Jane Smith is many things – a mother, a teacher, a daughter, a friend, and much more. But the most remarkable thing about Jane is that she’s always changing – and each new face she wears brings with it a new set of experiences and understanding of the world. From the Jane Smith who loves her children to the Jane Smith who is a fierce advocate for her community, the seven faces of Jane are a testament to her resilience and strength. Each face is unique and each has a story to tell – a story of courage, passion, and dedication to the people and things she loves. So come and explore the seven faces of Jane and discover the many sides of a complex and inspiring woman.

Read the full review on our sister site, Village Voice, here.

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It’s been six years since David Bowie left our earthly realm and it is not an exaggeration to say that his music, image and creative output is more mythologized and simply more beloved and treasured than ever before. Brett Morgen’s vividly immersive new documentary-driven opus Moonage Daydream seeks to capture the music genius’ otherworldly essence and bring something new to the cinematic universe in the process. It succeeds and then some. 

This is the film hardcore Bowie fans have been waiting for. And it’s the film David Bowie deserves.

Starman (Courtesy NEON)

A collage of imagery, ideas, music and emotion, Daydream is presented in an intentionally loose, nearly non-linear way, eschewing Behind the Music biography tropes for something experiential, kaleidoscopic and concert-like. Throwing out traditional set-ups like talking heads and rigid chronology yields one of the most insightful portraits we’ve seen about a music artist, maybe ever. Of course, the sole narrator is Bowie himself and that makes all the difference. As your senses are seduced by eclectic edits and alluring imagery (both Bowie-created and pop culture related), your mind is enveloped by the subject’s sensitive and insightful words, which create a decidedly un-hazy cosmic connection spanning two-hour-plus runtime. It’s a long movie but never feels laborious, and it’s consistently enlightening.

Filmmaker Brett Morgan (Photo by Francois Berthier/Contour by Getty Images)

“I don’t go to cinema to learn, I go to experience and to be entertained,” Morgen, who lives in L.A., tells us during a far-reaching Zoom interview after the movie’s initial press screenings.” If my brain gets lit up, that’s great. That’s a bonus. But I’m really there for the sensory experience – this is my first sort of love of cinema.”

The filmmaker initially conceived of something called “the IMAX music experience” which he planned as a slate of 15 films that he would put out once a year (“they would be non-biographical, possibly nonlinear, and heavily curated,” he says). He got financing and started to focus on the Beatles, when Bowie passed. He called Bowie’s estate executor, and business manager, Bill Zysblat, who he had met with several years earlier and told him what he was interested in doing, after which he learned that the music legend had literally saved everything, and had even been purchasing footage and things chronicling his career via auction blindly for over 25 years. Suddenly, his idea had a more single-minded focus: an epic celebration of music’s most inimitable rockstar. 

“He didn’t know what he was going to do with all this stuff. They told me that David didn’t want to do a sort of traditional documentary. So I called them with my pitch, which was like, ‘Hey, I want to do an experience.’ It was simpatico with their interests,” Morgen shares. “What’s really interesting is, when I acquired the rights, they provided me with final cut and total access to everything in the vault, no restrictions or limitations. That was tremendous. And that’s sort of where the journey began.”

The journey ultimately lasted over five years, during which Morgen – who is best known for the artful Kurt Cobain chronicle Montage of Heck and one of the more interesting Rolling Stones docs, Crossfire Hurricane – had more than a few moments of struggle.

Queen Bitch (Courtesy NEON)

“We got inundated with more media than we were prepared to work with,” he remembers. “I had built a screening schedule for four months, but it ended up taking two years to work through and screen through the material, and probably two years prior to that to bring all that material into our office. So our budget was gone. By the time I started editing, we had no more resources. It ended up that I was my own producer on it, and my own editor. I had to work myself out of this and find my way. It was strange because films are generally collaborative and this became a very kind of personal endeavor.”

Shortly into the production, Morgen suffered a severe heart attack (on January 5, 2017). The married father flat-lined at Cedars-Sinai and was in a coma for a week. “It didn’t happen by accident,” he admits. “You know, I was 47. Most people that age generally aren’t having heart attacks, but I had a lot of bad habits – I smoked, I didn’t exercise. More importantly, my entire reality was work. I was a workaholic and stressed out over every little detail of everything. And that’s how I’ve always been wired. My life came to a halt. And when I woke, I was definitely not a changed man – one of the first things out of my mouth to the surgeon was ‘I have to be on set on Monday.’”

Watch That Man (Courtesy NEON)

Eventually though, he realized he needed to settle down. He began to look at Bowie’s media, and says that the Starman’s “philosophical musings and infinite wisdom” struck him on a personal level. “He was the perfect messenger at the perfect time for me to receive these messages in my life,” Morgen says. “I felt through his words, and examples, that he was guiding me and helping me learn how to lead a more balanced life. And that is when I realized that more than a theme park ride, this film would be an opportunity to provide a roadmap for how to lead a successful and fulfilling life during an age of chaos from fragmentation. And if nothing else, that I can leave that behind for my kids in the event that I have an early exit. So that I could speak through David to them and hopefully, they would be able to find the same sort of solace and inspiration and guidance that I’ve received.” 

