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I Saw the TV Glow (2024)/ The Watchers (2024)
I Saw the TV Glow is a strange experience by design, a hallucinatory ode to early 1990s television, coming of age sagas, feeling out of place in one’s own body and mind, and on a Lynchian dream logic wavelength that few filmmakers occupy. From a plot standpoint, Owen (Justice Smith) is a shy kid who looks up to an older girl at school, Maddy (Bridget Lundy-Paine), and they share a love for the TV show The Pink Opaque, a tween-aimed horror series in the vein of Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of the Dark?, which ultimately might be real after all. This movie exists more on a slippery emotional plane than on its story sense. Writer/director Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going to the World’s Fair) has created an allegory for self-actualization and self-acceptance through a love of 90s nostalgia and that transitional time of being young and just seeing the cusp of what adulthood promises for the good, the bad, and the mundane. The recreation of the SNICK-era television is perfect, and I loved the little glimpses of these horror monsters taking on new nightmarish incarnations. I wanted the movie to explore its premise more, that this old TV show might be real and posing a danger that only they would uncover. It’s really more a pathway for the characters to explore their selves, what animates them, what confuses them, what provides a sense of community. It’s a movie about the perils of loneliness and finding an outlet, a life raft, whatever that may be, and for Owen it’s this TV show. He connects more with this world than the real one, and when he revisits it later as an adult, it doesn’t live up to his memory. It’s a weird movie but it’s designed for weird kids, or weird adults who used to be weird kids, who found kinship through weird media. It’s a slow and provocative experience that asks you to give yourself over to its vision, but Schoenbrun also makes that engagement quite accessible. While existing as a clear trans allegory, I Saw the TV Glow is open to any outsider who felt unsure of themself and their body and their place in the universe. It’s about obsession and the price of holding onto said childhood obsessions, even if they prove disappointing in your adulthood. It doesn’t offer any general answers or catharsis and is kept on the slowest of slow burns. I began daydreaming of the less arty version of its spooky premise, but that’s simply not going to be this movie. I Saw the TV Glow is impressively personal and surreal and obtuse, but by the end I was hoping for a little more of a foundation to hold onto and its ideas to be fully realized.
Nate’s Grade: B
The expansion of the M. Night Shyamalan creative dynasty has begun. While based on a 2022 novel by A.M. Shine, The Watchers is brought to us primarily by Ishana Shyamalan, who makes her feature directing debut and adapted the screenplay. It has a buzzy premise that feels at home in a Shyamalan movie, namely a young woman (Dakota Fanning) who stumbles into a strange location with captive people telling her she cannot leave or her life will be in danger from monsters. The group of survivors have to “perform” for their unseen watchers, staring into a two-way mirror inside a closed room. There are certain rules that are hazy and unevenly applied: don’t go out after dark, never turn your back to the mirror, don’t go into the creatures’ subterranean dwelling. This poses an intriguing mystery for a while as the movie unpacks and reveals more about this world and the creatures. However, The Watchers ultimately cannot help feeling like an over-extended episode of a sci-fi anthology TV series like Black Mirror or maybe even Shyamalan’s own Apple Plus series Servant (Ishana wrote and directed several episodes). There just isn’t enough here. The revelations do not sustain our emotional and intellectual investment. Once it’s revealed what the monsters are, I kept waiting for extra levels of twists and turns, and there really aren’t any. Once we settle into Act Three, the movie becomes more or less about housekeeping and gaining acceptance. The whole reason the protagonist is on her journey is to deliver a bird in a cage, and every time this thing keeps appearing even so late into the movie, while she’s running for her life but cannot forget about the caged bird, I felt like laughing. It’s a case of inelegantly finding a way for the visual metaphor (the bird is her!) to continue being tied to the plot after it long stopped making sense. Likewise, there are cutaways to the captives watching a Love Island/Big Brother-stye reality TV show, but little is made as far as commentary on communal voyeurism, so they just come across as little odd comic asides. The movie loses some serious momentum once we get to the convenient info dump sequence (a Shyamalan family favorite: scientist vlogs) and you realize there are no more tricks to deliver. It’s disappointing that a movie with such potent folklore atmosphere becomes a lackluster variation on The Village.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Back to Black (2024)
What do you remember about Amy Winehouse? The tragic singer with the booming voice that was mercilessly picked apart by a rabid tabloid media, as well as rampant online speculation, over every step of her addiction to drugs and alcohol? If that’s the extent of your memory, as well as some of her more notable songs like “Rehab” or “Back to Black,” then this musical biopic directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson (Fifty Shades of Grey, Nowhere Boy) is going to feel like a shallow exercise in piling on a troubled and talented performer gone far too soon.
