton Fink (1991), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Blue Velvet (1986), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Cape Fear (1991), Chinatown (1974), Die Hard (1988),
Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) Fallen (1998), Freedom Writers (2007), Garden State (2004), Go (1999), Gone Baby Gone (2007), I ♥ Huckabees (2004), Ice Age (2002), Insomnia (2002), Italian for Beginners (2000),
Jackie Brown (1997) Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Klute (1971), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Lethal Weapon 3 (1992), Lethal Weapon 4 (1998),
Live Free or Die Hard (2007) Mary Poppins (1964) Men in Black (1997), Men in Black II (2002), Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005), Muriel's Wedding (1994), Natural Born Killers (1994), Night on Earth (1991), Oldboy (2003), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Pretty Woman (1990), Saw (2004), Se7en (1995), Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014), Stolen (2024),
Strange Days (1995) Street Kings (2008), Swimming Pool (2003), The Bone Collector (1999), The Karate Kid (1984), The Long Goodbye (1973),
The Party (1980) The Party 2 (1982) Transamerica (2005), True Romance (1993),
Early on in the proceedings of the long-gestating Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, an actual Beverly Hills cop, looks over files chronicling Axel Foley’s previous visits to the city of glitz and glamor. The officer remarks, “94–not your finest year,” a clear shot at the dismal Beverly Hills Cop 3. Ironically, as bad as it was, 3 feels like a near-masterpiece compared to Axel F. This installment is a wheezy, depressing collection of franchise tropes that have long exhausted their comedic value. Eddie Murphy delivers one of the more listless performances in a career that has been, to put it politely, uneven. It somehow pulls off the seemingly impossible task of making Bad Boys: Ride or Die seem vital and cutting-edge.
This time, our hero continues to cause chaos as a Detroit cop, chasing crooks through the streets in a snowplow in the opener. Almost immediately, he’s once again summoned to Beverly Hills when he learns that his estranged daughter Jane (Taylor Paige) is receiving death threats. As a defense lawyer, her current case, involving an accused cop killer and possible police corruption, has apparently upset some dangerous people. Axel teams up with Jane and her former flame, the honest cop Det. Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to investigate the threats. It isn’t exactly Chinatown in its complexity, though. The bad guy, corrupt top cop Capt. Grant (Kevin Bacon) essentially announces his villainy the minute he appears. Cue the alleged wackiness.
Villain or not, Kevin Bacon has that jawline. (Netflix)
The original Beverly Hills Cop was not a particularly great film, an often-uneasy fusion of violent cop thriller and comedy. But it did effectively milk its basic fish-out-of-water premise with a just ascending to superstar status Murphy. At this point, however, that premise has long since been milked dry. Former outsider Axel is now such a fixture in these posh surroundings that I suspect there’s a sandwich named after him at Nate’N Al’s. Continue Reading →
Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears
So it’s fairly obvious that the first two seasons of The Bear had a whole birth/death thing going on. The show opens in the aftermath of the shocking and abrupt suicide of Mikey Berzotto (John Bernthal), and the first season charts the slow, inevitable death of his restaurant, The Beef, under the stewardship of his little brother Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and best friend Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). The second follows the birth of The Bear, the new restaurant that rises from the ashes of The Beef, as well as the blossoming of many of its employees from a sloppy blue-collar crew to a careful, refined, highly efficient team. And Carmy flirted with birthing a life outside the kitchen through his relationship with old-flame-from-back-in-the-day Claire (Molly Gordon).
But while the first season ended in pretty unambiguous triumph when Carmy, Richie, and the rest of the Beef staff were suddenly flush with cash and a plan for the future, season two ends on a significantly darker note. The Bear manages to open its doors on time and have a successful opening night, but Carmy’s relationships with Richie and Claire are in tatters—casualties of Carmy’s rage and anxiety. There was a kind of dry run for the catastrophe that closed the end of season two near the end of the first. Carmy loses his shit, breaks a bunch of stuff, yells, and alienates pretty much everyone. But the final episode brought them all back together, stronger than ever. Carmy is what George Costanza would describe as a “delicate genius,” ferociously gifted but intense and unpredictable. To work with him is to warm yourself by the raging fire of his mind while trying to avoid getting burned by the constant sparks and flares that burst from it.
“THE BEAR” — “Tomorrow” — Season 3, Episode 1 (Airs Thursday, June 27th) — Pictured: Jeremy Allen White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto. CR: FX.
