“Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this, he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.” So reads the chilling opening text of Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s masterful biopic surrounding the father of the atomic bomb. In his latest theatrical excursion, Nolan gets even more literal with myth deconstruction by adapting Homer’s The Odyssey, the ancient text that launched a thousand hero’s journeys. Despite being one of the few modern directors who can claim to be a household name, Nolan confesses he didn’t quite feel he had the “blank check” he wanted for his monomyth but when his first outing with Universal Pictures scored 7 Oscars, the ask became more realistic. As a result, The Odyssey is the auteur’s grandest spectacle, one that feels both state-of-the-art and a work that could endure as long as the epic poem that inspired it.

Following his victory in the Trojan War, Ithaca’s king Odysseus (Matt Damon) parts with Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) and Menelaus (Jon Bernthal) as he sets course for he and his men to go home. On their way, they encounter numerous grueling obstacles, including a skirmish with Poseidon’s one-eyed son Polyphemus (Bill Irwin) and a battle with the giant Laestrygonians of Aeaea. The years-long trek creates a power struggle in Ithaca, as Odysseus’s wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) is pursued by slimy suitors like Antinous (Robert Pattinson) in the king’s absence. Desperate to find his father and aid him in his voyage home, Odysseus’s son Telemachus (Tom Holland) works with faithful farmer Eumaeus (John Leguizamo) to get Odysseus back to an Ithaca that becomes more dangerous to his return with each passing day.

Characteristic of almost every Christopher Nolan movie that’s come before it, The Odyssey is told in a non-linear fashion, weaving in glimpses of past and future that give the narrative both context and resonance. While I’m sure brushing up on Greek mythology before seeing the film wouldn’t hurt, you don’t need to call up your high school English teacher for a refresher on Homer’s tale before walking into the theater. The screenplay uses vernacular that may sound a touch too modern in a few places but, on the whole, does an outstanding job setting the table and defining the stakes. In juggling myriad characters, both human and magical, Nolan never loses the thread of how all of the story elements weave into a timeless tapestry about honor and justice. He also imbues his take on the legend with somber reflections on the nature of memory and the toll of combat on the warrior’s psyche.

Even by Nolan standards, the ensemble cast of The Odyssey, which also includes Charlize Theron and Zendaya in mystical roles, is especially sprawling and full to the gunwales with talent. Every actor makes the most of their, in some cases, minutes-long appearance but the commanding performance at the center of this fantastical adventure remains the film’s finest. As ubiquitous a movie star as Matt Damon is now, his work here is so electrifying and layered that it reminds us why his stature in Hollywood has remained so strong for the past 30 years. Though this Odysseus calls back to defining characters from Damon’s filmography, be they the amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne or his abandoned voyager The Martian, the stalwart actor plays notes of regret and yearning that you feel in your chest.

A question lingering over The Odyssey prior to its release is how Nolan, infamous for his insistence on practical effects over CGI, would translate the fantasy portions of Homer’s text to the screen. While monsters like Charybdis and Scylla are computer-generated, the majority of the events are captured in the most tangible terms possible. The sequence involving Odysseus’s men trapped in a cave with a Cyclops is terrifying in no small part due to the practicality and “realism” of the creature design and sound design. Another arduous affair on Aeaea seamlessly blurs the line between the origin of the visual effects for the movie’s most horrifyingly effective setpiece. Every piece of Ruth De Jong’s world-class production design makes this universe feel impossibly expansive, one that audiences will undoubtedly be rewarded for revisiting multiple times on the largest screen possible. The word “epic” gets thrown around plenty these days but if The Odyssey doesn’t warrant the superlative, nothing else does.

Score – 4.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Her Private Hell, a sci-fi thriller starring Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton, following a troubled young woman who searches for her father after a mysterious mist engulfs their futuristic city and unleashes a deadly, elusive entity.
Also playing only in theaters is Hadestown: The Musical, a live stage recording of the Broadway production that retells the Greek mythology legends of Orpheus & Eurydice and Hades & Persephone.
Premiering on Apple TV is The Dink, a sports comedy starring Jake Johnson and Ben Stiller, telling the tale of an aging tennis pro who must go against his instincts and play pickleball to save a local club.

