Starring: Eve Hewson, Oren Kinlan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jack Reynor
Grade: B
John Carney knows his lane, and he sticks to it. Just as Guillermo del Toro has mastered films with fanciful horror, and Miyazaki has cornered the market on wistful animated fantasy for all ages, Carney has breathed new life into independent musicals, with lovely films like Once, Sing Street, and Begin Again. None of the above-mentioned films necessarily break the mold in terms of characterizations or drama, but there’s a lived-in tenderness, along with a number of catchy songs, to each of them that breaks through. His latest, Flora and Son, coming to select theaters on Friday, is no exception.
Starring: Jaime Vadell, Gloria Munchmeyer, Alfredo Castro, Paula Luchsinger, Catalina Guerra
Grade: C
In his still young career, Pablo Larraín has already made a name for himself by re-contextualizing the lives of famous figures throughout history. Though he’s certainly made other notable films, his best known work – Jackie and Spencer – examined specific periods in the lives of people like Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Diana, while adding in elements of additional genres to make a less straightforward biopic. His latest, El Conde, which translates to “The Count” and hits Netflix on Friday, attempts the same formula but mashes in one too many genres, ultimately failing to measure up to his already high standard.
Starring: Archie Madekwe, David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, Geri Horner, Djimon Hounsou, Josha Stradowski, Maeve Courtier-Lilley, Darren Barnet
Grade: C+
Before we can get started with the film proper of Gran Turismo, we’re treated to a miniature commercial on the history of the PlayStation game that the film is based on. Its creator, Kazunori Yamauchi, went to painstaking detail to recreate the feeling of driving a race car, to give players the most realistic experience possible. But why include this bit into a film at all? After all, we as viewers are experiencing an extra degree of separation from reality – we’re watching someone play a simulation of a real race. Because, first and foremost, Gran Turismo feels like a glorified commercial for intellectual property, and a true-life story second.
Starring: Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Will Forte, Isla Fisher, Randall Park, Bret Gelman
Grade: C
Hey kids, remember the Homeward Bound films from the mid 90’s? Those movies were all about real cute and cuddly animals as they faced the perils of nature to get back to their owners who definitely loved them, but not enough to keep track of them. Well guess what, kids – those animals are all dead now. And those films left out a lot of the likely harsh realities that they faced on those journeys, and ignored the inherently bizarre behavior that animals naturally exhibit. Want something more realistic, for the real world of 2023? Take your kids to see Strays.
Starring: Jimmy O. Yang, Bowen Yang, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, Jo Koy, BD Wong, Ron Yuan
Grade: C–
I have no problem whatsoever with a film moving at a quick pace. It happens especially often with children’s entertainment, an unfortunate byproduct from filmmakers who play into a kid’s supposedly short attention span. There’s certainly nothing wrong with a film targeted to younger audiences that chooses to value action over character building, but there is a way to do both, by building character through action. Netflix’s newest animated film The Monkey King tries to achieve this, but fails to provide any characters worth rooting for. The film moves at such a breakneck speed that, for anyone that’s not giving their full attention (this is a Netflix film after all), it can be jarring to lose focus even for a minute.
Starring: Gal Gadot, Jamie Dornan, Alia Bhatt, Sophie Okonedo
Grade: C
Every film critic worth a grain of salt tries to go into every film as a blank slate, whether it be the latest PVOD horror shlock, or the newest Paul Thomas Anderson film, and everything in-between. This goes for Netflix’s, and every other streaming service’s, ever-expanding library of films that barely register past their release dates. Sure, we have our expectations and pre-conceived notions, but we don’t let that stop us from giving the film a fair shake. So when pressing play on Heart of Stone, the newest Netflix action/spy thriller with a generic premise starring Gal Gadot with little-to-no fanfare – much as you can have right now, given the labor strikes – I still went into it with an open mind, hoping for an unexpected gem.
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Casey Affleck, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, David Krumholtz, Kenneth Branagh
Grade: A
For all the myriad ways that films and television have explored the Second World War, very few have been concerned with the man who helped put an end to it. Christopher Nolan may not initially seem like the ideal fit for a biopic of anyone, less a notable historical figure – though he did give his own spin on WWII with Dunkirk – but he’s made one of his best films with Oppenheimer. Indeed, Nolan made a splash throughout his career with his Dark Knight trilogy, plus blockbuster original sci-fi films like Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet, so for the venerated director to choose a grounded subject matter came as a bit of a surprise when it was first announced.
As the world eagerly anticipates watching Tom Cruise & Co. risk death for our enjoyment with *takes deep breath* Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, here’s a breakdown of the five best scenes and sequences from the previous six films.
