One of the lessons from the “Alien” movies is that greedy corporations shouldn’t mess with things that are better left alone. So it’s almost unbearably ironic that 20th Century Studios has attempted to resurrect the “Alien” franchise yet again. 

This comes in a now decade-long trend of classic movies getting a “requel,” where a sequel made years after the original serves to reboot a franchise. And, whether the series is “Halloween,” “Twister,” “Indiana Jones” or “Star Wars,” requels never work. Each movie turns out a bit like Frankenstein’s monster — alive, well-crafted, but without a soul. And it’s no more true in any film than “Alien: Romulus.” 

That’s not to say “Romulus” is a bad film, per se. It follows a group of twenty-somethings as they attempt to stage a heist of an abandoned ship so they can start a new life on another planet. Of course, the ship is infested with Xenomorphs — the aliens in “Alien” movies — and other unsavory creatures. Director Fede Álvarez crafts an effective slasher — aliens dispatch his protagonists in various creative ways, and the film’s set pieces are well-crafted enough to keep the audience engaged. 

But that doesn’t mean it’s a good “Alien” movie. It misses what made director Ridley Scott’s original 1979 film so great. “Romulus” is a fun slasher. “Alien” is a masterpiece. 

Where Álvarez goes wrong is that he doesn’t seem to recognize what made “Alien” so special. It wasn’t grisly violence or even a fantastic setting. Álvarez has those here throughout his film, and it certainly doesn’t make it a classic. What Scott had was creativity and an expert ability to create tension. 

He had the bravery to start his film slowly — there’s no action in the beginning of the original “Alien.” The audience is left to observe the crew members of the spaceship “Nostromo.” They see the crew’s interactions, each character’s quirks — who is likable, who is not. Who is a leader, who is not. These personality traits all come into play later in the film when a Xenomorph starts killing members of the ship. It adds a realism and a richness to the movie that “Romulus” never quite pulls off. 

That’s partially because Álvarez doesn’t have Scott’s patience. He rushes his alien-bait protagonists onto the Xenomorph-infested ship before the film even has time to settle, and he seems almost bored to be filming anything other than horror movie blood and gore. He isn’t interested in his characters beyond the ways they can be hunted. Their usefulness stops at the physical, naturally leading to a film that never moves below the surface in its characters. When a movie is a studio’s last-ditch effort to revitalize a franchise, the filmmakers can’t risk the audience being bored for even a moment. It makes for an entertaining movie, but a forgettable one.

Scott, especially around the time of “Alien,” was daringly creative, an instinct that has led to mixed results throughout his career. But in “Alien,” that creativity was vital. No one had ever seen sci-fi horror like this before. The creatures were new, the setting felt like “Star Wars” but more cynical and gritty, and the film was constantly playing with audience expectations about who would survive. “Alien” is a movie that keeps the audience on its back foot, creating the tension the movie is still famous for over 40 years later. 

“Romulus” remixes Scott’s creativity, but it doesn’t build on it. Nearly every scene is a callback in some way to the original, playing on cheap nostalgia. Again, it makes the film entertaining, but not good. And certainly not great. It’s similar to “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Its plays for nostalgia were fun, but it was a thin veneer over a complete lack of creativity. It was a film that was too afraid to go its own way, and “Romulus” is the same. 

Not all of “Romulus” banality is Álvarez’s fault. It’s a franchise that has been around for decades — audiences know the plot, they know the heroes, and they know the villains. Scott’s element of surprise has been lost to time. 

These are problems with nearly every one of these requels, and some of them don’t have an easy fix. No one is ever going to be able to fully capture Ridley Scott’s genius any more than they could capture Spielberg’s in the new ill-advised “Indiana Jones.” A solution, though, is to simply make new movies. Don’t tie them to a franchise — try something new. 

The post “Alien: Romulus” is a disappointing “requel” appeared first on Technique.

“You like ‘John Wick?,’” an arms dealer asks. He walks to the wall, pulls down a handgun and smiles. “This is the same gun from the movie, but made in China.”

“Monkey Man” is no “John Wick” knockoff, though. Dev Patel, the director, writer and star of the film, has a passion that permeates the whole movie, turning “Monkey Man” into a memorable revenge flick that shows Patel’s love of action cinema without feeling too derivative of other movies. “Monkey Man” has its inspirations — you can point to nearly every scene and find another movie that did it first — but Patel the actor is so compelling as the lead that it carves out its own space in the genre. It is Patel, the director and the writer, who overstuffs “Monkey Man” and keeps it from greatness. Maybe he should have borrowed a little more from “John Wick.” 

“Monkey Man” follows Kid, a quiet fighter in an underground fight club somewhere in the slums of India. He spends most of his time losing. Quickly though, the audience sees snippets of the death of Kid’s mother, and it becomes clear that he is hellbent on avenging her killing. But what happens when Kid goes on a rampage? He loses again. He’s no action hero. Not yet, at least. He then goes on a journey of self-discovery, finding for himself what he is truly fighting for. 

