Films and Feelings

    I'm going on the record to say that, even with the devastation wrought upon Wanda's character in "Multiverse of Madness," WandaVision is one of the best things we've gotten from any stage of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And that has to be the main reason why Marvel enlisted Matt Shakman to pilot their premiere Fantastic 4 film (stealing him away from Star Trek 4 ...), the film that was going to rescue the studio from their post-"Endgame" stupor. There are probably all sorts of soundbites about this being the first real version of the story to get the machine to work, and I wouldn't disagree.     But in the context of Marvel's larger rehabilitation,  The  Fantastic 4: First Steps reads less like the great MCU reset and more like an elaborate gymnastics routine, an attempt to splice Marvel's Thanos era with its Not-Iron-Man era. Graciously, this works better than it sounds on paper, but it does kind of purchase this at the expense of ...

      I feel like it's essential that I establish early on in this review that this marks my first time seeing a Superman movie in theaters.      The Zack Snyder saga was actually in swing while I was in high school and college--back when I was in what most would consider in the target audience for these films--but that kind of passed by me without my attention.      And I'll be clear that I take no specific pride in this. I wasn't really avoiding the films by any means. My buddies all just went to see them without me while I was at a church youth-camp, and I just didn't bother catching up until much, much later.  I'm disclosing all this to lay down that I don't really have any nostalgic partiality to the Superman story. Most of my context for the mythology comes from its echoes on larger pop culture.     I know, for example, that Clark Kent was raised in a smalltown farm community with his adopted parents, and it was them who...

     I had a mixed reaction to  Jurassic World: Rebirth,  but it did make for one of the most enjoyable theater experiences I've had in recent memory.      I have to imagine that a part of this is because my most common theater appointments are matinee screenings, but I had the opportunity to see this one at a fairly well-attended midnight screening. And there's nary a film more tailored for surround-sound roaring and screens wide enough to contain these de-extinct creatures. ("Objects on the screen feel closer than they appear.") It was natural for me to cap the experience by applauding as the credits stared to roll, even if, as usual, I was the only one in the auditorium to do so.     Yes, I am that kind of moviegoer; yes, I enjoyed the experience that much, and I imagine I will revisit it across time.      That's not to imagine the movie is beyond reproach, but I suppose it bears mentioning that, generally , this i...

    Here's a fact: the term "flying saucer" predates the term "UFO." The United States Air Force found the former description too limiting to describe the variety of potential aerial phenomena that might arise when discussing the possibility of life beyond earth.      There may have to be a similar expansion of vocabulary within the alien lexicon with Pixar's latest film, Elio , turning the idea of an alien abduction into every kid's dream come true.      The titular Elio is a displaced kid who recently moved in with his aunt after his parents died. She doesn't seem to understand him any better than his peers do. He can't imagine a place on planet earth where he feels he fits in. What's a kid to do except send a distress cry out into the great, big void of outer space?      But m iracle of miracles: his cries into the universe are heard, and a band of benevolent aliens adopt him into their "communiverse" as the honorary ambassador o...

  The saga of Hollywood lives and dies on the ripples of a thousand different choices. Hundreds of movies each year from hundreds of artists serving hundreds of markets creates a complex, interconnected ecosystem that can never really be explored in its totality. Still, if there was one film, one moment, that trampolined Hollywood from one era into the next, it was in 1975 with Steven Spielberg’s Jaws .      Moviegoing had naturally been a part of the global industry since moving pictures stole everyone’s attention at the start of the century. Tentpole films were also very much a part of the program. But the treatment of movies like The Sound of Music and Ben-Hur was done with an eye for prestige, more comparable to how Oscar hopefuls handle things today.  Theaters at this time were still generally accustomed to having sporadic releases across the country over a period of several weeks. Limited roadshow releases were how you signaled that a movie’s importanc...