Review: White Noise

Image courtesy of Netflix.

There are some novels that dare to be adapted into films. Just look at "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "Breakfast of Champions," which were said to be untranslatable - and then look at how badly those movies turned out. God forbid the day that someone attempts to direct an "Infinite Jest" adaptation.

Don DeLillo's seminal 1980s novel "White Noise" is another in this category. For years, rumors of film adaptations of DeLillo's surrealist social satire of the Reagan years were floated, but they never came to fruition. I'll give director Noah Baumbach much credit for even making an attempt at it - and even more for the fact that it's, well, not half bad.

Trying to describe what "White Noise" is about is a fool's errand. It's obsessed with death - and '80s consumerist culture, and cults of personality, underground conspiracies, academic intellectualism, and Adolf Hitler. Oh yeah, and Elvis. It's set in some suburb somewhere in the United States. Its lead character, Jack Gladney (Adam Driver), is the leading expert on Hitler studies, while his good friend (Don Cheadle) is a professor who primarily talks about Elvis.

The film opens with Cheadle's character giving a lecture on car crashes in American movies - and that despite all the blood, glass and violence of the event, they are a form of optimism. Perhaps, the word he was searching for was catharsis. Throughout the course of "White Noise," its character frequently talk about their fear of death, but what they're in search of is something cathartic.

And it's easy to see why. During the film's second chapter, a crash between a truck and train carrying toxic chemicals creates what is known as the Airborne Toxic Event. This leaves the townspeople scrambling to find shelter. Jack and his wife, Babbette (Greta Gerwig), pack up their blended family and go in search of whatever safe place they can find - a school auditorium is among those locales.

Then, the film makes a darker tonal shift as Jack finds out that his wife's increasingly odd behavior is due to her once taking part in a medical study in which she was a test subject trying out a dangerous drug. Jack becomes upset when he finds out that this is not all of the story, and he takes a desperate measure that leads to a scene of violence and a reconciliation that is - you guessed it - cathartic. And then there's a dance sequence at a supermarket.

It has been a long time since I read DeLillo's novel. I recall being quite taken with it. After one viewing of Baumbach's film, I'm not sure I can easily summarize my feelings on it or what it's all meant to convey. It's often funny, but occasionally fills one with a sense of unease. Characters speak in non sequiturs and the film's production values look high. The film's characters undertake all manner of actions - watching car crashes in movies, obsessing about Elvis, buying items they don't need and dancing in grocery stores - to distract themselves from reality and the specter of death.

The film's first two halves are more successful than its final third, when the action becomes more disturbing but less focused. It helps that his cast is strong - especially Driver, who takes a role that's difficult to wrap one's head around and makes it feel instinctual.

I've long been an admirer of Baumbach's work. "White Noise" isn't one of his best films, but it's probably his most ambitious. It's not a great movie, but it's a good one. He swings for the fences and the result is often compelling. It's certainly unlike anything else you'll probably see this year.

Review: Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Image courtesy of TriStar Pictures.

There are some promising moments in the first half of director Kasi Lemmons' overly long biopic "Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody." So many movies of this type tell us very little that we do not already know. Perhaps, I was living under a rock, but I had no idea that the pop singer (portrayed here by Naomi Ackie) had a relationship with a woman named Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams) early in her career. Therefore, the early scenes tracing the relationship between these two women was compelling.

Then, there's a scene fairly early in the movie when Houston's no-nonsense mother, Cissy (Tamara Tunie) - a singer whose career never quite took off - pulls a fast one that results in her daughter being forced to sing the lead vocals on "The Greatest Love of All" at a nightclub where famed record executive Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci) happens to be in attendance.

Davis is promised that Houston's voice will impress him - and, sure enough, when she hits those high notes on the song that would become one of her many hits, he has to shake his head in acknowledgement: Yes, this woman has an incredible voice and is a great talent. It's a nice moment in a movie that will make you long for more such scenes as it drags towards its inevitable finale.

The problem with "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" is that it gets all those strong scenes out of the way in the film's first half, only to follow the standard rise-and-fall scenario with jukebox hits accompaniment that we've seen hundreds of times before. Even if you knew nothing about Houston's life, there's not a scene that you won't see coming in advance (other than that early love affair).