“Everything’s rubbish and all rubbish is wonderful.” – David Bowie

As Moonage Daydream begins, we are treated to some live footage and thoughtful musings from the man himself about humanity, art, and the “deep and formidable mysteries of life.” These are intercut with vibrant imagery of Bowie’s early guises as Ziggy Stardust, performing songs such as “Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud,” “All the Young Dudes” and the glam power ballad “Life on Mars?” with alternate footage from the iconic Mick Rock video in which the singer dons a powder blue suit and pigmented blue eyeshadow (a look that was recently immortalized by Mattel as a Barbie doll).

Sound and Vision  (Courtesy NEON)

Bowie’s androgynous, pansexual aura and image make up a large part of the voice over that guides the film early on, while archival footage from various interviews he gave at the start of his career provide eyefulls of his style as well as personable wit and openess. To say he was misunderstood and even mocked for his unconventional creative choices when he started out is an understatement. During a conversation with Dick Cavett, the talk show host relays that a viewer wasn’t sure she wanted to meet him because he looked like he practiced black magic. As he often did, Bowie let the mystery hang there, making an impish remark and maintaining a shameless attitude. 

In terms of the music, Moonage Daydream is not a greatest hits packed jukebox affair. It’s packed with plenty of his most epic tunes, but some are just snippets. Still, you don’t miss much here. The soundscapes that are included serve a purpose in highlighting the star’s thoughts and expression. And his charm shines through every moment. 

“I met Brett in my recording studio about five years ago in New York,” recalls longtime Bowie producer Tony Visconti, who has a credit on the film and stayed in a Bowei orbit playing tribute concerts and working on music for the “Bowie Is” museum exhibition. “I became an important source for the audio content of the film. I was there as an advisor to the surround sound mixing engineer. What was astounding is that the film had no grain, it was solid, stunning visuals with smooth hi-frame video. In the close ups you could see the pores on Bowie’s face. I did see more snippets over the past five years that were cleaned up in the same way. Besides myself there was an audio team also making the audio sound much better than the source. There is technical wizardry in all that and when seen and heard, especially in an IMAX theater, you will get the most Bowie ever – sensory overload.”

Golden Years (Courtesy NEON)

“My work on this film was a constant reminder that I lost a dear friend of 48 years,” Visconti adds, sending us some follow-up thoughts via Facebook DM. “But I feel he’s always there when I continue to work on his music. I know it sounds weird, but I often think, ‘what would David have me do?”

WWDBD? (What Would David Bowie Do?)

Visconti will not be alone after fans see this film. Bowie’s zest for life, search for inner spirituality and quest to expand his art beyond music – he’s shown painting, dancing and acting in various movie roles (The Man Who Fell To Earth, Labyrinth, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and more) and on stage (The Elephant Man) – is more than inspiring, it’s exalting. There’s a reason Bowie fandom is so fierce, and it goes beyond the beauty and boldness of his music or even his image. Whatever persona you connect to and whatever album tops your listening list, one thing remains the same: Bowie was always seeking and changing and experimenting. As one audio clip relays in the film, he was constantly questioning his relationship with the universe and he was testing it with his art.

“The artist is a figment of the imagination,” he says, and clearly he wanted to stretch the boundaries of what any of us might imagine visually and sonically, even when it was within the structure of a pop song. He’s influenced so many, especially other musicians, and though he passed years ago, his music continues to resonate. “Celebrating David Bowie” concerts featuring his former touring players still happen annually throughout the country, and Bowie covers by the biggest artists at arena shows has become almost di rigueur these days, as evidenced by the opening set at the Taylor Hawkins Tribute at Wembley Stadium recently and just last weekend at Duran Duran’s trio of 40th anniversary gigs at the Hollywood Bowl.

Bowie fandom is fervent in a deep love kind of way that goes beyond image or even a favorite song. It’s about expression, creation and living life to the fullest. We belong to many fan groups on social media, but The Church of David Bowie group on Facebook has been one we visit often to connect with likeminded people, people who think about and honor Bowie daily, and apply his open-minded zest for life to their own.

“I didn’t think it was possible to love David Bowie even more,” enthuses Sonia Wike – a Church member and one of the organizers of the annual gathering at his Hollywood Walk of Fame star – after a fan screening of Daydream. “I’m not sure I even took a breath during the whole movie. One of the messages I took away from the film and Bowie’s message is that life is chaos and once we stop fighting it and just move with the chaos, the more content we’ll be.”

Morgen concurs: “The way that David talks about the creative process is, I believe, applicable to anyone, whether they’re day laborers or artists or teachers… whatever your vocation,” the filmmaker explains. “It transcends art. These are ways to live your life. To make each day exciting and adventurous, and to take opportunities and view them as chances for an exchange. Not something laborious, but something that we can all grow from. You and me. Not because we’re trying to reach Nirvana, but simply because we’re trying to make this day as rewarding as it could possibly be.”

