All posts by Brent Leuthold

Reel Views, Review

Night Patrol

Filmmakers — and certainly studios — may not like to hear this but bad movies have value in the way they can make great movies even better. Take Night Patrol, the latest release from Shudder. It’s a political horror film that coincidentally possesses overlapping themes with two of last year’s best films: Sinners and One Battle After Another. But the way that it so badly mangles a story, one which also contains vampires and ex-revolutionaries forced back into action due to loved ones in peril, makes one appreciate the sterling pair of 2025 Warners releases even more. I’m not sure if revealing that the titular task force is comprised of vampires is even a spoiler. The trailer hinges on it, the poster has fangs on it but in the film itself, director and co-writer Ryan Prows treats it like a mind-blowing third act revelation.

Further establishing himself as a horror mainstay, Justin Long stars as Ethan, an LAPD cop putting his new partner Xavier (Jermaine Fowler) through his paces out on their patrol routes. While he pursued law enforcement as a career path to transcend his gang-affiliated past, Xavier’s mom Ayanda (Nicki Micheaux) and younger brother Wazi (RJ Cyler) have reasons to distrust the police. The latter was just witness to a murder committed by an officer trying to gain his way into Night Patrol, a secret squad within the department that carries out off-the-books operations under cover of darkness. But what Ethan doesn’t know is that there’s more than one reason Night Patrol hunts at night: its members, led by Sarge (Dermot Mulroney), are part of a vampiric order that has literally been draining blood from the community.

Along with his three co-scribes, Prows attempts to reframe the decades-long gang wars in Los Angeles not between rival human factions like the Bloods and Crips, but between vampires and those who practice Zulu sorcery. Even attempting this type of narrative within a horror framework requires a deft hand, given that it’s tackling tricky themes like systemic racism and police brutality while also developing its own supernatural lore. Not only does Prows not give the political material the nuance and sensitivity it deserves, he doesn’t lay out the monsters vs. magic groundwork until well into the film’s third act, when we should already have a clear understanding what’s happening. Strangely, he plays coy with who Night Patrol is and what they’re looking to accomplish for far too much of the narrative, which makes for a muddled story as opposed to lending it an air of mystery.

Had Night Patrol announced its genre intentions from the get-go, perhaps it could’ve been enjoyable at least as a campy horror mashup that invokes the real-life horrors of gang violence in LA. But Prows plays things deadly serious, presenting his project as a gritty cop thriller with unclear stakes and ambiguous character motivation for most of the runtime. There are numerous scenes — a particularly egregious one shot in monochromatic infrared and set to heavy metal music — that depict Black characters we’ve never met getting terrorized and/or murdered by Night Patrol for seemingly no reason. Given their correlation to tragedies we’ve seen play out in the real world time and time again, these upsetting images require some serious justification for their inclusion in the movie but instead, they just feel exploitative and wrong.

It’s a shame that Night Patrol is so dreary and distasteful because there are some fun casting choices that could’ve led to moments that really click with audiences. Rapper Freddie Gibbs, who has only popped up in a few TV series before this, is a commanding screen presence as a gang leader pressing Wazi on the details of the killing he saw firsthand. Multi-hyphenate Flying Lotus, who directed and scored the cosmic horror film Ash last year, has all-too-brief time on-screen as a Zulu member who takes a beat to school his compatriots on monster mythology. They deserve better material that doesn’t crib from regressive stereotypes in an attempt to address the harsh realities of lethal street violence. Night Patrol needs to be called into its police chief’s office to have its badge and gun taken away before being forced into a leave of absence.

Score – 1/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing in theaters is Mercy, a sci-fi mystery starring Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, finds an LA detective on trial for the murder of his wife, with 90 minutes to prove his innocence to an advanced AI judge.
Also coming to theaters is In Cold Light, a crime thriller starring Maika Monroe and Troy Kotsur, follows a young woman who’s trying to lay low after her recent prison stint but is forced on the run after she witnesses her twin brother’s murder and is framed for it.
Streaming on HBO Max is Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!, a 2-part documentary covering the life, career, friendships, and loves of legendary writer, director, producer, and performer Mel Brooks, chronicling his early experiences and rise to superstardom.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Dead Man’s Wire

Those who have lived in Indiana long enough likely know the story of Tony Kiritsis. In February 1977, the Indianapolis resident walked into a mortgage office with a concealed shotgun and held a broker hostage after falling behind on payments for a piece of undeveloped real estate. The heavily publicized events were the subject of the 2018 documentary Dead Man’s Line and now we have the fictionalized version in the form of Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire. It follows a spate of recent biopics like The Smashing Machine and Song Sung Blue, whose respective documentaries haven’t been readily available on streaming, thus leaving the opportunity for filmmakers to deliver their own adaptations. But all these iterations face the age-old test of whether or not they actually expand on the original text in a meaningful way, which this movie doesn’t pass.

