All posts by Brent Leuthold

Reel Views, Review

My Dead Friend Zoe

Adapted from his short film Merit x Zoe, the new dramedy My Dead Friend Zoe is the feature debut of writer/director and Bronze Star Medal recipient Kyle Hausmann-Stokes. His experiences serving overseas in the Army during the Iraq War directly impacted both projects, which center around the invisible wounds that so many veterans return home with. But even though it’s mainly about characters who have been in the military, Hausmann-Stokes weaves in universal themes like perseverance after trauma and the power of human connection into a story that’s deeply affecting whether you’ve served or not. Led by what should be a star-making turn from Sonequa Martin-Green, this is a bitingly funny and ultimately moving tribute to the brave men and women in the armed forces.

Martin-Green plays Merit, a sergeant in the middle of an 8-year tour in Afghanistan who primarily works on-base as a wheeled vehicle mechanic. By her side is the bratty and chatty Zoe (Natalie Morales), a specialist waffling between either reenlisting or going to college after her current stint. After returning home, Merit sits recalcitrant while Dr. Cole (Morgan Freeman) leads up group therapy and Zoe, who has since passed away, appears only to Merit as a gabby apparition. The manifested memory of Zoe follows Merit as she’s asked to take care of her grandfather Dale (Ed Harris), who’s struggling with early Alzheimer’s, in his Pacific Northwest cabin. While looking for potential retirement communities for her grandpa, Merit strikes up a tentative relationship with Alex (Utkarsh Ambudkar), a manager of one of the facilities.

The hook of My Dead Friend Zoe is right there in the title, a comedic conceit where Zoe can poke and prod at Merit all she wants because no one else can see her. It’s not like we’ve never seen this concept before but in the context of this movie, it helps visualize the inner monologue and mental health struggles that veterans can face after coming home. Though we don’t exactly know the circumstances of Zoe’s death until late in the film, it’s implied that Merit feels guilty and potentially responsible for her passing. Zoe typically has an impish and impudent disposition as a ghostly hanger-on but when Merit attempts to open up with others about her trauma, Zoe’s demeanor is much more dour and hostile, as if her existence is under attack. It’s an apt way to convey how some feel that opening up about their experiences will be too burdensome and choose to bury their feelings instead.

Lest one get the impression that My Dead Friend Zoe is too heavy a meal, Hausmann-Stokes and his co-writer A.J. Bermudez pepper in plenty of deadpan snipes in the interactions between Merit and Zoe. As we see during flashbacks of their time together in Iraq, these two young women may not have been immediate friends stateside but as battle buddies, their friendship is full of warmth and humor. The version of Zoe in Merit’s head seems consistent with who she was in life; when the pair visit a cemetery and Merit tries to scold Zoe for making fun of names on headstones, she shoots back with, “I can joke about the dead; these are my people!” There are also pithy exchanges as Merit begins to open up to others as well; “The Army doesn’t own PTSD,” she tells Alex on a date, wryly following up with, “We are the best at it though.”

As a first-time director, Hausmann-Stokes occasionally gets bogged down in the tropes and contrivances that can hinder both comedies and dramas but most importantly, he does a fine job navigating the movie’s tricky tonal balance. Similarly, Martin-Green does a superb job portraying a character who is obviously holding onto so much but can still find the comedy in her situation and day-to-day interactions. She’s a terrific screen presence with Morales and especially Harris, an acting heavyweight who seems to relish his time on-screen with Martin-Green. A sly slant on a serious subject, My Dead Friend Zoe is a great example of a first-time feature filmmaker translating their unique life experiences to the big screen.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Mickey 17, a sci-fi comedy starring Robert Pattinson and Naomi Ackie, about a financially strapped young man who signs up to become a disposable clone worker and is sent on a dangerous journey to colonize an ice planet.
Also playing in theaters is The Rule Of Jenny Pen, a psychological horror movie starring John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush, following a former judge who is confined to a secluded rest home after a debilitating stroke and is subsequently tormented by one of the residents there.
Premiering on Netflix is Plankton: The Movie, an animated musical comedy starring Mr. Lawrence and Jill Talley, putting the spotlight on the SpongeBob SquarePants supervillain as his plans for world domination are put to a halt when his computer wife decides to take charge.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

