A Matter of Life and "Chuck"

"The Life of Chuck" is one of those rare films that is trying very earnestly to say something profound about human existence.  It's a Mike Flanagan adaptation of a Stephen King novella of the same name, which has some supernatural elements but isn't particularly scary.  I read the novella in anticipation of the film, and it left me puzzled.  However, I think knowing how the story was going to play out helped with my processing of the film version, which is an extremely faithful adaptation.  I'll try to steer clear of too many spoilers, as a big part of the experience of watching the film is working out who Chuck is and how the three acts of the film relate to each other, so I'd recommend going in with as little information as possible.  I will say that I thought the film was pretty successful at what it was trying to do.  I understand why some viewers came away feeling misled or manipulated, but it worked for me. 

I think it might also be helpful to think of "The Life of Chuck" as an anthology film of three separate stories that happen to share a character in common.  The first is a story about a group of ordinary people including school teacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and nurse Felicia (Karen Gillan) facing an impending apocalypse.  The second story is about a busker (Taylor Gordon) and a pair of dancers (Tom Hiddleston, Annalise Basso), who share a moment of spontaneous joy together.  The last story is about a boy (Benjamin Pajak), who moves in with his grandparents (Mark Hamill and Mia Sara) after the deaths of his parents.  The three stories happen in reverse order chronologically, with the apocalypse up first, labeled "Act Three."  All are narrated by Nick Offerman, and all are told in a sort of hyperreal, heightened style reminiscent of other Stephen King films like "The Green Mile."

It's very easy to fall into the trap of trying to analyze everything in the film for hidden symbolism, or to take things too literally and focus on the mechanisms for how the universe in "Chuck" works.  That sort of thing is fun, but completely beside the point.  This is first and foremost a film about feelings and yearnings, and the ineffable, unexplainable parts of being human.   There's not much traditional horror in the film, but a lot of it is concerned with fear and mortality and how to live with these parts of existence.  The second story is the shortest of the three, but also arguably the most important, because it gives us a beautiful example of human beings living in the moment and seizing the opportunity for joy where they can.    

Mike Flanagan breaks a lot of rules with "The Life of Chuck."  He's got a narrator going for a lot of the time, often reading directly from the Stephen King source material.  The film's tone changes completely from story to story, and so much of the film's effectiveness is dependent on that tone.  There are monologues everywhere, because it's Mike Flanagan, and every theme and idea and message is underlined multiple times in the cinematic equivalent of red ink.  Fortunately the cast is wonderful, with many of the players from Flanagan's regular troupe filling out the smaller roles.  I want to highlight the work of Mark Hamill in particular, playing the loving, complicated grandfather, who can still be intimidating when necessary.  

              

"The Life of Chuck" is a box office bomb, and it's a miracle that it exists at all.  It's a weird outlier of a film that feels like it should have been made twenty years ago, and plenty of viewers didn't like it, didn't get it, or found it too flawed and underbaked and sentimental and cheese-infused to fulfill its huge ambitions.  However, it also shows every sign of being one of those movies that's going to hit some people exactly the right way, that they'll watch at exactly the right time in their lives, and remember forever.  I don't know if "The Life of Chuck" is going to be an all-timer, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, and I know I need to watch it again soon.         

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My Favorite Quentin Tarantino Movie

I've been in something of a standoff with Quentin Tarantino for years now.  One of my rules for this director series is that you don't get written about  unless I've seen ten of your films, or half of your output if you're dead.  If you count "Kill Bill" as a single film, Tarantino has directed nine features.  Since he only intends to direct ten features in total, he's in no hurry to make that tenth film.  It's been six years since "Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood," and there is absolutely nothing new from him on the horizon.  Since I've been enjoying Tarantino's work less and less with each new movie, I think there's little chance of me taking much of a shine to that theoretical tenth film.  So, instead of waiting around, I'm counting "Kill Bill" as two films, and now I finally get to write about "Jackie Brown."

Tarantino has a reputation for reviving the careers of older actors who have hit a slump.  Pam Grier, a former '70s blaxploitation star, is one of the major examples.  "Jackie Brown," adapted from an Elmore Leonard novel, is clearly a star vehicle designed for her, and full of little tributes and references to Grier's past work and the era she came up in.  Tarantino changed the main character's name and ethnicity specifically so that Grier could play her.  And Grier does not hesitate to remind us that she is a movie star.  From the opening title sequence, which combines "The Graduate" with "Across 110th Street," she dominates the frame.  Yes, the lead of the movie is a black woman in her forties, and the movie isn't shy about that for a second.

Much has been made of Tarantino's more prurient obsessions, but I love how Jackie Brown is portrayed in this movie.  She's treated as an object of desire, but never fetishized or overtly sexualized.  Jackie is not the over-the-top action heroine of "Coffy" or "Foxy Brown," but an aging flight attendant caught in a bad situation, who faces either doing time or starting her life over again at 44.  A possible third option means taking a risk to get herself in the clear, and putting some long-dormant criminal talents to good use.  Pam Grier's onscreen presence is instantly commanding, yet vulnerable enough for us to believe that men like Max Cherry and Ray Nicolette would fall in love with her.  We see Jackie wielding a gun, briefly, but she's smart enough that she never has to use it.  And when she has her third act glow-up, her outfit is a badass black suit, the kind favored by Tarantino characters in "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction."  

"Jackie Brown" also boasts one of the greatest supporting casts ever assembled for a motion picture.  You've got Samuel L. Jackson in a "Superfly" wig being the most charming evil bastard you ever met.  You've got gum-chewing ATF agent Michael Keaton who sympathizes with Jackie in spite of himself.  You've got DeNiro and Bridget Fonda hanging out and watching "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry," before embarking on one of the worst criminal partnerships of all time.  And then you've got Robert Forster.  So much of "Jackie Brown" lives in his wistful reaction shots and long silences.  And I so appreciate that Tarantino lets his characters have long silences and private moments to themselves, where they're allowed to just exist with their thoughts.  

No discussion of "Jackie Brown" can be had without mentioning the soundtrack, built on favorites from Tarantino's record collection.  The meticulous curation, with many scenes written with specific songs in mind, lends so much to the way the film feels from moment to moment.  Jackie and Max's relationship sparking to The Delphonics records, the tracks playing in Ordell's car with the levels just the way he likes them, and Jackie finally singing along to Bobby Womack in the closing scene, all reflect a deep love and appreciation for the music that is part of the film's DNA.

