Glass Onion

2022, d. Rian Johnson - Netflix

The key to a good murder mystery is (he says, having not been overly steeped in the genre throughout his life) not the mystery itself, but the players involved and the situation they're involved in.  Most mysteries (not just the murderous ones) worth their salt aren't of the "whodunnit" sort where the audience is given the clues to figure out the perpetrator.  That's actually the worst type of mystery because you don't want the audience to figure it out before the film reveals it.  In fact, if you lay out clues too heavy-handedly, the audience will spend more time trying to puzzle out the answer than paying attention to the story, and that's death for any storyteller.

Look at a movie like 1984's Clue that infamously was send out to theatres with three different endings.  This meant that the details within the film were presented in such a way that three different endings (at least), with three different murderers (at least) could exist.  Glass Onion, like its predecessor, Knives Out, is not so openly constructed.  The seeds of the film's resolution are laid throughout the entire production, but they're also only part of the story.

Glass Onion finds a billionaire tech mogul (I was going to write "genius" but we're all learning that these tech moguls aren't exactly geniuses) inviting his old friends out to his luxurious island estate for a weekend murder mystery party.  Also invited was the partner he screwed out of the company, and, on accident (or by someone's design), world renowned cajun detective Benoit Blanc.  The opening set-up is perhaps overlong, but its playfulness means it's far from dull.  Before the team hit the island, there's a heavy COVID-times vibe, with masks and stranger wariness that threatens to overshadow the film, but is quickly dispensed with with the wave of an aerosol can (the rich have solutions to problems the rest of us don't have access to).

The murder mystery party is a bust (Benoit Blanc is just too good), and so the party just becomes a party, but unspoken tensions fill the room.  Then the manosphere bro of the group collapses on the floor, the lights go out, and gunshots explode.  Things get serious from there.  As they do, the danger looms and the suspicions spiral out and it comes to a head with another death at the end of the very extended first act.  

In an average film at this point we would be pausing to contemplate, the who, the how, the why.  But Johnson instead takes us back to the beginning and offers us another perspective, additional insights we weren't privy to before, and deceptions that he, as a filmmaker, intentionally let us believe.  And once he unveils all this new information...we're still no better off, no clearer on the who and the why.

And so, the third act...where everyone is gathered together and the great detective lays it all out...but there's no police, no one's coming, and to say anymore would be telling...but it's a very elaborate Rube Goldberg machine Johnson sets up, and once the domino is tipped, it moves rapidly and expands and expands, using all the pieces laid down in a very exciting and satisfying conclusion.

You wouldn't think a murder mystery would be an EVENT film, but that's the scale this operates on, and succeeds at doing so.  It's also not just a trifle.  It has things to say about the people involved in the story, and their real world counterparts, in fact the story entirely hinges upon it.  I've always appreciated how Johnson negotiates both characters and story in his features, he operates on multiple levels, and an audience can choose to accept (or reject) his films at any of those tiers.

It's clear the cast were having a blast in making this, and Daniel Craig especially loves being Benoit Blanc.  That's a good thing since Johnson has at least one more of these owed to Netflix.  I'd take a half dozen or more.

31 Days of Halloween: The Inevitable TV Insert

There is always some TV watching to be had at this time of year, shows that emerge just before, that are thematically connected to what we watch at this time of the year. Remember, its not just horror movies. I have been leaving most of my TV writeups to the now adopted Kent format, and only posting them once seasons complete, but for this thing, I may just use the series as inserts for bad nights. We shall see. Also, giving that I am not using the Watching format, I will just muse on the shows for now. Maybe they will each get their own segment post-Halloween. We shall see.

Agatha All Along, 2024 - Disney+
Grotesquerie, 2024 - Disney+
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, 2018 - Netflix
Teacup, 2024 - Download

If witches aren't Halloween, I am not sure what is. Buut admittedly, I am not sure about this show, and I guess I am kind of playing into the, "Who wanted this?" camp. I didn't find her all that compelling of a "villain" in the Wandavision show, which I didn't write about for some reason. But the show was there, and I guess we are solidly in the "watch everything MCU" camp.

The first episode amused me in its campy nod to Mare of Easttown and a genre of TV we watch a lot of. But as Agatha (Kathryn Hahn, Glass Onion) emerged from the character imposed upon her by Wanda, I lost interest. BUT once the rest of the coven were added in, and they went on their warped & twisted version of the Yellow Brick Road, I was caught again... and then very soon after, lost again. I guess I should have stayed on The Road?

Of note, later on in the show, we see the "Mare" bit from another character's viewpoint and its hilarious.