The show did an elegant job pacing Carmy’s assholeishness with revelations about his past home and professional life. He grew up in a single-parent home with an alcoholic, mentally unwell mother, prone to fits of rage and depression. He worked under a monstrously critical chef while he was coming up, who criticized and undermined everything he did. These revelations are for the audience, not necessarily the other characters in the show. So when Carmy melts down in a fit of panic and self-loathing on opening night, we know it’s informed by his hyper-tense childhood and abusive mentor. But the people who work under him don’t. Some know parts, but no one knows everything. And it’s harder for them to understand.Now we come to season three, and the completely reasonable expectation is that it will open much like season one closed. Having learned a valuable lesson, Carmy will gather the crew back together, apologize, and things will return to normal in the kitchen. Oh, it might take a little longer for some of them to come around than others, but everything will work itself out. Except it doesn’t. Because while the first two seasons were concerned with birth and death, the third is a lot more about life. And the thing about life is that it’s its own thing, separate from birth and death. They’re related, obviously, but life is also a distinct thing in ways that birth and death are not. Continue Reading →
Daddio
SimilarA Real Young Girl (1976), Antonia's Line (1995), Awakenings (1990), Basquiat (1996),
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Boys Don't Cry (1999) Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), City of God (2002), Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Copying Beethoven (2006), Desert Hearts (1985), Do the Right Thing (1989), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Fame (2009), King Kong (2005), Lords of Dogtown (2005),
Lost in Translation (2003) Maria Full of Grace (2004), Michael (1996), Monsoon Wedding (2001), My Life Without Me (2003), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Pi (1998), Pocketful of Miracles (1961), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Sliver (1993),
Strange Days (1995) Stranger Than Paradise (1984), The Apartment (1960), The Bone Collector (1999), The Godfather Part III (1990), The King of Comedy (1982), The Terminal (2004), The Usual Suspects (1995), The Wanderers (1979), Transamerica (2005), Valley of the Dolls (1967), When Harry Met Sally... (1989),
Watch afterAvatar: The Way of Water (2022) Barbie (2023) Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Dune (2021), Dune: Part Two (2024), Fast X (2023), Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Joker (2019),
Oppenheimer (2023) Poor Things (2023), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), The Batman (2022), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), Top Gun: Maverick (2022), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021),
From Certified Copy to Mass to the Before trilogy, cinema is replete with examples of great movies that wring transfixing drama out of an intimate scope and a cast of characters you can count on one hand. Christy Hall’s feature-length directorial debut Daddio aims to follow in the footsteps of those features, but stumbles mightily in the process.
Daddio begins at a New York airport, where Girlie (Dakota Johnson) plops into a taxi after a trip to her home state of Oklahoma. Driving this cab is Clark (Sean Penn), a grizzled man in his sixties who loves shooting his mouth off. Initially, the focus of his ramblings is typical old-man material. He gripes about the ubiquity of apps and credit cards in the modern world. Gradually, though, the duo gets trapped in traffic. Stuck on the road, Clark begins asking Girlie increasingly intimate questions. They started this car ride as strangers. But conversations ranging from the raw to the ribald will have Girlie discovering the listener she didn’t know she needed.
Unsurprisingly, Daddio started as a concept for a stage play. What's surprising is how the final film's visual impulses seem determined to avoid comparisons to something you could watch on Broadway. Hall, cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, and editor Lisa Zeno Churgin act furiously to avoid lengthy single-take shots. Nobody will ever compare this to a Chantal Akerman or Chung Mong-Hong movie. Instead, images default to close-ups and medium shots. Hall and company continuously jostle viewers around the cab. Maybe this is out of concern that moviegoers will see a more staid visual style and immediately ask, “Why isn’t this a play?” Continue Reading →
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 (In French: Horizon : Une saga Américaine - Chapitre 1)
SimilarAnna and the King (1999), Bed and Board (1970), Belle de Jour (1967), Contact (1997), Copying Beethoven (2006), Dances with Wolves (1990), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Sahara (2005), Sommersby (1993), Stolen (2024), The Devil's Rejects (2005), The Elephant Man (1980), The Fountain (2006), The Legend of Zorro (2005), The Piano (1993),
Watch afterA Quiet Place (2018), Poor Things (2023), Society of the Snow (2023),
What is Horizon? It's a question that plagues the sprawling cast of characters in Kevin Costner's new Western saga, his return to feature filmmaking after staking out a healthy retirement fund (and keeping himself in the public eye of America's dads) with five seasons on Paramount's popular neo-Western soap Yellowstone. Most of them, one way or another, have been drawn West with the promise of prosperity thanks to mysterious flyers published nationwide; settlers, homesteaders, and forty-niners all rush out there to find their future and their fortune. But, as with so many tales of the frontier, down this way lies danger: Apaches, privateers, the shadows of your past following you into the unknown seeking vengeance. Horizon, it seems, is the intangible dream of westward expansion and Manifest Destiny, the romantic core of this nation's history (and the brutal underbelly of violence that created it).