While "Jackie Brown" didn't do well upon its initial release, being such a departure from Quentin Tarantino's earlier films, it's quietly grown in stature over the years to become widely recognized as his most mature and well-written feature.  It's definitely the one I've appreciated more with age, as I've come to relate more to Jackie and Max's view of the world.  And it's why I've been a little disappointed with every Tarantino film since.  His movies have gotten bigger and bigger, but at the same time they've also gotten further and further away from matters of the heart.

What I've Seen - Quentin Tarantino

Reservoir Dogs (1992) 

Pulp Fiction (1994) 

Jackie Brown (1997) 

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) 

Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) 

Death Proof (2007) 

Inglourious Basterds (2009) 

Django Unchained (2012) 

The Hateful Eight (2015) 

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019)

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"Materialists" Aims High

The chemistry of a screen love triangle is always a tricky affair.  And the more self-aware a romance is, the trickier it can be.  "Materialists" is a very self-conscious modern day love story that deals in a lot of very old romance tropes.  It depends entirely on buying that our heroine, Lucy (Dakota Johnson), has more chemistry with one man, John (Chris Evans), instead of another, Harry (Pedro Pascal).  Director Celine Song tries her hardest, but by the end of the movie I still wasn't convinced.  I enjoyed the movie for other reasons, but it's a shame that the central conceit never quite worked.

Lucy is a matchmaker based in New York City, who works for an upscale agency called Adore.  Her clients pay thousands for her to arrange dates with potential matches, and Lucy is very good at her job.  Easily the best parts of the movie are the scenes of her offering counseling and insights into modern relationships for her clients.  It's refreshing to hear her talk so bluntly about the transactional nature of many couplings, and all the traits people judge their worth by - age, wealth, height, weight, job, education, and attractiveness.  Lucy herself is happy to stay single, until she meets a "unicorn," a wealthy man named Harry who is exactly what she's always wanted.  However, a complicating factor is that she still has feelings for her ex, John, a struggling actor who she only parted ways with because he's perpetually broke.  

It's a given who Lucy is going to end up with, but getting there is the fun part.  I really enjoyed Dakota Johnson's performance, playing Lucy as this coolly self-assured, but incredibly jaded woman who peddles the notion that all good matches are just a matter of putting all the right variables together.   Johnson always had a slightly unapproachable screen persona, and that works for the character, who hides her insecurities under a facade of the all-knowing matchmaker who has all the answers and says all the quiet parts out loud.  "Materialists" is really a character study of Lucy, and what happens when her preconceptions are challenged.  Equally important as her relationships to John and Harry is Lucy's relationship with her client Sophie (Zoë Winters), an average woman with realistic expectations, who Lucy is having trouble finding matches for.  The matchmaking math isn't working as expected, and Lucy has to face that there are some serious flaws in the way she views love and romance. 

The filmmaking is wonderful, and "Materialists" is such a pleasure to watch.  Sure, there's plenty of lifestyle eye candy, but the visual storytelling all around is superb.  I love the way that Lucy looks subtly different in her scenes with her two love interests, the way that she's lit and the way that she's framed.  You immediately understand that Lucy belongs with John because she's more open and comfortable in his world than the more affluent one she's worked so hard to access.  I wasn't a big fan of "Past Lives" because I felt the story was awfully slight, but it's great to find that Celine Song's style translates to something more broad and commercial.

Alas, the only place where I think she went wrong was casting Chris Evans.  I like Chris Evans as an actor, but he and Dakota Johnson don't pair nearly as well as Pedro Pascal and Dakota Johnson.  Switching their roles might have been interesting, but what I think it comes down to is that Evans doesn't have the energy of a blue collar, average everyman.  There's too much Captain America in him for that, so the interactions with Johnson always ring a little false.  On the flip side, Pedro Pascal as a fantasy of the ideal husband, who turns out to be maintaining his own facade, is spot on.  I don't care that Pascal is in everything this year because he keeps nailing it.        

And despite the flaws, I happily recommend "Materialists."  It has been too long since we've had a high profile, unapologetically romantic film with ambitions this big and from talents this bright.  

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Brace For "Bring Her Back"

I didn't write a review for "Talk to Me," the feature debut of directors Danny and Michael Philippou, because I had a difficult time processing it.  I knew that it was unnerving and an unusually visceral piece of filmmaking, similar to Ari Aster's work.  I could admire it for its aesthetic and technical achievements, but it wasn't the kind of horror that I found entertaining.  I feel similarly about their newest film, "Bring Her Back," which is directed by the Philippou brothers, and written by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman.  It's somewhat more accessible, but still the kind of horror intent on getting under your skin, and keeping you up at night.  

Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wang) are step-siblings who face being separated when their father Phil (Stephen Phillips) dies.  Andy is very protective of Piper, who is younger and visually impaired.  Their social worker, Wendy (Sally-Anne Upton), manages to place them together with a foster mother, Laura (Sally Hawkins), who is grieving the recent death of her daughter.  She also has another foster son, Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips), who is selectively mute and seems to be deeply disturbed.  Andy hopes to file for guardianship of Piper when he turns eighteen in a few months, but has a few bad incidents on his records, which means he has to stay in Laura's good graces.  She doesn't make it easy for him, displaying increasingly strange and hostile behavior that seems to be connected to her grief for Laura.

What's remarkable about "Bring Her Back" is how it conveys information.  We're told almost nothing directly about what Laura is doing until near the end.  The audience is left to piece together all the separate incidents and discoveries as they happen to Andy - a white substance forming a ring around the house, a missing child poster, glimpses of a disturbing video where a ritual is being performed in a foreign language - every new revelation ratcheting up the tension.  I was also very impressed with the depiction of Piper's experience and POV, often through tight insert shots of her hands and face as she feels her way through environments, or deals with obstacles.  Sora Wang, like Piper, is partially sighted, and it does make a difference.  "Bring Her Back" is a very tactile film, which makes the moments of violence and gore especially gruesome.  As with "Talk to Me," there's plenty of upsetting material involving harm to children.         

What "Bring Her Back" has over "Talk to Me," however, is the underlying sadness and trauma of all the characters.  Laura is clearly doing monstrous things to her charges, driven by great gulfs of desperate pain and emotion that Sally Hawkins is able to convey wonderfully.  She's the scariest when she's at her most calm and sounds the most reasonable, because she's clearly put together this lovely facade of a nice, normal person, but there's always something pinging as very wrong with her.  And the more we learn about Andy, Piper, and Oliver, the more desperate their situation is revealed to be.  You root for the kids because they've survived so much awfulness, and are on the verge of being subjected to so much worse.  

The Philippous' films are filled with horribly damaged people, both physically and mentally.  We see all the worst bits up close, and often for extended periods of time.  While there's relatively little violence in "Bring Her Back," what little there is has a greater impact because so much of it is intimate and realistic.  The Philippous linger on the discomfort, let it fill the screen, and refuse to cut away.  Several of the most memorable images are of Oliver, often with bloodshot eyes and other wounds and marks on his face.  It's difficult just to look at him, because the makeup work is so good, and the performance is so chilling - creating a picture of a child in obvious, festering pain.  

