Glad all over: Gladiator II
Review by Jeff DeRouen

The first Gladiator is not even close to my favorite Ridley Scott movie (that honor belongs to Thelma & Louise), but the Best Picture Oscar-winning sword and sandal epic is universally adored, and I certainly acknowledge that it’s a whole lot of fun to watch.

And it’s that fun that Scott and company are after with Gladiator II, no doubt giving Paramount a blueprint for what future sequels (or series, or cartoons, or aerial drone shows they can “evolve” the property into) will look like.

I’d give you a full rundown of the plot, but it basically follows the original in that we have the rightful heir to the throne fighting their way to freedom in the coliseum while being nursed by Connie Nielsen. The “fighting their way to freedom” part provides the spectacle that a seasoned pro like Ridley Scott can do in his sleep.

Aside from an overreliance on CGI creatures (this movie could have been called, Gladiator II: F**k Animals), the battle sequences are big, loud, vicious, and very, very bloody – exactly what we want to see on the big screen. Even the over the top and ridiculous “battle at sea in the coliseum with SHARKS” sequence is pretty darn thrilling, because Ridley Scott knows how to do his job.

The movie, though, plays it too safe in trying to be a direct sequel and makes the obvious choice of following the “son of Gladiator” and not giving the movie to Macrinos, played by Denzel Washington. Macrinos is calculating, manipulative, power-hungry, FUNNY, and absolutely the best thing in this movie.

​Denzel is having so much fun and is so masterful here, I wanted to follow HIM as our protagonist; “spawn of Crowe’s” storyline just isn’t as interesting and feels wholly underwritten. The movie belongs to Washington anyway, so why not have given him the whole thing from the beginning?

If fun is what you’re after, then Gladiator II is a solid pick. Yeah, it ultimately suffers from
being an unnecessary follow-up, but you get a fine cinematic meal from one of our great
storytellers who always delivers a great night at the movies.

It's all Poping off: Conclave 
Review by Jeff De Rouen

“You know what’s missing from my life? A good papal thriller,” said no one ever and Hollywood, as far as I know, hasn’t scratched that nonexistent itch since Godfather III (for the record, I love Godfather III but, apparently, it’s just me and one other guy in Peoria).

The world of Vatican intrigue was indeed ripe for the pickin’ and director Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) delivers unto us the compelling, taught, and beautifully shot thriller, Conclave.

We’re thrust right into the story: the pope is dead and Cardinal Lawrence, played meticulously by “definitely will be nominated for everything this year,” Ralph Fiennes, must organize and run a conclave to choose the next pope.

From the beginning, we have games: power moves are executed, loyalties are tested, and secrets are uncovered. The movie’s pace never slows, and it’s a delight to watch some of our best actors (Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Lucian Msamati – in a stunning performance – to name a few) chew the scenery and bring their A game.

That being said, the movie is VERY GOOD but misses some big opportunities. They basically waste the iconic Isabella Rossellini (her “big” scene merely repeats what we already know despite a magnificent opening line) and the big reveal at the end felt like artists trying to say something important but playing it safe so that it’s more palatable, completely diluting the message. In my opinion, they should have really gone for it.

You’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it and you absolutely should see it ON THE BIG SCREEN. Berger’s film expertly uses space and color as the foundational canvas for the actors and one shot in particular, a sudden occurrence of violence, is breathtaking.

Conclave will not go down as one of the best films ever made, and who knows what you would actually call this genre, but it’s a perfect addition to the “let’s have a really fun time at the movies without anything like a Pixar-induced full-blown emotional catharsis” genre that pairs perfectly with popcorn.

Review: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

I SEE TIM BURTON HAS MADE HIS FILM AGAIN is what I would usually open with as a stock introduction to reviewing any of his films. But this time it’s not a wittily sarcastic opening salvo like you thought, this is actually a real live (well, undead) sequel. My notes say that the original was released in 1988 (that can’t be right, I saw it at the cinema and I’m only…OK, OK, that’s scary in itself), with Burton reuniting original cast members Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara.