But it's also important to ask what Horizon is for Costner, especially in the context of this first chapter: Part 1, a three-hour prologue that sets up what could be up to three chapters to come but which gives audiences little to grab onto in that lengthy time period. Much like Dune: Part One before it, it's hard to gauge a film's merits when its story is incomplete by its very nature. Comparisons to "How the West Was Won" have been made, but it also evokes the epic miniseries events of the 1970s and 1980s like Lonesome Dove and The Blue and the Grey, multi-night appointment viewing that told novelistic stories with lavish production values. "Horizon" most echoes these in its structure, a TV-etic format that seems oddly fitting for Costner's return to film after so much time in the TV landscape himself.
But Part 1's greatest asset (and hurdle) comes from its opening act, the inciting incident for much of the plot's primary thrust. 1859, the San Pedro Valley; a group of settlers put down stakes and form a small tent city, complete with loving families and even a bustling dance hall. Tragically, this bliss is interrupted by a raiding party of Apaches, angry at the "white-eyes" stealing their land, a forty-minute sequence as brutal as it is terrifying. This is the Costner of Dances With Wolves, in all its power and old-fashioned attitudes: scenes full of Western grandeur, yet suffused with an exoticism of Native peoples that hasn't quite updated to the modern day. Continue Reading →
Sunny
Similar'Allo 'Allo!, 'Cause You're My Boy, A Dance to the Music of Time, A Gentleman in Moscow, A Menina Sem Qualidades, A Touch of Frost, A Very English Scandal, About a Boy, Addicted Heroin, Advokát ex offo, Aftershock: Earthquake in New York,
Agatha Christie's Poirot All in the Family, Americká tragédia, Anna Karenina, Arn: The Knight Templar, Arthur Hailey's The Moneychangers, Babel, Backstrom, Be with You, Black Raven, Blood Ties, Blossoms Shanghai, Bodies, Boy Swallows Universe, Catterick, Dangerous Liaisons, Deep Night, Devil in Ohio,
Dexter Don't Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves, Emily of New Moon, Fatherhood, Finland Papa, From Scratch, Fushigi Dagashiya: Zenitendou, Game of Thrones,
Gossip Girl Harlan Coben's Shelter, Hello Anne: Before Green Gables, Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway, I Feel You Linger in the Air, If Tomorrow Comes, Jesus, Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast for Spirits-, Kiss Me First, Kita Yoshio's Tomorrow, Lady Chatterley, Little Birds, Love in the Big City, Love Sea,
M*A*S*H Magpie Murders, Martín Rivas, Mayfair Witches, Memorial de Maria Moura, Monarch of the Glen, Monsieur Spade, Mother Is Wrong, Murder Most Horrid, My Hero Series, My Lovely Boxer, Nero Wolfe i Archie Goodwin, New Amsterdam, Nice Work, Nuremberg,
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit Os Maias, Our Secret, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Perfect Love, Perry Mason, Piece of Cake,
Planet of the Apes Platform 7, PLUTO, Portrét Doriana Graya,
Pride and Prejudice Prom Pissawat, Ramon y Cajal, Rencana Besar, Resurrection, Rivals, Santa Evita, Shangri-La, Shangri-La Frontier,
Sherlock Holmes Shining Girls, Sinking Spring, Soul Land, Stavy rachotí, Stranded, Supreme God Emperor, Sweetbitter,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tales of the South Seas, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, The Bourne Identity, The Boy Next World, The Cicada's Eighth Day, The Echo, The End of Love, The Flatshare, The Girls on the Bus, The Journey of Chongzi, The Last Convertible, The Little Drummer Girl,
The Lost World The Mysterious Benedict Society, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, The Night Sister, The Old Man, The Pillars of the Earth, The Prey, The Rector's Wife, The Red Sleeve, The Rhinemann Exchange, The Rotters' Club,
The Shining The Sign, The Sun Also Rises, The Venture Bros., To Kill a Cop, Tracker, Transformation, Trickster, Under the Bridge, Vanished 46, War and Peace, Warera ga Paradise, We Are, We Rent Tsukumogami, When Heroes Fly, White Teeth, Wimarn Din, Wolf Pack,
Wycliffe Yonder, You, You Touched My Heart,
About fifteen years ago, an era of “complicated” protagonists ruled the television landscape. These anti-heroes—Walter White, Don Draper—were the sort of people one wouldn’t associate in their day-to-day life. Safely sealed in a flat screen, though, and viewers couldn’t get enough of them. It was a glorious time to be unlikable on TV. Still, as Erik Kain pointed out, it was an honor almost entirely reserved for men. Sunny is a late-arriving corrective, centering a fully complex and often unlikable Rashida Jones.
