A Quiet Place: Day One - Review: Sound Off for a Prequel

 

Less than a decade ago, the first “Quiet Place” film leapt into cinemas as a bold and fresh horror/thriller film that worked shockingly well and took the world by storm. Now, we have the series’ third film and first prequel, “A Quiet Place: Day One,” which shifts focus and locations completely to take us back to the day this invasion first began. 

Set in the hustle and bustle of New York City, the film follows Samira, played by Lupita Nyong’o (“Black Panther,” “Us”), a jaded cancer patient who travels into the city one day with her therapy group and group leader Reuben, played by Alex Wolff (“Hereditary,” “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”), for pizza and a puppet show. That day just so happens to be the day of the alien invasion that kicks off the apocalyptic events that these films follow. Now, Samira finds herself wandering a freshly abandoned New York City in a desperate bid for survival, accompanied by only her cat and apathetic businessman Eric, played by Joseph Quinn (“Stranger Things,” “Dickensian”). 

Unsurprising to anyone who’s ever watched a film starring either of the two leads, Nyong’o and Quinn absolutely carry the entire film together. Even as things progress and the action and events get more generic, their central performances elevate the material and do a great deal to keep the viewer locked into this world. Nyong’o in particular continues to showcase her talents and ability to bring a sense of life to any role, regardless of genre. Her eyes in particular remain one of her best assets and are utilized to chilling effect here. Quinn is also excellent, and he rides the very thin line between making Eric hapless and accident prone without turning him into a sad puppy. 

Given the fact that this is the third film within this world, many of the unknown aspects of the horror have gone by the wayside. Whereas in the first film, the creatures were teased and weren’t even fully shown until the very end, this one has them leaping and running across cityscapes with reckless abandon. It’s an interesting choice from writer/director Michael Sarnoski (“Pig (2021)”) and co-writer John Krasinski (“Promised Land,” “IF (2024)”) as it almost completely removes any aspect of horror from the film. There are plenty of effective chase sequences throughout the city, and it's shot with a very detailed eye by cinematographer Pat Scola (“Pig (2021),” “Sing Sing”), but it means the film is more thriller than horror sa a result.  

This creates an issue as these moments, while certainly not boring, feel particularly average compared to the rest of the action/thriller genre. And despite being excessively detailed, the creatures just aren’t particularly scary in that context, coming across more as generic four-legged monstrous things than anything more memorable. Also lacking is the film’s central premise. Despite literally being called “Day One”, not much happens on the first day of the invasion, and the film is hardly concerned with it outside of the first twenty minutes. Yes, it's still the early days of this invasion, but once the film actually gets going, there’s little to distinguish it from the previous two films, which took place years into the conflict. 

Outside of the action-packed sequences, there’s a film about two lost and broken people finding solace in each other and a broken world. It cannot be overstated how fantastic these scenes between Nyong’o and Quinn are, and even if you actively hate the film’s action sequences, they’re worth getting through for these character driven moments. The quality spikes so much as to entirely give the film its reason for existing. A gorgeous musical score from Alexis Grapsas (“Pig 2021),” “Big Shot”) keeps these moments grounded and real, leading to a particularly cathartic last five minutes that make everything prior worth it. 

“A Quiet Place: Day One” is certainly the weakest of the series thus far. There’s a lack of compelling scares and the action sequences can’t really hold a candle to other great examples of the genre. It also fails to compellingly utilize its title concept, but the character work from Nyong’o and Quinn truly transform the work and make the film worth watching. It’s a bumpy road, but one that’s well worth seeing to the end with these two leads. 3.5/5

Kinds of Kindness - Review: Three is Not a Magic Number

 

A little over six months after the release of his previous film and Oscar darling “Poor Things,” writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite,” “The Lobster”) and his now frequent collaborator Emma Stone (“La La Land,” “Poor Things”) have reunited in an anthology film that retains the style of Lanthimos’s previous works, while stretching out the length to almost three hours and plopping it directly into a distinctly simplistic reality compared to his previous works. This is “Kinds of Kindness.” 