5. Davian Double (Mission: Impossible III)
Mission: Impossible III; Paramount
There are bigger action set pieces throughout JJ Abrams’ entry in the franchise, but the best comes as Ethan and his team must steal the Rabbit’s Foot – an unspecific bad guy device that’s very bad – from Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman). To do so, they have to not only sneak into the Vatican undetected, but double as Davian without anyone noticing. The plastic masks have been a staple of the Mission: Impossible franchise since the beginning, but they’re utilized to fantastic effect here, no doubt because of Hoffman’s series-best performance. Hoffman never lets you forget that you’re not just watching him but another man under his skin, trying to seem as normal as possible. The action set pieces almost always grab headlines when it comes to this franchise, with the plot arguably less important, but it’s the spy intrigue that holds it all together in Mission: Impossible III.
4. A Night at the Opera (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation)
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation; Paramount
Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust has been an undeniable positive to the series since her introduction in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, and the opera scene in Vienna is a perfect illustration of why. When the IMF team realizes a group of terrorists plans to assassinate a foreign dignitary, Ethan sets out to prevent the unthinkable. Since the good guys’ plan never goes off without a hiccup or two, it’s further complicated here when Faust shows up to pull the trigger. Cinematographer Robert Elswit uses the dynamic lighting of the opera house to make one of the best looking scenes of the franchise, and Christopher McQuarrie syncs up the action with Puccini’s “Turandot” as it’s unfolding on the stage. It all culminates in a nail-biter of a moment as Ethan has to decide how to utilize his one shot. McQuarrie has brought a great deal to the franchise since Rogue Nation, but he’s perhaps the best at creating character-based action and intrigue.
3. Breaking into Langley (Mission: Impossible)
Mission: Impossible; Paramount
Before I had ever seen Brian de Palma’s Mission: Impossible, I had known about the centerpiece heist sequence in Langley. Far too many movies, TV shows, commercials and more had paid homage to it in ways that the franchise hasn’t seen since. The setup: Ethan Hunt and his team must break into the impossibly secure, technologically advanced vault at the CIA headquarters to steal a copy of the “NOC List”, a database of every US covert operative around the world. What makes the sequence one of the best of the entire genre isn’t just the nuts-and-bolts of how Hunt pulls it off, but in how de Palma films it, ratcheting up the tension with every passing second. For a franchise defined by noise, the irony isn’t lost that its quietest sequence is arguably what drew people in from the beginning.
2. The Ending (Mission: Impossible – Fallout)
Mission: Impossible – Fallout; Paramount
Look, half of the spots on this list could be populated with sequences from Fallout, as it took everything that came before it and doubled down on stunts, story, and spectacle. But Christopher McQaurrie’s, and Tom Cruise’s, finest moment comes in the final set piece in Fallout, as the IMF has to defuse two nuclear bombs in the remote mountains. The specifics are less important out of context, as Tom Cruise dangles from a helicopter, and later from a mountain cliff, while the clock ticks down closer to disaster. McQuarrie cuts between Cruise to Rebecca Ferguson and Simon Pegg as more and more difficulties are thrown in their faces. Cruise’s commitment to verisimilitude has never felt more dangerous, with each passing moment as he cheats death by performing the most insane stunts imaginable and making it look and feel flawlessly real.
1. The Burj Khalifa (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol)
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol; Paramount
Where were you when you heard that Tom Cruise free-climbed the tallest building in the world? Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol was an inflection point for the series, a renewed dedication to real-life stunts that’s led us to where we are today – not to mention the film’s naming conventions. It all comes to a head with what’s easily considered one of the most dangerous stunts ever attempted, when Cruise has to climb up 7 floors with only some semi-functional sticky gloves. That Bird films the sequence with a commitment to showing you that there’s no way it’s fake makes you appreciate its daring execution even more. And the scene is essentially the Mission: Impossible franchise boiled down to its pure essence: crazy action that only increases in danger, world-ending stakes, kooky gadgets, and dynamic filmmaking.
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Natalie Morales, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Laura Benanti, Matthew Broderick, Kyle Mooney, Hasan Minhaj, Scott MacArthur
Grade: B
You’ve seen a movie like No Hard Feelings many times before, give or take a few details here and there. The film harkens back to the heydays of 90s and early 2000’s romantic comedies where the plot rarely changes but the jokes and the performances from its leads carry it across the finish line. It’s the kind of film that Hollywood has all but stopped releasing theatrically today, a raunchy R-rated comedy that plays much better in a packed room full of strangers than at home on a streaming service.
The Movie State 