Meanwhile on Grotesquerie the new horror/thriller/murdery show from American Horror Story (which also has an anthology series I might check out, American Horror Stories) creator Ryan Murphy seems to want to embrace that sub-genre of murder-mystery focused on grotesque scenes of murders, shows like Hannibal or True Detective. But the underlying aspect is the simultaneous grotesque nature present in real, mundane life.

Sure, the religiously symbolic murders are horrific, but that doesn't seem to bother Detective Lois Tryon (Niecy Nash, The Rookie: Feds) as much as it should. But like all these shows, she has her own shit to deal with, including a husband in a coma and a daughter prepping to be a contestant on a reality TV show I think was about morbidly obese people? Pop culture always seems to be caught in a swinging pendulum of how it feels about being fat -- either they embrace all bodies and shapes, or its on display as body horror. And there is the weird nun insinuating herself into the crime scene investigation, who has all the background details on the religious symbology used to stage the murder scenes.

We only watched one episode and I might have returned to it if I hadn't been spoiled as to an aspect of the show that eliminates the whole point of watching such a show. Even so, it might be interesting to see the production values of how they play it out.

We returned to Chilling Adventures of Sabrina after having dropped it. Riverdale did not interest me and this show is ostensibly a spin-off of that teen drama show, but it is also an adaptation of a horror-based comic version of the "Sabrina the Teen-Age Witch" comics (from "Archie") by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, under the Archie comics own horror line. Just writing that is weird but I do remember when I would read those digest comics of Archie, there was a fondness for campy horror.

Anywayz, we dropped it (again) for one reason or another, likely tiring of the teen drama, the same way I did with Riverdale, but more likely Oct 1st coming up. But in this rewatch/continuance, which we started in September I noticed a different reaction, as in one of amazement that the Satanic aspect of the witches in the series is so obvious, blatant and embraced. Maybe its the climate of the last few years, but I cannot believe it was greenlit. Would such happen in 2024, and since this show only started in 2018, what has changed so much in four years that makes me wonder if the world would accept a show where teens literally worship Satan would make it.

Either way, I still found the base idea of Sabrina (Kiernan Shipka, Totally Killer), a half-witch (its blood based), trying to find her way in the world ... charming? I hope I can push past the stuff I don't like and watch it for what it was.

Finally, the Robert R McCammon adaptation of his book Stinger is from Peacock and I am enjoying it immensely, not in spite of but probably because it is by the books horror-scifi. Its Under the Dome without a dome. A family is trapped inside a circle around the land, that captures their farm and a few others. If you cross over, your body does horrific things to itself. Inside the circle the family is dealing with family drama, as all horror TV usually depicts, and the discovery of what is going on.

Excceeeept, as the show went deeper, and things started being explained I was less enthused. The "not knowing WTF is going on" was a strong part of what caught my attention and once we knew (SPOILER !!) it was aliens, good aliens vs bad aliens, my keen interest faded. Oh, I will finish, but the gloss of the first few episodes become duller. 

We also have Sweetpea in the hopper, and Hysteria but likely they will get their own "Watching" posts.

KWIF: The Last of Sheila (+4)

KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. It's been a busy couple of weeks so I missed doing a write-up last week and am trying to get ahead of it this week as another busy weekend is ahead. To be perfectly honest, my heart and mind aren't really in it to win it, but here we go anyway. 

This Week:
The Last of Sheila (1973, d. Herbert Ross - hollywoodsuite)
The Final Destination (2009, d. David R. Ellis - rental)
Starship Troopers (1997, d. Paul Verhoeven - netflix)
Hail, Caesar! (2015, d. Joel and Ethan Coen - blu-ray)
Christmas on Duty (2025, d. Jake Van Wagoner - hallmark)

---

When Glass Onion, the sequel to Knives Out! came out in 2022, director Rian Johnson routinely cited The Last of Sheila as one of his key inspirations for the Benoit Blanc sequel. I, like a great many, was completely unaware of the existence of this film, whose biggest claim to fame would be that it was co-written by Psycho star Anthony Perkins and legendary Broadway musical composer Stephen Sondheim. I mean, yeah, what?

Turns out that Perkins and Sondheim are old friends and that for years they would stage grand-scale scavenger hunts and murder mystery parties for their pals (one of which was this film's director Herbert Ross). It wasn't a far stretch for them to take a few of their ideas and build a Hollywood-style narrative around it.

The result is The Last of Sheila, where millionaire movie mogul Clinton Greene (James Coburn) has invited a few of his Hollywood acquaintances from in front of and behind the screen to a weekend of games and adventure.  His six guests include aspiring screenwriter Tom Parkman (Richard Benjamin) and his wife with family money, Lee, horny and hungry star agent Christine (Dyan Cannon), over-the-hill director Philip Dexter (James Mason), superstar actress Alice Wood (Racquel Welch) and her latest husband Anthony (Ian McShane). They're all in different states of desperation as to not turn down Greene's invitation, but it seems like the only one that wants to be there is Christine.