It took me some time to work up the courage to watch this film because of the content.  I strongly urge those with sensitivities to heed the warnings, because this is a tough one.  "Bring Her Back" is an excellent movie, and never gratuitous, but it's not an experience to take lightly.

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My Favorite Charles Burnett Film

Charles Burnett is an African-American independent filmmaker who gained prominence in the 1980s.  Most of his films are obscure, and he never had a mainstream hit.  However, he has remained dedicated to exploring the African-American experience through film, from his groundbreaking early features depicting working class communities in Los Angeles, to his later documentaries and television films examining different facets of African-American history, for well over fifty years.  My favorite of his films was made in 1999 and played a few festivals, but wasn't released in any format until 2024.  It's a little out of Burnett's usual milieu, as it's less about race and class than it is about aging, love, and dealing with invisible demons.

"The Annihilation of Fish" is not the best or most important Charles Burnett film, clearly.  The production values are very modest, and I initially assumed that the film was adapting a stage play, as the action rarely leaves the interiors of a single building.  There's not much to the story beyond three elderly people getting to know one another.  However, the cast and performances are unbeatable.  James Earl Jones is one of my favorite actors, and here he has a late career leading role as the title character.  Fish is a Jamaican man, newly released from a mental institution, having been deemed incurable of his delusion that a pugilistic demon named Hank keeps following him around.  Fish is wonderfully polite, sincere, and charming.  However, he also insists on regularly wrestling his invisible demon, greatly alarming his new boarding house neighbor Poinsettia, played by Lynn Redgrave.  She's a tipsy widow who has just gotten out of a dramatic romantic relationship with the long-expired classical Italian composer, Giacomo Puccini.  She deals with the breakup by singing opera and drinking heavily.       

So we have two aging kooks, with their genial landlady played by Margot Kidder sometimes joining them as a third, figuring out how to make friends with one another, and eventually, bumpily and haphazardly, find their way toward romance.  Along the way we learn bits and pieces about their pasts and their afflictions, and the important part is that we learn it all on their terms.  The early parts of the film show Fish and Poinsettia attempting to get along among the neurotypicals, and having a hard time of it.  Ultimately both of them are outsiders, separated from whatever communities they may have been a part of previously, and not equipped to seek fellowship through the usual channels.  But given the opportunity for a new start, and without being biased by the opinions of others, they're able to take each other at face value and provide mutual support.  Jones and Redgraves are weird and funny and utterly unencumbered in their oddity, and it's wonderful to see.  Jones in particular makes a full meal of the Jamaican accent and the pantomimed wrestling sequences.  

I know that I was so taken with the film in part because I was so happy to see these forgotten Jones and Redgrave performances from twenty-five years ago emerge from obscurity at last.  Also, "The Annihilation of Fish" is the kind of slow, intimate, meandering indie film that we don't see often enough anymore.  It's a hard film to categorize, because it defies the usual conventions of comedies, cross-cultural romances, and films about the mentally ill and dispossessed.  As with all of Charles Burnett's films, Fish's status as a black man plays a great part in his struggle for self-determination. However, this is a love story, and Fish's dilemma is framed in the terms of an obstacle to romantic fulfillment.  For Fish, the idea of being in a relationship with a white woman is unthinkable, and it's hinted that this may be tied to older traumas.  Poinsettia, after an initial show of distaste and paranoia, fixates on the chance for love, and will not be dissuaded.  The resulting courtship is messy, farcical, heartfelt, poignant, and completely unique.

Charles Burnett has one of the more interesting filmographies of the directors I've featured recently, because his work is so consistently dedicated to stories of the black diaspora, and has taken so many diverse forms.  Most of his work has been in television since the mid-90s, but whether it's a feature about police corruption, or a Disney Channel film on the Civil Rights movement, or a documentary short on blues music, or an Oprah-produced miniseries on colorism, Burnett's work is uncompromising and I expect it will remain enduring.  

What I've Seen - Charles Burnett

Killer of Sheep (1978)

My Brother's Wedding (1983)

To Sleep with Anger (1990)

The Glass Shield (1994)

Nightjohn (1996)

The Wedding (1998)

Selma, Lord, Selma (1999)

The Annihilation of Fish (1999)

Finding Buck McHenry (2000)

Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property (2003)

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Two "The Count of Monte Cristo" Adaptations

Alexandre Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo" is one of my favorite novels, and we haven't had a major screen adaptation in at least twenty years.  This is because the plot is notoriously long and complex, with the unedited versions of the novel often exceeding 1200 pages.  In 2024, however, two new adaptations were released.  One is the French "The Count of Monte Cristo" film, written and directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, and starring Pierre Niney.  The other is an English language miniseries starring Sam Claflin and directed by Bille August.  It's a French and Italian co-production with a very international cast and crew.  I can't say which adaptation is better, but it's still fun to compare and contrast.

Both of the 2024 versions of "The Count of Monte Cristo" are fairly similar through the early parts of the story.  Thanks to the actions of three terrible men, young sailor Edmond Dantès is wrongly accused of espionage, separated from his beloved fiancée Mercédès, and sent to the Château d'If prison for fifteen years.  He escapes with the help of the wise Abbé Faria, a fellow prisoner who teaches Dantès everything he knows.  After securing a secret treasure hoard, Dantès reinvents himself as the Count of Monte Cristo and goes to Paris to seek his revenge against his enemies.  And it's with the manner of this revenge that the adaptations diverge considerably.  

The film version is designed to be an action-adventure blockbuster, with lots of action scenes, dynamic camerawork, and invented spectacle.  A new character, Angèle (Adèle Simphal) is added to help streamline the plot, and the Count also teams up with a younger pair of collaborators seeking revenge - the rescued slave Haydée (Anamaria Vartolomei) and the secret son of one of the Count's enemies, Andrea (Julien de Saint Jean).  Every character has been simplified to the basics, their motives and personalities often replaced completely.  And for the purposes of an action-adventure film, it all works fine.  There are duels, fights, chases, betrayals, unexpected deaths, and Niney gets to ham it up in disguise as a terrible Brit named Lord Halifax.  The film is three hours long, but moves so fast that the running time flies by.  The performances are strong, and Pierre Niney is a fun Edmond Dantès.  I also prefer this version of Mercédès (Anaïs Demoustier), who is much more self-assured than most versions I've seen.  

Turning to the miniseries, if you want something that's closer to the Dumas novel, even with the international cast, you might like this version.  It doesn't adapt every subplot, because the series would have to be about twice the length for that, but all the major characters and relationships are well-represented at least.  Claflin is joined by Jeremy Irons as Abbé Faria and Ana Girardot as  Mercédès - practically the only French actor in the cast.  With Italy's RAI as a co-producer, The Count's earlier adventures with the smuggler Jacopo (Michele Riondino) and the bandit Luigi Vampa (Lino Guanciale) get their share of airtime.  The revenge unfolds at a much more reasonable pace, and there's more time with secondary protagonists Albert De Morcerf (Nicolas Maupas) and Valentine de Villiers (Amaryllis August), the children of the Count's enemies.  Sam Claflin as Dantès is fine, but not as dangerous as I'd like. There's not nearly as much action as in the film, but the Count's machinations have more time to really make an impact.  My biggest issue is with the abrupt ending, which cuts short a few of the final reveals and resolutions.          

However, no adaptation of "The Count of Monte Cristo" is going to be perfect.  The original source material simply doesn't fit the usual constraints of a modern feature film or television serial.   And there's still plenty of debate over which version of the book should be considered the definitive one.  In the end, I liked both of the 2024 adaptations on their own terms, as they serve different audiences and have very different goals.  Both have high production values and plenty of talented people involved.  I'm still looking for a version that I like as much as the novel, however, and I'm afraid I haven't found it yet.     

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My Top Ten Best Documentary Oscar Winners

So… this list is going to require a lot of caveats.  The films that have won the Best Documentary Academy Awards are an eclectic bunch, but tend to fall into a few major categories, and I wanted all of them represented - music films, nature films, biographies, histories, war films, exposes, and current events.  Of course, there's a lot of crossover.  

I also have significant biases regarding some of the subject matter, despite my doing my best to be objective about the quality of the films below.  Frankly, though many of these films are vital and important, they can be difficult to watch.  If this were a list of my favorite Best Documentary winners, it would be a list of all the music documentaries and a few biographies of artists and performers.  The list below is unranked, and ordered by release date.     

 

The Sea Around Us (1952) - Based on the book by biologist and environmentalist Rachel Carson, Irwin Allen's ocean documentary offers stunning views of marine life, coastal habitats, and fragile ecosystems.  The format of the film is old fashioned and education oriented, as most documentaries were in this era, but the content remains engrossing.  I was especially struck by the way it closed on a warning about climate change - already a concern in 1952.  

The War Game (1966) - A game-changer at the time of its release, "The War Game" is better described as a partially fictional film made in the documentary style.  Sections of it are made up of accounts of a hypothetical nuclear war and the consequences of it faced by everyday British citizens.  However, many of the dramatizations are based on real governmental positions and policies.  A whole genre of nuclear war fiction can be traced back to this film.  

Woodstock (1970) - "Woodstock" is here to represent all the music films and films about musicians.  The legendary concert film was a box office smash, and nominated for Best Editing and Best Sound along with winning Best Documentary.  It played a huge part in popularizing and adding to the mythology of Woodstock as a major event in American culture.  You simply can't beat the lineup, or the sight of Jimi Hendrix becoming an icon in the finale.

Hearts and Minds (1974) - A sobering accounting of American involvement in the Vietnam War, that some have called propaganda.  However, plenty of propaganda has won awards in this category, and it seems fair that an anti-war film that doesn't paint the United States military in the best light should also have its say.  Everything about "Hearts and Minds" was incredibly controversial in its day, so my kudos to the Academy for their guts in giving it the statuette. 

Harlan County, USA (1976) - It was very difficult to choose between this film and Barbara Kopple's other documentary about a labor strike, "American Dream."  I ultimately went with "Harlan County" because of its historical importance and influence.  The film captures a miners' strike from all angles, and in the process captures the spirit of the affected communities as they existed in this era.  Nobody could dream up some of the characters we meet in this film.

Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989) - This one took me by surprise, as it's a very simple, low-key film that simply seeks to humanize AIDS patients through a series of memorials by their loved ones.  Director and activist Rob Epstein had previously won for "The Times of Harvey Milk," and here covers the history of the AIDS crisis and the NAMES Project in very personal and empathetic terms.  Also, I want to highlight the excellent score by Bobby McFerrin.   

When We Were Kings (1996) - I only knew Muhammad Ali by reputation, having been born well after his heyday, and it was so gratifying to get an up-close and personal look at the boxer in his prime.  The subject of the documentary is the 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle" match between Ali and George Foreman, but Ali is the star attraction.  It's made very clear why the man had such an outsized influence on American culture, and the film offers plenty of him.

Bowling for Columbine (2002) - Whatever you think about Michael Moore, his politics, or his methods, he made a fantastic film about American gun violence, with the Columbine high school shooting as a focal point.  The film says less about the killers and their motives than it does about the dangers of American gun culture, and that's exactly as it should be.  Moore's interviews with Charlton Heston and Marilyn Manson remain especially indelible.  

Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) - I should disclose that current events definitely influenced this pick.  Alex Gibney's wrenching deep dive into the use of torture on Afghan detainees and others during the War on Terror is one of the most upsetting, but most important films about the modern American military.  Of all the lessons that it imparts, the most important one is this - the guards and the lowest level wrongdoers were the only ones who ever saw consequences.

O.J.: Made in America (2016) - Finally, of all the biographies and sports films in this category, the one that went above and beyond was Ezra Edelman's massive four hour examination of O.J. Simpson.  It offers so much context for the public's fascination with his criminal case, from charting his rise as a black sports hero, to the racial upheaval in Los Angeles at the time of his arrest.  I lived through the events, but didn't really understand them until this film.

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The Best Documentary Oscar Winners

I watched all the winners of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film that I hadn't seen yet over the last year, well all but the four I couldn't find.  I sort of stumbled into this exercise by accident, having gained access to a lot of titles unexpectedly.  Also, the controversy around the most recent winner, "No Other Land" made me curious about the past winners.  There has been an awful lot of fuss raised over the years about an Oscar category that has been consistently terrible at recognizing great work, to the point where people feel obliged to keep track of all the great documentaries, like "Hoop Dreams" and "The Thin Blue Line" that weren't even nominated.

However, I don't hear much mention of the films that were recognized, or how they show the evolving attitudes of audiences and the Academy toward documentary films over time.  None of the films I watched were bad, though many are significantly dated.  Among them are some of the documentary all-timers, including Peter Davis' "Hearts and Minds," Barbara Kopple's "Harlan County U.S.A" and Errol Morris' "The Fog of War."  

The Best Documentary categories have existed since 1942, and all the winners from that decade were WWII and military propaganda pictures.  The US Navy won twice for "The Battle of Midway" and "The Fighting Lady."  The 50s were dominated by stirring portraits of historical figures, and nature films.  Three of the Disney True-Life Adventure series won, including the notorious "White Wilderness" that staged a lemming mass suicide.  Jacques Cousteau's underwater adventures won twice - and watching those filled in a big cultural blind spot for me.  

However, from fairly early on the nominees included films trying to address current social ills, like "The Quiet One" and "On the Bowery."  A major turning point was the 1967 winner, "The War Game," Peter Watkins' depiction of a fictional nuclear war and its aftermath.   In the '60s, the nominees became more eclectic and diverse, including documentaries about sports, contemporary life, scientific innovations, and social activism.  The 1970 winner was the concert film "Woodstock," which had also been a box office smash.    There was an interesting run of nominees promoting greater environmental consciousness in the early '70s, including winner "The Hellstrom Chronicle," supplanting the cutesy Disney True-Life Adventures.  The Best Documentary Feature Film category by this point looked more or less like it does today.  Nominees almost always fit into certain categories - biographies, histories, nature films, sports films, music and performing arts films, corruption exposés, and attempts to shed light on present day social issues.  

Watching the winners of the '70s, '80s, and early  '90s often felt like watching an alternate history of the United States, trying to add to and correct common misconceptions about the American experience.  "Hearts and Minds" tackled the American government's involvement in the Vietnam War, while "The Panama Connection" was an exposé on their actions in Panama.  "Broken Rainbow" detailed the history of abuses of Native Americans, and "Harlan County U.S.A" and "American Dream" covered contentious labor strikes.  "Common Threads" addressed the AIDS crisis, "Down and Out in America" targeted Reagenomics, and "Just Another Missing Kid" spotlighted the sorry state of American law enforcement.  The biopics were of unusual figures like gay politician Harvey Milk, revivalist preacher Marjoe Gortner, a mentally challenged man named Philly Wohl, and children's dance teacher Jacques d'Amboise.  The films may not have always been great, but they reflected issues of the day that Academy voters were concerned with.  The wildest winner of the era was probably "Scared Straight!" about the infamous program where prison inmates would attempt to terrify juvenile delinquents into better behavior.

Even though "The Thin Blue Line" and "Roger & Me" failed to win nominations, their influence on the documentary form was clear.  However, the film I feel had the most impact on the Best Documentary Feature Film category in the '90s wasn't a documentary.  WWII films remained popular during this period, including winners like "Genocide" and "Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie."  However, it wasn't until after "Schindler's List" brought renewed interest in the Holocaust that we had a run of four Holocaust documentaries winning in six years, from 1995 to 2000, plus "One Day in September" winning in 1999.  None have won since. 

I'll refrain from putting forth too many generalizations about the more recent winners, except to say that I found the quality of the films generally got better.  1994 was when the big controversy over "Hoop Dreams" happened, and the documentary nominating process was overhauled.  The awards have always been a platform for various causes - the category started out awarding propaganda films, remember - but we still get the occasional musician biopic or inspirational sports story winning the statuette.  "No Other Land" is far from the most politically charged or controversial winner, and its win will probably be viewed extremely well in retrospect.  

I'll have a Top Ten of my favorites posted in a couple of days.

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"Drop" and "Death of a Unicorn"

I couldn't stop thinking about the new Blumhouse thriller "Drop," but not for the reasons you might think.  Meghann Fahy stars as Violet, a single mom and domestic abuse survivor who goes out on a first date with photographer Henry (Brendan Sklenar), who she's been messaging on a dating app.  Their date keeps being interrupted by alerts on Violet's phone from a stranger - who is suddenly in Violet's house and threatening to harm her young son (Jacob Robinson) unless Violet does exactly what he says.

There is something about Meghann Fahy and Brendan Sklenar onscreen together that pings as very female-media-coded in a way that most movies in this genre don't.  Specifically, "Drop" often displayed the aesthetics of an older breed of Lifetime made-for-TV movie.  Fahy's not an actress I'm familiar with, but it didn't surprise me that she got her start in soaps, or that Sklenar recently appeared as the blandly hunky ex in last year's Blake Lively melodrama, "It Ends With Us."  The target audience for "Drop" seems to be midwestern white moms.  I specify white, because I have never seen a whiter post-1980s film set in Chicago.  Seriously, the only minorities are the African-American bartender, a barely glimpsed onscreen therapy patient, and the gayest gay waiter I've seen in years.  Was this on purpose?  Was director Christopher Landon aware of what he was doing?  The possibilities haunt me.

The fact that I was thinking about these sorts of details and not about the likelihood of this kind of situation ever happening to me tells you what I think about how effective "Drop" is as a thriller.  Sadly, the title only incidentally refers to anybody plummeting from great heights.  Instead, poor Violet is being harassed by a series of iPhone AirDrops that her blackmailer uses to communicate with her.  "Drop" is a great looking movie that does a lot of fun things with the various text messages from the blackmailer, and features a beautiful restaurant in a skyscraper, Palate, as its primary location.  However, the characters are paper thin, a lot of the plotting makes no sense, and the action beats are so tropey and silly that it completely took me out of the film.  If the tone were campier, the dialogue zippier, and the romance less Instagrammable, this might have worked better.   Well - I'm being meaner than I should. Fahy does a perfectly fine job, and original films are rare enough as it is.  However, it's really hard to call "Drop" original, because it's so generic and borderline campy in all the wrong ways.   

On to "Death of a Unicorn," a film with better actors and worse special effects.  I wasn't expecting much out of this movie, since it came and went from theaters very quickly, and there was no real discussion of it among the movie nerds whatsoever.  Like "Drop," this movie also feels like a genre flick making a play for female audiences, though in this case it's a creature feature instead of a thriller.  Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega star as lawyer Elliot Kintner and his college-aged daughter Ridley.  They're headed for the remote home of the Leopolds - father Odell (Richard E. Grant), mother Belinda (Téa Leoni), and son Shepard (Will Poulter) -  who head a pharma company, so Elliot can close a deal to do more lucrative work for them.  And en route, Eliot hits a unicorn with the rental car.

After watching the trailer, I was expecting "Death of a Unicorn" to be very satirical, like "The Menu," or any of the other recent films about rich people being terrible.  While "Death of a Unicorn" does belong in that category, the movie I kept finding myself making comparisons to was "Cocaine Bear."  A significant chunk of this movie is a very broad horror-comedy where the characters are getting killed off left and right by big monsters, often in absurd and gruesome ways.  The buildup to the carnage does have plenty to say about respecting nature and the privileged being terrible, but the writing is on the weak side, and it takes forever for things to escalate.  Still you can't put Grant, Leoni, Poulter, and Anthony Carrigan (as a put-upon butler) in a movie together and not walk away with a few genuine laughs.  Unfortunately, this leaves Selena Gomez to play it straight as our lead, and Paul Rudd is in the absolutely thankless role of '90s dad who cares about his job and financial security.  They're good enough actors to pull through, but it's by the skin of their teeth.

First time writer/director Alex Scharfman has some great ideas, and I appreciate that he really goes for it with the CGI fantasy creatures in this film, despite clearly only having a limited budget.  The most impressive thing about "Death of a Unicorn" may be its $15 million price tag.  I feel the film got its act together by the finale well enough that I'd recommend it as a fun piece of silly horror comedy, especially for younger viewers.  It's got glaring flaws, but it's good enough that I hope Scharfman gets more chances in the future to improve on this. 

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"Freaky Tales" Pays Homage

I love how many movies there have been set in and around Oakland, California over the past few years.  Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck  have chosen to cash in their "Captain Marvel" blank check to make an anthology film of strange, freaky little urban legends set in Oakland, in 1987.  Though it takes some influences from movies like "Creepshow," "Heavy Metal," and "Scanners," "Freaky Tales: isn't properly a horror or science-fiction movie.  Instead, it takes place in a very hyperstylized comic-book universe, where reality can get warped.  Characters keep spotting a mysterious green light that appears when something is about to get wild - from a wronged man using psychic powers to punish some scumbag murderers, to a pair of newbie female rappers about to throw down against a pro.

Each story is from a different genre and spotlights different subcultures, but all four take place adjacent to each other, roughly at the same time.  In the first, a group of punks defend the Gilman, a beloved East Bay music club, against attacks by neo-Nazis.  The leads are youngsters Travis (Angus Cloud), and Tina (Ji-Young Yoo), whose romance blossoms as the hostilities heat up.  Next, comes the showdown between the rap duo Danger Zone, featuring best friends Barbie (Dominique Thorne) and Entice (Normani), and West Coast hip-hip legend Too $hort (DeMario Symba Driver).  Third is the tale of a debt collector named Clint (Pedro Pascal), who intends to quit the sordid business until his wife Grace (Natalia Dominguez) becomes a victim of a revenge plot gone wrong.  Finally, beloved Golden State Warriors basketball player Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis) is obliged to take matters into his own hands when he's targeted in a robbery orchestrated by a crooked cop (Ben Mendelsohn).  This involves an extended action sequence with a katana and throwing stars.        

I love how "Freaky Tales" looks, with its comics-inspired framing devices, stylized characters and some old fashioned special effects.  Even the titles have been tweaked to add VHS artefacts.  The basketball game in the last story is done with traditional animation clips and the action showdowns are wildly over-the-top, Grindhouse-style clashes that are a whole lot of fun to watch.   It's a little surprising to spot actors like Pedro Pascal and Ben Mendelsohn in this movie - not to mention the old guy playing the sage video store clerk - but they're all clearly enjoying themselves.  Mendelsohn is so good at playing a real mustache-twirling villain who we all know is going to get it in the end.  And that end is suitably epic in a very '80s way.  Jay Ellis as Sleepy Floyd, however, is the one most likely to show up on T-shirts in the future.  In short, for a fan of 80s B-movies, there are a lot of nostalgic joys to be had.  I don't know what a mainstream audience is going to think, but this movie has all the earmarks of a future cult favorite.       

"Freaky Tales" was shot on location in the East Bay for the most part, and uses real people and events for additional authenticity.  The real Sleepy Floyd and Too $hort make cameo appearances, along with several Bay Area landmarks.  At the same time, there are some touches that highlight that this is an idealized fantasy of the past, a vision of the way things might have been if attitudes had been a little different.  The four segments are of varying quality, and there are some significant ups and downs and rough spots with the plotting.    The debt collector story in particular feels fragmentary and not thought through enough.  Still, the spirit of the enterprise won me over, and there are so many little moments that made me downright gleeful.  This is so clearly a love letter to this place and time and community - and no surprise that Oakland is Ryan Fleck's hometown.  

This is an 80s throwback, but at the same time "Freaky Tales" feels like an original - or at least the kind of film that doesn't come around too often anymore.

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"Novocaine" and "Neighborhood Watch"

We've seen a lot of Jack Quaid in the first third of 2025, with "Companion," "Novocaine," and "Neighborhood Watch" all being released within a few weeks of each other - the last premiering on VOD.  Notably, all of these titles are original IP, while most of Quaid's notable work up to this point has been in franchises - "The Boys," "Scream,"  "Star Trek: Lower Decks," and the recent animated "Superman" series.  I take it as a good sign that he's taking some risks, and that the studios are starting to look at him as a leading man.  We really need more leading men in his age range that aren't immediately synonymous with superheroes, so I'm rooting for him.  I like Quaid as an everyman type, especially since he's got a decent amount of range, can do comedy, and has played villains a few times.  So, with that in mind, let's look at his two most recent films where he has a starring role, "Novocaine" and "Neighborhood Watch."   

"Novocaine," from directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, is a self-aware action comedy that has a unique take on the unstoppable one-man-army character.  Quaid plays Nathan Cain, a man with a condition that causes him not to feel pain.  This means he lives a solitary, carefully controlled lifestyle where he subsists on a liquid diet and sets timers to go to the bathroom, for fear that he'll accidentally harm himself if he takes even minor risks.  However, after a date with a coworker, Sherry (Amber Midthunder), he gains the confidence to start breaking out his shell.  And when Sherry is taken hostage by bank robbers, led by a sadistic criminal (Ray Nicholson), Nathan decides to use his inability to feel pain to thwart the baddies and rescue her himself.  Betty Gabriel, Matt Walsh, and Jacob Batalon also get involved in various supporting roles I won't spoil.

 

I really like the first half of "Novocaine," where we actually spend enough time with Nathan and Sherry to get to know them and to get invested in their relationship, which not enough films do.  The actors' chemistry is good enough that I would have been happy if "Novocaine" had just been a romantic-comedy without any of the chases and fisticuffs.  However, the action sequences are good - very inventive and absurd.  It's incredibly cringey to watch some of the fights, where Nathan is doing horribly damaging things to his body, but persists because he can't feel a thing.  I would not recommend this film to those who are sensitive to blood and gore, even if a lot of it is played for laughs.  The filmmakers do a pretty decent job of putting together absolutely ridiculous scenarios, like one of the robbers booby trapping his house with elaborate weaponry, while also snarking on the usual tropes of mindless action films.  We get something closer to real-world consequences for the carnage than usual, at the end of the film, which I appreciate.

As for Jack Quaid as an action hero, he does a good job.  A lot of the comedy is based on his panicky reactions to being in common action movie situations, or sight gags involving his total nonchalance at being grievously injured.  He's definitely better at the comedy than the action, which distinguishes him from most of the male leads who have been showing up in this genre lately.  Now, what I haven't seen Jack Quaid in too often are straight dramatic roles, so I was especially curious about his appearance in "Neighborhood Watch," where he plays a paranoid schizophrenic named Simon, trying to save a kidnapped girl.  He shares top billing with Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Ed Deerman, a retired security guard who lives next door to Simon and his sister Dee Dee (Malin Akerman).  Simon insists he saw a girl being forced into a van, but he suffers from visual and auditory hallucinations, and nobody believes him.  However, after multiple attempts he's able to convince Ed to help him.        

I'm worried that "Neighborhood Watch" is going to be overlooked, because it's a smaller indie film that hasn't gotten much buzz and only middling reviews.  However, I found it very enjoyable.  Directed by Duncan Skiles and written by Sean Farley, it's a very grounded, occasionally very sobering story of a pair of mismatched losers who struggle in their daily lives and unexpectedly bond over this fool's errand.  We're operating in the realm of neo-noir, with the action set in and around a college town in Alabama.  Simon can't find work because of his history in institutions and his constant battles with his symptoms.  Aging Ed can't let go of his old role as a security professional - the closest he ever got to being a real cop -  and the kidnapping gives him an excuse to use some of his acquired investigative skills.  And intiially, Nathan and Ed are both terrible at being detectives.  They don't fool anybody, get called out immediately by almost everyone they meet, get beaten up, threatened, and are warned off multiple times by the actual police.    

From the trailers, I originally expected "Neighborhood Watch" to be more comedic, similar to something like "The Kid Detective."  While "Neighborhood Watch" does have some wryly funny moments in it, I was happy to discover how much of the film is played straight.  Simon's delusions in particular are always deeply unnerving, and his meltdowns and outburst are never treated as laughing matters.  This is the first underdog story I've watched in a while where the leads actually feel properly downtrodden and out of their depths.  Morgan and Quaid both turn in strong performances - Quaid gets the showier part, but Morgan comes off better, and they pair together well.  And a few overly convenient little plot beats aside, I liked the way that "Neighborhood Watch" came together in the end.      

As idiosyncratic little indie movies go, this one is a keeper.

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"Alien: Romulus" Rebounds

Minor spoilers ahead.

We've seen the "Alien" franchise get all grand and epic in Ridley Scott's recent trilogy, and now it's dropping all the fancy philosophy and mythology in favor of getting back to basics. The newest "Alien" movie, "Alien: Romulus" is a haunted house in space movie, just like the original "Alien," where a group of unwary youngsters stumble across an old space station and accidentally unleash the most lethal killing machines in the universe.  And thanks to the efforts of director Fede Alvarez, and his talented cast, it's a pretty good time.

The first twenty minutes of "Romulus" are the most important, efficiently setting up all the characters and stakes that will get us to care about the other ninety-odd minutes that follow.  Rain (Cailee Spaeny) is an exploited worker on one of the evil Weyland-Yutani corporation's miserable space colonies.  She and her "brother" Andy (David Jonsson), a simpleminded salvaged android, are convinced by friends to take part in a foolhardy scheme - they plan to steal cryo-chambers from a derelict vessel that has entered their system, and use them to escape to Yvaga, the nearest planet with better conditions.  Along for the ride are Tyler (Archie Renuax), Rain's ex, his sister Kay (Isabela Merced), who is pregnant, their cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn), a hothead, and Navarro (Aileen Wu), who is their pilot friend.       

Rain and Andy are the only two characters you really need to care about, and Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson are perfectly cast.  Rain is our new Ripley, full of empathy and painfully vulnerable, but capable of keeping her nerve under pressure.  Andy continues the franchise's long tradition of fascinating android characters, and there are all sorts of implications to our first non-Caucasian model being presented the way Andy is in this movie, with the character arc that he gets, that I'm going to enjoy unpacking later.  The other actors are solid, especially Merced and Wu, who are featured in some of the most graphic and upsetting horror sequences - have we had enough traumatic births this year? - but aren't really full characters the way that our leads are.  As with most of the "Alien" movies, the survival rate is not high, and we don't need to get too attached.    

 

I wonder if the most recent round of reboots and legasequels are best suited for more casual franchise fans who actually don't remember all that much about the original films.  I spotted several of the most distracting callbacks and homages to the original "Alien" in "Alien: Romulus," but I know I missed a few others.  I'm not sure why they bothered with the old one-liners and cameos, since "Romulus" is essentially one giant homage to the first two "Alien" films already, full of chases and fights on metal catwalks, viscerally scary alien creatures, and highly destructive weaponry.  "Romulus" gets top marks for its production design and creature effects.  The facehuggers and xenomorphs are as alarming as ever onscreen, and Fede Alvarez understands how to use them for maximum impact.  This one really  feels like the "Alien" movies I watched as a kid, not just because it's using old computer displays or getting out the puppetry rigs again, but because "Romulus" is a very simple, straightforward story.  Once the facehuggers are loose, everyone just needs to get out alive.     

So for the most part, "Alien: Romulus" is everything I want out of an "Alien" movie.  It presents some new monsters to have nightmares about, introduces some new heroes to root for, and delivers some really excellent chills and thrills.  If you're here to get your questions answered about the space jockey or the "Prometheus" Engineers, this is not the movie for you.  If you're here to scream at the monsters and root for the girl with the big gun to make it to the end, I recommend it.  Like "Twisters" earlier this year, the movie may be part  of a franchise, but it works because it gets the fundamentals right.  "Alien: Romulus" is genuinely scary, gruesome, exciting, and a great time at the movies.  Sequels are being planned, of course, but I'm only interested if they keep the scope limited and the stories dead simple.  For "Alien," you really don't need anything else.  

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"Harley Quinn," Year Three, and "Battle of the Super Sons"

Spoilers for the first two seasons of "Harley Quinn" ahead.

I've liked the animated "Harley Quinn" series pretty well up until this point, but I feel like the series has turned a corner that wasn't in its best interests.  We've moved past Harley wanting to prove herself as a supervillain and trying to get past her ex, the Joker.  Now she's officially hooked up with Poison Ivy and is facing a new set of problems - being in a new relationship, Poison Ivy's burgeoning megalomania, and some confusing encounters with Batgirl (Briana Cuoco) and other members of the Batfamily.

Maintaining an anarchic, subversive comedy program that also has a lot of continuity and sincere character progression can be a tricky balance, especially in later seasons.  The fun of the more mean-spirited humor starts to wear off, and B-villains making sarcastic, self-aware quips feels old hat.  "Harley Quinn" has never had the dramatic underpinnings of something like "Rick & Morty," so when it tries to have its main characters do some real soul searching, it can feel out of character.  Ivy developing a taste for world domination after two seasons of being relatively chill is probably the season's biggest blunder.  I think the larger problem is that the show's initial premise has run its course and some of the characters really don't have anything to do.  There's a whole subplot involving Clayface impersonating Billy Bob Thornton for a James Gunn movie that doesn't really work.  Frank spends most of the season as a kidnapping victim and MacGuffin.  Joker's continuing adventures as an upright citizen are starting to come across as a little bizarre.  

Fortunately, we spend a lot more time with the Batfamily this year, and they're revealed to be as dysfunctional as the villains.  This is relatively uncharted territory, so most of the jokes still land.  Bruce Wayne (Diedrich Bader) is especially screwed up, in an unhealthy relationship with Catwoman (Sanaa Lathan), and still obsessed with his dead parents.  Easily the best episode this season is when Harley gets to go spelunking in Batman's psyche, and remind everybody that she used to be a psychiatrist.  I think Harley growing up a little more and sorting out her priorities this year worked fine, but the show is juggling so many other characters now that she's gotten a little lost in her own show.  There's still plenty to love here, especially for the DC nerds, but "Harley Quinn" is running out of steam.       

Over in another corner of the DC animated universe, Warner Animation's direct-to-video animated features about DC universe superheroes have been quietly proliferating since 2007, and now there are nearly fifty titles.  I've seen a handful of these over the years of varying quality.  They're much closer to the DC comics continuity than most of the other film and television adaptations, and they've done direct adaptations of famous stories like "The Death of Superman," "The Long Halloween," and even the notorious "The Killing Joke."  Many of these are aimed at more mature fans, but one of the latest is very kid friendly and surprisingly entertaining: "Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons."

In case you weren't aware, Batman and Superman are both fathers in the DC comics.  Superman (Travis Willingham) and Lois Lane (Laura Bailey) are the parents of Jonathan Kent (Jack Dylan Grazer), a rambunctious kid who learns that he has superpowers and a superhero father on one very special birthday.  Unfortunately, this also happens to be at the same time a mysterious alien force is threatening Earth.  So, Superman and son end up in the Batcave consulting with Batman (Troy Baker).  The latest Robin is Bruce Wayne's son Damian (Jack Griffo), an edgy little ex-child assassin who is still adjusting to being one of the good guys.  Naturally, Jonathan and Damien have to team up, when their fathers are put out of commission.  

"Battle of the Super Sons" is a nice entry point to get to know this set of characters.  It's an origin story for Jonathan, and offers an introduction to Damian without getting into his complicated history.  The cel-shaded CGI animation looks pretty close to feature film quality, the actors are all solid, and the fight scenes are especially cool.  I could easily see "Super Sons" as a jumping off point for a series or many further direct-to-video outings.  Frankly, the premise is so good that I'm surprised Damian and Jonathan haven't found their way into any of the live action adaptations yet.  On the other hand, the second that they do, they probably won't be allowed to be half as much fun as the versions we see here.  

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Pick Up "The Black Phone"

I appreciate that "The Black Phone" is a very specific, very personal piece of horror.  It takes place in the midwestern America suburbia of the late 1970s, a more dangerous era for kids.  Our protagonists are a pair of siblings, 13 year-old Finney (Mason Thames) and his slightly younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw).  Their father, played by Jeremy Davies, is an abusive alcoholic and Finney is regularly targeted by local bullies.  So things are already bad for these two before a serial child-killer, The Grabber (Ethan Hawke), comes into their lives.    

Based on a short story by Joe Hill, "The Black Phone" is working with some very familiar parts and pieces.  The most obvious are the Stephen King media starring kids, especially "IT," but also all the nostalgic throwbacks to various '70s and '80s horror that we've seen lately.  "The Black Phone" wants to make the point that actually living through this time was a lot rougher than "Stranger Things" would have you believe.  Kids had more freedom, but there were also  far fewer safeguards.  Arguably the most upsetting scenes in "The Black Phone" are the early ones, where Gwen is beaten by her father, and where Finney is attacked by bullies.  Gwen's a spitfire who won't hesitate to curse out cops or tackle a boy twice her size, but Finney needs to toughen up.  And when he's targeted by the Grabber, this becomes a matter of life or death.

This premise may sound overly glum, but "The Black Phone" is designed to be a crowd pleaser, and an efficient delivery system for setups and payoffs that are very satisfying to see play out.  However, it also demands more from its audience than most.  The Grabber is a great new movie monster, and the great part is that we know very little about him.  "The Black Phone" has ghosts and prophetic dreams and this psycho killer who likes to dress in freaky costumes and play freaky games, and we're never given the rules for how any of it works.  The audience has to actively try and connect the dots themselves.  I suspect the horror literate, who are more familiar with these concepts, will enjoy the film more than the casual viewers for this reason.  If you need the Grabber to have a backstory and an explanation for his particular strand of psychopathy, I'm sure there will be a sequel coming along in a few years, but I like that writer/director Scott Derrickson and his co-writer C. Robert Cargill let the mystery be for this first outing.  

The scale of the movie stays limited to the experiences of Finny and Gwen, which keeps it appropriately kid-sized.  This is a Blumhouse production from the guys who made "Sinister," so the budget is small, but "The Black Phone" doesn't cut corners, and occasionally delivers some pretty gorgeous horror imagery.  There's a lot of attention paid to getting the little period details right, and both of the main child actors are given the space to give full, nuanced performances.  The movie rests almost entirely on their shoulders, and while there are the occasional awkward moments toward the beginning, they deliver when it counts.  There's so much inherent suspense and drama that comes with scenarios of kids in realistic peril, it would have been easy to do too much.  Thankfully, the filmmakers picked the right kids for the job and trusted them.    

I haven't said much about the plot, because it's best to go in with as little information as possible.  I'll just say that there's not much original here, and the trailer gives away enough that a sharp viewer could probably  guess how everything plays out just from that.  However, the old tropes and ideas are executed with great skill, by people who clearly care about the material.  I'm not remotely surprised that Derrickson based a lot of the film's vision of suburban hell on his own childhood, and I'm sure everyone involved grew up on traumatic Stephen King movies.  There's some potent nostalgia at work, and not the pleasant kind, and that's a nice change of pace, honestly.  This feels like one of those films that doesn't come along often anymore - an R-rated film that is unambiguously mature and horrific, while still genuinely being about kids and childhood. 

  

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