6 Best Movies To Watch After The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
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 →
Sorcerer
If Sorcerer’s sole highlight was Roy Scheider's descent into hallucinatory madness amidst an almost lunar rock field, it would still be a special movie. Scheider is Jackie Scanlon, an American getaway driver turned washed-up exile in the isolated Columbian village of Porvenir. He’s the last survivor of a desperate mission to transport increasingly unstable dynamite to a burning oil well. The blaze is so bad that only controlled explosions to burn off its fuel stand a chance of extinguishing it. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, including Jackie’s kibashed truck giving out a long walk from the well. Haunted by—or just plain hallucinating—the laughter of his dead co-driver, he stumbles forward. Surrounded by the surreal with nothing but a rickety crate between him and the hair-trigger death, it’s all he can do besides die. Continue Reading →
Meg 2: The Trench
Ever since James Cameron boldly wrote “S” after ALIEN on a chalkboard and then changed it to a dollar sign, the quickest way to sequel-ize your killer extraterrestrial/reptile/mammal/whatever has been to add more of it. You scored a hit with people fighting one giant mosquito? Great, here’s a sequel with six of them. Continue Reading →
Heart of Stone
In the 2023 sea of action movies, setting yourself apart from others becomes increasingly hard. John Wick: Chapter 4, Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part 1, Extraction 2, and more have sparked an action cinema revival. It’s a rebirth that I am incredibly grateful for, certainly. Continue Reading →
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
One of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One's earliest pieces of marketing was a trailer-by-way-of-behind-the-scenes featurette. In that clip, Tom Cruise, strapped to a motorcycle, rockets off the edge of a cliff in the Swiss Alps. He lets the bike drop away before popping his parachute and sailing into the horizon. It's one of the most death-defying sequences ever captured on film and, as we now know, it's one Cruise himself did again and again and again. The sequence, even devoid of context, sums up exactly what director Chris McQuarrie and Cruise (the two are also co-producers) hoped to achieve in Dead Reckoning: grade A movie spectacle. Continue Reading →
Fantasia
This year's Fantasia Festival offered a solid selection of horror, low-fi science fiction, and quietly paced drama. It remains unclear if movies really are back, baby, but the festival circuit continues undaunted. Montreal’s Fantasia Festival leans towards the esoteric and the out there, and this year’s selection in particular offered a strong lineup of quirky comedies, artsy horror and low-key drama. Here’s but a small sampling of some of the more notable features: Perhaps the most promising feature is Hellbender, a genuine group effort by the Adams Family, directed by dad John Adams, co-written by mom Toby Poser and daughter Zelda Adams, and starring Toby, Zelda, and other daughter Lulu Adams. Zelda plays Izzy, a lonely teenager raised in isolation by her mother, who’s convinced her that she is gravely ill with a disorder that prevents her from getting too close to other people. They spend their days alone together, either exploring the woods around their house, or playing catchy grunge rock tunes in a two person band, even wearing costumes despite not having an audience. It’s an idyllic existence, until Izzy starts asking too many questions and pushing too many boundaries, and must learn the truth about her existence. Continue Reading →