Notable additions include a hilarious Willem Defoe as a theatrically hard-boiled underworld detective, Justin Theroux’s pitch-perfect male feminist and modern-day sad gurl icon Jenna Ortega. With Ortega playing Ryder’s daughter, this almost feels like an official passing of the Goth ‘It Girl’ torch, like when Madonna kissed Britney at the MTV awards except they’re both sat in a graveyard wearing Victorian mourning dresses.

The plot is chaotic, involving lots of passing back and forth into the cartoonish afterlife, trickster demon Keaton with his army of pinhead warriors/administrators being chased by his reanimated ex-wife (Monica Bellucci). The special effects channel some of those memorable, late-80s graphics and mix them well with modern-day cgi. They’re employed with some gusto during the musical numbers, which culminate in a triumphantly possessed and thoroughly entertaining cover of MacArthur Park.

It’s anarchic, nonsensical and highly enjoyable if you don’t think about it too much. Just strap yourself in - it’s like being on a theme park ride scored by Danny Elfman, and everyone commits to the bit. I had fun, anyway. (PO)

Vanity Fare: Megalopolis
Review by Jeff DeRouen

If aging auteurs want to spend enormous amounts of their own money on an insane magnum opus knowing full well it’ll probably flop (although Kevin Costner has recently elaborated on why preliminary box office is a flawed indicator of a film’s long-term success), I am here for it.

Francis Ford Coppola’s new epic, Megalopolis, is a bold and uplifting tale that, without all the boobs and blood, could be a new classic we see play every year on NBC at Christmas.

The movie follows Cesar (Adam Driver in a fully committed and over the top performance), an eccentric builder who wants to use his magical building material to create a more progressive world to benefit generations. Standing in his way, of course, are folks who have their own designs and desires for power, including Aubrey Plaza who absolutely devours the screen as the scheming and sexy Wow Platinum.
​
Megalopolis, for better or worse, is EXACTLY the movie Coppola wanted to make and any “mistake” you see is an intentional choice from one of history’s greatest filmmakers. Is it on the nose? YES. Is it enormously stylistic in both aesthetic and performance? UNBELIEVABLY SO. Does it wear its heart on its sleeve? YOU BETCHA. And all of it culminates in what can only be described as Coppola’s attempt to inject a giant vision and hope into a society that runs on anger, division, and short-term solutions.

I think it’s a masterpiece.

The Substance
​(dir. Coralie Fargeat)
Review by Jeff DeRouen

As a good gay, I’m here for an acting swing from Demi Moore and happy to lay my money down to experience the magic that made her one of the nineties biggest stars.

I’d heard The Substance was not typical “I’m back” fair, that writer/director Coralie Fargeat had crafted something special, and that Demi Moore gives a brave, compelling performance. Holy moly – what an understatement. This is a momentous work inspired by the likes of Cronenberg and Kubrick and absolutely one of the most batsh*t movies I have ever seen.

Moore plays an aging fitness star who takes a secret serum and splits in two – her younger and older self. They are both HER and she must change bodies every week or complications take place (and I wouldn’t dream of giving you any more details than that).

The Substance is a sci-fi/body horror allegory where Fargeat lays bare her view of how
society affects women giving us top notch gore and career-best performances from both
Demi Moore AND Margaret Qualley.

It’s a riveting, unsettling, hilarious, and absolutely disgusting sci/fi body horror masterpiece that must be seen with an audience in a theater – I can’t wait to go again.

The Apostle
review by Jeff DeRouen

I miss video stores. Something about being able to look at titles I can pick up with my hands seems a more efficient way of curating my viewing instead of, you know, scrolling through Netflix for two hours before deciding to just go to bed.

The New Orleans Public Library is a fix for my nostalgia ache, as they get just about every new release on DVD or Blu-ray and have a large selection of older titles (including Criterion for those in the know). And so I enjoy the occasional perusing of the shelves and finding hidden gems I may have missed or would like to see again.

This week, my soul was led to a rewatch of Robert Duvall’s small and magnificent Louisiana-based film, The Apostle (dir. Robert Duvall, 1997). Shot in towns like St. Martinville and Des Allemands, Duvall hired locals (amateur actors and regular folks) to inject verisimilitude to the story of a disgraced evangelical preacher. He believes he’s on a divine mission to revitalize an old Louisiana church, after losing his own congregation and fleeing from the police in Texas.

