David Lynch

David Lynch has died, just a few days before his 79th birthday. Although details of his death have not been officially announced, it's not hard to imagine what happened. Only last year he announced he suffered from emphysema from years of smoking. The condition prevented him from leaving his home and he was forced to do that very thing due to the recent catastrophic fires in Los Angeles. You could say simply he was killed by fire but, artistically, throughout his career, he was propelled or sustained by it. He talked about the inspiration he drew from smoking cigarettes and the presence of fire in his films was always remarkable. What filmmaker has more memorably provided shots of fireplaces? There's the sudden blaze in Fred Madison's recollection of a dream in Lost Highway, the shot of Ben Horne spitting into a massive fireplace on the first episode of Twin Peaks. I needn't mention the important place Lynch's work has occupied in my life. Anyone who knows me or has read my blog for a long enough time will know the profound effect his work has had on me. When I was a kid, just figuring out what art is and how it works, Lynch's films were so arresting, so easily evincing of the power of image and sound to communicate thoughts and feelings beyond the scope of language, my capacity for perception couldn't help but be enriched and expanded. Watching Lynch's movies taught me the power of pacing and silence and sequence. Watching his movies was a gateway to appreciating many other filmmakers, from Ingmar Bergman to Jean Cocteau to Alfred Hitchcock to many, many more. It's a consolation to know that Lynch's genius is widely recognised. Not every artist who's passed over for recognition or who garners praise deserves either but in Lynch's case the praise is abundant and abundantly deserved. Already Criterion is showing a playlist of his works and his work in film and television and music can be found on Amazon Prime, Disney+, Netflix, and YouTube. When I think about death, I often thing of "Sycamore Trees", a song from Lynch's Twin Peaks. Lynch wrote the lyrics and the music was by his frequent collaborator Angelo Badalamenti. Here it is performed by one of Lynch's many luminous muses, Chrysta Bell: What else can I say? Only about a billion things. Too many for this space. It's a crime he was never permitted to make another movie after 2017's third season of Twin Peaks but as a final work those eighteen episodes would be hard to top. He directed and co-wrote every episode, he starred in most of them, he designed the sound, he built much of the furniture. Truly, words are insufficient.

Skeleton Through

The final episode of Skeleton Crew aired last night and, due to the show's extraordinarily low ratings, people are saying it's the last of the series rather than merely the season. I found the episode frustrating and out of touch with itself but I can see what was trying to say, that the show itself had actual ideas and themes its creators, John Watts and Christopher Ford, were working through, which is more than I can say for The Acolyte, Ahsoka, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. So, while I think the show was misfire, I do think it had good aim.

The last episode further emphasised the show's similarity to Treasure Island as it seems clear that Jude Law's character, Jod, is meant to occupy the same murky position of audience sympathy that Long John Silver inhabited in Robert Louis Stevenson's classic pirate novel (as well as many of his other novels, including Jekyll and Hyde, Master of Ballantrae, and Kidnapped). It's a tricky balance to pull off and, unfortunately, the show falls right off the tight rope, but I do kind of respect the intent.

The problem is, there's never a moment where I want the kids to win. The show throws us such broad hints that society on At Attin is sterile and really more Imperial than Old Republic, and Jod, despite Jude Law's performance infusing the character with bitterness, remains the more attractive and sympathetic alternative throughout. What is a morally complicated and riveting situation in Treasure Island is all too clear in Skeleton Crew so when characters act like things aren't clear, or clearly opposite of what they are, it's extremely discordant and a little infuriating. It's not helped by moments like when KB successfully pulls off a landing and Fern screams like we just saw her blown to smithereens. Or the pirate invasion where they're shooting at everyone but we never see anyone killed or injured, or the last minute appearance by Rebel fighters who open fire on the pirate ship without warning.

The intention may have been to nod at the undercurrents of Revenge of the Sith, to hint that the identity of the "real good guys" might not be so clear but I would be very surprised if anyone came away from this thinking Jod deserved to be thwarted. It was also kind of frustrating that Kelly Macdonald's character never returned. It would be kind of nice seeing a series about her and Jod having adventures far away from At Attin and those kids.

Skeleton Crew is available on Disney+.

