Starring: Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong
Directed by: Alan Sorkin
Rated: R
Running Time: 112 minutes
Sony Pictures Releasing

Our Score: 3 out of 5 Stars

It’s hard not to think about how far things have come since “The Social Network,” especially after watching its sequel, “The Social Reckoning.” In David Fincher’s 2010 film, we watched the minds behind digital connections create their own spheres of loneliness as they betrayed friends, sued for ownership and demonstrated that success could come at almost any cost. 16 years later, the consequences of Mark Zuckerberg’s ambition are everybody else’s problem.

Of course, “The Social Network” now feels something like a villain origin story. Zuckerberg has become a household name synonymous with the kind of tech-bro arrogance that makes the average person recoil in disgust. Too bad those same people keep using his products, my disgusted self included. That’s why “The Social Reckoning” feels both relevant and strangely behind the times.

In 2019, Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) has uncovered troubling information about the company’s algorithms, but nobody seems particularly interested in listening. When Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) reaches out while investigating Facebook’s political influence, Haugen sees an opportunity to expose how the platform amplifies misinformation, outrage and political extremism.

For audiences unfamiliar with the Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files, much of this could be eye-opening. Facebook doesn’t need to explicitly program its algorithms to radicalize people. It only needs to reward engagement, even when outrage and misinformation are what keep people glued to their screens. As the film explores, those consequences extend far beyond angry comment sections, particularly in the information environment surrounding January 6. Unfortunately, the film rarely feels as urgent as its subject matter.

Aaron Sorkin, who wrote “The Social Network” but takes over directing duties from Fincher, remains a talented screenwriter. His dialogue generally works. His characters have distinct motivations and he understands how to make complicated institutional conflicts entertaining. But Fincher made conversations about computer programming and corporate ownership feel like a psychological thriller. Sorkin shoots “The Social Reckoning” like an HBO television movie, with conventional staging, predictable dramatic beats and little visual imagination. Movies challenging billionaire ethics shouldn’t feel like a PG-rated version of “Veep.”

Thankfully, the cast does plenty to keep things entertaining. Madison and White have terrific chemistry as two people trying to reach the same conclusion from opposite directions. Haugen believes institutions can recognize their failures and improve, while Horwitz believes exposing those failures is how you force change. Their differing perspectives make for some of the film’s best exchanges, particularly when Haugen ridicules Horwitz for being technologically inept.

Then there’s Jeremy Strong, who, between “Succession,” “The Apprentice” and now “The Social Reckoning,” might be Hollywood’s go-to actor for entitled asshats with more money than self-awareness. And he’s damn good at it. Strong captures Zuckerberg’s peculiar combination of arrogance, social awkwardness and emotional detachment. Some of the film’s best humor comes from watching a man with extraordinary influence over human communication struggle to communicate like an ordinary human being.

But for a movie with “Reckoning” in its title, the whole thing feels strangely safe. Haugen and Horwitz’s work helped expose serious problems within Facebook and demonstrated that individuals can still challenge powerful institutions. Their accomplishments deserve recognition, and perhaps that’s Sorkin’s intended message: the levers of justice still work, and coming forward with the truth still matters. But exposing wrongdoing isn’t the same as correcting it.

Since the events depicted in “The Social Reckoning,” Zuckerberg has remained a powerful figure in Washington, and the conversation surrounding Meta has shifted toward AI. The same industry that struggled to control misinformation amplified by algorithms is now developing technology capable of manufacturing that misinformation at an unprecedented scale. Haugen and Horwitz won a battle. The war never ended. And maybe that’s why “The Social Reckoning” left me feeling strangely unsatisfied. I enjoyed the performances, appreciated the writing and was entertained for a couple of hours. But it’s also the kind of movie you stumble upon while mindlessly scrolling through a streaming service, watch, enjoy and promptly move on from. 

There’s something deeply ironic about a movie examining the dangers of passive consumption becoming such an easy piece of passive consumption itself. “The Social Reckoning” reminds us that the truth can still come out and the levers of justice can still move. I just wish it had been more interested in what happens when those levers move and the machinery keeps running.

Directed by: Flying Lotus, Renee Zhan and Zoe Cooper, David Moreau, Ernest Dickerson, Tobias Forge, and RZA and Matt Landsman
Rated: NR
Running Time: 98 minutes
Shudder

Our Score: 3 out of 5 Stars

It’s here. The 10th film in the “V/H/S” franchise. At this point, I have to wonder if there’s a big whiteboard somewhere filled with ideas. Last year, the franchise tackled Halloween. Before that, it wrestled with aliens, and just a few years ago, it was invoking Y2K and Nickelodeon game shows. The latest pivot is toward music with “V/H/S Mixtape,” a film looking to replicate midnight MTV nostalgia, explore the horror/music Venn diagram known as GWAR, and unleash another batch of filmmakers to see what kind of bloody nonsense they can come up with.

GWAR serves as the wraparound, presenting a chaotic blend of phony behind-the-scenes outtakes, gruesome on-set antics, general screwing around and attempts at some kind of recorded television program. It’s messy, occasionally smirk worthy and appropriately grotesque. More importantly, GWAR seems to understand the assignment better than anyone else. Their improvisational energy makes the whole thing feel like something you might have recorded off television at 2 a.m. and discovered in a box 30 years later. The actual shorts, however, aren’t nearly as committed to the musical theme.

First up is Renee Zhan’s “Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance,” which feels like the Jim Henson Creature Shop indulging its wildest John Carpenter fantasies. The story follows the creators of a children’s program whose work is being scanned and digitized in an effort to replace the artistry behind their puppets with something considerably cheaper. Unfortunately for the people responsible, those old props and puppets have some thoughts about being discarded. Naturally, those thoughts involve torture, torment and murder.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the short. The practical creativity is entertaining, and watching cheerful children’s entertainment turn into a bloodbath is always good for a few laughs. But the problem is “Buddy.” It’s still in theater and it’s another story about the darkness lurking beneath the bright, sunny disposition of children’s programming. I’d also argue a full length version of “Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance” still wouldn’t hold a candle to “Buddy.” Zhan’s contribution has its merits, particularly in its commentary on technology replacing artists, but it feels a little too familiar. It’s hard to get particularly excited about something when you feel like you just watched a variation of it.

Thankfully, David Moreau’s “Heartbeat” offers something different. The short follows two urban explorers investigating an abandoned Bulgarian bunker, which, if you’ve spent any time watching YouTube, already sounds like an excellent way to get yourself killed. Without revealing what horrors await them, “Heartbeat” is refreshing because it doesn’t rely entirely on supernatural creatures or some grotesque monstrosity waiting in the darkness. Instead, it finds horror in the ignorance and overconfidence of people who think wandering through abandoned structures is harmless fun.

There’s something particularly satisfying about watching people who make a living documenting dangerous places discover that they might not be nearly as prepared for danger as they believe. Their own minds become as much of a threat as anything lurking around them. It’s probably the strongest segment in “V/H/S Mixtape,” largely because it has a clear idea and knows exactly what to do with it. Audio is fun, until it’s your enemy.

