STILL WORKING 9 TO 5

Directing: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

I have a suggestion for Hollywood: I would love to see a contemporary update on 9 to 5. Not just as an attempt at capitalizing on yet another nostalgic revisit to a classic film of the past (though that would unavoidably be part of it), but as an exercise in illustrating how, more than forty years later, so much work is left to be done. A newer film could demonstrate how misogyny in the workplace may not be as blatantly widespread as it was in 1980, but even as women’s presence in management positions has exploded in the ensuing decades, misogyny remains widespread—it’s just a lot subtler and more pernicious these days.

I don’t even care if it’s a reboot or a sequel; either could be fun. Although I don’t usually find this kind of thing necessary, I would actually vote sequel. This way, we could have a story centered on, say, the granddaughters of Violet (Lily Tomlin), who remains close friends with Judy (Jane Fonda) and Doralee (Dolly Parton) in retirement, and we could get a few, super-fun scenes with these three titans of the entertainment industry, dispensing hilarious advise to the young woman professionals about their persistent workplace problems with the men around them.

9 to 5 has already been made into a musical twice (Broadway in 2009 and the West End in 2019). This idea only makes sense! Apparently they came very close to something exactly like this sort of sequel in 2018 but it wound up not working out. Dammit! Because god knows, updating this story to highlight the issues that persist to this day would reach a hell of a lot wider audience than this pleasantly compelling but somewhat forgettable documentary, Still Working 9 to 5.

This documentary film is getting a single showing in local theaters, as part of SIFF’s “Docfest,” tomorrow (Sunday October 10) at 7:00. On the upside, SIFF is also selling virtual tickets all this week (Friday through Thursday) so you can stream the film at home. I cannot find any information on it being available later on streaming services.

So, is it worth the price of paying for a ticket to see this movie? This really depends on your relationship with the original 1980 film. The documentary is much more effective as a companion piece, offering a bit of behind the scenes information but largely contextualizing the film with how it was timed against the history of the women’s liberation movement. The thing is, though, 9 to 5 actually speaks for itself, and if you’ve never seen it, I urge you to find and watch that (currently available on HBO Max). You’ll see how it stands up incredibly well—arguably better now than it did upon its 1980 release, when reviews were decidedly mixed, largely due to most movie critics being, of course, men.

Anyone with a basic understanding of both culture and nuance would watch the original film and already see clearly how far women have come, where they are today in comparison to when women then might have expected to be in another four decades, and how far women still have to go. Plus, that film is wildly entertaining in a way this documentary could never hope to be.

But, for those of us who have already seen 9 to 5 several times and are big fans of it, Still Working 9 to 5 does have its values and insights. I think co-directors Camille Hardman and Gary Lane lean a little heavily on the film’s enduring cultural impact beyond just being a smash success (and to be clear, being the #2 movie of 1980, behind only The Empire Strikes Back, and one of only three movies to earn more than $100 million domestic that year, is deeply impressive). This documentary is kind of two films in one: a film about 9 to 5 and its unprecedented success as a film with women as the three lead roles; and a film about where women’s rights have gone in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

It’s undeniably fun to see Fonda, Tomlin and Parton in present-day interviews discussing what the movie meant both to them personally and to audiences, both then and now, alongside Dabney Coleman (who played the chauvinist boss) , producers and writers of the film, and even original members of the “9to5” activist organization of working women from whom the film got both its title and its inspiration (that being one of the several fascinating details you actually might learn from this film alone). For those unfamiliar with the original film, Still Working 9 to 5 will either just hold moderate interest or inspire a look at the movie. For the rest of us, it’s a fairly affecting companion piece.

Revisiting old friends is always a comfort, even if they tell us how much work is left to do.

Overall: B

BROS

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

I really wanted to love Bros. And I did like it—it even made me laugh more than most comedies do. And I am a genuine fan of Billy Eichner, his overt obnoxiousness on Billy on the Street being a definitive part of his brand and appeal. And Bros is made for people who love romantic comedies, and even quite knowingly moves through all the same beats as any mainstream film of the genre. This is a film made for everyone lamenting the decline of romantic comedies, and it manages to scratch that itch by being just as serviceable a specimen as any other.

I just wanted it to be better than “serviceable,” which is, admittedly, a tall order. How many “great” romantic comedies are there out there, really? When Harry Met Sally… (1989) is arguably the best ever made; Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) seems largely lost to history and now rendered criminally underrated (seriously, if you’ve never seen that one, find it and watch it). Moonstruck (1987) is a straight up masterpiece. How long has it been since another romantic comedy came even close to the quality of these examples? Even the American Film Institute’s top 10 romantic comedies lists nothing more recent than 1993 (and Sleepless in Seattle is fun, but, if that makes the top ten of all time? this is not a genre known for most people’s best work).