She may have stumbled (literally) into a cameo late in last year’s excellent Superman but now, Supergirl is ready to soar into a feature of her own. Milly Alcock returns in Supergirl as Kal-El’s younger cousin Kara Zor-El, with whom we catch up during the week of her 23rd birthday. With superdog Krypto as her companion, Supergirl jets off to planets with corresponding red suns, which weaken her powers enough that she can actually get inebriated. Trying to catch her between hangovers, Superman (played again by David Corenswet) places numerous video calls from Earth and worries that Supergirl’s hard partying has caused her to lose her way. It’s enough to say his previous attempts to help her assimilate to Metropolis and find kinship with the humans who live there didn’t land with Kara.

One of Supergirl’s pub crawls is interrupted by a young girl named Ruthye (played by Eve Ridley), who announces to a saloon full of ne’er-do-wells that she aims to avenge the murder of her parents and brother. Even with one of her father’s custom-made swords as a reward, the patrons become reticent when they learn the target is Krem (played by Matthias Schoenaerts), the ruthless leader of a clan of space pirates called the Brigands. Ruthye’s plight shakes Kara from her drunken stupor, leading the pair to travel to the seedier parts of the galaxy to find Krem’s criminal crew. On their bar-busting brigade, Supergirl and Ruthye cross paths with Lobo (played by Jason Momoa), a cigar-chomping, motorcycle-riding bounty hunter who has a Brigand score of his own to settle.

Sporting a duster jacket and oversized sunglasses, the titular superheroine of Supergirl advertises to the world that she’s too cool to care about anything or anyone. Throughout Kara’s adventure, director Craig Gillespie and screenwriter Ana Nogueira flesh out this iteration of the character, showing how her seeming immaturity masks an inner pain. While Superman was able to leave their home planet Krypton years before its destruction, Supergirl had to stay by her parents’ side as Kryptonite radiation slowly eroded their bodies and the land around them. She’s jealous of her older cousin’s status on Earth and constantly feels like she’s living under his shadow. After a terse exchange, Ruthye asks Supergirl if Superman is as rude as she is; “he sees the good in everyone; I see the truth,” Kara hisses back.

Milly Alcock is outstanding in the intimidating lead role, taking what could be considered a generally unlikable character on the page and making her feel like an essential part of this new DC Universe. There’s a raucousness and scrappiness to her portrayal that’s welcome in a superhero movie landscape where characters typically seem impervious and overpowered. In the way she charges through intergalactic taverns and roughs up any guy foolish enough to get in her way, Alcock’s Supergirl more closely resembles a cowboy in an old Western than a cape-donning Kryptonian. There’s even a scene where she arm wrestles with a few tough guy aliens who, at their own peril, severely underestimate her strength. As good as Alcock is with a mischievous wry smile, she’s just as good conveying the hurt in Kara’s eyes during the flashbacks to her final days on the eroding Krypton.

As with fellow female-forward projects I, Tonya and Cruella, Supergirl continues director Craig Gillespie’s proclivity towards stories with brash women at their center. He carries the feminist streak through with a soundtrack that includes music from great girl-led acts like Wet Leg, Wolf Alice and Rilo Kiley. Gillespie’s known as a filmmaker who relies on needle drops to establish an often rebellious tone and, thanks to Krypto, Supergirl literally starts with a needle dropping onto a spinning record. Unfortunately, the biggest head-scratching, record-scratch of a song selection comes during the final fight scene, which also features overly precious slow-motion and special effects that get less convincing the longer you linger on them. It’s fair to say that Gillespie doesn’t stick the landing in the film’s final third but there’s plenty, especially in the middle, to recommend.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming this holiday weekend:
Arriving in theaters on Wednesday is Minions & Monsters, an animated prequel starring Allison Janney and Christoph Waltz, taking place around 40 years before the events of 2015’s Minions, where the gibberish-talking yellow creatures aim to make a monster movie of their own in Old Hollywood.
Coming to theaters on Friday is Young Washington, a historical war epic starring William Franklyn-Miller and Mary-Louise Parker, following George Washington before his days as President, focusing specifically on his experiences and command as a soldier in the French And Indian War.
Premiering on Netflix is Enola Holmes 3, a mystery sequel starring Millie Bobby Brown and Louis Partridge, continuing the journey of the titular Victorian-era detective as her impending wedding is put in jeopardy when her brother Sherlock is kidnapped.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