As Suzi, Jones ditches nearly everything that makes her an on-screen appealing presence in the likes of The Office and Parks and Recreation. She also flattens the traits that make her stand out as a character worthy of empathy in projects like Silo and On the Rocks. In place of those, she offers a dead-eyed stare that only sparks to life when castigating her mother-in-law Noriko (Judy Ongg), random bureaucrats, and, of course, the titular android Sunny (voiced by Joanna Sotomura).
Rashida Jones does not, and this can't be stressed enough, have time for this nonsense. (AppleTV+)
It isn’t like she doesn’t have cause for anger and the thousand-mile gaze. As the opening minutes reveal, Suzi has justy lost her husband Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and son in a plane crash. However, as the series unfolds, it becomes clear Suzi can’t blame her unpleasantness entirely on grief. As revealed in flashbacks, she’s been hard-drinking and foul-mouthed for some time. Additionally, although partially owed to her dyslexia, she wields her failure to learn nearly any Japanese like a cudgel. It is yet another tool for holding the world at bay. That world includes, often, her spouse. Of course, his own drinking and pile of secrets hardly made him an ideal partner either. Continue Reading →
WondLa
Similar3rd Rock from the Sun, A Discovery of Witches, Be with You,
Caprica Crusade D.N.Angel, Dark Skies,
Doctor Who Duck Dodgers,
Eureka Seven Evergreen, Fatherhood, First Wave, Fushigi Dagashiya: Zenitendou, Game of Thrones, Halo: The Fall of Reach, Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway, I Feel You Linger in the Air,
Justice League Kakuriyo -Bed & Breakfast for Spirits-, Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight, Kamichu!, Kiss Me First, Mayfair Witches, Mobile Cop Jiban, Mystery Science Theater 3000, One Step Toward Freedom, Out of This World, Percy Jackson and the Olympians,
Planet of the Apes Prom Pissawat, Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon,
Red Dwarf Resurrection, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Ronja the Robber's Daughter, Samurai Jack, Sentimental Journey, Shangri-La, Soul Land, Space Precinct,
Star Trek Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,
Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Star Wars: Droids, Stargate Atlantis, Supreme God Emperor, Taken,
Tales from the Neverending Story Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The 100, The Cicada's Eighth Day, The Head, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Journey of Chongzi, The Mysterious Benedict Society,
The Sarah Jane Adventures The Shining The Sign, The Tatami Time Machine Blues, The Venture Bros., The Wallflower, Threshold,
Torchwood Trickster, Ultraman, Ultraseven, Vanished 46, Voltes V: Legacy, We Rent Tsukumogami, Wimarn Din, Wolf Pack, Yonder,
There’s no honest way to say WondLa looks ugly or uninteresting. The environs, in particular, make wonderful use of gentle pastels broken by sharp primary colors to create a world both beautiful and utterly alien (no pun intended) to our protagonist, Eva (Jeanine Mason). But visually attractive isn’t the same as unique or arresting. Sadly, once one begins to scratch the show’s surface, it reveals many all-too-familiar elements. Sometimes, it is just a general sense of the thing. At others, it is nearly one-to-one. For example, Eva’s first otherworldly ally, Otto (Brad Garrett), is a furry talkative sibling to Raya and The Last Dragon’s Tuk Tuk.
Similar design elements are typically easy to accept for this critic, provided the story utilizing them offers enough to chew on. It is here that WondLa truly stumbles. A collection of other “coming of age” and “humanity’s end” stories’ greatest hits, the series never offers something fresh enough to get its audience to sit up and take notice. A collection of strong voice work, including Teri Hatcher—who has proven herself a real voice talent asset over the years—is further hamstrung because the voices come from mostly thinly sketched characters.
Sarah Hollis and Jeanine Mason love your new look. (AppleTV+)
In some unnumbered future year, Eva is the only child living in a vast underground bunker known as a Sanctuary. Her only true companionship is a robot surrogate parent, Muthr, who sees to the child’s physical—and, with time, inevitably—emotional needs. When Eva turns six, she—and the audience—learns she is part of a program to “save” humans from themselves. Under the direction of Cadmus Pryde (Alan Tudyk in a rare straightforward voice performance), the dwindling human populace built an array of Sanctuaries. In each, a robot raised children until the planet healed from the various environmental catastrophes and violent conflicts people visited upon it. When the Earth is ready and the children properly trained, they will be released to the surface to re-establish society and maybe treat each other and their planet right this time. Continue Reading →
Joko Anwar's Nightmares and Daydreams
Joko Anwar is no stranger to telling stories that serve as a mirror reflecting Indonesia’s sociopolitical situation. In his folk horror Impetigore, he delves into the topics of poverty and the abuse of power, while his superhero flick Gundala tackles the theme of mass hysteria. It is no surprise that in his 7-episode anthology Netflix series Nightmares and Daydreams, he portrays various everyday situations from his homeland, touching on issues like the struggle of being in a sandwich generation and systemic challenges faced by Indonesian society. Through his distinct narrative style, Anwar confronts pressing issues with a blend of supernatural intrigue and science fiction. In each episode, the show immerses us in compelling tales that not only entertain but provoke thought.