In the film, Kiritsis is played by Bill Skarsgård, taking a step out of the supernatural realm after his recent stints in The Crow, Nosferatu and It: Welcome To Derry. Tony’s hostage plan immediately hits a roadblock when he arrives at the offices of Meridian Mortgage to find that M.L. Hall (Al Pacino), the bank’s owner and Kiritsis’ intended target, is on vacation. Instead, his son Dick (Dacre Montgomery) greets Tony in the lobby and offers to take the meeting in his dad’s place, not knowing the sinister turn that it would take. Once in Dick’s office, Tony holds him up at gunpoint and fashions a wire around Dick’s neck connected to the trigger of his shotgun, making for a particularly volatile standoff situation. Shortly after, the pair make their way to the streets and head for Tony’s apartment, as police officers and news media quickly register the crisis as it unfolds.

Even though Tony Kiritsis was a real person, Gus Van Sant’s character is clearly meant to share a kinship with disaffected and desperate protagonists of gritty 1970s crime sagas like Taxi Driver and Dog Day Afternoon. Along with the social consciousness of those films, Dead Man’s Wire is also of a piece with 1976’s Network, whose infamous “mad as hell” line is partially quoted by a cop trying to surmise Kiritsis’ state of mind. These era-defining thrillers are strong sources of inspiration upon which to reconsider this bizarre kidnapping, but Van Sant simply can’t compete with what Sidney Lumet and Martin Scorsese were cooking 50 years ago. Perhaps it’s not fair to compare him with two of the greatest filmmakers America has produced but when the influences are this obvious, it’s not difficult to find Dead Man’s Wire comparatively lacking in tact and tension.

Stylistically, Van Sant does what he can to mimic the mise-en-scène of the masters’ mid-70s movies, with cinematographer Arnaud Potier using refurbished broadcast cameras to emulate the grain-laden aesthetic of the time period. The set decoration and costume design are all on point, while the soundtrack is comprised of radio hits like “Love To Love You Baby” and “Your Move”; “Cannock Chase” pops up again after also being used brilliantly in Sentimental Value recently. The song choices are framed as being those of local DJ Fred Temple, played by Colman Domingo, whose smooth segues are often heard in voiceover. For some reason, Kiritsis has a god-like adoration of Temple and insists on talking to him during the standoff for comfort and consultation. Domingo certainly fits in the role and appears in the film a substantial amount but Van Sant doesn’t go much further into how this parasocial bond of Kiritsis’ became so strong.

Besides Tony and Dick, all of the other characters pushed out to the periphery don’t fare much better with their limited screen time. Cary Elwes barely registers as the constantly consternated cop who first gets called to the scene, while rising star Myha’la doesn’t make much of an impression as a TV reporter trying to chase the career-making story. Al Pacino, who I’m assuming was cast primarily due to his Dog Day Afternoon connection, literally phones it in with an aggressive Southern accent in a couple scenes. I suppose I can’t blame him for trying something because Gus Van Sant struggles throughout Dead Man’s Wire to make these real-life events interesting. In past films like To Die For and Milk, he’s covered this thematic material and this era much more evocatively before in his career. Between this, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot and The Sea Of Trees, it feels like a once great filmmaker is lost in the forest.

Score – 2/5

More new movies coming this weekend:
Arriving in theaters is 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, a horror sequel starring Ralph Fiennes and Jack O’Connell, continuing the tale of a teenage survivor from the zombie apocalypse as he joins a gang co-led by a ruthless gang member and a boundary-pushing doctor.
Also landing in theaters is Charlie The Wonderdog, an animated adventure starring Owen Wilson and Tabitha St. Germain, in which a dog gains superpowers after his owner is abducted by aliens and together, they battle an evil cat threatening humanity.
Premiering on Netflix is The Rip, an action thriller starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, following a group of Miami cops as they discover a stash of millions in cash, which leads to distrust from outsiders as they learn about the huge seizure.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

We Bury The Dead

Somehow, zombies returned. Since hanging up the lightsaber — for now, anyway — in 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, Daisy Ridley has covered an admirable amount of genres across smaller projects and with We Bury The Dead, survival horror seemed to be next on the list. Along with the 28 Years Later franchise, which has another entry out later this month and a trilogy capper due out next year, zombie films may have looked dead there for a moment but they’re back up and running now. In the case of We Bury The Dead, the latest from Australian director and writer Zak Hilditch, the walking dead function more as a backdrop upon which the survivors deal with the unresolved issues they have with those they lost. As such, the film is a bit too pensive and self-conscious for its own good but has enough worthwhile elements to make it a decent change of pace within the horror subgenre.

Ridley stars as Ava Newman, a physical therapist based in the US who travels to Tasmania in search of her husband Mitch (Matt Whelan) after an EMP weapon accidentally detonates and leaves tens of thousands on the island affected. It’s bad enough that the majority of the victims are dead but somehow even worse, some have awakened in a zombified state and attacked members of the rescue effort. This makes Ava’s job in the body retrieval unit more dangerous than it typically would be, although fellow volunteer Clay (Brenton Thwaites) doesn’t seem nearly as bothered by the state of things. Blithely lighting up a cigarette as he exits a corpse-infested house behind an upchucking teammate, Clay registers to Ava as a cooler head who will help her prevail through this tragedy. After the pair get acquainted and discover a motorcycle during one of their assignments, they plan to head south and look for Mitch.