Worse, the film spends a lot of time dwelling on the more scandalous elements hounding Houston - namely that her husband, singer Bobby Brown, got her mixed up in some bad things that led her to spiral downward. The scenes in which she confronts him about his infidelity are awkward, and the actor (Ashton Sanders) portraying Brown was seemingly misled to believe that he would be portraying rapper DMX - whose gruff voice and vocal tics he appears to be emulating - and not the New Edition member.

The film's best scenes - other than the earlier ones I mentioned - are those involving Houston's friendship with Davis, who at first tells her that he doesn't get involved in his clients' personal lives, but then proceeds to do so once he begins considering Houston more of a friend. There's also a good scene in which Houston's controlling father - also, why does every music biopic need to involve a controlling family member? - gets a reminder from his daughter about who employs him.

But otherwise, "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" is a movie that you've seen time and time before: talented person gets noticed, they rise to the top, they have relationship struggles, and then they either overcome the odds or - more likely, if this is a rock or pop music biopic - they succumb to their struggles. Ackie does a solid job as Houston and Tucci is quite good as Davis, but this film ultimately has the depth of a VH1 "Behind the Music" episode and, as it goes along, the unfortunate style of a tabloid story. 

Review: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Rian Johnson's "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" is a fun sequel to the director's 2019 whodunit. It doesn't expand upon the original - in fact, Daniel Craig's detective Benoit Blanc is the only returning character - or try to be anything other than what it ultimately is: an entertaining, star-studded comedic thriller with clever twists, some solid performances, and a fair amount of absurdity.

The title refers to the song of the same name by The Beatles, which John Lennon wrote to confuse fans who he believed read too many layers into the meanings of the band's songs. An onion has layers, we are told in the film by one character, but a glass onion is translucent, so what's lying at the core should be obvious to see. Such is the case with this film - although I won't give anything away in that department. 

Oh yeah - and one of the film's characters, billionaire techie Miles Bron (Edward Norton), happens to be a big Beatles fan, and the place where his empire was born was in a bar known as the Glass Onion, where he hung out with his "disruptors" - a group of friends who are invited to his Greek island to solve the mystery of his murder.

These disruptors include a fashionista (Kate Hudson) who has a penchant to get in trouble for making inappropriate remarks on social media, a men's rights activist (Dave Bautista), a technology wiz (Leslie Odom Jr.), a woman running for a governorship (Kathryn Hahn), and the woman with whom Bron formed his company (Janelle Monae) but then screwed over.

At least one character in the film isn't who they appear to be - and a character who ends up dropping dead isn't the one you'd expect. As was the case in "Knives Out," Craig plays up the southern hokum of his character, but at one point we realize that's intentional and for a reason.

"Glass Onion" doesn't reinvent the wheel as far these things go - in fact, there are several sequences in which the board game "Clue" are referenced - but it's an enjoyable murder mystery with a solid cast - and Monae is especially good in a tricky role.

The film is occasionally a little over the top - and a finale that involves destroying one of the world's greatest treasures is, perhaps, a little hard to justify. And several of the characters are a bit underdeveloped - Hahn and Odom aren't given a whole lot to do, but Hudson makes the most of her ditzy character. 

But that's no matter. "Glass Onion" is an amusing murder mystery that's about as good as the original film - and a benefit of this sequel is that it allows another cast member - Monae - to shine, rather than allow Craig (who's also good) to have the spotlight.

Review: EO

Image courtesy of Janus Films.

One of the movies' great gifts is giving us the ability to see the world through the perspective of one who is different from oneself. Roger Ebert once called cinema "a machine that generates empathy" - and that's certainly the case with 87-year-old Jerzy Skolimowski's latest film, the Cannes favorite "EO," which chronicles some time in the life of a wandering donkey.

For those counting, this is not the first time a film has chronicled the world from perspective of an animal - in fact, it's not even the first time to see it through the eyes of a donkey, for those familiar with Robert Bresson's masterpiece "Au Hasard Balthazar." And yet, there's nothing quite like "EO" that I recall seeing.

The film has a loose narrative structure - occasionally it involves humans, some good and some bad, and occasionally it doesn't. There are some visually and sonically entrancing sequences in which incredible camerawork creates a sense of EO's surroundings - there's a particular sequence involving swooping cameras and amazing shots of woodland wildlife at night that made me think to myself, "How did they accomplish that?"