Clinton promises fun and frivolity, but there's an air of something quite off. Clinton's beloved wife, Sheila, died, a victim of a hit-and-run about a year earlier, and Clinton hasn't been the same since. His game, and the plot thereof has sinister undertones, and it's not long before people start to suspect that Clinton is either toying with them, or planning something far more damning and dramatic. It seems the roleplaying he has each person playing is the secret of another player, and it's up to the players to figure out who's who.

Only trouble is, on the second day of the multi-day event, Clinton is murdered, and so the game becomes, well, just which one of them murdered him, and why.

The Last of Sheilah may not seem like much at first, and the first act, right up until Clinton's death, seems maybe a little frivolous, as if the whole affair is about Clinton trying to uncover, through is game, just which one of his guests was the driver that killed his wife. But it's nary so simple, and the twists just keep on twisting in rather delicious fashion throughout.

It's an exceptionally clever mystery that, like the best of them, isn't teasing the audience with clues as to its answer, because the mystery it's trying to solve isn't the mystery it's actually trying to solve, and even when the mystery is solved, there's still more to it. This film doesn't really relent until its last frame, and it ends in such a unique place that, somehow, still feels utterly unique.

The only part about The Last of Sheila that is maybe a little underwhelming is that its a cast of six, which doesn't seem like enough suspects when we can narrow them down and eliminate them pretty quickly. Of course, Ross is very clever with what he shows and doesn't show, and the script is very delicate in what it tells us and what it holds back.

I don't want to oversell it, but it's a really fun movie, and an absolute must for any fan of murder mysteries.

---

It's been a roller-coaster ride already through The Final Destination franchise (and I'm not just talking about FD 3). I really liked the first film from X-Files veteran James Wong, and felt the second from David R. Ellis let go of the seriousness and went total bugnuts bonkers bananas instead, both in the wickedness of the deaths and in the ridiculousness of lengths it goes in trying to connect itself to the first film. I had really anticipated Wong's return to FD3 only to find I missed Ellis' batshittery, and that Wong's attempts to bring the tone back around to serious wasn't so fun (plus the deaths were somewhat underwhelming). 

And so, seeing that Ellis was back behind the helm for the fourth entry, doing that 2010s-era trope of using the first movie's name but with a definite article rather than a number to differentiate it, I was excited to see what absolute lunacy Ellis had cooked up.

Unfortunately what he cooked up was a cowpie served on horseshit. 

Wasting absolutely no time, The Final Destination opens on a quartet of 20-somethings (actually playing 20-somethings this time, and not teenagers as I first thought) at a racetrack. One of them has a vision of a brutal collision which dominoes into the stadium collapsing and many people dying. And so, like the other films, our protagonist has a freakout which winds up leading him and his friends and a few other interlopers outside the stadium when the accident occurs.

And then they all start dying in freak accidents.

We've seen it before, and it's all been done better.

At well under 90-minutes this is a film that takes no time getting to where its going and where it wants to go, killing off CW-quality actors in complicated fashions, while our protagonist and a few other believers follow the visions he's having to try and prevent the others' deaths.

This film doesn't care one lick about its characters. It doesn't even pretend. Any moment where two characters should be connecting with each other are quickly cut away from in favour of what narrowly constitutes this film's plot.

It wouldn't be nearly so bad if Ellis were up to his same tricks as FD 2, but the death scenarios have little of the panache that they did in his earlier movie, where he would set up innumerable potential means for a character to die, only to deke us out a number of times and blindside us to our uproarious delight. Here, he does it in half measures and it's not so exciting or entertaining.

Also there's a battle between the Wong and Ellis camps in how our protagonists learn to interrupt death's plan. Wong's films have the characters seeing signs, in shadows or scattered paperwork or splattered condiments or photographs. Ellis lazily has the protagonist see prophetic visions. I much prefer the former, because it's more clever and visually interesting, and it means that any of the film's characters can see the signs. In Ellis' films only one can have the visions.

The film is also extremely ugly. Shots are composed terribly, like sub-par Lifetime films, either a clear signifier of reduced budget, or a side effect of shooting a film for 2010's-era 3-D, or probably both. I was constantly taken aback by just how low-budget the film looked.

I had hoped FD3 was the low point of the series, but I was wrong. I know redemption is coming with Bloodlines but I'm hoping the fifth entry starts laying the path.

---

I remember seeing Starship Troopers on opening weekend in 1997, and being blown away by how crazy good looking the aliens and the cgi and the costumes and weaponry and sets and gore and all of it looked. I also recall being blown away by the acting, and how goddamn awful it was. I revisited the film once more when it came out on video, and I really, really wanted to love the film, but it sat on the borderline of unwatchable for me, and I just set it aside.

In the nearly 30 years since, Starship Troopers has been re-evaluated by the critical community as a sly, subversive film that fits in perfectly with Paul Verhoeven's other sci-fi greats like Robocop and Total Recall. Except those films had good actors, acting good, while this film has a host of mediocre actors acting poorly. Oh, the bad acting is definitely intentional, I see that now, certainly in the direction Verhoeven was giving his cast if not actually a conscious effort on the parts of performers like Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards. It's evident Verhoeven was not a fan of the 90's trend of horny teen dramas starring late-20-somethings playing teenagers, and sending them into bloody combat and turning these beautiful white faces into tools of a fascist empire is entirely the point. 

But it's still a tough hang.

The action is incredible. The bug creatures are probably the best on-screen alien creation this side of the Xenomorph (they're so damn colourful), and the satire, when it rears its head, stings like a paper cut. But any time we need to spend with any of these characters is like having a root canal without any anaesthetic...so, so painful.

Just like in 1997, I really, really want to like this film, and I kind of do, but I hate it more than I like it.

I've never watched any of its direct to video sequels, as I can't imagine it being done on a lower budget with even lower tiered stars, and not with an auteur director and totally leaning into the fascistic glory of warfare rather than satirizing it...yeah, no thanks.

--- 

In the Coen Brothers' filmography, there are certainly much tighter narratives, much more character-centric stories than Hail, Caesar! and it's hard for me not to say that No Country for Old Men or True Grit or A Serious Man or Inside Llewyn Davis are definitively better films than Hail, Caesar!, because they are. I just like Hail, Caesar! more.

 I can't help it. There's a chilliness to each of those other masterpieces of the Coens' career second half, but Hail, Caesar! is all warmth. 

Their comedies, especially post-2000, tend to have a bit to then, something a little cynical. It's all love here, a true love letter to the Hollywood studio system of old and the movies that they produced, while also being very keenly aware of the sexism, the shadiness, the manipulation, the darkness behind it all. The Coens aren't saying that the art was worth the sacrifice...or maybe they are. I actually don't know. They dive into communist and socialist thinking in a manner that seems both mocking and reverential, much in the same way that they poke sharply at the studio behind-the-scenes while also adoringly creating synchronized swimming or song-and-dance numbers that rival (and possibly outdo) the similar films of yesterday.

I already reviewed the film back in 2016, and most everything I said there still stands. It's just an unabashed delight to watch with it's star-studded cast (just more and more faces popping up in tiny parts) and big time set-pieces.  It wasn't the most warmly received movie at the time, but like most Coens films, people have come around on it and started embracing it. I've always been exceptionally fond of it.

The only thing I got wrong in my review was in my prediction of how big a star Alden Ehrenreich would become. I hadn't gauged how brutal the backlash would be to Solo (despite being a movie, that itself, has become a bit of an secret success in Star Wars circles), and Ehrenreich seemed to have taken the full brunt of that backlash. He's never become a big star, but revisiting Hail, Caesar! for the first time in a while, and I was blown away once again by just how damn charming, charismatic and multi-talented he is. He's just a magnificent performer and I enjoy seeing him in everything I've seen him in (hello Weapons).  Hopefully he finds *that* movie or *that* prestige TV series that finally connects him with the public.

Watching this film reminded me that I need to get AppleTV back and finish off The Studio which feels like it's time travelling kin to Hail, Caesar!

---

Oh, gawddammit, it's that time of year again isn't it. 

Even before Halloween was over, Hallmark had already started airing its slate of seasonal romance films for Christmas 2025.  They've slashed their roster practically in half from last year, likely in part because their leaning into episodic series and reality TV more this year, but also in part likely because of the cheddar prez who started slapping obtuse tariffs on productions made out of country, and the Hallmark movie churn is heavily dependent on crossing the Canadian border.

Anyway, I've already stockpiled a few Hallmarkies for the annual Toasty and Kent Advent Calendar, but this pile of doodoo isn't going to wait that long. I can't have its stink just wafting around for that long.

In Christmas On Duty, Parker Young of (Suburgatory and Enlisted in his Hallmark debut) costars with Janelle Parrish (Sugarplummed) in...ugh... a seasonal military-themed "romance". Usually the Hallmark military-themed productions are cloying wanna-be tearjerkers about a woman pining for her man serving overseas and how difficult life is without a man around or some shit. I dunno. I don't watch them, because they're pretty much what they say they are on the sleeve.

But this, at least, was stepping away from the tearful reunions, and instead was vying for an opposites-attract/road-trip engagement. It did try, and boy it failed spectacularly.

The story opens with Young and Parrish competing for a spot in the marine's infantry, and Parrish comes out on top. Their fathers have a long rivalry that has extended to them, if in a friendlier fashion. Six year later they're reunited at Quantico training where Parrish is looking for duty commander or something. I dunno, the movie care only marginally more about the rank-and-file-ness of the military than I do.

Their rivalry immediately rears its head and they get in trouble with their outgoing Colonel. Forced to serve watch duty together on Christmas Eve, the pair instead find themselves on a mission to rescue Christmas because the delivery truck can't make it's way through the storm to bring toys. Given an official mission, Young and Parrish put their difference aside and head out in an old 5-ton and go shopping for the kids, having a couple verrrry stupid detours and encountering some very contrived obstacles along the way.

Meanwhile.... nevermind. It's not worth getting into.

This movie not only has the talents of the usually quite charming Young and Parrish, but also the always solid Peter Jacobson (Colony) playing Parrish' Lt.Col.(ret) father. None of the military personnel in this film were convincing in the slightest, and the chemistry between Young and Parrish never really accelerated. The whole production feels like a trial run, a proof-of-concept rather than anything resembling refined product.

It's a story that wants to have the big road trip side-quests that lead to big comedic or romantic or dramatic set pieces, but none of the side-quests lead to anything resembling big comedy, romance or drama. The complication (and there's always a complication) is so under baked that when it cropped up I was left scratching my head why anyone thought there was a problem.

But there is real snow. Sometimes.

And there's Doug. At one side-quest Young and Parris encounter a hapless middle-aged stoner-coded store employee who has, accidentally, locked himself out of the store. Doug is the only bright spot in this otherwise kind of dull and sparkless movie, to the point that both Lady Kent and I were left asking "what's Doug up to?" multiple times after his appearance (did we spy him in the parade afterward?).

Also "Finding Mr. Christmas" Season 1 winner Ezra is in this, for about 5 lines and is out-acted by an 8-year-old. The man's an ex-marine AND won the Hallmark leading man competition and he relegated to a cameo!?! Don't expect to see him in any Hallmarkies next year. I honestly don't know what they were thinking (having seen the first two episodes of season 2 of Finding Mr. Christmas, at least it seems they can't do worse).

KWIF: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (+2)

KWIF = Kent's Week(end) in Film.

This Week:
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982, d. Steven Spielberg - Crave)
Blink Twice (2024, d. Zoe Kravitz - AmazonPrime)
Miracle Mile (1988, d. Steve De Jarnatt - HollywoodSuite)

---

E.T. was a big deal when I was a kid - both the character and the film. The movie was a crowd-pleasing sensation but for the kids and preteens it burrowed deep into us. At the end of the film, when the stunted, wrinkly, rubber-skinned alien has to say goodbye to the human family who took him when he was unfortunately abandoned, his finger glows and touches Elliott, whom he was most connected with, and says "I'll be right here."  And yeah, for those of us who watched and were affected by the film, he has in some form remained pretty ingrained in our brains. I'm guessing anyone who was a child of the '80's on this continent can cast a pretty clear picture in their mind of what E.T. looks like. 

Yes, E.T. is iconic, but unlike so many other pop culture icons he's not remained ubiquitous like he was in the 80's, he's not remained a pitch-thing for Reese's Pieces or been seen regularly schlepping for Honda or KFC or used in Space Jam or Wreck-It Ralph-style movies where "remember that thing" properties go for nostalgia tugs. No, E.T. remains (*taps forehead*) right here.

Did I love E.T. The Extra-Terrstrial as a kid? It's hard to say. I know I watched it enough times to be intimately familiar with its story, its repeated mantras, and have specific scenes live loudly in my mind. But, I was a Star Wars kid. To me the most exciting part of E.T. was when Elliott was introducing the spaceman to his Star Wars action figure collection. As an adult I now see how brilliantly director Spielberg and writer Melissa Mathison allowed the kids to exist as kids in this space, and a scene like that would absolutely resonate with the kids in the audience at that time, most of whom would probably have at least a couple Star Wars action figures in their room, and perhaps were important enough to them to be one of the first things they introduce to a friendly space goblin they've brought home.

Like most of us from the time, we grew up into angsty teenagers who tried to dismiss or erase their childhood. I would get pretty destructive with some of my childhood toys, and the films and television I enjoyed as a kid would be "baby stuff" and I would get pretty dismissive towards it [and yet, I never really stopped loving Star Wars, or the Muppets, or He-Man or most of my childhood things, so maybe it was just E.T.?]. I'm sure many of us in our teenage years looked at E.T. as emotionally manipulative claptrap for children, and for some of us that perception never went away. 

