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In Praise of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen: The Sadomasochistic Rogue of House Harkonnen

Austin Butler is at his best when he’s playing freaks.

Some actors approach their characters with neat, tactful planning, like a surgeon measuring the incision on the patient’s body after preparation for the procedure. Others believe in the chaos theory. It’s like the body is there and they jab it with a knife in calculated but asymmetrical cuts and grazes.

Butler belongs to the latter group. He brings out an incomprehensible– albeit playful- energy to characters he plays and leaves audiences questioning what they just saw. Wasn’t Elvis in Baz Luhrmann’s titular movie a freak with all those erotic, possessed moves on stage, and these seizure-like dances, and this wild unnerving energy? This thirty-something actor has turned Elvis into a benign creature, that bizarrely hit closer to home than more “faithful” Elvis adaptations in earlier –or later- works. It was more like Pablo Larraín’s interpretation of Diana in Spencer and how he directed Kristen Stewart –the last person to come to mind when the image of Princess Diana is evoked- to play the spirit of the dashing but haunted Princess of Wales.

Wasn’t Tex Watson in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood a freak? With that shaky tone, those glistening eyes, these spit-heavy rants and mad gestures?

And isn’t Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen a freak?

It wasn’t until he started drooling during the Harkonnen arena fight scene, that I realized, well, that Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen differed a bit from the one in the book. That was because Butler, as usual, grabbed him from whatever shelf he was placed on and brought him to his battlefield. In this fight scene, Feyd enjoyed being two inches away from death. He reveled in the hatred the Atreides slave showed him and laughed in the face of a knife so close to his throat. He hugged the dead man kindly like a mother and waited until he saw the light fade from his eyes. If that’s not a masterful angle to playing out a character, then what is?

And who is Denis Villeneuve’s Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen?

Described as an insane, seductive, rockstar-like psychopath who relishes in torturing and killing people, the Harkonnen could’ve gone down the sadistic, brutal, and unstoppable villain road. Austin could’ve made it one-dimensional and boring, and probably (or maybe not) people would have cheered him on for his performance. The narrative would focus on how the sweet, docile Austin who was always kind, warm, and attentive, had such stored sinister energy inside him as an actor.

But Butler, under the masterful direction of modern-day sci-fi genius Villeneuve, created a modern monster, one that flips sexuality as much as he flips power. One that drools like a madman while relishing the pleasure of killing his Atreides opponent in the arena. One who forces his brother to kiss his foot, and kneels in front of Lady Margot, the Bene Gesserit, surrendering fully to her power and craving for her to hurt him. But when his creepy uncle, Baron Harkonnen, kisses him out of –supposedly- a habitual endearment gesture to his pet, Feyd snaps and grabs his Uncle’s face, landing a deadlier, spiteful kiss on the older man’s lips.

In approximately 30 minutes of screentime, Butler takes audiences on a rollercoaster ride of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen’s emotions, from sudden dismissal of his sexual existence as he first emerges like a slimy alien reminiscent of a zygote still forming in the womb, to his sexually dominant behavior with his slaves, then his complete submission to Lady Margot Fenring’s sexual maturity and omnipresent personality. Bloodthirsty, like his vampiric BDSM-clad slaves, this creature aches to be conquered sexually. The Baron forcefully subdued him in his dark past and thus relished forcing others to bow to him and submit to his command. He secretly wished he was hurt, not through force but kind coercion, and Lady Margot tapped into those latent desires like the well-trained Bene Gesserit she was.

The moment he appeared on screen I remembered the animal-human hybrid in Splice. For this role, Butler studied sharks, and in that arena scene, his eyes turned pitch black with a dumbfounded evil look. He resembled one of those killing soldiers, born and bred to kill. In other scenes, Butler, however, subtly brought out other layers of the character.

Feyd is a character born into savagery, the only form of love he knew in House Harkonnen was the love of fear and the fight. To live, he had to be afraid and live with fear, so he grew into a more slimy, sexual, sleazier version of his Uncle. The Baron, however, wanted perfection, so despite molding him into a version that slightly resembled him in looks and gusto, he also paid attention to shaping his body as he wanted it to be; the epitome of perfection. It was clear that The Baron’s intentions in doing so were far from sincere.

As morbid as this part of the storytelling was, there was no shock value or unnecessary scenes. Still, it was evident with every move, the crooked voice and the sadistic relishing of seeing his Uncle in pain or humiliated, the way his brain was fried with lust and arousal after the sight of people murdered or suffering.

Feyd was no different than the slaves he fought, bound to repeat a cycle of violence over and over under the lustful eyes of his uncle and thousands of bloodthirsty onlookers. To feel the burden of the character through the actor’s body language and his liberation from that weight as he watches the Baron die, to feel his lust, his sudden weakness and obedience like a marionette in front of a woman, and his arousal at Paul Atreides using the Voice. Some actors transmit to the audience how a character must have felt and Butler is one of those versatile elite.

Even though Dune: Part Two was epic and magnanimous, outstanding performances were scarce. There were also many points to comment on in terms of anti-colonialism, orientalism, and their sneaky anti-White savior masked as pro-White savior narrative. As Chani, Zendaya shines as an Indigenous woman, the only non-believer among the Fremen worshippers in the religious myth of Lisan al Gaib and Mahdi that Paul embodies. Rebecca Ferguson was simply a beautiful face, and the costumes were Arab and Islamic inspired as well as multiple references to the modesty of nuns when it came to the Bene Gesserit. 

But it was the reptilian Feyd-Rautha who caught my attention and piqued my interest the most. Until he met his demise at the hands of an opponent who unrightfully gave himself a heroic narrative, only to steal someone else’s land and culture.

Movie Review: ‘Wicked Little Letters’ Isn’t As Wicked As It Thinks


Director: Thea Sharrock
Writer: Jonny Sweet
Stars: Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Timothy Spall

Synopsis: When people in Littlehampton–including conservative local Edith–begin to receive letters full of hilarious profanities, rowdy Irish migrant Rose is charged with the crime. Suspecting that something is amiss, the town’s women investigate.


Shakespeare would be rolling in his grave. The bard who coined the phrase ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ would likely find himself reeling at the many tangential, bric-a-brac ways in which the subjects of Wicked Little Letters manage to insult each other. Yet for all it may seem to be striving for subversiveness, or to evoke a shock factor that can only come from hearing British icon Olivia Colman call someone a  “f**king old steaming bag of wet, leaking sh*t”, Wicked Little Letters – beyond the foul-mouthed tirades which are undoubtedly the USP for the marketing department – is actually a safe, paint-by-numbers affair. None of that is to say it’s not a good movie. Anchored by game performances from both Colman and Jessie Buckley, and featuring a number of supporting acts from the likes of Timothy Spall, Anjana Vasan, and Hugh Skinner, Wicked Little Letters is a fun, light-hearted experience that probably won’t last long in the memory.

Based, incredibly, on true events, Wicked Little Letters tells the story of Edith Swan (Colman) a simple, devout woman living with her parents in the sleepy town of Littlehampton in the 1920s. Edith tries to be a good daughter, a good neighbor, and a good citizen. She helps out in her community, attends church on Sundays, and has a smile for everyone she sees. This is in direct contrast to her new neighbor Rose, a belligerent Irish woman who uses curse words like punctuation, and whose sexual liberation is at odds with Edith’s own pious nature. It’s unsurprising, then, that the two women eventually find themselves at odds with each other.

What’s perhaps more surprising are the poison pen letters which appear through Edith’s door. Each letter, and the movie begins at letter 19, features crude remarks and rants aimed at Edith’s character, and soon a distraught Edith contacts the local constabulary, who immediately suspects Rose. What seems like an open and shut case, however, is challenged by Woman Police Officer (yes, that’s her title) Gladys Moss (Vasan) who suspects that not all is quite as it seems.

Wicked Little Letters makes a solid attempt to satirize the sort of British eccentricity you don’t see in traditional period pieces such as Downton Abbey, but screenwriter Jonny Sweet is perhaps too reliant on this aspect. Although the letters are mildly amusing and creatively written, the novelty wears off quickly. We’re left with an overly quirky set-up that can’t sustain itself throughout its runtime, however much its cast attempts to lift the material. Strangely enough, Wicked Little Letters performs better in its backdrop of social upheaval in the wake of World War I. The small attempts at social commentary – a woman police officer who wants parity of esteem; the suffrage movement – bring a sharper color to the world than anything front and center to the narrative.

Colman is the MVP here: with her rise to stardom it’s easy to forget her background in British comedy staples such as Peep Show, where she made her breakthrough. Her natural comedic talent shines through here and helps lift the material. Buckley, by contrast, has the lesser role as Rose, a liberated woman unafraid to be confrontational, but still brings an easy naturalism to the part. Elsewhere, Timothy Spall is excellent as a hard-hearted father outraged at the ‘modern world’ he sees as having given women too much control; Lolly Adefope and Joanna Scanlon are decent comic folsl, though given limited screen time; and Anjana Vasan gives a good performance as an exhausted female officer trying to be taken seriously in a field dominated by men.

Everything is fairly perfunctory and well acted, and there are amusing moments – mostly from Colman – but due to its repetitive nature and over-reliance on its central conceit mean Wicked Little Letters will likely fade in the memory.

Grade: C

Episode 577: The Ghostbusters Legacy

This week’s episode is brought to you by Koffee Kult. Get 15% OFF with the code: ISF

This week on the InSession Film Podcast, Tim Costa (formally of First Time Watchers) fills in for Brendan this week as we discuss the legacy of Ghostbusters and why there may not be an appetite for the franchise anymore! Plus, a few thoughts on The Crow trailer.

Check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!

The Crow Trailer (5:45)
The original Crow film is obviously marred by the Brandon Lee tragedy, but the film was a decent financial success and has gained a cult following since its release. There have been several sequels made since then and none of them very good. So here we are now, 20 years after the release of Lee’s film, and we are getting a remake starring Bill Skarsgård. We got our first peek this last week and spend a few minutes talking about the trailer for The Crow.


RELATED: Listen to Episode 516 of the InSession Film Podcast where we discussed our Top 10 Movies of 2023!


– Ghostbusters Legacy (44:25)
This weekend we’ll be getting Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire hitting theaters, so we thought now was an appropriate time to talk about the Ghostbusters franchise and its legacy. The first film is hailed as a comedy classic, but what about the rest of them? The 1989 sequel is perhaps underrated, while the 2016 remake and 2021 legacy-sequel have many questioning the direction of the franchise. As great as Ghostbusters 1984 is with many fans; is there really an appetite for these films in 2024? We talk about all these things and more in our conversation.