The film also draws attention to the adage - or if there isn't one, there should be - about how we treat animals is instructive at viewing how we treat one another. EO's first owners - if that's the word - are carnival workers, one an unkind man and another a very kind woman who considers EO her friend. Later, there's a truck driver who finds himself on the road with the donkey before that man comes to a shocking and unexpected end.

Later, there's a young Italian man who gets scolded by his stepmother (Isabelle Huppert, the only recognizable cast member) for being a prodigal son, and at one point there's a farmer's wife who doesn't understand why EO won't eat the carrots she attempts to feed him.

Not everyone the donkey encounters is a nice person. There's an especially horrific scene during which two warring Polish soccer clubs end a match, only to have the losing team attack the other group and, unfortunately, physically abuse EO. 

One of the most fascinating elements of the film is that although EO is the main character whom we follow and we see the world through his eyes, we never know quite why he does what he does, why he goes where he goes, or what he is thinking. The film is as much as a mystery as an anthropological study.

This is one of the year's most unique films from a filmmaker who has long been known for taking unusual routes in storytelling - check out Skolimowski's "Deep End," "The Shout" and "Moonlighting" and you'll see what I mean. "EO" is a film that's often mesmerizing, occasionally joyous, sometimes sad, and filled with stunning images. I'd highly recommend it.

Review: Babylon

Image courtesy of Paramount.

With the sole exception of his Neil Armstrong movie, Damien Chazelle's films typically involve characters involved in the performing arts - and often ones who strive or buckle under the heart- and back-breaking aim for perfection. His latest, the three-hour-plus early Hollywood epic "Babylon," is no different.

This is a work of ambition and scope that has a lot of moving parts and - quite frankly - I was impressed that Chazelle was able to keep track of them all and continuously propel them forward, even if some strands that were more interesting don't get all the attention they need and some others should have been left on the cutting room floor.

"Babylon" is often enjoyable and intriguing - but for a film that swings for the fences, there are also a fair amount of misses. The result is a compelling epic - perhaps, among the last of its kind to get bankrolled by a major movie studio, considering how poorly movies for adults are faring these days - that doesn't always work, but it wins points for the sheer audacity of it all.

However, Chazelle's aim for audacity occasionally feels forced. Search around the internet and you'll likely find some writings on how debauched the early days of Hollywood were - for example, Kenneth Anger's tome "Hollywood Babylon," which may or may not have lent this film its title - and how freely the booze and drugs flowed and how many of those in the industry at that point were libertines.

Well, "Babylon" kicks off in a raucous way - first, with an elephant spewing shit all over some poor guy - and the camera lens - who is tasked with bringing it to a wild party in the Hollywood Hills. That party is filled with copious male and female nudity, drugs of all types, and even a woman taking a piss on a naked fat man's face. Chazelle's attempt to portray the Roaring Twenties as some 20th century Sodom and Gomorrah feels a little over the top.

But once its multiple stories kick in, it becomes intriguing. At the opening party, we meet Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), a wannabe starlet and - let's face it - narcissist who wants to become a famous actress at all costs. She briefly befriends Manny (Diego Calva), a Mexican immigrant who wants to experience being on a movie set and is helping bring the elephant up the hill to the mansion at the film's beginning. The two won't meet again for some years, but a bond is formed.

There's also Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), an aging leading man who remains a top draw during the last days of silent films, but who becomes more of a liability when the talkies come around in 1927. There are a few other side characters - a saucy Asian cabaret singer named Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) who is modeled after Anna May Wong; Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), a Black jazz trumpet player who becomes a movie star; and an aging gossip columnist (Jean Smart) who proves to be less cynical than some of the famous ones who actually existed.

There's a whole lot going on in this film - and much of it is interesting: the workmanlike portrayals of early movie sets, an amusing scene in which a cast and crew literally suffer after making the transition to sound, the obsessive nature of a director who wants to catch the golden hour on film but is short a camera, how Lady Fay and Sidney not surprisingly come face to face with discriminatory practices on the films on which they work, and some very well done conversations late in the film between Pitt's aging movie star and, first, Smart's gossip columnist, and then later, Lady Fay.