How does Bros compare within a 21st-century context, then, which, frankly, lowers the bar? Four years ago Collider compiled a list of the best romantic comedies of the 21st century, and a lot of them are better films. The crucial difference with Bros is, of course, that it centers a same-sex couple instead of a straight one. And a whole lot has been made of how that breaks new ground, this being “the first American gay romantic comedy from a major studio featuring an entirely LGBTQ principal cast”—which is, it must be said, a lot of qualifiers. After all, Fire Island was already released this past spring, and it fits all but one of those same qualifiers, the only difference being it was released on Hulu. And that movie is certainly as good as Bros; some might say it’s better (on average I liked them about the same, for slightly different reasons) and they would have solid arguments to stand on. Hell, that one stars Bowen Yang as one of the principal characters, and he’s also in this movie.

And not for nothing, but Fire Island has a leg up on Bros in that its principal characters are mostly people of color. Bros is a little self-conscious about its “diversity casting” (a loaded term if ever there was one) while never directly addressing how it still centers white characters—which in itself is not necessarily something to criticize it for, except for how it quite blatantly “checks all the boxes,” or at least all the boxes it can, in its supporting cast. Eichner’s Bobby character is the Executive Director of an LGBTQ+ museum (was it absolutely necessary for him to the the Executive Director?), but the rest of his Board consists of two trans women (one White and one Black), a Black non-binary person, a White bisexual man, and a White lesbian. This is a knowing nod to the obsession with “covering all the bases,” like the self-conscious diversity of models on a college brochure, while still managing to actually check a lot of the boxes. (Incidentally, this Board does not include any people of color who aren’t Black, nor does it have any intersex or asexual people—which, I would bet anything, it would if the movie were made another ten years from now.)

The museum itself is a clear way for the film to “educate” viewers on queer history, which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, this aspect of Bros did not teach me anything I didn’t already know, which made it feel kind of like a movie made to educate straight people. On the other hand, plenty of queer people also don’t know their own history, and if this movie teaches them anything at all, I’m not going to complain about that. That said, Eichner has so many extensive monologues in this movie—this guy talks, and talks—that a lot of the time, in the museum scenes, he’s throwing out so much information so fast that it often feels, again, like checking off boxes.

Bros opens with one of Eichner’s monologues, by the way, his being a podcast host (of course) offering an excuse for an introduction consisting of a large amount of voiceover. This opening bit kind of goes hard, though, which Eichner’s delivery that’s both rapid and extensive, and I got a little stuck on the idea that a solo podcast host, who evidently doesn’t even have guests on, would be a wildly popular one with a million subscribers. Bros barely gives an indication of the basic premise of his podcast (again, queer history), then mostly shows him waxing poetic about his frustrating sex life, what it’s like being gay these days, or answering live listener calls. Why the hell would so many people be listening to this?

It should be noted that Bros may be a gay story in which all the queer characters are (quite pointedly) played by queer actors, and all of that is indeed stuff to be proud of. But the director, Nicholas Stoller, is not gay, and I think this actually makes a difference, Eichnier having co-written the script with him notwithstanding. (Side note: Fire Island was directed by Andrew Ahn, an openly gay Asian American man.) There’s been an element of a lot of the press and buzz for Bros that feels a lot like straight guys patting themselves on the back for helping their queer friends get their movie made. And it’s not to say they have no reason to be proud of this movie, but there has been this widespread industry expectation that the movie will be a hit, and its opening weekend earned 40% less than projected. There is already hand-wringing about whether this means audiences aren’t “ready” for a movie like this, but there remains the possibility that the film just isn’t as great as everyone who made it thought it was.

And I know I’ve spent a lot of time picking it apart here, but I must stress that I did enjoy this movie. The more salient point is, I enjoyed it about as much as any average romantic comedy—the key word here being “average,” although I would even say this was above average, not that there’s a high bar there either; it doesn’t take much for a romantic comedy to rise just slightly above mediocrity. And to be fair, there’s a lot of things I did love about Bros, not least of which was its acknowledgment of how gay relationships are actually different from straight ones (yet no less valid); its sex scenes just as frank as any in a romantic comedy about straight people; and its unusually honest depiction of day to day queer life. (Although, and I’m sorry for constantly making the comparison in spite of its inevitability, Fire Island has a lot more casual drug use. Bros does depict the use of poppers in a sex scene, though, treating it as just a normal part of it, which for many it is.)

Plus, Bros does have a lot of very effective punch lines, and I laughed a good amount at it—albeit a little further into the film than I would have preferred; that opening sequence with the podcast-host voiceover really had me worried the movie would be actively bad. Thankfully, although there are many valid criticisms, the movie is actively good. And to be fair, it’s not trying to be anything it isn’t, either; the film itself doesn’t seem to think it’s any paragon of cinema, and only tries to offer what fans of romantic comedies want. And by and large, what those fans want is something of a specific formula, which this very much is.

