Grade: B

Dune, The French Dispatch, and World-Building Great and Small

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Timothée Chalamet in Dune and The French Dispatch

Denis Villeneuve and Wes Anderson are strangely similar filmmakers, even though they make exceedingly dissimilar films. Villeneuve’s movies are grand, sprawling adventures that envision alien life forms and contemplate dystopian futures. Anderson, by contrast, makes tidy, compact comedies whose foremost exotica are their characters’ eccentricities, and which tend to unfold in an unspecified but highly particular recent past. Yet both directors are true artisans skilled in the craft of cinematic world-building; for them, the screen is a coloring book for their fertile imaginations, one that should be sketched in as boldly and minutely as possible. Put differently, Villeneuve and Anderson treat movie-making like a work of galactic creation. One looks to the skies, the other to the soul, but both construct their own universes, packed with detail, whimsy, and awe.

This past weekend was something of a feast for cinephiles, as it brought new films from the two auteurs, both of which the COVID-19 pandemic had delayed for roughly a year. Villeneuve’s Dune, the long-awaited adaptation of the beloved science-fiction novel by Frank Herbert, finds the Canadian literally building a brand new world, one teeming with wonder and innovation. Anderson’s The French Dispatch, meanwhile, is more earthbound but no less profligate in its assembly. Both are natural progressions that reflect their makers’ career-long preoccupations, yet while both are undeniably impressive aesthetic achievements, only one fully succeeds as a piece of dramatic entertainment. Read More

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The Last Duel: He Said, She Said, They Bled, Who’s Dead?

Jeremy BeckReviews
Adam Driver and Matt Damon in The Last Duel

Things get hairy in The Last Duel, and not just metaphorically. In this proudly old-fashioned, deceptively intricate medieval drama from Ridley Scott, a fraught marriage faces down a crucible of inequality—social, emotional, and intellectual, yes, but most of all follicular. As Jean de Carrouges, a hirsute warrior in perpetual need of both a paycheck and a shower, Matt Damon is armed with a bushy blond beard and an infested mullet that would make Joe Dirt jealous. Opposite him is Jodie Comer as Marguerite, whose flowing locks are regularly woven into elegant braids or neatly arranged into symmetrical ringlets. Gender disparity is the movie’s primary theme, one that’s tidily symbolized by Carrouges’ flagrant untidiness.

Coyly patient and sneakily stimulating, The Last Duel’s complexity reveals itself slowly, so much so that it initially seems familiar and drab, another of Scott’s ponderous Middle-Age epics. (Other examples include the underrated Kingdom of Heaven, the forgettable Robin Hood, and that one about the entertainer with the sword.) The superb screenplay, which Damon co-wrote with Nicole Holofcener and his bestie Ben Affleck (from a book by Eric Jager), cleaves neatly into three chapters, with each replaying the same series of critical events from the perspective of a different character. The first, which centers on Carrouges, is by far the weakest, though this is less a matter of poor execution than a byproduct of the script’s adroit design. Before surprising us with slippery variations and clever shifts in point of view, Scott and his writers must undertake the functional, somewhat laborious work of sketching out the film’s basic conflict. Read More

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The Suicide Squad: I Think I’m Gonna Thrill Myself

Jeremy BeckReviews
John Cena in Idris Elba in The Suicide Squad

What makes a good superhero movie? Given the routine onslaught of costumed crusaders at the multiplex, the question seems pertinent. It also seems irrelevant, as the discourse surrounding the genre’s overall merits—a perpetual battle between triumphant, weirdly hostile fans (comics rule, deal with it!) and bitter, exasperated detractors (get a life, nerds!)—tends to feel preprogrammed, regardless of the particular installment at issue. But even if all superhero flicks are the same, some are less the same than others. And The Suicide Squad, the entertaining and ridiculous sequel/reboot/standalone/whatever from James Gunn, possesses an unusually keen understanding of how such films should work. Funny, colorful, and only occasionally tedious, it keys in on two fundamental truths: Superheroes are comedians, and superheroes are psychopaths.