– Music
Ghostbusters – Ray Parker, Jr.
Ghostbusters (Epic) – Epic Trailer Music

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InSession Film Podcast – Episode 577

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Movie Review: ‘Femme’ is a Visually Sumptuous Yet Tense Anti-Love Story


Directors: Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping
Writers: Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping
Stars: George MacKay, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Aaron Heffernan

Synopsis: Follows Jules, who is targeted in a horrific homophobic attack, destroying his life and career. Some time after that event he encounters Preston, one of his attackers, in a gay sauna. He wants revenge.


When I saw the short film Femme at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival, I remember being shaken both by its striking filmmaking and its story involving a drag queen experiencing discrimination that plays into the struggles drag queens face in real life, whether it’s in the form of attempted anti-drag club legislation or physical altercations. The newest feature-length film of the same name, by directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, adapting their own short, is a more heightened experience in terms of tension. 

The synopsis involving a drag queen forming a connection with a closeted drug dealer remains the same, while the short’s neon-drenched visual panache shines through. However, in place of Emmy nominee Paapa Essiedu and Harris Dickinson, who played the leads in the short film, are Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay, respectively, who both won last year’s British Independent Film Award for Best Joint Lead Performance. 

In Femme, Stewart-Jarrett stars as Jules, a drag queen whose stage name is Aphrodite Banks. While on a nighttime stroll after doing a show, Jules becomes the victim of a vicious beating by a group of crooks led by their closeted leader, Preston (MacKay). Months later, after being left traumatized by the assault with his performing passion taken out of him, Jules has a chance encounter with Preston at a gay sauna that leads to a connection built mainly on sex and physicality. For Jules, it also becomes an opportunity for revenge and reclamation. 

To call Femme a doomed romance is an arguable stretch because there’s no exchanging of rapturous gazes or tender body language between both men during the many scenes of them getting physical. While Jules willingly submits himself to Preston’s raw aggression during their sexual encounters, Jules ponders as to whether he should film said encounters and post them online as his form of retaliation. 

The struggle becomes more apparent when witnessing the anxiety that Preston persistently experiences. Along with his intimidating tall stature and heavily tattooed body, Preston uses his short temper to put up a hyper-masculine facade when in the company of his similarly chauvinistic comrades. Yet, underneath the surface is Preston’s deep-seated fear of being found out, shown through his looking over his shoulder everywhere he goes. Preston’s nearly wordless fragile masculinity is expertly brought to life by lead actor George MacKay, who – between this, 1917, and Pride is making a case as one of his generation’s best talents.

Meanwhile, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett similarly astounds as the protagonist, Jules. Appearing unassuming through his hunched posture and how he always keeps his head down, the way he grins as he scrolls through a gay porn site, contemplating the idea of outing Preston there by filming and uploading a filmed encounter, stresses his deceptive nature. Similarly, during a scene where he ends up mingling with Preston’s friends at his place, his sly smile while fighting each of them on a game of Street Fighter gives him feelings of fulfilled retribution, even if there’s no physical fighting involved, and they don’t know he’s the one they victimized.

Whether it’s Jules being in the same company as his perpetrators or Preston glancing around him as he goes out in public, apprehension is present in nearly every scene. Thanks to the expressive leading performances and the meticulous screenplay by directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, it is in the characters’ faces and actions that we see their anxieties shine through more than the use of exposition. Furthermore, the costume design by Buki Ebiesuwa reflects how the two leads must put on a mask for the world, like how Jules wears casual attire around Preston’s friends to ensure they don’t recognize him out of drag. 


Similarly lush in visual aesthetic as the short of the same name, Femme enriches the source material by offering a deeper exploration of gender identity and putting a queer spin on the heteronormative noir genre as its central lead engages in sensual double-crossing. Sexy, discomforting, and visually sumptuous, Femme makes its case as one of the year’s best movies.

Grade: A

Oscars Reactions: Inspiring Women, Underdogs, and International Blood

So the award season went and came by, like waves on a shore. And I found myself thinking;

What a ride it has been!

Why was this particular award season so special that the 2024 Academy Awards ceremony became the most-watched Oscars since 2020?

And why was I cheering on winners and mourning losers like it was some local soccer game? (Yes, we love soccer where I’m from, but we call it football)

Was it Ryan Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken” –one of the Academy Award Best Original Song nominees- where he retrieved a childhood dream of being a pop star, probably one that he slowly gave up over the years, shedding his early days of the Mickey Mouse Club behind where he smoothed his way as a kid mimicking adults in an iconic dance wearing silver hammer pants?

Or was it Da’Vine Joy Randolph winning Best Supporting Actress for her spectacular performance in The Holdovers? Da’Vine –two years older than me- bawled her eyes out, stating things relevant to women like me all over the world. How she felt seen for winning this award, and what moments throughout her career made her feel that way. It resonated with me, as an international female film critic struggling to be recognized; not othered, leaving a mark on the world, and realizing how much I needed more Da’Vines winning and appearing on screens to send me uplifting messages. If there was hope for them, so was it for me, too. Not to mention how heightened the moment’s beauty felt on screen with a supportive coworker like Paul Giamatti, tearing up during her speech, even though he didn’t win, but how a sense of family could be born in the workplace, and people could cheer each other on for wins, rather than resort to envy and jealousy.

When Martin Scorsese rubbed Lily Gladstone’s back after her loss of the Best Actress award, it felt like a comfort during hard times, how sometimes even when I lose, I would need that comforting hand, that “we believe in you” sense of solidarity, and watching those grand celebrities in such delicate, intimate moment that made them feel relevant and more approachable to us, wasn’t as corny as I thought it would be.

It felt terrific to see the animators and staff from The Boy and The Heron –which won this year’s Academy Award for Best Animated Feature- tear up at their win. I retweeted my Asian friends gushing over the moment, and my fellow Hayao Miyazaki fans enthralled and celebrated over his newest win. It all made me realize how connected the current award season made us feel rather than separated and isolated in desolate islands, how world leaders and governments probably intended us to be, then came the power of the arts and wiped that all away. The Boy and the Heron brought such a legendary win to the table –after his last win in 2005 for Spirited Away– Miyazaki has been creating magic in Studio Ghibli for years but has always been overshadowed by Disney and Pixar and the more Westernized animation studios. With his second win yesterday with a potent rival contender such as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, The Academy showed a hint of the change that dominated it, yes there still were many years before the scary Whiteness of the Academy would drift away with the current, but there were many familiar faces and familiar wins.

Speaking of representation, it was a delight to spot Ramy Youssef, an Egyptian American comedian get so far into Hollywood, bonding with Mark Ruffalo and speaking his heart on the Academy red carpet without getting booed or gaslit, made me proud of him. As an Egyptian, I felt like cheering on a buddy who co-starred next to the legendary Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Ruffalo in Poor Things, one of the most successful and critically acclaimed films of 2023. Ramy’s talent being recognized and appreciated gave me a boost of positivity, and I hoped for bigger comedic leading roles for him. I also wished I would always see a familiar face on the red carpet; the more diverse, the better, and the more connected an individual like me feels to a grander, far-off world like the Academy Awards. 

As someone whose life was dominated by art and literature when she was a child, watching Ludwig Göransson who won the Academy Award for best score for his spectacular work in Oppenheimer thank his parents for giving him musical instruments instead of video games hit home closely. And when I read social media discourse of people hating on him because what he said undermined the beauty of video games or belittled those who enjoyed playing them, I fell in love with him a little more. I needed that sense of familiarity. I’ve always felt like an alien in my kid’s skin. Listening to Göransson, whose childhood was probably as art-engulfed and introverted as mine, allowed me to look back at my parents doing this for me with pride rather than regret all the moments of belonging I missed with other kids.

As a chronic online presence –valid for a writer/introvert who traded a tumultuous life for a milder, calmer one with a peaceful presence- it was a surprise to see year after year, people flooding to discuss the award season, cheering or booing like it’s a football game. Sometimes it gets out of hand, and admittedly people nitpick on every breath a winner or a loser takes, but it’s fun to watch; a way to reinterpret reality, movie by movie, performance by performance.

Does this mean filmmaking will turn into a spectacle? Hasn’t it been for a long time? It’s just that now the chronically online population is growing day in and out, and the Gen Zers fight with the growing older population for a place on the platforms, each adding their two cents to every current topic, or even making up one out of the ashes. We live in a connected world in which award seasons have become much like sports seasons with all the ins and outs of films, filmmakers, and in-betweens. Show business is no exception. It is a well-oiled machine that adapts to changing times and grows from there, whether we like it or not, and that is what ensures its long-term viability. So for award seasons to become these heated debates of who deserves it and who doesn’t; each season with a villain, a laughing stock of the crowd, a hero, a princess, a diva, and a bad girl, is the new normal.

Movie Review: ‘Road House’ Punches Itself Out


Director: Doug Liman
Writers: Anthony Bogarozzi, Chuck Mondry, R. Lance Hill
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jessica Williams, Conor McGregor

Synopsis: Ex-UFC fighter Dalton takes a job as a bouncer at a Florida Keys roadhouse, only to discover that this paradise is not all it seems.


The film follows Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal), a former UFC middleweight fighter, as he runs away from his personal demons. The movie starts with Dalton walking into an underground fight club, ready to rumble with Carter (Post Malone), who quits before the match begins because of Dalton’s reputation alone. Frankie (Shrinking’s Jessica Williams), a businesswoman who owns a bar in the Florida Keys, immediately offers him a job of $5,000 a week for one month’s work, plus room and board, to be her bouncer.

Frankie’s establishment is called The Road House, a dive bar on the beach where live music has to play behind chicken wire because of the numerous fights that continuously break out. (You know, Blues Brothers style.) She has a loyal staff, including an adorable bartender, Laura (Why Women Kill’s B.K. Cannon), and some young muscle in Billy (How to Blow Up a Pipeline’s Lukas Gage), who lacks experience. After initially rejecting the offer, Dalton accepts the position after demolishing his car.

The script by Anthony Bagarozzi (The Nice Guys) and Chuck Mondry (Play Dirty) works well enough initially, mainly because Gyllenhaal revels in the role of Dalton, beating his enemies to a pulp with a switchblade grin and a clipped sense of humor, which is infectious. In particular, when he takes on a group of bikers led by JD Pardo and provides comic relief alongside Arturo Castro, driving them all to the hospital after some bone-crunching antics. This is all mindless fun, where a tough but flawed individual stands up for those who cannot help themselves. Everyone is good-looking, the music is distinct, and the mood is infectious.

Doug Liman directs Road House, an adaptation of the Patrick Swayze 1980s cult classic. Essentially, his version follows the path of a throwback Western, where the virtuous walk into a town defending those who cannot protect themselves, like Shane or The Pale Rider. In this case, you have a handful of over-the-top, cartoonish villains. One is Ben Brandt, played by the go-to yuppy antagonist Billy Magnussen, who tries to match Gyllenhaal’s comic relief but becomes tedious. 