Eichner’s love interest is Aaron, played by Luke Macfarlane, a guy largely known for Hallmark Channel romantic comedies—so, another example of slightly in-joke casting. Eichner plays a character I would likely find insufferable in real life, but these two men have genuine chemistry, which alone goes a long way toward making Bros work overall. It’s heartening to see even two perfectly attractive men (granted, one is much “hunkier” than the other) struggling to overcome very different insecurities, and sort of tentatively succeeding. Honestly, I would happily watch Bros again, and would likely enjoy it even more a second time, having already gotten the criticisms out of my system and allowing myself just to give into it without intellectualizing what is just meant to be a fun time at the movies. Which, to be fair, is exactly what this is in the end.

It’s unapologetically queer, unapologetically romantic, and unapologetically formulaic.

Overall: B

2009'S AVATAR IN 2022

Directing: B-
Acting: B
Writing: C+
Cinematography: A-
Editing: A
Special Effects: A-

When I first saw Avatar in 2009, I was impressed enough with it that not only did I give it an A-, by the end of the year I put it on my annual top 10, placing it at #10.

With the film’s first sequel finally coming to theaters this December, the first film is once again in theaters now, this time only available in 3D—in 2009, I went to see it first in 3D, then again in 2D, and very much preferred the latter. I suspect I would feel the same way now, even though I must say, when viewed superficially as nothing more than blockbuster entertainment, that film remains a spectacular specimen. I cannot deny that I was wowed by the effects, the visual inventiveness, and how imaginative it was—possibly even more than I was thirteen years ago, when I spent an inordinate amount of time discussing the uselessness of 3D in my review.

And now, I am doing something I never did before: re-reviewing a movie in re-release many years later. My rule has always been against this because, well, I already reviewed it. Except in this case, there is the unusual burning question of how well the film holds up after all this time, both because of the amount of time that has passed, and the massive cultural shifts in the zeitgeist in that time, particularly when it comes to race.

There is no question that the “white savior” concept came up in criticism of this film in 2009, but I am somewhat disappointed in myself not to have mentioned it at all in my original review. In the year 2022, for anyone with any concerns about social justice at all, James Cameron’s narrative in this film certainly sits uncomfortably—and for many white people, less comfortably now than it did in 2009.

James Cameron is another massively successful straight white man, after all, and certainly there will be some who read my commentary now as just shitting on straight white men. It cannot be denied, however, that his gender and race informs the story he is telling here, about a white man (Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington) who enters the “indigenous humanoid” population of a moon called Pandora, gets accepted as one of them, and then leads them in successful resistance to the “white people.” A lot of the problematic characterizations of this indigenous population are more glaring now, and further reading comes recommended. There is plenty out there about this if you make the slightest effort to look for it; I am hardly alone in thinking about these things.

One wonders whether Cameron will take any of these frankly fair criticisms to heart in the upcoming sequel. I have my doubts, but also I suppose it’s not impossible. The internal struggle I have with the original Avatar now is how much I genuinely enjoyed it. And surely, plenty of people might sensibly ask why we can’t just give ourselves over to blockbuster entertainment and simply be entertained. I can tell you this much: if you do that with Avatar, you absolutely will not be disappointed. Cameron’s script may be packed with stereotypes and tropes, but it is also incredibly tightly constructed, and the film is riveting from beginning to end. I just also had the space in my head for recognition of its many faults, some more subtle than others. I wasn’t even as bothered by the 3D this time around; the film is so wildly entertaining that you quickly forget about the sometimes awkward visual experience.

Would I recommend that you see this in the theater now, again? Only if you are a purist regarding the cinema experience: there is no question the stunning visuals work better in a theater, no matter how big your home TV screen is.

Also, there has been regular mention over the years that Avatar has the distinction of being the only film ever to become the biggest box office earner of all time which people don’t really still talk about, and no one can even remember what the characters names were. Sigourney Weaver plays Grace, the doctor who heads the “Avatar” program that links humans to hybrid Na’vi that can breathe and function in the local environment. Zoe Saldana plays Neytiri, the Na’vi woman Jake falls in love with. Michelle Rodriguez plays Trudy, a rebellious company employee. Stephen Lang plays Colonel Miles Quaritch, the man who becomes the very Cameronian villain of the film. Giovanni Ribisi is Parker, the corporate shill intent on ruining the Na’vi land in pursuit of the idiotically named “unobtanium.” Very seldom are any of these people’s names actually said onscreen.

Setting the problematic narrative aside, the reason to see Avatar remains its groundbreaking special effects. The Na’vi are CGI rendered in a way that precludes any genuine photorealism, and yet their environment on Pandora is so colorful and inventive, it is an unusually immersive experience. It feels very much like a fully realized world, wholly separate from the one we live in. Cameron simply grafts a very Dances with Wolves story onto it. I spent a lot of time not minding that so much, thinking maybe I should mind it more, and escaping into a science fiction fantasy. That descriptor can be applied in more ways than one, and which angle you take on it is really up to you. But, even the most spectacular entertainment is not above a more deeply critical look.