Your Fuzzy Robot Friends

The promise of nightmare inherent in animatronics is somewhat realised in 2024's Five Nights at Freddy's. Based on a popular horror game franchise inspired by those old creepy family restaurants like Chuck E. Cheese and ShowBiz Pizza, the movie somehow avoids ever being scary but it is kind of a fun adventure.

The main character, Mike (Josh Hutcherson), is a security guard at a long shuttered location for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. At one point he watches an old security training video which reminded me of the vintage ShowBiz Pizza training videos that made the rounds ten or so years ago. Comparing the animatronics and walkabouts seen in those videos to the slick, Jim Henson Creature Shop designed robots in the movie reveals how the film failed to capture the creepiness of reality. The animatronics need to be rickety, they need to have dead eyes. The ones in the movie are almost muppets; they're too effectively friendly, even with the exposed wiring and sharpened metal parts.

It is fun following Mike, his little sister (Piper Rubio), and a beautiful police officer named Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) as they try to unravel the mystery of the place. Some of it doesn't make much sense, as when Vanessa encourages the little girl to befriend the haunted animatronics only to tell Mike never to bring the girl near the things again. She also doesn't warn the little girl that a guitar belonging to one animatronic can electrocute her.

Still, it's a fun movie and has some of the adventurous appeal I assume is present in the video game.

Five Nights at Freddy's is available on Amazon Prime in Japan and on Peacock elsewhere.

X Sonnet #1912

A hooded figure carried plushies north.
Completed rows of fuzzy figures watch.
Among them lives a dream of marching forth.
But not a one can read his tiny watch.
As voices carried, actions built a tube.
Opinions route to sea and sink to sod.
The censors limit words to "Yo" and "boob"
Until the masses make a bugless mod.
Auspicious times were left beside the date.
No date occurs beneath the eyes of kids.
Adults do not arise from studied hate.
No purchase gained from endless, furtive bids.
Cognition dips beneath the waves of sloth.
A tide of blood betrays the ghosts were wroth.

When Angie Harmon was Angie Harming!

Two orphaned kids are adopted by a couple who seem nice at first but, once they get home, things almost instantly sour in 2006's Glass House: The Good Mother. It's the direct to video spin-off of Glass House, a movie critics and audiences hated. The Good Mother hasn't exactly garnered a better reputation so the brand tie-in is a little puzzling, as is the very fact of its existence. It is badly written and the performances are average at best but director Steve Antin makes some interesting choices.

Angie Harmon and Joel Gretsch play Eve and Raymond Goode, respectively. They seem like nice people who've just lost their son. Jordan Hinson and Bobby Coleman play Abby and Ethan Snow, the two kids they adopt at the beginning of the film. Abby is the point of view character and it's through her we slowly gather clues about the Goodes' dark secrets.

The director tries to convey feelings with experimental camera work like sudden closeups in the middle of a suspense scene. Sometimes it's effective but there's a strange abundance of closeups on Jordan Hinson, the teenage girl. She is very pretty but she's the point of view character so we need to see what she's looking at. The director seems to forget. There's a moment where she escapes the house and she's looking around, panicked, and we never get a shot to let us know what she's seeing. The camera stays in closeup which is a bit claustrophobic. It's almost like Detour, like this whole scenario is a dream of some kind whose true purpose is to contemplate Jordan Hinson's face.

This impression is heightened by the dialogue. This is what Roger Ebert used to call an "idiot plot," a plot that depends on people not saying or asking things most people naturally would in such a situation. The kids don't ask why the doors to the sprawling Goode manor have locks on the inside. Eve won't explain why she won't let the kids leave the house. The topic of school is never broached. Abby, stuck in the house, never asks to call her friends nor is there mention of her having friends. Instead we watch her play solitaire with a deck of cards like this movie is set in 1910 on a remote farm during a drought. I guess you could see the house as a brain and the battle of wills between Eve and Abby as a war between two aspects of a personality, maybe anxiety and a longing for personal freedom.

Jason London has a small role in the film as a friendly cop. The movie also has one of the most literal appearances of Chekhov's gun I've ever seen.

The Power of IP Compels You

A badass English Exorcist and his Mexican sidekick battle demons and Catholic conspiracy in 2016's The Exorcist. This Fox series is a direct sequel to the 1973 William Friedkin movie. It lacks the subtlety and sense of realism of that excellent film, owing more of its tone to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and some of the pulpier episodes of The X-Files though its opening theme was clearly inspired by True Detective. For that kind of series, it's not bad at all and features a surprisingly good performance from Geena Davis.