In most zombie movies, the detours these two might encounter as they zoom down military-surveilled highways would involve gory run-ins with the undead but We Bury The Dead intentionally focuses on the humans that can still be just as dangerous. One such impediment, a soldier named Riley played by Mark Coles Smith, has a particularly creepy way to express his grief about losing his pregnant wife to the experimental explosion. Similarly, Hilditch treats us to flashbacks to Ava and Mitch stateside before the latter travelled down under for an ill-fated work trip, depicting a marriage that was already against the ropes before the accident in Australia. It’s an open question through most of the film how Ava will cope if she finds Mitch alive and unaffected by the zombie-like symptoms from the blast, as unlikely as that scenario might be.

Given the obviously heavy subject material, I appreciated Zak Hilditch’s attempts to dissipate the somber mood with tension-breaking moments of reckless relief or cheeky defiance. The groovy drum shuffle of “Vitamin C” by Can always hits the spot for the former and the latter is brought to the forefront nicely, thanks to a cut from raucous Aussie punk rockers Amyl And The Sniffers. A PJ Harvey track from Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea also scores a rare tender scene that still percolates with unease and the threat of violence. The stellar music moments stand out in a movie that’s a little too light on incident and oddly self-conscious about being a zombie flick. It’s clear Hilditch is trying to sidestep the rote horror beats we’d expect but too often, he substitutes them with moments that should fill us with dread but feel too sedate to register salient amounts of fear.

As with other decent indies like The Marsh King’s Daughter and Sometimes I Think About Dying that Daisy Ridley has starred in since her Rey-cation, her performance in We Bury The Dead is one of its strongest selling points. She’s an actress who simply does an outstanding job portraying introverts on-screen, suggesting genuine inner worlds within each of her characters that effortlessly draw us into these stories. Here, Ava has the determination and intellect we’ve seen Ridley convey with her heroines before but the scenes with Mitch showcase marital vulnerability that give us a deeper glimpse into Ava’s headspace. I applaud Ridley’s effort to pursue smaller projects, and likely help get them made with her name attached, but I also wish she’d hold out for scripts that are truly next level. She’s had quite a few base hits but she really deserves a home run.

Score – 3/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Primate, a natural horror film starring Johnny Sequoyah and Jessica Alexander, in which a tropical vacation goes awry when a family’s adopted chimpanzee is bitten by a rabid animal and suddenly becomes violent.
Also playing only in theaters is Greenland 2: Migration, a survival disaster thriller starring Gerard Butler and Morena Baccarin, following a family who must leave the safety of their apocalypse bunker and embark on a perilous journey across the wasteland of Europe to find a new home.
Streaming on Netflix is People We Meet On Vacation, a romantic comedy starring Emily Bader and Tom Blyth, following a a free-spirited travel writer and and a a reserved teacher who reunite for one last trip to mend their friendship and confront their unspoken romantic feelings.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Column, Reel Views

My Top 10 Films of 2025

As with the past few years, 2025 found studios scrambling to figure out what will get increasingly selective moviegoers back out to theaters opening weekend. Fortunately, some of the top earners — 2 on this list were also in the top 10 for domestic box office — happened to be excellent movies too. As is often the case, there were plenty of other titles that didn’t make much money but are absolutely worth seeking out. Here are my 10 favorites from another strong year of film:

  1. Sinners (streaming on HBO Max and available to rent/buy)
    The most compelling horror release of the year, Ryan Coogler’s marriage of monsters and music synthesizes his strengths as both a storyteller and a stylist. In a dual role, Michael B. Jordan leads an exceptional ensemble as a pair of twins trying to turn over a new leaf by opening a juke joint, before uninvited guests show and want a bite of the action. Set mostly during a sweltering autumn evening in the Mississippi Delta, Sinners moves with an infectious rhythm that gets in your veins and doesn’t leave until after the post-credit epilogue.
  2. Splitsville (available to rent/buy)
    There were plenty of excellent comedic choices from Friendship to The Naked Gun but none had quite as many hard-earned laughs as this raucous relationship romp. Writer-director Michael Angelo Covino also co-stars as a real estate wheeler-dealer who feels secure in his open marriage with his wife (played by Dakota Johnson), until his newly divorced best friend soon takes interest. Knock-down drag-out fights are had, songs by The Fray are desperately sung and mentalist tricks for an ill-suited crowd are performed.
  3. Predators (streaming on Paramount+)
    Unrelated to the pair of Predator movies that were released in 2025, this provocative and incisive look at the Dateline spin-off To Catch A Predator is as stirring and unpredictable as documentaries get. Both an indictment of the artifice behind reality television and the carnivorous culture that ceaselessly consumes it, director David Osit’s exposé tackles taboo subject material with laudable focus and conviction. The film’s final moments and closing line have reverberated in my head and stayed with me longer than I could’ve expected.
  4. Wake Up Dead Man (streaming on Netflix)
    Rian Johnson’s magnificent murder mystery franchise maintains its high-water mark for quality with a whodunnit set in a rural Catholic church that has plenty of secrets for Daniel Craig’s detective to uncover. In one of his four starring roles of 2025, Josh O’Connor plays a young priest who’s the main suspect when a senior member of the parish is found stabbed to death in a storage closet. A supporting cast that includes Glenn Close and Josh Brolin — among many other familiar faces — bolster another engrossing cinematic page-turner.
  5. A House Of Dynamite (streaming on Netflix)
    An American nightmare in three chapters, Kathryn Bigelow’s apocalyptic thriller buzzes with a trademark intensity she’s developed after decades of superlative filmmaking. It’s a fly-on-the-wall depiction of how high-ranking officials in the government and military react when a ballistic missile of unknown origin is launched with its sights on a major US city. Written with believable precision by Noah Oppenheim and edited ruthlessly by Kirk Baxter, the movie is thematically taut and almost unbearably suspenseful.
  6. Superman (streaming on HBO Max and available to rent/buy)
    It feels like it’s been a bit since a superhero saga actually felt like it was pushing the genre onward and upward but James Gunn’s inaugural entry in his DC Universe does just that. Digging deeper into the comic book lore and forgoing the Man Of Steel story beats we’ve seen on-screen too many times before, Gunn also carefully considers how a symbol of hope and optimism would fare in 2025. Superman’s tights are never easy to fill but David Corenswet makes the iconic role his own with a self-deprecation and vulnerability that don’t come at the expense of heroism.
  7. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (available to rent/buy and streaming on HBO Max starting January 30th)
    Rose Byrne gives the year’s finest performance as a psychotherapist ironically disobeying the “oxygen mask” principle of self-care as she’s stretched beyond her emotional limits. With inspired casting choices like rapper A$AP Rocky and Conan O’Brien as an unindulgent colleague, this psychological drama is a raw depiction of motherhood as a black hole of perpetual pressure. Steeped in autobiographical details from writer-director Mary Bronstein’s personal life, this is ferociously honest storytelling of the highest order.
  8. No Other Choice (coming to theaters this month)
    Korean maestro Park Chan-wook follows up his romantic mystery Decision To Leave with a pitch-black comedy ripped right from the headlines. Squid Game standout Lee Byung-hun stars as a recently unemployed executive in the paper industry who decides to off his competition for a potentially lucrative job offering. With loads of tongue-in-cheek digs at caustic corporate culture and organizational indifference, Chan-wook takes a darkly funny conceit and goes to surprisingly profound places.
  9. The Testament Of Ann Lee (coming to theaters this month)
    I certainly didn’t have “musical about the founder of a religious sect” on my bingo card at the start of the year but Mona Fastvold’s ephemeral and audacious period piece is an immediate triumph. Amanda Seyfried puts everything she has into her portrayal of the titular Shaker who overcomes persecution and personal tragedy to lead a movement of community and equality. Co-written by Fastvold’s partner Brady Corbet of last year’s The Brutalist, with unforgettable music from that film’s composer Daniel Blumberg, The Testament Of Ann Lee is a stunning achievement.
  10. One Battle After Another (streaming on HBO Max and available to rent/buy)
    Paul Thomas Anderson’s tenth feature finds the master painting on his most grandiose canvas yet, shooting in VistaVision with his cinematographer Michael Bauman to jaw-dropping effect. In a career filled with stellar work, Leonardo DiCaprio delivers his best performance to date as an ex-revolutionary forced back into action when his daughter is kidnapped. Anderson has made several masterpieces already in his career but there’s a centeredness and worldly wisdom that makes One Battle After Another a particularly remarkable statement.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Marty Supreme

The second Safdie brother sports drama coming out this quarter — following the release of Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine a couple months ago — Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme takes the gold among the two efforts. It’s the one that most mirrors jittery character studies like Uncut Gems and Good Time that the brothers crafted together before forging separate paths for themselves. While both Machine and Supreme are technically both based on true stories, the former is much more slavishly devoted to an accurate depiction of events than the latter. Loosely inspired by the life and career of table tennis champion Marty “The Needle” Reisman, the propulsive and brash tale is one of American exceptionalism post-World War II through a very specific prism of ping pong competition. Happy Gilmore meets Once Upon A Time In America certainly isn’t a concoction that should work but through sheer force of will, it does.

Set in early 1950s New York City, Marty Supreme focuses on young shoe salesman Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), whose life moves at such a relentlessly ramshackle pace, it’s like a high-wire act on a taut shoestring above the abyss. In line to move up to a manager position, the path for ordinary schnookdom is lain clearly before him, but Marty has no shortage of confidence that he’s in line for much greater things. In his downtime, he’s become something of a ping pong prodigy, so talented that he’s been invited to compete in table tennis on America’s behalf at the international level. After putting together the cash through characteristically underhanded tactics, he books a ticket to London, where the International Table Tennis Federation is holding the championships for the up-and-coming sport.

While being interviewed in the lobby of his hotel, Marty’s eye catches movie star Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is there traveling with her pen magnate husband Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary). Her marital status does little to deter Marty’s freight-train guile, barely wasting any time to rush back up to his room so he can call her and invite the both of them to watch him play ping pong. Oblivious to Marty’s interest in his wife, Rockwell offers an all-expenses-paid opportunity to face off against Japanese champion Endo (Koto Kawaguchi) in an exhibition match before the next tournament. But when Marty discovers he’s to throw the match in the interest of entertainment and spectacle, he refuses the offer with colorful enough remarks to draw Rockwell’s permanent ire. Unwavering in his desire to go after what he wants, Marty pursues an affair with Kay, despite his girlfriend Rachel (Odessa A’zion) being pregnant back home.