Back to Black, the film, literally has Amy Winehouse (Marisa Abela) vocalize what she wants to be remembered for, not the drugs and alcohol, and the movie then erases Amy as a vibrant, complicated human being into a blurred statistic on the dangers of unchecked addiction. You can’t tell her story without documenting her demons, and yet the movie also seems exceptionally forgiving to the men who contributed to her downfall, her doting father Mitch (Eddie Marsan) who enabled her and her bad boy boyfriend Blake (Jack O’Connell) who introduced her to hard drug abuse. We spend so much emphasis on the bad times and her downfall and yet the movie is strangely reticent to cast much judgment on her bad influences, which makes it seem like the movie is further blaming Amy. At the same time, her downfall is focused on being rejected by a man, which is really insulting and limiting for her as an artist as well as a person capable of independent thought. It’s an even stranger decision given that these two influences, her father and ex, were given withering condemnation in the 2015 Oscar-nominated documentary on Winehouse. Apparently, Mitch Winehouse was furious with the documentary’s portrayal of him and Amy. His secondary complaint was that the documentary focused too much on the negative aspects of her life story, which is comical considering the skewed balance that Back to Black dwells upon. We speed through the good times to wallow in the bad, and without a stronger and more complex portrayal of Amy as a character, it all feels trashy and degrading. It’s harder to feel the heartbreak when the movie is only defining her by our foreknowledge of her death.
Amy never feels like her own person in this movie, which is a shame since she was a dominant presence. We never get into her creative process or her inspirations. We never get to see the person behind the omnipresent tabloid headlines. The formulaic rise-and-fall structure is so rushed and uninterested in fleshing out Amy as a person, so we get simplistic impressions like she sure loved her “nan” (Leslie Manville) and never recovered from her death. The movie sets a midpoint montage where her grandma’s funeral pushes her to get a signature tattoo and beehive hairdo, and it plays like a superhero finally donning their cape and cowl (At last, she has become… Batman, I mean… the Amy We Remember). It’s played so dramatically that it might even unleash a titter or two. There is such scant insight into this woman and her demons that I doubt anyone will come away with a better understanding of Amy and her place in music history, as well as who she was as a person. The movie omits other struggles that might take the focus off its specific topic of drugs and alcohol. Her bulimia gets nary a mention except for maybe one scene where her inconsiderate roommate asks Amy to please vomit into the toilet a little less loudly. While skipping judgment over her enablers, the movie also avoids being too judgemental on the social impulses and rubbernecking that fed upon the harassment and mockery of Winehouse and her struggles. Again, by omission this is placing further blame onto Amy herself.
For each viewer, Back to Black is going to sink or swim depending upon your reaction to Abela’s (Industry) performance. She does her own singing and learned to imitate Winehouse’s signature soaring vocals, so that’s generally impressive. However, I felt her greatest moments of acting were the scenes where she wasn’t in song. Her over-extended enunciation and head bobs made me consistently cringe, like watching an overzealous Vegas impersonator. In the few instances where the movie slows down, that is where Abela is best, being distraught over the loss of her nan, infuriated by her ex, incredulous at music producers that want to market Amy like the Spice Girls, and charmingly innocent confiding to a young fan in a checkout line. If the movie had cut all of her vocal performances and given me more time with this Amy Winehouse, I would have gotten more insight and entertainment. Abela isn’t given the material to really bring Amy to life.