The protagonists are Marcus (Ben Daniels) and Tomas (Alfonso Herrera). Marcus is the experienced and scarred old exorcist whom we meet losing a child to a demon. Tomas is a local priest in Chicago where the show's first season was shot and set.

I enjoyed Daniels' antagonistic performance, making Marcus a man whose patience is reserved entirely for the sick chambers of possessed children. I didn't really like Tomas who gives in very easily to a tryst with a young married woman. Maybe if the woman had been fleshed out a bit more I'd have appreciated it as a believable character flaw but mostly he just seems of weaker will than the show would like me to believe.

Geena Davis plays the mother of Casey (Hannah Kasulka), the girl possessed by a demon. Alan Ruck--Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off--plays Davis' husband who recently had a brain injury that prevents him from accessing certain memories and occasionally impairs his speech. His character also serves as a conduit for the supernatural in a few interesting moments.

There are times in the series where it feels like the writers are killing time, especially early on in circular scenes of people trying to convince people an exorcist needs to happen, that Casey's problems go beyond mental illness. The family needs to be convinced or is trying to convince, the priests try to convince each other, and the church officials also need convincing. But I can understand the difficulty for the writers. What can you do when the actual action of the exorcism involves priests shouting scripture at a writhing and puking kid? The original film succeeds so well by establishing a sense of a real family and the deep violation of their shared reality perpetrated by the demon. The series never feels like real life, just comic book/soap opera life, which, to the writers' credit, is about as high as I think they consciously aspired to. So they had to throw in some more lurid plot details like nuns who keep gardens of belladonna and gangs of organ harvesters.

It's fun. I would single out episode five, the only one written by David Grimm, as an exceptionally eerie episode in which characters trapped in a house together play off each other nicely.

The Exorcist is available on Hulu.

Unnecessary Confidence Wins

An American fella on vacation in Spain finds himself happily and frustratingly tangled up in the life of a beautiful con artist in 1936's Desire. This delightful little screwball comedy was produced by Ernst Lubitsch and bears marks of the famed "Lubitsch Touch".

Gary Cooper is the American, a car engineer on vacation in Europe, promoting the company while he's at it with a gaudy sign strapped to his car. Meanwhile, Marlene Dietrich is the beautiful con artist and I loved how the film casually constructs her traps. She tells a jeweller her husband's a famous psychiatrist and she tells the famous psychiatrist her husband's the famous jeweller and then arranges for them to meet while she's in the other room with a valuable pearl necklace. It's a long time before the psychiatrist can figure out the jeweller's not crazy and by then Dietrich is long gone.

But fate is cleverer than Dietrich and, on the road, one mishap after another brings her and Cooper together. She and Cooper had both starred in Morocco, a far more famous film these days but apparently Dietrich preferred this film. Cooper certainly has more to do it. Despite his frustrations, he can't help but grinning at his luck to be in a car with a beautiful and mysterious woman, his simple-hearted glee being one of the film's chief pleasures.

Desire is available on The Criterion Channel.

Post-Riding Hood

This morning I read the latest Sirenia Digest which contains a new Caitlin R. Kiernan story called "THE HUNGER THRONE". It's a nice postmodernist reworking of Little Red Riding Hood that reminded me of Company of Wolves and Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright. Both Stage Fright and "THE HUNGER THRONE" contain a twist wherein it's revealed the narrative itself contains lies (in the case of Stage Fright, arguably it's still framed as character point of view, but that's not how critics took it). Whether or not it works for you depends on how adventurous you are, I suppose, or maybe I should say how open your mind is. I'm always up for an experiment myself.

Those who complained that the girl in the story never rides or is ridden may be pleased.

X Sonnet #1911

The sugar lumps from other years are changed.
Desserts of vanished futures stop the meal.
Across a cookie board the problems ranged.
A troubled game divides the fake from real.
The question hovers over tractor trucks.
Assembled crew were asked to gas the beast.
The foreman glanced across a hundred bucks.
The knowing faces praised a dollar feast.
The wicked curve defined the rocky moon.
With craters cursing land, the place was left.
Beside the door, a gangster placed his goon.
So stolen cash has filled a lunar cleft.
As chilly day was swapped for burning night
We never found ourselves in want of light.