Moonage Daydream is in IMAX theaters now. Screening info at moonagedaydream.film.

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Arriving amid a fat and pricey blitz of hype, Jordan Peele’s Nope is a willfully eccentric bear of a movie. You could call it Peelean. Like his earlier hits, Get Out and Us, the movie hews to its own logic, jolts the grim genre proceedings with deft jokes and actory energy, sprays an excess of narrative invention, and hardly knows when to quit. Peele’s ambitions as both an entertainer and as a follow-your-own-star maker of resonant pop culture are clear in every shot – particularly the first, a floor-level view of an emptied and corpse-strewn TV sitcom set, with a bloodied chimpanzee in a party hat musing over the wreckage.

Anticipating Peele’s calisthenic connections and thematic leaps is most of the fun. These days, we should be thankful for even a loopy auteur’s signature moves in a Hollywood otherwise subsumed by product-manufactured corporate boards. But Nope is weird even by Peele’s standards – a retro UFO thriller very concerned with horses. His other films are controlled burns of wacky metaphor, reflecting on Blackness and race history by way of absurdist secret communities. Nope is metaphor-free, as far as I can tell. The invader/invaders (avoiding spoilers) are a malevolent force from somewhere, and that, as they say, is that.

But Peele can’t make a simple film, and so Nope is a cannoli-stuffed with ideas and fresh dance steps. The horses are owned by the Haywood family of equine wranglers (papa Keith David, laconic bro Daniel Kaluuya, hyper-sassy sis Keke Palmer) on a ranch in a valley far but not too far from Hollywood. They claim to be the heirs of the first Black jockey photographed by Eadweard Muybridge in 1878 (Peele re-names him here), and the wrangling-for-movies sub-industry is an interesting slice of work life we haven’t seen much since Samuel Fuller’s White Dog (1982). The satiric jabs at a film set’s self-satisfied top-line talent are razor-wire sharp. In any case, this mini-dynasty collapses after David’s crusty patriarch, in an odd rain of metal objects from the sky, has an old nickel hit him square in the eye, killing him.

After that, the remaining siblings have to hustle, leasing horses out to a nearby gold rush theme park owned by an ex-child actor (Steven Yuen), who was hiding under a table years earlier when that chimp ran amok. There’s also a grizzled cinematographer with a death wish (Michael Wincott), a zealous tech-store clerk (Brandon Perea), and, pivotally, a giant flying saucer hiding in an unmoving cloud just over the hills. The exact nature of this thing – its makeup, its intent, its potential for mayhem – is something Peele’s movie takes its sweet time uncovering (running time is 2.25 hours). The assaults, when they start coming, can be hairy, largely due to the roaring sound mix, by far the scariest thing in the movie.

Peele is flexing his glutes here, daring to indulge himself not only with deafening spectacle of a strangely untextured sort – we learn very little about the phenomenon that drives the plot – but in the film’s proliferating digressions and detours. There are unnecessary conversations (Yuen has a lengthy speech about SNL and Chris Kattan that’s a complete head-scratcher), extraneous subplots (that tantalizing when-chimps-attack backstory is completely unrelated to the primary action), and goofy character business. At times Nope feels like the UFO action film Quentin Tarantino might’ve made, down to the old film-geek references, fringe Hollywood milieu, and gabby monologues. QT is by now beloved for his windy idiosyncracies, but is Peele?

There’s no denying that Peele’s unsurprisingly expert comic rhythm translates smoothly to cutting, action and suspense. Nope’s first half exudes such a pungent sense of menace that the last hour can’t quite make the payoff. Which leaves you plenty of time to ponder the film’s absence of subtextual torque, and the fact that the mechanics of the story are often inexplicable gibberish. (Honestly, neither Get Out nor Us made a whole lot of sense, either.) There are motifs that function as plot devices, but it’s not clear why. Balloons and strings of pennant flags vs. chimpanzees and aliens? Aliens don’t like horses?

There’s also an unexplained shoe magically balanced on its heel in the chimp scenes – and later framed on the wall in Yuen’s office. No other shoes were harmed in the making of this film. You’d be hard pressed to summarize the characters’ plan to rescue their horse farm (they could just leave, with the horses, at any time), which involves a lot of riding out into the valley and back again… and balloons. The protracted climax is a vast CGI orchid-bloom of who knows what. In the end, even M. Night Shymalan’s dubious Signs was more coherent.

Does it matter? If Nope were indexing race, or some other larger subject (like the potentially hazardous use of animals on film sets) in a more significant way, then maybe not. (White Dog did both.) Anyway, the cast are a blast and they carry the film– Kaluuya and Palmer in particular are a sparking set of contrasts, glowering toast-dry cool and pixie-ish chili-pepper hot. Eighty minutes of their banter, plus a rampaging chimp, would’ve been fine.

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The Gray Man is such a massive, go-for-broke production, it’s a shame we can’t give it a good review. Though the film is based on a best-selling novel and adapted by the same duo who gave us Avengers and Avengers: Endgame, the latest Netflix action flick has more cliches and subplots than anyone can keep up with, so much so that it could have been titled Mission Impossible: Rote Nation.

The script is bursting with everything you’d expect from a mainstream spy thriller. Shot across the globe with a cast of big names and taking advantage of a $200 million budget, the movie crams an entire season’s worth of characters and locations into a two-hour runtime. So much happens here and so much is familiar– a hero goes rogue, a villain goes berserk, a mission goes awry – there are times you cease caring about how cluttered the storytelling is and give yourself over to this insane, “Greatest Hits” collection of genre tropes.

Ryan Gosling stars as Court Gentry aka “Six,” aka another version of Ethan Hunt. He’s a secret agent who is the last remaining member of a black-ops unit that tracks down criminals across the globe. When we meet him, he’s at a party in Bangkok, dressed in a red suit, and ready to kill some bad guy who turns out to be one of his own. From there, he leaves the agency and runs off with a device his boss (Rege-Jean Page) told him to destroy, with a number of assassins on his trail.

Enter Lloyd (Chris Evans), a vicious CIA operative with a porn ‘stache and an endless supply of Italian knits. Lloyd is tasked with tracking down Six and retrieving the device. The protagonist gets some help from Deni (Ana de Armas), a police officer who likes him, and Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton), a recruitment agent who is the closest thing he has to a friend. But this being a One Man Show, Six spends most of the movie hopping between locales like Prague, Vienna, Tokyo and Hong Kong, none of which are given any sort of texture.

Cinematographer Stephen Windon, who has made a career out of franchises like Sonic, Star Trek and Fast and Furious, shoots The Gray Man rather anonymously, with the look and framing of television. Every character is shot in basic close-ups during exposition dumps. During action scenes, speed drones cut to hand-held cameras without any sense of geography, stakes or compositional dynamism. The lack of coherence makes you long for the days of Mission Impossible, shot by Stephen Burum.

There are other ways in which The Gray Man makes you miss the light and complex action of Mission, a series that feels artful, emotional and surprising – everything the Russo Brothers’ movie is not. By the end of their sad, convoluted and overstuffed adventure, many will be left disappointed, while some may find themselves swept away by a film that packs more punches into its runtime than every M.I. movie combined. Either way, it’s hard not to view this as a wasted opportunity. The Gray Man could have been so much more, and that would have required so much less.

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Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis has a feral energy you don’t experience often in the movies; not even for a Luhrmann project (he’s a director who notoriously specializes in ostentation and glitter). A massive spectacle painted with thick brush strokes and brilliant colors, it has the depth of a soap opera, but the zeal of a symphonic masterpiece.

If you’re expecting an authentic, historically accurate portrait you’ll be grossly disappointed. This movie needed to be big so it could encapsulate its larger-than-life subject. We are talking about Elvis Presley after all, not John Denver. There’s nothing subtle about the greasy-haired kid from the South who introduced Black music to the masses before disintegrating into a blur of sequined suits and pills in Las Vegas.

Luhrmann bludgeons us with his obsession for The King, and he never tries to convince us that we’re watching anything resembling reality. From bustling Beale Street in Memphis and its sweaty nightclubs to backroad churches in the countryside, every frame pops with dreamlike surrealism.

Narrated by Elvis’ gluttonous manager, Colonel Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks, the carnival barker’s only talent seems to be usurping money from his acts. Hidden behind layers of latex, a gargantuan fat suit and a thick Dutch accent, Hanks’ performance is as bizarre and garrulous as the rockstar fairytale itself. He’s constantly gesturing, trembling and bright-eyed, yearning for the almighty American dollar. However, at times you can see a genuinely sordid and sad soul peek through The Colonel’s pathetic need for capital gain. Hanks’ portrayal offers moments of greatness.

As the titular icon, Austin Butler (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood) chews up the screen with an authority and effervescence that’s rare for a relative newcomer. He also dances, scowls, and sings with such ferocity you’ll feel the heat sizzle off the screen. It’s an intense and bravura performance. When the movie actually gives Butler the space to discover his character, which isn’t often enough, he brings a tragic sensitivity and ire to the legend.

You probably know the story. After Colonel Parker spots the ingenue at a barnyard concert while touring with his main attraction, country singer Hank Snow, the Svengali immediately twists his mustache and plans the country boy’s career. From there, we’re thrown on a rollercoaster ride of an artist’s unprecedented rise to fame and devastating fall from grace.

Luhrmann rushes us through several stages of Elvis’ career– recording at Sun Records, signing with RCA, his somewhat Freudian relationship with his mother, and the controversies regarding his pelvic thrusts on stage, to name a few. The film is more interested in the music that molded Elvis than his actual identity. By featuring artists such as B.B. King and Big Momma Thornton, the movie tries to show that Presley wasn’t just influenced by these luminaries, but emotionally frayed by the rampant racism in the South. In actuality, the singer hardly addressed those social issues. Still, Luhrmann makes his point: Black rhythm and blues was the punk rock elixir Elvis harnessed to take over the world.