Robbie gives a solid performance as the newcomer who is able to make herself cry with ease - she's modeled after Clara Bow - although her character is written to be abrasive, while Manny spends much of his time looking pained as he cleans up her messes. The two actors have a natural chemistry, but their story - even though it's the main one - often gets lost in the shuffle. 

Among the more minor issues are some dialogue that sounds more like it's from the 2020s than the 1920s (a man calling another man a "whiny bitch"), and there's a scene in which Nellie offends a group of rich people at a snooty party that rings a little hollow. The film boasts a final montage of how cinema has progressed over the years - and while it starts out well ("A Trip to the Moon," Bunuel's "Un Chien Andalou" and "The Wizard of Oz" are in there), I wouldn't exactly have ended it with a number of special effects-driven blockbusters.

The film's biggest flaw is how it wears its influences on its sleeves - with "Boogie Nights" being a film that especially gets pilfered in the process. I could forgive the suicide of a character halfway through the film for similar reasons as in Paul Thomas Anderson's film, but a scene late in the picture featuring a bizarre Tobey Maguire as some L.A. underworld figure feels ridiculously similar to the Alfred Molina sequence in "Boogie Nights" - which is a shame because it's a well-shot and atmospheric sequence otherwise.

"Babylon" is far from perfect - but I'll take this insanely overstuffed film about Hollywood's early days over much of what Hollywood dumps on the masses these days. I admire Chazelle's ambition and his ability to hold all of these plot threads together and - for the most part - make them compelling. The film has its flaws, but it still has much to recommend.

Review: The Whale

Image courtesy of A24.

Darren Aronofsky's "The Whale" is a movie that's sure to draw mixed reactions and sure to be misunderstood. It's a movie meant to be compassionate, although some reviews have accused it of fat shaming its lead character - a 600-pound man who is slowly eating himself to death following the death of his lover. Some reviews have accused it of portraying grotesquerie - but to me that says more about the comfort level some people have in spending time with this particular character.

Based on Samuel D. Hunter's play, the film follows a reclusive online English teacher Charlie (Brendan Fraser), who keeps his screen blank when speaking with his class of students, blaming it on a broken camera, during the final days of his life. He is suffering from congestive heart failure, can barely move from his seat on the couch in his Idaho home, and is often visited by a friend named Liz (Hong Chau), whose connection to him we only learn late in the film.

Charlie was once married to a woman named Mary (Samantha Morton) - who makes a few appearances late in the film - and had a daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), who pops back up in his life. Despite her having valid reasons for being angry with her father - who left her mother years before for another man, who committed suicide after being rejected by his church by throwing himself off a bridge - Ellie shows a lack of kindness.

The film's setup is simple as it primarily observes Charlie as he attempts to rekindle a relationship with his daughter and help her with her writing assignments (she's about to flunk out of high school), all the while being visited by a young church missionary (Ty Simpkins) - the one character the film probably could have done without - who wants to save him and Liz, a nurse who seemingly believes it to be her duty to witness Charlie's deterioration.

Aronofsky's films are never quite what you'd call lightweight fare - "The Wrestler" and "Black Swan" are tense character studies, "Requiem for a Dream" is a grueling addiction tale, and "Mother!" has caused some serious debate among its proponents (I count myself among them) and detractors since its release five years ago - but "The Whale" is an especially wrenching picture. 

The material itself makes for a heavy lift, but Fraser's extremely committed performance - his wearing a fat suit has caused some consternation - makes it slightly less of one due to the amount of humanity and pathos he brings to the role. Fraser has been popping up in some solid indie films in recent years - notably, Steven Soderbergh's "No Sudden Move" and, soon, Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" - but his performance here is career-best work.

I feel obligated to point out that the film/play's title isn't a fat joke - but rather a reference to Herman Melville's "Moby Dick," which plays a significant role in the relationship between Charlie and his estranged daughter.

"The Whale" will not be an easy sit for all viewers. It's primarily set in one location - and mainly centered around Charlie's couch, where he sits and receives visitors - and the material is deeply sad, often unsettling and, in typical Aronofsky style, fairly gloomy. But this is not a film that views its central character in horror, but rather sees the humanity in a lost soul. The film's powerful central performance - and some solid supporting work, from Chau especially - make for a challenging and moving experience.