Heart Wars

Jon Watts and Christopher Ford returned to pen last night's penultimate episode of Skeleton Crew. It was kind of odd because I recognised the story beats of a kids' adventure story from the '80s and Treasure Island and felt like I ought to be enjoying it. Unfortunately, I still feel like the show is out of touch with how sympathy works.

I don't believe stories have to be about sympathetic characters but one thing you need sympathetic characters for is illogical writing. If your audience sympathises with the characters, they're generally more willing to overlook leaps in logic that allow them to win. When a leap in logic favours a character you don't like, you feel cheated. Brutal but sound logic can be devastating but part of a good experience.

When the droid, SM-33, cited a piece of Pirate Code that said a captain could only claim one ship at a time, it was part of the leap in logic that allowed the kids to escape. If I liked the kids, this would've been a happy and exciting moment. But never did I prefer them over Jude Law's character, Jod. So it felt like a cheat. The rule doesn't make any sense. Real life pirates commanded multiple ships. Pirates like plunder and the ships themselves were part of that plunder. Maybe if Jod changed his title to "admiral" the droid would've been more amenable.

So it turns out that there's truly a massive stockpile of wealth which At Attin's gated community is sitting on. Do I have the slightest desire to see Jod prevented from obtaining this wealth that's apparently just gathering dust in over a thousand vaults?

I realise full well that this is likely all a set up for Jod to be revealed as a less villainous character in the final episode. I mean, that is the only way this could be satisfying. But the writers seem to think I'd be conflicted at this point and I'm just not. Is it supposed to be endearing when Wim shouts, "Attack!" and tries to take the whole pirate crew with his fists? Am I supposed to be impressed by Fern's calling "unclaimsies"? I had to check the closed captioning before I even understood what she said. The fact that that worked was a huge leap in logic and maybe I'd have been willing to go with it if I thoroughly despised Jod. But I have the exact opposite feelings so it was entirely a frustrating experience.

Skeleton Crew is available on Disney+.

My Next Guest Needs No Invocation

Things go awry when Satan proves an unruly talk show guest in 2024's Late Night with the Devil. An amusing recreation of a '70s talk show is disturbed by Satanic horror elements in a pretty satisfying way.

David Dastmalchian plays Jack Delroy, the host of Night Owls with Jack Delroy, a late night talk show competing with The Tonight Show. The name Night Owls is hinted to have a relationship to some cult to which Jack belonged. It's a subtle element of the film riding a line between comedy and horror which I liked.

On the fateful Halloween night depicted, Jack's guests are a psychic, a magician sceptic similar to Penn Jillette, and a parapsychologist accompanied by a possessed little girl similar to Reagan from The Exorcist. Things start to get weird when the psychic makes some more accurate predictions than usual and suffers a sudden illness at the same time.

Dastmalchian is believable as a late night host but also keeps his reactions nicely subtle when things get weird, leaving the audience to wonder at his possible secret guilt. That's important in stories about Satanic possession. A cornerstone of that horror is Satan exploiting the hidden sins of his victims.

Directors Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes do a good job recreating some of the vibe of a '70s talk show with graphics and editing though sometimes it feels a bit too clean. But a truly accurate recreation may be impossible. The recreation is good enough to be creepy when things start to get weird.

Alien: Formula

I did see 2024's Alien: Romulus a couple weeks ago. Obviously, it didn't make my top ten list, or even the runners up, but I didn't exactly hate it except possibly for the fact that a once vibrant franchise has become so rote and dull.

Oddly, it reminded me a lot of Alien: Covenant. Ridley Scott was right to go in a new direction with Prometheus but when everyone complained about that movie not being enough like Alien, he went back to more familiar territory with Covenant and created something dull. But even that wasn't enough like the original for some people and now we have Alien: Romulus, complete with a cgi recreation of a dead actor from the first film.

This film's Ripley replacement is a young woman named Rain (Cailee Spaeny). She's a poor orphaned miner but she has an android slave named Andy (David Jonsson)--presented as her surrogate brother but he's portrayed as mentally impaired and willing to follow Rain's commands. One could argue the film's setup is a reworking of Tom Sawyer. It's a little odd that Andy is the only black character in the film.

Somehow, scrap from the Nostromo has returned. Of course there are aliens and mischief onboard.

