mistabobdobolina

God, I wanted to like this more. I really did. A "Balance of Terror" what-if episode with Pike in the big chair sounds on paper like something made for me. But there's just too much here that doesn't land, or doesn't make sense.

1. There's a certain amount of cool factor in seeing scenes from the old show reprised with fresh effects. But it all feels a little too by-the-numbers, with too many people who seem to be there simply for the purpose of serving up warmed-over takes on classic dialogue. Where the new takes try to replicate or curiously parallel the original, they don't feel earned and sometimes feel illogical: the "I could have called you friend" speech is there for no other reason than its being in the original, and Ortegas is for some reason now suspicious of Spock because someone had be the episode's Stiles.

2. The divergences don't make sense, either. Kirk is shoehorned in rather than Pike and his crew facing this challenge on their own, but he doesn't really have much to offer that Pike couldn't have done on his own... which means Pike has to be forced into a making an irrational error that's just a smidge less manly than Ye Good Olde Kirk Style, in order that Kirk can lecture him about how "sometimes you can't avoid a fight." This really makes no sense: given that we've seen Pike unflinchingly unleash hell in space battles on two different shows now, this isn't advice he needs or should need... and the poor guy playing Kirk is so completely outclassed both by the original and by Anson Mount that he does not in any way come off as credible.

3. The consequences of Pike "showing weakness" lead to immediate war since apparently the Romulans just had a fully-mobilized armada on standby awaiting the outcome of a single raid? I make allowances for the pulpy nature of NuTrek a lot, but come on. This is pushing it too far. Had Pike been Sufficiently Manly all those ships and personnel were just going to say "oh well," and call it a day?

4. Leaving aside that being periodically bludgeoned about the head with Pike's Impending Doom is the feature of SNW I like least -- I get that some people are into it and fine, good for them -- but even rolling with that, the amount of detailed knowledge about Fate that Future-Pike has seems inexplicable, and the whole Spock-as-Man-of-Destiny thing seems unnecessary. Why wouldn't seeing just *one* reality in which changing the timeline led to Spock's destruction be enough for Pike, whom we know to be a fundamentally decent guy?

At the end of the day, "Memento Mori" outclasses this episode in every way as a thrilling space battle outing. I couldn't tell you how I would have done this concept differently... except to say that maybe it didn't need to be done at all. We could have indeed, in particular, gone a full season without the obligatory Jim Kirk guest-turn, especially if it was going to be this underwhelming.

Between bombastic action sequences that take way too long to get where they're going, a predictable plot and leaning heavily into screwball buddy-cop comedy that just doesn't land, this is mostly a misfire. Sy and Lafitte do their best with the material, and Izia Higelin brings her own brand of luminous charisma to her screen time, but they're let down by weak writing and embarrassingly juvenile jokes at every turn. One is better off watching a movie that does this formula right, like Rush Hour or the original Lethal Weapon.

It's an impressive film. If you like the rather unique blend of camp and high-concept SF that makes up the source material, and if you aren't too much of a literalist about adaptations, you're likely to enjoy it. If you don't know the book but like epic spectacle sci-fi, there's a good chance you'll enjoy it. It isn't without its flaws, but for my money it's fun and satisfying and worth more than one watch.

The visuals are stunning: everything from the costuming to the ship and building designs works really well. The spooky, featureless ovals of the interstellar transports, the design of the sandworms, and armor and weaponry of the various warring factions are all particularly noteworthy. House Harkonnen, the classic baddies of the original novel, are presented for once more in line with their depiction in the book, and the Sardaukar -- fanatical legions of the Emperor -- are both designed and depicted as genuinely terrifying and effective. The movie delivers in spades on both action and atmosphere.

The acting is uniformly good across the cast. There are no weak links, and the Fremen in particular are excellent. Stellan Skarsgard's more reserved take on Baron Harkonnen is very cool (though it seems to upset people to whom the cackling monstrosity from the Lynch movie is "canon"), Beast Rabban emerges as a real force, Timothee Chalamet's Paul feels convincingly like a teenaged boy with wisdom and capability beyond his years.

All is not perfect. The Hans Zimmer soundtrack, for example, gets pretty monotonous by the top of hour two. It's not bad, per se, but the music is the one area where I do have to give the edge to the 1984 film.

The film is not literal about porting over scenes from the book and cuts out entire characters and subplots or pares them back drastically: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen makes no appearance and we get very little of either Thufir Hawat or Piter de Vries, who are major players in the novel. In most ways this is to the good, or at least understandable: most of the cuts remove exposition that the novel gets away with but that would slow the movie. However, some of what's cut is really missed. In particular, the way the novel sets up Dr. Yueh's treason against the Atreides, and frames his motives, is just missing here and it lessens the character.

Other flaws amount more to minor quibbles -- like, I don't get a clear feel for how shields are supposed to work from what's portrayed on the screen -- but this adaptation got more right than it did wrong and delivered solid entertainment. I recommend it.

(One further note: there was a weird quirk in the version I watched where it seemed to have no subtitles, which are necessary for following the movie's extensive use of sign languages and a variety of constructed sci-fi tongues. I had to switch on Closed Captioning. If they deliberately left subtitles off -- and there does seem to be a vogue in some productions for making the audience sit through long stretches of alien languages with only context clues to guide them -- then that's a mistake for sure.)

I'm not a Sopranos superfan or anything, but I know enough about at least bits of the lore to recognize some of the callouts here and to know about the role Dickie Moltisanti played as kind of mythic figure out of the past on the show. But I don't, ultimately, think the connection to that show added all that much here, and ultimately this would have been a lot more compelling as a stand-alone story.