After our hero finds himself in a slump, starring in a slew of bad films, being overshadowed by the British Invasion, and weary from the Colonel’s relentless branding, Presley paves a path for himself which culminates in the ’68 Comeback Special. The filmmakers shoehorn his marriage to Priscilla Presley into the narrative, although they never meaningfully explore this relationship (or the problematic age disparity). They also soft-pedal Elvis’ drug use, his curious obsessions, his weight gain, and his ties to the Memphis Mafia, all of which led to his death at 42 years old. Luhrmann is more interested in the ebullient essence of The King and his music than the dirty details of his descent.

This glitzy and somewhat surfaced take isn’t without its own issues. There’s so much fancy camera work, cotton candy splatter and frenetic pacing, the director’s technical prowess sometimes drowns his gyrating protagonist. The first thirty minutes in particular offer an overabundance of kneejerk editing along with a cacophony of sound and feverish montages, not to mention a palette of colors that makes Tik-Tok clips look like introspective indie films. Just when you’re about to lose hope, he finds his footing and takes it down a notch, freeing himself (and the audience) from the onslaught of self-indulgence.

Even with its flaws, Elvis is a compelling and distinctive portrait of fame and its deadly trappings. It’s also Luhrmann’s vision of America, which encapsulates a melting pot-like beauty under a dark capitalist shadow. At nearly two hours and forty minutes, the film moves with a swift, thrusting power which flies by, mostly thanks to Butler. The kid is a natural. Even as we watch our hero decline in health and spirit, Butler gives him a quiet and mournful dignity that’s unforgettable. He’s the best actor to portray The King yet. You really can’t help falling in love with him.

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When a film advertises itself as the new Adam Sandler joint, it’s hard to know what to expect these days. His track record is so spotty, it’s never clear what kind of story or quality level we’re going to get. This is a man who has won awards for movies as diverse as Blended and Punch Drunk Love, and won Razzies for movies as dire as Pixels and Hubie Halloween. Fortunately, Adam Sandler’s Hustle, currently on Netflix, is a slam dunk.

Written by Will Fatters and directed by Jeremiah Zagar, Hustle is out of the ordinary, and not just because it’s a Sandler movie with no male nudity. It’s also the rare film to cast athletes alongside actors so the workouts feel cinematic while still maintaining a fluid, documentary style. What makes this film so welcome is its mix of reality and fantasy, and placing real people and places around the unlikely subject of a basketball player being discovered.

Every hooper dreams of being seen while working out – preferably by a scout who walks in while they’re draining threes – but it never actually happens. That doesn’t stop Stanley (Sandler) from traveling the world in search of the next NBA superstar. As a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, he flies across the globe for an owner (Robert Duvall) who understands him and a successor (Ben Foster) who doesn’t, which becomes even more apparent when said successor takes over the business.

Now his only job is to land the next draft pick, an assignment that takes him to a basketball court in Spain where the game is dominated by a local player (the NBA’s Juancho Hernangomez) who is tall, talented and tenacious when it comes to caring for his mother (Maria Botto) and very young daughter (Ainhoa Pillett). The two team up for a chance at gold, making the story feel like a hoops version of Rocky. The amount of time they train together, plus the number of athletes producer Lebron James got to sign on, all help the film achieve a similar tone.

It’s a more serious register than the effervescent silliness seen in Sandler’s other Happy Madison-produced films, but Zagar still knows what people want, and he places the star in all manner of ridiculous situations to capitalize on his four-alarm charisma. Yes, we want to see Sandler lose his mind over a missed shot, make jokes about death and trash talk NBA players. And yes, we also want to see him curse in a South Philly accent–which the filmmakers readily deliver.

The high jinks add a layer of fun to the proceedings that keeps Hustle from ever getting too sappy or maudlin. Typically, movies about basketball are unrelenting tear-jerkers, but Zagar and Sandler trade schlock for a fusion of humor, heart and flair. Zak Mulligan’s cinematography has a mercurial flow, weaving in and out of bodies like a point guard on a fast break. Editor Tom Costain keeps the pace at an easy clip, and the film is endlessly watchable, thanks to the craft on display. While Sandler doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to amassing talent, his scout work really stands out here. It’s his most complete picture to date.

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Top Gun is back, and all is right in the world. Well, maybe not all. Maverick still has problems, as he did three decades ago, and people like Iceman still want to see him crash and burn. But for moviegoers who cherish the 1986 original that introduced Tom Cruise as Maverick and Kenny Loggins as badass, the good news is that writer-director Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick is a formidable sequel, roaring into theaters with 140 decibels of delight.