Then you have Conor McGregor’s Knox, whose insanity is so extreme that you forgive any of his antics. Additionally, Joaquim de Almeida, the town sheriff, goes by the nickname “Big Dick” and has a connection to Dalton’s love interest, which is a classic, lazy trope. That is Daniela Melchior’s Ellie, who plays a local physician. She goes from detesting Dalton within seconds to wanting to get him in the middle of the ocean to what I imagine is an area called “Coral reefs of Passion.” I mention all of this because, for a two-hour film, Liman struggles to fit in so many supporting characters, and none of them interact or function in a believable way.

There are complaints that this Road House is ultraviolent, but by action or horror film standards, it’s tame. In fact, the fight scenes are highly digitized, particularly the first fight with Post Malone. However, the film doesn’t suffer from its bare-knuckle action. Still, after an thirty extra minutes, it deals with its mindless plot about the real reason Dalton was hired, which involves trying to take over the roadhouse because of its premium placement.

I hate to be cynical, but have these bad guys never heard of “Eminent Domain”? Or just building around the restaurant and having the property taxes rise so much that they must sell? Or, with all the fights, would the insurance premiums be through the roof? Finally, how can Frankie make enough to afford to pay Dalton all that money? These are all eye-rolling moments like Dalton telling Billy that one guy has a knife, and when he pulls it, just take a step back and punch him. He offers this type of on-the-job training while sitting behind a bar where he can’t jump in to help save the kid if something goes wrong.

You can let that thoughtless storytelling slide, but it’s when the movie goes into secret agent mode, with Dalton taking a boat (and setting off explosives, blowing it up, with no explanation) to become a superhero, that it becomes tedious and overblown. This leads to a final showdown between Dalton and Knox, where you have to ask yourself how one guy knew where the other would be to begin with.

Doug Liman’s Road House worked better as a minimalist barfly film between the small cast of characters that would have significantly benefited from focusing on Dalton’s backstory and developing intimate relationships. Instead, we have an overstuffed action film that struggles with tone and overstays its welcome. Then, it loses a charming Jake Gyllenhaal performance, which is the sole reason to watch, to begin with.

Grade: C-

Movie Review: ‘Little Wing’ Crashes into Tropes


Director: Dean Israelite
Writers: John Gatins, Susan Orlean
Stars: Brooklynn Prince, Simon Khan, Kelly Reilly

Synopsis: Follows a 13-year-old girl who is dragged into the world of pigeon racing as she deals with her parents’ divorce and the impending loss of her home.


Little Wing is a classic case of a coming-of-age film that doesn’t quite know what it truly wants to be. Sure, you’ll enjoy the punk rock Generation Alpha main character, who is energetic, lively, and spirited. You may appreciate how the story involves an unusual hobby to help an adolescent navigate a turbulent time—even the bond of the mother-daughter relationship. However, the premise surrounding the bond between an unlikely friendship between a child and an older adult male fails the film almost entirely. 

And that’s a shame because the streaming Paramount+ film Little Wing had real feel-good potential. 

The story follows Kaitlyn McKay (Brooklynn Prince), a young woman whose moodiness we have come to find charming. Kaitlyn is going through a tough time. Her parents have just divorced, and her father has moved out. Her older brother, Matt (newcomer Simon Khan), hasn’t spoken since it happened. Their mother, Maddie (Kelly Reilly), is a police detective in the Portland, Oregon area and has trouble making ends meet, specifically with the mortgage payment. 

Maddie’s boss, rather strangely, gives Kaitlyn some racing pigeons as a gift. Yeah, this is a girl who has posters of Major Motoko Kusanagi and Hit-Girl Mindy Macready. Besides offering her a cell phone or sacrificing Regina to the Mean Girls, nothing will win her over. However, her best friend, Adam (Me Time’s Che Tafari), tells her how cool they are, and a famous one called “The Guardian” is in the area and is worth $100,000. What a coincidence! It would cover the entire loan left on her childhood home.

Little Wing was directed by Dean Israelite (Are You Afraid of the Dark?), who works with a script from a surprising pedigree. It was penned by Academy Award-nominated scribe John Gatins (Flight), who adapted the film from a news article by Susan Orlean, the writer of The Orchid Thief, whose book served as the source material for Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation. Initially, the film functions as a coming-of-age black teen comedy, highlighting Prince’s Kaitlyn and her bold, rebellious attitude. This includes a humorous scene where she volunteers as a human dodgeball sacrifice in gym class.

Another noteworthy scene involves her stealing The Guardian from its owner, Jaan Vari (Brian Cox). While this action may seem outlandish, it’s forgivable given the context of the fact that this is a narrative film. However, Jaan discovers evidence implicating Kaitlyn and Adam in the theft of the prized bird, as these situations tend to go. While I can suspend disbelief for the sake of comedy, it becomes pretty absurd when Kaitlyn sells the bird to the Russian mafia, who have a penchant for pigeon racing. For $25,000, it’s peculiar how Little Wing’s story decides to convey the idea that it takes a village to raise a child.

Then, Jaan approaches the little thief’s home. Instead of explaining to the mother, he finds a bag with the daughter’s name and address. Does he tell Maggie he saw them, including Adam, and now the bird is missing? No, he keeps the ruse, telling the mother that she reached out to the old man and he was returning the garment bag. Does Maggie question this as a woman in blue and as a mother? No, she will never qualify for officer or mother of the year.

Then, Jaan’s wife knows the girl stole the bird but is grateful they can move to Arizona. These people live in an apartment with pigeon coops on the roof. Do they not need $125,000 for retirement or bills? Jaan, who is understandably upset, frequently snaps at Kaitlyn and towers over her, demanding the bird back, but when Maggie walks in the room, Jaan plays it off that he is just arranging a time for him and Kaitlyn to meet up. My God, is there no social worker in the Portland area? There are subplots, such as when attempting to steal The Guardian back, where no one is worried about CCTV or the fact that the Mafia just allows the bandits to leave.

Little Wing is a family film for those who don’t put too much stock into detail, which is fine. However, while hardly offensive, the film really teaches poor values, like it’s fine to steal and befriend strangers you don’t know and then lie to your parents. Yes, there are some heart-tugging moments, but overall, the experience lacks thoughtfulness and replaces it with patronizing manipulation. 

Grade: C-

VIP Bonus Content: Ranking Denis Villeneuve (Updated)

On this episode, JD goes solo as he gives his updated rankings of Denis Villeneuve after the release of his latest film Dune: Part Two! We gave some previous rankings on Episode 574, but now that we’ve seen Dune: Part Two, it’s time to update them.

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Movie Review: ‘Arthur the King’ Crowns Sentiment Over Danger


Director: Simon Cellan Jones
Writer: Michael Brandt
Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Simu Liu, Nathalie Emmanuel

Synopsis: An adventure racer adopts a stray dog named Arthur to join him and his team in an epic endurance race.


Unfolding like a thematic cross between Nyad and one of the many recent find-and-replace titles like A Dog’s Way Home, or Journey, or Purpose, or Dream, or Will, or Tale, or — you get it, yes? — there isn’t anything particularly special about Arthur the King. It’s an adventure film, one so easy to pin down you’ll feel as though you’ve seen it before. One you know the beats of before it begins, one you’d be hard-pressed not to predict, a movie with a one-track mind that is more interested in tugging at your heartstrings than telling an original story. Maybe that’s because it’s based on a true story, which is to say that a single cursory Google search will tell you whether or not the titular dog dies at the end. I won’t spoil that here, but I also wonder if doing so would really tilt the scales of your interest in seeing this movie in the first place.

That’s also not to say, despite its telegraphed narrative and cloying efforts to get you to shed a tear, that there’s anything particularly wrong with Arthur the King, either (Apart from, you know, its racist star’s penchant for hate crimes, sexism, et. al. But he found God!). Director Simon Cellan Jones’ follow-up to 2023’s The Family Plan, which seemingly got him hooked on Mark Wahlberg, or vice versa, is as by the numbers as it gets, an underdog tale about a group of adventure racers discovering the value of man’s-best-friend-ship, all while overcoming adversity in the form of rough terrains, battered egos, and the “insurmountable” odds stacked against them. Whether or not the central team wins their race isn’t the point; this film is hell-bent on making you feel something, one way or another.

Perhaps that feeling is anger, for having spent two hours of your life subconsciously rooting for Wahlberg (who plays Michael Light, an Americanized iteration of the real-life Swedish adventure racer Mikael Lindnord, on whom the film is based). Or perhaps you’ll find genuine inspiration watching the periodic triumphs of Light’s team, a murderer’s row of seasoned adventure movie tropes — we have the climber (Nathalie Emmanuel), the navigator (Ali Suliman), and the Instagram-famous comedic foil (Simu Liu). Michael is widely considered to be one of the best to never win his sport’s top competition, and he’s all-but aged out of prime contention for the Adventure Racing World Series. 

Yet he can’t escape the itch, an inkling that if he had just one more shot at the title, along with the right team by his side, he’d be able to come out on top. So, Michael convinces his wife Helen (Juliet Rylance) that this will be his last ride, and he finds enough sponsors to fund his training for one last brush with his perilous passion. The crew packs their bags with enough water and frozen meatballs for a journey through the Dominican jungle; along the way, they encounter a stray dog, whom they call Arthur. He loves their meatballs, while the ever-softening Michael loves his company. It’s a match made in heaven from the jump. 

Many will find it difficult not to roll their eyes at the film’s hokey framework, and yet I can’t deny instinctually pumping my fist whenever this underestimated crew made some sort of strive toward potential victory. I also can’t deny the existence of the titular canine, reason enough to latch onto Arthur’s otherwise-predetermined structure. And although these sorts of stories tend to be my kryptonite — I’m happy anytime a dog appears on screen; sue me — there is more to Arthur than a recognizable narrative, cast, and the existence of its central mutt.

Arthur The King is far from perfect, but at least it effectively harnesses the power these movies rarely neglect yet never master: Being infused with hope, no matter the adversity the characters face. When it comes to garden variety sports movies, straying from the stock formula is more likely to drive typical audiences away as opposed to steering viewers in a given film’s direction. What separates the sports movies that are “fine” and those that are “straight-up bad” — great sports films are few and far between these days — often boils down to talent in front of the camera and/or a steady hand behind it. Thematically, you can find quite a few similarities between Remember the Titans and Next Goal Wins, but only the former starred Denzel Washington. The latter was mailed in by Taika Waititi and not even Michael Fassbender could keep Next Goal Wins above water.