Don't get me wrong, Michael Gandolfini is very good as a young, pre-gangster Tony. Alessandro Nivoli, Vera Farmiga, Leslie Odom Jr. And Corey Stoll all do fine work: Stoll's evocation of a younger Junior is particularly on point. Michaela de Rossi is winning and charismatic in the role of Giuseppina, and Ray Liotta delivers to his usual iconic standard in a cleverly-conceived pair of roles as both Hollywood Dick and his long-imprisoned brother.

But.

First of all, the movie doesn't really have room to fully deliver as an origin story for Tony Soprano, which is one of its big selling points. I can see Sopranos fans being disappointed on that score. And ultimately, we don't really *need* an origin story for a character whose psyche already got explored in six full seasons of an epoch-making HBO drama.

Secondly, by far the more interesting idea in the movie -- the journey of Dickie Moltisanti and Harold McBrayer from friendship (or at least business partnership) to deadly enmity -- is underserved, and the theme of racial tension that comes in with the Newark riots in particular is underused, ultimately having to play second fiddle to Sopranos fanservice.

There's a solid effort at tying all this together through the unifying story of Dickie himself, and his doomed struggle to live up to an image of himself as being a better man than his father. The tragedy of Dickie, who has every bit of his own father's murderous temper and is perennially trying to atone for the deadly sins he commits with "good deeds," would make for more interesting material given more room to breathe.

If this had been a movie really centered around Dickie and Harold and their escalating vendetta, one that genuinely developed Harold as a deuteragonist with Dickie, explored both of characters' tragic flaws and especially made their conflict over Giuseppina's affections into the stuff of a focused final act, I think it could have been cracking stuff. But the further space taken up by trying to tie everything into the Sopranos and the story of Tony ultimately robs it of focus. It underperforms as a stand-alone film as a result, and I expect it won't satisfy the cravings of the Sopranos fanbase the tie-in was meant to appeal to.

Still, even despite its lack of focus and its various moving parts never truly coming together, there's a lot of good material here. I liked it. I just wish I could have loved it.

FRANZESE CREW EDIT: Yes, I saw the Mob Movie Monday review. Wasn't good. I don't mean that Michael's opinion of the movie wasn't good, that much is obvious. I mean the *review* wasn't good.

*Authentic Mob Dialogue:* I won't venture to comment. I trust Michael to know more about that than I do. If it's not right, whatever. May they learn from that.

*Dark Story Themes:* Dickie Moltisanti's story features dark themes that go back to Oedipus Rex and that speak of extremely violent parental abuse, sociopathy, adultery, things close to incest, and events that involve murder and deception and racism and fallacious virtue. Michael's responses to this are mostly about whether they're *necessary,* and he tells us that they're impugning Italian-Americans. The story isn't specific to Italian-Americans and it treats themes that were part of general American life at the time. That includes the Newark Riots. There's nothing genuinely unbelievable about Dickie Moltisanti: Michael's just pissed that he's there and is a depressing and villainous character. Not really a convincing objection.

*Harold vs. Dickie.* Apparently, fiction is okay until it involves race relations. Funny, that, and also not a convincing objection. The Harold-v-Dickie story is pretty obviously a version of Bumpy Johnson vs. Dutch Schultz transported to the Newark Riots period, and shortly thereafter, for fictional person. It's unfortunate for Michael's credibility as a commentator, honestly, that this is so offensive to him, as is the deflection he engages in about the fact that Italian-American racism is portrayed as part of the story. Usually, when people start trying to deflect and distract attention by saying "everyone did it," you're on to something. Advantage: Chase.

"Abuse, murder, and treachery." Again, I can't speak to how often mobsters or Italian-Americans or anyone else abused or murdered family members. I *can* tell you that the spectacle of abuse we see with Hollywood Dick (Ray Liotta) and his Italian wife Giuseppina is pretty tame as this kind of thing goes: I've known social workers, I've known people who deal with domestic abuse, objecting to this kind of thing as "not necessary" is basically demanding it be swept under the rug. No. And, frankly, shame on Michael for framing it that way. The same goes for family members murdering or betraying each other or framing up the Blacks for their doing so. None of these things are that unusual, horrific though they are, and Chase has better of the argument here. Michael is pissed that he didn't have sign-off, basically. That's what it is.

I think the movie is imperfect. I'm not here for Michael Franzese's review, I'm sorry. He didn't even notice there was four-year gap between Act Two and Act Three. Don't let Mob Movie Monday turn into catechism.

Okay, so, time for a review that isn't from someone who's just pissed that the series has female protagonists (or... duotagonists?).

Pretty much the first spy thriller I've encountered since 2016 that truly grapples with the current political environment instead of retreating to the halcyon days of the Cold War or (at least) the Nineties: Red Election is about political manipulation in our day and age, and is very cleverly put together.

The plot keeps you guessing, and it's hard to know who to root for from one episode to the next. That's not actually easy to do in a spy thriller, notwithstanding the opinions of certain people about "cliches," it's well-acted, and there's plenty of meat on the bone here in terms of both character heft and ever-shifting intrigue.

The female leads are excellent. The supporting cast is, too. Everyone's motives are believable, even if the twists and turns of political fate the narrative depends on don't always quite come up to snuff. The budget is betrayed by the fact that fewer people appear to work in MI-5's top office than you'd find in a McDonald's, and I docked it a couple of stars for that.

With that said, it's very solid as televised spy drama goes, involving, and addictive (as the fact that I binged the first ten episodes since finding them last night demonstrates). Some characters will drive you a bit nuts: I'm not really sure how Beatrice Ogilvy still has a security clearance by Ep. 10 given how consistently awful her judgment is. Docked it another star for that. But it's still pretty engrossing cloak-and-dagger and I'm looking forward to more, if there proves to be more.