If fans are hesitant to accept another Top Gun movie with open arms, it’s to be expected. It’s hard to imagine this being anything more than an attempt to profit off our love for Tony Scott’s original, or our affection for Maverick, Goose and Iceman. But there’s plenty of new stuff here – new characters, new locations – that mesh perfectly with the OG’s mixture of steamy dialogue, epic action sequences and shirtless pilots who seem less suited for the Navy than they are for a Calvin Klein ad.

It’s been 36 years since Jerry Bruckheimer made his mark as a blockbuster producer with the first film, and his crowd-pleasing sensibilities are on display here. Bruckheimer’s resume includes two other sequels, Bad Boys 2 and National Treasure 2 (his more recent projects were stand-alone entries) and his skill with follow-up films is evident. Though most sequels focus on the past without exhuming the present, Maverick manages to do both.

Cruise once again commands the screen with megawatt, mega-star charisma, this time as a Top Gun instructor on a top-secret mission. While he has other issues to contend with, like a commander who doesn’t like him (John Hamm) and a woman who doesn’t love him (Jennifer Conley), his biggest obstacle is the mission itself. He’s got to get his team of pilots to navigate a canyon in under three minutes while missiles stand sentry below.

The task is made even more difficult when one of the pilots turns out to be Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of his late-wingman Goose. Rooster has good reason to be vexed by Maverick’s presence, and the only thing that wipes the usual smirk off Maverick’s face is the guilt he holds over Goose’s death. These two have some feelings to work out, and what better way to do that than working out? Cue the shirtless volleyball games, slow-motion sprints, late-afternoon flights and early-morning weights, sun-drenched smiles and blood-soaked trials.

The formula doesn’t always work, and often, it maintains the slow burn for a moment too long in quieter moments between pilots. But when Kosinski lets it rip, it’s exhilarating. There’s a particularly compelling scene in a California desert where Maverick flies his plane like Rudolf Nureyev doing a spin cycle, twirling around missiles before landing with impeccable grace. Cinematographer Claudia Miranda maintains the visual style of Scott and his director of photography, Jefferey Kimball’s mesmerizing long-takes punctuated with powerful, booming quick-cuts, land as smoothly as the F-82’s.

Following up a film that felt as fresh and explosive as Top Gun is a tall order, and Top Gun: Maverick isn’t as efficient and effecting as Scott’s film. But Cruise and Kosinski do justice to the journey of the characters while exploring the depths of their emotions and relations, and more importantly, bring us back to the danger zone for one last joy-ride.

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Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe outing to feature one of Marvel’s “old guard,” something that is becoming a bit of a rarity these days. Following the events of the first Doctor Strange and Spider-Man: No Way Home, as well as Disney+’s WandaVision and Marvel’s What If?, The Multiverse of Madness is a culmination of recent small-screen efforts and a promise of what is yet to come, but thanks to director Sam Raimi, the film offers a twisted take on the superhero trope that infuses comic book and B-movie elements with good old fashioned scares.

There isn’t a moment to rest as Madness keeps you on your toes for the entirety of its two-hour runtime. Shorter than most superhero films these days but with a hell of a lot more to unpack, the film doesn’t give its audience a second to stop and smell the multiverse flowers. Almost immediately we are introduced to America Chavez, who is running for her life with a ponytailed version of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch). Played by Xochitl Gomez, the pint-sized inter-dimensional teen ass-kicker is one of the most powerful heroes in Marvel Comics, but as this is her debut, she is still unable to handle her massive talents as of yet. This poses quite a problem for the good Doctor as she quickly becomes a target for Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), the former Avenger and current Scarlet Witch who has spent a recent sabbatical becoming one of the MCU’s most formidable villains.

For Maximoff, the events of WandaVision are still somewhat fresh. Not quite healed from the pain of losing her love Vision and her magically-assembled children, she has been spending her downtime reading the Darkhold, aka the Book of the Damned, a malignant tome that can debauch any reader. It has slowly been corrupting Wanda as she fixates on finding the children she conjured in her fabricated Westview life. Unfortunately for Chavez, she appears to be the key to Wanda’s happiness, and the Witch’s determination to find a way back to her boys will complete her transformation to Marvel succubus.

What starts off as normal Marvel fare quickly becomes a glorious hellscape fit for any sci-fi aficionado or Fangoria fan, all thanks to the delightfully depraved efforts of Raimi. The movie takes a definitive shift in its tone and you can almost physically feel Raimi reaching down into his bag of tricks and pulling out a fake Shemp or a 1973 Oldsmobile Delta. Longtime fans of the helmer’s work will no doubt be keeping score for his usual tropes. (Bruce Campbell? Check. Projectile cam? Check) Admirers of Evil Dead II will be smiling ear-to-ear as an undead Doctor Strange battles the Scarlet Witch or when Wanda eviscerates her way through dozens of wizards and handfuls of heroes alike in a bewitched bloodbath the MCU has never seen.

Though the film never becomes a full-on horror movie, Raimi sprinkles in all the little Deadite tricks he’s learned over the years, creating a monstrosity of a movie experience that mixes in dark magic with his Drag Me to Hell aesthetic. In one particular scene where our heroes are being chased by a vexed Wanda, the movie turns a corner and becomes absolutely chilling.

Cumberbatch and Gomez play well off each other as the seasoned vet showing the newbie the ropes, similar to what we recently saw with Disney+’s Hawkeye. Their dynamic is fun to watch, but Olsen steals the show. Without her friends, her family, her Vision, or her children, Wanda has become a husk of what she was. Watching her kill her way through dozens of innocents as a means to achieve her goals, it is understood that she is no longer a mere villain nor an Avenger gone awry. She is a monster, pure and simple. Her transformation from hero to hellion is spellbinding.

Thanks to the marvelous Madness of Mr. Raimi, it appears that all of the Disney+ binging has led to this moment: a big screen payoff that ties up storylines while laying the foundation for future MCU development (hello, Secret Wars). Madness just happens to do it with a little depravity mixed in for good measure. This is the thanks we get for doing our homework: an action-adventure superhero movie with horror movie elements featuring the all-out insanity we’ve come to expect from Raimi. Does it always stick the landing? No. But it’s a hell of a great time anyway. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is abstract and absurd, but that’s what makes it an enchanting installment in the Marvel Universe.  The end result is a scary sci-fi epic that projects the MCU in a new direction.

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A savage and mesmerizing Viking saga like no other, Robert Eggers’ The Northman leaves your senses bludgeoned by the time the credits roll. Like The Witch and The Lighthouse, which made Eggers an indie horror darling, his latest has an obsessive intrigue with pastoral history, baroque language, and pagan mythology, albeit on a much larger scale. With a budget of nearly 90 million dollars, this visually striking odyssey is distinguished by its heavily researched set pieces, authentic costuming, dreamlike vistas, and visceral, bone-cracking battle sequences.

It’s the 9th century in Scandinavia as we’re introduced to Prince Amleth, the son of King Aurvandil (Ethan Hawke). When the battle-weary ruler returns to his dilapidated kingdom and beautiful wife, Queen Gudrun (Nicole Kidman), after years of fighting wars and scouring the countryside, he takes young Amleth to a sage (Willem Defoe) for an initiation ceremony where they ingest psychedelics, howl like dogs, and experience visions of their family tree. This is pure Robert Eggers’ territory – a dark realm where uncertainty, paranoia and magic coexist. The spell quickly ends, however, when the child witnesses his uncle Fjolnir (Claes Bang) murder his father. As the boy escapes into the wilderness, he vows to avenge his father and save his mother from his uncle’s tyranny.

Several years later, a bearded and sinewy Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) travels the Scandinavian countryside with other grunting, homicidal Vikings. These musclebound marauders invade small villages and decimate entire families before feasting on their food and wine. One night, after a particularly brutal skirmish, Amleth encounters a bejeweled Seeress (Bjork) who informs him that his uncle fled to Iceland with his mother who he recently took as his bride. With his thirst for revenge rekindled, Amleth jumps on a ship and insinuates himself with a group of slaves bound for Iceland, including the alluring Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy). From here, the movie ratchets up the tension as Amleth aims to exact his revenge on his uncle.

If the story sounds familiar (a young man avenging his father’s murder by the uncle who married his mother), you probably heard of a play called Hamlet. Inspired by the same Scandinavian folktale, you can discern the contours of that play in the film’s narrative. Eggers simply exhumed its bones and slapped some muscle on it. Instead of a brooding Danish prince who wails, “To be or not to be,” our hero is a twisted ball of hate and cunning. He’s not apprehensive about killing his uncle as much as enjoying the process of tormenting him. It’s Shakespeare on psychedelics and Swedish Death Metal.

If The Northman shares anything with other Hamlet adaptations, it’s the spiritual exploration of moral uncertainty, which questions the glory in killing another man, even if it’s justified. Co-written by Eggers and Sjon (Lamb), the film is not without a misstep or two. In constructing a world where loathing, lust and violence are a way of life, the filmmakers forgo levity and human empathy. Although we understand Amleth philosophically, we don’t feel an emotional connection to him or anyone else. A little nuance and humor would’ve gone a long way, especially since Eggers’ somber tone and often incoherent antediluvian dialogue already keeps us at a distance. But these are modest gripes for a work that achieves greatness on such an impressive canvas.

Every frame of Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography is a carefully rendered baroque painting, while the score by Robin Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough pushes us deeper into the ether with transcendent rhythms and primordial drums. Taking cues from films like Excalibur and Conan the Barbarian, Eggers is able to weave hypnotic hallucinatory sequences into the film’s embroidery without losing sight of the central plot.

It also never hurts to have a remarkable cast. Skarsgard inhabits Amleth with such ferocity, you wonder if he had a mental breakdown on set. Bang’s murderous uncle balances repressed rage and existential confusion with an amazing fluidity, while Kidman’s Queen Gudrun absolutely slays. She’s frightening. And the always mesmerizing Taylor Joy adds a bit of romance and grace to a movie brimming with machismo.