The film tells three different tales: the first, “The Death of R.M.F.,” follows Robert, played by Jesse Plemmons (“Game Night,” “The Power of the Dog”), is being manipulated by his boss and lover Raymond, played by Willem Dafoe (“Spider-Man 2,” “Poor Things”), into living his life as he sees fit. When he decides to break those orders, his wife Sarah, played by Hong Chau (“The Whale,” “Downsizing”), leaves him, and he finds himself distraught and his life in shambles. The second, “R.M.F. Is Flying,” follows Daniel, played by Plemmons, who finds himself distraught after his wife Liz, played by Stone, returns home after seemingly being lost at sea. As time passes though, he becomes increasingly convinced she is not his actual wife. The third, “"R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” follows Andrew and Emily, played by Plemmons and Stone respectively, a pair of cultists looking for a woman who can bring people back from the dead. After sleeping with someone outside of the cult, Emily is banished by the cult’s leaders Omi, played by Dafoe, and Aka, played by Chau, and begins a quest to find the woman so she may be allowed back into the cult. 

When judging an anthology film, it can be difficult to give a resounding critique on the work as a whole given the sometimes varying number of actors, directors, writers, etc. involved. Luckily, since Lanthimos is the only director and co-wrote the whole thing with Efthimis Filippou (“The Lobster,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”) and each story shares the same cast of actors, it becomes a bit easier. However, make no mistake, these three stories are of varying quality based purely on their own writing. The script as a whole keeps Lanthimos’s typically stinted and deliberate dialogue, but each tale has disparate tones. “Death” feels almost like a classic sex-comedy, but with a modernized sense of thinking, yet somehow manages to be the most blase tale of the whole film. “Flying” meanwhile teeters into uncomfortable and confusing territory, and not in the playful kind that Lanthimos normally works in. “Sandwich” is the only one that really genuinely works, and it's not hard to see an entire film made out of just that one tale. It’s the most fleshed out, most interesting, and has the most for the actors involved to play with. 

Stone is great, but severely limited by the fluctuating quality of the writing she’s working with. Plemmons fairs much better given that he’s the lead in all but one, so his blend of puppy eyes and quiet menace can work its magic. Dafoe seems as though he’s just going through the motions, doing the same “Dafoe thing” he’s been doing for the latter half of his career. Meanwhile, Chau feels flatly underutilized, as do Mamoudou Athie (“Jurassic World Dominion,” “Elemental”) and Margaret Qualley (“Drive Away Dolls,” “Maid”), popping up only occasionally and making little impact when they do, save for Qualley in “Sandwich.” 

Given Lanthimos and cinematographer Robbie Ryan’s (“Poor Things,” “The Favourite”) previous works together, it’s alarming how flat all of “Kindness” looks. While there is plenty of great usage of natural lighting and lit cityscapes, especially in “Death,” the film as a whole looks remarkably bland, even taking Lanthimos other works out of the equation. The musical score from Jerskin Fendrix (“Poor Things”) is painfully monotonous, droning on without really adding anything to the material, simply drilling in emotions forced by its musical cues. 

Worse than all of this not working, it all has a painfully forced feeling of self-importance about it that makes it an example of some of the worst aspects of quote-unquote indie films. Especially odd is that, for a director who’s past two works featured sex and sexuality in a very mature way, the usage here seems more for either titillation or to add another layer of “wackiness” to some of the storylines. Weirdly enough, once again the only time this doesn’t really apply is with the third story “Sandwich,” as it simply seems like a more fleshed out tale than the rest. 

