7 Best Movies To Watch After Godzilla (1998)
Immaculate
According to the press tour for Immaculate, Sydney Sweeney first auditioned for the film years ago. Despite not getting the role at the time, the script made a sizable impression on her. Thus, when she had enough clout, she immediately pursued it once again. Alas, for most of the jump scare-heavy but not especially frightening, horror movie, it’s difficult to understand why the script so captured her heart. After a brief prelude that would cost Immaculate little to lose, audiences meet Sister Cecilia (Sweeney) at Italian customs. After surviving a fall through the ice in her childhood, Cecilia felt called to serve God although not sure how. When her Michigan congregation closed, the young nun felt even further adrigt from His will. However, an invitation from Father Sal (Álvaro Morte) feels like it might be her true purpose. Therefore, despite not speaking Italian, she accepts his invitation to a remote convent specializing in hospice for nuns. Mother Superior (Dora Romano) and another novice nun, Sister Gwen (Benedetta Porcaroli), greet her kindly. The fellow Bride of Christ who makes the biggest impression, though, is Sister Isabella (Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi). She brings sharp bitterness to her first encounter with Cecilia, softening to warn Cecilia off taking the convent's vows. When the new nun rejects the advice, Isabella doubles down on that initial attitude. The seeming professional rivalry only increases when Cecilia discovers she’s pregnant despite being a virgin. Continue Reading →
Dune: Part Two
Denis Villeneuve finishes his epic two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel with sprawling scope and thorny politics. It's really a miracle that the first of Denis Villeneuve's Dune films penetrated the public consciousness as well as it did. It was released amid a worldwide pandemic; it was an IMAX-ready blockbuster that was simultaneously dropped onto people's streaming subscriptions same-day; it's based on a dense, impenetrable sci-fi novel Villeneuve patiently chose not to wholly adapt in one film. The results, blessedly, were commercial and critical success and a host of technical Oscars the following year. That success was enough to secure Dune: Part Two, a chance for Villeneuve to complete his vision of Frank Herbert's seminal work of political science fiction. Where Part One worldbuilds, Part Two barrels down the road of its inevitable conclusion in satisfying style, even as it makes some noted changes from the novel or any previous adaptations -- some for the better, some for the worse. Continue Reading →
Madame Web
The latest chapter in Sony's Spider-Man Universe makes Morbius look like a masterpiece. In an age where the Marvel Cinematic Universe has categorically lost its luster, it's tempting to imagine how green the grass is on the other side of the hill. To imagine that someone, somewhere, is doing inventive work with some of America's most pervasive modern myths -- without the heaving strain of an interconnected narrative, a cast of over-it actors, or visual effects teams stretched beyond their breaking point. You won't find it, however, in the strangely-dubbed "Sony's Spider-Man Universe" -- that casually connected series of antihero films (the Venoms, Morbius) that attempts to cobble together its own Sinister Six from the contractual scraps Disney left Sony after its acquisition of Marvel Studios. And Madame Web, the latest grasp at superhero relevancy in a dying comic book movie landscape, is easily its messiest, most forgettable shrug in that direction. It's astonishing to think that Sony could put out a worse product than 2022's Morbius -- a misfire of a mad-scientist picture that at least contained a few interesting images and the perverse sight of Matt Smith gnashing his pointy vampire teeth through a chopped-up villain performance -- but boy, Madame Web manages it. It's a passive whisper of a film, one that barely registers its own existence. The only reason someone would even deign to make it is because they're contractually obligated to maintain a specific character's intellectual property, not to mention a heaping stake of product placement from Pepsi. Continue Reading →
Killer Joe
Upon the news of the passing of William Friedkin, every headline reporting on the news focused on two films. It’s not surprising that the media spent so much time talking about The French Connection and The Exorcist, two bona fide masterpieces that paved the way for a new era of American filmmaking. What was disappointing was this seeming willingness to reduce a cinematic legend’s legacy to a burst of time in the early 1970s, thus dismissing the five decades that followed as either negligible or outright unworthy of interest. Continue Reading →
Rampage
Even before the internet, certain movies had reputations they didn’t quite live up to. Some, like Salo or 120 Days of Sodom, earn their mythical status as movies designed to make your skin crawl and your stomach clench. Others, like the Faces of Death series, while unpleasant to watch, were just empty, acting as a controversy delivery devices and nothing more. Others still, like William Friedkin’s Rampage, never courted outrage. But unlike those others, whatever reputation it earned before the public got a chance to see it didn’t much help. As a result, at least partially, it remains one of the more obscure releases in Friedkin’s filmography. Continue Reading →
False Positive
Pregnancy sucks. Though we do it all the time, because otherwise god forbid more women would choose to not subject themselves to it, it seems almost morally wrong to sugarcoat it. Even an “easy” pregnancy is uncomfortable at best, when foods you normally love become repulsive, and even tasks as simple as putting on shoes become a comedy of errors, if your feet can even still fit in them. Childbirth itself is the most excruciating pain the human body can endure, and the effort for such a “natural and beautiful” process can result in vaginal tears that can make future intercourse difficult. Mostly, we just get real weird about pregnant people. Pregnancy is perceived as a communal event, with everyone, even casual friends and co-workers pushing advice and suggestions, while often dismissing (if not shutting down outright), the pregnant person’s needs and concerns. Ilana Glazer and John Lee’s False Positive is a chillingly effective look at an expectant parent’s sharp decline from excitement to unease to paranoid terror. Her fears are brushed off as part of “mommy brain,” but there may be something to it. Continue Reading →
Godzilla vs. Kong
One of the most fascinating things about Godzilla -- whether in his original Japanese provenance in his long-running series of films, or in the comparatively-recent "MonsterVerse" Westernization of the big lizard, courtesy of Warner Bros. and Legendary -- is that he's so malleable. On the one hand (as with the original 1954 Ishiro Honda film and Gareth Edwards' flawed but philosophically-intriguing 2014 reboot), he can be a poignant vehicle to explore the apocalyptic anxieties of nations ravaged by atomic bombs and climate change. Continue Reading →