The Monkey

Dying is easy but comedy is hard in The Monkey, Osgood Perkins’ morbid, but not particularly mordant, follow-up to last year’s outstanding serial killer thriller Longlegs. That film had such an icy solemness to it that even morsels of humor felt like a filling meal but the balance is simply off in the recipe Perkins serves up this time. Liberally adapted from the Stephen King short story of the same name, The Monkey hammers home a monotonous drum beat of gallows humor absent from the source material. The movie certainly doesn’t skimp on any of the gory details — rather, it revels in them — but it barely maintains an air of suspense in between the string of over-the-top death sequences. It’s a horror movie devoid of true scares and a comedy whose best gags were already given away in the superb red-band trailer.

The Monkey centers around the Shelburn family circa 1999, with pilot Petey (Adam Scott) deserting his wife Lois (Tatiana Maslany) and twin sons Hal & Bill (both played by Christian Convery) one day. When rifling through their dad’s left-behinds, the boys find a wind-up toy monkey that seems to cause a random person to die horribly every time its key is turned. After several ill-advised turns and subsequent drum rolls, Hal & Bill attempt to destroy, and eventually bury, the simian souvenir before it can do any more damage. 25 years later, Hal & Bill (both played as adults by Theo James) are estranged from one another but when their aunt Ida (Sarah Levy) dies near where they trapped the monkey, they must reckon with the malevolent force for good.

Much of The Monkey delights in what kind of violent scenarios this evil device can supernaturally conjure from seemingly innocuous circumstances, similarly to how Death works in the Final Destination series. While not all the killings are fashioned with Rube Goldberg-like synergy, some involve multiple elements conspiring together for sudden carnage, like the one in the gut-spinning prologue set in a pawn shop. Others are such comic overkill, as when 67 horses trample on top of a camper in a sleeping bag, that we’re not meant to be terrified by the circumstances as much as amused that such random tragedy could even take place. To this end, Osgood Perkins does come up with creative enough demises to make The Monkey almost work as a tongue-in-cheek splatter film.

But Perkins wants to have his blood-battered cake and eat it too and there’s not enough else here to keep one’s stomach full. Much of the drama hinges on the fraught relationship between Hal and his son Petey (played by Colin O’Brien) but their story isn’t nearly interesting enough to hold as the centerpiece of the plot. The acting between Theo James and O’Brien is stilted and unconvincing, even given that they’re playing two characters who aren’t on good terms with one another. There are well-known actors who only pop up for one scene each, while there are others lesser known who stick around for much longer but aren’t exactly a welcome addition. Heading up the movie’s best running joke, Nicco Del Rio hits the sweet spot as a beleaguered young priest tasked with leading increasingly bizarre funerals on behalf of the small town.

The inevitability of death is certainly a weighty central theme for a horror film to tackle but the issue is that The Monkey really doesn’t bother exploring it in an especially nuanced manner. “Everybody dies and that’s life,” Lois laments — the phrasing in the film’s official tagline is decidedly more colorful — but the sentiment isn’t really unpacked beyond that in the text. It’s more intriguing to infer what Osgood Perkins, whose parents both had tragically notable ends to their lives, feels about the chaotic cruelty of the universe assigning each person an inescapable demise. Now that Oz got The Monkey off his back, here’s hoping he can return to the staid supernatural scares that seem to better speak to his sensibilities as a storyteller.

Score – 2.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing in theaters is Last Breath, a survival thriller starring Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu, which tells the true story of seasoned deep-sea divers as they battle the raging elements to rescue their crew mate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface.
Also coming to theaters is My Dead Friend Zoe, a dramedy starring Sonequa Martin-Green and Natalie Morales, about a female Afghanistan Army vet who comes head to head with her Vietnam vet grandfather at the family’s ancestral lake house.
Premiering on Netflix is Demon City, an action movie starring Tomu Ikuta and Masahiro Higashide, telling the story of an ex-hitman out for revenge after he’s framed for his family’s murder and left for dead by masked “demons” who have taken over the city.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Captain America: Brave New World

The silver screen shield has officially been passed from Steve Rogers to Sam Wilson with Captain America: Brave New World, the first MCU movie with Anthony Mackie in the titular role. It’s been almost four years since the Disney+ miniseries The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, which set up the transition, and any inertia or excitement that show built up has largely been dissipated in the time since. It’s perhaps not a surprise, then, that this movie feels like it’s been pulled in a thousand different directions through its development and the result is about as inorganic an artistic endeavor as Marvel Studios has put in theaters thus far. Despite its subtitle, there’s very little “brave” or “new” about this film and whatever emerging “world” it’s ushering us into isn’t particularly enticing.

After stopping a sale of classified materials in Mexico, Captain America/Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) is invited to the White House by newly-elected President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford, replacing the late William Hurt in the role). He tells Sam he’d like to form a new group of Avengers but that plan is put on hold when an attempt is made on Ross’ life later that same evening. Despite Ross’ insistence that he wants his team, led by security advisor Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas), to investigate the assassination attempt, Sam goes poking around with the help of the new Falcon (Danny Ramirez). Their efforts put them in the crosshairs of the special ops team Serpent Society, led by the ruthless Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito), but their mission uncovers an even deeper conspiracy.

It’s a shame that Brave New World is such a mess of plot holes and logic gaps because Anthony Mackie steps up to the challenge dutifully and gives his best performance so far as Sam Wilson. One of the film’s many themes and throughlines is about the pressure of taking over the mantle of an iconic hero and the imposter syndrome that Wilson feels in the process. There’s a muted subtext about the added pressure that is placed on Black artists when they enter the spotlight that applies to both Wilson the character and Mackie the actor. He more than holds his own in his scenes with Harrison Ford but is even better building rapport with Danny Ramirez and Carl Lumbly, the latter of whom plays a superpowered war vet who is mistreated by the government. I wish the movie had more time for them as a trio.

Instead, director Julius Onah and his four credited co-screenwriters are busy dredging up storylines from subpar MCU outings like Eternals and The Incredible Hulk in addition to the already convoluted political thriller plotline. Like Thor: Ragnarok before it, not only has the marketing for Brave New World spoiled the inclusion of a Hulk character in the film but the ads have leaned into a Captain America vs. Red Hulk showdown as much as possible. It’s deflating that we’re already seen much of the climactic battle, especially when we realize the film doesn’t have much else to offer in terms of story or spectacle. Given that, my favorite action sequence involves Captain America and Falcon intercepting two rogue pilots as they fire missiles at a Japanese fleet, which deftly captures the exhilaration of aerial combat.

If you look at a film like Captain America: The First Avenger, which also has the titular hero squaring against a red baddie, it took the time to develop who Steve Rogers was before and after taking the super soldier serum. Captain America: Brave New World doesn’t have the same obligation to an origin story but ultimately, Sam Wilson feels secondary to the plot machinations. In other words, this doesn’t feel like a project that had Captain America at its center during its development. It’s more concerned with resolving loose ends that no one cares about and setting up prospects for future episodes, including one subplot that hints at a revision of X-Men’s Wolverine. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has produced worse films than Captain America: Brave New World but I can’t think of one more fragmented or scatterbrained.

Score – 2/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is The Monkey, a horror comedy starring Theo James and Tatiana Maslany, about a pair of twin brothers who witness a string of horrifying deaths unfolding around them, seemingly at the hands of their father’s vintage toy monkey.
Also playing in theaters is The Unbreakable Boy, a drama based on a true story starring Zachary Levi and Meghann Fahy, telling the tale of a young boy with both a rare brittle-bone disease and autism, whose life-affirming world view that transforms everyone around him.
Streaming on Apple TV+ is The Gorge, a sci-fi action movie starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, involving two elite snipers who are assigned a mysterious mission: to guard either side of a deep and impenetrable chasm, without knowing what actually lies beneath them.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

List

Notes on the 2025 Oscars

Best Picture

Netflix’s quest to win Best Picture continues as Emilia Pérez, their worst contender thus far, leads the pack with a baffling 13 nominations. Despite this, it hasn’t really been considered a frontrunner during awards season, with Anora and The Brutalist primarily jockeying for first with Conclave in the mix as well. Right now, Anora seems to have the momentum but Picture could end up being a surprise this year. Speaking of surprises, I was pleasantly surprised to see I’m Still Here and my personal 2024 favorite Nickel Boys make the cut here. Obviously I’d love if the latter took home the top trophy but with the exception of Emilia Pérez, these are all worthwhile nominees.

My Prediction: Anora
My Vote: Nickel Boys
Overlooked: A Different Man

Best Director

For the first time since 1998, all five nominees in the Best Director category are first-timers. This one is less of a toss-up, as Brady Corbet will almost certainly take home the gold for his work in constructing the towering and expansive The Brutalist. It’s not his first film but the jump in scale from Vox Lux is simply staggering and Academy voters will no doubt take notice how much he accomplished on such a limited budget. Coralie Fargeat’s nomination here is especially impressive, given that only 8 other women have been recognized in the category in the past and that the Oscars have historically ignored work in the horror genre.

My Prediction: Brady Corbet
My Vote: Coralie Fargeat
Overlooked: RaMell Ross – Nickel Boys

Best Actor

If Adrien Brody is playing a Holocaust survivor in a film that starts with “The” and ends in “ist”, then it’s time to give him that statue. Kidding aside, Brody is excellent as the enigmatic László Tóth at the center of The Brutalist and is clearly a crucial component to that film’s success. I slightly prefer Colman Domingo’s tender and impassioned work in Sing Sing and was glad to see him make the list of five here. 29-year-old Timothée Chalamet is the youngest two-time Best Actor nominee since James Dean in 1957; please drive safely, Timmy. Sebastian Stan does indeed do a very convincing Trump in The Apprentice, although I preferred his work in the more challenging and thematically complex A Different Man.

My Prediction: Adrien Brody
My Vote: Colman Domingo
Overlooked: Aaron Pierre – Rebel Ridge

Best Actress

This is the category that has likely drawn the most media attention of the major awards this season, most recently due to resurfaced Tweets from Karla Sofía Gascón that have since nuked her chances. Mikey Madison was an early favorite in this group but after securing a few key acting awards, Demi Moore seems to be the current frontrunner. Her performance in The Substance was my favorite from last year, so I’d be thrilled if she took home her first Oscar at the age of 62. For the first time since 1978, all of the Best Actress nominees’ films are also nominated for Best Picture, which, to me, speaks to the importance of their work within their respective films.

My Prediction: Demi Moore
My Vote: Demi Moore
Overlooked: Marianne Jean-Baptiste – Hard Truths

Best Supporting Actor

My Prediction: Kieran Culkin
My Vote: Jeremy Strong
Overlooked: Denzel Washington – Gladiator II

Best Supporting Actress

My Prediction: Zoe Saldaña
My Vote: Monica Barbaro
Overlooked: Joan Chen – Dìdi

Culkin is a dead lock for A Real Pain, likely the most secure of the four acting categories, and Saldaña seems like a safe bet in Supporting Actress, although Ariana Grande could pull an upset. Supporting Actor is especially strong this year, with Jeremy Strong’s work standing out to me the most, but one could make a compelling case for any of these five. Saldaña’s acting is easily the most salvageable aspect of Emilia Pérez and if that film has to win a major award, I’d rather it be here than anywhere else. Grande is obviously an enormously talented singer but given that she’s effectively doing a stellar impression what Kristin Chenoweth already did in Wicked on Broadway, I can’t select her as my top pick here.

Best Original Screenplay

My Prediction: Anora
My Vote: The Substance
Overlooked: His Three Daughters

Best Adapted Screenplay

My Prediction: Conclave
My Vote: Nickel Boys
Overlooked: The People’s Joker

Best Animated Feature Film

My Prediction: The Wild Robot
My Vote: Inside Out 2
Overlooked: Orion And The Dark

Best International Feature Film

My Prediction: I’m Still Here
My Vote: I’m Still Here
Overlooked: MadS

Best Documentary – Feature

My Prediction: No Other Land
My Vote: No Other Land
Overlooked: Daughters

Best Documentary – Short Subject

  • Death by Numbers
  • I Am Ready, Warden
  • Incident
  • Instruments Of A Beating Heart
  • The Only Girl In The Orchestra

My Prediction: I Am Ready, Warden
My Vote: —
Overlooked: —

Best Live Action Short Film

  • A Lien
  • Anuja
  • I’m Not A Robot
  • The Last Ranger
  • The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

My Prediction: The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent
My Vote: —
Overlooked: —

Best Animated Short Film

  • Beautiful Men
  • In The Shadow Of The Cypress
  • Magic Candies
  • Wander To Wonder
  • Yuck!

My Prediction: Beautiful Men
My Vote: —
Overlooked: —

Best Production Design

My Prediction: Wicked
My Vote: Dune: Part Two
Overlooked: Hundreds Of Beavers

Best Cinematography

My Prediction: The Brutalist
My Vote: The Brutalist
Overlooked: Nickel Boys

Best Costume Design

My Prediction: Wicked
My Vote: Nosferatu
Overlooked: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

My Prediction: The Substance
My Vote: The Substance
Overlooked: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Best Original Score

My Prediction: The Brutalist
My Vote: The Brutalist
Overlooked: Challengers

Best Original Song

  • “El Mal” from Emilia Pérez
  • “The Journey” from The Six Triple Eight
  • “Like A Bird” from Sing Sing
  • “Mi Camino” from Emilia Pérez
  • “Never Too Late” from Elton John: Never Too Late

My Prediction: “El Mal”
My Vote: “Never Too Late”
Overlooked: “New Brain” from Smile 2

Best Sound

My Prediction: Dune: Part Two
My Vote: Dune: Part Two
Overlooked: Civil War

Best Film Editing

My Prediction: Conclave
My Vote: Anora
Overlooked: Dune: Part Two

Best Visual Effects

My Prediction: Dune: Part Two
My Vote: Dune: Part Two
Overlooked: Twisters

Enjoy the show!

Reel Views, Review

Heart Eyes

Arriving just in time for Valentine’s Day, the romcom slasher Heart Eyes succeeds most by staying true to its unique combination of subgenres. It’s genuinely romantic, consistently funny and certainly has the gory coups de grâce one would expect from a straight-ahead serial killer horror movie. There are plenty of horror comedies, there are even several slashers set on Cupid’s favorite holiday, but this film is clever enough to carve out its own niche. Co-written by Christopher Landon, who’s shaken up the horror comedy genre with Freaky and the Happy Death Day series, this outing does poke fun at romantic comedy tropes but mainly wears its heart on its sleeve. All of director Josh Ruben’s features thus far, including Scare Me and Werewolves Within, have been horror comedies and good ones at that.

Opening with a botched proposal at a winery that turns into a gruesome double murder, Heart Eyes introduces us to its titular baddie, a masked murderer the news media has dubbed the Heart Eyes Killer. Every February 14th, the HEK terrorizes couples in a different metropolitan area and this year, Seattle is on their list. There, advertising designer Ally (Olivia Holt) produces a jewelry campaign that hits a sour note with her boss Crystal (Michaela Watkins), prompting the latter to hire freelancer Jay (Mason Gooding) to play clean up. Forced to work together on the most romantic night of the year, Ally and Jay meet for dinner to exchange ideas but their personalities clash immediately. HEK spots them leaving the restaurant and mistakes them for significant others celebrating, sending Ally and Jay’s night in a deadly new direction.

Like its central characters, Heart Eyes wrestles with the notion of what old-fashioned romance can look like in a tech-saturated world where a new date is just a touchscreen swipe away. Originally wanting a career in nursing but settling for advertising, Ally has always put her career first and often snuffs out flickers of romance before they can kindle. Jay, on the other hand, is more of a softie, falling in love fast and hard before really getting to know them first as a person. Their backgrounds put them in prime position to butt heads on their first “date”, Jay trying and failing to open Ally up with questions about her life in Seattle. Of course we’re seen this trope before — two opposite personalities getting off on the wrong foot but eventually warming to one another — but the actors sell it all the same.

As we know, romance movies live or die on the strength of the chemistry between the leads and Heart Eyes certainly has an excellent duo at the heart of its story. Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding both have experience in the slasher genre, the former in 2023’s Totally Killer and the latter in the past couple Scream entries. In between bouts of peril with the Heart Eyes Killer, Ally and Jay find themselves gradually falling for one another while running for their lives. Hiding in a van watching His Girl Friday at a drive-in theater, the two tenderly unpack how their respective upbringings informed their views on relationships and romance. We don’t just want these two to survive the night; we want them to thrive as an unlikely couple who got off on a rocky start.

Lest one think that Heart Eyes collapses under the weight of excessive mushiness, the movie delivers both in terms of killer wit and creative kills at the hands of the HEK. The late 90s country hit “Amazed” is utilized in an early scene that pokes fun both at the awfulness of Lonestar’s song and at how men sometimes opt for bottom shelf originality when it comes to romantic gestures. Ally’s best friend Monica, played by Gigi Zumbado, gets off quite a few zingers, as when she tells Ally “you look like a ‘before’ photo” before her meet-up with Jay. Elsewhere, two detectives, played by horror veterans Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster, end up on the receiving end of an unexpected Fast & Furious homage. Slashers aren’t typically thought of as date night movies but Heart Eyes is a solid pick for couples looking for something to watch after a candlelit dinner this weekend.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming only to theaters is Captain America: Brave New World, a Marvel movie starring Anthony Mackie and Harrison Ford, in which the titular superhero finds himself at the center of an international incident involving the newly-elected President Of The United States.
Also playing in theaters is Paddington In Peru, a family comedy starring Hugh Bonneville and Emily Mortimer, which finds Paddington returning to Peru to visit his beloved Aunt Lucy and a thrilling adventure ensues when a mystery plunges them into an unexpected journey.
Premiering on Peacock is Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, a romcom starring Renée Zellweger and Hugh Grant, about a widow and single mom whose dating life is thrown through a loop when she’s pursued by a younger man but also has feelings for her son’s science teacher.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Companion

Billed as “a new kind of love story from the creators of Barbarian“, the tongue-in-cheek thriller Companion finds young couple Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid) arriving at a lake house for the weekend. There they meet Josh’s catty friend Kat (Megan Suri), her boyfriend and owner of the house Sergey (Rupert Friend), along with a third couple in Patrick (Lukas Gage) and Eli (Harvey Guillén). After swapping meet-cute stories over dinner and dancing to Book Of Love, things seem to be off to a good start but the next day brings with it a shocking incident of fatal violence. As the group scrambles to reconcile with the horrific event, revelations are made about the relationships between the houseguests that affect how they move forward.

If you haven’t seen the full trailer for Companion and don’t know anything else about the film, you will almost certainly enjoy the movie more if you don’t know any more going into it. However, the marketing from Warner Bros. has already let audiences in on the Companion‘s biggest twist: that Iris isn’t human but is actually a lifelike companion robot. After that reveal, which occurs around the 20-minute mark, the pace of the movie increases considerably and centers around Iris trying to make sense of her new reality. When she discovers that her settings can be adjusted by an app on Josh’s phone, she swipes it and runs into the woods to see everything that her programming allows, with Josh and company close behind her.

In his debut as both writer and director for the same project, Drew Hancock peppers his “robot on the run” tale with biting commentary about how we as a society treat (and mistreat) artificial intelligence. Specifically, Hancock focuses on lonely young men who view women as objects to the degree that they’d rather fashion objects around to resemble women than adjust their viewpoint. More broadly, Companion also wrestles with the classic sci-fi conundrum of the kinds of rights that should be afforded to AI mechanisms, particularly when they behave more humanely than the humans around them. Despite these heady themes, the movie makes room for pithy one-liners, as when Josh stifles a smirk after remarking “I know this must be a lot to process” to Iris during their conversation about her identity.

Though the script has some fun surprises in addition to the central development, Companion suffers from uneven plotting that could’ve been ironed out with another pass or two through the screenplay. The film isn’t exactly a horror movie — at least in a traditional sense — but it suffers from the logic questions we come to expect from entries in the genre. It’s one thing to think “why doesn’t this character do this instead?” when everyone is human but when supposedly super-intelligent beings are in play, it seems fair to expect them to make smarter choices. There’s also a subplot surrounding a large sum of money that feels like it’s out of a different movie about criminals getting in over their heads. Without giving away much about the ending, once Iris comes into focus as the protagonist, it becomes apparent there’s really only one way this story can conclude.

With starring roles in chillers like The Boogeyman and last year’s Heretic, Sophie Thatcher gives her most fleshed-out performance yet as the movie’s titular counterpart. She imbues Iris with obsequious mannerisms that gradually morph into crafty calculations as her deference to Josh dissipates. Following up on a bongo-banging supporting turn in Oppenheimer, Jack Quaid carries over his easy charm here for something decidedly less laid-back and more desperately controlling. Lukas Gage had a small but not insignificant role in Smile 2 and he brings just the right level of camp here as his character evolves during the storyline. It’s not the best version of itself that it could be but as is, Companion is a cheeky companion to hard sci-fi like Ex Machina and Blade Runner that examines relationships between humans and robots.

Score – 3/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Opening in theaters is Heart Eyes, a romcom slasher starring Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding, following a pair of co-workers working late on Valentine’s Day, who are mistaken for a couple and sent running for their lives by the infamous Heart Eyes Killer.
Also playing only in theaters is Love Hurts, an action comedy starring Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose, telling the story of a successful realtor whose past as a violent hitman comes back to haunt him when his former partner reveals that his brother is hunting him.
Streaming on Netflix is Kinda Pregnant, a comedy starring Amy Schumer and Jillian Bell, about a woman who becomes jealous of her friend’s pregnancy and begins to wear a false pregnant belly, a ruse that’s complicated after she meets the man of her dreams.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Presence

The new Steven Soderbergh film Presence is a ghost story, albeit an unconventional one. It can’t be neatly described as a horror movie or even a thriller, genre-wise fitting in most closely to a supernatural family drama. The events of the film are shown entirely from the perspective of what we come to find is a displaced spirit that seems to reside within a house built in the early 20th century. As is the case for the past dozen or so projects that Soderbergh has directed, he also serves as editor and, especially important this time around, as cinematographer as well. Regardless of what one thinks of Soderbergh — candidly, he’s one of my favorite living filmmakers — it’s difficult to deny he’s one of the hardest-working storytellers in Hollywood.

Though Presence isn’t a scary movie, it does start out like traditional horror fare. We see a real estate agent, played by Julia Fox, arrive at a newly listed house just ahead of a family interested in snatching it off the market. Soon, Rebecca (Lucy Liu) and Chris (Chris Sullivan) arrive with their two teenage children Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Callina Liang) and before long, they’re all moved in. As we spend more time with the family, we see fractures in the relationship between Rebecca and Chris, while Chloe has become more reclusive after the unexpected death of her best friend. Eager to become popular at their new school district, Tyler invites swim teammate Ryan (West Mulholland) over to sneak drinks from mom’s liquor cabinet and he soon takes interest in Chloe.

Presence is the second collaboration between Soderbergh and blockbuster screenwriter David Koepp, their first being the excellent covid-era thriller Kimi and their next being Black Bag, set to release this March. Since the visual storytelling is limited to the vantage point of the titular “presence”, Koepp’s script is crucial in filling us in on what’s going on with this family and how this poltergeist fits into it. Though the dialogue can seem a bit too forced or on-the-nose at times, it nevertheless gives us what we need to attach ourselves to these characters. There are also several exchanges whose resonance doesn’t fully land until after the film’s ending; “there is an excellent man inside of you, Tyler; I would love to see him soon,” Chris chides his son after the latter mistreats his sister.

Another Soderbergh staple is working with smaller casts that are mixed with both recognizable faces and actors with more limited resumes. The latter, in this case, applies to Eddy Maday and West Mulholland, who give performances that initially read as “slack-jawed jock” but are given layers as the story progresses. The standout of the better-known actors is Chris Sullivan, playing a father at his wit’s end trying to remedy his daughter’s sadness and his son’s arrogance. I wish that Lucy Liu’s character had a bit more development — there are implications that whatever her character does for work isn’t on the up-and-up but never explicitly told what it is — but she gets a scene of walloping emotion towards the end.

Compared to other releases from the distributor Neon over the next few months, Presence is much more subtle and subdued. During the pre-roll for the movie, trailers played for upcoming titles The Monkey and Hell Of A Summer, both bombastic splatterfests that fit in better with the brand of iconoclastic product Neon tends to put out. In an effort to market Soderbergh’s latest, they’ve mimicked competitor A24’s style with off-kilter violin stabs and pull quotes that pitch it as a terrifying horror film and even “one of the scariest movies you’ll see this year”. Anyone who goes into Presence with that expectation will be disappointed but if you’re up for a quietly haunting tale about regret and redemption, then you’ll want to be present for this one.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Companion, a horror film starring Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid, that follows a weekend getaway among friends at a remote cabin, which unravels into chaos after one of the guests has a startling revelation about themselves.
Also playing in theaters is Dog Man, an animated superhero comedy starring Pete Davidson and Lil Rel Howery, following a faithful police dog and his human police officer owner who are injured together on the job but a life-saving surgery fuses the two of them together.
Streaming on Amazon Prime is You’re Cordially Invited, a romcom starring Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon, about two weddings that are double-booked at the same venue, causing the father of one bride and the sister of the other bride to try and preserve the wedding weekend.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Wolf Man

Released right before the pandemic shut theaters down worldwide, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man was a smart, suspenseful and successful reimagining of the 1933 Universal Monsters classic. Five years later, Whannell has adapted a similar tack for Wolf Man, a redo of the lycanthrope-centric chiller from 1941. While updating horror properties from that era isn’t necessarily a bad plan, this latest entry proves that having the same filmmaker continue to refresh them may not be the best way forward. Originally, this project was to star Ryan Gosling, with his two-time collaborator Derek Cianfrance to direct, and while it’s difficult to know how that would’ve turned out, it’s not hard to imagine a comparatively more challenging result creatively.

Wolf Man centers around the San Francisco-based Lovell family, with Charlotte (Julia Garner) working long hours in the city as a journalist, while Blake (Christopher Abbott) serves as stay-at-home dad to their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth). Blake gets word that his estranged father Grady (Sam Jaeger) has been officially declared dead after going missing near his home in rural Oregon and in an effort to settle his affairs, the three make the trip up north together. En route, their moving truck crashes in the woods and though everyone makes it out alive, Blake sustains a scratch from an unseen creature while in the wilderness. The Lovells make it on foot to Grady’s secluded house but as the night goes on, Blake gradually turns into something monstrous and dangerous for Charlotte and Ginger.

A prologue that depicts a younger Blake and Grady on a hunting trip in the mid-90s seems to set up Wolf Man‘s would-be thesis about parental responsibility and cycles of generational emotional damage. Unfortunately, Leigh Whannell and his co-scribe Corbett Tuck aren’t able to marry those themes to the material nearly as well as Whannell did previously in The Invisible Man. Instead, most of the movie falls into tired body horror tropes as Blake loses human trappings like fingernails and teeth, while Charlotte and Ginger look on wide-eyed and worried. Whannell throws in the occasional curveball, as when Blake’s hearing is amplified to the degree that a spider crawling on a wall comes through to him as thunderous thumping sounds, but there aren’t enough of those to keep his transformation interesting.

The majority of Wolf Man is in the hands of Abbott, Garner and Firth while they’re holed up in the farm house and while they’re all doing their best, the script gives them very little much to work with. Abbott is a talented actor but even he can’t find a way to make his character break through as his speech breaks down and the werewolf prosthetics pile on. Garner is even more underserved here, saddled with an underwritten wife role that completely squanders the commendable range she displayed in much better movies like The Assistant and The Royal Hotel. Though Abbott and Garner are portraying characters who are struggling with a strained marriage, it doesn’t help that the actors really don’t have any chemistry with one another that makes them worth rooting for.

Once Blake goes full lupine, Wolf Man crawls through familiar horror beats where mother and daughter run and hide from the scary monster that has emerged. While there are occasionally tense moments, Whannell and his cinematographer Stefan Duscio too often opt for dimly-lit scenes that don’t clearly present the characters’ struggle. There are certainly interesting ways to use lighting — or an absence of light — in horror movies, but nearly every scene in the second half of this movie made me want to crank the screen’s brightness slider to the right. It’s possible this could’ve been intentional to cover up the stodgy and stilted computer-generated effects, which don’t look nearly as convincing as the laudable makeup work. Universal will no doubt keep reviving their Classic Monster lineup but this Wolf Man would’ve been better left in its cage.

Score – 2/5

New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
The Brutalist, starring Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, is a period drama about a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and immigrates to the United States, where he struggles to achieve the American Dream until a wealthy client changes his life.
Inheritance, starring Phoebe Dynevor and Rhys Ifans, is an espionage thriller about a young woman who is drawn into an international conspiracy after discovering her father is a spy.
Flight Risk, starring Mark Wahlberg and Topher Grace, is an action film about a pilot who transports an Air Marshal and a fugitive to trial but they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar as not everyone on board is who they seem.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup