Bi Gan’s dazzling, cerebral sci-fi phantasm folds memory, myth and cinematic form into a single, dream-logic tapestry. Set in a future in which humanity has traded the ability to dream for immortality, “Resurrection” follows the last remaining “deliriant” (Jackson Yee), a Frankenstein-like being still capable of dreaming, and the woman (Shu Qi) tasked with entering his subconscious to retrieve buried truths. What unfolds is an episodic odyssey through visions shaped by Chinese history, genre homage and shifting perspectives. It’s a visually sensual smorgasbord told in chapters aligning with a different sense and narrative style — we begin with German expressionism and wind up with one of the most stunning long shots ever projected on a screen. It’s bathed ominously in languid red and takes place in a trash-strewn, cyberpunk part of the city that hosts a vampire lair where a young punker (Yee again, who plays five roles — one per sense) has come to profess his love for a mercurial chanteuse (Gengxi Li) This bold, poetic nightmare resonates with humanity and wonder. “Resurrection” should be expressly seen on the big screen to drink in Gan’s riveting dreamscape meander.
A deeply engrossing, if uneven, sojourn into the realm of reckoning and redemption. The ace in the hole here would be Daniel Day-Lewis, who came out of retirement (in 2017, with the release of “Phantom Thread,” he implied it would be his last film before the camera) to make this deeply emotionally portrait with his writer-director son Ronan in his filmmaking debut. The senior Day-Lewis co-wrote the script, but from the overall scrumptious look and intensity, Ronan is an up-and-comer to watch. The title refers to the delicate and sensitive flower that closes up when touched and is evocative of Day-Lewis’ Ray, who has dropped out of society and is living off the grid in the woods of Northern England. For nearly 20 years, his brother Jem (Sean Bean) has been rearing Ray’s son Brian (Samuel Bottomley, “How to Have Sex”) after marrying Ray’s former lover, Nessa (Samantha Morton). In short, Jem stepped in when Ray stepped out on the pregnant Nessa; Jem ventures out to find Ray now because Brian is struggling. To say why Ray has gone into isolation wouldn’t be a spoiler, but it’s besides the point – involving Ireland’s violent Troubles, with the present-day of “Anemone” set in the early to mid-1990s. Much of the early segments of the film are long, speechless moments between Jem and Ray in the lush, deep forest that offers access to a remote beach and nearby stream. The intensity that defined Day-Lewis and earned him three Best Actor Oscars (the only male lead to do so; Katherine Hepburn notched four) is on full display in the red flicker of his cottage’s fireplace as he delivers two big soliloquies that give us Ray’s “why.” Cutbacks to Nessa and Brian in a distant working-class borough fill out the picture, and Bean and his character know the landscape and their place in it. The film, shot by Ben Fordesman (“Love Lies Bleeding,” “Out of Darkness”) and scored by Bobby Krlic, is a stunning fusion of sound and image – intimate yet expansive with deep eerie chords that conjure wonderment and a haunting sense of foreboding. Not all of it melds, yet it rivets in nearly every frame.
Brothers who direct together don’t always stay together. We know this from the Coens, who after 30-something films went off to do solo projects, and it seems to be the same for the Safdie brothers (“Good Time,” “Uncut Gems”), with Benny breaking out for this biopic about MMA fighting pioneer Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) when the sport was mostly in Europe and Japan. Much of the action takes place there, and it’s an odd sojourn. You can see Safdie, so good at channeling the freneticism of fringe personalities in “Gems” and “Good Time,” constrained here by facts versus fiction and straining to find a character motivation or that challenging event that drives the protagonist. Kerr’s challenges with painkiller addiction and recovery come early in the film, and there are domestic struggles at his Arizona hacienda with significant other Dawn (Emily Blunt), but otherwise no real arc. It’s more a meandering love letter to Kerr and an era, and in some ways has a docudrama feel. Johnson, jacked up to seam-bursting size, acts his pants off. It’s an impressive immersion and a major turn in his career, fusing his WWE roots and aspirations to be taken as more of a serious actor than straight-up action star or Schwarzenegger-ish comedian. Blunt, close in tenor to Amy Adams as the girlfriend in “The Fighter,” is good too but never gets enough breathing space to make Dawn fully formed, and the role comes dangerously close to lapsing into rote hysteria. The one seam Safdie finds is the camaraderie and bonding among the athletes, namely between Kerr and friend-coach-rival Mark Coleman (MMA fighter Ryan Bader, who nearly wrestles the film from Johnson and Blunt). It’s a soulful meander in search of a reason to go to the mat.