Back to Black isn’t so much Amy’s movie as it is her father Mitch’s response to earlier portrayals. He’s portrayed here as a doting and loving father who only wanted what was best for her. You see, his initial refusal to the demands to send his daughter to rehab was because he wanted her to kick this whole addiction thing on her own. She didn’t want it so he wasn’t going to push her. If anything, he’s the hero of this movie, the proud papa who was let down by his daughter’s duplicitous boyfriend-turned-husband, the man who took his little girl away and turned her to the dark side of drugs. When you analyze the approach, it all comes across as a little insidious, a little icky, and unworthy of recreating this woman’s life experiences to better glorify her father. Abela gives it her all, it’s just too little to be had with Back to Black, a shallow biopic treading upon distaste. I’d recommend skipping this movie entirely, unless you’re irreversibly curious, and watch the 2015 documentary Amy instead. You’ll get a much better sense of Amy Winehouse the singer, the star, the addict, and most importantly, the complicated person.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Robot Dreams (2023)
What a delightfully tender little movie Robot Dreams proves to be. It’s based on a picture book and its story is mostly about a lonely Dog who orders a build-your-own-robot for companionship and their friendship. Much of the movie hinges on the Robot being trapped on a Long Island beach closed for the season, so our intrepid Dog must go on living in his New York City apartment through the seasons while he waits to rescue his friend. The movie is wordless and based upon a picture book, but that doesn’t mean this is chiefly kid’s stuff. It touches upon the profound with such elegance and efficiency, brilliantly relatable and recognizably human. It’s all about our need for connections, and even when they are separated, both the Dog and Robot find other connections with other characters, and then it comes back to our worry that they won’t actually reunite after being apart for the majority of the movie. I was reading some gay coding between the two as well but maybe that was my own projection. My nine-year-old son was quite taken with the movie and could easily follow along, though he was also very much not a fan of the bittersweet ending, his first taste of providing the whole “what you need, not what you want” conclusion. Robot Dreams is lovingly realized, its animation so clean and crisp with wonderful characters populating an alternative 1980s NYC. It’s simple and sweet and irresistible.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)
The most terrifying part of The Strangers: Chapter 1 is during its closing seconds, as text appears to inform all of us woeful viewers: “To be continued.” Oh no. Chapter 1 is intended to be the first in a new trilogy bringing back the essential concept of the 2008 home invasion thriller, that the masked attackers have no agenda, no motivation, and are being sadistic silent tormentors just because. The explanation, “Because you were home,” was a key revelation to the original, and here this famous line gets re-worked and has the same clumsy impact as Madame Web trying to reword that Spider-Man oath (“When you take on the responsibility, great power will come“). Not that the dialogue is the strong point of this thriller, with clunky expositional lines as nakedly transparent like, “Today is the third day of our three-day road trip around the country,” followed by, “Or our five-year anniversary.” It’s in the annoying, “Yeah I work here too” kind of lazy exposition. But you’re here for the scares, of which Chapter 1 has precious few because I think these are the most unimpressive and lackadaisical home invaders I’ve ever seen. I think the Wet Bandits might give these goons a run for their money (I’d watch Kevin take on The Strangers). Much of the movie is spent waiting, or checking places around the cabin, sometimes while one intruder plays the piano for ambience. One could make an argument they’re toying with their prey, but I would counter that I just don’t think they’re good at their whole enterprise. It doesn’t help that the main couple are so boring and undeveloped and I found it hard to fear for their well-being. As far as memorable scares or set-pieces or ingenious obstacles or overcoming said obstacles, it’s a big miss on all counts. A home invasion scenario can be exciting and terrifying, and it can be delicious fun to turn the tables on the attackers. This movie has so little that even the core ideas feel stretched beyond their breaking point. It’s hard to even feel much reverence for the original here, as The Strangers: Chapter 1 feels more like the steady, unrelenting squeezing of all IP for any possible drops of renewed audience interest. If this is what Chapter 1 has to offer, please spare us the rest. Fun fact: if you want to know what director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger) has been doing lately, well here’s your underwhelming answer.
