Conclave - Review: A Flock of Cardinals

 

Political dramas don’t necessarily have to take place in traditionally political settings. All it takes is a group of people with large egos getting together to vote on something and an interesting tale will come out of it. The death of a pope and subsequent voting in of the new pope was the subject for Robert Harris’s 2016 novel “Conclave,” which has now been adapted for the silver screen, featuring a who’s who of talented dramatic actors all donning tiny red cardinal caps to fill the Vatican City with dramatic intrigue. 

The film takes place shortly after the death of a pope and centers on Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes (“The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Menu”), who will be leading the papal conclave to vote in a new pope. One of the candidates is his friend and fellow cardinal Bellini, played by Stanley Tucci (“The Devil Wears Prada,” “Spotlight”), who does not wish for the more conservative cardinals, such as Tedesco, played by Sergio Castellitto (“Paris, je t'aime,” “The Bad Poet”), or Adeyemi, played by Lucian Msamati (See How They Run (2022),” “Gangs of London”), to win the papacy. Meanwhile, Lawrence hears of potential scandals from other candidates, such as Tremblay, played by John Lithgow (“3rd Rock from the Sun,” “Footloose”), and must deal with the sudden appearance of Benitez, played by Carlos Diehz in his film debut, a previously unknown cardinal appointed in secrecy by the previous pope. 

Much of “Conclave” features its talented cast speaking together in hushed tones in the hallways of the Vatican City, gorgeously draped with smoothly carved marble and elegant statues. It’s an exceptionally gorgeous film, both in its textural details and its camerawork. Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine’s (“Jackie,” “Rust and Bone”) shots float through this secretive city, juxtaposing wide distant shots with intimate moments of borderline claustrophobic closeness. Volker Bertelmann’s (“Hotel Mumbai,” “All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)”) score could be seen as overbearing or too bombastic at times, but it thunders through these hallways, arguably forming itself as another actor alongside its illustrious cast. It’s also just fantastically paced; it feels as though it’s over just as it’s begun, but never feels rushed by any means, giving the material exactly the time it needs to breathe. 

Fiennes is absolutely phenomenal. This is genuinely one of the finest performances of his career, a staggering complex role of a man given a job he admittedly does not even want. It’s a role of the smallest nuances, packed with little details and unexpected turns that becomes as much of a thrill to watch as the film itself. Tucci meanwhile sticks to his strengths, delivering fantastic dialogue in his very specific cadence. It’s not anything particularly groundbreaking in his body of work, but it's still excellent. Lithgow, Msamati, and Castellitto are all the same, fantastic performances bolstered by the equally great actors surrounding them, even is Castellitto’s is a bit overblown. The true standout besides Fiennes is Diehz, giving an understated and borderline mysterious performance that makes a major impact despite his limited screen time. 

“Conclave” has plenty of layers and mystery working under the surface, and director Edward Berger (“All My Loving,” “All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)”) and screenwriter Peter Straughan (“The Men Who Stare at Goats,” “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”) play with that mystery throughout the entire film. It’s a tale about secrets and the infallibility of man, and there’s increasingly complex details that invite further discussion after the credits role. Thankfully, even beyond those aspects, the moment-to-moment dialogue is wonderfully dense and provides a lot of great lines and moments of verbal sparring for its talented cast during this papal political event. 

The theme of secrecy doesn’t stop at the script though, as the film’s very setting and the mysterious details surrounding it help to bolster the film’s dramatic weight. It’s one thing to set a movie like this in a courtroom, it's quite another to set it in a location so shrouded in mystery. Purposefully cut off from the outside world, this isolation fuels the arguments and discussion between the cardinals, but also creates a kind of otherworldly feeling. Yes, there’s obviously offices and bedrooms and cafeterias within the Vatican City, but it's another thing to see it all rendered in such excellent production design. It might seem like a silly comparison, but when the lights are dimmed and there’s just one or two people in a room, it's a similar feeling to the internet sensation known as “The Backrooms.” 

“Conclave” is a fantastic piece of political and religious drama, weaving its tales throughout its talented cast and making excellent use of its setting and material. Fiennes gives a career best performance here, and the entire cast is absolutely fantastic. This is the kind of film that doesn’t just work on the screen but has plenty to say that is easy to continue dissecting and discussing long after its brisk two-hour runtime is up. 5/5

Venom: The Last Dance - Review: The Lethal Protector's Last Stand

 

Buried underneath the mess that is Sony’s Spider-Man-less Spider-Man universe, beneath “Morbius” and “Madame Web” and the like, is Tom Hardy’s (“Peaky Blinders,” “Mad Max: Fury Road”) unexpectedly charming odd-couple combo of Eddie Brock and the titular aggressive goopy space alien Venom. The pair have made it through their own trilogy, now capping off with a road-trip buddy film taking them from Mexico to Vegas and a bit beyond with “Venom: The Last Dance.” 

The film follows Eddie Brock, played by Hardy, and Venom, voiced by Hardy, on the run after the events of the previous film. The pair decides to head for New York before getting derailed by a creature sent to Earth by Knull, voiced by Andy Serkis (“War for the Planet of the Apes,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring”), the creator of Venom and the other symbiotes. Venom informs Eddie that he’s seeking a codex that is the key to Knull escaping and wreaking havoc on the universe. The pair go on the run from the creature, trying to figure out what to do and running into a myriad of colorful characters across the Nevada desert, including the fan favorite Mrs. Chen, played again by Peggy Lu (“Always Be My Maybe,” “Kung Pow: Enter the Fist”), hippie alien lover Martin Moon, played by Rhys Ifans (“House of the Dragon,” “Notting Hill”), military general Rex Strickland, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor (“12 Years a Slave,” “Doctor Strange”), and scientist Teddy Payne, played by Juno Temple (“Ted Lasso,” “Unsane”). 