A lot of reviews have pointed out the logistical problems, like Rain not shooting the aliens because she's worried about the acid blood burning through the hull, only for her solution to this problem being to turn off the artificial gravity before shooting them, as if that makes a difference. For some reason, to audiences these logistical problems were less significant than the scientists behaving foolishly in Prometheus, at least according to the box office. Maybe people just think Cailee Spaeny is prettier than Noomi Rapace, I don't know.

It's vaguely heartening to see that Prometheus was influential enough for Romulus to include pregnancy horror and reference to the Engineer beings. Arguably, though, the film's climax owes a huge debt to Alien: Resurrection.

I would say this is a weaker film than Resurrection, which makes it the weakest of the franchise overall, but it has nice, nostalgic set design and it's not Manos: The Hands of Fate.

Alien: Romulus is available on Disney+.

X Sonnet #1910

The twenty pies of steel were baked at dawn.
No questions asked were answered after dark.
For night was never seen by fliers gone.
As queries clog the phones, the kings embark.
A dwarven city hides a vault of worms.
For sugar lumps, the spoon would quickly rust.
The paper cup condensed a set of terms.
Instructive phrases flowed around the bust.
Some speeding bugs have run afoul of storms.
A gusty day regresses wheat to sod.
Or solely chaff, the mulch revives the worms.
A single figure fooled the plastic god.
Another diff'rance rounds the ship to scrap.
A pointless sphere of junk becomes a trap.

Riley's Head

As Riley grows older, the denizens of her brain increase in 2024's Inside Out 2. Now as Disney enters an era of desperate sequels, this one at least feels natural and the idea of exploring how someone's emotions change as they hit puberty is a good one. The first film even teased the idea at the end. However, the new film switches up directing duties from the lauded and experienced Pete Docter to first time helmer Kelsey Mann. This was also Mann's first screenplay and his co-writers, with the exception of Meg LeFauve, are also newcomers who were uninvolved with the first film. So the writing on the second film feels a bit amateurish with excessive exposition applied to fill out the story. But I liked the new Anxiety character voiced by Maya Hawke.

I started watching the first Inside Out earlier this year and I hated it so much I had to stop. But since I wanted to see the sequel, I went back to it and decided to muscle through it. And it turned out I actually liked the bulk of the movie quite a bit, particularly the imaginary friend character called Bing Bong, voiced by Richard Kind. The first movie never felt the need to explain what it meant that Joy and Sadness were at odds, that Bing Bong had a crucial role to play in Riley's emotional growth. It was like reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman; the metaphors just functioned so perfectly you never had to stop and have it explained to you, and doing so would have killed a lot of nuance.

The second film doesn't succeed quite so well at this and there are constantly moments when the emotion characters find some new place or gadget and they're compelled to explain to each other precisely how it translates to what Riley's actually going through.

But even though Anxiety and the other new emotions are kind of set up as villains, I liked how not everything Anxiety compelled Riley to do was bad. Anxiety has Riley showing up to school early to practice harder for her hockey team, a useful idea for anyone looking to achieve a goal. Hawke's performance was never too extreme. A lot of performers would've assumed Anxiety would be screaming all the time but Hawke adopts this steady, reasonable tone even as she's explaining how Riley must do something extreme.

Considering puberty is the central focus of the film, it is a bit odd that the film totally avoids Riley thinking about dating and boys (or girls). We see inside one boy's head that he panics at having to talk to a girl but that's the entirety of sexual preoccupation presented in the film. I suppose Disney balked at the idea that a girl might ever have impure thoughts. But I suppose that's the modern Puritan culture.

So it's not a terrible film, it just doesn't compare well to the first, which adds to an impression of Pixar's decline.

Inside Out 2 is available on Disney+.

There Never was a Woman Like Anora

Some of the most successful works of fiction of all time have succeeded by presenting a pure fantasy while convincing the audience it's unflinchingly realistic. That's why 2024's Anora is so loved. It's the fantasy of a prostitute with a heart of gold and her quest to find love. Some have even claimed the film is Russian propaganda and, as far as I can see, that may very well be true. But so was Battleship Potemkin and that doesn't make that film any less great, even as I disagree with the political motives behind it.