Duvall gives us the world of Charismatic Christianity, where Jesus reigns supreme and even the worst sinner can be delivered unto salvation. It's also fun to see Billy Bob Thornton in one of those early redneck, racist roles that the guy does so well. He deals with the subject ironically and unflinchingly, delivering a more authentic faith-based story than any of the recent, stylized and melodramatic Angel Studio releases. And Louisiana, captured in all its sweaty, sunlit, mosquito-infested beauty, is the perfect backdrop for this moving and messy tale of redemption.

You can buy/rent The Apostle online (on YouTube only for some reason) or head to the public library and get that good ole standard definition DVD.

The New Orleans Film Society (NOFS) is thrilled to announce the first wave of titles for the 35th annual, Oscar®-qualifying New Orleans Film Festival (NOFF), which will showcase over 150 films in-person October 16 - 22 at The Broad Theater, Contemporary Art Center and The Prytania Theatres, plus virtually October 16 - 27 through the NOFF Virtual Cinema (available globally). This year’s opening night film, A King Like Me (directed by Matthew O. Henderson), follows members of the Zulu Club, New Orleans’ first Black Mardi Gras krewe, as they work to bring the Zulu parade back to the streets for Mardi Gras Day 2022, in the face of a global pandemic, Hurricane Ida, and the loss of members due to COVID and gun violence. The film will have its Louisiana Premiere on October 16 at the Orpheum Theater (time TBD).
VIEW THE FULL LIST OF ANNOUNCED FILMS HERE

​Alien: Romulus

Remember ‘Alien’, and how it masterfully drip-fed suspense to create one of the most chillingly immersive horror films of all time? Remember ‘Aliens’, the contrasting, high-octane sequel which shifted gears into viscerally dynamic combat sequences? Well, preserve those memories in cryostasis, because in comparison, Romulus isn’t worthy enough to pry a crusty facehugger off their freshly-impacted space helmets. 

The ninth film of the Alien franchise (including Predator spin-offs) is an “interquel”, a word I really hope to see spat out of an airlock some day as I look on impassively. It feels like a concept from an IP on life support, klaxons blaring, the letters INTERQUEL illuminated in urgent, flashing red neon. 

Rain Carradine (Civil War’s Cailee Spaeny) and her adoptive android brother, Andy (Industry’s David Jonsson) are stuck on a grimey mining colony. Rain’s work-earned travel visa is denied by The Company, and so they hook up with an anarchic collective, and joyride a shuttle out of the atmosphere to steal a derelict, but still orbiting cargo ship. Seems like incredibly lax security considering all of the corporate authoritarianism on land, but hey, the movie has to happen. 

Rain is the responsible, adaptable, Sigourney Weaver insert. Andy is an easily-reprogrammed automaton with a dad joke subroutine that you wish was mutable. The rest are four or five (I honestly lost track) generic, Young Adult punk/hacker types, with cut and paste personalities and provincial accents. What follows feels like a regional youth theater production of the original film, adapted from memory with a week’s notice until opening night. 

Their mission is to hotwire the cargo ship and use its cryogenic pods so that they can head to Rain’s home planet for picnics and personal fulfillment. The only obstacles are the cargo ship’s residents: a robot science officer and an unknown quantity of, well, aliens, who have apparently been routinely using him as a chew toy. This gristle-legged humanoid is a digitally de-aged, waxwork version of the late Ian Holm (he's from the first movie!), his estate hopefully well compensated for this gruesome curtain call. 

The stakes include Rain and Andy’s familial bond, and a hinted-at-but-largely-undeveloped romantic interest with one of the less mouthy punks. Oh, and one of the hackers is pregnant. Don’t worry, you’ll be reminded of this A LOT. The dialogue consists mainly of sweatily-yelled explainers: “That will damage the baby!”, “The elevator won’t work without gravity!”, “They have acid for blood, remember!”...I’m paraphrasing but it’s exposition all the way down. 

