6 stars

dir: Nia DaCosta

2023

Maybe this flick doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then none of them really do.

I can’t imagine that there were millions of people clamouring for this. Just a small subset (fans of Captain Marvel and Ms Marvel in comic book form, or the first Captain Marvel movie) of a subset (Marvel comic book fans), and those who enjoyed the mostly excellent Ms Marvel Disney+ series.

But they did it, and so we’re here. For whatever reasons (I don’t remember why, and I only watched the flick yesterday), at the end of the last episode of Ms Marvel, I think Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) sneezes or something, and Captain Marvel / Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) appears in her place, in her bedroom in New Jersey. How perplexing!

This flick extends on from that, with Kamala, Danvers and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), who knew Danvers when she was a child, swapping places whenever they use their magical powers.

I don’t know if it’s a great hook or not, in fact, one could argue that it’s a terrible hook, but I guess it’s necessary in order to force the team up they require, which is the three of them working together to save... various worlds including Earth.

The various worlds… there are two other planets that pretty much get destroyed. I don’t even think that constitutes a spoiler, because the movie doesn’t seem to worry about it afterwards either.

dir: Emerald Fennell

2023

Yikes.

This fucking film…

I don’t know how I feel about this flick. Some parts of it are funny, some are excruciating, some are downright sickening, but I still don’t know how I feel about it.

It is kind of an update on Brideshead Revisited, in that it has the similar initial setup and is mostly set at a grand / ghastly country estate, but they could not be more dissimilar in their themes or resolution. Our Charles Ryder, as in, our wide-eyed non-aristocrat innocent who finds himself hanging out with the landed gentry in this instance is called Oliver Quick. But instead of just being some young guy at Oxford with hopes and dreams, we have Oliver played by blue-eyed psychopath of the moment, being Barry Keoghan.

Since receiving plaudits for his role as the village idiot in The Banshees of Inisherin, perhaps that is pretty much the role he’ll be playing for the rest of his career? Oliver gets into Oxford, but he’s not from aristocrat money, and he’s not a social gadfly. So he’s on the outside, perpetually looking in. Much of the film literalises this by having Oliver looking through people’s windows, and only occasionally looking out of a window, at someone near his window. There’s always a pane of glass / the pain of separation between him and everyone else.

He sees one person to whom others flock, like moths to a flame, being Felix (Australia’s Own Jacob Elordi, who seems to be having his moment), but there’s no way for a nobody like Oliver to get into his world.

As luck would have it, one day Felix has a flat tyre on his bike on the way to class, and Oliver is on hand to loan him his bike instead. It’s less the start of a beautiful friendship and more just an in. Felix is plenty grateful and at least deigns to shine some of his social light in Oliver’s direction. Oliver talks of growing up in poverty and having addicts for parents.

That’s tough, and though it elicits some sympathy, eventually, Felix loses interest, especially since the rest of his friends don’t even want to sit near Oliver due to the stench of being poor.

But hark, is that another tragedy on the horizon? Oliver confesses to Felix that his father has just died, probably due to drugs. Oh, woe is me.

Woe is you, Oli. Why don’t you come out to my palatial estate after exams? Mother and Father would be delighted to meet you. And of course stay the entire summer if you like, it’ll be grand.

dir: Ángel Manuel Soto

2023

It wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be.

That’s not saying much, admittedly. The new low bar that was created when they released that awful Flash movie earlier this year (unless it was all just a bad dream) means that some things just have to be passable, and have nice people delivering dialogue in an okay manner in order to be pretty good in comparison.

This flick doesn’t have Ezra Miller in it, not even a tiny cameo. Not even a picture of him. So that’s extra points right there. It has a charming and eager young chap in the lead role of Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle, in the form of Xolo Maridueña. He has a lovely / embarrassing family surrounding him, and truth be told all the best bits of the film are or involve Jaime and his family.

That being said, even with all the elements of Latin / Mexican culture wedged into it, this kind of cultural cringe comedy is as generic as can be, whether it’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Fresh Off the Boat or whatever the hell they’re doing here. They say that you can’t be what you don’t see (representation), but I wonder how well they do with representing aspects of Latin culture in specific ways (but generic enough not to alienate the gringos), since I’m not from that culture.

Unfortunately, there’s also George Lopez. George fucking Lopez. If you don’t know who he is, and you haven’t endured his stand-up, or seen him in terrible things, you might think “who is this old man shouting at clouds all the time?” If you do know who he is, well, I feel your pain.

The plot is so generic. The villain, Victoria Kord, played by Susan Sarandon, is so generic and unmemorable that I feel like saying “that’s nice, dear” whenever I think of her on-screen moments. The villain’s henchman is also very generic, in that it’s a shouty chap called Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo), but he at least looks terrifying regardless of what armour he’s wearing.

He’s a mean looking motherfucker, and so always plays mean looking motherfuckers. If he and Danny Trejo had a baby together, it would look like Tommy Lee Jones.

dir: Travis Stevens

2022

A Wounded Fawn is not a predictable film, and that’s one of the things I liked about it the most. It is horror, definitely, but depending on how you look at it, it is less of the supernatural revenge thriller that it may look like, and a more straight-forward look at an awful man, and one of the women that he tries to prey upon.

Meredith (Sarah Lind) is recently out of an awful marriage, and is looking forward to her date with Bruce (Josh Ruben). They’re going away for the weekend, to a cabin in the woods.

The problem is, in the film’s intro, which follows a snooty auction for a piece of ancient Greek sculpture, we watched Bruce murder the successful bidder for the statue, as a weird red owl looking chap looks on.

So, okay, Meredith may be dating a serial killer.

Well, maybe “dating” is assuming a bit much. It doesn’t seem like he’s planning on a long term relationship with Meredith.

The opening speech from the auctioneer explains that the sculpture is of certain avengers from Greek mythology, the Erinyes, or Furies, as they are otherwise known; avengers of wronged women, scourges of those who murder or harm women. Hopefully they go after the manipulators and the gaslighters too. Regardless, right out of the gate, they’re saying that tied to the sculpture is the idea that some force exists in the universe, hinted at in mythology, of divine retribution that apportions cosmic justice.

If only it were true. I so wish it were true.

The reality is, there’s nothing there. Nothing punishes the worst of the worst unless the cops are lucky, and it’s arguable as to how you can get justice on serial killers. Capital punishment seems almost like a favour, and decades in jail seems like a joke.

All we can do as viewers is hope that the piece of shit fucks up, slips up in some way, and gets his just deserts.

Doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, though. Maybe Bruce, too, is powered by the supernatural? I mean, whenever he’s about to kill a woman, a weird humanoid owl turns up, telling him to do it. Then he does it, horribly, jerks off, and then everything’s better in his world as he sets about dealing with the body.

Eww, no thanks, don’t drag us into your sexual dysfunction bullshit.