“Kinds of Kindness” might be a film about three different kinds of “kindness” being doled out to the people within the tales, but the resulting film is anything but kind to the viewer. While some of the performances manage to elevate the material, and the third tale manages to be better than the entire rest of the film period, it's a blandly shot movie with a script a times dull and others uncomfortable, telling tales of woe that acts as a bizarre follow up to Lanthimos’s previous two films and a bizarre latest chapter in the career of a director with plenty of bizarre chapters. 2/5

Thelma (2024) - Review: This Ain't Your Grandma's Grandma

 

There’s something really delightful about getting to see older, experienced performers get to “act their age” so to speak. In an industry constantly chasing after the new, hip, young thing, seeing an aged film star come back to lead a film or to a role they played when they were younger is always a good feeling. Doubly so when that actor gets to lead a film that could only exist for someone their age, as is the case here with the delightful little tale of “Thelma.” 

The film follows the titular elderly woman, played with spirit by June Squibb (“Nebraska,” “About Schmidt”), who sends her family into a tizzy after she falls for a phone scam that results in her sending ten thousand dollars to a random address, believing her grandson Danny, played by Fred Hechinger (“Eighth Grade,” “News of the World”), is in jail. After she learns how worried they are that this trick is a result of her mind deteriorating, she enlists in the help of her fellow elderly friend Ben, played by Richard Roundtree (“Shaft (1971),” “Being Mary Jane”), to track down the scammers and get her money back. 

If there’s one surefire thing from both the premise and the actress cast in its lead, “Thelma” is certainly going to let Squibb have an absolute blast. It’s a good thing that writer/director/editor Josh Margolin (“Deep Murder”) is content to let her run as wild as her orthopedic sneakers can let her in the film’s brisk 98-minute runtime. Squibb has always been a source of laughs and glee, wisely aware of her age and the expectations surrounding it. She embraces the role with vigor and delight, taking on the material with the confidence and security of an action star to make it all sing. 

Roundtree plays a perfect straight man to her shenanigans, and it ends up being a fantastically charming and subdued posthumous performance for the legendary actor to go out on. Hechinger is also great as Danny, a hodge-podge of various arrested development youth tropes, but when he and Squibb are on screen together, they shine. The rest of the cast are also great, although they’re simply damned with less screentime. Clark Gregg (“The Avengers,” “The West Wing”) and Parker Posey (“Dazed and Confused,” “Josie and the Pussycats (2001)”) are great as Thelma’s daughter and son-in-law/Danny’s parents Alan and Gail, respectively, and there’s a great little role from Malcolm McDowell (“A Clockwork Orange,” “Mozart in the Jungle”) here as well. But Gregg and Posey simply don’t get much to do apart from show up and be charming, which they succeed at, and McDowell’s role might as well be a cameo, as fantastic as he still manages to be with that limited time. 

It’s a quaint little movie in most aspects outside of the cast. While they get a lot of mileage out of Los Angeles and it is all shockingly well shot by cinematographer David Bolen (“Some Kind of Heaven”), there is a very simple sense of vision to it all. This isn’t a bad thing, as it clearly exists as a showcase for an actress like Squibb; it ends up feeling like a movie that could’ve been shot in a week around the city by a bunch of actors simply looking to have a good time. The score from Nick Chuba (“Dr. Death”) is remarkably excellent, standing out from the rest of the production's aspects thanks to a mixture of simple strings and quieter melodies and riffs on the typical “spy/espionage” movie theme sounds. 

Within those simpler elements, and bolstered by Bolen’s cinematography, is a movie that has a shocking number of layers to it. For a silly movie about an elderly woman looking to get her money back, there’s a lot to be said about how we treat the elderly and how we can over-care for those we love. It isn't getting into things with the depth that a two-hour drama might, but the handful of moments where we simply sit, wordlessly with Thelma and the rest of the characters are both gorgeous and remarkably profound. 