Set between the years 1985 and 2024, the series chronicles the experiences of everyday individuals in Jakarta who encounter peculiar phenomena while simultaneously navigating their struggles. While each episode focuses on different characters, the events depicted throughout the season are interconnected and gradually reveal something more sinister.
In our recent conversation with Anwar, he shed light on the inspirations behind Nightmares and Daydreams. From the show's inception to the intricacies of character development, Anwar's meticulous attention to detail underscores his commitment to crafting narratives that resonate on multiple levels. Moreover, his fascination with the aliens adds an intriguing layer to the series, sparking discussions among the audience. Continue Reading →
Orphan Black: Echoes
NetworkAMC+,
SimilarA Gentleman in Moscow, Agatha All Along, Angel, Bad Guys: Vile City, Breaking Bad, Celebrity, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, CSI: Miami, Gundam Build Divers, Harlan Coben's Shelter, K-9, Kamen Rider Outsiders, Kamen Rider Zero-One Short Anime: Everyone's Daily Life, Knots Landing, LBX Girls, Legacies, Lost in Space, Mayans M.C., Re:Mind, Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho, Shotaro Hidari Hard-Boiled Delusion Diary, Station 19, Super Dragon Ball Heroes, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, Tabitha, The Eight: The Next Generation,
The Sarah Jane Adventures The Seven Heavenly Virtues, The Twilight Zone, Thriller,
Torchwood Ultraman Regulos, You,
It is perhaps unfair to compare a single 10-episode season of Orphan Black Echoes against its predecessor’s 50 episodes over five seasons run. After all, that much more real estate allows a show so much more time to explore and resolve its mythos satisfactorily. But if one stacks up Echoes’ season against the original’s debut, the newest member of the franchise still suffers by comparison.
Created by Anna Fishko and taking place about 40 years after the events of Orphan Black, Orphan Black Echoes opens with an immediate hook. A woman (Krysten Ritter)—who we’ll eventually know as Lucy—awakens in a well-appointed living room. She has no memory of who she is, where she is, or how she got there. Dr. Kira Manning (Keeley Hawes)—the adult daughter of Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany), who is sadly only glimpsed in a photo—attempts to calm and remind Lucy of her past. It fails and the amnesiac has to be chemically restrained. Later, she manages to escape the room, only to discover that it is little more than a set built inside a massive warehouse. In 2052, the cloning process at the center of the original series may be illegal, but science has found a workaround, creating a different kind of copy called, colloquially, “printouts.”
From there, the series follows Lucy’s attempts to discover her past and protect those she cares about. The quest sweeps up several others in its quake, including a teen, Jules Lee (Amanda Fix), who’s deeply connected to Lucy and Kira. Others pulled into the situation include Kira’s wife (Rya Kihlstedt), a seemingly altruistic billionaire, Paul Darrios (James Hiroyuki Liao), a shoot-first-ask-questions-later enforcer Tom (Reed Diamond), and a single father (Avan Jogia) and his tween daughter (Zariella Langford). Continue Reading →
Thelma
SimilarAntonia's Line (1995), Bad Education (2004), Barton Fink (1991), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Cars (2006), Catwoman (2004), Children of Men (2006), D.E.B.S. (2005), Die Hard (1988), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Frida (2002), Garden State (2004), Go (1999), Heavenly Creatures (1994), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Lethal Weapon 3 (1992), Lethal Weapon 4 (1998),
Live Free or Die Hard (2007) May (2003), Mulholland Drive (2001), Night on Earth (1991), Notes on a Scandal (2006), Pretty Woman (1990), Silent Hill (2006), Snakes on a Plane (2006), Taxi Driver (1976), Terminator Salvation (2009), The Big Lebowski (1998), The Dark Knight (2008), The Elementary Particles (2006), The Karate Kid (1984), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), To Die For (1995), Transamerica (2005), True Romance (1993), Werckmeister Harmonies (2001), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988),
“How could Zuckembourg let this happen?” Thelma (June Squibb) stammers at the police officer trying to make out a report. Though her loyal grandson, Daniel (Fred Hechinger), assures her that Mark Zuckerberg had nothing to do with this, someone needs to be held responsible. She’s been the victim of a scam, convinced to drain her bank account for a fake emergency, and now it’s payback time—literally.