The real star however is the movie’s ethereal and paranoid atmosphere, which Eggers crafts with a sculptor’s precision. He’s proven himself to be a genuine filmmaker. Unlike a lot of contemporary directors who edit their movies like overly eager children on a sugar high, Eggers brings a sense of patience and curiosity. With a Kurosawa-esqe flair, he uses long tracking shots and detailed production designs to pull you into the dark landscape, while maintaining an undercurrent of menace. Even if some of the thinly drawn characters get buried under a mountain of mud, bone, and gristle, The Northman is a compelling experience. It’s also one of the most brutal and astonishing films of the year.

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It obviously seemed like a great idea: make a Nicolas Cage movie about Nicolas Cage, simultaneously glorifying and satirizing Cage’s inimitable (but very imitable) Cage-ness – essentially, having your Cage rum cake and eating it too, like a slop hog. The irony would be so thick on the ground you’d need snake boots. Even the title, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, winks tears of irony in a Dave Eggers-ish, Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius kind of way.

Just leaning into everything Cage is a gambit that has its own ironic payload, now that Cage isn’t the mega movie star he was in the ’90s and early aughts but rather the desperate gun for hire in lower-budget straight-to-stream flicks, averaging more than three films a year for the past decade. This is not a film that could’ve been made in 1998 – it requires Cage’s career slide as context. Ironically, he seems to be more beloved now, if by a relatively smaller, hipster-y audience who collect favorite Cage moments like vintage LPs and who will likely hoover up director Tom Gormican’s farce with edibles-fueled gusto.

I can’t blame them – from the very first scene (in which Cage sells himself psychotically hard to director David Gordon Green, playing himself), the film launches into the barely fictionalized Cage’s desperation and beleaguered narcissism with unfettered zeal. Cage himself is a co-auteur here, if not improving and adding personal details to a very Cage-centric screenplay (written by Gormican and Kevin Etten), then taking up every invitation offered to caricature himself as being more or less, in reality, the hyperbolic exploding man he often is in his movies. Of which this is one, of course.

In this Cage’s world, the debt-plagued ex-star and ex-husband fails to get the role in Green’s film and is forced to take a humiliating job instead – $1 million to appear at a billionaire’s birthday party. Naturally, the rich Spaniard in question (a satisfyingly earnest and deadpan Pedro Pascal) is an arms-dealing mobster, and because this is a Nicolas Cage movie, or a parody of the kind of movie he used to make, or both, the CIA enlists Cage to spy for them and to save a kidnapped daughter of a Catalan politician. He is an irresponsible egomaniac, after all.

Still, most of the plot is consumed with Cage’s bonding with Pascal’s guileless superfan, who harbors a creepy Cage shrine in his villa, and with whom Cage is persuaded to write a script – a “character-driven adult drama.” They even drop acid, hilariously, forgetting the narrative altogether, and before you can say “Charlie Kaufman,” they decide that their new film should be about themselves.

Everything is inside baseball, and many jokes land, as when CIA agent Tiffany Haddish (that’s not the funny part), acts like a fan when Cage appears and shrieks that she’d just “watched The Croods 2 with my nephew!” Cut to Cage. But there’s also something smug and noxious about Gormican’s film – its head is too far up its own Hollywood ass. Mockery is wall to wall, but of what? Of Cage’s image and pretensions and proclivity for barn-burning uproar, or of the bullshittiness of Hollywood movies, including this one? Are fans being roasted for their Cage love? Is Cage admitting he’s a narcissistic ham, or is he acknowledging, with maybe a helping of rage and disgust, that that’s only how we see him? Is he, at least, admitting that Being Cage is, after all, just a schtick? Why would that be funny?

Around Cage swarms prototypically awful dialogue, cliched characters, stupid car chases, idiotic gunplay – some played straight, some obviously ridiculous, all of it acceptable only to those who fondly remember Jerry Bruckheimer movies. The suggestion of Kaufman is key – Adaptation is one Cage project the new movie never mentions, despite the fact that it’s his best film by a fat margin, and that it’s also a film about its own making (or unmaking). But it’s a high bar Gormican can’t hope to reach, and Kaufman’s sorcerous way of tincturing his ironic meta-ness with poetry, melancholy, and genuine mystery is what had always made his work far richer than the gotcha concepts they’re sometimes boiled down to.

Smirking Hollywood movies about Hollywood are always depressing, and somewhere in Unbearable Weight I thought of the recent Oscar ceremony’s weird dislocations – not just Will Smith, but the obituary dance number, among other stone-cold foolishness. No wonder most human beings have ceased taking these bubble-lifers seriously, even when they deliberately make fried hash out of their own reputations. Do you laugh with Nick Cage, or at him? Unbearable Weight, when you think about it, is as pathetic as it is momentarily amusing, right down to its heartwarming Reagan-era ending.

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