Review: Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths

Image courtesy of Netflix.

No one can fault director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu in the ambition department. The director's work has included everything from triptych films containing multiple stories and locations - "Babel," "Amores Perros" and "21 Grams" - to grueling epics ("The Revenant") and slightly surreal character studies ("Birdman"). The majority of these films have ranged from good to great.

His latest film - "Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths" - is clearly a personal work and an ambitious one as well. It is also, unfortunately, not a particularly successful one. The film is overflowing with impressive imagery and camerawork - a gorgeous shot of a person swimming just under the surface of the water in a pool toward the camera is one, a street strewn with people leading up to a hill comprised of the same is another - but it's often directionless. 

The film opens with a long shadow cast across the sands of desert terrain. The shadow begins to run, leaps, flies through the air and ends up back on earth. The sequence is repeated several times. If there's a better metaphor for the film, I can't think of one - it attempts a gigantic leap, soars for a few moments and then comes crashing back down.

This is not to say that "Bardo" is a bad film. Inarritu is a talented filmmaker, so his latest belongs more in the category of interesting follies that directors with vision occasionally create - movies bursting with imaginative visuals or creative energy that aren't channeled into a cohesive whole. 

The film chronicles the life of a journalist/documentary filmmaker named Silverio (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), who has returned to Mexico from Los Angeles - where he now lives - with his family for a brief stay. He is to return shortly thereafter to receive a prize for his work, which is surprising since everyone whom he encounters seems to have criticisms of his latest film, which we never exactly get a sense of what it's about.

The film is Fellini-esque in its carnival-like atmosphere. Silverio can't ever just walk down a street or into a TV network - where he is to take part in an interview - but rather his surroundings must constantly be bursting with activity, whether it's scantily-clad women taking part in some sort of dance routine, people walking next to Silverio and attempting to have conversations with him, or surrealist touches such as a man in a chicken costume idling about.

One of the film's unfortunate elements is that Silverio appears to be a stand-in for Inarritu himself, which makes one wonder why the character - or director - seems to be second guessing himself in terms of how his audience and adopted country - Inarritu is from Mexico, but lives in the United States - view him. This also falls in line with the Fellini references - in that director's "8 1/2," for example, Marcello Mastroianni's filmmaker character is having trouble coming up with his next film whereas Silverio appears to just be taking a lot of flack in general for his success. But the other issue here is that Silverio engages in a lot of what one could call navel gazing, a charge that could also be directed at this film.

For every stunning visual - an apartment with sand for a floor, a subway floor covered in water with fish swimming about - there are odd (a scene in which Silverio's head is placed on a youth's body as he speaks to his father in a bathroom) and silly (a discussion with explorer Hernan Cortes on top of a mountain of bodies) scenes that don't register as well.

There's also an ongoing theme involving an infant son that Silverio and his wife lost. In an opening scene, the doctor says that the boy doesn't to be born, so he is pushed back into the womb. Later, there's a visually arresting image in which Silverio and his family drop a pint-sized version of the infant into the ocean and it swims away. However, there's also another that maybe should have been left on the cutting room floor during which Silverio attempts to perform oral sex on his wife, only to find the baby's smiling face looking up at him as it pokes out of her vagina.

Inarritu is a two-time Best Director winner whose later work has greatly varied in terms of the types of stories he has told - "Birdman" was a behind-the-scenes look at the theater world, while "The Revenant" was a visually stunning survival tale - but the one constant has been that his films are visually gorgeous and feature virtuoso camerawork. "Birdman," for example, was shot in such a way that it appears to be one single shot.

"Bardo" doesn't stray too far from those aforementioned characteristics - we get everything from fish-eye lenses to long tracking shots through bustling locales - but what's missing is the storytelling that made those previous films strong. There are political diatribes, attacks on modern internet culture (although I can't argue with those), historical lessons, and much more - but these disparate elements rarely cohere successfully.

Inarritu's latest often features interesting things going on in each of its frames, but it has the vibe of someone stuffing all their thoughts and feelings into one movie without knowing exactly what the sum total is meant to convey. It's not a bad movie - just a very busy one that will likely impress with its technical prowess, while at the same time make viewers wonder why these particular scenes are all strung together in one long movie.