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Rendered Spectacularly

Overall: B+

SEE HOW THEY RUN

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B-

There’s historically a bit of a problem with star studded ensemble casts—which is to say, they always disappoint under the expectation of their star power. In the case of See How They Run, the movie poster highlights fully twelve people in the cast, but the star wattage is basically limited to Sam Rockwell, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, and David Oyelowo. Your mileage may vary with the rest of the cast, as with Ruth Wilson, or if you were a big fan of “Moaning Myrtle” in a few of the Harry Potter films, Shirley Henderson pops up in a delightful performance as Agatha Christie.

Which immediately brings me to my other point: I can remember when I first learned what “meta fiction” was, after having it defined in my own creative writing in a college class. At the time it was a gimmick not widely discussed, and it was a point of pride. Now, every writer and their mother seems to be making their work “meta” in one way or another, and See How They Run hops right on that bandwagon. Most of the time it’s mildly amusing, and to the film’s credit. it never crosses the line into annoying.

Still, there’s no getting around that this is a movie with a large ensemble cast that is clearly very amused with itself, which is rarely a recipe for success. What I can say for this example is that, at the very least, it’s not a failure.

See How They Run is a “whodunnit” regarding a murder amongst the people in or involved with an Agatha Christie play called The Mousetrap, running in 1950s London’s West End. They play is also a whodunnit, and of course director Tom George and writer Mark Chappell offer us a movie with cleverly knowing beats that mirror those of the play. There is some debate among the players as to how the play should be adapted into a film, and the initial murder victim figures prominently into the discussion.

Even the opening voiceover narrator turns out to be surprisingly relevant. See How They Run has relative unpredictability going for it; I don’t think it’s easy for the average viewer to suss out who the murderer is—and, as always in stories like this, there’s a veritable crowd of suspects. I just wish that opening voiceover didn’t go on for quite as long as it does, or the movie itself for that matter: this film has a slight editing problem, even at only 98 minutes in length. This is a kind of movie that would benefit from much tighter editing, and keeping it at an even 90 minutes would alone have made a notable difference. This is clearly intended as a comedy, and it gave me a great many chuckles, but there’s a few too many lulls between them.

Still, See How They Run has surprisingly artful cinematography for a film of its sort, and the performances are as good as you could ask for across the board. I do find myself wondering if this would even have been considered for production without the success of the far superior Knives Out, which has its own highly anticipated sequel coming this winter. See How They Run certainly has its own tone and sensibility, but it’s not particularly memorable either. I had a nice time with it, at least. It’s amusing enough.

Inspector. Constable.

Overall: B

THE WOMAN KING

Directing: A-
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A-

If The Woman King were about a bunch of European combat battles in the early 19th century, but made exactly the same way, I suspect I would be a little more guarded with my praise. Which is to say, as it is, The Woman King sure takes a Hollywood approach to its storytelling—its editing, its pacing, its themes, particularly its score. You could call this an “action movie” or a “war movie,” but three huge things set it apart and thus elevate it: it gives agency to people of color in the 19th century; it’s specifically about Black women warriors; and it’s set in Africa.

What’s more, the Agoji, the all-female military regiment depicted in this film actually exited—although this is where the “Hollywood” part comes in. The Agoji’s sacred status is very romanticized, in at least one case their vow of celibacy challenged by a possible suitor (these movies always need some element of romance). A chance re-encounter between a mother and separated daughter stretches the bounds of plausibility.

Nearly every beat of the story arc in The Woman King is recognizable. But, that hardly matters given the subject at hand, not to mention the performances of the actors, nearly all of them Black women, headed by Viola Davis, who genuinely deserves an Oscar nod for this role. Even among the Black characters, only a couple of them are men, including the Dahomey King Ghezo (John Boyega), and the leader of their African enemies, Oba Ade (Jimmy Odukoya). Other supporting parts include Hero Fiennes Tiffin as Santo Ferreira, a Portugese slave trader and the only White man in the film; and Jordan Bolger as Malik, Santo’s morally conflicted , half-Portuguese-half-Dahomey friend from childhood. There’s also, notably, a “eunuch” included in King Ghezo’s court of many wives.

All of these men are either villains, or secondary to the many Black women who take up the bulk of the narrative space in The Woman King. Lashana Lynch (previously seen, among other things, as Maria Rambeau in Captain Marvel) is excellent as an Agoji trainer, and Thuso Mbedu is well cast as Nawi, the film’s main protagonist in spite of Viola Davis being clearly the star. (Mdedu learns to be a badass. Davis already is one.) The same goes for Sheila Atim as Amenza, who is for lack of a better term, this community’s medicine woman. There are plenty more women warrior characters given just enough screen time and story relevance for us to care about them, until they are killed in battle. I don’t say that to be trite; this is about warriors, and their deaths should mean something,

Perhaps most importantly, The Woman King is riveting entertainment from start to finish. Its opening sequence is a banger, eschewing opening credits in favor of Viola Davis and her cohort of women warriors attacking a village that has some of their people hostage. A good deal of the backstory here has to do with how warring factions of African communities gained wealth by selling each other’s captives to slave traders.