“Thelma” has everything you could want in a movie! Elderly hijinks, revenge on scammers who take advantage of those who don’t know better, June Squibb, electric scooter chases! It's the kind of good ol’ fashioned fun time at the movies that can often be forgotten about or taken for granted nowadays, much like it’s elderly lead, with just enough to think about under the surface. With Squibb at the helm, it’s a movie that practically dares you not to have a good time 4.5/5

The Bikeriders - Review: Just Along for the Ride

 

If there is a movement, some kind of cause that makes an impact on the world, chances are there will someday be a film made about it. Writer/director Jeff Nichols (“Midnight Special,” “Mud”) has looked to the past to create a film about such a movement, basing it around the motorcycle clubs of the 1960s and 70s, with “The Bikeriders.” 

Starting in 1965, the film follows the creation and eventual downfall of the Vandals Motorcycle club, documented by photo-journalist Danny Lyons, played by Mike Faist (“West Side Story (2021),” “Challengers”), and focusing on the creation of the club by President Johnny Davis, played by Tom Hardy (“Venom,” “Mad Max: Fury Road”), and the romance between biker Benny Cross, played by Austin Butler (“Elvis,” “Dune Part Two”), and outsider Kathy Bauer, played by Jodie Comer (“Killing Eve,” “The Last Duel”), with an ensemble cast consisting of Michael Shannon (“Midnight Special,” “Revolutionary Road”), Boyd Holbrook (“Logan,” “The Sandman”), Norman Reedus (“The Walking Dead,” “The Boondock Saints”), among others. 

There’s a casual, lowkey nature to the entire film that adds to the hangout vibes of the story being told. Much of it is recounted to Lyons by Bauer at various points of her life, and the events not only have a wistful, nostalgia twinge to them, but also stark reality to things. Comer herself lays her accent on thick and is fairly good at the role, maintaining a good line between narrator and character within the tale. Hardy and Butler really steal the show, with the former employing a fantastically implausible accent to portray his vision of subdued and suppressed masculinity and anger.  

Meanwhile, Butler plays his role with an opposite kind of perspective, whereas Hardy fills his performance with grand displays of manly protection, Butler keeps things wound tight until the most opportune moments to let them unfurl. The rest of the ensemble cast is a delight, all embodying some fun, larger than life personas that fill out the film well. Faist is the only one who feels purely underutilized, instead wasting a strong actor on a role that feels like little more than a narrator who just happens to physically be there. 

The musical score from David Wingo (“Midnight Special,” “Barry”) is absolutely beautiful and helps to build the setting alongside some shockingly gorgeous and underplayed cinematography from Adam Stone (“Loving,” “Midnight Special”) which come together to create a great and realized vision of the 60s and 70s biking movement. While there isn’t an overall story perse, the film does exist on an engaging thread of tales and misadventures of the characters themselves, telling the story through small moment-to-moment escapades. 

Nichols zeroes in on the different kinds of masculinity and expressions of it therein to tell the arc of Hardy and Butler’s characters, and it quickly becomes apparent that this is where his interests lie the most. It is a very well realized and interesting story, but there is also a blaise feeling to it all that makes it hard to love. It's the sort of movie where nothing is objectively wrong or bad, but the elements don’t really come together to create a perfect film. Rather, they’re all good, just not great. 

That might sound like damning with faint praise, but don’t mistake “The Bikeriders” for a movie not worth your time. It’s a rousing and nostalgic drama that feels like part period piece for the 60s and 70s and part hangout movie, that still finds time to deconstruct two very different types of masculinity within its club. Its two lead performances are terrific, and the ensemble cast is also great. It does meander a bit too much and might overall feel like less than the sum of its parts, but those individual parts are still wholly enjoyable. 4/5 

Inside Out 2 – Review: All I Want Is to Have My Peace of Mind

 

There’s a world of emotions inside of every person, which means there’s plenty of room for a sequel to Pixar’s 2015 modern classic “Inside Out,” a film showcasing the world inside the mind of a pre-teen girl. And appropriately, the aptly titled “Inside Out 2” showcases that same girl’s mind, now at the frightening cusp of puberty and filled with anxieties. 