Then the franchise heads back into the bizarre with Ernest Dickerson’s “The Music of Mr. Sze.” The short follows a college film student looking to shoot a documentary for a class project. He becomes fascinated with a reclusive elderly musician living above him, particularly the strange sounds coming from the man’s violin. But there’s something deeply unsettling about Mr. Sze, and the student’s curiosity eventually leads him toward something resembling cosmic horror.

In a lot of ways, “The Music of Mr. Sze” feels like an incomplete idea or an elevator pitch that somebody forgot to develop into a finished story. The premise is intriguing, the atmosphere works and there’s something inherently creepy about an elderly musician harboring an unimaginable evil inside his apartment. But the short spends so much time teasing its horrors that it barely gives itself enough room to reveal them. I’m not asking Dickerson to explain every detail of the cosmic nightmare. Some things are better left to the imagination. But there’s a difference between preserving mystery and withholding the payoff. Another five minutes might have helped establish the evil our protagonist is confronting and given the conclusion a little more substance. Instead, it feels like the short ends just as its most interesting ideas are beginning to emerge.

Then comes RZA’s “Death Tone,” a short that has the look of something I’d probably love but never quite figures out what it wants to say. The story follows a young woman whose deceased father left her with some rather unusual advice about making music. She interprets that advice as incorporating the sounds of people dying into her work, which is certainly one way to find your artistic voice. It’s a wonderfully deranged premise. Unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

If “Death Tone” is trying to explore how much artists put into their music, there’s an interesting story buried somewhere beneath the blood and guts. But the musician’s victims often feel arbitrary, and the violence rarely tells us anything meaningful about her artistic obsession or the personal cost of pursuing it. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if her music somehow reflected the relationships she was destroying? Or if the people she killed revealed something about the sacrifices she was willing to make for her art? Instead, the story mostly seems interested in finding new excuses to kill people. 

Which, to be fair, is perfectly acceptable in a “V/H/S” movie. And some of those kills are pretty damn inventive. At one point, I found myself admiring the creativity of a stabbing filmed from inside someone’s body while simultaneously wondering why I was supposed to care about any of it. That’s the fundamental problem with “Death Tone.” It has interesting imagery, some nasty gore and a premise that could have gone somewhere fascinating. But the characters aren’t particularly compelling, the story doesn’t make much sense and the whole thing goes on longer than its ideas can support. It’s an unfortunate way to wrap up the anthology’s major segments.

There are also a couple of much briefer contributions, including a music video from Tobias Forge and a claymation short that feels like something you’d expect to see before the feature presentation. Both run only a few minutes, give or take, but their inclusion helps establish the film’s mixtape personality while keeping everything moving. And that’s something “V/H/S Mixtape” generally does well.

At 98 minutes, the film rarely gives you enough time to become bored. Even when a short isn’t particularly successful, there’s usually another bizarre idea, grotesque image or unexpected burst of creativity waiting just around the corner. The problem is that very little of it sticks. The music theme feels largely cosmetic outside of GWAR’s wonderfully chaotic wraparound. Having filmmakers with musical backgrounds doesn’t necessarily make their contributions feel like part of a larger musical experience. And while there’s a certain cohesiveness to the presentation, the individual shorts rarely build on one another or leave much of an impression.

Maybe that’s the point. A mixtape doesn’t necessarily need to be cohesive. It’s supposed to be a collection of different sounds, moods and personalities, some of which work better than others. But a great mixtape still needs a few unforgettable tracks. “V/H/S Mixtape” isn’t a bad addition to the franchise. It’s somewhere toward the lower end of the middle of the pack, with enough blood, guts and wonderfully stupid creativity to justify another trip into the series’ increasingly bizarre universe. There are some genuinely clever ideas here, and I never found myself particularly bored.

But ten installments into this franchise, I’d like at least one segment that stays with me after the credits roll. Instead, “V/H/S Mixtape” feels like a mixtape I enjoyed listening to from beginning to end, but one where I can’t think of a single track I’d go out of my way to play again. Sometimes that’s enough for a good time. It just isn’t enough to make a great mixtape.

Starring: Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry and Kali Reis

Directed by: Zach Cregger

Rated: R

Running Time: 95 minutes

Sony Pictures

Our Score: 4 out of 5 Stars

I think the biggest reason a video game franchise like “Resident Evil” hasn’t translated particularly well to the big screen is because it’s way too much like an anime franchise. The games have a wide, sprawling cast of characters with complicated backgrounds and side drama, bombastic villains, bizarre detours and a continuity that eventually requires homework. So, when you pitch all of that as a movie, I assume most people eventually throw their hands up and ask, “It still has zombies and guns, right?”

Enter Zach Cregger, the new darling of Hollywood, who strips away most of those pretenses and gives longtime fans, and audiences who may not know a damn thing about the franchise, something much simpler. A guy trapped in a nightmare who desperately wants to get the hell out.

When we meet Bryan (Austin Abrams), he’s going back and forth with his pregnant partner on the phone while delivering an organ because he’s essentially a discount medical courier. You might need the organs that bad if you’re paying the guy $15 an hour. Bryan’s conversation isn’t going particularly well with his partner, and it’s obvious he needs to get home to hammer out their issues. Unfortunately, he gets one more transport job. Sure, it’s snowing. Sure, it’s to Raccoon City in the mountains. Sure, his girlfriend sounds like she’s about to end their relationship. But a job’s a job.

Bryan, ignoring his personal responsibilities, takes the organ and heads toward Raccoon City General Hospital, completely unaware that this will be the last normal occurrence in his life.

The first thing that struck me about Cregger’s vision of “Resident Evil” is how closely it replicates the rhythm of survival horror. Bryan doesn’t necessarily behave like someone playing a survival-horror game. He screws up way too much for that. Instead, Cregger shoots his journey in a way that recreates the anxiety of being the player.

There’s uncertainty as Bryan peers through his windshield, snowflakes obscuring whatever might be waiting in the darkness. There’s dread when he encounters a woman who isn’t quite all there. Jump scares eventually give way to claustrophobia as he finds himself navigating small farmhouses, a Winnebago, dark tunnels and other places where every doorway feels like it could be hiding something horrible.

Cregger understands that pit in your stomach when you’re navigating the unknown. The difference is that we know damn good and well what kind of unknown Bryan has stumbled into.

And it’s filled with zombies, body horror and all sorts of revolting imagery that’ll require decades of therapy.

The creatures aren’t merely shambling corpses waiting for Bryan to shoot them, either. Bodies morph grotesquely. The infected are ravenous and bloodthirsty, and some evolve into things that feel considerably more horrific than the word “zombie” can adequately describe. Nothing here necessarily scared the hell out of me, but Cregger knows how to deploy an effective jump scare and, more importantly, how to make you dread whatever might be waiting around the next corner.

Boosting those scares are the laughs provided by Bryan, who might as well be the pizza delivery boy version of Bruce Campbell. What he lacks in charisma and strength, he makes up for with unintentional humor, relatability and an almost impressive inability to properly use the firearms he comes across. Abrams makes Bryan incredibly easy to root for because he never suddenly transforms into the badass protagonist this kind of movie usually demands. He screws up. He panics. He makes decisions you wouldn’t make in a million years.