By now, any audience member going into one of these “Venom” films should know basically what to expect. Hardy continues an extremely physical performance that feels like a mixture between a modern action hero and the kind of old-school comedic physicality of Buster Keaton. His voice for Venom is also still a highlight and the pair have a fantastic bit of chemistry that borders on turning into a full-blown catty couple. The rest of the cast are all unfortunately not nearly as interesting, either taking the material far too seriously or tipping into even sillier territory than even Hardy. Ifans is an example of the latter, spiraling into a cartoon sketch of a hippie alien lover, and as great as Mrs. Chen is, unfortunately, she’s even more underutilized than in the past two films. 

Screenwriter Kelly Marcel, most known for writing the first two “Venom” films, the first “Fifty Shades of Grey” film, and Saving Mr. Banks” makes her directorial debut here with a script co-written by herself and Hardy, and it's certainly a mixed bag of a film. On the one hand, whenever the film sticks to Brock and Venom, it's a great bit of pulp-schlock thanks to Hardy. It’s whenever it tries to branch out of that material into its B-plots that it falters. Admittedly, the material involving the rest of the symbiotes works rather well, but the rest of it all just feels routine and bland. 

The film does manage to nail the “trilogy ending” feeling its going for. It’s able to be a nice finale for this duo, even if it still feels fairly anticlimactic. The rest of the characters get endings that range from either unsatisfying to blatant sequel/spinoff bait, but at least Eddie and Venom have a nice ending moment. It speaks to a larger success that Hardy has had with this series: everything about these films should have been complete garbage, but with him at the center, taking these characters so seriously and embracing their weird vibe, makes them work on a more basic level where it otherwise would not. 

“Venom: The Last Dance” manages to be a perfect middle ground between the previous two films in terms of identity: it's not nearly as gung-ho and weird as “Let There Be Carnage” but not as routine as the first film. It's a well enough send off for the comic book industry’s resident odd-couple, maintaining Hardy’s invested performances and plenty of slimy, goopy action, but it fails to excel in any realm outside of that. It’s just well enough without making any kind of an identity for itself, trilogy ending or not. 3/5 

We Live in Time - Review: A Romance for All Time

 

Often times the formula for a successful romance film simply comes down to the talent of the two leads an audience is going to spend two hours watching fall in love. There can be other aspects thrown in to spice up the narrative, the way the film is shot, plotted, etc., but if those two leads cannot nail their romantic tension and relationship, then it's all for naught. That’s where “We Live in Time” comes in: tightly paced, warmly lit, and wonderfully dramatic that’s as much of a showpiece for two talented actors as it is a wonderful slice of romance. 

Presented in a non-linear format that hops around throughout the film, it follows Almut Brühl, played by Florence Pugh (“Little Women (2019),” “Midsommar”), and Tobias Durand, played by Andrew Garfield (“The Social Network,” “tick, tick... BOOM!”). After Almut accidentally hits Tobias with her car, the pair’s paths cross and they eventually end up dating, living together, having a child, and going through all manner of medical and life issues together. 

Pugh and Garfield are fabulous together, perfectly encapsulating the push and pull of all the various emotions one can encounter throughout a relationship like this. They feel like truly fully faceted three-dimensional people, without a shred of flat characterizations to them. You really do believe their relationship across each and every bump along the road. It never feels overbearing or melodramatic, thanks to the talents of Garfield and Pugh keeping everything grounded in their emotional states. 

It’s a very gorgeous film as well, each scene dappled with a honey warm glow from the lighting and shot with expert precision by cinematographer Stuart Bentley (“Surge,” “Strange but True”). The musical score from Bryce Dessner (“C'mon, C’mon,” “The Two Popes”) does some heavy lifting when it comes to the emotional state throughout the film, and it all wraps up in a gorgeous crafter production. Whether it's on the English countryside or in a hotel room, it's the kind of film where each place seems like it would be perfect to visit. The film’s nonlinear nature is a bit of a head scratcher; early in the film, it flips back and forth enough to make a great mixture with the romantic tension, but as things go on, it just sort of stops jumping back and forth, as if the filmmakers themselves just didn’t want to bother with it anymore. 

Director John Crowley (“Brooklyn,” “Closed Circuit”) crafts a romantic tale that always comes back to his two leads, with virtually every other supporting character popping up briefly before fading away. It’s clear that the movie itself is meant to be entirely about Almut and Tobias’s relationship, with everyone else being merely slight outside observers. Even despite, or in spite, of this, a minor role for Lee Braithwaite proves to be a breakout for the young actor. Braithwaite plays Jade, a commi chef working alongside Almut and they’re a delight throughout the film, injecting a welcome bit of humor and breezy air to the events they’re involved with. 

That might make it sound like the script from Nick Payne (“Wanderlust,” “The Sense of an Ending”) is an overly maudlin affair, but that’s hardly the case. While it doesn’t sway from the heavier subject matter, the chemistry of Pugh and Garfield keeps things light, and the script is punctuated with plenty of romantically cliched moments that will make hearts swell and eyes roll with equal measure. It rides that line between self-serious and silly with great precision, and one sequence in the latter half that takes place in a petrol station is one of the most fantastic segments of any film this year. 