Mikey Madison has earned a lot of acclaim for her performance as the title character, Anora, who prefers to go by "Ani". Director Sean Baker opens the film with understated slice of life bits of the strip club (as understated as a strip club can be) in which we become acquainted with Anora's normal life. She strips, she dances, she coos into the ears of patrons. Sliding into this sequence is a Russian boy named Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn). Ani's manager sends her out to him because she learned a bit of Russian from her grandmother.

They say a good story needs tension and I'd agree with them. Some would argue this next section of the film is entirely without tension as we watch Ani and Ivan embark on a whirlwind romance that ends with their quickie marriage in Las Vegas. But despite the constant upbeat music and the smiling happy pretty people, the tension is constantly present. We're waiting for the other shoe to drop and the tension is heightened because we like Ani more and more. There's Mikey Madison's natural charisma, her beauty, and her vulnerability. She's leaving her job, possibly even her family, and her whole life is changing. We like her because of her heart, which is made of gold. She's gracious with a former rival at the strip club, she's cautious and truthful with Ivan. Her heart yearns for financial stability and a handsome prince but she's not ruthless.

She started this relationship as one of transaction, over which a veneer of love had been consciously layered. Both parties entered knowing that but at some point, both characters attest, their relationship changed. Or did it? The other shoe that drops could be moralism on the part of the storytelling, but would that necessarily be honest? It could be idealism on the part of the director, in the vein of Pretty Woman or Cinderella, the latter directly referenced by the film. Would that be honest? If the answer to both questions is "no", then many directors would find themselves at a stalemate with nothing to say. Not Sean Baker who navigates these treacherous narrative waters with admirable instinct.

I'm going to go light on spoilers here because I encourage you to let the film unfold its tale for you itself. But I will say the most satisfying, and the most likely propagandistic, element of the film is the romance that takes hold in the second half. It starts subtly and builds delicately through scenes of comedy and violence.

As Oscar Wilde said, "No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an un-pardonable mannerism of style," but "The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an im-perfect medium." Whether knowingly or not, Baker follows Wilde's advice to the letter. After the setup of the first half, the characters are compelled to have a moral perspective in the second half. It's through this, and the lack of its expression in grand terms, that we're gradually led to a fascinating and satisfying pay-off. One could very easily also see it as an allegory for Putin and his invasion of Ukraine and his philosophy of government more generally. One character's slight resemblance to Putin may have been intentional. But you don't have to read the movie that way. Even knowing that it could be read that way won't diminish your ability to appreciate it (at least, I hope not).

A lot of people have compared the film to classic cinema, particularly screwball comedies. Greta Gerwig, who was a judge on the Cannes panel that gave it the Palme d'Or, compared it to the works of Howard Hawks and Ernst Lubitsch. There is something of that screwball rapidity in it but I was also reminded of The Sopranos and My Cousin Vinny. Mikey Madison, a California native, adopted a Brooklyn accent for the film and critics love the kind of brassy New York dame she plays. Like Marissa Tomei or Margot Robbie before her, I think she'll go through a period of critical love that will wane over the next two or three years. But she and we will always have Anora.

2024 at the Movies

2024 was a fantastic year of movies. The art films were good and the mainstream films were good. Even the nostalgia bait reboots and sequels were good. Of all the movies I saw last year, I can honestly say there was only one I genuinely disliked, and that was The Substance. And even in that case, I respected the film's artistic integrity even if I was put off by its misanthropy. So I can't really make a "worst of the year" list. Which is a good thing, I think.

First, the runners up. I thought Dune Part 2 had nice cinematography and good performances but I still find Villeneuve's adaptations to be too sterile. Carry-On was a perfectly competent little Christmas action movie. The First Omen was an entertaining prequel with a terrific lead performance by Nell Tiger Free.

10. His Three Daughters (my review, Wikipedia entry)

This low budget Netflix film is essentially an opportunity for three talented actresses to bounce off each other. It's an engrossing experience.

9. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (my review, Wikipedia entry)

It's a little more cartoonish than I'd hoped for and really does feel like a two hour episode of the animated series. But, hey, I watched that animated series as a kid and, while I never thought it matched the tone or equaled the heights of the first film, I did find it to be an entertaining pulp adventure.

8. Late Night with the Devil (Wikipedia entry)

David Dastmalchian finally got the lead role he longed for in this depiction of a '70s late night talk show being slowly conquered by Satan. It's more fun than scary but there are a few genuinely spooky moments.