Writer/Director John Margolin’s Thelma is an endlessly thrilling action film that moves at its own speed. Clearly a loving student of the genre, Margolin uses the standard beats of an action film but on a much more senior scale. The chase scenes feel familiar; they just occur on mobility scooters. Working in tandem with the film’s composer, Nick Chuba, the filmmaker uses thumping action-thriller cues and whirling camerawork to give even the opening of a handicapped door a sense of life-or-death excitement. In some ways, simple falls are honestly more perilous for the 94-year-old protagonist. By using perfectly placed musical themes that feel archetypal to the action film, Thelma puts in her hearing aids like its Mission Impossible tech. Clearing pop-ups feels like hacking the mainframe.
June Squibb sets the tone for the whole film, which appears delicate but still full of hardscrabble tenacity, just like her character. There’s no stopping Thelma when she has an errand. We can say the same of Squibb in every scene she’s in. Thelma begins the story as a victim, but by the end, Squibb has straightened her spine and takes aim at the resolution with full guns blazing. Though people are constantly telling her character that she’s fragile, Squibb is always the center of gravity, not pulling focus but creating an orbit for her colleagues to perform and find the space to play. Continue Reading →
The Exorcism
SimilarA History of Violence (2005), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), Constantine (2005), Ghostbusters (1984), Godzilla (1998), Insomnia (2002), Just Cause (1995), Misery (1990), Saw (2004), Saw II (2005), Saw III (2006), Silent Hill (2006), The King of Comedy (1982),
The Name of the Rose (1986) The Science of Sleep (2006), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Silence of the Lambs (1991),
Watch afterAquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023), Dune (2021), Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), Morbius (2022), Napoleon (2023), Society of the Snow (2023), The Marvels (2023),
StudioMiramax,
The biggest challenge any director making an exorcism movie faces is: How do you top The Exorcist? William Friedkin's apocalyptic, daring 1974 classic defined the genre so thoroughly that any subsequent entry is both indebted to, and haunted by, its mastery. The smartest move, really, is to just embrace its fog-covered shadow; The Exorcism, a meta-textual possession film that swims happily in the iconography of its forebear. In so doing it comes away with surprisingly melancholic ruminations on the strain that came with, well, making The Exorcist.
The film is co-written and directed by Joshua John Miller (Final Girls), whose most direct connection to The Exorcist comes from being the son of Jason Miller, the actor who played Father Karras in Friedkin's original. In a way, this story feels like Miller exorcising demons of his own, likely spurred by watching the emotional toll his father experienced working on Friedkin's famously chaotic and unpredictable set back in 1974. Here, the timeline is moved to the present, where a film called The Georgetown Project (a nod to the town in which The Exorcist is set) is put on hold after the actor playing the priest (a brief turn from Adrian Pasdar) meets a grisly fate late one night in the film's doll-house like soundstage.
In desperation, the film's director (Adam Goldberg) turns to Anthony Miller (Russell Crowe), a washed-up movie star freshly sober and looking for his way back into the spotlight. In an early scene of confession -- a perpetually useful device for Catholic-flavored exposition -- we learn that Miller is a lapsed Catholic whose life has been haunted by childhood sexual abuse as an altar boy. This itself rippled out into drug and alcohol problems and a strained relationship with his daughter Lee (Ryan Simpkins), who comes home after washing out of college just in time for Miller to contemplate a return to screen. Continue Reading →
Fancy Dance (In French: La danse du châle)
SimilarA Real Young Girl (1976), Antonia's Line (1995), Awakenings (1990),
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Blood and Chocolate (2007),
Boys Don't Cry (1999) Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), City of God (2002), Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Copying Beethoven (2006), Desert Hearts (1985), Italian for Beginners (2000), Lolita (1997), Lords of Dogtown (2005),
Lost in Translation (2003) Michael (1996), Monsoon Wedding (2001), Monster (2003), My Life Without Me (2003), My Own Private Idaho (1991), Night on Earth (1991), Oldboy (2003), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Stand by Me (1986),
Strange Days (1995) The Straight Story (1999),
Watch afterBarbie (2023) Dune: Part Two (2024), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), The Equalizer 3 (2023), The Menu (2022),
One of Fancy Dance’s most tender moments takes place in a place one wouldn’t normally associate with personal epiphanies. After glancing at a swarm of convenience store bathroom graffiti, teenager Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson) sees an opportunity. Taking out a marker, she scribbles “Roki was here” in her native Cayuga language on the wall. It’s one of many instances in Fancy Dance of characters finding little ways to reinforce their presence even when they’re not physically around. Roki clings to trinkets, including a ritzy jacket associated with her missing mother. Performers at a major Powwow event dance to commemorate dead or lost loved ones.