I'm interested to see what another season of Visions might bring to the table with creators who were perhaps a touch less obsessed with centering the Force-using Jedi and Sith as analogues for familiar types from many another anime property. A lot of these shorts feel really only nominally tied to the Star Wars universe, they're quite uneven and the stories don't always make much sense, and too many of them retread the basic idea of a chosen or destined Force user saving the day (maybe this was a common prompt the filmmakers were given or maybe it's just a natural attraction of Star Wars material, I don't know).

Still: I like the energy and commitment of a lot of the outings, even the flawed ones. And we often get served a heady mix of anime stylistic nostalgia with story elements that actually do feel fresh for the Star Wars universe, even if they don't always *quite* sit right. The shorts are often charming and visually impressive, and I'm willing to cut them a little slack for those qualities.

My personal faves were:

• "The Duel," which feels a lot like samurai storytelling by way of jammed-together sci-fi anime tropes with a dusting of Star Wars lore over top, but which executes on all of that pretty solidly.

• "The Village Bride" and "The Ninth Jedi," both nice Jedi yarns and the latter of which feels almost like a stealth pilot for a pretty cool series (although you may find yourself blinking in the latter tale at how automatically handy people are with lightsabers in a universe where they've supposedly been forgotten).

• "Lop & Ocho," which despite a heroine who feels straight out of Usagi Yojimbo actually tells a very affecting and surprisingly sophisticated tale of a family ripped apart by the winds of war (and also the pressures of caste status, unspoken resentments and extremist politics).

• "Akatiri," a dark entry but in many ways the most original of the lot and yet the one that feels closest to really belonging in something recognizable as the Star Wars universe.

• "T0-B1," which is much more in the register of kids' fare than other outings -- carrying definite hints of Astro Boy and Pinocchio -- but does something really cool in actually allowing a droid to be both a Jedi and the hero of the piece. Star Wars has always been way too matter-of-fact in treating droids as sentient but expendable mechanical chattel, so I appreciated this.

The other episodes are just okay ("The Elder" is pretty bland fare as Jedi yarns go), or have interesting premises that don't wind up hitting quite right ("The Twins" pushes the Silly Envelope even by Star Wars standards, and "Tattooine Rhapsody" gives us a feel-good rock band story which is a fun idea, but sets it in Jabba the Hutt's palace which feels a bit misjudged).

It was worth watching on the whole, though. I'm glad I took the time.

It unapologetically embraces and extends the same themes that were at the core of the '92 film. You can tell how vividly it succeeds by the panicked and desperate wave of racist review-bombing. But it's also genuinely chilling and scary just as a horror set-piece. Worth the watch.

Hitwoman-seeks-redemption movies are getting to be common enough to have their own particular cliches, which I guess is cool enough in a way, but... they're still cliches. I felt a powerful sense of the familiar watching Kate, not necessarily in a good way, as our badass heroine mows down mooks, develops a relationship with an innocent girl who reminds her of her younger self, and unravels a gnarly plot that (and this "twist" barely merits a spoiler tag given how obvious it is that it's coming) ultimately leads back to those closest to her.

Kate is more than just a mashup of hitwoman-with-a-heart-of-gold tropes, to be fair. It also mashes up a lot of other tropes either borrowed from standard-issue shoot-em-ups more generally -- yakuza as samurai in suits, clash-of-East-vs.-West plot points that were last fresh in the Nineties, the assassin who paints a target on themselves by wanting to leave the life -- or kited from more ambitious and original films (the device of a countdown to the protagonist's inevitable death is right out of the old Statham vehicle Crank). And there are plenty of callouts and Easter Eggs referencing the kind of classic action movie that Kate does not seem to aspire to being (including a backstory flashback straight out of La Femme Nikita).

It's still watchable thanks to some great set-piece throwdowns and to Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who sells all of it with confidence. Winstead is the real deal as an action star and is fun to watch. It's a pity the movie around her isn't better.

The first three episodes are good, lighthearted fun. The story throws together a trio of amateur sleuths and true crime podcast enthusiasts -- two has-beens of stage and screen respectively, and a mysterious relative-of-someone with an old connection to the building of the title -- with the murder of a much-disliked resident of their opulent New York apartment highrise. Hijinks, confusion and comedy ensue.

The comedy comes from veteran comedians Steven Martin (as a largely-former actor named Charles) and Martin Short (as manic largely-former theater director Oliver). They make a pretty classic comedic pair in which Charles is the charmless straight man and Oliver the wacky grifter, not friends by any means but united by their shared love of performance and their habit of understanding everything through the lens of their professions. Oliver in particular is literally only able to grasp basically any concept or undertaking by analogy with something he'd do for a show, like casting a lead part.

This all makes them incredibly hapless as investigators, of course, but delivers plenty of entertainment. Most of the actual investigating seems likely to fall on Mabel (Selena Gomez), who actually knew the victim and is generally the one with at least some investigating experience (sort of, except that most of this was about LARPing with a small group of friends, and ended badly). Gomez is deadpan funny in her own right, but also has a personal stake in the whole affair and clearly has more mental focus going on than either of her, for lack of a better word, teammates.

There are some great bits -- you owe it to yourself to hear Oliver describe the disaster that ended his last musical, "Splash!" -- and fun twists. Our focal trio of lonely, self-involved souls are very engaging, if not necessarily likable. And I'm hooked to see where it goes.

UPDATE: Episode 4 doesn't really progress the mystery plot, but it 100% dials up the comedy. The entire excursion with Sting and a related one with Tina Fey (playing Cynda Channing, the host of the podcast our trio are obsessed with, who also narrates the episode and provides some fun foreshadowing) is seriously hilarious, and there's a B-plot where we learn a bit more about Charlie and his past and get to see him actually kinda-successfully make a connection with someone. Mabel's mates also finally learn about her connection to the victim, and we get a glimpse of "Tie-Dye Guy." Enough further episodes this entertaining and I might yet adjust my rating a star upward.

UPDATE 2: Episodes 5-7 deliver a boatload of twists and begin to move the mystery plot along in an organic way, but it's Episode 7 -- told without audible dialogue and most of it from the POV of a deaf character, complete with sound design that reproduces what it sounds like in his head -- that's truly extraordinary, and elevates the material into something I hadn't quite seen before. The show not only continues to be worth watching, but I'm really hooked on the intrigue aspect of it now.

I'm not a mega-fan of the original series and have been mostly turned off by later attempts to revisit it, but this offering is actually quite good.

The stuff I'm enjoying in the first two seasons:

• A winning cast. I really like these versions of the Robinsons and Don West, and this version of Dr. Smith is convincingly sociopathic and a fun (and dangerous) spoiler. The supporting (human) characters are generally fun to meet, too.

• Lots of genuinely cool and weird sci-fi content. The Robinsons' robot comes from a whole series of advanced alien robots whose design and concept are really interesting. The planets we encounter feel genuinely alien, dangerous and sometimes wondrous, especially the nameless planet of the first season. The Robinsons get to do a lot of science-based (for skiffy values of "science") problem-solving.

• Excellent production values and an exciting atmosphere. The series doesn't skimp on action, even in the relatively slow build of season one. It delivers thrills and spills aplenty as befits adventure fiction.

There are a lot of negative reviews accusing the series of plot holes, "idiot ball" character plotting (or just annoying characters), or incoherent world-building. For my money most of that stems from people missing key details of what they're reviewing, having the hang-ups a certain sort of person gets when female (esp. Black female) characters get to do fun things in SF, or fans of the old show who can't adjust to new things.

There's one of the criticisms I do understand, but it's more of a matter of taste and mood. It's noticeable that the series leans even more than one might expect on constant last-minute escapes (usually followed by much family hugging). And I could see that wearing on some viewers. I personally don't have an issue with it, much, but I'll admit that in some of the season 2 action, I found myself fast-forwarding much of the last-minute rescue content.

But the good here mostly outweighs the small issues noted above. Worth a watch and I hope to see season three.

This film has become one of my "comfort foods" over the years since it was released: I own a DVD of it and often watch it. It's one of those infinitely rewatchable films for me, in part because it's much more carefully-crafted and subtle than one notices at first.

1. The spectacular scenery and slow burn account for a lot of the run time, but the sense of building conflict and crisis is always there, just underneath the surface, from the moment of Martin's (Willem DaFoe's) hostile reception by the locals through to the end. Given how wild the plateau is, there's a lot of activity up there: the hostile loggers messing with Martin, the traces left by his predecessor, and the subtle evidence of other parties involved that surfaces in conversations with the expat community and the locals. There are a few moments where people ask Martin curious, penetrating questions that hint they're monitoring him or suspicious of him (like the one college kid who asks him if he's been using steel traps, a clear indicator in retrospect that the kid has been up there, too).

2. There's a snarl of related mysteries at the core of the story. Something suspicious happened to Martin's predecessor, the paterfamilias of the family he stays with, and there's clearly a circle of people who know what it was (one of them being the logger, Dougie, who warns Martin to "f--- off" unless he wants to "join his mate, Jarrah f---in Armstrong" early on). Eventually it becomes clear from the wound on his skeletal remains that someone likely murdered him: but who? And why, and is it related to Redleaf (the military biotech driving Martin's hunt) or was it something else? Which brings up the related question...

3. Exactly how much of a snake is Jack Mindy? He's clearly more involved in the tensions around the logging than he first lets on. He's drugging Jarrah's grieving wife at the outset, but also clearly carries a torch for her. He's also clearly familiar with the countryside and likely a fair shot himself. Did he murder Jarrah to insinuate himself into the lives of the remaining Armstrongs? To what extent was he working for the company? It's left ambiguous, though Sam Neill does a lot in very little screentime to provide some tantalizing hints.

4. These mysteries are left frustratingly unresolved, but in a way that makes sense. Aside from the larger ecological themes, the story in a character sense is really about Martin coming out of his detached shell and becoming more fully human. But he's a merc, not a detective or a journalist, and he behaves consistently with that throughout until he's finally driven to his breaking point at the climax. He isn't there to investigate a murder, he's there to bag the tiger and eventually (reluctantly) develops ties to the Armstrong family, initially in service of his own goals but more and more for their own sake. DaFoe plays this all out beautifully.

Good performances from all the principals and a well-developed feel for dropping subtle hints without the need to tie everything up in a bow at the end serve the film well. The only story beat that feels a bit of a stretch is the depth of the connection Martin develops with the Armstrongs, with whom he ultimately doesn't spend that much time. But it's a minor complaint of what's otherwise an excellent film.

The Green Knight is extremely weird and really cool. Best enjoyed if you like films that are long on atmosphere, striking visuals, and the surreal. It's actually pretty true to the (rather inscrutable) original material, but changes it in interesting ways.

It offers memorable performances from Dev Patel and Alicia Vikander and some cool walk-on roles, in particular for Erin Kellyman. There's a lot of mind-bending fantasy content that feels genuinely... eldritch, for lack of a better word. This is not a story about a world that has a "magic system." Magic is poetic and unsettling and frightening and genuinely, at some level, inexplicable. The excellent sound design and soundtrack contribute heavily to this otherworldly air.

Fair warning, however: it's also quite slow-paced, dense, and demanding. It's definitely not an actioner or *Game of Thrones,* and the sort of person who just bounces off of arthouse films (or calls them "pretentious" as a kneejerk reaction) will hate it. If that isn't you, however, it's worth your time.

The first two seasons have been compelling enough to get me to binge each of them. As mixtures of teen drama and fantasy material go, there's nothing very new going on here, but what they deliver is thus far fun enough to keep me looking forward to new seasons.

The chief flaw in the show is that they have far more going on in plot and characters than is really possible to "sell" in six-episode seasons. For instance:

• Magne and plucky but innocent environmentalist Isolde become best friends in the space of one episode before she's killed off to provide a Tragic Motive for him.