The latest Spike Lee Joint might not be the director’s tightest, but it is a passion project as playful as it is nostalgic. New York gets a lot of love, as do Spike’s earlier films – Rosie Perez and Nick Turturro show up in pop-off-the-screen bits – and New York sports teams. The last time Lee adapted a film that was considered an untouchable masterpiece (Park Chan-wook’s “Old Boy”) didn’t go so well; it felt flat, a rote redoing. He’s done better here in reenvisioning Akira Kurosawa’s great 1963 kidnap noir, “High and Low” starring the indelible Toshiro Mifune and adapted from Ed McBain’s novel “King’s Ransom,” flipping a shoe executive whose son is targeted for kidnapping during a corporate merger for a music mogul arguably fashioned after Jay-Z. Denzel Washington reunites with Lee for the first time in 19 years (they have five collaborations, with the previous being “Inside Man”) to play the exec, David King, looking to buy back control of his records label when the kidnapping goes down. The ransom is $17.5 million, which is the money David needs to get his Stackin’ Hits back. But there’s a hitch: Who’s snatched from camp is not David’s son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) but Kyle (Elijah Wright), the son of his loyal chauffeur and right hand man Paul (Jeffery Wright, Elijah’s dad IRL), mistaken for Trey by the kidnapper. It’s here that David has a crisis of conscience when he balks at paying for Kyle, causing a rift between David and Paul and raising questions of character and selfishness from David’s wife (Ilfenesh Hadera, elegant with a capital E) and son.
The latest from art house horror darling Ari Aster, like his last outing, “Beau is Afraid” (2023), isn’t quite the occult blood-and-guts fest one has come to expect from an auteur of the macabre (“Hereditary,” “Midsommar”). But it is an American horror story to be certain. Set in the fictional Southwestern town of the title, “Eddington” takes place during the height of the Covid pandemic, with ripple effects of George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter movement factoring large into the equation. Eddington is a small, financially struggling New Mexican town of 2,000 that abuts a Pueblo Indian reservation. Beau, I mean Joaquin Phoenix, plays Joe Cross, the county sheriff who, despite orders from the governor and mayor (Pedro Pascal, who seems to be popping up everywhere), refuses to wear a mask. He’s not an antivaxxer or Covid denier per se, but close enough – and as a result, decides to challenge Pascal’s smooth and composed Ted Garcia for his mayoral seat.
The pratfalls and ills of social media and social politics drive the film for nearly two-thirds of its two and a half hours. It’s imbued with the shaggy-dog docudrama vibe of a Richard Linklater or Paul Thomas Anderson film, sans the slack, droll wit. Some of the satire on white privilege, however, lands quite cuttingly, especially as one pasty young man (Cameron Mann) shouting from a podium tells reluctant listeners that he’s become an antiracist and is ready to sit down and listen to others, but only after he’s had his time at the mic to “racesplain.” Also in focus is Cross’ Black deputy (Michael Ward) as BLM protesters jam the streets, and the sovereignty of the Pueblo Peoples and their lines of jurisdiction overlap with Cross’ and become a point of contention during a murder investigation. On all pointed matters (social media, race and pandemic policy), both sides get their due without a lean – that’s left to the audience.
Adapted from the similarly titled Stephen King novella from the collection “If It Bleeds,” “The Life of Chuck” has to be the best feel-good downer of a film – maybe ever. It’s got everything, from a mysterious apocalyptical event to a rigorous dance number. Wang Chung shoehorns its way into the action too. (The band has little to do with the dance number, though it may have been the inspiration.)