But you still desperately want to see the guy survive. The film’s breakneck pace is another benefit because the actual plot is remarkably simple. Bryan goes to Raccoon City. Things go horribly wrong. He tries to survive. That’s basically it.

You aren’t going to learn much about Raccoon City, the Umbrella Corporation or even what exactly has happened to everyone. There are hints and conversations about the larger mythology, but Cregger doesn’t seem particularly interested in stopping the movie to explain it. That’s because Bryan doesn’t need those answers. When something disgusting is chasing you through a dark tunnel, you probably don’t need a detailed explanation of the T-virus. You need to know what the hell that thing is and whether you can kill it.

That simplicity makes “Resident Evil” feel less like an attempt to launch another sprawling cinematic universe and more like a side campaign taking place somewhere within one. The enormous mythology is still out there. Major events are presumably happening somewhere else. Bryan just had the profound misfortune of wandering into Raccoon City while everything went to hell. For longtime “Resident Evil” fans, that approach works exceptionally well. For the uninitiated, I’m a little less certain.

It’s difficult for me to completely put myself in the shoes of someone who doesn’t know “Resident Evil” because it was one of the first games I played on PlayStation ages ago. I already know what Umbrella is. I know there’s more happening in Raccoon City than Bryan understands. I can fill in blanks the movie deliberately leaves empty. Someone without that history may leave with substantially more questions.

Then again, so does Bryan. Maybe that’s the point.

If there’s one thing keeping “Resident Evil” from reaching the same heights as Cregger’s “Barbarian” or “Weapons,” it’s that I’m not sure the experience will be nearly as potent a second time. Those films reveal more of their construction on subsequent watches. “Resident Evil” derives so much of its power from uncertainty that knowing what’s waiting around the next corner could inevitably diminish some of the fun.

But for that first trip through? Cregger has crafted one hell of a funhouse. There’s a reason “Resident Evil” is being presented in IMAX. The format allows the movie to smother you in Bryan’s predicament. You’re trapped alongside him, trying to make sense of increasingly grotesque things while simply hoping he can find his way to the other side.

Sometimes the simplest premises, like being in the wrong place at the worst possible time, make for the best stories. “Resident Evil” is incredibly light on mythology and exposition, but heavy on mood, thrills, laughs and suspense. For decades, Hollywood has tried to figure out how to turn “Resident Evil” into a movie. Cregger seems to have asked a different question: What does it feel like to play “Resident Evil”?

You don’t know where you’re going. You don’t know what’s waiting around the corner. You don’t entirely understand what happened to this place. You have a weapon you’re barely qualified to use, and something absolutely fucking disgusting wants to eat you. For 95 minutes, that’s enough.

Starring: Will Forte, Lana Condor and John Cena
Directed by: Dave Green
Rated: PG
Running Time: 103 minutes
Ketchup Entertainment

Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

It’s kind of wild that there have been fewer than half a dozen original Looney Tunes feature films. Even stranger is that one of them almost became a movie nobody was allowed to see. Warner Bros. famously shelved “Coyote vs. Acme” (and other films I want to see) as part of a tax write-off before backlash eventually helped the film find a new home with Ketchup Entertainment. That’s an especially ironic fate for a movie about a beloved cartoon character taking on the giant corporation that has spent decades selling him defective products. So, after everything it took to get here, should “Coyote vs. Acme” have been given life?

“Coyote vs. Acme” is simple enough. After decades of failed attempts to catch the Road Runner with equally failed Acme products, Wile E. Coyote hatches his first live-action plan to catch his edible nemesis: hire a lawyer. Coyote heads to Albuquerque (I guess the Road Runner/Coyote hijinks have been happening in New Mexico all this time?) to hire TV and billboard lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte), known for securing chump-change settlements for cartoons harmed or maimed by Acme products. Coyote is dreaming bigger. As possibly the single greatest victim of Acme’s questionable quality control, he wants a high-profile lawsuit against the company responsible for decades of rockets, dynamite, giant magnets, spring-loaded contraptions and countless other catastrophes. It’s the Looney Tunes equivalent of David vs. Goliath.

We quickly learn that Acme is like any contemporary conglomerate. It produces smartphones, energy, toiletries, makeup, food and, of course, rocket skates. Everyone, from Coyote to Avery to the average person walking around this “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”-esque world, seems to know the company is terrible. It’s obviously involved in illegal activities, has politicians in its pocket and doesn’t appear to have anyone’s best interests at heart. That’s why, despite all the cartoon hijinks, the ideas behind “Coyote vs. Acme” feel surprisingly pertinent. A massive corporation can screw over the little guy repeatedly, and eventually that little guy may wonder if getting flattened by an anvil was actually his fault.

Avery understands that frustration. He aspires to be a great lawyer, but believes the system has never given him much of a chance to prove it. Coyote has spent his life believing the Acme system is similarly rigged against him. Their mutual frustration gradually turns them from attorney and client into two lovable losers who recognize something of themselves in each other. It’s also why Forte is such perfect casting. He can play off absurdity like a classically trained clown while somehow eliciting genuine sympathy for a loser. That’s an essential skill when your primary scene partner is an animated coyote who doesn’t talk.

John Cena similarly understands the assignment as Acme’s attorney. He has terrific comedic timing and plays the increasingly ridiculous proceedings with almost complete sincerity. At times, it feels like Forte, Cena and the other human actors were handed a serious courtroom drama script and nobody bothered to tell them their clients were Saturday morning cartoons. Lana Condor is unfortunately given less to work with as Avery’s legal assistant, functioning too often as the character responsible for pushing everyone toward whatever the plot needs to do next.

Thankfully, not everything is serious. God no. Coyote continues finding increasingly terrible ways to use Acme products. The writers pepper the movie with clever one-liners, wordplay and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sight gags. Anyone who grew up watching Looney Tunes is also rewarded with appearances and twists involving Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Taz, Foghorn Leghorn and others.

That nostalgia generally works because “Coyote vs. Acme” understands the characters rather than simply parading them across the screen for recognition. The cartoon physics remain intact even when the characters enter the human world. Coyote can still endure physical trauma that would reduce Will Forte to a fine red mist, shake it off and move on to his next terrible idea. But that creates one of the film’s biggest problems.

Looney Tunes cartoons never really needed consequences. Wile E. Coyote can fall off a cliff because his failure is the punchline. A 103-minute feature needs character arcs, escalating stakes, emotional investment and some reason to care about what happens when the credits roll. “Coyote vs. Acme” mostly succeeds at stretching that formula to feature length, but you can occasionally feel it stretching. The movie runs a little too long, sometimes treats its central conflict more seriously than necessary and struggles to convince us there are genuinely dire consequences awaiting characters who have spent generations surviving explosions, falls and industrial accidents.

Some of its humor also assumes familiarity with characters whose cultural ubiquity isn’t what it was 33 years ago when I was plopped in front of a TV. Younger viewers can certainly enjoy the cartoon mayhem, but longtime Looney Tunes fans are going to get substantially more out of the references, cameos and twists on familiar characters.