• The characters of the Jotun antagonists fluctuate in ways that aren't exactly unbelievable per se, but that they don't have space to really develop: especially Fjor's doomed struggle to find love and escape his nature, which takes an extremely sudden turn midway through season 2.

• Wotan and other gods appear on the scene in the second season but don't get nearly enough screen time to develop into characters. A shame because Wotan in particular seems *really* cool.

• The larger cast in the town and the high school really don't get much to do as the story progresses, acting mostly as a weathervane of who's "winning" in the activist vs. Corporation struggle and the battle of gods and giants underlying it.

These are all the result of just having too much story stuffed into a too-restricted format, and there's occasionally a feeling that we're checking off the boxes for Making the Mythology Happen. Also, while I get that it's fairly standard for the adult world to be weirdly oblivious in a fantasy/teen drama show, it's pushed to extremes here. Like, Magne and Laurits' mom, Turid, is *way* too chill about the massive eldritch tapeworm thing living in their house in season two. *Everybody* is too chill about it, really.

But there are a lot of positives, too. The cast is really winning, the romantic leads appropriately gorgeous -- Saxa, Ran and Gry deliver intense wattages of beauty and sex appeal in particular, and Fjor isn't exactly hard on the eyes either -- Magne's development and struggles with his powers is fun to follow and comes with believable moments of doubt and crises of faith, and while Laurits' actor is clearly too old to be a high-school aged kid he's also *amazing* as a wondrously gay and ambiguous version of the reincarnated Loki (who, unlike Magne, commits fully to his mythic role once he learns the truth of it). There is entertainment aplenty to be had, and when the fantasy action happens -- even if it clearly isn't high-budget action -- it delivers satisfying moments.

At the end of the day, it's just fun to watch even despite the moments of seeming illogical that come from its being a bit overstuffed for its six-episode run time. The decision to play the Jotun vs. Aesir conflict as a battle over climate change, and to have the complexity of the modern world confuse the battle lines and unsettle the participants, is really cool. And I'm still looking forward to seeing more of how these characters play out: the star-crossed semi-romance that season 2's final act introduces for Saxa and Magne is particularly interesting. Flawed, but a really good show. Worth the time.

Don't watch it looking for a realistic survival film. If it's going to bother you how clean and well-fed the leads and their lovely dog still look after weeks of freezing and starving on a mountain, this isn't for you.

If on the other hand you want to watch two exceedingly beautiful people bond, fall in love and overcome their inner demons and barriers through a shared and intense experience, The Mountain Between Us delivers. Winslet and Elba are compelling and poignant leads with charm and chemistry to spare, the romance is teased out in leisurely fashion but convincing when the film finally commits to it, and it's easy and satisfying to root for our hero and heroine to get together by the end.

Best of all: if in real life you know how unstable a relationship with these foundations would likely be, in the world of the film you don't have to worry about it. This is a grand and romantic story that isn't afraid to ditch realism for the heightened pleasures of improbable love. Appreciated for the escapist fare that it ultimately is, it's a good way to spend a couple of hours.

The tempting thing to do with this material would be to write a bog-standard Redemption Arc of some kind into it. This story about Mavis, a depressed thirtysomething alcoholic, divorcee and young adult novelist on a doomed quest to recover her lost youth, is courageous enough not to take that out.

That clearly left some viewers, who go into the theater looking for some kind of positivity in the experience, wondering what the "point" is. Well, this isn't a feel good comedy. It doesn't really come to any kind of conventionally "satisfying" conclusion. Mavis begins the movie as an unpleasantly self-centered and deluded character whose life is drowning in addiction, and she largely ends it the same way.

That said, I do think Young Adult brings something genuinely interesting to the table. Mavis is unpleasant, but she's not a villain. Patton Oswalt's supporting turn as a long-crippled nerd from her high school's graduating class is sympathetic: but he's not the spunky sidekick who shows her the way. The mentally-health(ier) townsfolk of Mercury aren't studies in the twin cliches of Small Town Virtue or Small Town Lameness. Everyone is all around just... human.

The story of Young Adult is essentially about the mental breakdown a plainly empty and unhappy Mavis experiences when she discovers her old high school sweetheart has had an infant daughter. It eventually turns out that this represents to her the life she should have had, and might have had but for a miscarriage that ended her relationship with the ever-cheerful and mostly decent Buddy many years ago. She conceives the insane notion of going back to Mercury to reclaim that life, and him... and she has no friends in Minneapolis who can talk her out of this absurd notion.

Throughout the course of the movie, we found out why. Mavis isn't pleasant. She isn't self-aware, she isn't really aware of others, and she's largely lacking in empathy. She doesn't understand how transparent she is to the people she's supposed to be conning, the impossibility of the task she's set herself (she backs away from glimpses of the truth whenever she's in danger of realizing it), and the extent to which so many people in the town are either squicked out or downright alarmed by her bizarre reappearance and are really just humoring her. She doesn't grasp the degree to which Patton Oswalt's Matt (whom she comes to lean on as a kind of confidante) is the only one telling her the truth.

Despite all of that, Theron finds a human and comprehensible core in Mavis. She's not redeemed by her obvious mental scars, but her motives and actions *are* comprehensible. So are everyone else's, and there's nobody in the frame who comes off as sainted or flawless. This kind of simply flawed and human story about mental health and addiction, shorn of the usual tropes of the Redemption Arc, feels like a very different kind of contribution to this conversation. I appreciate it for what it is, and if it's "pointless"... well, maybe that's the point. That's just how a lot of human life as-lived actually feels.

Great performances by Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt. The whole cast is solid, really. If you can withstand its bleakness and accept that it's not going to be a feel-good dramedy, it's worth your time.

Look, say what you will about the prequel trilogy -- I know I do -- but whatever went wrong in conception or delivery, at least there *was* a creative vision guiding them. What puts Rise of Skywalker in its own unique bracket of subpar Star Wars content is that it so clearly lacks even that.

I didn't learn about Rise of Skywalker's troubled production until after laying down money for it in the theatre, but I was struck then by how much of a mess it was and how there seemed to be no cohesive point to any of it. Having learned since about the rushed timelines, the constant flux of the production process and above all the creative cowardice of Disney -- who somehow managed to let themselves be intimidated by a minority of toxic fans who flipped out about the much more successful previous film The Last Jedi -- it makes some sense of how this came to be such a disaster.

If you think that re-watching the film will improve it or reveal some previously-hidden charm, I'm here to tell you: it doesn't. It's still bizarrely, uncomfortably specific about undoing most of Rian Johnson's work and sidelining Rose Tico. It's still weirdly frenetic while delivering no story of any real note, still riddled with subplots that are introduced and unceremoniously dropped while contributing nothing much, still full of empty fanservice beats that the suits appear to have imagined would take the place of an actual narrative. Behind-the-scenes accounts of the writing process describe whiteboards full of fanservice items that the team was expected to deliver on, which is one of the very saddest things I've ever heard and it not only shows in the final product; it basically IS the final product.

The decision to bring back the Emperor, glad as I usually am to watch Ian McDiarmid do his thing, is especially inscrutable. The "explanation" for it makes no sense, and I still don't care what a "Force dyad" is supposed to be or why that kind of bafflegab is introduced this late in the day or how there's supposed to suddenly be this massive galaxy-ending fleet on a planet whose atmosphere consists mostly of lightning bolts. I fell asleep during parts of the "climactic" action sequence in the theatre, and getting to see the content I missed only demonstrated to me why I zoned out on it during the first viewing.

There's the odd cool moment, Star Wars' signature visual design and music is as on-point as ever, and the cast... do their best. Those elements of the Star Wars brand are usually worth a couple of stars and likely saved this movie from being an outright flop instead of just a disappointing under-performer compared with its predecessors. But it is justice that this hollow, blatant act of pandering to the most toxic parts of its own fandom landed Disney with, by Star Wars standards, a truly embarrassing turkey. And if this conclusively ends J.J. Abrams' brief and vastly overrated run as the king of silver-screen sci-fi, that too will be justice: I have no doubt that the stories of studio interference and misguided demands for fan service are true, but they can't solely explain the graceless, clunky filmmaking on display here.

The premise is Bonnie and Clyde for the social media era, with Bella Thorne delivering a particularly vapidly-written "Bonnie" role (Arielle) with surprising verve.

The funny thing here is that her protagonist--who builds a following on Instagram by posting videos of the couple's crime spree after the pair accidentally kill her boyfriend's drunk and abusive father--is actually manifesting a real behavior. There actually *are* people out there, in increasing numbers even, who commit serious crimes and then post the video evidence on social media. Ironically, the only unbelievable thing about Arielle's online "fame" is that there are actually way too many idiots like this on the Internet for her to have stood out.

Of course, most such people wind up almost immediately arrested. Arielle and her none-too-bright boyfriend Dean somehow make it across multiple state lines before it catches up with them. But Arielle is actually a pretty convincing study of the social media criminal: high on the adrenaline of crime and the associated sense of power (she gets her first taste of it when a video of her fighting with another chick at a bar goes viral), narcissistically obsessed with her follower count and attention, driven but dim-witted and with a stunted sense of empathy (she certainly doesn't feel much compunction about the multiple murders she commits along the way). It's not an attractive character by any means, but Thorne delivers her well.

That said: the character feels *accurate* but not particularly *interesting.* Neither of them do. The story isn't that interesting, either: a fairly predictable path to a predictable ending, with some genuinely implausible luck for the "protagonists" along the way and nothing very interesting to say about the social media stupidity that's core to the plot. The winking climax would have needed a far more sympathetic protagonist to carry it off.

You can actually see some interesting ideas under the chassis, and elements that work in isolated parts of the film. There's an opportunity here to have a kind of Yojimbo-style storyline with a protagonist caught between two equally dangerous forms of evil, Miamiman's desert cannibals and the pimp/drug kingpin/cult leader calling himself The Dream.

There were the bones of a really interesting story here and short stretches -- the brutal opening sequence, the surreal journey into The Dream's household -- where you can see what it could have been. The cannibals *feel* viscerally evil, even banally so as when we see them murdering and eating people as part of just normal family lie. The Dream and his empty-eyed, uzi-wielding concubines *feel* viscerally creepy and wrong even with Keanu Reeves' typically, um, limited acting talent interposed as a filter. The dilemma of what to do with a child who's been born into the "Miamiman" lifestyle is potentially quite interesting and could have brought out different sides of the protagonist.

Unfortunately, it's mostly a misfire. Agonizingly slow, the film attempts very long stretches of wordless storytelling with actors who mostly don't have the chops to pull it off. The pretty visuals -- and they are pretty -- can't make up for the stultifying stretches of watching people walk around or stare at each other. The two real A-lister acting talents on display (Ribisi and Carrey) are almost criminally wasted. Gorgeous as Waterhouse and Momoa both are, they just aren't lead material as actors and can't bring alive the incredibly flawed material they're working with.

Worse yet is that the minimal story and characters spiral into the nonsensical whenever they're actually allowed to move forward. The final sequence is cringingly lame and makes no sense for any of the characters involved, as if the filmmakers just painted themselves into a corner and then gave up.

I'm not sorry I watched it, but I don't recommend it.

There was the potential here for a triumphant, epic, sweeping tribute to Allende's classic magic realist dynastic drama. As I sat watching it, I most found myself wondering just what the heck happened. It's a misfire so total that aside from the lush production values, it could almost bring Ed Wood to mind.