Plot points are rammed down your throat with the subtlety (and spiritual enjoyability) of a facehugger’s facial impregnation probe. Speaking of which, I might be growing prudish in my old age but the visual lingering on the notably phallic/gynecological aesthetics of the aliens’ eggs and writhing tendrils felt creepily uncomfortable, especially given the youthfulness of the cast. 

The rest of the movie devolves into a scrappy, ragtag crew, just haphazardly Scooby Doo-ing it around a gooey industrial warehouse while the sound guy double clicks on a folder of wav files called ‘IRON FOUNDRY’. It’s hard to care about any of them, any character development left languishing in the vacuum of space somewhere. The actors are not the problem (I’ve really enjoyed Spaeny and Jonsson in other things) and do what they can with the script, but they’re all written as indistinguishable, aggressively cocky Zoomers. It’s an alien horror for the IG Reels demographic - a Gen-Zee-nomorph, if you will (though you probably won’t).

What we’re left with is an underwhelming meteor shower of half-hearted fan service. Outside of Holm’s infirm android, we tick off a chest-bursting scene (plus a bonus, gratuitous variation), and TWO alien-human face-to-face shots with the protruding teeth, just in case you didn’t get the first one. The kicker, though, is a dead-eyed re-delivery of an iconic line from Aliens that burns up in the atmosphere under the weight of its own cringe value, well before its landing gear can even be activated.

I know that this sounds like “Old Man Shouts At Gaseous Nebulae”, but as someone who saw the originals, Romulus is a Disneyfied mess that asks: what if a space horror was navigated by TikTok influencers? Rewatch the first two Alien movies and bask in the characterization and the near-unbearable tension, with pay-offs that earned their places in cinematic history. By the time the inevitable Alien: Remus comes around in 2026, this absolute casserole of a movie will surely have been forgotten. Don’t call Romulus, we’ll call Romulu. (PO)

​Review: Kinds of Kindness

It’s strange to say that a director is ‘returning to form’ after their last movie - in this case, last year’s Poor Things - won prizes (Oscars included) across the globe. What I mean here is that Yourgos Lanthimos is returning to a kind of form that is reminiscent of the mood of his early films, such as Dogtooth. 

What does that even mean, though? Kinds of Kindness is an unsettling, experimental triptych that sees a return to writing with his collaborator Efthimis Filippou. All three stories share a cast, including Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn, Willem Dafoe, Emma Stone, Hong Chau, and Jesse Plemons. (One fun thing to note: much of the movie is shot in and around New Orleans, with scenes in The Windsor Court Hotel, and around the CBD). 

The basic plots are these: In part one, Plemons is in a subservient relationship to his boss, Defoe, who controls his every waking moment. In the second, Plemons is a cop whose wife (Stone) is rescued from a shipwreck but he’s convinced that she’s not the same person, and in the third, Plemons and Stone play members of a cult, led by Dafoe and Chau, who seek a divine being on Earth.

All of the worlds depicted are familiar yet deranged, with violence, delusion and perversion all simmering under a superficially mundane surface. Lanthimos drops clues and details that overlap or hint at connections - a character referred to as “R.M.F.”, a fascination with dogs, his trademark stylistic weirdness and a brutal dissection of power dynamics. 

The events on screen - some surreally beautiful, some viscerally depraved, some psychologically scarring - allow for a real spectrum of readings. Some have floated that each one represents a particular religion (Islam, Judaism, Christianity), and there are dozens of theories already abounding in film discussion threads. 

The Lanthimos hallmarks are all there, and if you’ve enjoyed his pre-Poor Things work, especially his earlier Greek movies, then you’ll find lots to chew over here. Characters all speak in that clipped, removed way, and instances of socially unusual behaviour are mainly just accepted by everyone at face value. 

Although the photographic flourishes of Poor Things and The Favourite aren’t to be found, it’s nevertheless a provocative and unhinged film in other ways. People lose sense of themselves, whether through self delusion or control by others, and it can feel disorienting to watch, the sense of things only coming together with pieces that you’re not even sure are part of the same puzzle.

The best summary of how the director sees humanity comes by extrapolating the lines of the opening song, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) by The Eurythmics: Some people want to use you. Some people want to get used by you. Some of them want to abuse you. And some of them? Some of them...want to be abused. (PO)