Bookended by two fantastic Tears For Fears cuts and supported by a sublime, synth-heavy music score by Daniel Lopatin, Marty Supreme may start in 1952 but its ears and grindset are more reminiscent of 1987. It’s a stout 149 minutes but it flies by like a ping pong ball whizzing from an ace serve; this movie has more happening in the first 5 minutes before the title card hits than some have in their whole runtime. Like Uncut Gems, which found Adam Sandler hocking diamonds and hustling breathlessly, this film is similarly built around the magnetic determination of both its central character and respective performer. With the way Timothée Chalamet has been promoting Marty Supreme the past couple months, it’s hard to tell exactly where he ends and where Marty begins, but I suspect that’s the point. Whether he’s a real genius or not, Chalamet is crucial to making this epic fly and if you still don’t “get” the actor’s appeal, this film would be the one to potentially win over the unconverted.

The Oscars are introducing a new Academy Award for Achievement In Casting next March and absent a clear frontrunner, members should absolutely consider Marty Supreme as a top choice. In addition to selecting a Shark Tank judge for a main role, Josh Safdie and casting director Jennifer Venditti make a myriad of calculated bets in terms of actor selection that pay off big time across the board. Controversial director Abel Ferrara creeps in as a shady figure whose path crosses with Marty and rapper Tyler The Creator appears as Marty’s partner-in-crime, helping him hustle chumps in the darkened ping pong clubs. Even Ted Williams, whose radio-friendly voice caused him to go viral as The Man With The Golden Voice years ago, pops up as a pool hall doorman. Safdie and his cinematographer Darius Khondji shoot them often in urgent close-up, reminding us that movie theaters were purpose-built to show us gigantic faces illuminated in the darkness.

Score – 4/5

More new movies coming to theaters this holiday season:
Avatar: Fire And Ash, starring Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña, continues the epic sci-fi saga of the Na’vi on Pandora as they encounter a new, aggressive tribe headed up by a fiery leader.
The Housemaid, starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, is a psychological thriller which finds a young woman with a troubled past as she becomes the live-in housemaid for a wealthy family.
Anaconda, starring Paul Rudd and Jack Black, tells the tale of a background actor and wedding videographer as they travel to the Amazon to film an amateur remake of the 1997 film Anaconda.
Song Sung Blue, starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, adapts the 2008 documentary of the same name about a married Milwaukee couple who performed as the Neil Diamond tribute band Lightning And Thunder.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Wake Up Dead Man

Writer/director Rian Johnson is officially 3 for 3 with his Knives Out mysteries, as Wake Up Dead Man becomes the latest addition to the wonderful whodunnit cinematic collection. The brilliant and suave gumshoe Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is back on the case again, traveling to a Catholic church in upstate New York, where its fiery leader Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) is found fatally stabbed in the storage closet. As police begin to investigate, the young Reverend Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), recently transferred to Our Lady Of Perpetual Fortitude due to a physical altercation, initially becomes the primary suspect. But police chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) has a hunch that this murder isn’t as simple as it seems and once Blanc arrives, he agrees there are many more factors that make this crime anything but open-and-shut.

In addition to Jud, Blanc proverbially makes his way up and down the pews to investigate core members of the church with which Wicks spent the most amount of his time. Among them are the town doctor Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), the lawyer Vera Draven, Esq. (Kerry Washington) and her politician son Cy (Daryl McCormack), concert cellist Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny) and prolific author Lee Ross (Andrew Scott). There are also those employed at Our Lady Of Perpetual Fortitude, including Wicks’ right-hand woman Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close) and groundskeeper Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church). All seem to have been accounted for in the congregation during the Good Friday service when Msgr. Wicks is discovered with a knife in his back but no one’s alibi is as airtight as it seems.

As with 2019’s Knives Out and 2022’s Glass Onion, Wake Up Dead Man uses its twisty narrative and beguiling mystery to explore themes of division and polarization that have seemed to define our current era. In this chapter, Johnson investigates faith, religion and what passes for being considered a “good person” in the year of our Lord 2025. A former boxer with a checkered path to penitence, Rev. Jud seems like an obvious choice upon whom to pin the murder of the monsignor but it doesn’t take many flashbacks to see that Wicks didn’t have trouble making enemies. From a literal bully pulpit, he would tailor homilies to specifically call out newer members he suspected of trying to “poison the flock” merely with their presence. Johnson ties this brand of public shaming to the daily digital pile-ons that occur on social media and argues that whether it’s under a cassock or behind a keyboard, it’s easier to dish it than it is to take it.

These films routinely benefit from a bevy of acting talent and the ensemble this time around is aces as always. Daniel Craig is absent for the majority of the first act, allowing Josh O’Connor to cement himself as the film’s lead as Ana De Armas and Janelle Monáe did in the previous two Knives Out installments. Despite Jud’s position in the church, he’s still human after all: he lets loose the occasional curse word, he has a temper that he works hard to keep at bay and he isn’t above casting judgments of his own. But despite this, it’s clear that the reverend is honorable and his empathy for others is anything but performative. With his stellar breakout in Challengers last year and lead roles in three indies outside of Wake Up Dead Man in 2025, O’Connor should be well on his way to becoming a household name.