In a time when the concepts of both “household names” and “event movies” are almost extinct, Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day represents something of a unicorn in popular culture. The olds may not be hip enough to know about Obsession or Backrooms but even the young folks (should, anyway) know about Spielberg and his career-long fascination with alien life. If the legendary filmmaker’s latest extraterrestrial spectacle belies the evaporation of monoculture and fracturing of our shared cultural touchstones, it’s fitting that the cache behind the film itself attempts to bridge the gaps. Attention being the most precious commodity a storyteller can yield, you’d better have something worthwhile to say when you have it. Alas, Spielberg and his scribe-in-arms David Koepp, who helped pen screenplays for Jurassic Park and 2005’s War Of The Worlds, simply do not this time around.

Disclosure Day opens on Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), a brilliant mathematician and cybersecurity analyst under the employ of shadowy contractor WARDEX (Waived Reporting, Development and Extraction). He’s in possession of confidential footage depicting the existence of UFO crash sites over the decades, information that he maintains the world needs to see and is endeavoring to get in front of as many eyes as possible. Out to stop him in his whistleblowing mission is WARDEX CEO Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), bolstered by a bevy of federal agents and their seemingly endless supply of black Dodge Chargers. During the search for Kellner, Scanlon is alerted to meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) unknowingly speaking an alien language during a live broadcast. Tying their stories together is Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), a former WARDEX employee who now shares Kellner’s goal of disclosing the top-secret extraterrestrial intelligence to the public.

Within alien-enamored works earlier in Spielberg’s career like Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, there’s a sense of wonder and astonishment present that feels curiously absent in Disclosure Day. The possibility of life on other planets was integral to those classic tales but here, it’s treated as a plot point upon which to pivot these scurrying characters across state lines. It’s as if someone replaced the bold letters of that “I WANT TO BELIEVE” UFO poster with “I guess so…” Especially suspect for a Spielberg movie is clumsy storytelling, reliant on artifacts and gadgets whose capabilities are explained only in rudimentary fashion. This is the first time I’ve ever had the thought, “Did I miss a prerequisite TV series that set this up?” while watching one of his films, and he’s about the last director I would expect to generate those problems.

It’s one thing to have muddled mythology but the more troubling aspect of Disclosure Day is a reliance on tropes and types that Spielberg knows better than to recycle at this point. The characters and their motivations are often derivative of superior projects he’s completed within this genre and outside of it, whether it’s the man-on-the-run feel of Minority Report or truth-to-power conviction of The Post. On a foundational level, it was a poor decision to hinge the majority of the narrative on a manhunt when the company chasing after Kellner and his girlfriend Jane (played by Eve Hewson) has infinite tactical and technological resources. It’s presumably an excuse to have several car chases, including one that makes fair use of an oncoming train, but the action doesn’t comport with the heady sci-fi style that’s more in line with what fits the story.

Despite the futuristic set design and tech-focused dialogue, too much of Disclosure Day feels stuck in the past from a sentiment perspective. Perhaps in the 70s and 80s, a film about one man out to un-shutter the eyes of the American people from what the government is keeping from them could work. But we live in more cynical and jaded times, ones where it’s generally accepted that we’re being lied to constantly by people in power we’re supposed to trust. Spielberg making a film about whether or not finding out aliens existed would move the needle for humanity in the age of social media and AI is a more intriguing proposition. If that were the case, Discourse Day would be a more apt title. But the fact that the movie barely acknowledges the internet and, without spoiling too much, sets its climax within a TV production studio makes one wonder when Spielberg wrote the story Koepp used to adapt this script.