7. Inside Out 2 (Wikipedia entry)

A little more literal minded than the first film, this one had a lot of moments where the characters feel compelled to explain the metaphors to each other. However, it's still a solid story with a good ensemble joined by equally effective new characters.

6. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (my review, Wikipedia entry)

It's a welcome return to that lovely New England town and of the foul bio-exorcist who haunts it. It was genuinely nice catching up with the old characters and while Jenna Ortega is never as impressive as she is on Wednesday, she still wasn't bad.

5. Deadpool and Wolverine (my review, Wikipedia entry)

They made the right decision desecrating Logan--repeatedly--since Logan, while being a good superhero movie, didn't deserve the holy status its director sought for it. Thank god Hugh Jackman listened to Ryan Reynolds and we, the audience, benefited. It's a delightful interdimensional buddy comedy with ultraviolence and, surprisingly, one of the best MCU villains to date.

4. Oddity (my review, Wikipedia entry)

This ghost revenge story set in the Irish countryside on the darkest of nights is loaded with atmosphere and brilliantly calculated suspense. It reminded me a lot of great haunting films from the '40s like The Uninvited and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir except its brilliant jump scares might give you a heart attack.

3. Joker: Folie a Deux (my review, Wikipedia entry)

You're not supposed to like this movie, which is all the more reason to watch it. I'm glad I did. It is the DC version of Natural Born Killers as Quentin Tarantino observed and, honestly, a better version of the story.

2. Megalopolis (my review, Wikipedia entry)

This is another one authorities have instructed us not to like but, while it's not as great as its director might have hoped it would be, it's still a wondrous piece of visual and intellectual stimuli. Anyone seriously interested in movie making must see this movie and for anyone else . . . Megalopolis is a unique marvel of the cinematic world. Why not partake of it?

1.Anora (Wikipedia entry)

Yes, Cannes was right. The Oscar buzz is right, for once, this movie really is that good. Some people praise it for the fact that it's not a "prostitute with a heart of gold" story but that's baloney. It is definitely a prostitute with a heart of gold story. But there's a reason such stories are so popular and you can see it in the comments section of star Mikey Madison's Criterion Closet video. Yeah, the simps are lining up but it couldn't have happened to a sweeter character. I suspect she'll probably end up like Marisa Tomei but Marisa Tomei's not a bad actress, either. What makes Anora work is pure, cinematic storytelling instinct on the part of its director Sean Baker. An old fashioned story of the gold-hearted prostitute--inspired by Fellini's Nights of Cabiria according to the director--always has potential to be satisfying but the history of cinema is littered with failed or mediocre attempts. From scene to scene, Baker just knows how to cook it to perfection. This is the best movie of the year because it's an example of storytelling excellence.

The Ample Warning Just Got Ampler

How'd you like another prequel? Actually, 2024's The First Omen is a perfectly decent horror movie. Furthermore, those who have allergies and might be concerned about the tiger content of this movie will be pleased to know its star is named Nell Tiger Free. And, true to her name, there's not one tiger in this film.

She plays Margaret, an American woman who goes to join a convent in Rome in 1971. Meanwhile, Ralph Ineson takes over the role of Father Brennan from Patrick Troughton (they have kind of the same nose but sound design dropped the bass to the basement on Ineson's voice) and he has a disturbing encounter with Charles Dance. So his quest begins.

A cardinal played by Bill Nighy escorts Margaret to the convent and reassures her after she's frightened by protesters in the streets. Social disruption following the '60s has everyone in the church frightened and leads to a slightly unsatisfying reconceptionalising of the motives behind the secret Satan worship. I suspect director Arkasha Stevenson and her screenwriters were taking aim at modern conservatives who long for the stabilising influence of Christianity while secretly being atheists (i.e. Jordan Peterson). Her logic is a bit tortured, if that's the case, but the daemoniac atmosphere and jump scares are no less satisfying for it and Tiger Free delivers a terrific performance even without feline assistance.