Rian Johnson once again spins up a superlative script full of playful misdirects, convincing red herrings and testy exchanges that make for whodunnits that you can revisit numerous times even after you know, well, who done it. Teaming again with cinematographer Steve Yedlin and editor Bob Ducsay, Johnson crafts a puzzle box that is slick in its execution and inviting in its aesthetic without broadcasting how proud it is of itself. He’s as consistent as ever with the branding of his franchise too, once again adopting a title from a rock song that cheekily applies to the narrative too. I also appreciate that Johnson has considered the seasonality of these movies too; the sweater weather autumnal Knives Out and suns-out-guns-out summer flare of Glass Onion find a companion in the promise of redemption and spring awakening of Wake Up Dead Man. Whether it’s on Netflix or through another studio, my hope is that Johnson has one more winter-set Knives Out mystery in him.

Score – 4.5/5

More new movies coming this weekend:
Opening in theaters is Ella McCay, a political dramedy starring Emma Mackey and Jamie Lee Curtis, following an idealistic lieutenant governor who juggles familial issues and a challenging work life while preparing to take over her mentor’s gubernatorial position.
Also coming to theaters is Silent Night, Deadly Night, a slasher remake starring Rohan Campbell and Ruby Modine, involving a Santa-costumed killer who embarks on a violent quest for retribution against those responsible for a traumatic event from his childhood.
Streaming on Amazon Prime is Merv, a romantic comedy starring Charlie Cox and Zooey Deschanel, which finds an estranged couple awkwardly reconciling over the holidays when they learn that the dog they share is suffering from depression following their break-up.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

100 Nights Of Hero

As niche holiday releases go, 100 Nights Of Hero is proudly about as niche as it gets. Based on the New York Times Bestselling graphic novel The One Hundred Nights Of Hero, itself a reworking of the timeless One Thousand And One Nights folktale, the film feels like it was made exclusively for those who already find themselves enamored with the text. It has the pomp and theatricality of a costume drama mixed with the romanticism and whimsy of a lovelorn fantasy; if Emerald Fennell was told she needed to tone it down and spin up a PG-13 period piece, this might be what she’d come up with. As such, the movie comes up with a few empowering moments and poignant exchanges but at 91 minutes, it feels curiously attenuated for something that’s derived from a retelling of an epic tale. When each of your Nights is less than a minute of average, it may be a sign that you don’t have enough for a feature-length project.

Taking place in the far-off land of Migal Bavel, 100 Nights Of Hero stars Maika Monroe as Lady Cherry, the waifish bride living in an opulent castle with the uncaring Lord Jerome (Amir El-Masry) and a bevy of armed guards. The only kindness in the kingdom afforded to Cherry comes from her loyal maid Hero (Emma Corrin), who carries a flame for her highness that she hides carefully. Feeling pressure from religious followers known as the Beak Brothers and their leader Birdman (Richard E. Grant), the wedded couple is to produce an heir but Jerome stubbornly refuses the obligation. In a gentleman’s wager with his best chap Manfred (Nicholas Galitzine), Jerome bets that he won’t be able to seduce Cherry, if given 100 nights of Jerome’s absence from the castle to do so. Manfred’s attempts to woo the fair lady come to a head when Hero attempts a seduction of her own in telling a seemingly endless story that keeps Cherry and Manfred waiting with bated breath.

In fashioning herself a Scheherazade, Hero weaves a convoluted and cliffhanger-ridden tale that Cherry and Manfred think they recognize as a fable of one of Jerome’s ex-wives, but Hero throws in enough specificities to differentiate it. The story involves three sisters, who have been learning to read and write in secret, which is forbidden in the patriarchal and oppressive Migal Bavel. One of the sisters is Rosa, played by Brat pop sensation Charli XCX in her film debut, who is pursued by a wealthy merchant that discovers her impropriety and endeavors to conceal it from the townspeople that would deem her a witch if they found out. Both the setting of 100 Nights Of Hero and the intentionally meandering allegory that Hero weaves within it point to the themes of female liberation and queer self-discovery that will ultimately serve as the movie’s raison d’être. It just all feels like window dressing for a room we’ve been invited into before.

Writer-director Julia Jackman lends some fun flourishes along the way, as with a droll recapping of Cherry’s hobbies of chess and falconry that would make Wes Anderson doff his beret. Similarly, a montage early on — with voiceover by Felicity Jones — details Jerome’s past doomed marriages with stained glass portraits captioned harshly, e.g. Janet The Barren and Sara The Unfaithful. But despite the nods to Migal Bavel as a place where women are either demonized and commodified, this doesn’t feel like a tangible place we can actually get lost in. Perhaps it’s a small budget or the limited scope of the story but we never truly get a sense of how this village actually runs and why things got to this place where revolution feels inevitable. It whiffs of a medieval mishmash of stately repression and rigid caste structures but the mythology here needed some fine tuning to feel less embryonic.

The direction of the acting is another aspect of 100 Nights Of Hero that felt underdeveloped, as most of the performers feel like they’re playing in separate projects. Emma Corrin and Nicholas Galitzine are both speaking in their native English tongue, which we’ve come to expect as “standard” for tales of lords and ladies, but California-born Maika Monroe isn’t even trying to deviate from her American accent. Following her brilliant breakthrough in It Follows ten years ago, she’s mostly stuck to horror projects that, frankly, don’t ask too much but when Monroe stars in elevated material like this, her blasé disposition sticks out like a sore thumb. She and Corrin have one scene that smolders but the rest never kindle into a romance that catches fire and is worth investing in.

Score – 2.5/5

More new movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Five Nights At Freddy’s 2, a horror sequel starring Josh Hutcherson and Elizabeth Lail, which reunites a security guard and his younger sister with the possessed animatronic cadre that haunts the defunct entertainment center Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.
Streaming on Netflix is Jay Kelly, a dramedy starring George Clooney and Adam Sandler, following a friendship between a famous movie star and his manager as they travel through Europe and reflect on their life choices, relationships, and legacies.
Premiering on Amazon Prime is Oh. What. Fun., a Christmas comedy starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Felicity Jones, involving a beleaguered matriarch who makes the Christmas magic happen every year for her family but they don’t realize the effort it takes until she goes missing.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Column, Midwest Film Journal

Higher Ed: The Truman Show

Originally posted on Midwest Film Journal

“We’ve become bored with watching actors give us phony emotions.” So begins the metatextual and prescient dramedy The Truman Show, released 2 years before reality shows like Survivor and Big Brother would launch in the US and enrapture the public consciousness. The opening lines are spoken (un-phonily) by Ed Harris, the only performer in the cast to score an Oscar nomination, in addition to behind-the-camera nominees Peter Weir for Best Director and Andrew Niccol for Best Original Screenplay. Harris plays Christof, the “televisionary” director of a groundbreaking reality show that’s been running for 30 years, of which Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) is unwittingly the star. “While the world he inhabits is, in some respects, counterfeit, there’s nothing fake about Truman himself,” Christof continues during the film’s opening. “No scripts, no cue cards. It isn’t always Shakespeare, but it’s genuine. It’s a life.”

Though it’s actually located in a massive soundstage in LA, the town in which Truman believes he resides is the idyllic Seahaven, similar to the titular setting from Pleasantville, which was released a few months after The Truman Show in 1998. The most important “characters” in his life are his chipper wife Meryl (Laura Linney) and trusty drinking buddy Marlon (Noah Emmerich), though actors with earpieces in roles big and small populate this tiny town. They all get their marching orders from Christof, who runs the production from the Lunar Room control room with the help of assistants like Simeon (Paul Giamatti) and Chloe (Una Damon). Much like a serial from the 1950s, the sudden presence of a UFO sends Truman on an adventure, though the inciting incident in this case is actually a par can light falling from the sky. The questioning of his reality causes Christof to scramble as he works with his crew to preserve the illusion that has been maintained all of Truman’s life.

In the same way it’s difficult to imagine The Truman Show without Jim Carrey, it’s hard to see anyone else in the role of the prodigious puppet master besides Ed Harris. But when production kicked off, it was Dennis Hopper who filled the role of Christof before leaving just two days into the shoot, due to creative differences with Weir and producer Scott Rudin. Hopper never elaborated on what those “creative differences” were but it’s possible he played Christof as too sinister, given his streak of antagonist roles at that point in his career. If his Christof was more of a Lucifer-type, then the God-like approach that Harris came up with on short notice — he was cast mere days before production would’ve been halted — was just the ticket. It’s clear Christof has a god complex, difficult to combat when you literally cue when the sun rises for the star of your show, but it’s also clear that he truly cares for Truman too.

When asked by an interviewer how Truman has yet to discover his entire existence is an elaborate ruse, Christof cooly responds, “we accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented. It’s as simple as that.” But it takes a whole lot of work to keep this “world” going and the first scenes of The Truman Show where we spend significant time with Christof depict him hard at work keeping things running smoothly. At one point, he’s feeding lines to Marlon — more precisely, the actor playing Marlon — as he’s in the middle of an emotional conversation with Truman. “The last thing I would ever do to you…is lie to you,” he recites on the verge of tears as Christof looks on. The irony of the moment could come across as a bit of a laugh line but the way Harris whispers the lines into his headset suggest a mea culpa of sorts, that something in Christof regrets the years of deception visited upon his “creation”.

Moments of vulnerability can be difficult when everyone looks to you for strength and direction. After all, Christof has some 5000 cameras at his disposal and antsy network executives, like one played by the eminent Philip Baker Hall, ready to jump down his throat. In addition to his calm composure, Christof certainly has the wardrobe that communicates a forward-thinking control freak. It was design consultant Wendy Weir, the wife of director Peter Weir, who suggested the character sport a backward beret and round wire-rimmed glasses that just shout “genius”. He’s always dressed in black and, in one scene, he’s even wearing the same kind of dark turtleneck sweater that Steve Jobs made famous earlier in the decade. Harris completes the ensemble with a pensive fist to the chin, suggesting that Christof the only kind of gifted mind who could take on the task of crafting Truman’s surroundings.