Nate’s Grade: D+
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Hit Man (2024)
Hit Man is a movie that is wonderfully hard to describe. The premise has an easy-to-grasp hook that promises fun and hijinks, but where it goes from there takes on as many transformations as its protagonist, Gary Johnson (Glen Powell). It transforms from a fun game of undercover conning with wigs and silly accents into an unexpected rom-com hinging upon mistaken identity, maintaining assumed appearances, and secrets that then transforms into full film noir without losing its unique identity and the stakes of the character relationships. If you’d expect any filmmaker to pull off that trick, writer/director Richard Linklater has to be one of the best to keep things running smoothly, and that he does, as Hit Man is a crowd-pleasing comedy with some unexpected directions to keep everyone guessing until it lands on its own morally gray terms.
The movie is also, chiefly, a showcase of star and co-writer Powell, a handsome young actor hitting a new ascent of his career with last year’s Anyone But You and the upcoming Twisters. Powell is probably best known as the smirking guy you loved to hate in Top Gun: Maverick, but he’s also played memorable supporting roles in Scream Queens and three other Linklater film projects, notably 2016’s Everybody Wants Some!!, a pseudo-spiritual sequel to the seminal Dazed and Confused. This is Powell’s acting showcase and he’s utterly terrific. He has great infectious fun getting into the various hitman characters, which mostly exist in montages, and trying on different personas and voices. I cackled when he was doing his impression of Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman, and I smiled throughout most of the other personas. It’s easy to see the network TV version of this premise, where every week Gary adopts a new persona and disguise to bust the next possible criminal from hiring a hitman, like an edgier Quantum Leap). The culprits are played like nitwits but then again the police are also played as nitwits (are there THIS many attempted hitman hirings in one city for the police to have a full-time unit?).
But before this acting experiment can get too broad or too redundant, Linklater and Powell switch things up. Around the Act One break is where Gary meets Madison (Adria Arjona), and that’s when everything changes for him and the audience. Now we have emotional stakes, because Gary intervenes to save Madison. While the circumstances of their first meeting involve her wanting to kill her husband and believing Gary as the professional to do such a job, the scene plays as a disarming first date you’d find in another charming romantic comedy, where it’s clear to anyone with a pulse that these two have something together. Instead of busting her for the solicitation, he pushes her to change her mind, take the money and leave her no-good husband rather than finding a questionable man to eliminate him. From there, they form a romantic relationship that fluctuates wildly. She thinks Gary is “Ron,” the suave and confidant persona Gary adopted for their sit-down. So the nerdy tech nerd who teaches philosophy must pretend to be the daring and dangerous man of mystery he wishes he could be. The script doesn’t get carried away with its farcical elements in play, juggling multiple identities for multiple specific audiences, but it asks the question, “Why can’t the milquetoast Gary simply be Ron? Is this an unexpected means of self-actualization for the nerd to win the girl?” Through this extreme exercise, Gary can mold himself into the man he would like to be. The rom-com is flirty, funny, and just as enjoyable as the earlier wacky comedy of being a versatile master of disguise.
It also really helps things when your two lead actors have such strong chemistry. Powell and Arjona (Father of the Bride, Andor) are smoldering together, like full on “get a room already” territory. This lends even more credence when Hit Man makes its next transformation into film noir thriller. I won’t divulge the specific plot elements but it all works with what Linklater has already established. There’s trouble for the both of them, and the question becomes how far is each participant willing to go to stay above the fray. The transition from silly costume comedy to sundry noir thriller is handled so naturally, as if the characters, already existing under such unique circumstances, found themselves in the elevated movie-movie version of their crazy relationship. Rather than feel contrived, Linklater and Powell have put in the work to make these twists and turns credible and exciting. The shifting nature of the movie is a wonderful reflection of its fake hitman hero. There’s a scene late in the film, where all of our principal players have come together, and you have characters saying one thing, intimating another, for different versions of different audiences, and it’s such a masterful tonal dance that feels satisfying as a climactic turning point as well as genuinely impressive for all the myriad subtext in play.