Stylistically, I can imagine Baltasar Kormákur’s version of this film, a slightly darker rendition of the same story that leans more into the danger these adventurers face on a daily basis while treating their fifth teammate as a furry sidekick deployed only when necessary, and then placed front and center during the final act when Michael has to choose between glory and loyalty. But the choices Cellan Jones makes in Arthur the King arguably better serve a film of its ilk due to their emphasis on sentiment. Sure, Arthur lays its heart on a little heavy at times, but you’d rather that than be stuck with a film that is okay leaving every ounce of warmth on the cutting room floor in favor of needless stunts and weightless action.

Grade: C+

Movie Review: ‘Asleep in My Palm’ Gives Grace to Difference


Director: Henry Nelson
Writer: Henry Nelson
Stars: Tim Blake Nelson, Chloë Kerwin, Grant Harvey

Synopsis: Asleep in My Palm explores the nature of parenthood and class as a father and daughter live off the grid in rural Ohio where they must confront the challenges of her sexual awakening as he escapes a violent and conflicted past.


Henry Nelson’s Asleep in My Palm is almost as heartbreaking as Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace. The comparison is naturally going to be made between the two films as both feature a father and daughter duo living off grid because of the father’s intense military service-related PTSD. Granik’s film is a masterpiece and Nelson’s work will exist in its long shadow. However, Asleep in My Palm distinguishes itself by shifting the focus to the self-imposed predicament created by Tom (Tim Blake Nelson) as one based in uncontained rage at the world. His only balm is Beth Ann (Chloë Kerwin), now sixteen years old and beginning to find herself curious about the world beyond the one created by him.

The film begins with Tom giving Beth Ann his interpretation of Disney’s Chicken Little. Not the original short made for American wartime propaganda, but the panned 2005 movie. His version is a tale he’s telling about himself. A “bespectacled homunculus” chicken who no one believes or likes, who maybe lives in Paterson, New Jersey. One who is bullied and ostracized by the community and later forms a gang to take them down. He doesn’t have to because everything does go to shit. This Chicken Little “Looks up and he’s happy because he’s been dead for years, and the last thing he’s going to see is those fuckers eating shit.” Maybe he saw the crack and what others can’t see.

Beth Ann questions his story with a sleepy kindness and tells him to be safe as he leaves their tiny storage unit which doubles as their home. Despite the sodden and slushy Ohio snow, the storage unit is still a “home.” Whatever Tom is doing, and most of it is criminal, his focus is keeping Beth Ann wrapped warm and tight.

But how tight can someone like Tom really hold on to a young woman who is beginning to wonder about the world beyond the two of them? Tom has given her a better education than most college kids would get. They are living near the famous Oberlin College; a place where a month’s tuition would keep Tom and Beth Ann alive for years. Yet, Beth Ann has never been to a party. She’s committed crimes – she can break and enter like a professional, but she’s almost a total innocent.

Tom is used to the exhausting hustle. Along with Jose (a strange incel type played by Jared Abrahamson) he steals whatever he can from the college dorms. Jose believes that women liking Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ is an act of cultural appropriation. He’s an idiot Tom tolerates but seemingly doesn’t care about. His manic energy and ridiculous statements weary an already weary man. 

Tom is cynical and jaded about the modern world and has kept Beth Ann from it. No phones, no television, no computers. An itinerant life where they can just move on once a place no longer serves its purpose or gets “too hot” — if he was in a Michael Mann film he’d almost be considered urbane. But Asleep in My Palm is not Heat.

Tom is an enigma, perhaps even to himself. The audience knows he was in Desert Storm, but who was he before that? Who did he become afterwards? How is a man living hand to mouth able to debate metaphysics or give a quick lesson on the Stoics? When he meets a bunch of bored college kid “Satanists” he’s able to break down the philosophy of “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” as espoused by the Thelemites and Aleister Crowley.

Crafting an imaginative world filled with joy and small wonders for Beth Ann has filled his aching loneliness. Beth Ann’s mother is simply, “gone.” But Beth Ann can’t stay forever the urchin and waif — the Paper Moon lifestyle of modern-day panhandling and swindling has an end point. That end point is sexual maturity and adult curiosity.

Chloë Kerwin plays Beth Ann with vulnerability and curiosity. She adores Tom, she wants to protect him as much as he wants to protect her, but she meets people who show her that there is a world she’s been forbidden to explore. One that can be as ugly as Tom warned her, but one which also contains beautiful and enchanting women such as Gus Birney’s rich girl Millah, who likes the idea of slumming it with Grant Harvey’s ‘Dark Mortius.’ A single kiss from Millah and some time spent being seen by someone else and Beth Ann is smitten. 

Just as Tom (Thomasin McKenzie) says to Will (Ben Foster) in Leave No Trace, “The same thing that’s wrong with you isn’t wrong with me” Beth Ann has to tell her father “No one’s going to remember me. Just you. There are no pictures of me.” It’s not enough for her any longer to be invisible from the institutional monsters. She has the one thing Tom wishes she would never have, desire. Not a desire for the material, but for some form of autonomy — which ironically is what Tom was striving towards himself but can’t manage.

Henry Nelson captures life on the outskirts with humanity and sometimes almost absurd humor. He doesn’t pretend that it is a life anyone would truly desire unless they were broken by uncaring systems. When Millah tells Beth Ann that she is more adult at the age of sixteen than she will ever be, she means it. They have a shared envy of each other’s lives. But Millah eventually will just fall into a safety net of privilege. She will live a small life but a safe one. College is the time she gets before she ends up married and doing charity events.

Asleep in My Palm is a film which documents the small American tragedies. The world of poverty is still around the rust belt next to generational wealth. Asleep in My Palm is a lyrical film with extraordinary performances by Nelson and Kerwin. It is patiently and expertly shot which makes the interspersed violence all the more impactful. The only real criticism that can be leveled is an extraneous mystery and solution at the end of the film which brings up a question no one was asking. 

Asleep in My Palm is an outstanding debut by Henry Nelson, and he has the great fortune to be directing his father, who is one of America’s finest character actors. Love is complex and families even more so. Asleep in My Palm gives grace to two people just trying to find a place in the world — one who will never truly belong because he has never healed his trauma, and one who has a chance to fly higher and see if the sky really is falling in.

Grade: B+

Women InSession: International Film Oscar Nominations

This week on Women InSession, in the spirit of the Oscars, we take a look at the International Film Oscar and talk about the process in how they’re selected, and the quality of nominations in recent years! There’s been some phenmonal international films over the years. Some of them make the cut. Others somehow miss. So we dive into how that makes it one of the more compelling categories at the Oscars.

Panel: Kristin Battestella, Shadan Larki, Brian Susbielles

On that note, check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!

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Women InSession – Episode 76

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Movie Review: ‘DogMan’ is Besson Off His Leash


Director: Luc Besson
Writer: Luc Besson
Stars: Caleb Landry Jones, Jojo T. Gibbs, Christopher Denham

Synopsis: A boy, bruised by life, finds his salvation through the love of his dogs.


Roger Ebert said of Nicolas Roeg’s Track 29, “Somebody asked me if I liked this movie, and I had to answer that I did not, but then I realized once again what an inadequate word “like” is. The reason I didn’t like it is that the film is unlikable – perhaps deliberately so. But that doesn’t make it a bad film, and it probably makes it a more interesting one… it is bad-tempered. But not every film is required to massage us with pleasure. Some are allowed to be abrasive and frustrating, to make us think.” Ebert’s quote would be germane to Luc Besson’s DogMan if the film was setting out to make the audience think. However, Besson decides on unlikeable, frustrating, and doing all the “thinking” for the audience. DogMan is blunt-force abrasive, but it is possible at least to find sections interesting.

Douglas (Caleb Landry Jones) is a man whose tortured existence means the only pack he can trust are his preternaturally clever “children” — a motley crew of smooth criminal canines. Brought up in a strangely timeless Newark by a violently dysfunctional family, Doug has more ‘anti-hero’ origin stories than a continually re-written comic book character. Was it the moment he was caught feeding scraps to the dogs his father bred for fighting? Was it when his slack-jawed ultra-religious brother had him locked in the cage with the dogs for most of his childhood? Was it when his beloved mother finally left the cradle of filth that was his home neglecting to let him out of the cage as she departed? Or was it when his father decided to shoot the puppies Doug was protecting but instead shot off one of Doug’s fingers and left a bullet lodged in his spine which will one day kill him?

Doug is arrested in full Marilyn Monroe drag trying to flee the scene of a gang war massacre with his beloved babies, and it is up to Doctor Evelyn Decker (Jojo T. Gibbs) to work out the enigma of the fluid and adapting Dog Man through his baroque narration of his life.

Doug is polite, educated, and so well versed in the Bard his history is Shakespearean. Is he Viola, Richard II, Falstaff, or Iago? Is he Hamlet or Juliet? Avenging angel or demon from the bowels of hell? Perhaps he is all three of Macbeth’s witches? The only thing that is certain is that he is weaving constant illusions to avoid being uncovered. That, and he regards humanity as a blight because they believe they have transcended their animal instincts. “The weak are killed in nature. But they survive in humanity. For a while. God always finds his own.”

A bizarre Bildungsroman, DogMan chronicles Doug’s life as an institutionalized child who falls in love with his guidance counselor and drama teacher Salma Bailey (Grace Palma) who takes the broken boy through the whirlwind of make believe which he first experienced reading his mother’s hidden ‘Women’s Magazines.’ Through Salma, he becomes a wheelchair using Richard Burbage, Will Kemp, and Margaret Hughes. Makeup and make-believe transport him from his isolation. He is seen and admired by his previously bullying peers, but not for being himself — for being someone else. Eventually, Salma heads to Broadway leaving a heartbroken boy who will eventually find his way back to the ones he cannot abandon, and will not abandon him, his dogs.

Doug’s journey through the callousness of reality is echoed by the strays he cares for. He has no home — they have no home. He doesn’t train his children to do tricks, they simply understand what he wants. Instead, he trains himself to perform. Unable to find a job despite having a degree, Doug holes himself up in an abandoned high school with his ever-expanding fur family and by chance becomes a drag artiste doing swirling renditions of Édith Piaf (an extraordinary scene) and Marlene Dietrich in “Lili Marlene” mode. Community supported by Annie Lennoxes, Madonnas and Chers, Douglas finds liberation behind illusion. He also has a successful side hustle in high end jewelry theft carried out by his crew. None of it is about the money – he just needs enough to keep his family fed.

Insurance investigators and Latino gang-bangers all try to take Doug down and meet a grisly end. It is Willard without the horror, or Doctor Dolittle as Duela Dent. Grisly, gritty, and stylishly captured, the essence of Besson’s cinema du look heightens the choreographed violence. Fetishistic in extremis, but also peculiarly sexless.

There is God’s law and dog’s law; Douglas is an adherent to both. God sent him dogs as a panacea to soothe his suffering. “Dogs only have one flaw, they love humans.” One suspects Besson decided to make the whole film in English and film it in “America” because chien spelled backwards means nothing.