While it might traffic in some well-worn romantic drama clichés, “We Live in Time” is the perfect example of what happens when you hand some talented actors material like this and they run with it. Pugh and Garfield are just fantastic, and the film is visually and auditorily gorgeous. It might not change the entire genre, but it's a film completely fine with playing within those constraints to excellent results. 4.5/5

Piece by Piece - Review: Building a Different Kind of Documentary

 

Documentaries can easily be some of the most straightforward films to make. Just film some talking head segments, get some archival photos and video footage, and wrap it all up with narration and some pensive music. But Pharrell Williams doesn’t do straightforward apparently, and when crafting a documentary about his childhood and career with Oscar winning documentarian Morgan Neville (“20 Feet from Stardom,” “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”), he wanted to do something different. And a documentary animated entirely in LEGO style is certainly something different. 

The film follows Williams’s life growing up in Virginia Beach before breaking into the music industry by creating beats and producing music for numerous artists such as Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Pusha T, Jay Z, Justin Timberlake, and Busta Rhymes, among others. Eventually, Williams begins to fall into a creative slump before breaking out with his hit single “Happy” and becoming the more unique, creative singer he’s known to be today. 

While the idea of making a documentary in a LEGO animated style might seem like a gimmick at first, it quickly becomes apparent that it really is a stylistic choice that fits Williams’s creative ethos and the central thesis of the movie. It’s a choice that comes from the energy behind the film, not added on after the fact. It also allows for some gorgeous displays of animation and interpretation during some of the film’s most abstract moments. Even little details like showing two different cities coming together by physically pushing them together or showcasing Williams’s synesthesia throughout give the film more life than a standard documentary would have. There are numerous moments that border on psychedelic and help to bring everything to life, and even in the smaller moments, the LEGO aesthetic helps showcase the story in a lively manner. 

Separate from the animation, there is a lot of charm to be found in Williams’s tale and friends. While clearly sanitized a bit given the family-friendly LEGO aesthetic, there’s a lot of good-natured ribbing and laughter to be had amidst this showcase of musical creativity and self-love. There are even bits of introspection that seem remarkably humble, such as Williams’s not only allowing the film to fully go into his numerous failed business ventures and creative outlets, but also letting his collaborators and friends speak so frankly about those failed ventures. 

If there’s a weakness to the film, it's that despite its desire to be a way to showcase Williams’s admittedly inspiring personal thesis on creativity and the music industry, it ends up being a more surface level tale about his own career and upbringing. It certainly goes into plenty of detail, but there are also plenty of times where things are just skipped or glossed over, leading to a skin-deep kind of biopic feeling. The interstitials with his collaborators and friends do make up for a lot though. Even in their plastic LEGO forms, hearing them gush about working and growing up with Williams and his talents even at a young age is legitimately heartwarming and often times remarkably humbling. 

As one would expect, there are plenty of original songs here, and they’re all pretty fantastic; the title track in particular is yet another killer title track from Williams. The film’s large collection of musical hits helps to not only show the wide variety of tracks Williams had his hands in over the years, but also works in being authentic to their original material without stretching too far outside of the LEGO nature.  

“Piece By Piece” is certainly not like any other documentary or LEGO film to come before. Even that’s possibly because it feels less like a documentary and more like an animated showcase of an artist’s career and creative philosophy. Luckily, those talking animated heads who’ve come to play and talk about their friend are pretty charming, and the way the film utilizes the animated landscape to showcase emotional beats is something typical documentary elements couldn’t pull off. It could’ve used a narrative that went a bit deeper into its subject’s life, but there’s a lot to enjoy here, whether you’ve come for the music or the surprisingly inventive display of the creative process. 4/5

Joker: Folie à Deux – Review: The Joke Is On You

When any film makes a billion dollars, there’s a sequel on the horizon, regardless of how unique or singular that first film is. And Todd Phillip’s (“The Hangover,” “War Dogs”) twisted take on DC’s clown prince of crime is as dark and un-sequel-friendly as they come. But it made a billion dollars and won a few Oscars, so here comes “Joker: Folie à Deux”, sequel that’s bigger, bolder, more musical, and more morally ambiguous than ever before. 

The film picks up two years after the events of the first film as Arthur Fleck, played by Joaquin Pheonix (“Walk the Line,” “Beau is Afraid”), awaits trial for the murders he committed that inspired the riots across Gotham. While in Arkham Asylum, he meets Harleen Quinzel, played by Lady Gaga (“A Star is Born (2018),” “House of Gucci”), a fellow inmate who becomes obsessed with Arthur and his Joker persona. She inspires him to embrace his madness further, throwing his case into disarray for his lawyer Maryanne Stewart, played by Catherine Keener (“Being John Malkovich,” “Capote”), and guard at Arkham Jackie Sullivan, played by Brendan Gleeson (“Paddington 2,” “The Banshees of Inisherin”). 

The only somewhat pretentious sounding title “Folie à Deux” means “madness for two.” Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver (“8 Mile,” “The Fighter”) certainly create a lot of madness, but it all feels wildly pointless by the end of the film. The first half of the film feels bizarrely aimless, just futzing around until the second half set in the courtroom starts. But even then, it results in a lot of surface level discussions about Arthur and his potential mental illness that Phillips and Silver literally end before any definitive statements can even be made. It’s a film that loves to drag a lot of rough subject material up from the depths without actually committing to making any kind of statements on said material. 

Pheonix is doing absolutely the best he can with much flimsier material, puttering around from scene to scene, making funny faces and talking with the slight high-pitched wilt that he crafted for the first film. It's a less compelling performance, but it never feels like it's his fault. Gaga is incredibly underutilized meanwhile. Her performance is fine enough, but the film simply does not know what to do with her after the first act, feeling content to have her pop up a few more times before disappearing completely. Keener is there and then gone, barely making an impact when she is being used, and Gleeson’s performance, while excellent, is buried in the film’s overtly cruel characterization of his role. 