The plot is simple enough, and it certainly does not stray from the time-honored revenge-thriller formula. But the film is visually unique. The camera darts around rooms, following quick character movements and gawking at the upper class’ debauchery. Its tight shots and frequent camera movements feel like a window into Kid’s inner thoughts — the audience sees what he sees and feels what he feels — a brilliant technique to add depth to a character with little dialogue. It even occasionally shifts into a first person perspective. The close shots and quick editing make the film feel claustrophobic, especially in the beginning, but as Kid gains skill and confidence, the shots widen, with fewer disorienting cuts. It is decisions like this that unveil Patel’s enormous potential as a director.

All this would not work at building any emotional connection if it was not for Patel’s performance. He is an exquisitely skilled actor, conveying complex emotions without saying a word, a vital part of “Monkey Man” given how little time characters have to talk. Patel used this same quiet pathos in “The Green Knight,” and it works perfectly here, too. He is a good director, but he is a masterful actor.

One caveat to “Monkey Man” is that there are fewer fight scenes than audiences might be expecting. However, when they come, they are brutal. Kid dismembers, stabs, and pummels enemies in creatively violent ways. None of these action scenes are particularly groundbreaking, although the fight club scenes have a unique visual flair, but each is still wildly entertaining and exceedingly competent, with certain moments sure to be entered into the action movie canon. 

This makes it all the more disappointing that the film’s pacing is crippled by being so overstuffed. Patel admirably wants to make his film deeper than simply a beat-’em-up thriller, but after “Monkey Man” has tackled religion, politics, poverty, transphobia, trauma, self-acceptance and generational cycles of violence, the pacing has lost all inertia. It is not that Patel has wrestled with any of these ideas poorly, per se. He just needed to pick one or two. The film would feel more rhythmic in a way all action-thrillers need and less like it was pausing to “say something.” 

However, “Monkey Man” is still a success. Patel has clearly poured his heart and soul into his film, with so many ideas it feels ready to burst, but enough good ones that “Monkey Man” feels like a movie impossible to dislike.

The post “Monkey Man” is an exciting, if overstuffed, revenge thriller appeared first on Technique.

“When no one wanted to make the first [film], I got the bright idea to make four more,” Kevin Costner said in a moderated discussion last week. 

On Monday, the trailer released for the first two installments of Costner’s new Western, “Horizon: An American Saga.” Costner, known most recently for his role in “Yellowstone,” sees this film as his passion project. He will direct, produce, write and star in the movie, spending $20 million of his own money to fund production. 

The trailer depicts a Western of epic proportions, calling to mind classic films like “The Searchers” and “Rio Bravo.” “You and I are standing guard on one of the last great open spaces,” a voice says at the beginning. Peppered throughout the trailer are gorgeous shots of Utah’s stunning vistas, filmed on location. The three-minute trailer hints at romance, suspense, drama and, of course, gunfights. Also starring in the film are Luke Wilson, Sienna Miller and Sam Worthington.

“Horizon” will follow Hayes Ellison — played by Costner — and his journey westward during the four years of the Civil War. Costner says his film is a “step away from what we usually see in Westerns,” saying that in real life, the West was “complicated.” He said in the filmmaking process that he was “drawn to the little things people had to endure.”

Costner’s purpose he emphasized over and over again was capturing what that time in American history was like and telling a powerful story, highlighting the nuance rarely seen in Western films. Strangers were dangerous, life was difficult and there was no guarantee of survival. The gunfights that are now cliché to the genre were uncommon, but other conflict and drama certainly was. Costner hopes to get closer to portraying what that time was really like, in its heroism and its brutality. “I recognize the courage it took to cut loose and march across this country,” Costner said. 

The Technique asked Costner about what his unique take would be on the Western genre. “I don’t know…I’m not looking to set the record straight or make a history lesson.” Costner replied. “I’m going to get to my gunfight, but I’m going to get there in maybe a different way. Not everybody in the West killed somebody… there were a lot of times that confrontations didn’t happen, and they can be just as dramatic. There’s little things in the movie like somebody seeing their first house go up… It was a home in the dirt, but nevertheless, a woman is brought to tears over that… Those can coexist with the gunfight.” 

“What I hope is that this is a movie that you want to see again because of the detail, that you ask your sweetheart to, or that you revisit it or tell a friend about it. I know that’s what I did when something moved me. That’s my hope for it,” Costner said. 

Costner certainly has had this effect on people before — “Dances with Wolves,” which he directed, won Best Picture at the Academy Awards and won Costner Best Director. Despite his success, however, Costner remained immensely humble about his goals for his new film. “I hope it’s worth [people’s] money — I hope people think they were taken somewhere,” he said. “I make these movies for people because I know it’s not mine anymore.”