This thematic motif is extra important given that Roki, like nearly all of Fancy Dance’s principal characters, hails from the Seneca–Cayuga Nation Reservation in Oklahoma. The norm in America is to erase Indigenous lives. Their children are stolen. Homes are wiped out. Cultures are suppressed. The figures on screen here find countless ways to refute that erasure. Such rebellion even manifests through something as small as convenience store bathroom graffiti.
Before Roki writes that fateful piece of graffiti, she’s living a quiet life with her aunt Jax (Lily Gladstone). With Roki’s mom missing for weeks now, Jax is the only parent this teenager has. She seems the only one concerned about that vanished lady, given how little effort law enforcement has put into finding her. Unfortunately, Jax’s criminal record from years past leads to the state deeming her unsuitable to be Roki’s guardian. This surrogate mother/daughter duo is now destined to be separated. In the process, this adolescent would also leave behind her reservation's home and culture. Continue Reading →
The Bikeriders (In French: Les Motards)
SimilarA Beautiful Mind (2001), A Bronx Tale (1993), Almost Famous (2000), American Psycho (2000), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Apocalypse Now (1979), Batman Forever (1995),
Blade Runner (1982) Blue Velvet (1986), Brubaker (1980), Chicago (2002), Closely Watched Trains (1966), Crash (1996), Cruel Intentions (1999), Dances with Wolves (1990), Don't Look Now (1973), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Fallen (1998), Force 10 from Navarone (1978), Freaks (1932), Frenzy (1972), Gladiator (2000), Gone Baby Gone (2007), Heaven Is for Real (2014),
Jackie Brown (1997) JFK (1991), Jules and Jim (1962), Léon: The Professional (1994), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Lolita (1962), Lolita (1997), Lords of Dogtown (2005),
Lost in Translation (2003) Love and Honor (2006), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), May (2003), Metropolis (1927), Notes on a Scandal (2006),
Primal Fear (1996) Romeo + Juliet (1996), Rope (1948), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Scarface (1932), Schindler's List (1993), Se7en (1995), Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014), Sissi (1955), Solaris (1972), Stolen (2024), Street Kings (2008), The Dark Knight (2008), The Elementary Particles (2006), The French Dispatch (2021), The Good German (2006), The Hours (2002), The Interpreter (2005),
The Name of the Rose (1986) The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995), To Die For (1995), Twin Murders: The Silence of the White City (2019), Walk the Line (2005), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993),
Watch afterAvatar (2009),
Throughout such films as Shotgun Stories (2007), Take Shelter (2011), Mud (2012), Midnight Special (2016), and Loving (2016), writer-director Jeff Nichols has shown himself to be a filmmaker particularly fascinated with telling tales of people living on the fringes of society. On the surface, his latest effort, the long-delayed The Bikeriders, would seem to be an ideal use of his particular talents. But that makes the failures of the structurally confused, dramatically inert, and ultimately meandering project seem all the more baffling.
Loosely inspired by the work of photographer Danny Lyon, who embedded himself with the Chicago chapter of the Outlaw Motorcycle Club for over a year and chronicled it in the influential 1968 book The Bikeriders, the film charts the development and growth of the Vandals, a motorcycle gang led by Johnny (Tom Hardy). He's an ordinary suburban Chicago family man with a job as a trucker who is nevertheless compelled to form the gang after watching The Wild One on TV. (Good thing he wasn’t watching Guys and Dolls instead.) Soon, he collects a number of like-minded guys who seem to spend all their time riding, working on their bikes, or getting drunk and violent in bars and group picnics while their wives and girlfriends look at them with varying degrees of exasperation.