“Chuck” unfolds in three acts told in reverse. In Act III, “Thanks Chuck,” small-town schoolteacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) tries to reconnect with his ex-wife, Felicia (Karen Gillan), as the world implodes in small, eerie waves. Traffic backs up, technology goes on the fritz and the busy hospital where Felicia works is suddenly empty one day. Then glowing billboards thanking Chuck “for 39 great years” start popping up everywhere with the bespectacled mug of a guy who looks like a meek, mild local TV host. He’s the Chuck of the title, played by Tom Hiddleston – more commonly known as Loki in the Marvel Universe and a Bond-esque presence in “The Night Manager” streaming series. Things get weird and even more Chucky when the power goes out and his glowing visage starts projecting from the windows of the houses in Felicia’s neighborhood.
The latest from prolific filmmaker Stephen Soderbergh (“Ocean’s Eleven,” “Traffic”) is a sharp, thoughtful spy thriller in the neighborhood of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (2011), if updated for these high-tech times and tossed on a treadmill. There’s plenty of cloak and dagger, but the story’s center is the relationships between husbands, wives and lovers, be they deviously duplicitous, of high fealty or otherwise. “Black Bag” comes in at about 90 minutes, matching the paranormal psycho-thriller “Presence” released this year by Soderbergh. Who drops two utterly different films within weeks of each other? Both were written by “Jurassic Park” (1993) scribe David Koepp, who outdoes himself here, and both were shot in limited locations, though “Black Bag” has a bigger, world-hopping feel to it. The London-set work and contrasting light-dark framings brought together warmly by a deep, bass-driven jazz score impress in craftsmanship and seamless ease. At the epicenter of the smoldering espionage are British operatives George (Michael Fassbender) and his wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). George has been alerted to a mole at the agency and tasked to find them – and given just a week to do so. On the list of five possible double dealers: his wife. Hanging in the balance is a nuclear meltdown and the potential death of 20,000 people, but that’s just a side issue to what interests Soderbergh and Koepp. We begin with George inviting the suspects to his and Kathryn’s posh London flat for a lovely lamb roast. Every guest is a professional liar, but did I mention the gravy’s laced with a truth serum? The other attendees are grizzled party-boy Freddie (Tom Burke), his latest office fling and X factor Clarissa (Marisa Abela), the hunky yet generic Col. Stokes (Regé-Jean Page of “Bridgerton”) and the agency’s resident psych, Zoe (Naomie Harris), who, because of a departmental mandate, has regular sessions with everyone at the table. She’s also having a fling with the colonel. As the serum kicks in and courses come and go, infidelities are confessed. The meal culminates with a knife pinning one diner’s hand to the table. George sifts through the fallout as he finds Kathryn plans to travel and a movie ticket stub for two in the wastebasket of her boudoir. When inquired as to the destination of her trip, “black bag” is Kathryn’s response; the info can’t be divulged, with no exceptions for spouses. The chemistry between Fassbender and Blanchett is intellectually and erotically electric, and George and Kathryn have a fashion sense to die for. The casting overall is a coup, though Pierce Brosnan, still dapper as ever as an agency higher-up, feels stirred in as an afterthought. The casting and lean, well-honed and MacGuffin-driven script by Koepp make the film work, as well as the tightness of the final product as pulled together by Soderbergh, who edits and shoots as well.
A silly concept well-played, thanks largely to lead Megan Fox leaning in on her screen persona. It’s not the first time for Fox, who rose to notoriety as eye candy for teenage boys in the “Transformer” films: In 2009 she paired with “Girlfight” (2000) director Karyn Kusama and writer Diablo Cody (“Juno”) for the deconstructive horror-comedy “Jennifer’s Body.” Here she plays Alice, a droid nanny in a clingy maid outfit. She’s what’s known as a “sim,” mass-produced humanlike robots programmed to help out around the house, hospital, worksite or whatever. Alice is brought into the fold of a family to aid Nick (Michele Monroe) in the care of his daughter (Matilda Firth) and infant son because mom (Madeline Zima) is waiting on a heart transplant and might not be in the picture long. There’s tension because Nick is a construction worker dealing with the issue of sims replacing him and his crew at work, yet also sexual tension between him and Alice that’s pretty high from the get-go, added by glimpses of Alice in her babydoll garb and undies. The catalyst that turns Alice into a “M3gan”-esque terminator (yes, Megan goes M3gan) is the movie “Casablanca” – no joke. Nick’s a fan, and when Alice sits down to watch it with him one night and fires off a salvo of film factoids, Nick asks her if there is anyway to expunge the info from her memory banks so she might enjoy the cinematic experience organically. The answer is a disastrous reset that renders Alice jailbroken and able to go off script. Fox does a commendable job of physically articulating the tics and quirks of being a ’bot. How the film directed by S.K. Dale, who worked with Fox on “Till Death” (2021, also streaming on Netflix), evolves from there, packs a few neat curveballs and leaves things open for a sequel, but you’ve seen this bad ’bot plot before – and better.