There's nothing cool about E.T. It's not a wild adventure movie, nor is it an action-packed space opera. It's a rousing drama about those brief, but intense moments from childhood that stick with us forever. Henry Thomas' Elliott is our guide through this spirited time of adolescence, the middle child who is too old and boyish to connect with his younger sister, Gertie (Drew Barrymore), and too young and annoying for his older brother, Michael (Robert MacNaughton), to want to spend time with him.  His dad has just run off with his mistress to Mexico, leaving his mom (Dee Wallace) to stoically do her best for her children, but it's clear she's barely holding it together.

When E.T. enters Elliott's life, after initially freaking each other out, there is a bond that is forged. Elliott is a lonely child, and he's unconsciously reeling from the absence of his father, and E.T. is a gentle stranded creature being hunted by men with flashlights in need of refuge. They fill an immediate need in each other's life, but quickly they come to care for each other, and they are literally psychically connected. They sense what each other is feeling. (I don't think I ever truly understood this aspect of their relationship as a kid.)

E.T. becomes a bonding point for Elliott and his siblings. The sister that he was distanced from is pulled into his circle of confidence, and his older brother suddenly is not only hanging out with him, but deferring to Elliott regarding what is in E.T.'s best interests. I would not have picked up on these sibling and family dynamics, nor how a third-party was a necessary thing in their life to bring them together in the wake of their father's abandonment of them.

Late in the second act of the film, E.T. has fallen ill, and so has Elliott as a sympathetic response. The visual of the pasty white E.T. and ailing Elliott in his waffle knit longjohns laying together on the bathroom floor was viscerally upsetting to me as a child. I never wanted to wear white waffle-knitted longjohns again, in case I would fall sick too. Michael is doing his best to try and care for the two of them, but he has no clue what to do. Their mom walks in only to panic, grab her children and try to flee they dying space goblin just as space-suited men start busting into every entrance of the home. It's a zombie attack-like sequence, and it was terrifying as a child. (As an adult, I think the NASA space suits, complete with sun-visor, is way overkill). 

The quarantining of the home, Elliott's gasping dialogue, E.T. conceding to his illness so that Elliott may live. The whole sequence was traumatic, which probably explains why I haven't watched this film in almost 40 years, even more than holding onto my teenage "manipulative bullshit for babies" opinion. It traumatized me (over and over again) and I didn't want to relive it.

E.T.'s sudden resurrection is a result of his psychic connection with his people being restored. Elliott knows his friend's revival is because his people are on their way back to retrieve him. It was E.T.'s disconnect from his people, not Earthly conditions or downing a six-pack of beer that caused him to fall ill. It's not something the film spells out for the audience (which could have been done easily through Elliott), but it is the answer to something I never understood as a child watching it.

The film is now over 40 years old, and it still packs a pretty good emotional whollop. The weight of the film falls heavily on Henry Thomas' young shoulders, with a pretty even distribution landing squarely on the extra-terrestrial of the title. Thomas is absolutely stellar, making clear choices and reacting with an exaggerated honesty that is incredible for a performer his age. The E.T. creature design is so alien as to be immediately off-putting but there's a gentleness in both the form and its expressiveness that softens the innate reaction. There's a couple of "bits" with E.T. getting drunk or getting dressed up in drag that require comedic timing and the puppeteers deliver.  The micromovements in E.T.s face and the expressiveness of the extending neck, along with the glowing bits and the adorable waddle, they all contribute to making a beloved character out of an aggressively unappealing exterior.

Returning to this as an adult, it's hard not to be swept up in such a deceptively simple story, especially when it features a sweeping John Williams score that punctuates every emotional beat.  It's Williams' score even more than the beats of the story that lead me to the "emotionally manipulative" critique. But that is the conductor's job is to accentuate the story and does it ever!  I couldn't help but let some tears loose (but oddly not at the moments you would think). The film connected to deep-seated emotions no matter how much I wanted to fold my arms and harumph my way through it.

Even the "bad guys" of the film aren't really the bad guys. Peter Coyote's man-with-the-keys-on-his-belt, unseen in full until the third act, is a most menacing figure that even at a young age we know from storytelling tropes that he's bad news. Except he's not. He's not effectively there to help E.T. get home, but he is there semi-altruistically to meet an alien, something he's dreamed of since childhood. He recognizes Elliot's connection to E.T., and being an adult, is aware of the nature of man, and is grateful to Elliott that he got to him first. All the scientists and whatnot try to help save both the alien and the child, unaware of their psychic connection nor the creature's need to return to his people. Their sin as the film's villains is that of adults throughout the film, of being emotionally oblivious to the needs of the world and its people and creatures. 

Do I love E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial? Nah. Not so much. I still kind of find it to be emotionally manipulative bullshit. But I can see things in it as an adult that I couldn't see as a child that tip me off to the immeasurable craft and care that went into the production, and the exceptionalism is evident all throughout the film. 

E.T. is incredibly well-constructed, and plays like magic, but there are still things that keep me at arms length from truly embracing the film (outside of the traumatic childhood response). While I'm quite fond of E.T.'s empathic connection to Elliott, I hate his telekinetic ability. I hate that he floats things around and especially hate the flying bikes. Even as a kid I didn't care for these sequences that tried to recall Superman (with another Williams score). It never made sense to me invoking superpowers into this otherwise grounded tale, and it winds a pretty convenient deus ex machina.  I also don't like that E.T., despite coming to a certain comprehension of our language, never presents his (its) name to his Earthly friends...assuming his people have names. I'm fine with "E.T." as a film title, but kind of hate it as a character name. Can't he be called, like, Grogu or something?

---

Blink Twice, at least as it plays on AmazonPrime, opens with a trigger warning from the studio and Amazon, noting that the film deals with sexual assault. It's also a spoiler warning that dramatically changes the tenor of the opening act.

Roommates Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat) are also best friends and coworkers. Their current gig is as caterers at the Met Gala, where Frida spies billionaire tech mogul Slater (Channing Tatum). She had just seen him earlier on social media making apology statements about some misconduct or other, but it's clear Frida was fixating on him, not what he did or what he was saying. At the gala, she fixates on him, and can't seem to pull her attention away. 

Frida and Jess ditch their waiting garb for eye-catching red and blue dresses (respectively) and Frida once again spies Slater and starts to stride towards him, but breaking her heel and careening hard to the ground. It's Slater who picks her up and seems utterly fascinated by her. He takes Frida and Jess into his inner circle, introducing them to all the names and faces within (including Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment and Kyle MacLachlan). The conversation is freewheeling among them all, but Slater and Frida seem most locked in on each other. Slater says the party is going to his private island retreat, and asks if Jess and Frida would like to join.

At the island homestead all phones are requested, so as not to interrupt the festivities. Frida and Jess are each given private quarters and bleached-white bikinis with vibrant white linen skirts and shawls.  All the women are. They settle in by the olympic-sized pool for cocktails and big fat blunts and other drugs, with exquisite catered dinners and relaxed conversation, though with strangely pointed personal questions, a few directed right at Frida, feeling both an outsider and yet, somehow, comfortable in this space with Slater fawning attention on her. The frivolity extends into the evening women running in the massive grass courtyard, their white linens flowing behind them as they giggle and squeal. 

And the days seem to repeat themselves. Drugs, drinks, food, pool, dancing, frolicking. The days blur into a sameness of dejavu, but one that seems too blissful to want to escape from.

All is not perfect however as the staff, who don't seem to speak fluent English, tend to avoid Frida. One woman on staff, an elderly maid, spies Frida and points at her repeating "red rabbit" over and over again. And there's also a snake problem that the staff spend a lot of time tending to. But Jess gets bitten by a snake, and hours later starts freaking out, the bliss of this retreat completely gone. Frida tries to soothe her, but wakes up the next morning to find Jess not only gone but her existence completely unacknowledged by anyone else.

It's from there that Frida starts to unravel herself, and the island seems more like a prison than a vacation. 

Even without the trigger warning at the head of the film, I'm pretty certain Kravitz's fairly exceptional direction leads us to understand that Slater is "stranger danger" and his uncontrollable allure to Frida is a bit of a puzzle. Frida and Jess agreeing to go with feels like an "oh no" moment, doubled when cel phones are requested be handed over, and once more when all the wome are graced with the same exact wardrobe. It's a definite "Get Out" vibe. 

I don't know if the film hadn't had the trigger warning if I would have felt the opening time on the island was more casual...a more "where is this going" sensibility? I would have maybe wondered if they were all in danger. Given the stacked cast, there was a Glass Onion sensibility mixed in with the Get Out vibe. It could have went anywhere, but the trigger warning spelled out where it was going from the start. Not completely, but we know.  And I was on edge, nerves frayed, the entire time.

There is a process of discovery, and my stomach started to churn as things unravelled. It's what we thought it was, but also somehow so much worse. But it's not just trauma porn, it's also a revenge flick.  We so desperately want the tables to turn, and when they do it's only somewhat satisfying. Almost too beholden to the power dynamics, Kravitz concedes that this can't just be an easy win, and it gets pretty ugly.