I don't think I've ever seen this much high-powered acting talent go to waste as conspicuously as in this movie. Close, Streep, Irons, Banderas, Ryder, Alonso, Muller-Stahl... the cast is a who's who of performers who should never, ever look this stilted or be asked to recite dialogue this lifeless. For the love of God, even Gallo is better than this material. Just tragic.

It does look nice, I'll give it that much.

What I liked most is that Rogue One puts in the foreground the toll the Empire takes on the lives of the people who live under it, or struggle against it. Jyn Erso, the lead -- charismatically portrayed by Felicity Jones -- is one of these people: living on the run from the Empire since childhood, raised a rebel cadre before the cause abandoned her and she abandoned it, the story is essentially the tale of her coming to terms with her past and trying to fulfil her work, to make sure her father's last gesture against the Empire doesn't come to nothing.

The people gathered around her are the flotsam and jetsam of rebellion and resistance, people who've traded parts of themselves (in some cases literally) to the pay the price of battling the Emperor; some of them have retained a sense of at least gallows humour about all this (Donnie Yen's Chirrut is one of the most instantly memorable characters ever to appear in a Star Wars movie because of this), others have been largely broken by it (brought out beautifully in Forest Whitaker's portrayal of the paranoid and hollowed-out Saw Gerrera), or remain driven by the need to have the terrible things they've done in the name of the rebellion mean something (which provides a passable excuse for the relatively stock Stoic Hero character Cassian). Everyone is damaged in some degree and looking for some kind of redemption, some way of striking back.

These people, and the tone of the story they inhabit, are considerably different from -- and darker than -- anything we've seen in Star Wars before. I think this lies at the root of the otherwise baffling claims in some quarters that the film lacked "interesting" story, characters or emotion; if you come in expecting the light-hearted, bantering space opera adventure tone of something like A New Hope or The Force Awakens, that's decidedly not what this is. I'm okay with that, because Rogue One is ditching (most of) the light-heartedness in favour of what is essentially a species of relatively grown-up "war movie" style storytelling in Star Wars clothing. it gains more from the trade-off than it loses.

That's not to say everything is perfect. I'm not entirely convinced by the way the hero team coheres by the end of the film, and Cassian in particular does not really hold his own as an interesting protagonist across from Jones' excellent work as Jyn Urso. There are nitpicks to be had with the way the action is handled from time to time (Rogue One really does bring up the eternal questions of why exactly stormtroopers wear armor that apparently is useless), and sequences that don't quite make sense (Saw Gerrera's tentacle moster).

But there's so much more tastiness here: Mikkelsen, Whitaker, Yen, Alan Tudyk's priceless turn as the cynical droid K2SO, a fun and smarmy baddie in Krennic, a badass guest appearance by Darth Vader, the digital wizardry used to resurrect Cushing's Grand Moff Tarkin and to give us a glimpse of a young Leia. Sauced with excellent action sequences and clever fan-friendly nods and easter eggs, I found Rogue One to be tremendous fun on the whole.

I wouldn't quite say Beyond brings Trek back to its cerebral roots, but it's a genuinely good movie -- certainly by far the best the reboot crew have gotten. Part of this is that it at least has a non- broken plot and spares us the anti-science nonsense of the first two reboots movies. And part of it is that while the story is still a fairly unoriginal beat-the-bad-guy-before-he-uses-the-death-ray outing, it at least feels like this wasn't made by people who don't like Trek. You shouldn't have to praise a movie for just paying attention to the basics, but it's a welcome change for a movie in this reboot to have some substance -- however minimal -- under the shellack.

The rollicking action is still there, but it's controlled rather than frenetic, and serves the story rather that trying to obscure the lack of one. The humour is still there, but it's not silly or slapstick. The references are still there, but they're graceful and genuinely witty, not ham-handed. The villain is still there, but he has a coherent motive and pattern of action (however simple and bare-bones it may be). Our heroes have to use their minds as much as their fists and phasers to solve problems and ultimately save the day. And guest star Jaylah truly shone, a strong, capable and yet vulnerable character who I'd love to see more of.

The characters finally *feel* like they'd belong on the same bridge with their original counterparts: Kirk gets to be truly convincing as a Captain for the first time, Quinto and Urban's takes on their characters feel fully matured (and by God do we get some great Spock & Bones moments out of them), Uhura gets to step out of the role of Spock's Girlfriend for most of the film, Pegg's Scotty feels like a character all his own and not just Pegg doing a bit. And Yelchin's Chekov is finally fully-formed and convincing as his own guy and not just a collection of tics and an accent... which makes the actor's premature demise suck all the more.

For once I actually had as much fun watching a Trek reboot movie as people were telling me I was supposed to be having. So much of this adventure just *felt* like Trek, albeit from the more action- oriented end of the spectrum: the Yorktown base is a great example of this, an unabashed celebration of the old show's aesthetic and ethics updated with state-of-the-art effects on a massive scale. I even liked the (rather cheeseball) use of the Power of Rock to defeat the baddies in the end, because it was cleverly tied into a classic Trek-style outsmarting-the-enemy-computer moment that would have felt right at home on the old shows.

Right now most reviews of this Trek fan-film seem to be split between loyalists and donors determined to see the best in it, and those (sometimes frothing with nerd rage, sometimes not) who firmly believe it is one of the worst cinematic sins of all time. For my part I find it hilariously, entertainingly terrible; one of those sci-fi B- movies that I'll enjoy watching with family or friends, riffing on its awfulness with beer in hand, MST3K-style. This can't be what its creators were going for, obviously... but it's not nothing.

A number of people seem upset that it hyped itself as a professional-grade pilot episode for CBS. I don't see why anyone who isn't a donor would care, but for the record, even if you weren't someone who was expecting this to become an honest-to-goodness television series (and I wasn't) this film stills admittedly falls short of the quality mark it could have aspired to. Renegades was produced by the people who brought you Star Trek: Of Gods And Men, which basically was the dawn of the ambitious fan-film and which made things like Star Trek Continues of Axanar possible; but the creators of that fan-film revolution have clearly been left behind. Seven years ago this would have dropped jaws and had people saying "Wow, that's a fan-film?!" instead of simply rolling their eyes. So it goes.

So, why is it terrible? Script, editing, acting, effects... take your pick, really. What Renegades really has going on is an ungainly mixture of high-quality elements and good ideas seated directly across from terrible ideas and obviously cheap elements. The effect is dizzying, wrenching the viewer from the sublime to the ridiculous to the sublimely ridiculous every few moments. Some of the ideas are plainly just way too big for the budget, which has often been a sin that gave low-budget SF its charm; other ideas feel half-baked and half- delivered (like the character arc involving Sean Young and Edward Furlong). I can't decide whether Gary Graham's character is meant to be a shape-shifter or holographic trickster, or what Young's "Dr. Lucien" actually does on the hero ship, or quite what's supposed to be going on during the climax. There's a certain mode of dramatic pseudo-shaky- cam close-ups that keeps cropping up that has clear hallmarks of being a deliberate stylistic choice, but that alongside all the more conventionally filmed material just looks like a mistake. And so on.

What it all adds up to is a mess. But it's also kind of a glorious mess. There are enjoyable performances and moments to be had here. Almost everyone is in such deadly earnest that even some terrible moments can make you smile (this is true of most of the protagonist Lexxa Singh's screen time); except for Gary Graham who seems to have wandered into this universe from somewhere much more laid back and seems to be just having fun. The unevenness means there's always some fresh angle to be amused by... but at the same time, there's clearly a heart and an aspiration to the story that gives it some charm despite the obvious failures. People set out sometimes to make cult "bad movies," but you can't fake the earnest heart and drive behind a genuinely "good bad movie." Renegades is proof of that. There's commitment in every frame, even the terrible ones, and even while laughing at its foibles and pratfalls I can still respect that; in fact that's what makes its foibles and pratfalls worth laughing at.

No, this is never going to be the next face of Star Trek. And though they're making noise about going on with a series, I don't know that much is going to come of that. But as a uniquely ambitious and bad moment in this history of fan-film, I'm glad Renegades exists.

The good: Teller and Simmons commit like mad and sell the heck out of their characters -- basically, as many have pointed out, the only two real characters in the film -- enough to make their work together suspenseful and interesting to watch... no matter how silly the underlying premises.

The bad: Neither character is all that likable, but moreover the cartoon levels of abuse that "Fletcher" dishes out to his students and especially to the protagonist would get him arrested and drummed out of the Marine Corps, let alone a music school. In the course of the movie, Fletcher doesn't just play head games and dish out deeply personal verbal abuse which on its own should be enough to get him disciplined; he throws chairs, kicks stuff over, humiliates and *slaps* the protagonist, forces him (in hilariously over-the-top fashion) to play until his hands bleed in order to "earn" a part, and makes him take the stage at a competition having obviously just climbed out of a car wreck... then boots him from the band when he can't keep playing.

This character isn't an educator. He's an abuser. This is even made obvious by the suicide of one of his former students as a (minor) plot point. Fletcher is himself a (clearly mediocre) musician dealing with his own demons by desperately trying to become at least a footnote in jazz history, the man who threw a cymbal at the head of the next Charlie Parker. And yet...

The silly: ... we're treated to an end sequence where a "meeting of the minds" occurs that makes no sense for everyone involved and seems effectively to make excuses for and reward Fletcher's abuse. The disposable and irrelevant subplots meant to sell the rest of the people in the protagonist's life as representing mediocrity don't come off, either.

Interstellar has it all: breath-taking adventure, mind-bending spectacle, brain-teasing thought experiments and fascinating science speculation, powerful emotional hooks, strong performances. It actually brings something new to the table in terms of using relativity as a part of the story and a hook for high-stakes adventure, featuring memorable sequences and truly alien environments that the big screen has never seen before.

Even the robot sidekicks worked, and I haven't seen a movie that could honestly claim that since "The Black Hole." This is the kind of SF people keep telling us can't be made any more... but of course it can. Thanks to Chris Nolan for reminding everyone of that.

Roughly in order of the performances:

Jerry Lee Lewis: is very old.

Crosby, Stills & Nash: I don't think I've ever seen them play a bad set.

Stevie Wonder: surprisingly uneven, and he actually seems to be playing through some kind of a health issue during "The Way You Make Me Feel." But Roxanne (with Sting of course) is brilliant.

Paul Simon / Simon & Garfunkel: the reunited duo are the standout here, together they can still raise the hairs on your neck.

Little Anthony & the Imperials: one song, but what a song!

Metallica: you basically need to already be a metal fan, because as their numbers with Ray Davies and Lou Reed demonstrate, Metallica really can't do anything else. If you *are* a metal fan, though, Ozzy Osbourne's guest turn is a thing of beauty.

U2: Surprisingly, they don't mesh very will with Bruce Springsteen as a guest artist. But Gimme Shelter with Mick Jagger and the Black-Eyed Peas is surprisingly good and their delivery of their own songs is lovely, if you're a U2 fan.

Jeff Beck: excellent from end to end -- with the exception of a surprisingly awful rendition of Foxy Lady by guest Billy Gibbons -- and his bassist, who looks about twelve, is standout too. (In fact I had to look her up: her name is Tal Wilkenfield.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: ... and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why they call him the Boss. Of course they ended with Springsteen, nobody could follow this set. Especially with the spectacular guest turns from Tom Morello, Sam Moore, John Fogerty and Darlene Love... and of course, Billy Joel.