Score – 2/5

New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
Toy Story 5, starring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, reunites Pixar’s secretly sentient set of playthings as they contend with their eight-year-old owner’s newest fixation: Lilypad, a smart tablet that threatens to jeopardize playtime forever.
The Death Of Robin Hood, starring Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer, finds the titular heroic outlaw grappling with his past life of crime and murder while in the hands of a mysterious woman after being critically injured.
Leviticus, starring Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen, follows a teenager as he moves to a religious town and strikes up a forbidden, secret romance with a classmate, until the pair is subsequently stalked by a shapeshifting entity.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Psychologically, there will always be something unsettling about being alone in a large space intended to play host to activity that isn’t happening and to people who aren’t there. It’s almost like these places shouldn’t exist unless there’s more than the hum of fluorescent lights to fill them. Backrooms, the debut feature from 20-year-old Kane Parsons, brilliantly keys in on the unease we feel when we enter areas that overwhelm with their stifling sense of vacancy. The decline of “third places” (a term for shared social environments besides one’s home or one’s workplace) was accelerated by the pandemic six years ago, though signs of communal fracture were in place before that. There are abandoned shopping malls, storefronts and, of course, movie theaters whose remaining function is the resounding reminder of what we’ve lost.

Set in San Jose in the early 1990s, Backrooms stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Clark, the hard-pressed owner of discount furniture store Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire. Grimacing at the TV when ads for his competitor Big Wayne’s Furniture Barn come on, he dons a pirate outfit and makes employees Bobby (Finn Bennett) and Kat (Lukita Maxwell) shoot a commercial, but it seems unlikely to move the needle. Clark spills his guts about his business failings, dissolved marriage and alcohol troubles with his therapist Mary (Renate Reinsve), who attempts to navigate him to better emotional surroundings. Drawn to the basement after closing his store one evening, Clark discovers an entrance to a hidden wallpaper-covered room that serves as a foyer for a seemingly unending amount of adjoining spaces. After spending excessive time in the extradimensional area, Clark’s absence from the outside world inspires Mary to go in and look for him.

Adapting from a 4chan-inspired web series he began in January 2022, Kane Parsons is working with a reported $10 million budget and puts every dollar of it to marvelous use. As one may expect from the title and premise, the set design of Backrooms is effectively the star of the movie. Working with production designer Danny Vermette, who has collaborated with Osgood Perkins on his three most recent films, Parsons visually renders liminal spaces eerie in their prolonged sense of abandon and uncanniness. Furniture and props are sunken into the floor and walls, as if they’re being devoured by the fluidity of time and the persistence of memory. In addition to Dalí homages, the incredible sets also recall the impossible architecture found in the work of graphic artist MC Escher. Along with visual effects and an off-kilter music score co-composed by Parsons, the movie connotes the crushing cosmic horror of occupying a realm impossible in its vastness.

In terms of the story that forefronts these creepy interiors, screenwriter Will Soodik has the unenviable task of not spelling out too much about the titular locale but not withholding too much information either. It’s a difficult balance that he mostly pulls off, although the in-session dialogue between Clark and Mary fast tracks character development that would be better shown and not told. As well-realized as the unnerving aesthetic of Backrooms is, the script could have benefited from a similar level of detail when fleshing out who these people are and what draws them into this limitless otherworldly chasm. Nevertheless, Academy Award nominees Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve fill in the gaps nicely with a pair of performances percolating with fear of the unknown. Their tête-à-tête within the confines of a provisional dining room recalls the tense interactions between Jack and Wendy in The Shining.

As for more contemporary touchstones, Backrooms most frequently reminded me of Alex Garland’s Annihilation, following a group of imperiled scientists while investigating a zone called The Shimmer. The film also contains echoes of fellow A24 mind-bender Enemy, which sports a similar sickly shade of yellow cinematography and deals with protagonists attempting to break themselves from detrimental patterns. Whether or not Backrooms likewise concludes with an oversized spider cowering in the corner of a room, I’ll leave you to discover. It’s no secret that movie theaters have been more sparsely inhabited as studios desperately shuffle to try and fill auditoriums across the world. There’s harmonious irony in the fact that a movie set in an unending array of empty rooms could so thoroughly fill spaces designed to bring us together.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
Masters Of The Universe, starring Nicholas Galitzine and Camila Mendes, reboots the 1987 sword and sorcery film about a young man on Earth who discovers a secret legacy as the prince of an alien planet and must recover a magic sword to return home and protect his kingdom.
Scary Movie, starring Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans, reboots the horror parody franchise in which two friends once again find themselves caught up in mayhem involving killers, monsters and supernatural creatures.
Power Ballad, starring Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas, is the latest musical drama from John Carney in which a washed-up wedding singer and a fading boy band star create a song during a late-night jam session that the latter turns into a pop hit.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

After releasing micro-budget chiller Milk & Serial for free on YouTube two years ago, 26-year-old sketch comedian Curry Barker has graduated beyond the confines of streaming with the new horror outing Obsession. Picked up by Focus Features at TIFF last September for a reported $15 million price tag, it’s the kind of high-concept buzzy title that competitors A24 and NEON may still be kicking themselves months later for not securing. At the same time, the fact that there are enough promising Gen Z filmmakers around to trigger these kinds of bidding wars among distributors with their projects is a good problem to have. It represents not just an investment in future cinematic storytellers but a commitment to creative forces that audiences have come to know through platforms like YouTube and Reddit.

In Obsession, reserved twentysomething Bear (Michael Johnston) slaves away at a local music shop and harbors a longtime crush on co-worker and childhood friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette). It’s enough of an open secret among his other co-workers and trivia mates Tim (Cooper Tomlinson) and Sarah (Megan Lawless) that he practices spilling his guts to Nikki when they’re around. With hopes of replacing a necklace Nikki lost, Bear wanders into a gift shop and finds a One Wish Willow trinket that promises to grant the owner their greatest desire. After another frustrating night in the friend zone, Bear impulsively wishes that Nikki loved him “more than anyone in the entire world.” Much to his surprise, the magic behind the kitschy novelty toy kicks in but it doesn’t take long for her amorous affection to turn ominous and even dangerous.

In effect, Obsession is a suffusion of two well-worn tropes in the romantic and horror genres: a boy being too shy to tell the girl he’s pining after how he feels and the “be careful what you wish for” tale. In his writing and direction, Curry Barker uses these familiar starting points as a way to investigate the dark underpinnings behind these touchstones. When Bear casts his wish, it’s not as though Cupid shoots his arrow at Nikki and a romance slowly builds. Her entire personality turns on a dime and we learn that her real self is in essence a prisoner to this new possessed and obsessed version of Nikki. Some of the film’s scariest moments occur when the “real” Nikki pops back to the surface for terrifying interludes where we realize she’s essentially being held captive in her own body. It’s a horrifying concept that Barker explores within his take on the classic The Monkey’s Paw short story.

The quartet of young actors all add distinctive touches to their respective performances but Inde Navarrette’s work here is simply sublime. Under Bear’s seemingly innocuous spell, Nikki becomes unsettlingly possessive and violently co-dependent, erratically dithering between dewy-eyed obsequiousness and explosive neediness. As the affected version of Nikki for most of the movie, Navarrette hits notes of desperation and frustration that give Obsession a plethora of sustained uneasiness and well-earned beats of humor too. When Bear draws a Jenga piece at a party and is tasked with planting one on the person sitting to his left, Nikki’s remedy to the situation is both hilarious and creepy. I hadn’t seen Navarrette in anything prior to this but her commanding and unforgettable work here will rightfully open more doors for her in the future.

Though Curry Barker certainly pushes his story to gorier and more emotionally visceral lengths than we often get with typical tales of twisted wish fulfillment, its ending is telegraphed relatively early on. Interactions with both the employees where Bear procured the cursed charm and employees of the company that produces the One Wish Willow are marked by wickedly cavalier candor but serve to remind us of this film’s inevitable conclusion. But before that point, Barker sustains a timbre of absurdist tension that feels like a sketch from I Think You Should Leave and an episode from Tales From The Crypt got mutilated in a blender together. Like fellow YouTubers Markiplier and RackaRacka, who have also made the leap to theatrical horror filmmaking, Curry Barker has demonstrated that he won’t be ignored.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
The Mandalorian And Grogu, starring Pedro Pascal and Jeremy Allen White, continues the Star Wars saga of the titular bounty hunter and his cuddly companion as they traverse the galaxy to rescue the son of a powerful and notorious crime lord.
I Love Boosters, starring Keke Palmer and Naomi Ackie, is a crime comedy which finds a group of shoplifters (known as “boosters”) as they take aim at a cutthroat fashion maven after she steals their designs.
Passenger, starring Jacob Scipio and Lou Llobell, is a supernatural horror film following a young couple who witnesses a gruesome highway accident and soon realizes they did not leave the crash scene alone, as a demonic presence won’t stop until it claims them both.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup