Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania: A Bug’s Strife

Jeremy BeckReviews
Paul Rudd and Jonathan Majors in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

The implicit assumption underlying the Marvel Cinematic Universe—the notion meant to infuse it with relatability and heft as well as imagination and excitement—is that its movies (and TV shows) take place in our own world. A fantastical version of our world, sure, but ours nonetheless; for every talking raccoon, purple titan, and junkyard planet, there’s a Los Angeles mansion, a Queens tenement, and an Oakland basketball court. The idea is that, while the narratives feature costumed superheroes and magic weapons, the characters’ behaviors and desires remain rooted in recognizable human experience. Sokovia may not be a real county, but the Washington Monument is at least a real building.

What’s potentially interesting about Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania—the third movie centering on Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly as the titular insects (he’s the ant, she’s the wasp), and the gazillionth 31st big-screen installment in the MCU’s history (not to mention the first of Phase Five, whatever that means)—is that the vast majority of its action doesn’t take place on Earth at all. It doesn’t take place in outer space either, or on any other faraway planet. It instead mostly transpires in the Quantum Realm, a microscopic land full of alien life forms, misshapen creatures, and animate vegetables. And so, unbound by the usual obligation to chain his fanciful hijinks to the deadweight of realism, the director Peyton Reed (working with the screenwriter Jeff Loveness) appears to have stumbled into the rarest of opportunities: the chance to a make a mass-market superhero movie that’s genuinely weird. Read More

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Knock at the Cabin: Whoever Wins, They Choose

Jeremy BeckReviews
Dave Bautista, Abby Quinn, and Nikki Amuka-Bird in Knock at the Cabin

In one of the many tense sequences in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village, a young woman implores a housemate to shut the door before a malevolent force breaks through: “Don’t let them in!” That same pleading desperation permeates the opening scenes of Knock at the Cabin, Shyamalan’s new thriller, which finds a vacationing family—an adorable seven-year-old named Wen (Kristen Cui) and her two fathers, Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Spoiler Alert’s Ben Aldridge)—under sudden assault from a quartet of armed, menacing invaders. But where The Village cultivated a tone of suffocating suspense (what will happen?), the mood here is instead one of clammy inevitability. The trespassers break through the cabin’s fortifications with minimal resistance, quickly tying up our heroes and establishing that the movie will not unfold as a typical home-invasion yarn. Sure, you may briefly wonder whether the victims will use their collective guile to escape (did someone just mention Chekhov’s gun?), but mostly you ponder why the intruders are there and—once you learn that answer—whether there is any legitimacy to their stated purpose.

Ever the economical storyteller, Shyamalan answers the first of those questions in a matter of minutes. (Even he isn’t as efficient as the film’s trailer, which naturally divulges the entire plot.) The housebreakers—led by gentle-giant Leonard (a very fine Dave Bautista), who’s joined by the fretful Sabrina (Nikki Amuka-Bird), the timid Adriane (Abby Quinn), and the surly Redmond (Rupert Grint, currently starring on the Shyamalan-produced Servant)—behave according to a peculiar, seemingly contradictory code. On the one hand, they are obviously threatening, with their crude weapons (mallets, picks) and their grim determination. Yet despite their forcible entry and disturbing fervor, they insist—with apparent honesty—that they aren’t there to hurt anyone. Rather, they solemnly inform their captives that unless the family sacrifices one of its own, the world will end. And to prove the truth of their purported prophecy, they will ritualistically kill one of their own until the prisoners—watching helplessly, and goosed by ensuing television reports of global bedlam—resolve to make an impossible choice. Read More

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Ranking Every TV Show of 2022: The Complete List

Jeremy BeckTV Rankings
Imani Lewis in First Kill; Kate Berlant in A League of Their Own; Jared Leto in WeCrashed; Jennifer Garner in Inventing Anna; Harvey Guillen in What We Do in the Shadows

In case you missed it, we’ve spent the past week painstakingly ranking all 110 TV shows that we watched in 2022. Naturally, each show comes with its own detailed capsule, but if you’re one of those people who’s only interested in the actual rankings—and who gets irritated by all of that pesky writing—then this post is for you. All of the rankings are included below; to access a particular piece and view its corresponding blurbs, click on the appropriate link in the header. Read More

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The 10 Best TV Shows of 2022

Jeremy BeckTop 10 Lists, TV Rankings
Claire Danes in Fleishman Is in Trouble; Amanda Seyfried in The Dropout; Zendaya in Euphoria; Emily Blunt in The English; Aubrey Plaza in The White Lotus

Over the past week, MovieManifesto has ranked every single TV show we watched in 2022—that’s right, all 110 of them. At long last, we’ve arrived at the finish line. But if you want to check out prior batches in the rankings, you can find them at the following links:

#s 110-96
#s 95-81
#s 80-61
#s 60-41
#s 40-31
#s 30-21
#s 20-11

10. Euphoria (HBO, Season 2; 2019 rank: 9 of 101). I know it’s ridiculous. The whole point is that it’s ridiculous. The chaotic, outlandish happenings on Euphoria—the blackmails and beatings, the kidnappings and shootouts, the elaborate student play whose production budget surely exceeded Harvard’s endowment—aren’t meant to be plausible. They’re designed to tap into the series’ melodramatic conception of teen angst—the idea that when you’re in high school, every kiss and every spat feel like seismic, life-altering events. Naturally, Season 2 expands the show’s already-sizable scope and ambition (no, I wasn’t previously familiar with Chloe Cherry’s work, why do you ask?), but the twin hearts of Euphoria remain a kind of heightened double helix: the soaring, doomed romance between Zendaya and Hunter Schafer, and the cyclonic energy of Sydney Sweeney, who plays every scene as if she’s either the neediest girl in the world or the fucking Terminator. And while Sam Levinson is far from the most subtle artist around, there’s real craft underlying his sledgehammer style, with rich colors and striking camera moves. In literal terms, Euphoria is nothing like high school. But given how boldly it evokes the swirling emotions of your past, it may as well be a documentary. Read More

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Ranking Every TV Show of 2022: #s 20-11

Jeremy BeckTV Rankings
Kim Min-ha in Pachinko; Milly Alcock in House of the Dragon; Stellan Skarsgård in Andor; Jeremy Allen White in The Bear; Bill Hader in Barry

Entering the home stretch, we’re nearly finished with our rankings of every TV show of 2022. For prior installments, check out the following links:

#s 110-96
#s 95-81
#s 80-61
#s 60-41
#s 40-31
#s 30-21

20. The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu, Season 5; last year: 12 of 108). Here’s a philosophical conundrum: What if a once-great TV show stayed great and nobody noticed? It’s fair to accuse the fifth season of The Handmaid’s Tale of creative stasis, at least in stretches; there are only so many ways for Elisabeth Moss to gaze intently at the camera in prolonged close-up. But even if the series stops short of fully reinventing itself, it nevertheless continues to reshape its thorny dystopia in provocative ways. Moss brings her “A” game every episode, the visuals still possess their haunting amber glow, and Bradley Whitford has turned an archetype into one of the most weirdly complex villains on TV. “Do you have an irony deficiency?” he deadpans at one point. But The Handmaid’s Tale doesn’t lack for much—not black humor, not unpredictability, and not spellbinding shots of Moss staring into your soul. Read More

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