Author: Ian D.

In 2014, a very popular novel The Fault in our Stars was adapted for the screen.  I don’t think it’s a particularly good movie but that didn’t stop me from being completely manipulated by its maudlin nature and sweepingly romantic indie soundtrack.  I wept like everyone else in the theater for those cancer patients and their teenage romance.  Very similar tactics are employed for the first two-thirds of The Book of Henry – Colin Trevorrow’s new film. 

There is a stillness at the center of Trey Edward Shults’ new film It Comes at Night that’s disquieting and at times completely upsetting.  Shults imbues the film with this, creating a sense of dread that’s unrelenting.  His characters feel it through extreme closeup as their already well regimented and very remote world seemingly closes in around them.  It’s a testament to Shults as a filmmaker and also a screenwriter.  He shows us all we need to know while never relenting from the dreadful paranoia encompassing his film.

Let’s get this out of the way first – Gal Gadot IS Wonder Woman.  The Israeli-actress is so convincing as the do-gooder Amazon princess that I wanted more.  Her wonderfully earnest performance brings out the best in the rest of the cast while anchoring the film in a stark WWI reality.  It’s a credit to Gadot and Director Patty Jenkins that they accomplished this.  Diana is as much an idealist as Superman but her film employs it with much more candor while Supes has been bogged down by Snyder-smashing masculinity.  Diana is not only the superhero we need in 2017, she’s the superhero we’ve always wanted.

Oh boy, is Baywatch dumb.  Those were my exact words as I left the movie on Tuesday, word vomit that I could barely contain.  It’s not that The Rock, Zac Efron, Kelly Rohrbach, Alexandra Daddario, Ilfenesh Hadera, Priyanka Chapra and Jon Bass aren’t aware (they seem to be EXTREMELY aware) but despite their best efforts they can’t contain it.  That’s not to say you’ll be repulsed by the stupidity…I mean…what do you expect from Baywatch (shit what did I expect from Baywatch!?)

In 2012 Ridley Scott revived the Alien franchise with Prometheus – a mildly effective but ultimately disappointing return to his xenomorph littered hellscape. The film reached for depths never even hinted at in the earlier films – attempting to expand the universe while raising intense philosophical debates about the birth of mankind. Scott’s signature anamorphic style was on display but his characters were so dumb, so unreasonable that it undercut the bigger, meatier questions that lurked underneath. I still defend Prometheus as a valiant attempt to wrestle with these questions while still being a summer horror blockbuster but it’s faults are apparent.