It’s easy to miss that second one, as popular culture tends to connote masked vigilantism with virtuous qualities: responsibility, integrity, sacrifice. (They’re called superheroes, after all.) The job’s less savory aspects—the constant deception, the maniacal narcissism, the extralegal beatdowns—tend to be secondary considerations, or obstacles of self-doubt that the protagonist must hurdle en route to saving the world and getting the girl. One nice thing about The Suicide Squad is that it scarcely bothers to imbue its demented warriors with any righteousness or internal conflict. Instead, their motivations are squarely selfish; most of them are convicts, and they agree to participate in the obligatory searching and rescuing in exchange for years being shaved off their prison sentences. And of course, if any of them misbehaves or goes off mission, then their no-nonsense director, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis, all business), will remotely detonate the explosive charge embedded in their skull. Read More

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Old: Time Isn’t On Their Lakeside

Jeremy BeckReviews
Thomasin McKenzie and Alex Wolff in Old

The great twist of M. Night Shyamalan’s career is that his movies aren’t really about twists. Sure, a number of his films indulge in third-act rug-pulls that invariably induce gasps, hoots, or groans. But the thing about endings is that, while they tend to stick in our brains, they rarely make or break a picture. The Sixth Sense features one of the most memorable reveals of all time, but it wouldn’t be nearly as meaningful (or as memorable, for that matter) if it weren’t preceded by a delicate story that unfolds with such elegance and detail. And even if you scoffed at the conclusion of The Village, your momentary derision shouldn’t invalidate its haunting, excruciatingly suspenseful depiction of a frightened young woman attempting to navigate the world. So when I tell you that the ending of Old, Shyamalan’s latest feature-length puzzle box, doesn’t really matter, I’m not implying that it doesn’t carry any element of surprise; I’m simply expressing a judgment that this movie’s soft, not-entirely-unpredictable destination is less important than its silky, enveloping journey.

I’d still encourage you to go into Old as cold as possible, not only as a matter of principle but also because its very premise essentially constitutes a spoiler. Even here, though, foreknowledge can’t tarnish the pleasure in how Shyamalan gradually unveils his brain-teasing conceit. To wit: Roughly half an hour into the film, two vacationing children—six-year-old Trent (Nolan River) and 11-year-old Maddox (Alexa Swinton)—find themselves conversing pleasantly with fellow travelers, a married couple named Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and Jarin (Ken Leung). The camera, operated by the invaluable Mike Gioulakis, is fixed solely on the adults, with the kids sitting behind the frame. The mood is cheerful, but as Jarin plays the friendly game of guessing the youths’ ages (“I’m pretty good at this”), an invisible tension begins to grip the screen, an unspoken frisson of strangeness. Jarin turns his eyes to Maddox, still off screen, and appraises her figure: “I’d say you’re about 15,” he estimates, as Trevor Gureckis’ score starts to quietly throb. We hear giggles from the still-unseen youngsters, who promptly inform Jarin that they are, in fact, 6 and 11. As Jarin’s expression slips from amusement to bafflement, the camera finally (finally!) rotates back toward Maddox and Trent, and we see that they’re now a good five years older than they’d been a few minutes ago, and are being played by entirely different actors. Read More

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Black Widow: Sister Pact

Jeremy BeckReviews
Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh in Black Widow

That Black Widow, the new superhero extravaganza starring Scarlett Johansson, is in some circles being labeled a “standalone” film speaks to the bizarre taxonomy of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Here is a movie that’s littered with countless references and asides to the lore of cinema’s most fearsome global behemoth: the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., Wakanda, the Sokovia Accords, “the god from space.” It stands alone the same way the Dread Pirate Roberts stood alone—invisibly lifted by associates toiling in the background. So when Natasha Romanoff (Johansson) at one point declares, “I’m actually better on my own,” the meta claxon that blares in accompaniment is louder than any of the fiery explosions that engulf the film’s tedious climax. If the plot of Black Widow features a woman striving, at long last, to locate some agency (not to be confused with locating an agency, though she essentially needs to do that as well), the subtext involves a taut, character-driven action flick seeking to assert some independence while also maintaining fidelity to the broader scriptures that govern the MCU.

It’s a tricky balance, but cinematically speaking, Natasha is right; she is better headlining her own picture than functioning as part of a bulky ensemble. Most superheroes are, frankly. The final two Avengers team-ups, as insistently epic and intermittently enjoyable as they were, suffered from bloat and congestion, dutifully apportioning screen time and subplots across their gargantuan casts. In contrast, relatively streamlined adventures like Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther benefited from a sharper sense of focus, not to mention a genuine artistic sensibility. Black Widow isn’t quite as good as either of those movies, lacking their piercing wit and visual flair. But it’s a fleet and efficient piece of blockbuster filmmaking, one that, despite all of those aforementioned references, stands sturdily on its own. Read More

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