While on paper, the film is building to the end of Arthur’s trial, the actual events and movement of the plot feels wildly unmotivated. Things just sort of happen and never feel as though they’re building to any sort of climax. The biggest thing that happens in the third act comes completely out of nowhere and serves as an excuse to avoid giving a direct statement on the film’s biggest central question. Even the scenes that follow feel so disconnected from that climax that it feels like they took place before the third act and just happened to get slotted into the end. It all feels pointless, like a film based around nihilism but not even in an interesting way. 

Meanwhile, the musical aspect feels even more pointless. While plenty of the scenes are well shot, the rest feel slotted in for no reason. They’re set in average locations, in the middle of other preexisting moments on a whim. But beyond the quality of the numbers or shots, they don’t add anything to the film as a whole. Whether they’re “in Arthur’s mind” or not, removing them from the film would change nothing about the plot or the film as a whole. They add nothing to the story and feel like the film’s most egregious bit of “prestige film” detail slathered upon a project undeserving of that kind of attention.

At least the film’s returning cinematographer Lawrence Sher (“Garden State,” “The Hangover”) shoots the film with the same gorgeous level of detail as before, crafting the best-looking version of these misguided ideas. Hildur Guðnadóttir (“Tár,” “Women Talking”) also returns to score the sequel after winning an Oscar for doing the same for the first. Her music still manages to be an evocative high point, but it’s too often drowned out by the film’s bizarre song choices and musical numbers.

So many of the elements within the film that, as previously stated, work on paper but not in practice, come off as not a mistake somewhere along the filmmaking process, but rather a middle finger to the prospect of the blockbuster industry. Make a sequel to a billion-dollar grossing incel-bait dark comic book movie? Sure, but let’s make it a courtroom drama-slash-musical with half the violence as before and a quarter of the plot. Can the lead character sing? Let’s just wing it and if he can’t, we’ll act like it’s an additional detail underneath all the artsy details we’re playing with.

The problem here isn’t that the film is slower or that Arthur’s singing is bad or that it doesn’t decide to commit to an answer to its central moral question. Plenty of films play with those kinds of aspects. The problem here is that the audience is paying the price, because it doesn’t feel purposeful. It feels like an accident being covered for, and it makes your audience have a worse time as a result. To put it in simpler terms: Arthur can be a bad singer, but he can’t be too bad or you’ll make the audience actually bemoan when he sings, otherwise you’re cutting off your clown nose to spite your face.

“Joker: Folie à Deux” will certainly be remembered for quite a long time, but the reason for that remembrance is almost a complete inverse of the first film. Despite Pheonix and Gaga trying their best while trapsing through a gorgeous looking film, Phillips has far too many heady ideas that never actually result in anything meaningful or compelling. Worse, he stretches it out, resulting in a slog of a film that acts as if it knows better than its audience, without ever stopping to think what it knows better about. It’s a fascinating film in how it fails, and one that could easily be dissected and discussed, but certainly not rewatched, for a long time to come. 1.5/5

Saturday Night (2024) - Review: Live From New York...

Despite the cries of it “no longer being funny” or “never being funny,” the television landscape would be a starkly different place without “Saturday Night Live.” Not only would the landscape of television comedy be different, but without the show, we likely wouldn’t have the likes of Mike Myers, Will Ferrel, Amy Poehler, Eddie Murphy, Tina Fey, Chris Rock, and Adam Sandler among many many many others. Even outside of those directly on the cast, without “SNL” we likely wouldn’t have had “MadTV,” “The Tracy Ulman Show,” “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?,” “Robot Chicken,” “The Muppet Show,” “All That,” “Chappelle’s Show,” “Key & Peele,” and “Mystery Science Theatre 3000.” Suffice to say, there are few shows as influential to the history of television as “SNL,” and now co-writer/director Jason Reitman (“Juno,” “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”) and co-writer Gil Kenan (“Monster House,” “Ghostbusters: Afterlife””) have created a film detailing the night of it’s very first show simply titled “Saturday Night.” 

On October 11th, 1975, 90 minutes before the first show of “Saturday Night,” young producer/creator of the show Lorne Michaels, played by Gabriel LaBelle (“The Fabelmans,” “Snack Shack”), is dealing with seemingly endless problems: his show is double its intended length, his actors, including Gilda Radner, played by Ella Hunt (“Dickinson,” “Anna and the Apocalypse”), Chevy Chase, played by Cory Michael Smith (“Gotham,” “May December”), Dan Akroyd, played by Dylan O'Brien (“The Maze Runner,” “Love & Monsters”), John Belushi, played by Matt Wood, Garret Morris, played by Lamorne Morris (“New Girl,” “Game Night”), Jane Curtin, played by Kim Matula (“The Bold and the Beautiful,” “Fighting With My Family”) , and Laraine Newman, played by Emily Fairn (“Chuck Chuck Baby,” Mary & George”), are all either at each other's throats or in each other’s pants, his wife Rosie Schuster, played by Rachel Sennott (“Bodies Bodies Bodies,” “Bottoms”), is a help and a hinderance to his focus, his best friend and fellow producer Dick Ebersol, played by Cooper Hoffman (“Licorice Pizza,” “Wildcat”), is helping and sabotaging his efforts, and the head of NBC talent David Tebet, played by Willem Dafoe (“Antichrist,” “”), is on patrol and looking for a reason to shut the show down before it’s even begun. 