Ultimately, Costner expressed his gratitude that this ambitious project that has meant so much to him was able to be made. “I am happy to finally know that my journey for this one is over. It started a long time ago and I think to myself… it’s kind of over for me, I kind of went there. It’s not like I’m not going to make more, but I am terribly satisfied in my own life that God allowed me to get these first two done. If I’m hit by lightning, at least I went west.”

The first chapter of “Horizon: An American Saga” releases June 28, and the second releases Aug. 16, both only in theaters. 

The post Trailer releases for “Horizon” appeared first on Technique.

“Power over spice… is power over all.” 

Denis Villeneuve has crafted a magnificent retelling of Paul Atreides’ rise in “Dune: Part Two,” adapting the last half of author Frank Herbert’s novel without compromising its tragedy and richness. The film is genuinely breathtaking to behold, a true cinematic achievement that proves quality and budget are not mutually exclusive. Villeneuve refuses to let the film settle into the dullness audiences have grown accustomed to from studio blockbusters, leaning into the dark, complicated tale of power-lust that made the story so intriguing to begin with. 

For the uninitiated, the first movie focused on House Atreides, the noble family assuming control from House Harkonnen of the desert planet Arrakis — the only place spice can be found in the universe. Spice is the most valuable substance known to man, powering interstellar travel and exerting powerful psychotropic effects on those exposed for too long. As soon as the Atreides make themselves at home, though, House Harkonnen invades, massacring the Atreides and taking control of the planet. Young Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet, “Lady Bird”) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson, “Mission: Impossible – Fallout”), are some of the only survivors. Paul’s mother is a part of the Bene Gesserit, a mystical, quasi-religious sisterhood, and she believes Paul is the Kwisatz Haderach, their prophesied messiah. The pair soon meet the Fremen, and it quickly begins to spread that Paul might be the Fremen’s messiah, as well. 

Confused yet? It’s a testament to Villeneuve’s skill as a filmmaker that he makes this story — long considered unfilmable — not only coherent but fairly straightforward. He doesn’t rush the plot, but he also avoids getting bogged down in the politics, religion and factions of Herbert’s world. For a story that runs a combined six hours, nothing ever feels like a distraction.

“Dune: Part Two” picks up right where the last one left off, with Paul beginning his journey towards becoming a Fremen, with a growing number of people believing Paul is their prophesied savior. It is the start of a darker, more morally nebulous story than the first film. If you thought “Dune: Part One” was setting Paul up to be cinema’s next Luke Skywalker, “Dune: Part Two” is more than willing to crush those hopes into the Arrakis sand. The story it tells is not hopeful, but it is captivating.

While Lady Jessica slinks off to build legions of zealots in Paul’s name, Paul trains to become a Fremen, taking the name Muad’Dib and falling in love with a Fremen woman named Chani (Zendaya, “Euphoria”). However, after the Fremen disrupt spice harvesting, the Harkonnens send Feyd-Rautha, played by a creepy, vaguely Elvis-sounding Austin Butler, to regain control of the planet. And slowly, all the threads Villeneuve has been weaving begin to come together. 

The film’s main strength is in the spectacle of it all. Its first scene opens on a Harkonnen patrol, with the soldiers unsettlingly floating to the top of a cliff set against Arrakis’ opaque orange sky — a strange, beautifully psychedelic image in a movie full of them. Not only is “Dune: Part Two” the most gorgeous sci-fi film since Villeneuve’s “Blade Runner 2049,” its visuals brilliantly set the tone for the rest of the movie — unnerving, yet dazzlingly compelling. 

And it’s been a long time since there’s been a blockbuster film as compelling as this one. 

Villeneuve has been clear that “Dune: Part Two” is much more of an action film than the first one, but what he didn’t say was that these sequences are the most well-executed action scenes in years. Every single battle scene, whether it’s an all-out war or merely a skirmish, is a showcase of Villeneuve’s craftsmanship. His use of sound makes these scenes feel punchy and brutal, and his cinematography makes them frantic without ever distorting what is happening on screen. This is far better than cheap, shaky-cam action and bombastic CGI battles. Villeneuve is a true artist, and he brought an artistic sensibility to “Dune” that big-budget movies lack. During a gladiatorial duel between Feyd-Rautha and an Atreides prisoner, Villeneuve could have gotten away with the easy blandness of obviously soundstage-shot fights. Instead, he shoots the battle with IMAX infrared cameras to make the whole scene — and especially Feyd-Rautha — a nightmarish pitch black and pale white. What would be a throwaway action sequence from most other directors becomes the most hauntingly memorable of the whole film. 

But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was the knife fight shot against the Arrakis sun, or Paul’s disorienting sandworm ride or a guerilla strike during a sandstorm. Every scene feels better than the last. Villeneuve can conjure suspense like no other, with each action sequence ready to blow with tension. It is not a revelation that the director of “Sicario” can shoot a thrilling scene, but it is surprising he pulls it off perfectly so many times in one movie. Without a doubt, “Dune: Part Two” is one of the best action films of the last decade. 

Paul Atreides’ journey is nearly as absorbing as the action. Each character seems to have their own vision for who Paul should be — messiah, warrior, lover, leader. Villeneuve captures with surprising clarity the many different directions Paul is being pulled, fueling an inner turmoil that registers most tangibly on Chalamet’s face. Villeneuve is quite comfortable letting his actors tell the story themselves, telling The Times of London, “Frankly, I hate dialogue.” In the solemn quiet of Arrakis, though, visual storytelling as opposed to copious conversation works well. 

Paul changes quickly by the end of the film, but Chalamet makes his descent feel believable. As Paul takes leadership of the Fremen, the line between savior and tyrant blurs. Villeneuve and Chalamet deftly play with the distinction, using Chalamet’s inherent likability against the audience. It makes Paul always the most interesting thing on the screen. 

“Dune: Part Two” is dark, strange and ridiculously entertaining. Villeneuve has created a masterful sci-fi epic and a fantastic action film — the new standard bearer for well-made blockbusters.

“Long live the fighters!”

The post Denis Villeneuve crafts an action masterpiece in “Dune: Part Two” appeared first on Technique.

On Sunday night, artists from around the globe gathered together at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles to celebrate the best musicians of 2023 at the 66th Grammys. In keeping with the other major awards shows this year, the night was surprisingly seamless, with no major controversies distracting from a year of historic wins.

The headline of the ceremony — shocking no one — was Taylor Swift. Early on, Swift handedly won Best Pop Vocal Album, taking the stage and announcing, “I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you the last two years, which is that my brand-new album comes out April 19th. It’s called ‘The Tortured Poets Department.’” It would not be her last time on stage, either. She also won the highly contested Album of the Year award over boygenius and Olivia Rodrigo, making her the record-holder for most career Album of the Year wins. 

Other artists had big nights as well. Victoria Monét won Best New Artist, and Billie Eilish won Song of the Year for “What Was I Made For.” SZA was the night’s most nominated artist with nine nominations, and she won Best R&B Song. Despite her wins, some felt that her Album of the Year loss to Taylor Swift was a snub. 

“I could have left with nothing, and I didn’t, and I’m grateful. My parents got to see it and I didn’t bomb on live television, and that was so scary. And I faced some really big fears and I’m just happy that it all went well, genuinely, and I’m happy for everybody,” SZA said afterwards.

Miley Cyrus, on the other hand, won her first career Grammy, Best Pop Solo Performance for the song “Flowers.” Later in the night, “Flowers” also won
Record of the Year. 

“This award is amazing, but I really hope that it doesn’t change anything — because my life was beautiful yesterday,” Cyrus said. “Thank you all so much. I don’t think I forgot anyone, but I might have forgotten underwear.” Cyrus performed the song live during the show. 

It was the veteran live performers, though, who stole the show. Luke Combs, who recently covered Tracy Chapman’s 1988 hit “Fast Car,” performed the song live with Chapman, who had made very few public appearances since her last tour in 2009. 

It was a palpably emotional rendition, ending with Combs bowing to Chapman and the duo receiving a standing ovation from the crowd. In 1989, Chapman closed the Grammys with the same song. 

Billy Joel took to the stage, too, debuting his first new song in 17 years, “Turn The Lights Back On,” before playing his classic track off the album “Glass Houses,” “You May Be Right.” 

One of the show’s most powerful moments was Joni Mitchell’s first-ever Grammys performance. The 80-year-old folk singer beautifully sang one of her early songs, “Both Sides Now” with Brandi Carlile. It was even more remarkable of a performance given that Mitchell suffered a recent stroke, forcing her to relearn how to walk. 

Yet the live acts weren’t all older artists. Younger stars like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo gave stirring performances, with Eilish playing her award-winning song “What Was I Made For,” which was nominated for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards, as well. Rodrigo did a memorable rendition of “Vampire,” which lost Song of the Year to Eilish. 

Notably, the vast majority of winners and nominees of the night were women, a stark contrast to years past. Former president of the Recording Academy Neil Portnow said 2017 when the nominees were primarily men that women needed to “step up.” Phoebe Bridgers had choice words for Portnow in the press room.

There was little room for anger at Grammys past, however, as much of the emotion of the night came from the bittersweet In Memoriam. Fantasia Barrino, introduced by Oprah Winfrey, performed a touching tribute to Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder honored legendary singer Tony Bennett and Annie Lennox covered a song by renowned Irish musician Sinead O’Connor. 

The night ended as a success, a rousing celebration of music that honored artists of the past and paved the way forward for the great artists of the future.

The post The Grammys celebrate music old and new appeared first on Technique.

It’s a spy thriller with no intrigue, an action movie with no thrills and a comedy with no laughs. It’s the best of no worlds. It’s “Argylle.”

“Argylle” is the latest espionage flick from director Matthew Vaughn, most known for his gonzo “Kingsman” movies that take the spy movie formula to its extremes. A few months before the release of “The King’s Man,” the third movie in the series, Apple paid $200 million to acquire the rights to Vaughn’s “Argylle” in hopes it would become a franchise. It probably will not.

The film’s conceit is simple enough. Elly Conway, played by a stilted Bryce Dallas Howard, is a hugely popular spy novelist who writes — wait for it — the “Argylle” novels. The novel’s main character, Argylle, is a world-renowned spy on a mission to steal the “master list” from an evil organization called The Division, led by a sporadically fun Bryan Cranston.

Quickly, while writing her next book, Elly meets Aidan, played by Sam Rockwell, as the only charming part of the film. Aidan tells her that he is an actual spy, and people are coming to capture her because the events in her books are coming true in the real-life espionage world. Fistfights ensue. 

Elly gets swept up into the world of spycraft, trying to solve the mystery of her seemingly prophetic books while working to take down The Division.

The movie feels like “Mission Impossible” as written by ChatGPT, giving far too much information about uninteresting diversions and virtually no answers to basic questions.

What does The Division do that is so evil? No idea. What is the “master list?” Unclear. On multiple occasions, Aidan just refers to The Division as “the bad guys,” which shows how much hand-holding Vaughn thinks his audience needs. 

“Mainframes” are overridden, and “anarchist hackers” are killed in this spy-jargon-bingo-card of a script, but the familiar cliches never come close to masking the pure laziness of the writing.

Radical, game-changing plot twists seem to appear in five-minute intervals. Characters change allegiances on a whim, others are shot only to later reveal secret bulletproof vests and one surprise is so absurd that Aidan exclaims, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!” 

He’s right. The whole twist makes so little sense — and it would take so long to think about all the ways it doesn’t — that it is just easier to move on and go with the flow of the movie. The writers’ anything-goes attitude towards the story leaves realism so far behind that the audience is numbed to even the most
earth-shattering reveal. 

Other better screenwriters understand this. “The Sixth Sense” and “The Usual Suspects” work because each has one coherent twist that makes the rest of the film make more sense — not twenty revelations that only add to the confusion.

To make things worse, the jarring story turns don’t hold up to even the slightest bit of narrative scrutiny. The writers know it too. Often, after the story is written firmly into a corner, Elly will miraculously “remember” an incredibly helpful repressed memory. If only she weren’t so forgetful beforehand! The twists feel less like clever devices and more like the writers’ get-out-of-jail-free cards.

Don’t mistake criticism of the movie’s writing for evidence that the rest of the film is better, though. It’s not. 

As many have pointed out, it is one of the worst-looking films of the past decade. It at least makes the movie watchable since it conjures “Argylle’s” only intriguing mystery — figuring out where Apple’s $200 million went.

Everything in the film is clearly either cheap CGI or green screen, making backgrounds feel fake and action scenes feel animated. By the time the film’s bombastic final showdown comes around, it is no surprise to anyone that it looks like a video game cutscene. Elly and Aidan travel around the world, but all the viewer sees is the pair traveling from one side of a soundstage to the other. 

So much of the “Mission Impossible” and James Bond movies’ appeal comes from their seamless effects and exotic locales. These easy wins in any other spy movie end up being just another missed opportunity for “Argylle.”

Matthew Vaughn is capable of better. “Argylle” should have been a fun romp, an homage to classic spy movies. It is a shame filmmaking laziness prevented his movie from living up to its predecessors. 

The post “Who is the real Agent Argylle?” Who cares. appeared first on Technique.

“If they want stereotypes, I’ll give them one.” 

Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright, “The French Dispatch”) is a talented author, writing intellectual, thoughtful stories for a sophisticated audience. Writing is his calling, but he has one problem: his books don’t sell.

Publishers are not interested in his new manuscript, either. “Editors, they want a Black book,” Monk’s agent says. “They have a Black book,” Monk replies. “I’m Black, and it’s my book.” To left-wing, affluent white publishers, though, Monk’s books are not Black enough. What is Black enough is Issa Rae’s new book, “We Lives in Da Ghetto.” White critics call it “raw” and “authentic.” Monk calls it shameless pandering. 

“Look at what they publish,” he says. “Look at what they expect us to write.” 

Monk keeps sharing his manuscript, and publishers keep passing. In a fit of righteous indignation, Monk decides to stick it to the publishers and give them exactly what they want, writing “My Pafology,” a book about “deadbeat dads, rappers and crack.” It’s a bitter, pointed joke. 

Except, it works too well. “My Pafology” is just the kind of gross stereotyping publishers are looking for — in fact, they would like it better if it was just called “F**k” — and the book quickly becomes a national bestseller. A flabbergasted Monk, under the pseudonym of felon-on-the-run Stagg R. Leigh, has a hit novel he despises. 

Writer and director Cord Jefferson’s concept for “American Fiction” is one of the funniest — and most prescient — ideas for a movie in a long time. Jefferson finds his targets quickly and tears them apart, ridiculing the modern desire for “authentic stories” that are anything but. 

Jefferson makes clear that America has a fiction it wants to hear, and it isn’t reality. 

Rather than sounding preachy or abrasively didactic, Jefferson says his piece through a punchy, hilarious script. His wit permeates the dialogue with exquisite help from Wright, who gives a heartfelt performance that enhances the humor on the page. “American Fiction” never comes off as overly angry, and by the end it even acknowledges there may be value in the stories that Monk so quickly dismisses as schlock. It is no wonder the script has been nominated for an Academy Award.

Speaking of, it is fascinating that the Academy has rewarded the movie so effusively, as deserving as those rewards are. “American Fiction” is such a scathing indictment of entertainment elites that it seems like the Academy is smothering it with Oscar nominations out of pure guilt. If there is anyone that Jefferson is mocking more than the members of the Academy, they do not come to mind. Hollywood is the joke. It is a testament to the film’s quality that it has been recognized for awards as much as it has.

That quality is apparent throughout. What elevates “American Fiction” beyond just a biting comedy is the whole other side to the film quietly lurking below the surface. In the middle of his bitter satire, Jefferson subtly slips in the kind story he wants Hollywood to make: a story about people.

The other layer of “American Fiction” is a bittersweet look at an author trying to find his identity while coping with family conflict. He works to take care of his mother with dementia while navigating his relationship with his troubled brother, trying his best to let go of the anger that keeps him from becoming a more selfless, open person. “People want to love you, Monk. You should let them love all of you,” Monk’s brother says. You can see the recognition of truth in Wright’s eyes.

Wright elevates the film. His barely-noticeable changes in facial expression speak volumes for a man of few words. There seems to be a weight on his shoulders that grows as the movie goes on, and it is hard not to smile in the few moments somebody — whether it be his brother, mother or girlfriend — lifts that burden. His brother (Sterling K. Brown, “Black Panther”), also carries a deep pain not well-hidden. 

Brown lets that hurt come to the surface every time the camera moves in for a close-up. The pair complements each other well, turning these characters into three-dimensional, real people that it is impossible not to connect with. In tension with the heartache, though, is Wright and Brown’s impeccable comedic timing. The soul of the movie’s humor comes from them, and they effortlessly alternate between the somber and satirical, even if the script doesn’t always shift as gracefully.

“American Fiction,” in the end, is a human story. Jefferson gives the film a depth a lesser writer would have completely neglected. He shows Hollywood what a real “Black Story” is — simply telling a story about a Black person. No caricatures, no exaggeration. Every person has a richness to their life, and all Jefferson wants is for Hollywood to focus on that.

The post “American Fiction” is a clever, scathing satire appeared first on Technique.

It is not surprising that “Poor Things” has been making waves at awards shows in the months before the Oscars. The movie has an all-star cast, a beloved director, edgy themes, art-house sensibilities and social commentary to boot. Even more, it might be the most beautiful movie of the year, and it is pretty funny, too. If only it was all enough to mask the vapidity of the movie’s message. 

“Poor Things” does a good impression of a profound work of art without actually being one at all, leaving viewers only with juvenile talking points. At least it is pretty to look at. 

The movie begins with Bella (Emma Stone, “Superbad”) jumping off a bridge before her body is recovered by a deformed, Frankenstein-like mad scientist named Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe, “Platoon”). 

He takes her to his home where he reanimates her corpse by switching her brain with that of her unborn child, raising Bella back to life but with the mind of an infant. Godwin — whom Bella calls “God” in one of the first signs the movie is not committed to subtlety — takes on a father-like role, teaching Bella how to be human. She learns quickly, and Godwin becomes increasingly attached to her, forbidding her from leaving the house. However, after meeting a man named Duncan, played by Mark Ruffalo (“Spotlight”) in a surprisingly hilarious turn, the two travel across an alternate version of Europe, showing Bella, who has no notion of societal norms, what the real world is like. 

According to director Yorgos Lanthimos, the real world seems to be mostly just sex. It quickly becomes clear that Duncan only wants to sleep with Bella, who, lest you forget, still has the mind of a child, and the two do quite a bit of what Bella calls “furious jumping.” 

As an aside, Bella’s ambiguous mental age is problematic in a way the film never really addresses. It feels like quite a big thematic oversight from a director as prolific and thoughtful as Lanthimos, and it would have gone a long way to explore the uncomfortable implications of Bella’s sexual naivete rather than playing it for laughs. 

Sex momentarily bores Bella, however, and she encounters several different high-class characters while on the ship, casually trampling on their, as Bella sees it, purposeless social conventions. At dinner, Bella spits out her food announcing, “Why keep it in my mouth if it is revolting?” “Why should she?” Lanthimos seems to be gleefully asking. This becomes the basic structure of the film.

Bella later leaves the ship and, after giving away all her money in a fruitless attempt to help the poor, becomes a sex worker. Duncan shames her for it, but Bella seems to enjoy her work well enough, overcoming yet another societal norm coming between her and liberation. 

She goes on more adventures and discovers more social mores she finds absurd, taking the audience on a bizarre romp through admittedly stunning set design and cinematography. Visually, “Poor Things” is an achievement, and Lanthimos is excellent here, as always. 

Thematically, the film never rises above the conceit that Bella finds society’s rules stifling, leaving the audience to watch her move from one encounter to the next, tossing aside whatever social convention is keeping her from her short-term desires. There is no alternative perspective, no deeper meaning and no nuance. There have been films that have tackled these themes of sensuality in a thought-provoking way — think “Call Me By Your Name”— but Lanthimos seems to have learned nothing from them. 

For all its bravura and for all the bombastic performances, the film boils down to a fish-out-of-water comedy about a societal outsider tossing aside the world’s rules to have more fun than everyone else. The movie posits that Bella learns what life is really all about, but really, she just discovers life’s sensual pleasures, without its love, heartache or pain. “Barbie” captured those deeper feelings better in its last five minutes than “Poor Things” did in 140 minutes. It is not that the themes of “Poor Things” are wrong, per se, only superficial. Life is more than the five senses, and it is disappointing to see as talented a filmmaker as Yorgos Lanthimos settle for telling such a trite story, no matter how beautifully. 

OUR TAKE: 2 OUT OF 5 STARS

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In a roundtable interview with the cast of “The Color Purple,” Phylicia Pearl Mpasi, who plays Young Celie, was asked what influenced her performance most. With little hesitation, she replied that it was Desreta Jackson’s portrayal of the same character in the original film. It was Jackson’s “vulnerability,” Mpasi said, that moved her so deeply.

It is that vulnerability in every character that has made the story of “The Color Purple” so compelling. It is a tale of both deep pain and redemption. It should not be a surprise that the book has already been adapted into two movies and a musical in the barely four decades since its release. The narrative has a universal quality.

This year’s version, directed by Blitz Bazawule, combines some of the aesthetics of Steven Spielberg’s movie with the music from the Broadway show to introduce the story to a new generation of moviegoers. It is a risky gamble, given that the last financially successful musical came out in 2018 with the release of “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” but with “The Color Purple,” it could pay off. The film makes for an interesting and creative take on the source material, with striking images and memorable songs, and it provides a poignant perspective on Black experiences in America. One weakness is in Its choice to not probe the thematic depth of the original story.

The film opens in the early 20th century South on two young sisters, Nettie and Celie, played as kids by Halle Bailey and Phylicia Pearl Mpasi, respectively. Celie must marry the abusive Mister (Colman Domingo), who kicks Nettie out of the house after she refuses his advances. In the present day, Celie’s (Fantasia Barrino) life has become a monotonous cycle of abuse from Mister, and she has had no contact with her sister since their separation. However, circumstances change when Mister’s mistress, Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson), comes into town, pushing Celie slowly down the path of rediscovering her dignity and worth.

The best and most noticeable thing about this version of “The Color Purple” is its performances. Nearly every actor in the film plays their character excellently, especially Danielle Brooks, who plays Mister’s daughter-in-law in a superbly emotional performance, one that provides several of the film’s most compelling moments. Fantasia Barrino is remarkable in her film debut, and Taraji P. Henson, as always, is excellent.

When asked about what most influenced their acting journey, Brooks and Barrino remembered seeing “The Color Purple” both on film and Broadway, and Henson discussed the influence the musical “The Wiz” and the band “Sister Sledge” had on her. Clearly, the actors in the movie have great admiration for the source material, music, and theater — Danielle Brooks even played her same character on Broadway — and it comes through in the richness of their performances.

The film is more than an acting showcase. As a musical, it works wonders, with catchy, soulful songs, including a hip-hop-inspired number added by the director to give Mister’s son Harpo (Corey Hawkins) the “coolness” Bazawule felt he needed. The song choices are excellent, and they are matched by the fantastic singing and choreography. Bazawule undoubtedly understands music performance, and his musical numbers feel much more like a true Broadway show than just simply movie stars trying to sing and dance, a trap movie musicals — notably ones with tap-dancing Ryan Gosling — can easily fall into.

The issue with being a musical is that there is less time to devote to the inner lives of the movie’s characters, and “The Color Purple” is no exception. While the themes of redemption and forgiveness are still here, and the characters’ suffering is still detailed, it feels muted in this version. It can occasionally feel rushed, missing the depth of the story explored further in the 1985 film. This version fails to capture the nuances of Celie’s deep heartbreak in the first half and the mending that begins to take place by the end. The story is still here in its entirety. It just feels closer to a “Greatest Hits” version of “The Color Purple,” rather than the story told in all its intricacies. More of the emotion comes from the performances than it does the script and directing.

Despite all of this, though, the 2023 “The Color Purple” is still a powerful version of the story, speaking through bold music to show all of us what can be brought out from the ashes of suffering. 

The post Transforming ‘The Color Purple’ for a new generation appeared first on Technique.

“Priscilla” begins like any other fairy tale.

“You like Elvis Presley?” a young soldier asks 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu in a diner. Her sheepish smile betrays her answer. “Of course,” she says. “Who doesn’t?” Before long, Priscilla is whisked away to meet “The King,” and when her eyes lock with his, it seems like all her dreams and fantasies are coming true. Cinderella has just arrived at the royal ball.

However, the fairy tale veneer quickly fades. Director Sofia Coppola tells a melancholic story of disenchantment in “Priscilla,” adapting Priscilla Presley’s book “Elvis and Me” into a beautiful but flawed film chronicling the pair’s short relationship.

Coppola’s film calls to mind last year’s very successful “Elvis,” which had a massive $300 million box office return. While “Elvis” felt almost hyperactive in its screenplay, “Priscilla” is deliberate and subtle, creating an atmosphere that will not net Coppola “Elvis”-level financial returns but contributes to creating a far better film.

In that understated atmosphere, Priscilla’s euphoric fantasy slips into cold reality almost imperceptibly. On an army base in Germany, where Priscilla and Elvis meet, their time together seems impossibly romantic to Priscilla’s 14-year-old mind. He takes her to movies, tells her about his mother and bonds with her over their mutual homesickness. Yet, when Elvis’ deployment ends, he seemingly forgets about her, leaving Priscilla heartbroken. Until, of course, a call comes to the house asking if Priscilla would like to stay with Elvis in Tennessee, beginning a cycle of acceptance and rejection that would grow to define their whole relationship.

Back at Graceland, Elvis takes Priscilla shopping for dresses, buys her a puppy and enrolls her in school. All the while, though, Elvis remains just out of reach.  When they are together, Elvis’ absurdly sophomoric friends, who would probably feel more at home in “Barbie’s” Mojo Dojo Casa House than in Graceland, surround them. However, Elvis is often away in Hollywood for weeks at a time.

Intimacy, too, always feels just out of Priscilla’s grasp. Elvis refuses to consummate their relationship until they are married because, as he tells Priscilla, sex is “sacred.” Every time Priscilla picks up a tabloid, though, there is a new Hollywood starlet allegedly getting quite a bit of sacred time with Elvis. With every salacious rumor, Elvis’ insistence on chastity begins to feel more and more like cruelty instead.

Eventually, cruelty becomes the norm. Elvis openly flirts with other women in front of Priscilla, and when he does not ignore her entirely, he can only muster criticism or anger. The pair has moments of happiness, but those moments are surrounded by seasons of deep disconnection.

Coppola, as usual, directs the film excellently. It looks gorgeous, is paced well and is marked by her excellent grasp of tone. Just through one shot and a needle drop, Coppola can evoke a more powerful, bittersweet tone than any director working today. Her warm impressionism is absolutely enchanting, as she says more with her camera and lighting than with words. She can make her audience feel deeply through just her visuals, as she has done magically throughout her career. 

She also chronicles Elvis’ decline well, bolstered by a fantastic performance from Jacob Elordi, known to most for “Euphoria.” The audience watches Elvis aimlessly scrounge for a sense of meaning, leaving him broken and gradually more disinterested in Priscilla. Elordi does an excellent job portraying the subtle changes in Elvis’ behavior, resisting the campiness of Austin Butler’s Elvis performance from last year. It is especially compelling given that it is all seen from Priscilla’s perspective, providing an intriguing disconnection between the audience and Elvis.

That disconnection is the throughline of the film, and it gives the movie a pathos that is, at times, heartbreaking. It can also make the film feel aloof, shying away from exploring Elvis and Priscilla’s private emotions. We know pain, loss, loneliness and isolation must haunt the couple, but Coppola’s script never really shows those deeper places. Instead, viewers are left guessing.

Cailee Spaeny gives an excellent performance as Priscilla, and she gives definition to a character with relatively little dialogue. She does an amazing job at playing Priscilla completely believably from age 14 to 30, and she has great chemistry with Elordi. However,  through no fault of Spaeny — the audience is locked out of her feelings. Certainly, the disconnection helps viewers experience the distance in Elvis and Priscilla’s relationship, but it also removes them from some of the soul of the movie too. Coppola has always operated at a distance from her characters, but in “Priscilla,” this removal limits the audience to only a surface understanding of the relationship at the heart of the movie. Viewers do not grow to understand the characters better by the end, à la Coppola’s film “Lost in Translation.” In “Priscilla,” the audience simply watches them interact in vignettes that feel increasingly detached as the movie goes on. By the time the relationship inevitably ends, the audience does not understand enough about Priscilla to even know what sparked the final decision. It feels less like a realistic divorce and more like Coppola hit her runtime limit. 

These issues do not make “Priscilla” a bad film, though. It is still quite moving, and it is impossible not to be enraptured by the pure quality of the directing and performances. Coppola has crafted a powerful story worth watching. It is no fairy tale, but it would be a lie to say the movie does not have a little bit of magic.

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