‘Red One’ (2024)
Still playing in theaters but also now on Amazon Prime for free this week is this ho-ho-ho, so-so comedy-adventure that has Saint Nick (J.K. Simmons) kidnapped so an evil impish creature can take over the reins of Christmas. “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993) this is not. Simmons’ Santa is a bit of a change-up from your usual: He works out, hates macaroons and has a tricked-out sled with grotesquely jacked CGI reindeer. In this winter wonderland universe directed by Jake Kasdan (“Zero Effect”) there’s an org called the Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority that’s trying to “rewild” the world with entities of myth and lore. One such is Grýla (Kiernan Shipka), the winter witch from Icelandic lore wants to take over the sleigh and deliver snow globes to the naughty that will imprison them in the globe for life. This is cause for pause, because is imprisoning potential future sociopaths a bad thing (well, yeah, because it’s kids, and naughty doesn’t mean homicidal), and did Grýla in the plotting of her scheme ever contemplate a three-strikes policy? In the mix to save the day are Dwayne Johnson as Nick’s head of security, Chris Evans as a hacker and bungling pa who accidentally gives away the secret locale of Santa’s operations, and Lucy Liu as a Mora operative. Thankfully, the ever-cantankerous Krampus (Kristofer Hivju, “Cocaine Bear”) makes an appearance and brings fire and fun to the few scenes he’s in. “Red One” is relatively watchable family fare, but as ephemeral and forgettable as a first dusting of snow.
Another just-watchable holiday-themed flick that treads heavily on its “Die Hard” (1988) aspirations, starting with an East Coast fish-out-of-water Jersey boy hero, now played by Taron Egerton (Elton John himself from “Rocketman”), trying to thwart a terrorist strike in a bustling L.A. complex. Egerton plays Ethan Kopek, an underachieving TSA officer and cop wannabe who regularly shows up late for airport shifts and, as a result, draws menial shit job duties and can’t get a promotion. It’s Christmas Eve and, as is his MO, Ethan shows up late and is assigned a luggage-scanning post. Unbeknown, the station is the target of terrorists trying to get a briefcase full of the lethal Russian nerve gas Novichok onto a plane. The motive has to do with framing the Russians by killing a congresswoman aboard and thus generating contracts for U.S. military contractors, or something like that, not the most inventive MacGuffin. The terrorists, led by a calm, cool Jason Bateman (“Ozark”), get the bag through the checkpoint through a threat to Ethan: that his pregnant girlfriend (Sofia Carson) working in another wing of the airport is in a sniper’s scope and will be shot should he not comply with their every instruction. It’s a pat but passable thriller, with credit to Bateman’s wormy confidence and Danielle Deadwyler, good here as a cop in the mix and even better in “The Piano Lesson” this year. But they’re not enough to elicit a “Yippee-ki-yay.”
To be clear, “The Instigators” is a bona fide Boston crime movie (are there other kinds of Boston movies?). That doesn’t mean it’s in the conversation with “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (1973), the best Boston movie ever, “Mystic River” (2003) or even “The Departed” (2006), but it does have more local accent and identifiable scenery than either of those latter two. Then again, so did the 2020 flops “Ava” and “Spenser Confidential” – the only reason to see those was to drink in their fond framing of our fair city; any other postal code and you’d be certain to spin the dial. Both came out during the Covid lockdown, when theaters were closed and films were going direct to streaming, but given the quality (despite A-lister casts with the likes of Jessica Chastain, Mark Wahlberg, John Malkovich and Colin Farrell) they’d be heading to streaming today too. “The Instigators” is partially in their company, as it got just a limited theatrical release last week (at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Boston’s Seaport) and drops on Apple TV+ Friday. It’s a much better film than “Spenser Confidential” or “Ava,” and does a decent job of leveraging Boston culchah and history rather than just using the city (and its filmmaking tax breaks) as a backdrop. But overall “The Instigators” is a missed opportunity considering its incredible cast, headlined by homeboys Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, who return home regularly to make Boston movies since their first pairing, “Good Will Hunting” (1997), which notched both actors’ big breakout.
The story, written by Affleck and Quincy-born scribe Chuck MacLean, the guy behind the Boston-set Kevin Bacon crime series “City on a Hill,” revolves around Damon’s Rory, an ex-Marine depressed over the $32,480 in child support he needs to come up with to see his kid again. To deal with his downcast condition he sees a therapist (Hong Chau, who paired with Damon in Alexander Payne’s 2017 Lilliputian satire, “Downsizing”) and teams up with Affleck’s boozy Cobby, fresh out of the slammer, to do a job for small-time mobster Mr. Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his partner, Richie Dechico (Alfred Molina), who operate out of a North End pastry shop. The gig is to raid the election headquarters of incumbent Mayor Mayor Miccelli (Ron Perlman), who is expected to win reelection in a landslide. The thought is that the cash vault at the victory fete will be brimming and all the celebratory attendees pickled. Walk in, walk out, simple, but the reality is not so.
First, Cobby and Rory get teamed up with a bungling petty hood named Scalvo (rapper Jack Harlow, who starred in the bland “White Men Can’t Jump” remake), who for some reason is given point; then, when in, there’s no cash in the vault because it got so full that there were earlier armored car pickups. Add to that the materializing realization that the election is no landslide, but a runoff dogfight in which upstart progressive Mark Choi (Ronnie Cho) may have done just enough last-second politicking to trigger a regime change. No matter who takes the reins, city hall has never seen a mayor like either of these two, and the lovely brutalist facade down in Government Center that we all have come to love and hate gets plenty of screen time as the meandering plot turns it into a “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969) shootout scene late in the game.
For those who wax romantically about our town’s old-school legacy, there’s plenty of dive bar love and Bahston Easter eggs. “Badass” Quincy (who knew?) gets a gritty new recasting. It’s a cheeky and warmly nostalgic cinematic sojourn for us locals; it’s hard to see how that works for anyone not in the know.
The film’s helmed by Doug Liman, who made made a name for himself early with the indelible “Swingers” (1996) and “Go” (1999) before teaming with Damon in 2002 for the “The Bourne Identity.” His efforts alongside Tom Cruise for the sci-fi thriller “Edge of Tomorrow” (2014) and underappreciated “American Made” (2017) were equally as solid, but then there was the flat-footed “Jumper” (2008) and this year’s unnecessary “Road House” remake with Jake Gyllenhaal. With a middling title, “Instigators” feels like a concept in search of a story.
Besides “Good Will Hunting,” Damon and Affleck (brother Ben serves as a produsah) have emitted cinematic synergy in the Steven Soderbergh “Ocean’s” flicks as well as reteaming with “Good Will” director Gus van Sant in 2002’s “Gerry,” a dark existential tale based on a real-life Boston Globe intern lost in the New Mexico desert (part of Van Sant’s provocative realism films that include “To Die For,” “Paranoid Park” and “Elephant” – all great). Unfortunately, here they bounce off each other more than they play off each other. That said, the car chase scenes are top dollar – or at least the one in which Cobby and Rory take Chau’s psychiatrist hostage (she jumps in the car willing). The route takes them to some unlikely side venues, including the public alleyway parallel to Newbury Street and the Esplanade and tops the chase sequence in brother Ben’s “The Town” (2010).
Sadly, that’s as good as the film gets; the more it spins and recycles, the more it loses its mojo – and us. Toby Jones, Ving Rhames and Paul Walter Hauser (“Richard Jewell”) round out the veteran ensemble and the use of Petula Clark’s “Downtown” and Thunderclap Newman’s “Something in the Air” help, but …
For the record, as far as Boston locale authenticity and verisimilitude go, the original “Thomas Crown Affair” (1968) with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway still soars above the rest.
For What it's Worth 