So, this movie got really panned out of Venice with words like '‘indulgent,’ ‘narcissistic’ and ‘unbearable’ being thrown around, with others defending its stylish ambition. Innaritu has been accused of pretentiousness before of course with Birdman and Babel, but going all in with an autobiographical story may finally be too far in the Fellini direction for most critics (and who knows, 8 1/2 may well be torn apart if it had come out now instead of in 1963). Then Inarritu cut 22 minutes from the runtime, so that it’s now 2 and half hours instead of closer to three, so the version coming out in December isn’t quite the one that screened earlier. I’m not sure if it should be written off just yet, seeing as how the director has always been embraced by the industry and Academy voters in the past. This one may still be as well.

*Nope* is the one to see, but seek out *Happening* as well

My first reviews of 2022 are here! I’ve only seen enough so far to do two review roundups, so here’s the first. And I’ll be back with the second next week. But of these I would definitely recommend Nope and Happening over the rest.

THE BATMAN * * (Dir. Matt Reeves)

Better cinematography can’t save this flat, dull *Batman* outing

There’s only so much you can do with the Batman property when your only goal is to make every new reboot even “darker” than the last one. Call me when someone wants to make it “lighter and funner” than the last one, now that might be a turn for the better at this point. As it is, this latest Batman movie apes from the David Fincher aesthetic as promised and at least the art direction is somewhat inspired. This is a more interesting looking Gotham than the clear as day Chicago from the Nolan trilogy. But that’s about all I can say for it, as the muddled screenplay suffers from a desire to contrive a “mystery” that results in confused stumbles for all the main characters and makes Batman himself look like the world’s dumbest, rather than greatest, detective. The casting is bad across the board, with Robert Pattinson in a 12 year old’s haircut, brooding his hardest, desperately repeating his constipated Twilight performance and Zoe Kravitz a bland, unexciting (and uncharacteristically tiny) Selina Kyle, though the movie tries to do more with the Batman/Catwoman dynamic than recent entries (to no avail- you can’t do much with no chemistry between mediocre leads). There’s a lot less action in this film than others in the genre, though I would give it more credit for that if what had replaced those scenes were at all interesting or frankly, decipherable. But the movie suffers from a similar problem the last Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, did- an overly ambitious plot with no idea how to connect its threads. I admire the attempt at trying to write something more complicated for a typical action film, but this feels like a rough draft that made it to print. No memorable villains to be had either, as I’m pretty sure no one will be talking about Paul Dano’s Riddler or Colin Farrell’s Penguin in years ahead. Can a movie survive on “vibes” alone? Certainly not a near three hour one. It may fool audiences slightly with its grasping for pretension, but with the existence of The Dark Knight, it shouldn’t succeed. People know better.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE * * (Dir. Daniels)

Sometimes there’s a movie with so much energy zipping around on screen that you want to tell it to calm down and stop yelling at you. This was such a film for me, as the non-stop zigging and zagging through the multiverse makes for an incredibly aggravating experience, the irritation of which far outweighs whatever creativity or innovation Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (who call themselves “Daniels”) think they’re bringing to the screen. The one positive is Michelle Yeoh’s performance, as the veteran actress is finally given a lead role and makes the most of it, as an older woman confronted with a husband who wants a divorce, a daughter who wants to rebel, and an IRS agent who wants to take her business away. In the middle of all this her universe is literally encroached upon by doppelgangers and other worlds that no one else can see, and we’re off to the races in a colorful mishmash of alternating realities, kind of like The Matrix (but not as compelling). The noise and the “comedy” of the movie may work for some people (this film has already developed a passionate fanbase and turned into a genuine word of mouth hit) but there’s an absurdist element to this that either grabs you or it doesn’t. I just wanted to turn it off.

THE LOST CITY * * 1/2 (Dir. Nee Brothers)

The chemistry between the leads almost pulls this one off

We all want back that era where a light romantic comedy carried by the appeal of its actors can bring audiences out to the movies, and this is a movie that attempts to do this, by using one of the genre’s longtime mainstays, Sandra Bullock at her casually flighty best. The good thing is she can still pull off exactly the same trick at 57 that she could at 30, and the age difference between her and co-star Channing Tatum (equally appealing) isn’t even a ripple. The other good thing is that the supporting cast is genuinely funny, down to the surprising villain in Daniel Radcliffe, Bullock’s intrepid literary agent Davine Joy Randolph, and a hilarious extended cameo by Brad Pitt that turns on a dime you won’t see coming. Is it enough to recommend the movie altogether? Well…almost. The screenwriters lift the plot of Romancing the Stone almost verbatim, with Bullock as a successful but tired romance novelist living out the plot of one her books, Tatum along as her cover model/would be knight in shining armor. The two are very funny together and sell just about every joke, as both have an earnest sincerity about them that you buy even in the most ridiculous situations. The problem is the general stupidity of the situation and the incredibly phony green screen backgrounds that never let you forget what you’re watching isn’t happening (why is it that we can’t film more than b-roll footage on location anymore?) Still, I’m tempted to give it a pass for mostly succeeding at its modest, now sadly old-fashioned goals.

HAPPENING * * * 1/2 (Dir. Audrey Diwan)

This intense film makes for a deeply timely moviegoing experience

Audrey Diwan’s drama about a young girl in 1960’s France who needs an abortion plays like a semi-thriller, and in that vein seems influenced by the 2007 now classic Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. The similarities are stark, with Diwan filming in an enclosed 4:3 aspect ratio and the camera following university student Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei) around from the back as the title cards flash how far along she is and the claustrophobic style suffocates the audience as well as the subject. But the intensity is worth the struggle, as the fear, pain and desperation Anne suffers make us privy to what she’s thinking and feeling with every step. Vartolomei is wonderful as the independent Anne, who shrugs off what people think and aches to live her own life free of the barriers society erects for women, unlike her friends and fellow students, who hide what they feel and shun the girls at school whom they deem “sluts.” The atmosphere of repression and reprobation for those who break the rules is reminiscent of 4 Months as well, but the unspoken dangers in that film represented the spectre of the Soviet Union in the 1980’s, while I do wonder if democratic France in 1960 held societal dangers equally fearsome (even if the procedure was illegal, as it was in most countries). The other dangers of course, are the physical ones, as Anne grows more and more desperate and turns to increasingly dangerous and potentially fatal methods to rid herself of the burden she does not want and should not have to bear. Diwan’s focus on bodily autonomy is represented by numerous close-ups on the female body and direct, explicit, images showing us exactly what pregnant women face when given no other choices. This film was released in France last year but comes out in the U.S. right at a time when the looming disaster of human rights being stripped away is now a fact of life for millions of women who never had to live in a world without them. Welcome to the future. Or should we say, the past?

TOP GUN: MAVERICK * * * (Dir. Joseph Kosinski)

Tom Cruise is still American’s favorite movie star

The original Top Gun was a pretty trashy music video of a movie that became a huge hit and solidified itself in pop culture with its homoerotic undertones and dated action sequences (they were forced to use stock footage in a lot of those dogfight scenes and it was almost impossible to tell who was who up in the air). It wouldn’t have been too hard to improve on it as a movie, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Top Gun: Maverick does just that- it tells an earnest story about a guy who should have retired by now, called back in for one last job, so to speak, and forced to get back in the saddle himself in order to get it done. Yes, we’ve definitely seen this before, but in Joseph Kominsky’s hands, it’s well done and not overly nostalgic for the worst parts of the original. Tom Cruise is in prime movie star mode as an aged Maverick, hardly the most interesting character ever put on a movie screen, but nevertheless given a respectful, thought out back story in the 40 years between films and a strained relationship with Rooster (Miles Teller), the grown son of the dearly departed Goose (Anthony Edwards in the first film). Maverick is called back to Top Gun to teach a new hotshot crew of fighter pilots how to man a dangerous mission to take down an enemy base. This “enemy” is never explicitly named or shown except in faceless, black masked close-up- it presumably must be Russia or China, but all this has to be taking place in a fantasy world where dangerous missions like this are necessary. Of course, they aren’t in reality- if they were we’d certainly be hearing about them, but the allure of Top Gun is a world where Americans are always in a romanticized war with someone who we can beat at every turn without breaking a sweat. Or at least Maverick can. Otherwise where are the stakes? As a film it works, with the climactic action sequence in particular quite exciting and suspenseful, earning its celebratory bonafides among its satisfied, cheering crowds. And the appearance of Val Kilmer, to resume the true love story of Top Gun, that between Iceman and Maverick, is touching, even if mostly due to Kilmer’s health status offscreen. The movie would always be dogged by the formulaic plot and stock characters established by the series, but the absence of constant snark is refreshing in a blockbuster entertainment- I think we could all do with a little more sincerity at the movies. And the solid, old-fashioned charms of this one make for a nice throwback. Definitely better than the first.

NOPE * * * 1/2 (DIr. Jordan Peele)

What does it all mean? The best part of *Nope* is in figuring it out

Jordan Peele’s third film is his least comedic, most provocative and his best to date. The movie recalls a lost episode of The Twilight Zone (like most of his work), but the unsettled atmosphere of constant dread and strange unpredictability is most akin to what we’ve all been feeling in this most unprecedented last two years of constant unease and bewildering doom. The movie recalls the pandemic in some claustrophobic parallels, where being safe is being trapped in our house while blood rains down on you from the outside. But the plot is simplistic and reminiscent of classic horror like Jaws or parts of Signs. Daniel Kaluuya returns to the Peele orbit as O.J., a horse trainer in Los Angeles whose horses are used in Hollywood productions. It’s a family business, one whose history includes a great-great grandfather whose image as a jockey was used in the first reel to simulate motion pictures. This remarkable fact is the symbolic starting point to play with the exploitation of black imagery in Hollywood history, layered on top of a story about a creature hunting us from above, along with how the exploitation of animals in the business can lead to tragedy and violence. Peele’s movies are always about more than what they seem and the challenge to the audience is in trying to decipher what the filmmaker is attempting to convey. Memorable sequences in this film also have that effect, but nothing is spelled out for us, as the general weirdness and overall vibe is more than enough. It’s a chillingly effective mind-bender.