Much like how “SNL” the show has influenced much of television comedy, the film “Saturday Night” has clearly taken a lot from other influential biopics of recent years. Mostly significantly, it wears much of the “unappreciated genius” swagger and quick-paced dialogue of the two Aaron Sorkin written films “The Social Network” and “Steve Jobs.” It’s hard to imagine the film existing in its current form without those movies, but it does manage to hold its own mostly due to the strength of its cast. Reitman and Kenan’s script itself is fairly by the numbers, walking through and over dramatizing numerous behind-the-scenes moments from the first night of the show, without really delving too deep into the through process behind it all. 

Ironically, for a film that so clearly wants to pay tribute to a specific era and iconic moment, Reitman and Kenan try to imbue the events with some warm-hearted emotion, but it mostly fails due to the film wanting to have its cake and eat it too. They want to keep the anarchistic spirit of the original seasons of “SNL” but meshing that with a big hearted “I can’t believe I’m about to be famous” ethos just doesn’t work. If they had gone for broke with the emotion or just cut it out, either would’ve worked better than it does here. It’s really bizarre when you have Chevy Chase doing Weekend Update or Andy Kaufman’s “mighty mouse” bit played as a third act emotional crescendo. 

That bizarre emotional throughline is not nearly as much of an issue as it seems though, as the film is mostly concerned with communicating the hyperactivity behind the scenes leading up to that first show. When it’s just focusing on LaBelle’s Lorne and his interplay with the cast, especially Sennott’s Schuster, it’s genuinely electric. Even the small bits involving other comedians before their prime, such as Billy Crystal, feel like great window dressing rather than distracting cameos. The claustrophobic camerawork from cinematographer Eric Steelberg (“Juno,” “Dolemite Is My Name”) mixed with an anxiety inducing musical score from Jon Batiste (“Soul,” “American Symphony”) and a chunky layer of Super 16mm grain convincingly takes you back to the era its set in, with fantastic costume work and production design. 

Speaking of the film’s best elements, the cast are absolutely electric. Maybe it’s the chance to get to play some of the most legendary comedians in modern entertainment, but each performer loses themselves in their roles to fantastic effect. Particular highlights are Sennott and LaBelle, of course, but Smith as Chase and Wood as Belushi are also absolutely phenomenal, Wood especially stealing every scene he steps into. Hoffman also excels, and the scenes between him and LaBelle elevate the film from a fun historic romp to something really special. Even the more minimal roles pop from the sheer energy and exuberance behind the eyes of each performer as they get to bring these characters to life. The only one that feels odd is Nicholas Braun (“Succession,” “@Zola”) in dual roles as Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman; his performance certainly isn’t terrible, but it feels more like, ironically, an “SNL” impersonation rather than someone trying to bring these two legendary performers to life. His Henson performance isn’t entirely his fault, as the film decides to use the puppeteer and landmark creative as a punching bag more than anything else. Ironic given that Henson alone likely has had a bigger impact on entertainment than “SNL” ever has. 

“Saturday Night” is certainly a lot of fun, and when it’s letting its young cast run away with these once-in-a-lifetime roles and simply gets out of its own way, it is a positively electric vibe and a truly fun romp. When it tries to delve into something more without letting go of its devil-may-care attitude is when things start to falter, but LaBelle and the cast carry it to the finish line with a rousing energy and spirit that makes this an easy recommendation and a fun night regardless. 3.5/5

Megalopolis - Review: Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

When you're a legendary talent like Francis Ford Coppola, the man who's directed some works that are referred to as the greatest of all time, such as "The Godfather," "Apocalypse Now," and "The Conversation." He's also directed some that are referred to as some of the worst of all time, such as "Twist," the arguably bad "One from the Heart" and the infamously terrible "Jack (1996)." With a career as expansive as his, any new films, regardless of concept or origin, should be cause for celebration. His latest movie, "Megalopolis", certainly falls into one of the two previously mentioned groups. Unfortunately, it's not the good one.

Billed as "A Fable" with Coppola's own name directly above it, "Megalopolis" stars a cornucopia of actors. Adam Driver (“Marriage Story,” “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”) leads the pack as Cesar Catalina, an architect and leader of the Design Authority, who wants to build a massive city in New Rome made of the mysterious material Megalon. He's opposed by the mayor Franklyn Cicero, played by Giancarlo Esposito (“Breaking Bad,” “Do The Right Thing”), whose daughter Julia Cicero, played by Nathalie Emmanuel (“Hollyoaks,” “Game of Throne”), slowly begins to fall for Cesar. Meanwhile, behind all of this, Cesar's cousin Clodio Pulcher, played by Shia LaBeouf (“Holes,” “Transformers”), attempts to wrestle political and monetary power for himself, while television presented Wow Platinum, played by Aubrey Plaza (“Parks and Recreation,” “Agatha All Along”), tries to romance Cesar's uncle, the elderly bank magnate Hamilton Crassus III, played by Jon Voight (“Midnight Cowboy,” “National Treasure”), into giving his fortune to her. All of this is also loosely narrated by Cesar’s chauffeur and personal assistant Fundi Romaine, played by Laurence Fishburne (“The Matrix,” “Boyz N The Hood”).

Coppola, who's written and directed the film, has talked plenty about his inspirations for the film; there's a clear line to be drawn from "Megalopolis" back to the fall of Roman and of the Catalina Conspiracy event. He’s also been toiling with this film in some respect since the 80s, eventually forgoing any studio involvement and selling some of his wineries to self-fund the $120 million budget and make the movie his own way.

This does mean that the film we're left with is an epic example of the power of critique and criticism. So many directors in the history of cinema have been ruined simply because no one stepped in and said no. By freeing himself from any critics during the production, yes Coppola has made exactly the vision of this film he's always wanted to make. It also means the film has its head shoved so far up its own ass, it can see what it had for lunch that day.