The power dynamics are the baseline to the entire plot, and the conclusion subverts those dynamics in the most...capitalistic way possible, such that I wasn't satisfied by it, but I got it. It's a control thing.

In the moment, I was too frazzled (and quite invested) in Frida's increasingly horrifying predicament and not necessarily examining the scenario she was in. There are questions and holes to be poked into the way memories are masqued and restored, but it's best not to look too deeply as it could all unravel, and as much as I was upset by it, I liked the film enough not to want to pull it apart.

Kravitz's debut feature looks amazing. It's a sun-baked film with vibrant colours and Adam Newport-Berr's cinematography captures picture-perfect frames in a movie where photos are constantly being taken but never seen.  It all reminds me a tid of Don't Worry Darling, another exceptional-looking feature from an actress-turned-director that tells a fundamentally flawed story of abuse and assault set in a heightened reality very very well. I would say Blink Twice hangs together much better than Don't Worry Darling (which is more of a puzzle box) but it's not a competition and we don't need to pit the two films against one another.  Ultimately it is important that stories about assault and abuse and/or the fear and anxiety and/or trauma thereof come from women storytellers and are presented on the main stage rather than as niche or arthouse features.

---

The Miracle Mile is a Los Angeles neighbourhood that includes extensive residential and commercial buildings, and is higlighted by its shopping and museums, as well as the La Brea tar pits.  It is, like many "downtown" commercial cores, very active during the day and quite sparse at night.  It could be a really charming setting for a romantic comedy, or a haunting environment for a post-apocalyptic wasteland. 

The film Miracle Mile opens with Harry (Anthony Edwards) providing a monologue over a montage of images, talking about love and connections and missed opportunities, as he spies Julie (Mare Winningham), and can't help but be captivated by her, following her around the La Brea Tarpit museum. They eventually connect, their dialogue is cute and flirty, and they have a couple of dates that dip in and out of montage. Visually it's all gauzy, hammering home the dreamy falling-in-love moments. Julie promises a more intimate encounter for their third date, and she advises Harry to head back to his hotel to rest up while she heads to her waitressing gig, ending at midnight.

A power surge interrupts Harry's alarm clock and he wakes up three hours late. At the all-hours diner where she works Harry tries to draw out Julie's contact info from the waitress. After making a futile call in the phone booth outside the diner, the phone rings back. Harry picks it up. On the other end is someone frantic, mistaking Harry for their father, and telling them about how the missiles have been launched. It's an hour and counting to doomsday. 

Edwards is fantastic in wrestling with the info he's received from this phone call. He doesn't know how to parse it out, and the patrons of the diner, most he's never met, are his only lifeline to his sanity. It just so happens there's someone in the diner with enough connections that they can at least corroborate that Harry heard something he wasn't supposed to, and it sparks off panic among the diners. It's time to get the eff outta dodge. But Harry, having just met the love of his life, isn't going to leave Julie behind.

Just getting to her is an epic feat on its own, nevermind getting to the rooftop helipad that will take them to the airport and to safety. Events continue to escalate into increasingly upsetting acts of violence as zero hour looms. It's all happening real-time as well, which adds to the tension. We rarely leave Harry's side, though the camera may glance away at some aspect of chaos or another or linger behind in a situation before jump cutting back to Harry.

By the time dawn breaks, the streets have erupted, and it's straight-up madness. Some familiar faces come back around, but in more dire straights. Harry starts to question, given the timing, whether he "Chicken Littled" the whole scenario and has all this rioting, death and chaos on his shoulders.

Miracle Mile works exceptionally well because of its real-time gimmick. It lets us feel the intensity as those minutes counting down without relying on any countdown clock motif (but occasional check-ins with the time via community clocks do give us bearings). It also works so incredibly well because it does cast that doubt that Harry just might have misconstrued something, or that it was an elaborate prank call. It's easy to forget amongst all this that Harry is just a tourist, that this isn't his home and that he doesn't know his way around very well. He relies upon others, but learns quickly that most others aren't easy to rely upon.  His desperation isn't self-survival but to hold onto the love he's only briefly found, and it's his greatest desire to service that love, protect it, even over self-preservation. It drives him to extremes, but even some things are still an extreme too far for him.

It's a pulse-pounding, exciting and somewhat upsetting film, as pre-apocalyptic stories tend to be. It's only through Winningham's winning affability that there's some oasis from all the weight of the night's events.

I had seen Miracle Mile a couple decades ago and I have a vague recollection of liking it, I didn't remember much outside of images of the diner, the mall, 80's clothing, and the very memorable ending. It was great to revisit it with almost fresh eyes and I can't see forgetting it any time soon.