Doug’s confession to Evelyn serves a purpose to prove his existence before it is erased and to alleviate her pain. An exhausted single mother with a violent father and similarly violent ex-husband, she can’t keep from her young child; Evelyn is also in need of protection. Hence the man behind a thousand curtains comes into the light to send her an angel before he meets his fate. 

DogMan should be, in some manner, entertaining. It is darkly funny, but Besson enjoys torturing the audience through Doug’s misfortunes too much. The philosophical and ethical discussions between Doug and Evelyn are exhaustingly exposition heavy. Besson shows and over tells, never getting the balance right. For example, we see Christopher Denham’s venal and sweaty insurance adjuster stalking Doug thinking he’s captured the femme fatale; but Doug has already told Evelyn (and shown in flashbacks) his knack for manipulation and dog-eat-man war. We know exactly what is coming.

If not for Caleb Landry Jones’ wounded but bravura performance, DogMan would be near insufferable. Jones is a compelling and beguiling presence. It’s not surprising he has been previously scooped up as a villain in Jordan Peele’s Get Out. He’s also a fragile romantic interest in Neil Jordan’s Byzantium. His best roles are the ones where he is an oddball outsider such as Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral. His best role to date has been the titular character in Justin Kurzel’s Nitram. There’s something indefinable about his screen charisma. He’s a less beautiful Cillian Murphy or Christopher Abbott but whatever those two have, he also has.

Besson has never opted for subtle nor is he beyond self-plagiarism. He’s made La Femme Nikita essentially three times (the original which spawned a two remakes and two television series), as evidenced by Lucy and Anna. His best loved science-fiction film The Fifth Element he cannibalized for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. As for subtlety, although gorgeous, Les Aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec required two cuts. One to appeal to the younger aged adventure and Gaslamp enthusiasts, and one which had our fearless heroine very often unclothed just because she’s beautiful. An entire paragraph can be written just about the Taxi and Transporter franchises. Léon: The Professional is again a topic too large to be here within encompassed.

DogMan could be construed as mash-up of Le Dernier Combat and Subway. DogMan is low budget Besson off his leash after the massively expensive flop that was Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. It has style to burn but substance is either blatantly telegraphed or scant.

If you crave Luc Besson’s mysteriously religious, ultra-camp, and ferocious style with Caleb Landry Jones (and the junior version of Doug) being caked in mud, blood, or pancake makeup while devising schemes like an obsessive scrapbooker and master chef: then by all means DogMan is there for the taking. Also, there are the wonderful dogs working like a finely tuned orchestra. However, be warned, the antihero revenge wish fulfilment fantasy is often sickly and sloppy. It is more a tatty wig and obvious scars than genre hybrid genius. 

Grade: C

List: The Best Onscreen Smokers

Note: This is in no way an endorsement of smoking or tobacco use. This is for entertainment purposes only

Full disclosure: I used to smoke. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, but it’s also something I miss every day. This constant longing for nicotine has endeared me to the actors and actresses in films who take to smoking like an artform. Ask any former smoker, and they can tell you who actually smokes or who has never had a cigarette in their lives before lighting up on screen. The 2023 Oscar season featured a number of accomplished smoking performances, including Helen Mirren in Golda, Bradley Cooper in Maestro, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers. This year is off to a solid start with Kristen Stewart’s on-again-off-again smoker in Love Lies Bleeding. Inspired by Stewart’s tour-de-force smoking ability, I now present to you, the top ten film smokers.

10. Denzel Washington – Best Smoking As A Prop

You could make a strong case as Denzel being the best living actor. One of his greatest achievements is his ability to shift his on-screen persona. But more than anything, Washington uses each piece of his environment to create a character, and that includes cigarettes. Whether it’s the loosey he applies during the early scenes of Malcolm X, the coolly accessorized cigs from Devil in a Blue Dress, or even the climactic poison smoke in Fallen, the smoking serves a purpose. And there is none more purposeful than in his Oscar-winning turn in Training Day. Denzel’s corrupt cop smokes throughout the film, whether in a car, on a rooftop, or in his bedroom counting his money. No one knows how to add to a character with a cigarette quite like Denzel. And don’t you dare wince when he blows smoke in your face.

9. Robert Mitchum – Best Noir Smoker

Mitchum was never seen as the most accomplished of actors, but the guy knew what he did well: film noir. The actor famously went into scenes in Out of the Past unprepared to make the film more spontaneous and tense. Smoking is such a part of Mitchum’s noir pastiche, it’s on the freaking poster! Cigarettes are a touchtone of film noir atmosphere, and no one made it fit better than Mitchum.

8. Marlene Dietrich – Prettiest Smoker

Few people have a face like Marlene Dietrich. Black-and-white photography and proper lighting just makes the woman’s face glow in a way others just don’t. While the act of smoking is much associated with illness and repugnance, Dietrich makes it look like the most natural thing in the world. Even one of her most iconic images features a cigarette, which just looks right. In one of her most famous roles, 1931’s Shanghai Express, she drags and just lets the smoke lazily waft up past her lips, nose, eyes, and hair. It’s like the cigarette is screaming at the audience to note how mind-numbingly gorgeous this woman is. I can’t blame the cigarette for trying to get us to notice.

7. Humphrey Bogart – Smoking as a Companion

Has anyone looked more natural with a cigarette than he? Never did a film go by where Bogie wasn’t supported by his favorite tobacco co-star. That being said, he never made it a part of his performance, but rather a piece of art imitating life. The man lived to smoke and that obviously would translate to his on-screen adventures. His entire film persona wasn’t one of action and adventure, but one of passive complacency. You don’t see much of Bogart mixing it up. You see more of him sitting behind a desk with a whisky and a Lucky Strike. It’s as much a part of him as his iconic voice. It’s not even the first few things you think about his persona. It’s just a part of the package. You want Bogart, you get smoking.

6. Samuel L. Jackson – Cigarettes as the Coolest Accessory

Samuel L. Jackson is one of the most consistently cool-as-hell actors of our time. When he smokes in film, it just makes him seem that much cooler. Whether it’s the down-on-his-luck Mitch Hennessey in The Long Kiss Goodnight, the chain-smoking Mr. Arnold in Jurassic Park, the “where can I put my ash” of Ordell in Jackie Brown, or the smoking-while-playing-guitar melancholy of Lazarus in Black Snake Moan, Jackson makes it look that much cooler. This piece is not supposed to be an endorsement of smoking, but Jackson’s on-screen-smoking charisma makes it tough.

5. Robert De Niro – Smoking as Method

Robert De Niro is famously method. The guys lives his roles. When that character is a smoker, De Niro lives smoking. Whether it’s the 9,000 cigarettes he goes through in Casino, or his cigarettes turning into an actual plot point for Midnight Run, De Niro places his smoking into his roles seamlessly. You’ve seen that “hear an image” meme going around, and nothing is better encapsulated that than De Niro in the above image from Goodfellas. Just look at that guy. He is not faking it. His cheeks are pulled in the whole way. That heater never stood a chance against De Niro’s commitment to the role.

4. Roy Scheider – Best Hands-Free Usage

You know those Oscar categories like Production Design or Makeup/Hairstyling where the best usually means the most? When it comes to the “most” smoking, Scheider comes out victorious just because of his performance in All That Jazz. Not only is it a constant, never-ending stream of cigarettes entering, lighting, ashing, discarding and entering again, no one hangs on to a cigarette while talking like Scheider. His hands are too busy as the thinly-veiled version of Bob Fosse. That performance could have gotten on this list alone, but Scheider also has iconic talk-smoking in Jaws. Not only is he smoking without using his hands, he delivers one of the most iconic lines in cinema with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. That’s smoking talent.

3. Audrey Hepburn – Most Regal Smoker

Audrey Hepburn is the peak of regal, classic beauty. You don’t automatically think of her as a smoker, which only enhances her power. But her proclivity for on-screen smoking speaks for itself. Who else has a nearly-18-minute montage of smoking? Even one of her most iconic roles in Breakfast at Tiffany’s features her cigarette hanging out of a long black filter. Smoking has been long-associated with early aging and diminished beauty. But not for Hepburn. One of cinema’s most enduring beauties didn’t let a little thing like constant smoking stop her from aging gracefully.

2. Tony Leung/Maggie Cheung – Sexiest Smoking Couple

This is almost cheating, because this list is meant to encapsulate a career of smoking. That being said, how do you negate the pair of sexiest smokers in the history of film? Leung and Cheung’s searing chemistry is already there, but the lingering smoke seeping in the air in front of Wong Kar-Wai’s camera adds as much to the story as the silence does. I could have just included Leung, as his partnership with Kar-Wai has a long history of smoking, but it felt wrong not pairing Leung and Cheung. They are intrinsically linked through their shared nicotine intake.

1. Brad Pitt – The Smoking GOAT

The greatest on-screen smoker. It probably helps that Pitt has reportedly smoked off-screen for years, but no one makes it look more natural. Thelma & Louise, Sleepers, Kalifornia, Snatch, Killing Them Softly, Fury, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, and Babylon all feature a cigarette-laden Pitt puffing away. But it was his tour-de-force smoking performance in Fight Club which sets the Oscar-winner apart from the crowd. It’s not just about his memorable chiseled physique and gonzo energy; it’s constantly paired with a smoke. It’s not an accessory, it’s an extension of his body. There’s nowhere and no situation where Pitt doesn’t light up. In a bar, pre-fight, post-fight, while intimidating a city official, even in the freaking bathtub. No one smokes like Brad Pitt and no one ever will.

The Films Of Monsieur Max

In the opening scene to 1950’s La Ronde, the master of ceremonies (Anton Walbrook) walks across the stage and the camera follows him. It goes from one side to the other as he walks off the stage and goes behind the floodlights and camera on set while explaining the story is a series of episodes about love. He will pop in and out of the episodes, sometimes interfering with visual gags (the actual cutting of film), leading viewers to complete the titular circle of love. This was the first film I saw directed by Max Ophuls, who clearly had a unique eye to change how a camera moved and not simply horizontal or vertical on a track. Instead, he drew circles around his cast like a professional ballroom dancer to a Viennese waltz.   

Life Of A Ringmaster

Max Ophuls was born in Saarbrücken, Germany, in 1902. His family, successful in textile manufacturing, disapproved of Max’s interest in the theatre, so he changed his last name. His surname was not Ophuls, but Oppenheimer (no relation to the atomic bomb’s maker), and as a Jewish man, he was aware of the obvious anti-Semitism in his country after World War I. Ophuls first sought to be an actor and was for a short period until he was given the opportunity to direct a play. In 1923, Ophuls began directing a string of plays in Dortmund and in Vienna, Austria at the Burgtheater. There, he would meet an actress, Hilde Wall, who he would later marry and have a son with, Marcel, who directed The Sorrow And The Pity about the French resistance. The city would be central to his filmmaking career.