There is no question that The Woman King oversimplifies an incredibly complex history of geopolitical issues, but this gets back to the whole “Hollywood” thing: that’s what movies do. Hopefully, it will spur viewers into reading up on the real people and histories. (There is already no shortage of think pieces to choose from, contextualizing this film online.) In the context of movies that use a proven crowd pleasing formula that works, it’s about time the industry tackled stories from what remains by far the most underrepresented continent in movies: Africa. The Woman King not only takes us to a place we rarely see in cinema, but takes the revolutionary step of taking on the perspectives of its indigenous peoples, rather than from the point of view of colonizers. That is what truly elevates this movie: the agency it gives characters we’ve never seen this way before—even with their own moral ambiguities and challenges.

I suspect this is something well understood by director Gina Prince-Bythewood (who also directed the 2020 Netflix movie The Old Guard). This is a unique story packaged in a formulaic way. I am usually exasperated by blatantly formulaic storytelling, but this is still something different. The Woman King is tailor-made for mass audiences, and only laziness or racism or sexism (or all three) will keep people from giving it a look. Whether it will make any real money in theaters in today’s dubious movie theater industry climate remains to be seen, but whether it’s there or on demand soon enough, this thrilling movie is essential viewing.

Behold the sacred warriors of the Dahomey.

Overall: B+

MOONAGE DAYDREAM

Directing: B
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B

I had somewhat mixed feelings about Moonage Daydream while I was watching it. But now, as it lingers and stays with me after the film has ended, it seems to gain value in retrospect.

There is no other movie like this one, which is apropos given that there was, and always will be, only one David Bowie. Plenty of artists have been inspired by him, but none have matched his singularity. Written, directed, and edited by Brett Morgen, Moonage Daydream provides a visual portrait of Bowie’s overall career. And even as someone who never actually bought any of the man’s albums (his record sales peaked when I was seven), I felt like I left the theater with a real sense of Bowie’s artistic essence.

Even for a man whose many personas rivaled that of Madonna, David Bowie had an almost ethereal presence that served as a through line between all of them. This is a documentary that exists in a nebulous space between “concert film” and straightforward narrative, the closest thing to a linear path being that it covers the broad strokes of Bowie’s career in chronological order.

Morgen does heavily focus on the first fifteen years or so of Bowie’s career, with an overview of the nineties serving almost as a coda, before barely touching on his death. Perhaps I’m in the minority here, but I am always interested in what was going on in the lives of these artists during downtime, or lulls, in their careers. The assumption always seems to be that audiences won’t be interested, but a skilled storyteller can make any story fascinating if it’s just told the right way. Skipping years of a person’s life because it’s assumed we won’t find it interesting seems like a copout.

Then again, a feature film can hardly fully encapsulate anyone’s entire lifetime, and Moonage Daydream is arguably overlong, clocking in at 135 minutes—particularly long for a documentary film. This one is designed to be “immersive,” and I actually went to see it at an IMAX theater as was ostensibly the intent. Seeing this on that huge screen was cool, sure, but IMAX theater tickets are more expensive, and I would hesitate to say the negligible difference from a conventional theater screen is worth the premium price.

What I can say about this movie is that it paints an impressive portrait of a famously enigmatic man, composed entirely of exclusive archival footage. There are no talking heads here, no interviews conducted for the purpose of this film—only clips of old interviews, and audio recordings of Bowie’s musings. We get brief insights into his private life and his upbringing, through this tactic alone. Best of all, we get a large amount of live concert footage, illustrating how Bowie must have been a spectacular live performer. I wish I could have seen one of his concerts.

We learn about his many artistic pursuits besides music. We see clips from several of his many movie roles (alas, just one brief shot of him as the Goblin King in Labyrinth). We hear him discussing how moving to an entirely new city pushes him to write in a new way, from Los Angeles (because he “detests” it) to West Berlin (because “rock star trappings” mean nothing there). We see his visual evolution, from openly discussing bisexuality while wearing makeup and platform shoes in the early seventies, to a middle-aged man in basic pants and a button-up shirt. No matter how “basic” his wardrobe got, however, he had a face that was uniquely as attractive as it was severe, giving him an almost otherworldly look.

All of this is rapid-fire edited together, rarely in a linear fashion, more of a kaleidoscope of images, swirling from one era of Bowie’s career to the next. It’s a bit of a sensory overload, especially for a film of this length; it’s like watching a music video marathon with no breaks. Still, there’s a surprising depth to Moonage Daydream as a completed work, making it at least somewhat greater than the sum of its seemingly infinite parts.

It’s not that hard to imagine this guy being rom outer space.

Overall: B

HOLD ME TIGHT

Directing: B
Acting: A-
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B

Spoiler alert! For a good long while in Hold Me Tight, you are quite deliberately led to believe it’s about a woman named Clarisse (Vicky Krieps) who abandons her family, a husband and two kids. This is a French film that few of any of my readers are likely to watch—hell, many of my regular readers probably won’t even read this review—so I have no qualms with revealing right now that the movie takes a turn and reveals this isn’t what it’s actually about at all.