The movie's available on Disney+ in Japan but the most talked about scene in the film, the one involving a vagina and a demonic hand, is censored because Japan still has this weird standard. Even adults aren't allowed an unobstructed view of genitals in media. It was an ironic reminder after the homophobic students at the most recent schools I worked at tried to tease me with drawings of penises. The American is funny because he doesn't have penis parades in his country but even 70 year olds in Japan aren't deemed old enough to watch Eyes Wide Shut uncensored. Incidentally, Netflix seems to be ignoring this rule, judging from the copy of Basic Instinct currently streaming on that site. Or maybe it's showing me the American version because I use an American PayPal. I was able to see The First Omen uncensored on American Amazon.

Background Star Wars

I almost forgot about watching Skeleton Crew on New Years Day. It was a thirty minute episode that didn't seem to cover much ground. It was the second written by newcomer Myung Joh Wesner but it was directed by Bryce Dallas Howard. People seem to think she's a good director for these shows but I continue to find her work unremarkable.

I think the heart of the episode is meant to be KB whose LaForge visor suffers a malfunction, allowing us a rare glimpse of her eyes. She walks Wim through fixing it and despite Wim having established himself as a butterfingers she doesn't seem very worried. Maybe that's why there wasn't a lot of tension in the episode overall.

There was also a big crab monster in the episode that looked like the one from Moana. Somehow he wasn't very threatening. I never got a sense of the crab and the children existing in the same reality.

Skeleton Crew is available on Disney+.

The Blind Leading the Dead

A good movie is 10% premise and 90% delivery. 2024's Oddity has a very simple premise; a blind psychic tries to investigate her sister's murder. The delivery, though, is for the most part exceptional. This movie has some of the best suspense sequences and jump scares I've seen in years.

The two sisters, twins called Dani and Darcy, are both played by Carolyn Bracken. The film begins with one of its strongest scenes; on a dark night, Dani is alone in the new country house she lives in with her husband, Ted (Gwilym Lee). She goes to get something from her car and when she gets back inside the house, she hears someone outside the door. It's a nervous man with a glass eye (Tadhg Murphy) who tells her someone is in the house with her. Now Dani has to decide; does she let the scary man in to help her, or is he the one who wants to kill her? Director Damian McCarthy milks the scene for all the tension he can and then builds on it throughout the movie.

A year later, Darcy investigates her sister's death. She shows up abruptly at the house where Ted now lives with his new wife, Yana (Caroline Menton). The movie could almost be a stage play, it's set almost entirely at that house. There is one nice scene in Darcy's curiosity shop. Her ability allows her to hold objects and see things about their former owners. There are a lot of nice conversation scenes that reminded me of old British suspense and horror films like The Uninvited (the one with Ray Milland) and Hitchcock's Suspicion, but with the addition of great jump scares that might give some of the most calloused viewers a heart attack. The ending of the movie is a little weak but not abrasive. The first two acts are tough to follow so I forgive it.

Oddity was filmed entirely in County Cork, Ireland, the home of its director and many of its stars. It's a Shudder original movie so I assume it's on Shudder.

"Snakes. Why Did It Have to be Snakes?"

Happy New Year, everyone. It's already 2025 here in Japan, Year of the Snake. This is usually the time I post my top movies of the year list but I'm going to wait until I've seen a few more.

It occurred to me some of you may be wondering why I didn't say anything about Jimmy Carter's death. I find myself better able to discuss Olivia Hussey than Jimmy Carter. I was born in 1979, so right in the middle of his single term as president but obviously I can't say exactly how his presidency affected me in those couple years. When I was a kid, all I remember hearing was what a terrible, ineffectual president he was and how we needed Reagan to come in and whip the country into shape. He certainly seems to have been a nice man and I'm aware of his many charitable efforts. I remember Ben Affleck's Argo arguing that he was a better president than was generally believed but I don't know if that's anything more than retroactive propaganda. The point is, I don't really know, so I don't have anything cogent to say about Carter.

Anyway. Enjoy the snakes.

X Sonnet #1909
Year of the Snake

Now strike the drum and call the souls to hear.
As clouds, the dragon passed as night's awake.
The vanished sun condemns the tired year.
A smaller serpent shall usurp the drake.
As cool and shaded leaves then clothed the trees,
The garden throbbed with blind and deafened life.
No congress there discoursed but father sees.
A fatal leaf was like a sharpened knife.
Her steps can still be heard between the roots.
The cunning snake had led her searching forth.
Inside her anxious mind the creature roots.
The second bite provokes a third and fourth.
Discarded fruit will plainly show the win.
The Devil takes his loyal serpent's skin.