This is a clear-cut case of a movie being “inspired by” a true story rather than being “based on” a true story. Generally, we expect the “based on” stories to have some voracity to reality. We accept that there will be alterations for dramatic purposes, externalizing the internal, condensing timelines and characters into a more accessible structure, etc. If you go to a movie about Jackie Robinson, you don’t expect to see the famous baseball slugger fighting space monsters (“Racism was the real giant monster all along”). Hit Man is based upon a 2001 long-form news article by Texas Monthly journalist Skip Hollandsworth, the same author of the source material for Linklater’s fascinating true crime dark comedy gem, 2011’s Bernie, which I highly recommend (a career-best Jack Black). The real Gary Johnson really did pose as a fake hitman for the purposes of catching real criminals, but the rest of the movie exists in its own fictional universe of dramatic complications. Usually we want our film stories to have more fidelity with the truth and reality, but I’m glad Linklater and Powell recognized the sheer storytelling potential of this quirky premise. Sticking to the facts could have told an amusing story, but feeling confident to take bold leaps with well-worn genre motifs, when called for, is the right call for making the most of this tale.
The shame of Hit Man is how quickly it will likely be subsumed by Netflix’s suffocating tidal waves of content. Here is a fun, likable, and surprising indie comedy with definite mass appeal buoyed by great performances, clever writing, and a tonally shifting narrative to keep things fresh. Powell gets the breakout showcase he deserves and we get one of the most unexpected and amusing rom-coms of recent years. Hit Man is a movie that deserves to be seen, to be enjoyed with a crowd, but I worry it will get lost in the shuffle of streaming titles. I suppose this might just be the current reality for fans of mid-level adult dramas and comedies. At least they have a home on the streaming networks even if these movies would have been theatrical breakouts years ago. Regardless, Hit Man is a good time with good people pretending to be bad, or is it bad people pretending to be good, but whatever pretense, it’s a charming winner worth your two hours.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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The Last Stop in Yuma County (2024)
As a general rule of thumb, if some movie is described as “Coen-esque,” I must watch it. The Last Stop in Yuma County is a blend of Coen darkly comic malevolence, as well as Tarantino’s knack for the menace of dramatic irony and boiling tension waiting to explode, and it’s a firecracker of a debut for writer/director Francis Gallupi. It’s a relatively contained tale, sticking mostly to one rustic roadside diner and gas station along the dusty Arizona byways. On this day, two of its patrons happen to be recent bank robbers on the run, and they’re holding the other diner patrons captive until the gas pumps get fixed to fuel up and escape. The first hour then becomes a dread-filled game of waiting for things to go very badly. Our two main characters, a traveling knife salesman (Jim Cummings) and a waitress (Joceline Donahue) who happens to be the wife of the town sheriff, are working together to try and elicit help without endangering their lives, all the time more people keep entering the diner and inadvertently joining the simmering hostage situation. The way Gallupi writes his different characters is sharp and efficient, and the dread compounds in such organic complications, showing how fiendishly well-developed he’s made his potboiler. It also has a clear eye for style. Around the Act Two break, the movie becomes something else, which it intimated through a very specific film reference in conjunction with a specific character reference. It still proves compelling, but the overall sense of darkness and tragedy wore me down a little by the end. By the conclusion of its 90 minutes, I was hearing the saintly voice of Marge Gunderson in my head, shaking her head at the preventable body count and bad choices (“And all for a little bit of money. There’s more to life than money, don’cha know?”). The Last Stop in Yuma County is a twisty and twisted little macabre morality play in the guise of familiar Coen-esque capers. Welcome to the big leagues, Gallupi.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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Atlas (2024)
In the world of Netflix releases, it’s hard to judge what is gauged as a success. Take for instance their new sci-fi action movie Atlas. It cost the streaming giant $100 million and they now tout it as being the top movie across the globe on their platform. This could very well be true, though Netflix has long been cagey about sharing their viewing numbers, instead preferring to go with the, “Hey, just trust us, okay?” defense, which hasn’t exactly been reassuring in an era where bonuses are linked to number hits. With the ever-expanding catalog of titles, being a reported hit on Netflix can sometimes feel like being, say, Homecoming Queen from 1989, an accomplishment soon eclipsed and forgotten. What was the last big Netflix action movie that had cultural staying power, that caused people to continue to discuss weeks or months later? Netflix swears their most-watched movie is 2021’s Red Notice, a star-laden breezy adventure caper that I challenge anyone to remember much about besides its stars. This is the challenge of gaining traction in a world of near endless content choices. Atlas is an above average film benefiting from a strong character dynamic at its core even if the rest of its story elements feel forgettably disposable.
Atlas (Jennifer Lopez) is a data analyst who has also helped develop Earth’s orbital security system. An A.I. program/robot named Harlan (Simu Liu) was born from Atlas’ mother, and then Harlan went and murdered millions of humans. The killer robot fled Earth with his robotic followers and Earth has been awaiting his return for decades. Atlas joins a mission to land on a distant planet where they think Harlan has operated as his base. However, Atlas must work with an A.I. program inside her mech suit that calls itself Smith. In order for them both to survive in this new world, they must work together.
I found everything within the mech suit of Atlas to be engaging and dynamic, and everything that happens outside that giant suit to be underdeveloped and mediocre. I was genuinely surprised how Atlas essentially becomes a buddy survival movie. It’s the human who is distrustful of accepting help from others and especially from advanced technology with a mind of its own, and an A.I. program that is trying to improve its capabilities by getting to know its user and learning how to grow from her. They need each other to survive and that requires a trust and relationship to be fostered, and it’s a surefire enjoyable plot to watch two enemies become allies and maybe even friends over the course of their united struggles. The growth between them also feels relatively organic, coming at a natural progression with personal insights and offerings without clunky leading dialogue lines, like, “So why don’t you trust robots, huh?” This dynamic reminded me a bit of 2004’s I, Robot where Will Smith played a detective who hates robots who has to work with a robot and the two of them form a bond (there are other similarities I’ll get to later). Much of the movie takes place within a three-foot window from the capsule inside this mech suit, and the shared struggle between Atlas and Smith is the heart of the movie, and it’s actually quite good. Both of these characters find ways to surprise one another, both of them shed preconceptions, and both of them will discover the lengths they go to protect the other even if it puts their own existence in question. As a story about a woman and her robot, Atlas is a fun and fairly involving sci-fi buddy movie adventure.
Now, the world building and story that gets Atlas to this alien world, and the escalating stakes of world destruction are where the movie dissipates into an amorphous cloud of sci-fi action keywords. I don’t know why it had to be killer terrorist robots that brought out Atlas and her team of mech-suited warriors to this foreign planet. The reason why the characters are stranded on this unknown planet is unimportant. It could just as likely be a science team exploring a potential new habitable world for an Earth burning through its natural resources too quickly. It could be exploring the remnants of a possible alien civilization. It could even simply be the closest planet available during a distress from their spaceship going down for whatever mechanical or orbital obstruction. The story is about the relationship between the human being and the robot/A.I. working together to survive in an unfamiliar and hostile land.
The robot insurrection feels like an acceptable plot device but it’s so under-explored until the movie needs to dramatically escalate the stakes into an apocalyptic cataclysmic scale. The fact that Harlan, which let’s agree is a terrible name for the villain of your movie, determines that the best way to save humanity is to annihilate humanity is already a tragically familiar refrain we’ve heard from numerous sci-fi villains, from The Hunger Games to Infinity War to The Day the Earth Stood Still to even I, Robot. In that last movie, the A.I. system determines the only way to protect humanity is through controlling and ultimately eliminating them, and this same motivation comes to Harlan. This character is introduced as our Big Bad through an opening montage, he disappears, and then only comes back at the end to be a force to threaten Earth. The entire robot uprising is so tremendously underwritten that the movie doesn’t even do the barest whiff of ambiguity to question whether humanity has been mistreating its robot servant class. Instead, Harlan is introduced right away as a terrorist figure and stays true to this characterization. I thought that Act Three would be upending for Atlas, where she learns the robots were framed or at least the conflict is more nuanced and her “side” might be more culpable than the military’s cover story. Nope. Evil Robot King is simply Evil Robot King. Fine, he’s a boring killbot, but then why go to such lengths to provide a personal connection for Atlas and Harlan. It’s unnecessary when she has to stop the killer robot from killing the Earth; we don’t need a personal connection for this to work. The level of personal guilt attached to Atlas is ridiculous, including multiple levels of tragedy that feel far too overwrought. Atlas didn’t need to feel guilty over her involvement in developing Evil Robot King as a child; she could have been simply the daughter to the woman who unintentionally brought this killer tech forward, or she could have simply been a woman who experienced a tragedy linked to the robot uprising without having a mom who developed the technology. She could just be a victim. She doesn’t have to be the first victim.
Atlas is really a one woman show, so your feelings of Lopez (Hustlers) as an actress will dominate how you feel about the overall experience. I don’t know if Atlas is made substantially better with her as the lead actress but she certainly performs ably and doesn’t seem left unmoored by the fact that she’s talking to a voice in an empty space for most of her months filming. Lopez has a determination that gives her action novice character an underlying strength to tap into upon the call of action.
As a sci-fi action spectacle, the blockbuster aspects are sufficient for our casual entertainment fulfillment. The special effects and action are pretty solid under director Brad Peyton (San Andreas, Rampage) who knows his way assuredly around effects-heavy spectacle (he was also co-creator of the delightfully daffy 2019 Netflix apocalyptic series Daybreak). Much of the movie takes place within one mech suit, but I never felt a sense of visual claustrophobia thanks to the buddy dynamic and Peyton’s use of space. The big action sequences at the end have their share of impressive cool moments, but they also benefit from coming at the end of a character relationship that has helped to make the action more satisfying. I do lament the modern trend of filming on such large green screens or LED stages that lighting is always the same bright overhead setting without significant variance with shadows and other light sources.
If you’re looking for a Netflix action movie to divert your attention, or even barely pay attention to, then you could do far worse than Atlas. It might even hold your attention and keep you engaged thanks to the fun buddy film dynamic that serves as its foundation. There are plenty of elements that feel tacked on, underdeveloped, or blandly familiar, but the core works and Atlas is worth a couple hours of escapism.
Nate’s Grade: B
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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)
Who exactly was watching The Hunger Games and thought to themselves, I wonder if this evil old fascist dictator played by Donald Sutherland was ever young and sexy and in love? Well fear not, whomever you are, because 2023 gave us the adaptation of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, the far too long adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ prequel book, thus granting the studio more material to grind into products. I guess we should all be grateful that this wasn’t stretched into two movies like the original plan. Taking place 60 years prior to the events of the first movie, young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) is trying to financially secure his family’s safety in the Capitol, and he’s also mentoring one of the district combatant’s in the tenth annual Hunger Games death match. His charge is District 12’s Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a feisty Romani-esque young woman who uses song as her vehicle for rebellion, and young Snow has to coach her to victory if he has any hope of righting his family’s lost standing. Fortunately, the Hunger Games behind-the-scenes coordination and development is interesting, and filled with top-level actors living it up in these outsized roles (Viola Davis, you national treasure). The deadly games themselves are confined to one dilapidated arena and are visually engaging even in such a limited space. Unfortunately, the would-be Romeo and Juliet romance between Snow and Lucy Gray is far less engaging, and young Snow proves to be a handsome bore. There was potential here in exploring the origin of a monster but the villainy seems awfully contrived to push him along on an arc, with several drastic personal decisions absent believable development. We’re talking big character leaps here, the kind that I can’t even really explain except, “Well, I guess he just had it in him the whole time.” The hazy rationalization and rushed development reminded me of Anakin Skywalker’s underwhelming descent into the dark side. Songbirds & Snakes is only really going to work for the diehard fans of the franchise asking for a little more time in this dystopian universe and daydreaming about the washboard abs and baby blue eyes of their favorite older fascist.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Dune: Part Two (2024)