In 1930, Ophuls would get his start in directing movies when he was hired by UFA in Berlin, joining other major directors including Fritz Lang, Josef von Sternberg, and Ernst Lubitsch; all before they moved to Hollywood. His first film was a forty-minute comedy called I’d Rather Have Cod-Liver Oil. But after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, Ophuls and his family fled to France and later became citizens. When World War II began in 1939, Ophuls was hired to write and perform on radio a series of anti-Nazi broadcasts, but as France was on the verge of falling, Ophuls and his family again fled, first to Portugal, and then reaching the United states in 1941. 

However, he would not get work immediately until writer/director Preston Sturges, a fan of Ophuls’s film Leibelei back in 1933, persuaded studios to hire Ophuls as they had done with emerging European directors including Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir, and Billy Wilder. His first film, the Howard Hughes-produced Vendetta, was a fiasco as he and Sturges were both fired due their slow pace of work. Four films were completed in Hollywood, most notably The Exile (1947) starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Letter From An Unknown Woman (1948) starring Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan. After this frustrating period, Ophuls decided to return to France.

The last four films he would make — La Ronde (1950), Le Plaisir (1952), The Earrings of Madame de . . . (1953), and Lola Montès (1955)— are considered his masterpieces. La Ronde would actually win the BAFTA for Best Film, as well as garner an Oscar nomination for its screenplay. After the difficulty of finishing Lola Montes, he would go on to start making Montparnasse 19. Sadly, he would not get to finish it. While in production, Ophuls died from heart disease on March 26, 1957, aged 54. His close friend, director Jacques Becker, would complete the picture and release it the following year. 

The Man With A Dancing Camera

The camera exists to create a new art and to show above all what cannot be seen elsewhere: neither in theater nor in life; otherwise, I’d have no need of it; doing photography doesn’t interest me. That I leave to the photographer. – Max Ophuls

Ophuls was widely known for his unique camera movements and long takes, never keeping anyone static, but always making a meaning for his camera. They are smooth, with dollies, and the use of crane shots. He uses countless tracking shots and long takes, minimizing the editing, and is open to having his camera moving up and down and gliding in different angles. “Life is movement,” Ophuls once said. James Mason, who worked on two films directed by Ophuls, wrote a poem in tribute to him mentioning his directing style. “A shot that does not call for tracks is agony for poor old Max,” he wrote. “Who, separated from his dolly, is wrapped in deepest melancholy. Once, when they took away his crane, I thought he’d never smile again.” 

Ophuls focused on themes of adultery, love, honor, idolatry, and the hypocrisy of the elite for their superficialness. The Earrings of Madame de… is such an example in which the opening sequence involves the leading character with her lavish lifestyle forced her to sell a pair because of debts. He is interested in the private lives of these people because the public has a fascination with them, especially the scandalous parts. The atmosphere is circus-like, as seen in Lola Montes, and there is always a Baroque element in his sets and costumes, which he leaves to the designers to take care of. Vienna is a usual setting because of time there and how much it influenced him in his career. The score is more waltzy than traditional in which the actors also dance with it. 

Actors loved working with him, even when he could turn tyrannical at times, but he was so widely admired that actors returned to work with Ophuls for other films. It was rare to have a closeup of them, insisting that their body language be the main expression. Besides James Mason, other notable names who worked with Ophuls include Anton Walbrook, Simone Signoret, Peter Ustinov, Simone Simon, Charles Boyer, and Martine Carol. Most of his films are female-centered, although not always sympathetic to its characters, and there are virtually no happy endings. Famously, for Lola Montes, Martine Carol was not his preference for the titular role but was forced upon him, as was the use of color, and that it had to be shot in English, French, and German. 

No Cushions For Hypocrites

Max Ophuls loved to poke at these historical figures who do not uphold such high esteemed values, making his latter films strong social satire. His interest in the perverse was buttered up with an air of cruelty that sometimes denied a happy ending, yet did not have it end on a strong down note. For someone who didn’t have a really scandalous private life, Ophuls was someone who loved to find novels and plays that dug up dirt on these people and spun it to humiliate them with glee in a comical manner. His spinning top was the camera moving at a pace to make the characters, not us, dizzy in their pursuit of pleasure. The ending of The Earrings of Madame de . . ., while ambiguous, is a lose-lose result for the main character. The last words of Lola Montes is a resigned, “Life goes on.” 

Ophuls’ work is playful and sensual without overdoing it, choosing subtlety over overtness. It is the total opposite to Yorgos Lanthimos’ hypersexualized surrealism in the era of Queen Anne and the Victorian period. There is an emotional pull that connects every scene and every episode within his work. Dying young robbed us of more films from Ophuls that entertained the moments of love that lead to probable heartbreak, that the desire for gratification is a very fragile and fickle thing. Then again, life is short…and life goes on.

Follow me on Twitter: @brian_cine (Cine-A-Man)

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Movie Review: ‘Ricky Stanicky’ Cannot Be Helped, Even By Efron and Cena


Director: Peter Farrelly
Writers: Jeffrey Bushell, Brian Jarvis, James Lee Freeman, Peter Farrelly, Pete Jones, Mike Cerrone
Stars: Zac Efron, John Cena, Jermaine Fowler, Andrew Santino

Synopsis: When three childhood best friends pull a prank that goes wrong, they invent the imaginary Ricky Stanicky to get them out of trouble. Twenty years later, they still use the nonexistent Ricky as a handy alibi for their immature behavior.


One of my bigger gripes with streamers unceremoniously dumping genre fare on their platforms with all the fanfare of a traffic jam is how well many of those films would play in a theater. Of course, many recent titles landed on streaming services partially due to the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on the moviegoing experience (oh, how I wish I could have seen Palm Springs in a packed picturehouse). But even in the years since cinemas reopened en masse, movies of ostensible theatrical quality have fallen by the wayside in regards to the attention they should receive due a streaming release. 

Think about a film like 2022’s Prey, a fresh offering under the Predator umbrella; it was a sneaky hit on Hulu, yet I can’t help but think about the way it would’ve looked on the big screen. Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, a Netflix original, is a curious case study. It received plenty of acclaim, not to mention seven Academy Award nominations, but as someone who saw the film both in a theater and at home, I can confidently assert that it plays significantly better when projected rather than displayed on a television or laptop. I have serious fears for Richard Linklater’s Hit Man, a sexy, uproarious rom-com that premiered to much acclaim at festivals last fall, yet will land on Netflix on June 7 with no accompanying theatrical release, per usual. That film is simply so alive; it begs to be seen with a crowd.

Ricky Stanicky does not.

There’s a bit more to it than that. But perhaps the best way to summarize its potential for such status is by noting that a lot of what Ricky Stanicky feigns to be — not just be about, but be in substance — it screams “theatrical comedy”, provided that we’ve traveled back in time to 2007. I can envision a cast featuring Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, and Danny McBride, or actors of that ilk, playing a trio of successful jamokes who, in their youth, invented an imaginary scapegoat and have let him live on into the present. They have jobs, wives/partners, and adult responsibilities, all of which they are willing to abandon on the condition that they won’t be faulted for said abandonment. Of course, that’s because the blame always falls on Ricky Stanicky. I can see Judd Apatow or Adam McKay mining humor out of this premise, the aforementioned actors making lemonade out of the outwardly-lemonish dick jokes they’ve been served on a platter, and audiences eating it all up. 

Maybe these visions of mine carry more weight because that was the intention for the project back when it landed on the 2010 Black List, thus deeming it one of that year’s best unproduced screenplays. Since then, Jim Carrey, James Franco, and Joaquin Phoenix (?!) were all in line to play Ricky, a dubious honor that ultimately went to John Cena. And it’s even more evident that the script has gone through an incessant slew of revisions over time, to the point where it now has six credited writers, as well as two separate “story by” credits for David Occhino and Jason Decker. It’s a patchwork piece at best, which is too bad, considering how much fun Cena is clearly having (and willing to have), and the fact that, in better hands and at a different time, I can genuinely imagine it making just north of a nine-figure box office return. 

Instead, it’s 2024, so Ricky Stanicky is littered with stand-up comedians who don’t act so much as they play renamed versions of themselves, directed by Peter Farrelly, and plopped on Amazon Prime, right around the corner from the discount toilet plungers. (I can only assume that a poop joke was left out of Ricky Stanicky’s final cut, though a pee joke made it through the edit alive.) Its footprint, solely digital; its jokes a return to form for Farrelly, who made Green Book and The Greatest Beer Run Ever; and clearly felt he’d done his duty for sincere-ish storytelling and wished to retreat to his dick joke haven. 

Zac Efron (Dean) stars as a nothingburger of a hedge fund bro who, along with Andrew Santino (JT) and Jermaine Fowler (Wes), have a get-out-of-jail-free-card for just about anything in the form of the titular character. One of the first examples we see is Dean and JT itching to ditch  JT’s baby shower in favor of a Marc Rebillet concert in Atlantic City. How do  they get out of the shower? Ricky’s cancer is back; the boys have to head to Albany to be present when he gets out of surgery.

When the dudes are forced to leave their weekend getaway early when JT’s wife goes into labor — darn! — they return to an entourage of dubious family members, who called every hospital in Albany trying to get a hold of one of the guys (they turned their phones off so they couldn’t be tracked), and there was no record of any Ricky or Stanicky anywhere. So, in an effort to keep up appearances with their loved ones, Dean comes up with a bright idea: Why don’t they hire the alcoholic actor they met while at a bar in A.C.? His name is “Rock-Hard” Rod, and while he might not be the best bet at convincing their families of Ricky’s legitimacy, our main men aren’t exactly swimming in options.

Enter Rod, who is just as committed to the bit of being Ricky as Cena is to playing him, but the whole sham these morons cooked up is a disaster waiting to happen. Especially because Rod enjoys being Ricky so much that he won’t take the money and run. Once the gig is up, Rod’s method acting persists; he even gets hired by Dean and JT’s boss, and swiftly receives a title with higher status and pay than the aforementioned duo. Nevermind that Rod’s only true skills are finding ways to sexualize the lyrics to popular rock songs for his one man show — it didn’t make me laugh, but I’d kill to see Peter Frampton’s reaction to Rod singing, “Ooh baby, I masturbate, everyday yeah, yeah”, — because “Ricky” is a jack of all trades. The more Rod hams it up, the further into chaos Dean, JT, and Wes’ lives are thrown.

