‘Fly Me to the Moon,’ ‘Late Night With the Devil,’ ‘Dear Santa,’ and ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ | Bite-Sized Reviews

Top Row (L-R): ‘Fly Me to the Moon (Apple TV+ / Columpia Pictures);’ ‘Late Night With the Devil (IFC Films).’
Bottom Row (L-R): ‘Dear Santa (Paramount Pictures),’ ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s (Universal Pictures).’

In this edition of Bite-Sized Reviews, I reveal my thoughts on a horror video game adaptation, a Jack Black-led Christmas film, an Apple TV+ film whose title references a Frank Sinatra song, and an indie horror film with an interesting premise.

Continue reading “‘Fly Me to the Moon,’ ‘Late Night With the Devil,’ ‘Dear Santa,’ and ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ | Bite-Sized Reviews”

Oppenheimer (2023) | REVIEW

Cillian Murphy is outstanding as the titular theoretical physicist in Christopher Nolan’s OPPENHEIMER — PHOTO: Universal Pictures.

Directed by Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk; Tenet) — Screenplay by Christopher Nolan.

In 1965, famed physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer appeared on a television broadcast, and, on said broadcast, he gave an account of how people reacted and what went through his head during the so-called ‘Trinity Test’ in 1945, when Oppenheimer and a group of physicists had successfully created and detonated the first nuclear weapon. Oppenheimer claimed that a specific line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita popped into his head: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” It is a chilling quote that has echoed through generations and had a life of its own. For the twelfth feature film in his oeuvre, the immensely popular auteur filmmaker Christopher Nolan opted to tell J. Robert Oppenheimer’s story. It’s a film about a man full of paradoxes, such as how he became a political figure with strong left-wing disarmament views but was also the man who is known for having willfully created a weapon that once dwarfed all others and forever changed warfare and foreign policy. But it is also a film that gets to the heart of the rot of the American soul in the 20th Century. It is an intimate account of the complicated headspace of a historically significant genius, but it is also a haunting and damning cautionary tale about learning the wrong lessons, naivete, guilt, covetousness, and ripple effects. It is an astoundingly brilliant achievement and much more than your average biopic.

Continue reading “Oppenheimer (2023) | REVIEW”

REVIEW: Dune (2021)

Josh Brolin, left, as Gurney Halleck and Timothée Chalamet, right, as Paul Atreides in Denis Villeneuve’s DUNE — Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures / Legendary Pictures.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049) — Screenplay by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, and Eric Roth.

When science-fiction neophytes first lay their eyes on the marketing material for Denis Villeneuve’s latest science-fiction film, Dune, they should be forgiven, if they immediately remark that it looks like an imitation of Star Wars — or other similar films. Obviously, they would be under a false impression, but, after all, it is a little bit strange that one of Star Wars‘ most obvious sources of inspiration — Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune — has not previously generated a widely known or appreciated adaptation.

In fact, the Dune property is perhaps especially renowned for being difficult to adapt. Famously, Alejandro Jodorowsky tried but failed to get an adaptation off the ground, while David Lynch’s adaptation from 1984 was critically panned. Those ‘failed’ attempts are, in fact, more widely known than the Sci-Fi Channel mini-series that the franchise also spawned. Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. have now entrusted auteur Denis Villeneuve with the job of adapting Frank Herbert’s rich, influential, and dense source material, and I think that was a very smart decision.

Continue reading “REVIEW: Dune (2021)”

REVIEW: The Suicide Squad (2021)

David Dastmalchian, John Cena, Idris Elba, and Daniela Mechior in THE SUICIDE SQUAD — Photo: Jessica Miglio / Warner Bros.

Directed by James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) — Screenplay by James Gunn.

Over the years, I have certainly not tried to hide the fact that I think 2016’s Suicide Squad, which was directed by David Ayer (though he has repeatedly made it clear that the film was essentially taken away from him as a result of studio interference), is, to put it mildly, one of my least favorite films ever made in the superhero genre. That 2016 film certainly reeked of studio interference, it was an almost incoherent mess, it was needlessly grimy and at times quite ugly, it used a decent soundtrack as a crutch and in a way that became incredibly tiring, all the while failing to get you to care about the characters or the relationships they were building. There were some decent things about it, but, on the whole, it felt like someone had tried to turn Ayer’s vision into a shameless imitation of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and that just didn’t work for the film that Ayer had envisioned.

Continue reading “REVIEW: The Suicide Squad (2021)”