***/**** Image A- Sound A Extras A+*starring Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D’Onofrio, Marianne Jean-Baptistewritten by Mark Protosevichdirected by Tarsem Singh by Walter Chaw It’s a collision of travel-worn ideas, this movie–a tired serial-killer thriller married to Dreamscape–and the wear shows whenever someone mouths their ration of exposition like a toothless shut-in gumming their daily soup-soaked toast. Yet Tarsem’s The Cell is also a collection of astonishments, vision...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
***/****starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, Emma Stonewritten and directed by Ari Aster by Walter Chaw The problem I have with Ari Aster movies is that Ari Aster is contemptuous of his characters. He gives them anxieties he then maximalizes into catastrophes so extreme they’re funny. (How else does a cake allergy turn into a telephone-pole beheading?) And once he creates an unbearable situation, he scoffs. It’s tempting to draw a corollary between his work and that of pos...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
****/****starring David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegiwritten and directed by James Gunn by Walter Chaw I’m in the bag for Superman, I admit it. I grew up in a small town, Golden, CO, in an environment some would describe as Norman Rockwellian. Before the bullying started in earnest, before I spoke English, I would earn pennies at the corner barbershop and spend them at the 5 & 10 across the street on Silly Putty, gum, and comic books. Superman comic books, Wonder ...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
Jurassic World Rebirth**½/****starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friendwritten by David Koeppdirected by Gareth Edwards by Walter Chaw Our first film about hyper-normalization, Jurassic World Rebirth presents a world that has grown tired of dinosaurs, and it’s buoyed not only by that topicality but also by Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and a steadfast refusal to give a good shit. About anything. Which is not to say the craft is poor (this was an expe...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
*½/****starring Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Jenna Davis, Jemaine Clementwritten and directed by Gerald Johnstone by Walter Chaw Gerald Johnstone’s M3GAN 2.0 feels like one of those 1980s teensploitation sci-fi adventure flicks. D.A.R.Y.L., for instance–D.A.R.Y.L. exactly, let’s face it. Given that D.A.R.Y.L. hardly set the world on fire, this does not bode well for M3GAN 2.0. To its credit, it takes a wild swing at relevance, M3GAN 2.0 does, in a way that’s at complete odds with...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
F1: The Movie***½/****starring Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardemscreenplay by Ehren Krugerdirected by Joseph Kosinski by Walter Chaw The first movie I saw in a theatre was Star Wars, in 1977. I had just turned four and didn’t speak a word of English. The 45rpm read-along storybook my parents subsequently bought for me helped me take my first steps towards learning the language. And the sense of exhilaration I felt watching Star Wars that first time? I’ve never equalled...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
*/****screenplay by Julia Cho & Mark Hammer & Mike Jonesdirected by Adrian Molina, Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi by Walter Chaw Elio, from Coco co-director Adrian Molina, Madeline Sharafian (animator, Turning Red), and Domee Shi (director, Turning Red), is a derivative oddball-kid/buddy comedy space adventure of the middle-aspiring family-programmer variety Pixar now uses to pad its roster between increasingly flaccid and uninspired franchise tentpoles. How the mighty have fallen. Boasting th...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
*½/****starring Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fienneswritten by Alex Garlanddirected by Danny Boyle by Walter Chaw At its best, Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later is alive with the speculative cultural anthropology of the due-for-revision Reign of Fire. At its worst, it’s Ren Faire: The Movie, a guided LARP through a fantastical post-apocalypse, replete with unnecessarily elaborate lore, feasting scenes, braids for miles, and paste-thick accents. It’s almost entirely humourless so...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
**½/****starring Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon, Nic Cassim, Miranda Tapsellwritten by Thomas Martindirected by Lorcan Finnegan by Walter Chaw A time or two during Lorcan Finnegan’s The Surfer, I wondered if it wasn’t at least a spiritual cousin to Frank Perry’s The Swimmer, seeing as how both films offer an overarching metaphor of going home while examining an aimless, tortured masculinity on the existential skids. Indeed, there’s a literary quality to The Surfer that smells like the ...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
ZERO STARS/****starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tom Hiddleston, Annalise Basso, Mark Hamillwritten by Mike Flanagan, based on the short story by Stephen Kingdirected by Mike Flanagan by Walter Chaw I admit it: I have an allergy to sentimental treacle. I get that this shit is like mother’s milk to some–that fading stars and, indeed, entire cable channels have tied their strings to the “shameless tearjerker” to great if niche fame and fortune; it’s a “me” problem, and I accept that. I r...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
****/****starring Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoeinspired by the screenplay Nosferatu by Henrik Gallen and the novel Dracula by Bram Stokerwritten for the screen and directed by Robert Eggers by Walter Chaw The hysteric female can be viewed as a ‘flipped’ version of the male paranoiac; while the male represses his fears about the nature of his sexuality, the female’s hysterics seem to circle around her inability to direct her sexuality as she pleases, or he...| FILM FREAK CENTRAL