If only this chaos was handled with any sort of regard for real humor rather than a rapidly-unspooling thread of stale quips and gags. This is the sort of film that is more concerned with how a line reads than how it lands or even relates to the plot; I recall Wes mentioning, “Sometimes I feel like I’m in a gay Handmaid’s Tale”, but what that referenced is of less import to the script than the fact that Wes mentioned a recognizable streaming property. The point — both of this line and the movie as a whole — isn’t to reinvent the wheel, but you’d think it might at least try to split the difference between There’s Something About Mary and Hall Pass
All this is made infinitely worse by it being the Efron performance immediately following his outstanding turn in last year’s The Iron Claw, a prestige project that saw the otherwise-solid actor reach unforeseen dramatic heights. Not even he can support the movie-stealing work of Cena, an up-for-anything performer who grows as an actor every time he appears on screen. Yet despite his best efforts, the Academy Awards will go down as the funniest thing Cena appears in this month. Somehow, more work went into crafting a gag to accompany the presentation for achievement in Costume Design than into a new feature film from an Oscar winner. If only that was as much of a sham as this.

Grade: D

Scarlett Johansson: The Bombshell of Body Dysmorphia

Scarlett Johansson has always been an unreliable narrator of sexuality and femininity in its primitive form. The blonde bombshell of the ’50s and ’60s reincarnated, her breasts and her voluptuous figure, her features that combine sultry coyness and childlike girth have made her a dream girl of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. The actress has admitted lately that this wasn’t the image she wanted to be seen through as an actress, that she was groomed into the blonde bombshell/pretty baby archetype in her earlier acting years. Scarlett defied that, however, through her later career choices, where she became more comfortable in her skin to the extent of shedding it all off.

How Johansson Inverted Heteronormative Sexuality

There are two films in which Scarlett plays on the “Scarlett” persona with a mischievous in-your-face rebellion twist: Under the Skin and Ghost in the Shell. Although the latter might have brought criticism for casting choices due to whitewashing, it was -on her part- a brave choice and a bold move to deconstruct her celebrity image.

When Scarlett first appears on screen in Ghost of the Shell she is stripping. Everybody anticipates. It’s Scarlett Johansson on the big screen getting naked with flawless skin and lips that have always been marketed as the ultimate cis hetero man’s (and lesbian’s) dream. Scarlett never fails to drag on hungry onlookers, perverse spectators from behind their laptop screens.

But something else is revealed. Scarlett’s female body is sexless without all the definite features that cause a female to be -arguably- female: no nipples, clitoris, or vulva. It’s a sewn female body without all the openings, but it’s still there to ponder with all its sexual/sexless energy. It’s a female mannequin like the ones found in horror movies such as Maniac and Lights Out, a sea of genitalia-less female figures displayed and not exposed. This defines Scarlett’s rendition of Motoko or Major Mira Killian, the first full-body cyborg. A human whose brain has been implanted in another body, her sense of abduction is a constant reminder that her presence is in a body where she doesn’t belong. A reminiscence on body dysphoria or a hijacking of sorts translates much that many people might not be able to express in words.

In multiple scenes of the movie, Scarlett is seen naked, but it’s a form of cocooned nudity, a bare body imprisoned in the confines of gender aesthetics. She is still Scarlett, still described in one of the video titles on YouTube “Being Thirsted Over by Men”. But she redefines what it means to be a woman, and a past sex symbol for all that matters, having all the metrics of the penultimate sexy Hollywood blonde. Scarlett doesn’t dispose of her attractive features for the sake of a role. She’s not Charlize Theron shaving her brows or Nicole Kidman donning a prosthetic nose, but she’s retaining her cool features, cat-like eyes, and infamous pout, without a body underneath to complete the wet dream.

In Ghost in the Shell, Scarlett plays a character with a gender identity crisis, coming to terms with her body and existence. She questions the link between biological sex and actual gender with her subtle treading on gender lines, being a fully-developed female and refusing to succumb to the gender plethora of femininity. Major Mira Killian is not just a cybernetically modified human but a lost soul, a creature that hovers on the borders of feminine and female, not fully conforming to either.

The idea of owning a body, gendered but non-gendered, becoming but also unbecoming, working the way through gender discovery and dysphoria, is the core of the original Ghost in the Shell animated movie. Aside from the A.I. anxieties and the futuristic doom, we are attached to Motoko’s journey across humanity and bodies, identifying with her quest to discover her true self and those around her, in the process she touches on different themes and pathways that make her distinct, that is her corporal journey as she comes to terms with her bodily restrictions and capabilities.

Body Discomfort, Dysmorphia, and Gender Identity Crisis

In Under the Skin, Scarlett is a female. She just exists with a skin that she puts on to become more familiar with the planet she plans to invade. She’s not a woman but a female entity that doesn’t conform to presumed ideals of sexualizing that gendered being. The alien is incapable of having sex and is almost punished for that by being forced into it. The alien becomes an embodiment of an agender dream. It is a female on the border of gendered expression, without femininity, but also defined as such.

It’s easy to dismiss someone’s identification or lack of their body. It’s a question that has plagued my mind for years. What is a body? What is a male or female body? My body scared and intrigued me in how it differed from other members of the same gender that I was supposed to belong to. When I noticed the quirks and mismatching details, I realized that body dysphoria is not that foreign.

The idea of an imperfect female body begins at a very young age for some girls, and it’s also something that some women struggle with as they grow up. However, the idea of a “weird” female body is something else. There’s always something wrong with this woman: too much hair, dark armpits on fair skin, a mustache that needs constant waxing or painful laser sessions to remove, a weird-looking boob, a vagina buried underneath bushes of coarse hair, a strange-looking face; blemishes, scars, pigmentation, freckles, too many freckles, etc. As someone who has always felt like an alien in their own body, suffering the scrutiny of female peers who might or might not have criticized or pointed out an eccentricity, it was refreshing to watch Scarlett Johansson reject that embodiment of feminine perfection.

What is Under Scarlett’s Skin?

In Under the Skin, Scarlett sheds the skin of a sexy female luring people. She harbors on the fringes of the world, wearing a fur coat that creates an allegory to prominent male figures in other cinematic masterpieces -The Driver in Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive– but doesn’t provide proof of consent to being male or female. Scarlett plays an alien, preying on unsuspecting men and feeding them to the void, where matter dissolves and shrinks. People are merely energy sources for a more considerable creation. Scarlett’s creature is female underneath, but the escalation to the revelation of the true self also brings up how gender is a barrier in people’s perceptions of them and how universal expectations of them hinder their emotional, physical, and actual growth in an accepting world. Scarlett again plays on the fetishized version of her. She is nude without a sexual undertone. She sheds the skin that has usurped her all of her life, to reveal the truth, a female but in a version that heteronormativity would never understand.

What does it take to be a woman? And how does one accomplish so? The freak reaction of the sexual predator throws shade at the culture of objectifying women, like Scarlett, or setting definitions for femininity and gendered existence where a woman would not feel safe to become who she chooses to become. And in the scary scene at the end, Scarlett’s reality is burned. The creature is burned alive and it’s as if people are burning the mere thought of her existence. But in reality, Scarlett is burning that skin, her sexualized younger self is given the final treatment, buried deep underneath the new woman who exists as beautiful, sexy, or even quirky and funny as she chooses to be, but further from the old self than one could expect. To depict gender dysphoria using her old, very archaic, and normative self as a backdrop to a shifting world in terms of gender and sexuality is not only an act of liberation but a rebellion against the ideal femininity trope which could be a deicide in progress.

Movie Review: ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ is Pure Retread


Directors: Mike Mitchell, Stephanie Stine
Writer: Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berge, Darren Lemke
Stars: Jack Black, Awkwafina, Viola Davis

Synopsis: After Po is tapped to become the Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace, he needs to find and train a new Dragon Warrior, while a wicked sorceress plans to re-summon all the master villains whom Po has vanquished to the spirit realm.


After watching Kung Fu Panda 4, I have come to one inevitable conclusion—it’s time to put this panda to sleep. The original Kung Fu Panda was fun, but overrated. I’ll admit, the delightful sight of a chubby panda becoming a ninja warrior gave everyone that warm and fuzzy feeling of doing endless panda rolls down a hill full of delightful glee. This phenomenon then spawned three needless sequels like DreamWorks’ goofy cousin, whom you see once every couple of years during the holidays.

The fourth installment goes through the motions, repackaging ideas, themes, and jokes. Besides a few examples of genuine, delightful panda-paw banter between star Jack Black and Hollywood icon Dustin Hoffman, Kung Fu Panda 4 is a pale comparison, even for this franchise’s standards. To make matters worse, the series is still looking for that emotional connection between the filmmakers and the audience to reward fans for their investment.

The story starts when Po (Jack Black), a lovable big-boned panda, is told he must select a trainee for a new “Dragon Warrior” by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), a wise red panda who gives you those Yoda vibes. In some of the movie’s best scenes, Po continues to choose himself to continue to be the legendary protector of Shifu’s amusing frustration. Black and Hoffman have some delightful chemistry with that panda-paw-banter we mentioned above.

Po then arrests a “quillarious” Corsac Fox, Zhen (Awkwafina), who is in their kingdom’s jail for mischievously trying to steal the Valley’s ancient weaponry. While talking to Zhen, he discovers that Tai Lung (Viola Davis) has returned as a Chameleon who is shape-shifting into an animal of her choosing. In order to put off the major change in Po’s life, he tells Shifu he is going to take Zhen on a mission to stop the impending ominous force that threatens everyone’s way of life. 

Kung Fu Panda 4 has Mike Mitchell at the helm for the latest installment. If that name sounds familiar, you are one of the few proud fans of Rob Schneider comedies. Mitchell’s first film was the infamous 1999 comedy Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. He has remade himself in animation, directing Shrek Forever After, Trolls, and The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, all of which have been well-received.

The issue is that, while the film is marginally better than the first two sequels, the script has too many hands-on retooling the script. Five writers have been credited with the final product, with Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger returning to write the latest entry with the help of Darren Lemke. While the script does pay homage to the original, the effort to have a stand-alone story ultimately falls flat because it’s recycled material from the former villain and adds nothing new to popular films. That includes Po’s worried fathers, disappointing physical humor, and visual gags.

Since this is a visual medium, animation can be beautiful and, in certain moments, breathtaking. The movie’s beginning has a wondrous color palette with stunning texture, especially in scenes involving Black’s Po and Hoffman’s Shifu walking through The Valley of Peace. Yet, these visual pleasures become inconsistent when the script moves the characters to Juniper City, and the cinematography choices become humdrum.

And that’s a shame because the Kung Fu Panda franchise has become the Pixar version of Cars. This low-quality animated family film experience serves only as a cash cow for the studio. At the very least, the original deserves a better effort to right the ship of this ever-sinking series before they develop too much ill will with their fanbase. Of course, with streaming potential, it’s no longer about quality but keeping up with new content. 

Kung Fu Panda 4 is not worth watching because it borrows too many elements from previous films (and others in the DreamWorks filmography) that stunt any potential creativity to be a proper standalone entry in the franchise. 

Grade: C-

Episode 576: Recapping the 96th Academy Awards

This week’s episode is brought to you by Koffee Kult. Get 15% OFF with the code: ISF

This week on the InSession Film Podcast, Brian Rowe joins JD to recap this year’s Oscars and the great winners of the 96th Academy Awards! It was a show with everything. John Cena was naked. John Mulaney broke down Field of Dreams. Al Pacino lost his mind. Ryan Gosling brought the house down. The winners were great. Lots to talk about with the Oscars this year!

Check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!

– Oscars Reactions Part 1 (5:45)
To begin, we talk about the ceremony and why the flow was quite good for a broadcast that lasted over three hours. We, of course, break down Best Actress and talk about the wild discourse that followed. Christopher Nolan finally gets his first Oscar and Oppenheimer will go down as an all-time great Best Picture winner.


RELATED: Listen to Episode 516 of the InSession Film Podcast where we discussed our Top 10 Movies of 2023!


– Oscars Reactions Part 2 (44:25)
In the back half of the show, we continue talking about the Oscars with The Zone of Interest winning Best Sound – one of the most inspired wins in The Academy’s history. We talk about the greatness of The Boy and the Heron winning Animated. We also talk about Poor Things sweeping Costumes, Production Design and Make-Up, and so much more. What was your favorite win at the Oscars this year?

– Music
Can You Hear The Music – Ludwig Göransson
What Was I Made For? – Billie Eilish

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InSession Film Podcast – Episode 576

Next week on the show:

Ghostbusters Retrospective

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Movie Review: ‘Through the Night’ is a Poignant Exploration of Trauma


Director: Delphine Girard
Writer: Delphine Girard
Stars: Selma Alaoui, Veerle Baetens, Anne Dorval

Synopsis: One night, a woman in danger calls the police. Anna takes the call. A man is arrested. Weeks pass, justice is looking for evidence, and Aly, Anna and Dary face the echoes of that night that they can’t manage to leave behind.


Delphine Girard’s short film, A Sister, vehemently shook me to my core the first time I saw it in my screenwriting class, with the filmmaker in attendance, a year before the film ultimately got nominated for an Oscar. The script was airtight and masterfully built its tension through Aly’s (Selma Alaoui) exchanges with a police dispatcher (Veerle Baetens), pretending to talk with her sister over the phone, as her abuser, Dary (Guillaume Duhesme), holds her hostage in his car and drives to an undisclosed location.  

The context behind their relationship is missing, but everyone understands her pain as she is in desperate need of help before something far worse happens. When Dary is ultimately arrested, the film ends. This abrupt closure leaves the impression to the audience that justice has been served and that everything will go in Aly’s favor once Dary is put behind bars. Of course, the current justice system makes it very difficult for victims of sexual assault to see justice. If it does happen, it usually takes years, and it isn’t as clear-cut as other legal cases. 

In her feature-length expansion of A Sister in Through the Night (Quitter la nuit), Girard explores what happens after the events of the short film (after recreating it for the opening scene), as Aly files a complaint for rape and false imprisonment in the wake of Dary’s arrest. At first, she’s interrogated by the police, who believe her recollection of events as true, while Dary vehemently denies any wrongdoing. As legal procedures begin, he moves back with his mother (Anne Dorval), who Dary convinces there is nothing to worry about, as the exchange between him and Aly was consensual. 

Meanwhile, Aly has difficulty grappling with her assault, crying alone in her apartment as her daughter helplessly watches, and the police investigation takes (a lot of) time. The dispatcher, Anna, is also having difficulty moving on from the call, as Aly’s situation wasn’t a simple life-or-death phone call. She had to use codified language to get help, not to raise suspicions from Dary. It takes great skill to catch what Aly was saying to “her sister” on the phone, as most dispatchers would have likely hung up the phone, which is part of why Anna can’t bring herself to continue her work as normal. 

These moments of intense contemplation are the bulk of Through the Night’s suffocating first half as you watch these three individuals attempt to pretend their lives are normal after an event slowly consumes them. One of them won’t admit guilt, but his mind keeps replaying the night through fragments as if it doesn’t want to believe that he did commit rape, while Aly tries to recover from Dary’s psychological and physical abuse. 

Because of its release, the film will likely be compared to Molly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sex, which also dealt with a protagonist who grappled with her assault. While both movies focus on  similar themes, and Walker’s film is vastly superior from a visual perspective, Girard’s Through the Night is equally as effective, if not more, through careful screenwriting and editorial choices that elevate the character drama beyond surface-level observations on the characters picking up the pieces. 

Scenes where characters recollect events to the police are long but necessary in our understanding of the two protagonists. Alaoui gives a magisterial turn as Aly, whose petrified eyes will stick with me for a long time. It’s not so much emptiness as it is torment, attempting to recover from a harrowing, traumatizing event as life goes on with her child and family. The scene that perfectly represents her anguish happens a bit later in the film, in which she attempts to tell her ex-husband, Pierre (Gringe), what happened but can’t bring herself to do so. The longing in her facial expressions are clear, and the silences in between Pierre’s questions speak so much louder than her own words. 

When the movie eventually cuts to two years later, when the trial will take place, many may also compare it with Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, where the prosecution team attempts to twist the phone recording between Aly and Dary during the trial. However, there’s no ambiguity here: the rape happened, and Dary physically assaulted Aly during the phone call when he suspected something. One film leaves the door open for multiple points of interpretation, while the other directly shows how the justice system never favors its victims, even when the crime itself is clear and the police believe them. 

When Girard ultimately shows the rape and directly cuts to Dary sitting in his car as his mind fully recollects what happened two years ago while his mother stares at her son point blank, the emotional impact is immensely upsetting. Dary lied not only to the police and judge to save face but also to his own mother  – it gets even worse when he tells her he did it without hesitation. It takes an expert like Dorval to react the way she did and make us feel for a loving, caring mother who took her son’s side, thinking he was innocent, only to realize that he is just as cruel, if not worse than Dary’s father (whose innate penchant for violence likely comes from him, though Girard doesn’t directly state to it). With it, she gives her greatest-ever dramatic performance, a layered and emotionally charged turn where her quiet composure is more effective at conveying raw feelings than the relationship she holds with her son. 

However, the next scene, in which Anna reveals herself to Aly, is when the emotional buildup of the film fully takes form. With one line, she describes the injustice she will likely face as Dary will live with the guilt he will literally and figuratively carry for the rest of his life. The emotional resonance is devastating and far more poignant than How to Have Sex’s ending, which teased a hopeful future incompletely. After Aly eventually confronts Dary, her life slowly begins to rebuild itself in a more hopeful direction. It’ll take time, but it will happen as the rest of the story belongs to her. 

Grade: A

Movie Review: ‘Damsel’ is in Deep Distress


Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Writer: Dan Mazeau
Stars: Millie Bobby Brown, Ray Winstone, Angela Bassett

Synopsis: A dutiful damsel agrees to marry a handsome prince, only to find the royal family has recruited her as a sacrifice to repay an ancient debt.


Netflix’s Damsel is an example of a rite of passage for rising talent. It used to be that a young female star would take the reins of a romantic comedy to cement their status as a Hollywood starlet. Soon, when the rom-rom left the public eye like the radio star, the young-adult romantic drama became the next big thing. While the YA film may never go away, youthful actors have yet to set their sights on a new kind of launching platform.

That would be the costume dark fantasy action film, proving that girls can be just as kick-ass as the rest. The Kissing Booth’s Joey King did one for Hulu in the summer of 2022 called The Princess, a fairly entertaining film that proved King could hold her own. Now, Stranger Things megastar Millie Bobby Brown has her John McClane moment as a young woman who finds herself as the damsel in distress who only needs to rely on herself. The result is that Brown holds her own in some gnarly action sequences, but the rest of the film fails to live up to its potential as a fun action diversion.

Brown stars as Eloise, the daughter of a king (Ray Winstone) who oversees a dying kingdom in the farthest point north. His people are poor, without adequate shelter and food. Eloise’s mother died many years ago, and her father married Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett), whose bloodline is anything but royal, being the daughter of a rope maker. The noblewoman has a younger sister, Floria (The Peripheral’s Brooke Carter), whom Eloise schools on leadership qualities.

Soon, the King is approached by a wealthy royal family with more gold than Eloise has ever seen. They are looking for a young lady to marry Prince Henry (Nick Robinson), the son of Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright). From the trailer, you know what happens next. They marry and soon whisk Eloise away to an ancient ceremony on the cliffs of the highest point of the kingdom. There, the Queen takes a dagger and draws blood from both happy couples’ hands so his royal blood can mix with hers. 

Oh, and then Henry tosses Eloise over a bridge as a ritual sacrifice.

Yeah, that took a turn. Damsel was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) and written by Dan Mazeau (Fast X), who falls into the trap of what I call making a video game script. As soon as Brown’s Eloise is tossed off that bridge, her mission is to escape the caves where she was sacrificed to be killed by a fire-breathing dragon. The scenes are written and filmed in a way remarkably similar to narrative-driven gameplay on your Playstation or Xbox. 

For instance, each time the titular character escapes, she finds writing on the wall that provides her with clues, warnings, and directions on how to escape. As soon as you get the feel of it, this takes away much of the suspense because you know what will happen as quickly as they start. You even have Eloise running into a few potential saviors who give her just enough information on the “mystery” of why she was betrayed, which was evident, and more escape instructions.

These special effects drenched pictures are reasonably good for a UHD television, producing a certain amount of addictive energy. However, almost all the characters are underwritten, from the villains to the main character. Again, all the departments of a video game are involved. Wright fares reasonably well, even though she is rather a one-note villain. Winstone hams it up as much as he can with nothing to do. Bassett’s only job is to act concerned, and she is over-the-top helpless, which is strange to watch from an actress known for portraying such strong female characters. Then you have Nick Robinson, who is so good in Love, Simon has nothing to do but argue with his mother, without any backbone to make the audience care.

Damsel is built for Millie Bobby Brown, who showcases her ability to helm a special effects-laden film, yet the production forgets to build around the star. Even the dragon (voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo) has no emotion and feels like you are listening to AI-generated dialogue and responses that do not resonate with the viewer. Neither does the subtext of feminist empowerment themes, which never go beyond the shallow narrative, which plays more like a marketing ploy to mirror today’s socially conscious times than have anything significant to say about the matter.

While Damsel will undoubtedly entertain fans of Brown and those who like their films consumed on autopilot, Damsel fails to generate enough interest to justify your most valuable asset—your time.

Grade: D+