It’s hard to discuss Ed Harris’ work in The Truman Show without going over the film’s final scene, so apologies in advance for those who haven’t seen it. After many obstacles, including a literal firewall and a biblically strong storm at sea, Truman valiantly sails to the edge of “Seahaven” and rams his boat into the soundstage’s wall. As he makes his way up cloud-painted stairs to a disguised exit door, Christof speaks to Truman for the first time as his words echo through the gargantuan ecosphere like the voice of God. Face-to-face with his “creator”, Truman asks “was nothing real?” to which Christof asserts “You were real. That’s what made you so good to watch.” Truman is obviously the hero of The Truman Show, which makes Christof the de facto villain, but Harris plays him with such genuine care and concern that he’s hard to hate.

Reel Views, Review

Eternity

Joan is in a tricky place. To begin with: she’s dead. When she wakes up in the afterlife, she’s on a train headed for a terminal where recently departed souls choose where to spend their eternity. This cinematic version of limbo, called the Junction, is like Grand Central Station crossed with a packed convention center atop of a milquetoast 3-star hotel. New arrivals walk around disoriented by their new state of being, while Afterlife Coordinators (ACs, for short) assist them underneath an enormous “departures” board. It’s explained that the appearance of the newly deceased is dictated by the time in their lives when they were happiest, so old Joan (played by Betty Buckley) now reverts to her younger self (played by Elizabeth Olsen). Her husband of 65 years Larry (played by Barry Primus) died a week earlier and his mid-30s manifestation (played by Miles Teller) almost doesn’t recognize Joan as she passes on an escalator.

As they reunite and marvel at their mutual recaptured youth, the honeymoon phase doesn’t last long as Joan’s first husband Luke (Callum Turner), who died in the Korean War, appears. He’s been waiting for her in the liminal Junction for 67 years, tending bar and delaying eternity until he can see his “girl back home” once again. Glossy-eyed and mouth agape, Joan whispers, “I never dreamt you this clearly,” as she and Larry stare at the reanimated Luke with decidedly different emotional reactions. The awkward reunion/meeting is exacerbated by a pair of ACs (played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early) who tell Joan she has a week to decide where, and with whom, she wants to spend the rest of her afterlife. Women in romcoms have been put in high pressure love triangles before but given the stakes, the one in which Joan finds herself here feels particularly nerve-racking.

Despite its existential themes, Eternity is a resolutely good-natured and utterly charming cross-generational crowd-pleaser, a cinematic cornucopia perfect for families on the hunt for Thanksgiving viewing. The risible screenplay, co-written by Pat Cunnane and director David Freyne, finds plenty of opportunities to quip about the absurdity of the setting while still taking Joan’s dilemma seriously. The hall of the Junction is packed with representatives from eternities like Beach World and Mountain World clamoring to pitch the perks of their realms to prospective clientele. As the ACs explain: once you pick your place, you’re stuck there forever, so it’s not a decision to be taken lightly. Anyone caught trying to escape from their eternity is tracked down by security and sent to “the void”, as a fugitive from Museum World, who tires from looking at paintings all the time, finds out firsthand.

Freyne’s direction doesn’t get too hung up on the fantastical details within each of these otherworldly domains and instead focuses on the romantic conundrum that ensnares the love-locked trio. Larry immediately figures he’s the obvious choice for Joan but the more time she spends making up for lost time with Luke, the more Larry justifiably becomes nervous. Because so much time has passed since Luke died, he’s keenly aware that Joan’s crystallized memory of him is a more idealized version of who he actually is. The three play off each other terrifically, especially Teller and Turner as rivals Larry and Luke, who snipe at each other both in front of Joan and behind her back. A performance detail I enjoyed was how Olsen and Teller, whose characters on Earth were in their 90s, bring an old timer timbre to their line deliveries.

As funny and sweet as the main three are, Eternity‘s secret weapons are Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early as Anna and John, the ACs for Larry and Joan, respectively. In a sense, they’re akin to audience surrogates, cheerleaders for each of the beaus that Joan will potentially pick for her great beyond. As they represent “Team Larry” and “Team Luke”, they get some of the script’s snappiest lines supporting their assigned suitors; “there’s nothing more powerful than emotional blackmail,” Anna cheekily advises Larry. Even though the film has plenty of moments to make us laugh, it has just as many that make us reflect on the eternal wonder of love, and assuredly has moments that will have certain audience members grabbing for tissues. If it feels like forever since a good romantic comedy came out, don’t wait too long to see Eternity.

Score – 4/5

More new movies coming this week:
Opening in theaters is Zootopia 2, an animated comedy sequel starring Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman, reuniting rabbit cop Judy Hopps with wily fox Nick Wilde as they team up to crack a new case against the mysterious pit viper Gary De’Snake.
Streaming on Netflix is Left-Handed Girl, a family drama starring Janel Tsai and Shih-Yuan Ma, following a single mother and her two daughters as they relocate to Taipei to open a night market stall, each navigating the challenges of adapting to their new environment.
Also premiering on Netflix is Jingle Bell Heist, a Christmas romcom starring Olivia Holt and Connor Swindells, involving two thieves who realize they both have designs on robbing the same department store at the height of the holiday season in London.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup