"Supergirl" and "Masters of the Universe"

These two movies represent a lot of missed opportunities.

"Supergirl," the second major film from the James Gunn-led reboot of the DC cinematic universe, magnifies a lot of the concerns I've had about his approach to superhero material, not the least of which is that he doesn't seem to have  a good grasp on who he's making the movies for.  "Supergirl" was always going to be a difficult sell because it has a female lead who isn't as popular as the other DC heroes - though CW did manage to keep a "Supergirl" series on the air for six seasons pretty recently.  Director Craig Gillespie and writer Ana Noguiera's approach is to give us a tough, troubled, rough-edged Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl (Milly Alcock), making her way through an unfriendly universe.

Based heavily on the Tom King comics miniseries "Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow," we find Kara taking a break from life on Earth with her dog Krypto, on a planet with a red sun.  This means no superpowers and she has the metabolism to be able to get drunk.  Kara is then drawn into the revenge quest of a little girl named Ruthye (Eve Ridley), who is hunting the brigand Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), who killed her family.  Krem steals Kara's ship and shoots Krypto with a slow-acting poison that only he has the antidote for.  So, of course, Kara is obliged to go John Wick him into coughing it up.  Along the way she and Ruthye travel to several different planets, meet a bounty hunter named Lobo (Jason Momoa), and we learn all about Kara's tragic past as a survivor of the planet Krypton.  

It's no secret that "Supergirl" has way too much in common with James Gunn's "Guardian of the Galaxy" movies, with violence, language, and content that is more suited to adult audiences than family ones.  Milly Alcock is charismatic and talented, but this take on Supergirl as a roguish Han Solo-type, who prefers to find solace at the bottom of a bottle, feels wrong-headed.  I think the intention was to keep her appealing to the young male demographic, by making her messy and relatable.  However, in the process the filmmakers have ditched almost everything that would make her attractive to young girls, which should be Supergirl's primary demographic, right?  Also, nothing else about the film works.  The visuals look tired and derivative of all the MCU space operas.  The soundtrack contains some downright confounding needle drops.  Krem is boring, Lobo is really more of a cameo, and the dog is cute - but not that cute.  The story has potential, and the flashback sequences are a highlight, but everything about the execution is so underwhelming and derivative.  I really wanted better for Supergirl, and this isn't the total disaster I feared it would be from early reactions, but I have no idea who would enjoy this movie.

Meanwhile, over at Amazon/MGM, the new "Masters of the Universe" movie helmed by Travis Knight gives He-Man and friends another shot at big screen glory.  At least this one looks pretty good, full of bright colors and silly costumes.  I like that the filmmakers have embraced the ridiculous nature of the property, putting all the action figure heroes onscreen with a surprisingly amount of fidelity.  Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) of the fantasy kingdom Eternia, is sent as a child to Earth, after his kingdom is conquered by the forces of the evil Skeletor (Jared Leto).  He's obsessed with finding the Sword of Power that could allow him to unlock great cosmic powers and save his homeland.  In the meantime, he works in human resources and has a chill roommate named Hussein (Christian Vunipola).

So far, so good, but when Adam's childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes) shows up to bring him home, and we start meeting all the other good guys like the general, Man at Arms (Idris Elba), and warriors Fisto (Johannes Hauhur Johannesson), Ram-Man (Jon Xue Zhang), and Trap Jaw (Sam C. Wilson), things start getting dicey.  The script by Chris Butler, David Callaham, and the Nee brothers, constantly feels like it's at war with itself.  While it commits to full bodied adventuring and derring-do, it's also full of little asides and meta moments that poke fun at how cheesy and over-the-top the "Masters of the Universe" franchise is.  There are a ton of little Easter Eggs for fans and when He-Man yells "I have the power!" it's all suitably epic and cool.  And sometimes the writing gets way too self-aware and self-conscious, to the point where it stops being fun, and starts feeling awkward.  Nicholas Galitzine is very well cast as Adam/He-Man, with just the right amount of earnest enthusiasm and lack of self-awareness to feel like a twelve year-old in an adult body.  Unfortunately, he always feels more like the kid playing with the action figures than the action figure hero the movie is supposed to be about.  Say what you want about the Dolph Lundgren version, but that movie never had this problem.

I want to caution here that I'm not the target audience for "Masters of the Universe."  I never had any nostalgia for this franchise, and I don't tend to enjoy media on a similar wavelength, like the "Transformers" or "Mortal Kombat" movies.  However, I am a fan of several of the actors involved, like Alison Brie and Morena Baccarin, who play rival sorceresses on either side of the conflict.  They don't get to do much except look cool in their fancy costumes, which is a shame.  And while there's a lot here for younger viewers to enjoy, I don't feel that the movie makes the best case for He-Man as a hero.  "Masters of the Universe" is so frantic with jokes and references and spectacle and meta to keep the adults engaged, it too often loses sight of the point - good guy fights bad guy, overcomes evil, and saves the day.  

You know, for kids.

---

My Top 25 of the Last 25: Documentaries

If there is any category of media that has exploded in the last quarter century, it's the humble documentary feature.  I had so many titles for consideration, I quickly filled all twenty-five slots and had to make some truly painful cuts to the list.  If you see a particularly egregious omission, please be aware that I had to be ruthless, and these are personal favorites rather than the movies I'd hand out awards to.  As with all lists in this series, there are unranked 25 entries, ordered by release date, but only the top ten get writeups.

Grizzly Man (2005) - A Werner Herzog film has to be on this list, and I landed on this one to represent all of his documentary work.  Herzog's soft-spoken narration, his willingness to put himself on camera to become part of the narrative, and the nihilist bent gof his commentary are all very familiar now, but "Grizzly Man" was where much of the general public really got to know Herzog.  Twenty years later, the cautionary messages are still all too timely and relevant.   

King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007) - I love movies that give me a look into little subcultures that I know nothing about.  And competitive video game playing is definitely a universe unto itself, with some very memorable characters.  Finding out what happened to Billy Mitchell and Twin Galaxies since this documentary was released only makes the events in the film more fascinating.  "King of Kong" remains a snapshot of an era of gaming that will never be the same.  

Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) - I wrote this up for my Best Documentary Academy Award winners list not too long ago, but I couldn't leave this off.  There are so many celebrated examinations of the terrible wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from the POV of the decisionmakers and the perpetrators.  "Taxi to the Dark Side" remains one of the few, unblinking narratives that tells us this story from the point of view of one of the victims, humanizing him every step of the way.  

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) - It's the Banksy documentary.  In addition to playing with different levels of meta, so we're left wondering how much of what we're seeing is real, staged, or somewhere in between, the movie offers a scathing critique of the artistic establishment.  The movie documents all the different ways that art and artists can be commodified and compromised, and how dreams of success can quickly lead to some very dark and disastrous places.  

Stories We Tell (2013) - This is Sarah Polley's deeply personal, intimate interrogation of her own closest relationships as she searches for answers about her identity.  Polley slowly unravels family secrets and sets the record straight as she revisits her own tangled history, but never in a way that feels indulgent or self-obsessed.  The film popularized a documentary as memoir format that several others have attempted since, but never with such poignancy and insight.  

Leviathan (2013) - Put a camera in a place where you wouldn't think to put one, and suddenly whole new worlds open up.  The cameras here are on the surface of the ocean, on the deck of a fishing boat, looking up into skies full of birds, or down into the abyss.  There's no narrative offered here, and no commentary.  Instead, there is a total immersion into the sights and sounds of a fishing boat and the oceans that it traverses, teeming with life and sensory wonders.

The Act of Killing (2013) - An anti-communist purge was carried out in the 1960s under the regime of Indonesia's president, Suharto.  The death squads were on the side of those who stayed in power, and so were never held accountable.  Director Joshua Oppenheimer gives us a chilling look at what history written by the winners looks like, inviting his subjects to dramatize their memories of the killings, with all the powers of cinema fantasy that he can make available to them.  

One Child Nation (2019) - It's one thing to hear about China's One Child policy, and another thing entirely to see how it worked in practice, to hear the bitter stories of how it was enforced, and to see those who are still haunted by the effects to this day.  Director Nanfu Wang's interviews start with her own extended family, but also include health workers, administrators, and others who were directly involved in one of the most notorious social experiments in human history.

The Painter and the Thief (2020) - A modest Norwegian documentary about two strangers who become friends under extremely unusual circumstances.  On the one hand you have the talented painter Barbora Kysilkova, and on the other hand you have Karl-Bertil Nordland, one of the men convicted of stealing two of Kysilkova's paintings from an Oslo gallery.  The film's achronological storytelling doesn't do much for me, but the central relationship is absolutely engrossing to see unfold.

The Alabama Solution (2025) - Finally, there have been a lot of exposes about the dysfunctional state of the criminal justice system, but when the prisoners themselves are the cinematographers, providing the footage of the appalling conditions that they're forced to endure, the effect is profound.  The documentary provides plenty of history and context for why this nightmare situation exists, but it's the prisoners themselves who offer the most compelling evidence.

The next fifteen:

Bowling For Columbine (2002)

The Fog of War (2003)

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

Searching for Sugar Man (2011)

Project Nim (2011)

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011)

The Unknown Known (2013)

At Berkeley (2013)

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013)

The Salt of the Earth (2014)

O.J.: Made in America (2016)

I Am Not Your Negro (2016)

Faces Places (2017)

Shirkers (2018)

Navalny (2022)

---

The 2026 Video Essay Recs

It's time again to share recommendations for some of my favorite video essays from the last year or so.  To be specific, these are all videos that I watched for the first time within the last calendar year.  Some may be slightly older than that, but everything should still be very relevant.  

There were some big trends and major topics in the video essay community that got a lot of attention, like why Netflix is having trouble with second seasons of promising shows, but I'm trying to share more idiosyncratic picks.  One is also a podcast discussion with some visual aids, but fascinating enough that I made an exception.  Another is a rant about video essays.  More on that below. 

Eyebrow Cinema: Why Can't Netflix Discover New Directors - This is secretly a video essay about Roger Corman, and how his approach to filmmaking with almost no money contrasts with the approach of Netflix, which seems to have all the money in the world.  There's been a lot written about Netflix as a platform for television series this year, and we shouldn't forget that they're also an important platform for films.

Climate Town: How Oil Propaganda Sneaks Into TV Shows - Why is Billy Bob Thornton spouting misinformation about wind turbines in the Taylor Sheridan show, "Landman"?

Folding Ideas: This is How You Get Jarhead Sequels - A deep dive into a franchise I didn't know existed.  The Sam Mendes film "Jarhead" is deeply critical of the US army, and was made without the support of the Department of Defense.  Somehow, it spawned three direct-to-video sequels that gradually abandoned the cynical themes of the original film in favor of more typical rah-rah pro-armed forces jingoism.  Dan Olson investigates how this happened.   

Sarah Z: The Illegal Fanfiction Death Games of 2011 - A frequently hysterical look into a once popular subgenre of "Hunger Games" self-insert/roleplaying fanfiction, with Sarah Z gleefully channeling her inner thirteen year-old, who just wants her May Sue avatar to have a really cool death, and is willing to sockpuppet her way to fanfiction glory.  I adore weird little fandom subcultures like this, which feel oddly wholesome in retrospect, in spite of all the fictional kid murdering involved. 

Patrick H. Willems: The Music Video is Dead, Long Live the Music Video - The music video to feature film pipeline was a big thing in the 90s, but not so much now.  Patrick Willems gives us a historical overview of how this worked and why it's no longer a thing, while spotlighting a lot of talented directors along the way like Spike Jonze, David Fincher, Mark Romanek, and the DANIELS.  I came away with a massive list of videos and films to watch, and a greater appreciation for the music video form.  A very close runner up was Willems' Munich video.

Panic World: We Looked Into the Psychology Behind Mobile Game Ads - So, this is the podcast with visual aids, where the guys at Panic World, a podcast devoted to internet trends, have a nice, informative chat with Chelsey Weber-Smith about the psychological tactics behind those terrible ads that are the bane of every mobile gamer without an adblocker.  It's also the oldest video on this list by far.  However, this is the best breakdown of why something that we see every day is the way it is, and ties in so well to several other trends related to internet marketing and social engineering, I had to include it.   

Movie Bob: Video Essays Are Starting to Suck - Movie Bob doesn't really make video essays in the traditional sense, but I've always found his commentary very cogent and well-informed.  One of his recent videos is about the state of video essays, so it's very on topic here, even if the only clips he's using are a few "Simpsons" snippets for emphasis.  I also like his Reckless Positivity video, which posits that Youtube is getting more hostile towards traditional media and their marketing, because it's trying to undermine what it sees as competition.

Lindsay Ellis: Did Disney Really Steal Aladdin? - Lindsay digs into the pop culture myth about Disney stealing the ideas for their "Aladdin" feature from beloved British animator Richard Williams.  Along the way she touches on the development of "Aladdin," Williams' film "The Thief and the Cobbler," and the work of lyricist Howard Ashman.  We also get some updates on how Lindsay is doing and her relationship with Disney content, which I relate to very much.      

Adam Conover: Hollywood Killed the Sitcom and They Did It On Purpose - Adam Conover does a lot of investigative videos on various topics, and it was gratifying to see him tackle the death of the sitcom, using a lot of data to back up his analysis.  He doesn't talk much about individual titles, but is looking at trends in what kinds of projects are getting made and what the larger market forces are that are impacting Hollywood productions.  While I don't think this paints a complete picture of what's going on - there are still many sitcoms getting made - it offers some important insights.

Zero Woolfe: The Architectural History  of Iron Man's House - Finally, for those of you who love art and design, here's a very comprehensive history of the style of modernist architecture that inspired Tony Stark's house from the "Iron Man" movies.

---

Christopher Nolan and "The Odyssey"

Just as Guillermo Del Toro's "Frankenstein" was a father-son story with redemption and monsters on its mind, Christopher Nolan's version of "The Odyssey" reflects its director's preoccupations with themes he's been exploring for a while - namely the price of glory and the misuse of intellect and power.  I think fans of Nolan will expect the nested narratives and achronological storytelling, which follows an amnesiac Odysseus (Matt Damon), and  his son Telemachus (Tom Holland) separately learning the truth about what happened after Odysseus's great victory at Troy, and the events of his long journey home.  What's a surprise is that this version of "The Odyssey" is such a brooding, psychological take on the story, with more in common with "Oppenheimer" than "The Dark Knight."

First and foremost, however, "The Odyssey" is an epic, one that makes great use of its large budget and stacked cast.  Collaborating with cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and composer Ludwig Goransson, Christopher Nolan does a fantastic job of creating memorable action set pieces, bleakly beautiful visuals, and theater-shaking soundscapes, aiming for the kind of epic scale filmmaking that hearkens back to the era of David Lean and Akira Kurosawa.  Behold an imposing King Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) in all black armor, who calls an unwilling Odysseus away from his loving wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) to go to war.  Here's the massive Trojan Horse jutting out from an empty beach, sinister and portentous.  Here's the hut of the witch Circe (Samantha Morton), the cave of the Cyclops (Bill Irwin), and the deceptively peaceful shore of the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron).  And here are the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, the Laestrygonians, the Land of the Dead, and the palace of Ithaca.  And here's our hero Odysseus on his ship, with his right hand man Eurylochos (Himesh Patel), and a crew willing to follow them to the ends of the earth.  

All the most famous, fantastical monsters and miracles from the story are here in one form or another, but it's clear that Christopher Nolan is more interested in Odysseus's inner turmoil.  While he's done an impressive job of constructing an IMAX-worthy world of magic islands and ancient kingdoms, abstaining from CGI as much as possible, what's even more impressive is how he resurrects a civilization built on the harsh laws of fickle gods, codes of honor, fatal curses, and bloody sacrifice.  It's a universe in turmoil, disrupted by the Trojan War, and a major theme is Odysseus reckoning with his own transgressions and their devastating unintended consequences.  There's an abiding melancholy that hangs over the whole film, the roots of which are revealed piece by piece, as Odysseus makes his way home.  And in the process Norton completely justifies many of his storytelling choices - the nested narratives, the stark aesthetics, and even some of the casting choices - in a way that caught me by surprise.

I want to make it clear that "The Odyssey" is a very entertaining film.  The Greek myths are the progenitors of modern superheroes and arguably the whole adventure genre after all.  Matt Damon acquits himself well as Odysseus, and there's a fantastic, slimy villain in Penelope's suitor Antinous (Robert Pattinson) who is so much fun to root against.  Each new island offers some new monster or obstacle, so the momentum rarely flags, and there's a big action showdown at the end.  However, it was such a pleasure to discover Nolan had found a way to include some very sincere examinations of war, loss, guilt, and heroism in the middle of all of this. The emotional core of the movie is so unexpectedly human and bittersweet, and makes his version of "The Odyssey" very distinct from any other adaptation I've seen.  I love how he keeps making the scope bigger, putting in little references and allusions to so many other stories and histories, from Helen of Troy (Lupita Nyongo) to the Sea Peoples at the end of the Bronze Age.  

As someone very familiar with The Odyssey by Homer, I can't help feeling a little disappointed about some of the adaptation changes and omissions.  The sirens are only seen from a distance, and we don't spend nearly enough time with Circe.  The gods are frequently discussed, but only a solemn Athena (Zendaya) appears to Odysseus.  On the other hand, I like that much more of the narrative is given over to Penelope and Telemachus trying to keep the suitors at Ithaca in check.  My favorite performance in the film may be John Leguizamo as their faithful servant Eumaeus, who has the most expanded role of all the major characters.  It's impressive how much of the story Nolan kept, all things considered .

A film of this size and ambition and vision could have only come from one director, and I'm glad that Christopher Nolan got to make his "Odyssey," and make it so unambiguously his own movie.

---

The Streaming Wars Hangover Era

It's a weird time in television.  There's plenty of good TV, with fun new titles like "Widow's Bay" and "Furious" in the mix.  However, we're several years past the peak prestige television years, when the streaming wars were really in full sway.  Instead of the calendar being full of splashy new event titles like new Marvel and "Star Wars" franchise spinoff shows, or ambitious star vehicles like "Big Little Lies," we're seeing episode orders shrink across the board, lots of belt-tightening, and long-in-the-works projects being cancelled left and right.  Linear television is still on the decline, but the enthusiasm for streaming has hit some bumps.

 Disney+ has cut way back on Marvel and "Star Wars" television projects, to the point where the majority of what's still running are animated shows.  A third season of "Daredevil: Born Again" and a second season of "Ahsoka" are the only live action offerings we appear to be getting in 2027.  Part of the reason is that theatrical revenues have recovered since COVID, so what might have been a fourth season of "The Mandalorian" became the theatrical feature "The Mandalorian and Grogu," and episodes of an intended "Moana" television series were hastily reworked into "Moana 2."  This leaves the Disney+ slate feeling awfully empty.  Meanwhile, over at DC, the Wonder Woman and Amanda Waller TV projects are no longer in development. 

There are signs everywhere that streaming event television is hitting the skids.  There was a lot of chatter earlier in the year about how Netflix couldn't seem to keep audiences around to watch the second seasons of their shows like "One Piece" and "The Four Seasons."    I don't think that Netflix's shows have been particularly lacking compared to their competitors, but the streamer just hasn't done a good job of marketing and supporting many of the shows that they have, and the long waits between seasons have made it impossible to keep some fandoms going.  "Stranger Things," their biggest hit, went out with a bang at the end of last year, but nobody actually seems to have liked it all that much.  However, Netflix does have plenty of more modest hits in their catalogue, and I think they'll be fine in the long run.  Hopefully no more of "The Witcher" though.  That ship has sailed, hit the rocks, and sunk forever.

What prompted me to write this post was watching several lackluster seasons of Apple TV+ shows that I couldn't bring myself to write reviews for: "Silo," "For All Mankind,"  and "Sugar."  All three were a bore this year.  I love that Apple is funding all of this science-fiction programming, but their shows have been severely hit or miss.  "For All Mankind" had a fantastic first year, and has been in a steady decline ever since.  A sixth and final season will premiere in 2027, but there's more excitement for the "Star City" spinoff.  I really like "Silo," but it's been going around in circles without much story or character progression for the last two seasons.  Meanwhile, "Sugar" really should have stayed a miniseries like Colin Farrell's last big TV outing, "The Penguin."  The second season had an incredible cast, but felt aimless.  These were all shiny prestige series that really distinguished themselves at first, but weren't very good at being television shows over the long run.  I also skipped the new "Ted Lasso" season, by the way.  That show felt like it was over after the third season, and the fourth looks too much like a spinoff of itself.

Then there's "House of the Dragon" over on HBO Max, which feels like it's the poster child for this whole, messy, current streaming era.  It's an epic scale franchise show that is chasing the popularity of a progenitor that everyone loved, but was so mismanaged that it completely lost its cultural cachet and audience goodwill years ago.  It's been beset by production troubles - reduced episode counts, big gaps between seasons, and trying to stretch out the source material beyond what it can sustain.  I liked much of the third season, but feel no small amount of relief that the show will be ending with the fourth.  The smaller scale "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" will hopefully fare better trying to do less.   

While we're on the subject of HBO Max, there are still a lot of big event shows on the horizon, not the least of which is the new "Harry Potter" reboot that everyone is already fighting about.  However, there are noticeably less of them now than there were three years ago, and expectations are much more measured.  Sure, I want to see "Neuromancer."  Let's just hope that this one stays a miniseries.

---

"Lanterns" Sheds Some Light

James Gunn's DC projects have a very mixed record, but I'm not surprised that the most successful so far has been the "Lanterns" series.  The talents assembled for the show are considerable, including Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and comic book scribe Tom King, who are credited as the show's creators.  Based on the DC comics about multiple superheroes who have fought evil as the Green Lantern, "Lanterns" gives us a grounded detective series that takes place in the DC universe.  It rarely leaves the small Midwestern town of Rushville, Nebraska, and doesn't show off many flashy special effects.  Super-powered showdowns are backgrounded in favor of nuanced character portraits and complex interpersonal drama.  Anecdotally, fans of the original "Green Lantern" comics don't seem to like the show as much as adult viewers with less knowledge of the characters and their comic book histories.  

"True Detective" is the clear template for the plot, which follows an ongoing mystery unraveling in two different time periods.  In 2016, the current Green Lantern, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), and his intended replacement/trainee John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) come to Rushville suspecting alien activity in the area.  They're met by the doubtful Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly MacDonald), part of a complicated family that runs the town.  She warns them not to pry too much into local affairs as they're carrying out their investigation.  In 2026, John returns to Rushville and finds himself in the middle of a mystery again.  This is connected to the fallout of events from 2016.  Lots of flashbacks are involved, but the structure of the show is interesting in that the 2016 and 2026 mysteries largely play out separately, and in very different circumstances, rather than being intercut together.  The cast also includes Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Ulrich Thomsen, Jason Ritter, Laura Linney, Nathan Fillion, and Jasmine Cephas-Jones. 

At the center of "Lanterns" is the difficult relationship between the two leads, who are never on equal footing.  Beloved hero Hal Jordan is getting old, but clings to the power granted to him by "the Guardians," who designate each member of the specially chosen intergalactic Green Lantern Corp by bestowing them with a matter-controlling power ring.  Hal is supposed to be training John with the ring to be the next Green Lantern of Earth, but mostly just treats him as an unwanted, bothersome sidekick.  As for John, he's been preparing himself for the superhero job for his whole life, as a part of a deeply troubling family legacy, and has a lot of personal baggage to work out.  His frustrations with Hal grow steadily, episode by episode.  The show examines the racial and generational distinctions in play here, and offers a lot of interesting commentary on the nature of heroes, power, and self-determination.

The show has admirable ambitions, but "Lanterns" was met with an unusually contentious reception because of some wildly mismatched expectations.  To be blunt, "Lanterns" is an HBO prestige drama targeting adults, but its original source material is a comic book aimed at children.  Some existing fans didn't take too well to these larger-than-life characters being brought down to size and treated like fallible, flawed human beings.  Also, those who were expecting a more traditional superhero narrative, replete with cosmic green light shows and alien fisticuffs, instead got a very dialogue-heavy drama about morality and the responsible use of power instead.  The last episode doesn't even have a big fight scene in it.  Despite having clear connections to the 2025 "Superman" movie, "Lanterns" is tonally very different, with much smaller, more personal stakes and a far more complicated moral framework.        

The bigger question is whether or not this works as a television series, and my first instinct is to say yes.  The characters and their quandaries are interesting enough to follow whether or not you have any knowledge of the Green Lantern and the wider DCU.  You don't have to like superheroes at all, because superheroics are so peripheral to the concerns of the story.  "Lanterns" is better described as neo-noir and detective fiction.  However, as with much detective fiction, the plotting is sometimes rushed and messy, with some notable logic gaps.  The emotional payoffs and character arcs, however, are all very solid, which I consider much more important.  

---

"The Invite" is a Delight

"The Invite" is one of the vanishing breed of relationship comedies for adults, a mature dramedy about four people in an apartment spending an eventful evening together.  As you might expect, it's based on a play - the Spanish "The People Upstairs" - which has now been filmed half a dozen times in nearly as many languages.  The American version is written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones.  Olivia Wilde directs and also stars in one of the major roles, doing a fine job at both.

Angela (Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogen) play an unhappily married couple in San Francisco.    Joe comes home one day from work to discover that Angela has invited over the couple who live upstairs, Piña (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton).  Joe wants to cancel, but Angela is very invested in the get-together, sparking a fight.  This is interrupted when Piña and Hawk arrive, but tensions are high throughout the evening as the four characters make introductions, get to know one another, and it turns out that there's another invitation on the table.

If you've seen any of the trailers or advertising for the film, you know that "The Invite" broaches the topic of partner swapping and discusses other titillating sexual acts, though nothing explicit is ever shown onscreen.  Piña and Hawk turn out to be very sexually open and adventurous, and offer some new possibilities to Joe and Angela that might help get them out of the rut that their lives have fallen into.   However, this in turn throws some of the issues with their marriage into sharper relief.  "The Invite" is built on performances, where the conversations are the set pieces, and the reaction shots are as funny as any of the dialogue.  Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen are both unusually committed here, very well matched as scene partners, and I would have happily watched them argue and verbally spar with each other for an additional hour or two.  

As much as I enjoyed "The Invite," it took me a while to warm up to it.  Part of it is due to the subject matter and part of it is due to the kind of film this is.  "The Invite" is very good at being a very talky, small-scale feature that I would have expected to be made by an independent director with a cast full of theater stalwarts.  I went into the movie mistakenly expecting something bigger and broader, and spent a considerable amount of time waiting for fireworks that weren't there.  "The Invite" is actually quite grounded and intimate, with some sentimental edges.  Also, as much as I liked Wilde and Rogen, I found Cruz and Norton pretty uninteresting - more like caricatures of what sexually adventurous people are supposed to be rather than the real thing.  Their performances are engaging and convincing when they need to be, but the characters are very slight.  There's a theory floating around that Piña and Hawk are not real at all and Joe and Angela just got drunk and imagined them, which I could see.

Though the comedic energy is high and the ending is hopeful, this can't negate the fact that "The Invite" is about the end of a relationship.  There's a bittersweet undercurrent running through the whole movie that really hit me when I realized it was there.  Part of the reason why the laughs are so big and hit so hard is that there's a lot of pain and frustration behind them.  I've never seen Seth Rogen in a role this serious before - and the more serious he is, the funnier he is.  As for Olivia Wilde, frankly, she has never had a screen role this good.  It's unfortunate that she apparently had to direct the movie herself to land it.  I don't think of these two as dramatic actors, and it was a nice surprise to discover that they are, in fact, capable of sincere drama when they feel so inclined.

And I don't think it would hurt if they were so inclined more often.  I'd really like to see more films like "The Invite," and Rogen and Wilde stretching their acting muscles more regularly too.

  

---