There's a self-important air throughout the entire film, from the way it’s staged and edited down to the dialogue. At random intervals, there are bits of text shown on the screen carved into giant slabs of marble like one would see in ancient Rome. Cesar's introduction scene with the rest of the cast has him reciting about half of the "To Be or Not to Be" monologue from Hamlet. It gives the film an identity of something deeply important, but it never builds to anything. Even if the characters seem almost unchanged by the end of it all, there doesn't even seem to be a grand statement about civilization made. At one point, Cesar literally says, "We are in need of a great debate about the future" and the film simply doesn't offer anything more to say than "Boy, America sure does seem like a Roman empire, doesn't it?"

The entire cast is unfortunately let down by the man behind the camera. While so many of them have been fantastic in other works, they all just seem left out to sea here. Driver in particular has the biggest struggle; his way of playing larger than life characters with such minutia works when there's a good script to back him up. But unfortunately, the script here makes him come across more as a pompous high school theatre kid than a trained actor. Emmanuel just seems lost, like she has nothing to react against, as if she was filmed against a green screen and digitally added in after the fact. The oldest members of the cast, like Voigt and Dustin Hoffman (“Kramer vs. Kramer,” “The Meyerowitz Stories”), seem like they've gone senile and are just stumbling around the set haphazardly. LaBeouf might be the worst of them all, reducing his role to the kind of stereotype of "annoying manchild with effeminate tendencies" that we thought was left behind decades ago. The only one who comes out semi-unscathed is Plaza, who does so simply by cranking up her delivery to the point where she seems to believe she's in a comedy skit that could turn into a porno at any moment, and by extent she seems like the only person involved who's having any fun.

Given the gargantuan budget, the film would at least be expected to look the part. And for the most part it does, and yet so much of it appears as though it's the first draft of a visual effects company. An early moment has Cesar and Julia standing on top of a floating clock overlooking the skyline of New Rome, later revisiting that same site with additional floating girders, suspended thousands of feet in the air. Why are these things here? Who knows! But they do look absolutely gorgeous while they're up there. And yet, later on we see amateurish and garish blemishes, like poorly composited green screen effects or just bad looking CGI. It's a comically mixed bag of visual stylings, betraying a largely gorgeous cinematic look from cinematographer Mihai Mălaimare Jr. (“The Master,” “The Harder They Fall”).

There's so much bad here and so much bizarrely well intentioned as well. But it all comes down to the film's ending. So much can be forgiven if the tale being told at least wraps up in a satisfying way or has something interesting to say. Coppola has nothing to say, seemingly, if one goes by the way the film ends. It feels like a half-gorgeous retread of the last four decades of "rich and powerful madmen" stories, as if Coppola wrote the script and simply tossed it in a drawer until he finally got the cash to bankroll it. There's a lack of a subtlety; this is a film where a Russian satellite named "Carthage" crashed into an American city named "New Rome" after all, but the biggest crime at the center of "Megalopolis" and its most depressing one: it's just kind of boring. Even draped in this bizarre visual style, dialogue, and performances, the story at the center of it all just doesn't excite or invigorating like something of this scale should.

There’s a longstanding belief that some of the best writers, directors, and creatives in any entertainment industry are great because they know how to control themselves. Infamously, many blame the unfettered and unquestioned support George Lucas received from 20th Century Fox for the state of the Star Wars prequels. Even some of the greats have spoken about how their works are so great because they have people with them willing to say no. “Megalopolis” is the ultimate example of that kind of power: yes, it is a singular vision from a filmmaking legend, exactly the kind of film he wanted to make. But it’s also garish, confusing, full of wooden and terrible performances, and either building to nothing or told so confusingly that the point it is building to is lost amongst everything else. As so many fables end with a lesson for it’s audience, and this is billed explicitly as a fable, it seems that the lesson to be learned here is the power of saying “no.” 1/5

The Wild Robot - Review: The Best Film DreamWorks Animation Has Ever Made

 

In October of 2023, it was publicly announced that “The Wild Robot” would be the last film animated in-house at DreamWorks, with all subsequent films being animated by outside studios with the internal teams being shut down. This is not uncommon in the industry, but for a studio that’s been around for 30 years, this is monumental. It’s as if Disney or Pixar or Studio Ghibli announced they would no longer be animating their own animated movies going forward. It’s a massive blow to the animation industry, and an unfortunate result of nothing but pure cost cutting measures from corporate board members and studio CEOs. It’s also unfortunate because this very human tale of a robot is without a doubt the best film to ever bear the studio’s name. 

The film follows a ROZZUM unit, also known as Roz, voiced by Lupita Nyong’o (“Us (2019),” “12 Years a Slave”) who finds herself stuck on an island inhabited entirely by animals. After befriending some of them, such as a Fox named Fink, voiced by Pedro Pascall (“The Last of Us (2023),” “The Mandalorian”), Roz finds herself raising a runt gosling named Brightbill, voiced by Kit Connor (“Heartstopper,” “Rocket’s Island”), and attempting to prepare him for his winter migration. The film’s ensemble cast also consists of Catherine O’Hara (“Beetlejuice,” “Schitt’s Creek”) as Pinktail the opossum, Bill Nighy (“Love Actually,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest”) as Longneck the goose, Matt Berry (“What We Do In The Shadows (2019),” “Garth Marenghi's Darkplace”) as Paddler the beaver, and Ving Rhames (“Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” “Lilo & Stitch”) as Thunderbolt the falcon. 

Writer/director Chris Sanders (“How To Train Your Dragon,” “Lilo & Stitch”) has many years of experience working with animated tales filled with big emotions, and his work here is no exception. Roz’s tale of parenthood and naturalistic love is explored with thoughtfulness and maturity, without betraying its ease of understanding. It manages to be easily digestible without dumbing things down or coddling its audience. There are often frank discussions involving death throughout the film, without ever lingering on them or brushing too fast past them. It all builds to a film that feels remarkably adult and mature, without being crude or immature. Even the way Roz emotes has an added layer to it, forgoing giant eyebrows, a mouth, or other facial features for simple eyes and colors, all backed by her fantastical vocal performance. 

It all results in a kind of film that invites you in, enveloping you in its tale. At barely over 100 minutes, its scope and pacing feel like it tells a grand and massive tale, without ever dragging or overstaying its welcome. It leaves you with just enough, making you want slightly more but not feeling unfulfilled or underdeveloped. It’s even, somehow, almost devoid of pop culture references and poop jokes, a rarity in almost any kind of animated film nowadays. 

Nyong’o’s vocal performance is absolutely phenomenal, one packed with nuance and an evolution throughout the film. You can actively hear her inflections and nuances change as her character shifts and evolves in her new naturalistic home. Even if that change wasn’t as pronounced, her emotion and performance helps to craft Roz’s emotional journey in a fantastic way, helping to quite literally bring the character to life in a way as immediately iconic as the likes of Tom Hanks as Woody or Mike Myers as Shrek. The rest of the cast is just as good, coming across as legitimate voice acting talent, rather than celebrity voice acting stunt casts. Pascal and Connor in particular match Nyong’o’s emotional journey fantastically, and small performances from Nighy and Rhames make big impacts thanks to the strength of the casting and voices matching their characters. 

There’s a brush stroke, watercolor aesthetic to the world and animation that bring the world to life in a painterly way. It isn’t just a gorgeous look for the film, but it showcases the animal and naturalistic world in a the continues to bring it all to life. The hard metal design of Roz mixes with the world of these animals in a fascinating way, and the musical score from Kris Bowers (“Bridgerton,” “King Richard”) brings these two worlds together by fusing an orchestral score with the electronic beats inspired by Roz’s presence. 

But there’s also something here, beneath the surface, something “in the sauce” as the kids say, that sets the film apart that feels borderline unexplainable. “The Wild Robot” has that immediately timeless feeling that allows virtually anyone of any age to sit down and enjoy it to its fullest. It practically dares you not to fall in love with Roz, Brightbill, Fink, and the rest of this island. Each of the film’s individual elements build to something that is more than the sum of its already fantastic parts, and it's no hyperbole to describe the film as one of DreamWork’s best films ever, if not the best it’s ever made. 

“The Wild Robot” is a spectacle of visual beauty and deep, gorgeous emotions. Sanders has delivered a film that feels like a mission statement on the kind of universal storytelling animation can create. With his fantastic voice cast, including a career best (live action or animated) from Lupita Nyong’o, breathe life into a heart wrenching and truly spectacular tale of family, love, nature, and emotion that stakes its claim as one of the best films of the year. If this truly ends up being the final film made internally at DreamWorks, then it goes out as one of the best, possibly the best, films the studio has ever made. 5/5 

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story - Review: You'll Believe A Man Could Fly

 

Possibly one of the greatest honors for any actor is to play a role that becomes so beloved by the public that it becomes your identity. And possibly one of the greatest horrors for any actor is to play a role that becomes so beloved by the public that it becomes your identity. Christopher Reeve was one such actor, and an argument could be made that he was the first actor to be associated with a role like that by the entire world.  

Now, there’s a new documentary out focusing on that role, his subsequent career, and late-in-life tragedy that changed the way the world perceived him. It also just so happens to be produced by the studio that put him in those iconic tights in the first place. 

Titled “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story,” the film features a variety of interviews from all manner of Reeve’s friends, family, and colleagues including his Julliard classmate Jeff Daniels (“Dumb & Dumber,” “Pleasantville”), his children Matthew, Alexandra, and Will, Whoopi Goldberg (“Sister Act,” “Ghost”), Glenn Close (“Fatal Attraction,” “Albert Nobbs”), Gae Exton; Reeve’s ex-partner and mother of Will, “Superman” producer Pierre Spengler, and paraplegic activist and friend of Reeve Brooke Ellison. 

Like most documentaries, the film jumps around quite a bit to establish Reeve’s injury before looking back on his life and career through the lens of his paralysis. It’s a simple but smart decision to show the events of his life through a hopeful viewpoint. Reeve is clearly not a person who thought he was owed something or that the world was his for the taking. An interview shown about halfway through demonstrates this perfectly: Reeve, when talking about working with Marlon Brando on the first “Superman” film, bemoaned him not taking the material seriously, “I had a wonderful time, but the man didn't care. I'm sorry. He just took the money and ran.” 

Moments like this are throughout the film, and perfectly showcase the kind of energy and reverence Reeve had for his work, but the doc smartly doesn’t attempt to show the man as flawless by any means. There’s a significant chunk that goes into his first extended relationship with Exton and how he appeared to be an absent father during that time, leading up to borderline excused infidelity when he was abroad in America. It’s these times when Reeve becomes a much more interesting figure than just the man who could fly. He is still, as the title shows, super, but is still a man. 

There’s plenty of emotion on display, as one would expect from a documentary with a subject like this. It is extremely effective, showcasing these heartbreaking moments of sadness and inspiration, without coming across as manipulative. This is a work clearly coming from experienced documentarians; Ian Bonhôte (“Rising Pheonix,” McQueen”) and Peter Ettedgui (“Rising Pheonix,” McQueen”) don’t break into a new type of documentary, but they work effectively within the medium to great informative and emotional results. 