Still, the nostalgia and social satire make “Coyote vs. Acme” refreshing. It doesn’t merely ask us to remember loving these characters as children. It takes the ridiculous logic we accepted as kids and filters it through adult frustrations involving corporations, lawyers, bureaucracy and the uncomfortable realization that maybe the company selling you defective rocket skates bears some responsibility for the resulting crater. And then reality made the joke even better.

Wile E. Coyote spends “Coyote vs. Acme” fighting a giant corporation that decided he was disposable. Then “Coyote vs. Acme” had to survive a giant corporation that decided it was disposable. After everything Warner Bros., Acme and the laws of physics have thrown at him over the past 75 years, somehow the Coyote survived again.

Starring: Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson and Jack Haven
Directed by: Jane Schoenbrun
Rated: R
Running Time: 112 minutes
Mubi

Our Score: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

What can you say about a meta film that mocks its own meta nature, points out when it’s being meta, and then features a film within the film that’s also being meta? I might as well get all the metas out of the way because it’s the perfect word to describe “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.” It’s also a winking love letter to the slasher genre, an intentionally campy comedy, a self-reflective dunk on the clashes between studios and artists, and it’s all wrapped up in a coming-of-age sex story. It’s a lot to unpack. Even if it doesn’t scare you or make you wince, it’ll stick like blood-red gum in your brain.

Up-and-coming filmmaker Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is tasked with rebooting, remaking, reimagining, or whatever we’re calling it these days, the in-film slasher franchise “Camp Miasma,” featuring the aptly named serial killer Little Death. That’s not the first on-the-nose nod to the sexually charged nature of the film, and it certainly isn’t the last.

Kris loves the much-maligned franchise, including the sequels everyone else seems perfectly comfortable dismissing as garbage. That obsession leads her to Billy (Gillian Anderson), the original final girl of “Camp Miasma.” Billy left the franchise behind professionally, but never quite escaped it personally, now living at the resort camp where the original film was shot. Kris traverses mountains and enough snow to wander into “The Shining” just to meet the mysterious recluse.

Obvious sparks fly, but something more interesting is happening beneath their witchy flirting and academic debates over sex, LGBTQ+ themes, misogyny, murder and horror. Kris and Billy are almost the Mulder and Scully of slasher analysis. They can stare at the same thing from completely different perspectives while still loving what they’re looking at. Kris intellectualizes the hell out of “Camp Miasma,” but never seems to get closer to understanding why it speaks to her. Billy is more mature and comfortable with those ideas, but she’s also spent years isolated from the genre, the industry and much of society itself. Billy helps Kris understand something about herself beyond all the analysis, while Kris reminds Billy why something inherently silly can still be incredibly important.

Maybe that’s what loving movies is. Kris doesn’t pretend every “Camp Miasma” sequel is some misunderstood masterpiece. She sees the bad CGI, ridiculous violence, terrible music and all the other reasons someone might dismiss a crappy sequel. She just sees something beyond those things that still connects her to what she loved in the first place.

I get it. There was a time when I thought “Seed of Chucky” was awful. Now that I’m older, have watched thousands more movies and am hopefully at least marginally wiser, I appreciate it far more than I did then. “Seed of Chucky” didn’t change. I did.

Much like director Jane Schoenbrun’s prior films, “I Saw the TV Glow” and “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” what’s beneath the surface is what “Camp Miasma” is really about. Schoenbrun leaves enough interpretive space that people will walk away with wildly different readings, and the movie almost seems to welcome the disagreement like a stand-up comedian waiting for someone in the audience to heckle them.

My biggest takeaway is the thin line between sex and horror, something the genre has been exploring forever. Horror has long turned desire, bodies, penetration, shame, pleasure, pain and vulnerability into sources of terror. “Hellraiser” practically built a mythology out of kink. Slashers spent decades turning virginity and sex into matters of life and death. “Teeth” made sexual anxiety horrifyingly physical. “Camp Miasma” knows that history and gleefully screws around with it.

Einbinder lives and breathes Kris, making a character who could easily become exhausting feel vulnerable, funny and increasingly unhinged. When we meet her, she’s neurotic and desperate to explain what these movies mean. Once she encounters Billy, that shell begins to crack. She becomes wilder, more vulnerable and even more verbose, sometimes pointing out the very tropes the movie she’s currently occupying is using.

Anderson initially plays Billy like another mystery Kris needs to solve. She speaks with the confidence of a Southern Socrates, seemingly possessing an answer for everything while revealing almost nothing about herself. Only after Kris gets through does Anderson allow the vulnerabilities, fears and passions underneath to emerge. The more they open themselves to one another, the more we understand what “Camp Miasma” itself is doing.

I don’t really view Schoenbrun’s films as horror as much as theses on life written using the language of horror. “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” may be the filmmaker’s most playful version of that idea yet, accessible enough for a regular audience to enjoy the sex, blood, comedy and absurdity while allowing crazier fanatics to dig endlessly through everything underneath. And boy, does this film have a nostalgic, fresh style to dig into. Painted backgrounds give way to establishing shots that could make Wes Anderson scribble a few notes, while moments of fantastical sexuality spill across the screen through CGI and practical effects. Even the fountains of blood look like Rorschach splatter art.

There’s a certain mix of Edgar Wright and Quentin Tarantino in the film’s pure cinephile energy. “Camp Miasma” borders on parody at times, but its constant genre-mixing keeps its head above water. At 112 minutes, it does begin to drag in spots, and I’ll maintain that any horror movie crossing the 100-minute mark better have a damn good reason for doing so. “Camp Miasma” mostly does. Mostly. Shave five or 10 minutes off and I might not have noticed at all. The soundtrack certainly helps, creating moments of unexpected joy even when Little Death finally starts killing. There’s something bizarrely beautiful about watching a speaker-boxed killer go on a rampage while melancholy alternative rock muffles the screams and sounds of blades hitting flesh. It’s possibly one of my favorite scenes of the year, right alongside Ralph Fiennes dancing like a madman to Iron Maiden in “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.”

At a certain point, I wondered whether “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” was a great horror movie or simply a great movie. By the end, I’m not sure the distinction matters. The film plays out like a self-fulfilling prophecy about how good and bad movies alike can occupy special places in our lives. They shape us, mold us and sometimes wait years for us to become the person capable of seeing something in them we couldn’t see before.

Maybe “Camp Miasma” is trash. Maybe it’s art. Maybe it’s both. Kris can spend her entire life trying to figure out what those movies are saying to her. Billy can spend hers trying to understand why they still matter. And idiots like me can write thousands of words trying to explain why a movie about people talking about another movie made us feel something.

But sometimes what a movie says matters less than why we needed to hear it. The movie doesn’t necessarily change. We do.

Starring: Dominic Sessa, Antonio Banderas and Emilia Jones
Directed by: Matt Johnson
Rated: R
Running Time: 106 minutes
A24

Our Score: 4 out of 5 Stars

It felt like only a matter of time before Hollywood churned out a biopic about the bad boy of the culinary world, Anthony Bourdain. Although, even that description feels inadequate. Chef. Writer. TV host. Traveler. Bourdain became one of those people who was difficult to define by a single job title because his greatest talent may have simply been his curiosity about other people.

He treated street food and Michelin-star restaurants with the same reverence, respecting the passion of whoever put the plate in front of him. Bourdain could be larger than life without making anyone around him feel smaller. So, a biographical film would certainly be able to encapsulate the magic of that persona, right? Well, “Tony” isn’t particularly interested in doing that.  

Set during the summer of 1979, “Tony” introduces us to a young Anthony Bourdain, or Tony (Dominic Sessa), as he tells everyone to call him. He aspires to be a writer. The only problem is, he really isn’t. We never see him write, he fails to secure a much-needed writing fellowship, and he seems more preoccupied with what’s going on in Nancy’s (Emilia Jones) pants than putting pen to paper.

Lost in life and seemingly without focus, a series of mistakes leads Tony to the Flagship, a lobster roll joint run by a mysterious head chef played by Antonio Banderas. The Flagship is made up of other lost souls and former criminals who take Tony in like a stray. It’s there that a young man who seems destined for greatness begins to realize he isn’t particularly great at anything.

If you’re expecting an eye-opening look at young Anthony Bourdain that fully reveals the man he would eventually become, this ain’t it. But that isn’t necessarily a knock on the movie. While Bourdain eventually became larger than life, he never seemed particularly interested in filling the enormous shoes people handed him. In that regard, he’d probably appreciate the toned-down nature of “Tony.” Strip away the Bourdain name and what remains is a solid, funny and surprisingly universal coming-of-age story about a young man trying on different versions of himself to see which one fits.

Sessa is terrific at portraying that uncertainty. His dialogue frequently represents the false persona Tony wants everyone else to see, while his eyes tell us something completely different. He talks like he’s destined to become the next Ernest Hemingway, but after a while, those declarations begin to sound less like ambition and more like something he’s decided an interesting person should say. Around Nancy, he projects confidence while looking completely out of his depth. In the kitchen, where he claims to have experience, his curiosity slowly betrays just how little he actually knows. Banderas’ chef recognizes all of this almost immediately.

Instead of humiliating Tony for his bullshit, he gives him somewhere safe to fail. Tony says he’s a writer, so the chef asks why he never sees him write. Tony claims to know his way around a kitchen, and the chef clearly knows he doesn’t. He teaches Tony the tools necessary to survive the Flagship, allows him to screw up, corrects him, and waits for him to stop making the same mistakes. More importantly, he recognizes the curiosity building in Tony’s eyes before Tony does. That’s where “Tony” begins to find the Bourdain we recognize.

He’s still not much of a writer. He’s not particularly good at cooking. His attempts at flirting with Nancy are painful enough to occupy half the movie. But Tony watches. He listens. He asks questions. He engages with people without immediately placing himself above them. Gradually, the film reveals that his greatest talent may not be creating something himself, but recognizing passion in someone else.

The relationship with Banderas’ chef beautifully reflects that idea. While the chef helps Tony discover a potential purpose, Tony begins to reignite something the older man has lost in himself. Tony does this with others throughout the film as well. He recognizes passion and elevates it, even when it isn’t his own. That’s the Anthony Bourdain people eventually tuned in to watch on “No Reservations” and read in “Kitchen Confidential.” Bourdain certainly developed a distinct voice as a writer, television host and lover of all things food, but his real gift was frequently knowing when to shut up and let someone else share theirs.

“Tony” doesn’t treat every meal like a prophetic moment leading toward “Kitchen Confidential,” nor does it pretend its young protagonist already possesses the wisdom of the man he’ll eventually become. Sometimes he’s full of shit. Sometimes he’s selfish. Sometimes he’s lost. Most of the time, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s 20-something. Who does?

That’s ultimately both the limitation and charm of “Tony.” I’m not convinced it taught me much about Anthony Bourdain, but I’m convinced it understood something about him. Food found Tony when he needed somewhere to go. Then Tony found food when he finally started paying attention. Neither immediately transformed him into Anthony Bourdain. They simply gave him somewhere to put the person he was already becoming.

Starring: Dakota Gorman, Todd Terry and James Austin Johnson
Directed by: Brock Bodell
Rated: R
Running Time: 91 minutes
Shudder

Our Score: 1.5 out of 5 Stars

Lena (Dakota Gorman) awakens to a trailer park nightmare. She’s alone in the back of a speeding trailer, able to make out little more than the shadows of the surrounding woods as they race down the highway. Various intercoms scattered throughout the trailer project the voice of Clive (Todd Terry), who tells Lena she’s infected after a night of camping and that he’s taking her to a hospital for treatment. That’s basically all we know. 

For a while, that’s thrilling.The claustrophobic setting, Lena’s complete disorientation and an obviously untrustworthy Clive immediately hook you because “Hellcat” could go almost anywhere. Unfortunately, the more we learn, the smaller those possibilities become until the mystery feels about as confined as the trailer itself.

We get moments of exposition revealing that Lena is grieving, Clive is a conspiracy theorist and something supernatural may be happening. The problem is that “Hellcat” telegraphs its eventual reveal so aggressively that figuring it out feels less like solving a mystery and more like waiting for the movie to catch up. Once I understood what kind of story I was watching, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never really does.

The film should hinge on Terry and Gorman’s chemistry, and thankfully, they have it. Gorman does an admirable job making Lena interesting even when “Hellcat” struggles to give her an interesting arc. Terry brings an appropriately unsettling ambiguity to Clive, but the dialogue repeatedly works against both performers. Every other line from Clive seems to reiterate that he’s a good man, while Lena is frequently tasked with delivering exposition between potential escapes that inevitably fail.

That’s especially disappointing because “Hellcat” eventually slides into a supernatural genre with decades of mythology to play with. I don’t need the film to follow established rules or regurgitate what countless movies have done before it. Quite the opposite. I wanted the movie it promised during those opening minutes: something as strange, unpredictable and unique as waking up inside a speeding trailer with absolutely no idea what’s happening.

Instead, the melancholy feels unearned, the mythology underdeveloped and the tension slowly evaporates. A single-location thriller should make every inch of its confinement matter. Every noise outside should create another possibility. Every conversation should change our understanding of who’s in danger and who can be trusted. “Hellcat” gradually does the opposite.

The right pieces are here for a taut, tense and claustrophobic 91 minutes, but “Hellcat” rarely capitalizes on them. The trailer stops feeling like a place filled with terrifying possibilities and simply starts feeling small. Unfortunately, so does the movie.

• SUPERGIRL
• Starring:  Milly Alcock, Eve Ridley and David Cornsweat
• Directed by:  Craig Gillispie
• Rated:  PG 13
• Running time:  1 hr 48 mins
• Warner Bros

Our score:  2.5 out of 5

It was good while it lasted.  The James Gunn-led era at DC Studios started out well last summer with the latest tale of “Superman.”  That filmed ended with a fun teaser featuring Kara Zor-El, better known to comic book fans as Supergirl.  I don’t know what happened between the time they shot the teaser clip and the feature film, but the girl certainly deserves better.

We meet our heroine (Alcock) in the middle of an alcoholic bender.  Since her powers are only activated thanks to the yellow sun of Earth, she has chosen to live on a planet with a red sun, choosing to blend in with the rest of humanity.  She is accompanied by her dog, Krypto and occasionally chats with her cousin, Superman (Cornsweat), looking very uncomfortable, as if they snuck this film into his contract.  Meanwhile, a band of baddies kill the family of a young girl (Ridley), who now swears revenge on Kren, the main villain (Matthias Schoenaerts).  Oh, and Jason Mamoa shows up, but he’s NOT Aquaman.  What a mess.

Though the film tries to remain faithful to the comics (we see how the City of Argo is saved from the destruction of Krypton) more often then not, the filmmakers decided to just ignore important things like the script and plot points and just throw non-stop action at the audience.  The mood is dark, as if the idea was to make a film like “Logan,” but decided half-way through production to go in a different direction.

It’s not the cast’s fault.  Alcock and Ridley have a great big sister/little sister chemistry and Mamoa chews the scenery and spits it out as Lobo.  But, again, it’s Jason Mamoa.  Aquaman.  I don’t know if DC thought that since Robert Downey, Jr is going from playing Iron Man to Dr. Doom led the filmmakers to cast Mamoa, but RDJ is playing complex characters.  Mamoa is basically playing Aquaman on a motorcycle.  It’s as if director Gillespie showed Mamoa all the scenes from “Raising Arizona” that featured Randall “Tex” Cobb and said, “do that.”

The visual effects are well done, even though it appears that on whatever planet she’s on, Kara can’t find a hairbrush!  If they find one, they should put the filmmakers over their knee and give them a few whacks with it.  It worked on me when my Aunt Mildred did it!

On a scale of zero to five, “Supergirl” receives ★★½  

• SPIDER-MAN:  BRAND NEW DAY
• Starring:  Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jon Bernthal
• Directed by:  Destin Daniel Cretton
• Rated:  PG 13
• Running time:  2 hrs 25 mins
• SONY Pictures

Our score:  4 out of 5

I’ve always been a Spider-man fan.  Even though, as a kid in the 1960s, I was primarily a “DC” guy – I read every Batman and Superman comic book I could find, even enduring issues of “Superman’s Pal – Jimmy Olsen.”  But whenever the chance arose, and if I didn’t have to use my allowance to buy it, I would read the latest adventures of Spider-man.  While I enjoyed the earlier films that featured Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield as the webslinger, it wasn’t until Tom Holland came along that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU to save space) hit cinema gold.  Through three dedicated films, and numerous appearances in other films in the MCU, Holland’s portrayal of Peter Parker/Spider-man has always been a high point.  I’m happy to say that with the latest adventure, “Spider-man:  Brand New Day,” that streak continues.

When we last saw Peter Parker (Holland), he had just saved the day at an enormous expense by having Doctor Strange cast a spell that made everyone who knew he was Spider-man forget that fact.  This included the love of his life, MJ (Zendaya) and his best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon).  Four years later we find him living alone and dedicating all his time to fighting crime.  He keeps an eye on his friends from a distance but can’t bring himself to tell them the truth.   But, because this is a superhero film, he has a lot more to worry about.

Like recent MCU films, “Spider-man: Brand New Day” peppers itself with other characters who may or may not be familiar to fans, among them the Punisher (Bernthal), who appears in his own series on Netflix.  I’ve never watched the show but, as I am familiar with the character, I knew who he was.  Newcomers to the film series may not.  The film also gives Mark Ruffalo a spotlight to shine in as Professor Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk.  The Banner character is criminally underused in the various “Avengers” films, with filmmakers apparently assuming that people are just there for the “Hulk SMASH!” sequences.  But with an actor as good as Ruffalo is, I think audiences would welcome the chance to spend more then a few minutes with the Professor.  Though I’m afraid that, as far along in the MCU as the films are they couldn’t do a proper Hulk origin story I do hope we get more of Banner in upcoming films.

Like all of the films in this series, the cast has a genuine chemistry and the emotional ride Peter Parker takes is a rough one.  Holland, who is also a major asset in the currently showing “The Odyssey,” continues to grow in the role, just as Peter is growing as a young man.  Zendaya is her usual tough but caring self and Batalon’s Ned (probably my favorite character in these films – he is “the man in the chair” – has always been the glue that holds these friendships together.  There are also a few new surprises here leading up to December’s big Avengers film “Doomsday.”

On a scale of zero to five, “Spider-man: Brand New Day” receives ★★★★  

While still selling out on stage in New York City, HADESTOWN, has been faithfully filmed and showing on cinema screens this week only.  Winning 8 Tony Awards in 2019 including Best Musical of the Year, this is a New Orleans style musical that is the story two young lovers in a relationship complicated by the devil himself- Hades.  He drags Eurydice to Hell for his lover but the boy, with help from his mentor Hermes follows them in to the depths to save her.

Filmed during a performance in March 2025 in London’s West End with all the principal actors from the Original Broadway Opening Night cast. The director of this “Pro-Shot” brings an intimacy to the filming, not just a performance captured on camera. His cinematography and editing takes the movie audience right into the show almost to the point of participation.  While occasionally giving us a view of the audience in the auditorium during filming it re-enforces the overall concept of being performed “live” as we enter this world.

Created by Anais Mitchell as a concept album and directed for the stage by Rachel Chavkin (both Tony Winners); theatrically HADESTOWN was a masterful work, and by moving it on to film by filmmaker Brett Sullivan, the production is enhanced becoming magnificent.

Broadway Legend, Andre De Shields (Tony nominated as the original WIZ in 1975) at almost 80 years old is Hermes the narrator of the tale as he guides the boy through his travels. He is perfection in his Tony winning role; you just can’t take your eyes off him as you hang on his every word. The lush music is performed by Reeve Carney as the boy, Eva Noblezada as the girl, with scary Patrick Page as Hades and Amber Gray as his wife.

With this amazing cast, the wonderful staging and the atmospheric cinematography this is without a doubt the definitive ephemeral staged production of  “HADESTOWN” – now captured forever.

———————————————————————————————–

HADESTOWN has been extended to run through Thursday, August 5th at theatres nationwide.  If you are in the Boston area, like Ben, you can see it at the following theatres:

Entertainment Cinemas, Leominster MA

Regal Solomon Pond Cinemas

Maynard (MA) Fine Arts Theater

O’Neil Cinemas at the Point, Littleton, MA

AMC Framingham 16

Starring: Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Rated: R
Running Time: 173 minutes
Universal Pictures

Our Score: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

About 3,000 years ago, somebody who might have been named Homer wrote a couple of long poems called The Iliad and The Odyssey.

A lot of of us were forced to read them when we were kids, and many of us felt the only reason we were doing it was because the texts were so damn old. Thankfully Christopher Nolan’s new film adaption may be reverent, but it isn’t carved in stone.

Nolan delivers the requisite spectacle. The land and seascapes captured by cinematographer Hoyle van Hoytema (who has shot Nolan’s last few movies) are suitably breathtaking whether you’re watching them in an IMAX auditorium or in 70MM. The cyclops looks big and terrifyingly real. 

Nolan’s aversion to computer generated images pays off because the battles seem immersive and suitably dangerous. Bloodshed looks as if it’s really occurring. Magic spells look as if they are happening in real-time.

More importantly, Nolan manages to make familiar characters seem less, oh, iconic. Unlike Elon Musk and the basement dwelling crybabies who have complained about a film that they haven’t seen, I have also had the additional pleasure of having read the book, which Nolan has actually followed to a fair amount of fidelity. 

For those idiots who complained about the “authenticity” of casting of gorgeous Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, I wonder if these were the same folks who weren’t bothered that the king of Sparta spoke with a thick Scottish accent in 300. That issue cost me no sleep, either.

Back to the film, I’m currently reviewing.

What is intriguing is that Nolan gives the established characters motives that might not have been obvious in the original text. Matt Damon is certainly not Greek, but Homer describes Odysseus as crafty, and the actor can convey the Ithacan king’s quick thinking effortlessly. Even his missteps seem logical.

He also carries the look of someone who carries the weight have having been involved in disgraced campaigns. He may have succeed in figuring out how to crack the seemingly endless siege of Troy, but sacrificing countless men, time and resources for a domestic matter involving the kings of Sparta and Mycenae has been hardly worth it.

It’s no wonder he doesn’t want to follow Menelaus (Jon Bernthal) and Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) back home. Along the way, he gets 10 years worth of detours that put Ithaca and its throne in danger. 

Those who’ve had a little Greek mythology know what he’s about to encounter. Nolan makes the obstacles more intriguing than what you might have slept through in class.

He and his men encounter a hostess named Circe (Samantha Morton), whose initial hospitality comes with a steep price. Nolan and Morton do something audacious by making her sympathetic. Past visitors may not have had great intentions, and Odysseus shows he can get out of messes with more than clever lies and swordplay. 

The female characters seem a tad more developed in this adaptation, which is helpful because Odysseus’ wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) is so essential to the plot. She has to juggle an army of suitors who want the kingdom and her hand. None seem to be terribly good husbands or capable leaders. Watching her string along the not so clever pretenders shows she’s as sharp as her wandering husband.

Her son Telemachus (Tom Holland) might be an adult, but he’s not quite ready to take his dad’s job because he has trouble standing up to the especially sleazy suitor Antinous (a delightfully repellent Robert Pattinson).  

Homer goes to flashbacks, so it’s easy to see why Nolan would, too. In this case they work because it gives the Battle of Troy more impact and helps make Odysseus’ long strange, trip seem more plausible.  

Sometimes, Nolan’s touch can seem clinical, but when a story is naturally full of divine intervention and human frailty, it makes the wonder of the long, long journey seem less like a myth and more like a statement of fact.

Starring: Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Rated: R
Running Time: 173 minutes
Universal Pictures

Our Score: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

For nearly 3,000 years, humanity has been telling “The Odyssey.” Around campfires. Through song and poetry. On stages. In paintings. In classrooms. Every generation has found its own way to tell Homer’s story. Christopher Nolan may have finally found ours.

Adapting “The Odyssey” isn’t simply a matter of condensing one of civilization’s greatest stories. It’s the cinematic equivalent of squeezing two seasons of “Game of Thrones” into three hours while somehow preserving the politics, mythology, family drama, warfare, philosophy, and humanity that made the original endure in the first place. Against all odds, Nolan largely succeeds.

Beginning with the Trojan Horse and stretching across Odysseus’ decade-plus journey home, Nolan’s adaptation isn’t interested in treating Greek mythology like a collection of disconnected adventures. Every island, every monster, every god, and every temptation becomes another examination of leadership, faith, governance, family, and the unavoidable consequences of human choice. This isn’t merely a story about getting home. It’s about what war costs the people fighting it, as well as the people waiting for them.

Matt Damon delivers one of the finest performances of his career. His Odysseus possesses the physical presence mythology demands, effortlessly commanding armies one moment and confronting impossible odds the next. Yet Damon wisely avoids playing him as an untouchable superhero. His Odysseus grows increasingly weathered by grief, regret, responsibility, and the weight of decisions that ripple far beyond the battlefield. Nolan doesn’t ask us to admire perfection. He asks us to consider whether greatness can exist alongside profound imperfection.

That burden isn’t Odysseus’ alone. Anne Hathaway’s Penelope quietly becomes the film’s emotional equal, fighting her own battle while trapped in Ithaca. Tom Holland’s Telemachus provides the coming-of-age perspective as a son forced to grow up beneath the shadow of a father who has become more legend than man. Even Zendaya’s Athena feels less like a mythical guide than a reminder that every generation searches for wisdom somewhere outside itself. Rather than existing solely to support Odysseus, each character reflects a different consequence of his absence.

Visually, “The Odyssey” is exactly the kind of spectacle audiences hoped Nolan would deliver. IMAX transforms vast oceans, towering landscapes, and ancient cities into something appropriately mythic while never losing sight of the intimacy between characters. The practical effects blend seamlessly with CGI, creating a world that feels tangible despite its gods and monsters. Nolan also slips in moments of unsettling body horror and genuine suspense that rival some of modern cinema’s most memorable sequences, though wisely never allowing spectacle to overshadow the story’s emotional core.

Perhaps Nolan’s greatest achievement is resisting the temptation to modernize Homer’s ideas while still making them feel modern. His narrative still plays with shifting perspectives and fractured chronology in familiar Nolan fashion, but those techniques serve the material instead of calling attention to themselves. You don’t need an encyclopedic knowledge of Greek mythology to follow the film because Nolan understands that mythology has always been less about monsters than people. The gods may shape events, but it is human pride, love, grief, loyalty, and ambition that determine their outcome.

If “Oppenheimer” examined the consequences of changing the world, “The Odyssey” explores the consequences of simply surviving it. Every victory leaves a scar. Every decision carries a cost. Every homecoming demands reconciliation with the person who left. That’s ultimately why this adaptation works. Christopher Nolan hasn’t simply made the biggest version of “The Odyssey.” He’s made one that understands why we’ve been telling it for nearly 3,000 years.

• THE ODYSSEY
• Starring:  Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Anne Hathaway
• Directed by:  Christopher Nolan
• Rated:  R
• Running time:  2 hrs 45 mins
• Universal

Our score:  4.5 out of 5

EPIC.  If I was asked to describe Christopher Nolan’s latest film, that is the word I would use.  He has mounted a film that rivals the greatest achievements of filmmakers like Cecil B. DeMille or David Lean.  And, like the films of those mentioned, it’s runs a tad too long.

I was shocked, but pleased, to see that my 12-year-old granddaughter recently did a school paper on King Agamemnon.  Thank goodness they’re still teaching History in our schools.  Based on Homer’s “The Odyssey,” the film tells the story of King Odysseus (Damon) and his adventures which, if you’ve read “The Odyssey,” include the Trojan Horse, the Cyclops and assorted angry Greek gods.  The film covers each of these adventures in great detail, sparing nothing in the production design department.  While Odysseus is away – and he’s gone for a l-o-n-g time, his wife Penelope (Hathaway) has to endure a never ending string of “suitors,” men lining up in the hopes of replacing the King should he not return.  The men are nothing more then scavengers, taking advantage of the law of Zeus, which decrees no one should be turned away.  This angers the Queen’s son, Telemachus (Holland), who must control his temper when the men try to bait him into a fight, the idea being if Telemachus is killed, the new husband would become the King.  It’s all very interesting and complicated.  And long.

Director Nolan is one of the rare filmmakers who, in my opinion, has never made a bad film.  From “Memento” to the “Dark Knight” trilogy to the Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer,” he has proven himself a true master of cinema.  “The Odyssey” only adds to that distinguished resume’

The cast is a tribute to Nolan himself who, like Woody Allen, can pretty much get anyone he wants for his films because, as an actor, why wouldn’t you want a credit in one of his films.  Besides the three stars named above, the cast includes Robert Pattinson, John Leguizamo, Zendaya, James Remar, Jon Bernthal, Oscar nominees Samantha Morton and Elliot Page as well as Oscar winners Charlize Theron and  Lupita Nyongo.  As MGM used to advertise, “more stars than there are in heaven.”

The script and story are pretty faithful to the source material, though for some reason it bothered me whenever Telemacus referred to Odysseus as “dad.”  Never father.  The weird things you notice.  Visual.y the film is stunning and the Trojan Horse and battle of Troy are worth the price of admission alone.  I will add that I did see the film in 70 mm and, if that format is playing in your town, I urge you to see it in that format.

On a scale of zero to five, “The Odyssey” receives ★★★★ ½

• MINIONS & MONSTERS
• Starring the voices of:  Christoph Waltz, Jeff Bridges and Allison Janey
• Directed by: Piere Coffin and Patrick Delarge
• Rated:  PG
• Running time:  1 hr 30 mins
• Universal

Our score:  3.5 out of 5

The French studio Illumination has released so many movies with the little yellow Minions that their high-pitched babble no longer seemed cute or funny.

Thankfully, series co-creator Pierre Coffin revives the series by taking his creatures back in time, not just before Gru became their boss, but to the dawn of time. They live to serve, but are so eager to do so that they accidentally kill their supervillain supervisors.

Two of the Minions (all voiced by Coffin), however, might be able to do more constructive things that simply the carrying out the bidding of would-be tyrants. James has the instincts of a master storyteller, and Henry has the skills to make James’ ideas real. The hard-of-hearing Ed stands up for the two when the bossy Dick berates them.

In their quest to find a new master, the yellow horde stumble into Los Angeles where they ruin a frustrated director’s difficult take. Max (Christoph Waltz) initially believes that his career is over because the Minions thought the actor they were chasing was actually a wanted outlaw.

Instead, the studio honchos The Bright Brothers (both voiced Jeff Bridges) believe that Max has discovered new stars. The little guys have a gift for destroying any object they touch, but they are hopelessly lovable and give Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton serious comic competition.

When sound hits at the end of the Roaring 20s, however, the lads are in for a world of hurt because their squeaky banter is indecipherable except for the enthusiastic cry of “Banana!” James winds up writing a great monster movie with Max’s encouragement and inadvertently creates some actual monsters in the process. Their leader Goomi (Trey Parker) seems eager to help, although his ambitions may be other than cinematic. He looks like a cuter version Cthulhu, but he may be just as dangerous as the H.P. Lovecraft character.

Dick and the other minions flock to a confident but not terribly intimidating extraterrestrial robot named Dort (Jesse Eisenberg). His goofy demeanor makes him seem like he’d be an antagonist in poverty row space serial, but he has a knack for taking punishment makes one wonder if he’s the genuine article.

Letting the Minions loose in Hollywood is a bright idea, the management in Tinseltown is just as morally conflicted as Gru, so the setting makes sense. The new characters like Goomi and Dort are intriguing, with the latter being especially endearing because his earnestness wins over everyone, including a likable suffragette (Zoey Deutch).

There are some clever tributes to the silent era, but the movie loses some of its manic Minion energy toward the center. Until Dort stumbles onto the scene, Coffin and co-screenwriter Brian Lynch lose their focus as if they had gotten lost and Dort had to guide them out of a maze.

When I saw this film was coming out, I doubted if the Minions would leave a lasting impact like the silent comics they reference in this installment. It will be a while before we find out.

On a scale of zero to five, “Minions & Monsters” receives ★★★ ½  

Starring: Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton
Directed by: Olivia Wilde
Rated: R
Running Time: 107 minutes
A24

Our Score: 4 out of 5 Stars

Maybe Olivia Wilde should stick to comedy.

She absolutely crushed it with 2019’s “Booksmart,” so much so that audiences couldn’t wait to see what she did next. Unfortunately, “Don’t Worry, Darling” was such a misfire that many people seemed to lose interest in what a third film might look like. Fortunately, Wilde reminds us with “The Invite” that she may have quietly become one of the sharpest comedy directors working today. Like “Booksmart,” “The Invite” is hilarious on the surface, but underneath the laughs is a story built on emotional dissatisfaction, insecurity, and the slow erosion of adult relationships.

It’s just another evening of squabbling for middle-aged married couple Joe (Seth Rogen) and Angela (Olivia Wilde). Their arguments range from Joe’s foldable bike to Angela’s penchant for buying furniture they don’t need. But the real source of tension is the animalistic sounds their upstairs neighbors make whenever they’re having sex. Why obsess over an anonymous couple’s love life? Because Angela has invited those neighbors, Pina (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton), over for dinner. What unfolds is one of the raunchiest and funniest comedies of the 2020s.

What makes “The Invite” work is that nobody is trying to out-funny anyone else. Rogen brings his effortless naturalism while Wilde weaponizes uncomfortable facial expressions, simmering resentment, and the frustrations of unemployment and loneliness. Norton delivers deadpan line after deadpan line as a retired firefighter searching for purpose through new hobbies, while Cruz effortlessly bounces between the other three, often turning their own jokes and insecurities back on them with fearless confidence. While Rogen is no stranger to comedy, he also reminds us how effective he can be as a dramatic actor when the story asks for something more beneath the laughs.

Much of “The Invite” succeeds because of its screenplay, which not only generates laugh after laugh but also draws us into the characters’ sexual insecurities and emotional baggage. Both couples carry scars they can only hide for so long. Beneath every joke, passive-aggressive remark, and uncomfortable silence, you can feel the tension quietly building. Conversations shift. Moods change. Characters splinter off into smaller interactions. Saying much more would spoil the carefully constructed surprises and emotional turns that make the film so rewarding.

The best comedies don’t simply make us laugh. They make us recognize ourselves somewhere between the punchlines. That’s where “The Invite” succeeds most.

At first, it feels content simply making the audience laugh, almost effortlessly. But once the jokes begin to fade and reality settles in, Olivia Wilde reveals she’s after something much more uncomfortable. This isn’t really a movie about sex, arguments, or awkward dinner parties. It’s about the quiet dissatisfaction that can settle into long-term relationships and the different ways people try to convince themselves they’re still happy.

The real trick isn’t making an audience laugh. It’s asking whether they still feel something after the laughter stops.