Granted, the actual subject at hand is just as sad, if not more so. I won’t spoil what it is; even I have to draw a line somewhere. I will say that this movie is basically a bummer, and it is also confusing. Even during the extended stretch of time in which we think Clarisse has abandoned her family, the editing creates a multi-pronged narrative that is in no way literal, and only occasionally do you feel fully grounded in a given particular timeline.

One of the challenges of Hold Me Tight is how it is in no way stylized, and yet a lot of it ultimately reveals itself to be fantasy. The trick is in identifying which scenes are fantasy and which are reality, or at least memory of reality.

Ultimately this movie is about a woman struggling to come to grips with her tragic circumstances. I struggled to come to grips with how these circumstances are framed, although I still had an appreciation for its unusually frank reflection of a mind under the immense pressures of grief.

Hold Me Tight is quite highly critically acclaimed, and I can see why. Writer-director Mathieu Amalric has crafted something of unique artistic vision, and I can’t deny that his film has an almost hypnotic pull to it. It’s also far from populist, though, and the Venn Diagram of blockbuster action fans and cinephiles interested in movies like this barely has any overlap.

I suppose this movie might offer some level of catharsis for people who have had dramatic and severe reactions to the loss of loved ones. But, what of everyone else? I struggle to imagine this movie ever having a very large audience. Only a surprisingly viable Oscar run would give it even a modest boost, and there’s no potential for even that. This isn’t even really a tearjerker, although it’s certainly deeply melancholy. Amalric seems more interested in visually intellectualizing the experience than engaging in true emotional interrogation.

I suppose it’s a good movie for discussion, which is perhaps part of the intent: to be provocative. It certainly is on a narrative level, the way it pulls the rug out from under you, when you think it’s about one thing and then it turns out to be about something completely different. Let’s just say that Clarisse is an unreliable narrator—a difficult thing to pull off in film, but Amalric manages it.

It’s not what it looks like.

Overall: B

THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+
Special Effects: B+

I keep imagining what Three Thousand Years of Longing will look like on small screens. The film is in theaters now, opened this past weekend, and to say people are not flocking to it would be an understatement—so far it has grossed all of $2.8 million. With a budget of $60 million, to call that a flop would practically be an insult to flops. And it’s really unfortunate, for two reasons: first, it suggests the movie is worse than it really is; it’s actually fairly compelling. And second, it looks fantastic on the big screen, in a way I fear will not translate to televisions and mobile devices, no matter how big the TVs are. At this point it will be a huge surprise if this movie even finds much of an audience in an eventual streaming landscape.

And this puts me in a tricky position, because while Three Thousand Years of Longing is both fine and in certain ways even provocative, inviting spirited discussion, I still can’t say it’s good enough to justify recommending you see it in theaters. What I can say is, if you do go see it in theaters, it won’t feel like time wasted. And in its defense, this film does not deserve to be flatly ignored by the public at large, which is essentially what’s happening.

I suppose it might have had better prospects for success if it were better than just fine. There seems to be a critical consensus that the story is a bit trifling, but the film is beautiful to look at. That is my assessment as well, but with an emphasis on its beauty being far best appreciated in actual cinemas. The visual effects seem to occupy a sort of middle ground, where it doesn’t look like a fortune was spent on them, but director George Miller has a deep talent for making the best of limited means. The visuals don’t ever look particularly cheap, either.

There’s one shot in particular, very brief and arguably unimportant to the story, that very much impressed me: when Idris Elba’s “Djinn” (known in the West as a genie) is released from his bottle by Tilda Swinton’s academic “narratologist” Alithea Binnie, he is at first huge by comparison, literally filling the entire space of her hotel room. As he slowly resizes down to better fit the space, there’s a moment when he gently grabs her by a hand that is itself nearly as large as her entire body. And this shot, blending live action footage with CGI animation, it looks incredibly convincing and real. There are other shots where the visual effects don’t look quite as real, but they don’t quite move into the realm of “fake,” either; they exists in an intermediate space of George Miller’s design, and thus easy to accept as an element of this very specific fantasy.

And here we move into another one of Three Thousand Years of Longing’s several contradictions. This movie is very much a fantasy, and in terms of production design, pacing, and visuals, all combine to make a film that is truly unlike any other, something that should be very much to its benefit. (It’s also fascinating to see a fantasy film that still acknowledges the residual effects of our modern, real-life pandemic, with sporadic extras wearing face masks in indoor scenes.) And yet, broadly speaking, it is still just another love story. Alithea and the Djinn spend a lot of time in her hotel room having intellectual discussions about the utility of being granted wishes, how all such stories are always cautionary tales, but as the Djinn regales her with many stories of his previous times spent outside of the confines of bottles (for the duration of the time indicated by this film’s title), they are all tragic tales of love, and meanwhile the affection brewing between Alithea and the Djinn is telegraphed very early on (and thus it’s really not a spoiler for me to reveal that here).

I was fully engaged through all of this, and most other viewers likely will be too, and yet for a story ostensibly themed on the eternal longing of romantic attachment, overall this film arrives at a place surprisingly shallow. It seems easy to deduce that a big part of its lack of success is how it doesn’t feel its feelings very deeply, much as its characters purport to; Miller, instead, is largely intellectualizing it all, as that is precisely what Alithea and the Djinn do as they discuss all this in her hotel room, through most of which she insists she is “content” and has no need for any wishes.

To be honest, this is where I really wish Miller had gone in a different direction. In the end, Alithea is not quite as contented as she insisted she was. But, there really are such people out there, rare as they may be, and it would have been nice to see some resolution where a contented woman—particularly an older, single, childless woman—managed to stay that way. I suppose Miller might argue, given the way that the film ends, that she does. But, I would argue otherwise. There is an assertion made in this film that there is something that “all women desire,” and although it is never said explicitly, there is very much the connotation that it is romance. And that’s a little reductive.

Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed the banter between Swinton and Elba in this movie, and would have liked even more of it than it offered. There’s a large amount of flashbacks to the Djinn’s previous experiences over thousands of years, and that is where most of the visual effects are found, but I found these sequences to be compelling as well. I particularly enjoyed the means by which the Djinn gets discovered by a new person after centuries or even millennia, which are fairly clever. That might be how I would summarize this movie overall, actually: fairly clever. It takes a universal theme and repackages it in a unique way. Most viewers would enjoy it just fine sometime later on a smaller screen at home, but as a visual experience, I was glad to have seen it at a cinema.

It’s a vivid experience, I’ll give it that.

Overall: B

BODIES BODIES BODIES

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

Depending on what social media circles you travel in, you might think the most well-known thing about Bodies Bodies Bodies is that it was described as “a 95-minute advertisement for cleavage” by gay New York Times film critic Lena Wilson, who declared star Amandla Stenberg, who is also gay, “homophobic” for DMing her with the message, “Maybe if you had gotten your eyes off my tits you would’ve watched the movie!”

Now, let me get this out of the way: I generally enjoyed this movie. But, and this is why I bring it up here, it’s not a great look for the movie itself when a star’s clapback about a comment in a critic’s review is easily the funniest thing about the movie. Which does have several legitimately funny moments.

Some of Stenberg’s comments about her intentions regarding the DM ring as disingenuous, honestly. But in her defense, her cleavage really doesn’t get that much screen time. I know I am (also) gay and all, but after all this, I went in looking for it! And trust me, when cleavage is actually gratuitous, I notice it and am occasionally even annoyed by it. Had this never been a topic of discussion, Stenberg’s breasts would never have even registered while I watched this film.

It would have been a sweeter revenge if the movie itself were better. Bodies Bodies Bodies isn’t a “great film” by any stretch, but it is . . . fine. It’s fun, in a self-consciously Gen-Z zeitgeisty way. There is a plot turn at the end that you see coming a mile away—which is saying something, because I rarely predict plot twists, because I don’t ever try. To say that the film’s title is apt is an understatement, and how it gets to that point is basically a metaphor for these rich kids’ vapidness.

Which brings me to another crucial point: Not one of these characters is someone any sane person would want to hang out with, and yet director Halina Reijn expects us to spend roughly ninety minutes with them. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s long enough for us to start rooting for more of them to drop dead. I am reminded of the 2008 film Cloverfield, which also had exclusively vapid, mostly twenty-something characters. At least that movie was scary and exciting.

Bodies Bodies Bodies does have its moments. They do get largely nullified by what is ultimately revealed to be the pathetic, if still mostly lethal, source of all their fears, as this group of old friends has a “hurricane party” (take that literally) at a remote family mansion. The race and gender politics of this group is ripe for discussion, given the core group is four twenty-something young women, two Black and two White, yet the two men in the cast are both White and, well, doofy: Pete Davidson, still in his twenties but barely, plays what is never explicitly explained but seems to be older brother to Stenberg’s Sophie; Lee Pace (also gay! but playing straight here) is the forty-something new boyfriend of Alice (Shiva Baby’s Rachel Sennott). It’s the, let’s just say bodies, of these two men that set off most of the story, Davidson’s quite early on.

This movie seems to be trying to say something about wealth and privilege, and it’s interesting to note that two of the wealthy young women are Black, but one of them is an addict and the other is a noted bitch. The one real outsider here is Sophie’s new girlfriend Bee (Maria Bakalova), who is an Eastern European immigrant and the only one there without wealth. The film stays with her the entire time and is thus told from her perspective, lingering on her clear insecurities as an outsider. This makes her subject to passive-aggressive derision as well as, soon enough, suspicion.

None of these so-called “close friends” truly trust each other, though, and ultimately they are all equally dangerous by turns in the eyes of the others. Bodies Bodies Bodies gets in a lot of amusing lines that reveal how typically lacking in self-awareness the wealthy can be. Plenty of it is effectively tense, as the hurricane ultimately knocks out the power in the house and has them all running around in the dark using the flashlight apps on their phones.

In other words, Bodies Bodies Bodies is genuinely entertaining. But, that’s all it is, and the movie clearly thinks it’s got something bigger to say. In the end it’s just as vapid as its characters, but at least we get to see them all stumble over their own dipshittery.

I mean, it’s not even that much cleavage!

Overall: B

PREY

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A-
Special Effects: B

There are so many fascinating things about the film Prey, streaming on Hulu since August 5, it’s hard to know where to start. It’s a historic production in multiple ways: the cast consists of Comanche characters who are played by Indigenous American actors; producer Jhane Myers is a member of the Comanche tribe; the cast returned for voice-over dubs to make it possible to watch the entire film in the Comanche language.

In other words, regardless of it being the seventh film to feature long-worn usage of a specific alien creature from a 35-year-old intellectual property, Prey is worthy of our attention due to it being a story about Indigenous people, featuring Indigenous actors, with a large number of Indigenous crew members. This movie offers a kind of authenticity you would never expect from the seventh in a franchise, which is by most accounts by a large margin the best of them.

My only legitimate issue, if you want to call it that, is that it even had to be part of the Predator franchise. But, this is the IP world we live in now: grafting an original idea, about a young Indigenous woman who defies gender norms to prove herself a warrior, onto pre-existing IP was how to get the movie made. Personally, I would have preferred a stand-alone movie, even if it had to feature an alien predator, with a totally different alien. There was not reason not to make it more original a story, except to catch the attentions of longstanding franchise fans, who are the only audiences action movies court anymore.

I suppose there’s also the fact of director Dan Trachtenberg—who previously caught attention with the 2016 film 10 Cloverfield Lane—being a white guy. Being so openly proud of a production providing so many opportunities for peope of color, but still having a white man in the top leadership position, does not provide for the best optics. All I can say is that this is mitigated, at least somewhat, by Indigenous people on the production team—some in notable leadership positions themselves—providing consultation on authentic depiction of Comache society.

In fact, I found myself wondering about the significant overtones of patriarchy in the Indigenous family being depicted. That element of the original idea for this film is still very much present, and after hearing so often about matriarchy among Indigenous societies, I wondered how authentic that element really was. Well, as it happened, not all Indigenous tribes were matriarchal: according to this source, “The Comanches had a highly gendered hierarchy. Since they were a nomadic people who sustained themselves through hunting and territorial warfare, both male occupations, men naturally usurped the primary power roles. Unlike the Caddos and Wichitas, Comanche families were patriarchal.”

Granted, I could find other online sources that only vaguely, rather than spefically, corroborate that statement. But, it’s certainly what Prey reflects, in a surprisingly gripping—and, at only 99 minutes, mercifully brisk—movie about a young woman named Naru (Amber Midthunder, who is fantastic) who proves her worth as a warrior to her dismissive brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers, also great) and other male relatives by taking down a Predator alien in early-18th century Great Northern Plains.

And there is great juxtaposition here, between the Predator’s advanced alien technology and weapons, against an Indigenous tribe and what many might be tempted to consider “primitive” tools and weapons. Except these people are far more in tune with their natural environment than anyone today could hope to be, which makes them look deceptively simple, but ultimately more dangerous than anticipated, to the Predator.

There are even several gripping action sequences that don’t involve the Predator—until they do. But in the first third or so of Prey, Naru is eager to hunt a cougar thought to have injured one of their tribe. And indeed, there is a perilous encounter with a cougar, and later with a bear, the latter being arguably the most tense sequence in the film. The downside to these sequences is the clearly low budget CGI, rendered well enough except that it is exceedingly obvious that no actual animals were on set during the filming. (Not that there should be. But, with better visual effects, it would look convincingly like there was.) The redeeming element here is the taut script, written by Patrick Aison in his feature film writing debut and with a co-writing “Story By” credit to Trachtenberg, makes the CGI easy to overlook. Prey features a good story told skillfully by a crew of amply talented writers, producers, editors, actors, cinematographer and director.

In fact, cinematographer Jeff Cutter (who also shot 10 Cloverfield Lane) deserves to be called out by name, framing beautiful vistas throughout the film, whether for quieter sequences or the tenser action sequences. Even with the imperfect (but still serviceable!) CGI, Prey always looks great.

Combine that with tight story construction, with just the right about of foreshadowing so that threads click comfortably into place as the narrative unfolds, and you’ve got an eminently entertaining film—which really should have been given a theatrical release. Given that Prey is easily the best “Predator movie,” it’s unfortunate that a streaming-only release might deny it the attention it deserves and might otherwise have gotten. It’s the biggest reason I’m reviewing it now: I want you to know about it. Many people would be understandably suspicious that a prequel 35 years into a franchise’s existence could possibly be good, but rest assured, it’s worth a look.

Who is the predator, and who is the prey? Watch and find out! No, really. You should watch.

Overall: B+