One of those wives, Kathy (Jodie Comer), is our guide to the story, regaling the tale of the gang in a series of interviews with Lyon (Mike Faist). One night, she finds herself in a bar with the Vandals and catches the eye of Benny (Austin Butler), perhaps the most dedicated member of the group outside of Johnny himself. The two marry after only a few weeks, but his fealty to the group and his recklessly headstrong ways begin to drive a wedge between them. As the group changes and evolves over the years—becoming more violent and aggressive with the influx of younger riders wanting to prove themselves—a tug-of-war develops between Kathy and Johnny for Benny's love and loyalty, one which ultimately proves painful for all involved. Continue Reading →
Tuesday
SimilarA Real Young Girl (1976), Antonia's Line (1995), Awakenings (1990),
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Boys Don't Cry (1999) Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), City of God (2002), Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Copying Beethoven (2006), Desert Hearts (1985), Frida (2002), Italian for Beginners (2000), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Lords of Dogtown (2005),
Lost in Translation (2003) Monsoon Wedding (2001), Monster (2003), My Life Without Me (2003), Pocketful of Miracles (1961), Shrek (2001), Sleepless in Seattle (1993),
Strange Days (1995) The Party (1980) The Party 2 (1982) The Piano (1993),
Watch afterA Quiet Place (2018),
Barbie (2023) Dune (2021), Dune: Part Two (2024), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) Poor Things (2023), The Equalizer 3 (2023),
From the cosmic ether to the granular eye, Daina Oniunas-Pusić’s singular debut feature, Tuesday, migrates across space and scale with poignant ease. Fifteen-year-old Tuesday (Lola Petticrew) is terminally ill, which her mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) doesn’t want to accept. It’s not until Death visits them as an elder macaw (voiced by Arinzé Kene) that Tuesday and Zora can confront the terrifying mysteries of mortality and embrace an afterlife. It’s a soaring cinematic fairy tale about life and loss that touches our heartstrings with the tenderness of a feather.
It starts with the simplicity of belief. Oniunas-Pusić’s writing feels so contemporary because it wholeheartedly embraces wonder as an axiom. This is not a late 20th-century magical comedy where half the movie is spent convincing someone (usually a parent/adult) that the magic is real. There is no dramatic irony. Instead, Pusić invites us to trust and believe in the magical reality she sets before us, just as Zora must learn to trust and believe her daughter when she says it’s time to let go. The appearance of the talking parrot sets off a chain of empathy in which everyone, including Death, wants to be understood.
It’s easy to understand these characters when the performers make everything so legible. Petticrew shows Tuesday’s conflicted feelings about being a youth at the end of her life. She’s being pulled away yet has found much to appreciate and enjoy. Tuesday could be a tragic figure, but Pusić and Petticrew render her more human than mortal. It would be easy for Petticrew to remain at Louis-Dreyfus' feet (as Tuesday does) for most of the film, but they instead crafts a fortitude that holds its own. Continue Reading →
Inside Out 2 (In French: Sens dessus dessous 2)
SimilarA Bug's Life (1998), Aladdin (1992), Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), Armageddon (1998), Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Back to the Future Part II (1989),
Back to the Future Part III (1990) Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Billy Elliot (2000), Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006),
Boys Don't Cry (1999) Bride of Re-Animator (1990), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Bring It On (2000), Brother Bear (2003), Cars (2006), Chicken Little (2005), Deadpool 2 (2018), Dirty Dancing (1987), Edward Scissorhands (1990), F9 (2021), Fame (2009), Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019), Force 10 from Navarone (1978), Free Willy (1993), Frozen 3 (), Ghostbusters (1984), Good Luck Chuck (2007), Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), I ♥ Huckabees (2004), Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009), Jaws: The Revenge (1987), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Lethal Weapon 3 (1992), Lethal Weapon 4 (1998),
Live and Let Die (1973) Look Who's Talking (1989),
Lost in Translation (2003) Mamma Mia! (2008),
Mary Poppins (1964) Mary Poppins Returns (2018), Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Night at the Museum (2006), Ocean's Eleven (1960), Oldboy (2003), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Shrek 2 (2004),
Shrek the Third (2007) Snakes on a Plane (2006), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), Superman Returns (2006), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), The Jungle Book 2 (2003), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), The Simpsons Movie (2007), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009),
StudioWalt Disney Pictures,
Save for that movie where Larry the Cable Guy supposedly urinated in public, Pixar sequels are rarely terrible. Finding Dory, Incredibles 2, and Monsters University are vastly preferable to the average Minions or Hotel Transylvania follow-up. Even Cars 3 wrung more pathos than expected out of its ill-conceived universe. The greatest problem with these sequels has been that they’re merely competent. They’re serviceable watches, but many are safe retreads of the familiar. Risks are minimal, idiosyncratic animation flourishes are scarce.
When absorbing these follow-ups, it's hard not to yearn for more challenging original Pixar titles like Turning Red, Ratatouille, or WALL-E. Still, details like the unexpected third-act detour of Monsters University or the charming new characters in Finding Dory are absent from your standard Ice Age or Illumination sequels. If we must live in this franchise-dominated pop culture landscape, Pixar has delivered more hits than most. Goodness knows the Toy Story sequels are outright masterpieces of long-form cinematic storytelling.
The newest example of the label’s pleasant, if far from groundbreaking, sequels, is Inside Out 2. Directed by Kelsey Mann (a new feature film helmer taking over for previous director Pete Docter), the sequel expands on the world of Riley’s mind established in 2015’s Inside Out. Continue Reading →