Picking up a few years after the end of the first film, Riley, voiced by Kensington Tallman, has now turned 13 and her emotions Joy, voiced by Amy Poehler (“Parks and Recreation,” “Mean Girls”), Sadness, voiced by Phyllis Smith (“The Office,” “The OA”), Anger, voiced by Lewis Black (“Accepted,” “The Daily Show”), Fear, voiced by Tony Hale (“Arrested Development,” “Veep”), and Disgust, voiced by Liza Lapria (“The Equalizer,” “Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23”), must now confront a new group of emotions who’ve taken hold of Riley’s mind: Embarrassment, voiced by Paul Walter Hauser (“Black Bird,” “Richard Jewel”), Envy, voiced by Ayo Edeberi (“Bottoms,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”), Ennui, voiced by Adèle Exarchopoulos (“Blue Is The Warmest Color,” “Passage”), and their defacto leader Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke (“Stranger Things,” “Do Revenge”). 

There’s clearly a lot to dig into with a concept like this. Introducing just Anxiety herself could provide for a boatload of new storytelling material, but the new emotions all balance out well without overloading each other or the story. The returning cast is all excellent, with Black in particular adding some more depth to his Anger through a softer vocal performance and Hale and Lapria doing a good job filling in for their role's original voices. Hawke meanwhile is an absolute powerhouse. Her Anxiety is a delight, running rampant with fantastic delivery and pained self-idolizations. Much like Poehler in the first film, she turns what should be a predictable one-note character into one that’s easy to feel for. 

Not much has changed in the visual style from the first film, but that’s not at all a bad thing. Instead, Pixar and its animation wizards have continued to flesh out the existing world within Riley’s mind. The textures and colors continue to pop will vibrance and glee, and there are now different styles of animation, such as hand-drawn 2D and early PlayStation-style graphics, for minor characters and elements that make for great bits of variance. 

The musical score also maintains the greatness of Giacchino’s score from the first film, even if it doesn’t retain Giacchino. Andrea Datzman fills in his shoes competently, crafting new and great musical motifs when needed and blending them with the original film’s themes when appropriate. However, in actuality, there isn’t a whole lot different between the first film’s score and this one, and that actually leads to the only real issue with the film. 

Given the nature of the film and the world that Pixar has created with these tales, there’s only so much co-writer/director Kelsey Mann and writers Meg LeFauve (“Inside Out,” “The Good Dinosaur”) and Dave Holstein (“Kidding,” “Weeds”) can do to differentiate things. It can therefore feel like the story itself is simply repeating what came before but with some variances. It’s within those variances though that Mann, LeFauve, and Holstein mine for unique scenarios and emotional humor.

That humor has a bit more of a cheeky, almost Simpsons-esque sense of silliness to it all, mining individual moments for visual and script gags. More than any Pixar film previously, there's a squash and stretch to everything, mimicking the kind of playful exaggeration in the likes of old school Looney Tunes cartoons. Anxiety chugs 5 energy drinks at once whilst Envy's eyes grow to be the size of her head, creating not only an amusing visual palette, but a stark different between the human world and the emotion world. It not only helps separate these worlds but draws a distinction between these humorous moments and the ones that are deeply serious and deliberate.

Even if it feels routine, it's still a deeply emotional journey to go on with these characters, and Pixar once again refuses to take the easy way out. The third act is remarkably complex and complicated, arguably more so than the first film’s, to a degree that feels almost unnecessarily ambitious. It refuses to take a simpler, easy way out, instead tackling the changes associated with growing up and puberty head on. So many films focus on the awkwardness of those physical, external changes, but it feels refreshing to see one directly tackling the internal. 