“Super/Man” is a great example of the documentary structure at its best: effectively emotional, full of informative and entertaining testimonies, and quickly paced. It’s over before you know it, but you’ll hardly care given that you’ll be staring at the screen through misty eyes and a heart soaring like that man who could fly. 4.5/5

The Substance - Review: Becoming A Better You

There’s no shortage of horror films, be they legitimate genre fodder or tales of horrific events, surrounding women. Menstruation, assault, childbirth, etc. have all been utilized by a variety of filmmakers twisting them into creature features or works of demonic horror. Writer/director Coralie Fargeat (“Revenge”) is clearly not satisfied with those previous works; works that might be considered quaint or quiet, contemplative films. Her work of female aging satirical body horror is loud, proud, brash, thoroughly entertaining, and completely insane. Indulge yourself in “The Substance.” 

The film follows Elisabeth Sparkle, played by Demi Moore (“St. Elmo’s Fire,” “Indecent Proposal”), a once beloved celebrity and television fitness host who finds herself ousted from her own show on her 50th birthday. She then finds herself utilizing a black-market mystery drug known as The Substance to make herself younger, literally. The drug creates a younger version of herself who goes by Sue, played by Margaret Qualley (“Maid,” “Drive Away Dolls”), who gets her old job, her old fame, and her old body. But as both sides fight for control, despite being the same person, things spiral towards the very worst result. 

Fargeat has crafted a world that feels truly hypnotic. Exteriors seem fairly plain and identical to those in our world, and yet each interior shot feels overly designed, trumped up and molded into a borderline horrific, or at least unsettling, version of itself. It results in a constantly shifting environment for these characters to play in, with new camera angles and atmosphere changes radically changing how things feel in each passing moment. 

Moore is absolutely fantastic, delivering a career best performance as she dives headfirst into this bizarre world and role she’s taken on. It’s an extremely physical performance that she absolutely nails, one wherein she’s able to completely immerse you in the borderline alien events going on and also drill down into the quieter emotion of these events. Qualley is also fantastic, blurring the line between spoiled brat and woman wise beyond her years. Both performances complement each other perfectly given that, as the voice of The Substance says, they are one person. 

Bright neon colors fill the screen, offsets the dimmer darker environments of the night and the progressing horrors of the film itself. There’s symbolism abound here, from a carefully crafted dark hidden closet to the film’s grotesque perspective on food, Fargeat and her team craft a borderline cartoonish world full of metaphor that never doesn’t take itself seriously. Central to its base themes, the film must take everything it does seriously, as it is essentially asking the viewers to leap off a cliff of excess into a pit full of extremes. The only way to sell those emotions and events effectively is to never break from that hold; it doesn’t matter how outlandish whatever you’re seeing is, it’s real in this film. 

The dizzying cinematography, utilizing everything from typical Hollywood wide shots to psychedelic trips to close-ups that hail from the Kubrick school of thought, is perfectly crafted by cinematographer Benjamin Kračun (“Promising Young Woman,” “Beats”). It all collides withing itself, mushing into an amalgamation of visual influences and static camera shots. There’s so much lingering on various bodies throughout, and one of the smartest things Kračun and Fargeat do is to not stop. The lingering adds to the themes of beauty standards and feminine bodily expectations, and they don’t twist it into a grotesque way using any creative camera tricks or makeup work. Those moments are simply just shot the same way they’d be on TV or in other movies wherein these bodies are the point of it all, and they just don’t stop. 

Much like the effects of The Substance itself, there are plenty of times here where the film’s themes seem to morph and change into varying different ideas. There’s the takedown of beauty standards that is at the core of it all, but there’s also very strong messages about the Hollywood system and drug addiction. Each is so carefully thought out that they all seem equally plausible as “the point” of it all, but none overwhelm the others. Even more than that, the central idea of self-control is beating throughout, as it becomes very clear halfway through the film that every problem Elisabeth and Sue encounter could be solved if they just said “no.” 

Music by Raffertie (“One Way,” “The Continental: From the World of John Wick”) thumps and pulses through the film, overloading the senses in much the same way as the visuals. Sound is such an integral part of this film, and Fargeat’s script actually has large swaths of scenes without any dialogue, allowing the visuals to completely take over. It further fuels those central ideas about visuals, looking, seeing, examining, that the film seems so extremely determined to zero in on. 

Even the voice of The Substance, a demonically sultry tone brought to life by Yann Bean, only appearing over the phone and in a promotional video, cuts through the film’s literal noise, appearing as sharp and as clear as if it were right behind you, the viewer, at any moment. Juxtaposing against this is a brash and borderline cartoonish performance from Dennis Quaid (“Far From Heaven,” “The Rookie”) as Harvey, Elisabeth and Sue’s TV executive boss, which seems so over-the-top as to just be a literal man-child, dancing through the scenes with a high-pitched voice, munching on food and ogling every woman that walks past him. As the two leading male voices in the film, the wild differences between them are a perfect dichotomy between the world in which Elisabeth and Sue inhabit, further strengthening the film’s sense of place and sense of anger. 

By the time things crescendo in the last thirty minutes, which is as insane as you’ve heard, the more squeamish viewers will have switched it off long ago. But that doesn’t change what’s here, because as potentially difficult to stomach as it might be for some, Fargeat’s sophomore feature is a thrilling and daring portrait of female aging, body standards, and deep-seated self-hatred. These themes don’t get in the way of its gonzo body-horror fun, with Morre and Qualley turning in performances almost beyond what either seemed capable of. It’s a deeply sad, angry, loud, silly, goofy, horrific, and, at its core, emotional film. It just so happens to communicate that emotional through squelches, boobs, and squirts of gore instead of teary-eyed third-act confessionals. Give in to your worst instincts and try The Substance. 5/5