Review: Empire Of Light

Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

Sam Mendes makes a return to indie filmmaking with "Empire of Light," a British character study set in Margate, Kent that primarily takes place at a seaside movie theater in the early 1980s. Similar to other films of recent years, the picture could likely fit into the quasi-memoir category that other prominent directors have dabbled in recently, although this one could possibly be more about capturing the feel of an era, rather than anything that particularly happened to the person who directed it, although I've read that the film's lead character is based somewhat on the director's mother.

"Empire of Light" could also fit into that subgenre of films that celebrate "the magic of the movies" that we see a few times a year, although there's only a little of that late in the film when the theater's manager, Hilary (Olivia Colman in a very good performance), decides to finally give herself a private screening in the theater that she primarily only views as her place of work.

In the film, Hilary is the second in charge at the theater and is having what I suppose could be described as a fling with the caddish owner, Mr. Ellis (Colin Firth). We don't learn much about what is bothering Hilary until late in the film, but it's clear that something is from the fact that she is seeing a psychiatrist, who questions her about the effect of medication he has prescribed for her, and during an early scene in which she slides down into her bathtub in what appears to be a brief suicide fantasy.

But the hiring of a cheerful young Black man named Stephen (Michael Ward) seemingly perks her up after the two become friends and she is surprised at his nursing skills after they find a wounded pigeon in the theater's abandoned third floor and he shows her how to nurse it back to health. Stephen's mother is a nurse at a local hospital, and he has dreams of attending school to study architecture.

There's some upheaval in England at the time the film takes place. Margaret Thatcher is prime minister and that era's skinhead movement always appears to be lurking in the background. At one point, Hilary witnesses Stephen being pushed around by a group of young racists as he walks home from work. The racism he faces is coupled with the misogyny that Hilary encounters from Mr. Ellis - and there's also a hint of some sort of past trauma during the numerous scenes in which Hilary makes mention of men trying to control her.

For a movie that's often quite sad - and a little heavy - there are some lovely and gorgeously shot scenes here. A trip to the beach - before it takes a bleak turn - for Hilary and Stephen is among them as well as a beautiful sequence in which the two of them watch New Year's Eve fireworks from the Empire theater's rooftop. 

There's also a nice subplot about Stephen's burgeoning interest in learning how to run the projector at the theater and his tutelage by a projectionist played by Toby Jones - in a strong supporting performance - who likes having someone around who he can teach his trade. And the aforementioned scene late in the film in which Hilary breaks down and decides to watch a movie at the theater - with an assist from Jones' projectionist - is not only enchanting from a visual standpoint, but the choice of film is also likely to put a smile on some faces.

For the past few years, Colman has been among the best working actresses. She brings depth to every role she inhabits - and that's no exception here - and Ward impressively holds his own with her scene after scene. The supporting roles are all memorable as well and Roger Deakins' cinematography is, not surprisingly - considering his overall body of work - often beautiful to behold.

If "Empire of Light" occasionally bites off a little more than it can chew - there are a number of subplots, some of which are only briefly touched upon - it is more than compensated for by the film's gorgeous lighting and photography, the solid performances and the fact that the film's two leads and their stories balance each other - in other words, Stephen doesn't merely exist here to boost Hilary's spirits and has desires and challenges of his own. 

This is a much smaller film for Mendes - who often works with larger canvasses, such as his James Bond films or "1917" - but it's proof that he can still tell a smaller, simpler story that relies on performances and storytelling, rather than set pieces. As such, it's a welcome return.

Review: Avatar: The Way Of Water

Image courtesy of 20th Century Studios.

James Cameron's very long and expensive-looking "Avatar: The Way of Water" is a film that boasts some pretty impressive visual effects but has a screenplay that's a bit run of the mill. This is not terribly surprising as I felt the same way about the original "Avatar," a movie that I admired for its stunning imagery even if the storyline wasn't anything particularly new or original.

The same description applies here - and for the first half of the picture's whopping 192 minutes, "The Way of Water" begins to feel much like the same old, same old, but to lesser effect. Early scenes in the film struggle with leaden dialogue, the plot mechanics feel creaky and one scene leads to another in a manner that feels formulaic and, even occasionally, mystifying - there are one or two sequences that follow each other, and it feels as if another that should have been in between is missing.

The film's second half - an extended battle on the water that feels just as long as the rest of the picture - makes up some of the difference. There is, as always, too much going on - how many times can multiple characters get separated and once again find themselves the prisoner of the film's villains? - but the filmmaking coupled with the visual wonderments go a long way in nearly compensating for the film's somewhat sluggish first half. It also made me laugh how the big finale borrows from another Cameron movie - and unlikely to be the one you might think.

As the film opens, Sully (Sam Worthington) has become a full-time Na'vi and has raised a family with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) - oldest son Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), rebellious son Lo'ak (Britain Dalton) and young daughter Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), and they're also caring for Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), the daughter of Weaver's character from the original.

However, the sky people return with an avatar of the dead Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) leading the way, so the family flees to a series of islands inhabited by - for lack of a better phrase - the water Na'vi. They are eyed with suspicion and, often, ridicule at first, but eventually make their new home among these people, who are led by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis) and his wife (Kate Winslet), who worry about the danger that Sully and his family might bring, but refuse to turn them away.

Sully and Neyriti are given less to do in this film, other than worry for their offspring and fight when they are endangered. In some ways, "The Way of Water" is a coming of age film involving three characters - Lo'ak, who never gets his father's approval and befriends a renegade whale-like creature (don't ask); Kiri, who discovers some special powers; and Spider (Jake Champion), a human who lives among the Na'vi after his father, Quaritch - at least, the first version of him - was killed in the original film.

One could make the argument that Cameron is more interested in world building and visuals than story in the "Avatar" films, and that wouldn't be too far off the mark. Many of his previous films - his two "Terminator" pictures, "Titanic" and even the enjoyable "True Lies" - had more interesting hooks that made you care more about the characters than his primarily digital creations do. So, yes, "The Way of Water" often feels a little clunky or overly familiar in the storytelling and script departments.

Of course, the focus of Cameron's attentions - the visual effects and visual world-building - are quite impressive. There's not a single frame of this film that doesn't appear to have not been obsessed over and there are some lovely and stunning images - a scene in which Sully's children discover the beauties under the water in the ocean is breathtaking - in the picture. 

And "Avatar" gains some points in that - even though it's a sequel - it is the follow up to an original story that had nothing to do with a comic book or other existing piece of material. This is Cameron's project, from the first frame to the last. "The Way of Water" may be entirely too long, its dialogue occasionally forgettable and its plotting often by-the-numbers, but it's pretty incredible from a visual standpoint. It's a film that displays a hell of a lot more care than your average Hollywood blockbuster. Despite its faults, it's often an enjoyable watch.

Review: Holy Spider

Image courtesy of Utopia.

Iran has recently abolished its morality police following protests stemming from the death of a young woman in their custody whose headscarf they said wasn't adjusted properly. Although the nation has seen various protests against its regime in recent years, this current one is - unlike the others - being led by women.

The release of Ali Abbasi's unsettling "Holy Spider" - a true crime thriller that follows the story of the Spider Killer, who murdered 16 female sex workers in the holy city of Mashhad between 2000 and 2001 - couldn't be more timely.

The film - which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival - chronicles the story of two characters during that fraught period in Iran: Saeed Hanaei (Mehdi Bajestani), a father of two, laborer, and Iran-Iraq war veteran who sneaks out at night on his motorcycle, picks up prostitutes, strangles them to death, and leaves their bodies wrapped up in carpets; and Rahimi (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), an intrepid reporter investing the murders and being stymied by the police and pretty much everyone else, mostly because she's a woman.

While reports in the film note that Mashhad is shocked by the gruesome murders, Rahimi is not particularly. She sees all around her the misogyny that allows for the Spider Killer's murders to take place. Upon first checking into her hotel in Mashhad - where she has traveled to cover the murders - the man at the front desk attempts to not give her the room that has been promised because she is a woman traveling unaccompanied by a man. When she pulls out her press badge, he relents, but then takes the tactic that she must cover her hair so as not to draw the attention of the morality police. She tells him to mind his own business.

During her multiple interviews with the police, the investigating officer involved in the case doesn't take her seriously. At one point, he visits her in her hotel, and when she spurns his advances he becomes threatening and insults her for "smoking with any man," referencing a moment earlier in the film when she offered him a cigarette. When visiting the wife of Saeed - the murderer - later in the picture, Rahimi is told that the women targeted by her husband were asking for it for "wearing high heels and chewing gum." 

Most disturbing is the amount of support the Spider Killer receives from a not-small contingent of the public who support his "cleansing" of Mashhad's streets, and Rahimi is right not to trust the police, whom she believes are grateful to the serial killer for doing their job for them and also sympathetic, to an extent, to the man killing women whose lives they can't control. A final scene in which Rahimi interviews Saeed's family is disturbing on a whole other level.

Abbasi's third feature is a gripping serial killer thriller blended with bleak societal commentary. It's a far cry from his previous feature, the bizarre and kinky thriller "Border," although its grimy atmosphere and ongoing sense of unease it creates in the audience bears some similarities to the director's previous film. Due to the film's violence, subject matter, and - during one sequence - graphic sexual content, Abassi was not able to film in Iran, but instead made it in Jordan, although the recreation here feels authentic. 

Although there was apparently a female reporter investigating the murders, Rahimi is a fictional character - and the film's one scene that nearly tips toward the unbelievable makes this obvious. But her character - and Ebrahimi's powerful performance - are often the most compelling aspect of the picture.

And what makes "Holy Spider" so powerful is that Rahimi - and most of the women who appear in the picture - are not only tormented by the fact that a madman is stalking the streets of their city and murdering women, but also the daily indignities they suffer due to the misogyny that provides cover for and, in some instances, encouragement of a man like Saeed Hanaei. This is one of the year's best films.

Review: Something In The Dirt

Image courtesy of XYZ Films.

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's low-budget sci-fi film "Something in the Dirt" - which has the paranoia of an episode of "The X Files" but the visual style and budget of a Shane Carruth movie - is, in some ways, a perfect movie for the present moment. Boasting a cast of (mostly) two and only a few locations, the film primarily features two men who - after having stumbled upon some type of otherworldly element in one of their apartments in Los Angeles - go down the rabbit hole of paranoia and conspiracy theories.

The film's duo first meets as Levi (Benson), a bartender with a sketchy criminal past that only slowly reveals itself, is moving into his second-floor apartment and runs into John (Moorhead), a gay evangelical Christian who is recently divorced, outside the building. As the latter helps the former move his few belongings into the apartment, a strange thing happens: A quartz crystal object in Levi's apartment begins emitting light and levitating on its own.

The two men - who seemingly have little else to do - decide to make a documentary film about the strange goings-on in Levi's apartment. This is occasionally interspersed with interviews of people who apparently got involved in the making of the documentary, although we never see them outside of the interview format and, as a result, their presence isn't particularly necessary and doesn't add anything to the overall film.

As Levi and John attempt to figure out what exactly is causing the strange phenomena in the apartment - that is, when they're not debating the title of their documentary - their relationship begins to fracture. First, John finds out some details about Levi's troubled past, while John himself makes some proclamations about the church he attends that creep Levi out. 

"Something in the Dirt" finds most of its success when it focuses on the eerie occurrences in the apartment and emphasizes surreal imagery - a very low-flying plane, a coyote on a hilltop, some old movie clips, smoke in the L.A. hills - but occasionally loses its grip when Levi and John go off on their many tangents about what they think is happening - is it aliens? some sort of sacrificial rite involving a cult? another dimension? Etc., etc.

At one point, Levi says, "You go your whole life thinking certain things will always be a mystery" - citing, for example, the Bermuda Triangle or the identity of Jack the Ripper - and the film is most interesting when it delves into the obsession of its characters that they must solve this particular mystery. However, the endless theories become less intriguing and more confusing as they go along.

Moorhead and Benson have long been making low-budget sci-fi thrillers with heady hooks - "The Endless" is, in my opinion, their best to date. "Something in the Dirt" has some memorable scenes, an unsettling atmosphere and decent work from its directors/leading actors. It ends on a mysterious note and a haunting image that isn't quite explained, but to the film's benefit rather than its detriment. 

However, it's a little overlong considering that it's mostly two guys sitting around theorizing about - and occasionally being interrupted by - strange phenomena. It's probably unlike most other science fiction films you've seen, although its directing pair's earlier works are better examples of this subgenre of talkative sci-fi thrillers.