“Inside Out 2” has plenty of similarities to the first film, but these lay the groundwork for more expansions on its initial concept and the characters, internal and otherwise, therein. The vocal cast is still exceptional, with Hawke and Poehler turning in some truly fantastic performances, and it’s still an exceptional visual treat. There’s some déjà vu, but it doesn’t harm what’s still a fun, funny, and emotionally charged adventure that refuses to take the easy way out. It may be a sequel to a beloved original film, but make no mistake, nobody would’ve made this like Pixar has. 4.5/5

Am I OK? - Review: Sometimes, That's All You Need to Be

 

Most coming-of-age films tend to take place during their character’s teenaged years for good reason. It’s one of the more awkward times in one's life, as you’re attempting to figure yourself out and determine what kind of person you might want to be as you grow older. Which is why the act of coming out can make you feel as though you’re going through a second set of teenage years, making a film like “Am I Ok?” feel like a coming-of-age movie for the mid-30s crowd. 

The film follows Lucy, played by Dakota Johnson (“Fifty Shades of Grey,” “Madame Web”), a mid-30s woman living in Los Angeles working as a receptionist at a spa who mostly spends time drinking with her best friend Jane, played by Sonoya Mizuno (“House of the Dragon,” “Devs”), and Jane’s boyfriend Danny, played by Jermaine Fowler (“Superior Donuts,” “Coming 2 America”). After many failed attempts at dating men and spurred by the thoughts of flirtatious new masseuse Brittany, played by Kiersey Clemons (“Dope,” “Hearts Beat Loud”), Lucy realizes that she is a lesbian and begins to step into her new experiences, struggling with her late-bloomer revelation and new world. 

Especially after years of playing more unflattering roles in films like the “Fifty Shades” trilogy, Johnson has emerged in recent times much like Kristen Stewart did in her post-”Twilight” career: she’s flourished in a realm of fresher, deeper, more emotionally complicated role. “Ok” is no different, and she somehow turns a quieter role into one of real vulnerability and honest humor. Her chemistry with Mizuno is fantastic, and their friendship really feels believable and works as the anchor for the entire film. Likewise, Mizuno is also great, and the pair of them develop a friendship that feels messy and complicated and real, unlike most other fake feeling movie friends. 

The rest of the cast are all good, serving their roles well, but aren’t majorly memorable. Fowler does a great job as the doting, humorus, self-effacing boyfriend role, and Clemons plays the stereotypical “early-20s, overly flirtatious girl” role well. But neither the script from writer Lauren Pomerantz (“Strange Planet,” “Saturday Night Live”) nor their performances do much to break out of these kinds of archetypes. Likewise, even for a fairly simplistic movie, co-directors Tig Notaro (“One Mississippi,” “Star Trek: Discovery”) and Stephanie Allynne (“Dream Corp LLC,” “The L Word: Generation Q”) struggle to do more than point and shoot for much of the film’s runtime. 

It’s a well-directed film in terms of getting lots of good dialogue-based scenes and moments of honest humor, but there isn’t any real sense of dramatic flair or flashiness. Not that it needs it, but eventually it stops feeling like a movie and more just like a filmed play because of this. There’s a good but not particularly memorable score from Craig Wedren (“School of Rock,” “Velvet Goldmine”) and Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) as well, and it ends up feeding into the film’s main issue. It’s a fine story that's well-acted and clearly has a lot of emotion put into it. But it fails to make any real impact from a craft perspective. 

Unfortunately, despite Johnson’s great performance, the queer elements of the story don’t really feel explored beyond a base level. It's fun to see her go on dates and discover herself, and plenty of great scenes come from this. A particularly excellent one sees Lucy and Jane lying in bed for a sleepover with Lucy slowly realizing her female attractions and working through it by talking to Jane. But it feels as though it stops short of really allowing Lucy to explore herself onscreen. Yes, the film is clearly moreso about their friendship, but given how much of it is central to Lucy’s coming out and self-exploration, it’s disappointing we don’t see more of it. 

“Am I Ok?” is a well-acted and sweet tale that buoys itself around excellent chemistry between Johnson and Mizuno. But it never really feels like it gets deeper into any of the subjects it brings up, resulting in an emotionally charged, important, but ultimately rather surface level exploration of the middle-age coming out experience. It’s worth watching certainly, but it fails to make a major impression like one might hope given the material and those involved. 3/5