I wasn’t fully taken with the first Dune movie when it arrived in 2021. It was visually sweeping, with dense world building and careful development of characters and themes, but then it just hit the pause button without any certainty there would be a conclusion. Thankfully, director Denis Villanueuve was able to complete his vision, and what a spectacular science fiction landscape this man has fashioned, visually resplendent but also with a story that deepens and improves on all the promise and setup from 2021. The triumphant of Paul (Timothee Chalamet) becoming a hero and avenging his father from their betrayers is tempered by the tragedy of Paul, becoming the false messiah that will bring about mass genocide. The movie doesn’t hold back in its criticisms of its hero while also providing complexity that makes us root for him but uneasily dread what might become. The narrative structure is easy to follow with Paul ingratiating himself with the native culture, rising to power and influence, and organizing a resistance against the well-funded imperial overlords of Arakis. This is the kind of sumptuous, big screen spectacle with intelligence that is so rare in the Hollywood system, and Villaneuve once again shows his ability to perform artful blockbusters that put him in a rarefied class with hew others. After the first Dune, I was hopeful but a little wary. After the second Dune, I feel like all of my concerns were wiped away.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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The Idea of You/ Turtles All the Way Down (2024)
The Idea of You is the kind of movie that Hollywood used to crank out, a romantic drama star vehicle based upon a popular novel and with a skilled director, and now it forgoes any theatrical run and ends up as another option on a streaming channel. The Idea of You follows a 40-year-old divorced single mom played by Anne Hathaway who also happens to run an L.A. art gallery and has a meet-cute with a handsome boy band member (Nicholas Galitzine, Purple Hearts) at the Coachella music festival (oh the magic lives of people never having to worry about bills in rom-coms). they hit it off, and the rest of the movie is whether or not they can make a romance work. There’s a 15-year age gap that she feels very self-conscious about as an older woman (“older” by Hollywood standards). She’s this formerly normal woman who wants to date one of the most famous music stars in the world who isn’t always available, but most of the problems and conflicts stem from the perceived issues of the age gap. It’s a charming romance that’s more dramatic than it is comedic, and Hathaway is quite good as our lead plucked from obscurity. Though the many scenes of our smitten boy band member making googly eyes at Hathaway as he reminds her how attractive she is, and as she bashfully demurs, are a little much (it’s Anne Hathaway, notorious horrible-looking human specimen, right?). As a core romance, the movie works well under the guidance of director and co-writer Michael Showalter (The Big Sick), and it’s more adult than I was expecting. It’s rated R for language and it’s also more sensual, but it’s also more adult as in looking at the ramifications of this relationship in a mature perspective, from the terrors of paparazzi imposition to her daughter being harassed at school. The portrayal is thus more engaging and engrossing and feels above the more flippant and flimsy romances that would settle for far less. Though be warned: there are several sequences of singing and serenading which might cause you to shrink awkwardly inward on your couch. Surprisingly thoughtful, and relatively romantic, The Idea of You is a charming reminder of the appeal of comforting tales of love blossoming in unexpected places and pretty people allowing themselves the choice to be happy.
Based on best-selling YA author John Green’s 2017 novel, Turtles All the Way Down is a very accessible and very affecting glimpse at living with mental illness, obsessive compulsive disorder, and intrusive thoughts. Aza (Isabela Merced) has an overwhelming inner monologue that sabotages her daily life in high school and carries her along anxious thought diversions, constantly relating to some illness growing inside her that she needs to cleanse. This is the crux of the story, along with her relationship with her super eager best friend. There’s a romantic side plot where she helps out a rich classmate whose billionaire dad has gone missing, which feels like a plot device to necessitate the two characters spending time together. The standout aspect of this adaptation by writer/director Hannah Marks (Don’t Make Me Go) is its unsparing and honest yet hopeful depiction of mental health and intrusive thoughts. Merced (Dora and the Lost City of Gold, Madame Web) is excellent and deeply empathetic as this woman held hostage by her wayward thoughts and impulses. It’s a performance that goes beyond easy depictions of aloof detachment or exaggerated histrionics, shedding any acting techniques that are too mannered or attention-seeking. Marks’ direction helps reflect Aza’s troubled mind with rapid insert edits and voice over to communicate the intrusive thoughts and maelstrom of spiraling negative emotions. If you’re a fan of Green’s popular novels, or YA-themed literature, or even just honest attempts to empathize with teens in turmoil, then Turtles All the Way Down is worth battling through any negative thoughts to finish and relish the journey.
Nate’s Grades:
The Idea of You: B
Turtles All the Way Down: B+
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