We Are Movie Geeks

MAY DECEMBER – Review

*L to R: Natalie Portman as Elizabeth Berry with Julianne Moore as Gracie Atherton-Yoo, in MAY DECEMBER. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Netflix*

Director Todd Haynes re-teams with Julianne Moore, star of his Douglas Sirk-style melodrama FAR FROM HEAVEN, for another soapy melodrama (complete with emotionally-overwrought score) for Haynes’ new MAY DECEMBER. The story was apparently inspired by the 1990s Mary Kay LeTourneau case, a tabloid scandal about a married, 36-year-old teacher who was convicted of raping her 12-year-old male student, a crime for which she went to jail and where she gave birth in prison. The pair had another child and eventually married when the boy reach adulthood although they divorced years later.

It is a tabloid tale that seems made for Todd Haynes. However, while the couple in the movie have a somewhat similar history, the movie’s story takes place twenty years after the infamous events, when the still-married couple are living a comfortable, quiet suburban life in a small island town near Savannah, Georgia. Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton) are well-liked in the community which seems to have forgotten all about the scandal.

As the couple’s two younger children, boy and girl twins, are preparing for high school graduation, their quiet lives are interrupted by the arrival of a famous actress Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) who is there to research her role as Gracie in an upcoming movie about their infamous past. Hoping the film will put them in the best possible light, Gracie and Joe welcome Elizabeth into their home.

While Gracie is gracious and Elizabeth is polite, the two women have differing agendas: Gracie to keep the perfect surface her family presents to the world intact while Elizabeth gently tries to pry open any secrets hidden there. You know there must be some, which sets off a tense tango of conflicting purposes between the two women.

While some have called MAY DECEMBER a comedy, the overall tone of the film is tension and mystery, as the melodrama unfolds. As Elizabeth looks for ways to gain insights on the real Gracie and hidden details of the past, Gracie spackles over any cracks in the flawless facade they couple present to all.

There are plenty of hints of secrets and juicy tidbits but MAY DECEMBER actually promises more than it delivers on that end. What is does deliver, however, is a nice femme-centric battle of wills story. MAY DECEMBER sets up a tense pas-de-deux duel between these dual female leads, played brilliantly by Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, in this femme-centric story.

The duel between the two women has Portman and Moore playing off each other in a cat-and-mouse dance that is the film’s chief delight, particularly for those who are less enamored by Haynes’ overblown stylistic flourishes.

Still, fans of Todd Haynes’s films will find lots to please them, with dramatic twists (although what is revealed is no surprise) and swelling music to accompany them, and plenty of gossipy details in supporting characters, like Gracie’s ex-husband and children from her previous marriage, and particularly her troubled grown son. Repeatedly we are reminded that the actress Elizabeth, who will play the young Gracie, is closer in age to Joe now, as are Gracie’s grown children, and at times, Joe seems more like one of the kids as well. Gracie is by turns steely and in control, and little-girlish, particularly with Joe. Joe is opaque at first, a rock of reliability and maturity, but as Elizabeth searches for ways around Gracie’s walls, cracks in his front show up.

Not surprisingly, the film’s best scenes are between Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, as they maintain a polite surface relationship while jockeying for position and advantage to achieve their own goals. Scenes reveal neither woman to be as nice as they want people to believe, to be cunning players in this game, and in some ways more alike than either wants to think they are. Portman in particular shines in her role, showing a darker side as the complex Elizabeth than we usually see. Both characters are capable of a certain ruthlessness to get what they want, which gives their scenes together a special chill.

MAY DECEMBER serves up a Todd Haynes soapy treat for his fans, and a wonderful acting pas-de-deux between Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.

MAY DECEMBER opens Friday, Nov. 17, in theaters.

RATING: 2 out of 4 stars

THANKSGIVING – Review

Back in 2007, Quentin Tarantino rounded up some pals for a release called GRINDHOUSE, intended to re-create the experience of going to a drive-in for a schlocky double feature, complete with jingles for the snack bar and fake trailers for other movies. Funny thing about the way that turned out.

The GRINDHOUSE package did fairly well at the box office but the trailers eventually outstripped its performance by a wide margin. Robert Rodriguez’s MACHETE clip turned into two wildly successful (okay, highly successful for most, wildly for me) comedic gore-fests, with a third on the way, and boosting Danny Trejo into the stratosphere of celebrity status. HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (great title, pretty entertaining movie) became a cultish outing for Rutger Hauer. Two other trailers stayed as such – Edgar Wright’s DON’T and Rob Zombie’s WEREWOLF WOMEN OF THE S.S. Eli Roth’s THANKSGIVING teaser preview is now the third of the quintet (HOBO wasn’t included in all versions of the GRINDHOUSE release) to spawn features.

In the others, much of what was in the trailers was repeated in the movies. Same for THANKSGIVING, though the original was set in the 1970s, and this one is current. Patrick Dempsey plays the sheriff in this holiday horror/comedy yarn. The family that owns a big box store in Plymouth, Massachusetts, opens its Black Friday sale on Thursday night, causing anger among many, and a mob of customers waiting outside to rush in for the bargains the moment the doors open. When the owner’s (Rick Hoffman) teen daughter Jess (Nell Verlaque) and some of her friends are seen through the glass doors jumping the gun, the crowd goes nuts and storms the store, killing and injuring quite a few of their fellow townsmen while fighting each other for the merch they crave.

Skip ahead a year. The disaster led to multiple lawsuits and claims by the victims, spurring gestures of atonement by the ownership that still left many grudges simmering. The town, as usual, celebrates its Pilgrim heritage with a parade, and many people donning those period costumes, including masks of their first mayor, bearing a fortuitous (for the audience) resemblance to the face covering on the dude from V FOR VENDETTA. Despite the previous disaster, they plan to open on Thanksgiving night again, but with more security in place. Many are displeased. Or worse.

The early social satire about greed, consumerism and Black Friday feeding frenzies soon yields to standard slasher traditions, as a mayorally-masked figure starts killing folks off in a variety of gruesome ways, with the owning family and those young friends primarily targeted. In a mashup of the SCREAM and FINAL DESTINATION franchises, there’s suspense in “who was that masked man?” and delightfully complex and graphic methods for racking up his (or possibly her) body count. The faint of heart should pick another movie.

Roth’s concept unfortunately outpaces its execution. The entire cast consists of all the standard types doing all the standard things in completely unmemorable ways. Some of it seems like an homage; at other times, a grimly amusing genre spoof. Also, most of the proceedings are severely under-lit – presumably to ramp up the foreboding factor, but actually obscuring the action, leaving viewers less sure of who did what to whom in more than a few scenes. Given Roth’s solid horror credentials, including CABIN FEVER and the HOSTEL series, one might reasonably expect a punchier finished product. Despite its shortcomings – including an odd ending – slasher fans will still find about as much carnage as they expected when they bought the tickets. And isn’t that what matters most?

THANKSGIVING opens Friday, Nov 17, in theaters.

RATING: 2 out of 4 stars

NEXT GOAL WINS (2023) – Review

Seeing as how the football season is in full swing, filling up the TV over the next few weekends, how can the multiplex prey those sports fanatics away from the small screens? Easy. put a real-life underdog football story on the big screens. Ah, but there are a couple of twists. Unlike RUDY or ANY GIVEN SUNDAY, this new film actually focuses on what the USA sports fans call soccer, but called football globally. Oh, and it does take place way way across that globe, though it’s still technically part of this country. Plus it’s not the typical inspirational inspired-by-real-events drama, but a rollicking comedy helmed by one of the current kingpins of slapstick farce. This ragtag team of misfits just wants to score one point, perhaps in the hope that the NEXT GOAL WINS.

And just where is the setting for this story? Why, it takes place on the US territory of American Samoa. In the opening prologue, a zany local priest (Taika Watiti) relates the story of how the island’s official football was humiliated in the FIFA World Cup Finals, unable to score one goal as they lost by over thirty points at the start of the new century. Now, it’s 2014 and things have gotten worse. So bad, that the team’s manager Tavita (Oscar Kightly) pleads with FIFA to assign a new coach for them. On the other side of the world, that organization is “laying down the law” to a maverick Dutch-American coach Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender). He’s given one chance and is sent to American Samoa, much to his aggravation. Once he settled into the ramshackle digs provided for him, a boozy Rongen meets the bumbling, fumbling group of players. One of the few talents is Yaiyah (Kaimana), an energetic, but often tardy fa’afafine (local word for transgender). The duo clash immediately but eventually unite to recruit some promising natives (including a police officer) and eventually hatch a plan to sign up former members of the previous championship squad. Even with this “new blood” can the disgraced foreign coach bring glory to the little island by sending their team to “the big show”?

As the struggling island’s “last, best hope” Fassbender puts a snarky spin on the “second chance leader” role and elicits big laughs after a career of dark, brooding characters. Soon after his arrival, Rongen makes little effort to hide his annoyance at being “banished’ to this “off-the-grid purgatory”. Throughout the tale, Fassbender shows us how the coach begins to sober up after his long angry drunken stupor as he resolves to do “one good thing’ in bringing a sense of joy back to the team. There are the makings of a wacky comedy duo as Fassbender trades barbs and burns with the hapless Tavita played with loopy “sad sack’ delivery by the engaging Kightly. But the real sparks fly when the compelling Kaimana steps “up to the plate” (I know, wrong sport) as the force of nature Yaiyah. Through struggling with their decision (crippling pain from the transition medication), Yaiyah yearns for respect from Rongen after becoming a nurturing influence on the whole team. Aside from the terrific physical performers on the field, the film has a superb comic cast on the sidelines. Elizabeth Moss gets to display her comic “chops” as Rongen’s ex-wife turned boss (she’s on the FIFA board), who still encourages him to succeed while rebuffing his attempts to “rekindle the spark”. Her affections are courted by another co-worker played with smarmy arrogance by the great Will Arnett, always a hilarious comic jerk. As a sort of human “lapdog” is the great Rhys Darby who darts in and out of scenes to toss in off-kilter commentary. Oh, speaking of which, Waititi’s one-man Greek chorus, as the priest/narrator enhances every sequence as he simplifies things for us, the “non-natives”.

Oh, and Waititi does triple duty in that role while directing and co-writing the script with Iain Morris which is inspired by the 2014 documentary of the same name. Much as with his previous films outside the MCU, he populates the story with eccentric characters who are cluelessly confident in their pursuit of happiness, blithely unaware of their shortcomings. It’s evident before the games begin, as the team fails at intimidating opponents during pre-game tribal chants (a true cluster…). Waititi enjoys showcasing their foibles and failures, but still conveys an affection for these real underdogs, balancing the mockery with admiration. Though we feel we know the “uplifting” final moments, a few funny “curves” are thrown to keep the audience as off-balance as the goalie. The only real problem is that the film feels a bit “top-heavy”, with the biggest gags occurring in the opening half hour (the “boardroom intervention” is a riot) before the sports story tropes kick in before the dreaded midpoint lull of most modern movie comedies. But thanks to the terrific cast, there are more hits than misses, so for a different spin on athletes from an exotic culture, fans may want to leave those TV sports channels for the farce and fun of NEXT GOAL WINS.

2.5 Out of 4

NEXT GOAL WINS is now playing in theatres everywhere

TROLLS BAND TOGETHER- Review

Though the end of the year is mainly the mainstay of serious and somber award-seeking films, there’s almost always room for family-friendly flicks. After all, there has to be a break from all the hectic holiday preparations, and what better way to relax than getting off your feet in one of those swell reclining plush multiplex chairs? So, the “mouse house” will arrive shortly with a slick fantasy fable, but how about their “major ‘toon rival”? Well, the fine folks at Dreamworks are completing a trilogy begun seven years ago when they put a new spin on a beloved baby boomer toy. Much of that spin involves music, as the lil’ critters interpreted classic (and some brand new) pop tunes. This makes their third outing feel a bit foreshadowed as those TROLLS BAND TOGETHER.

This new outing begins with a flashback to the final performance of the huge Troll boy band BroZone. After an attempt at the “perfect harmony”, the quintet went their separate ways. And now we’re back in that Troll kingdom nestled deep in the forest. Things are more hectic than usual as Queen Poppy (voice of Anna Kendrick) and “maybe” BF Branch (Justin Timberlake) are helping with the big wedding of Bridget (Zooey Deschanel) to the Bergen King Gristle (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). Just after the “I do’s” a stranger disrupts the proceedings. It’s none other than John Dory (Eric Andre), singer and manager of BroZone who’s also Branch’s big bro! What? Branch was part of that supergroup and was then known as “Baby Branch”! And what has prompted this reunion? It seems that brother Floyd has been kidnapped by the current “red hot” singing duo, sibs Velvet (Amy Schumer) and Veneer (Andrew Rannells). They’re keeping Floyd inside a near-unbreakable glass cage to “drink in” his musical talent. Ah, but his prison can only be shattered by that ole’ perfect harmony. Yup, it’s time to get the band back together, so the trio hit the road, along with Tiny Diamond (Kenan Thompson) to find brothers Spruce and Clay to save Floyd before his singin skills are completely drained.

The returning voice actors slip back into their established roles as though nary a day has gone by since the previous flick three years ago. Timberlake has a bit of renewed energy as he appears to be having loads of fun by satirizing his own boy band past while trying to deny his attraction to Poppy. As usual, Kendrick brings lots of energetic show-tune spirit to her and gets a chance to shine after meeting her new surprise BFF (and perhaps a tad extra) Viva who is given equally frenetic vocal life by pop singing sensation Camila Cabello (and they’re another terrific song duo). Much of the flick’s laughs are provided by SNL vet Thompson who peppered the story with snarky asides as TD (who still looks like Will Ferrell’s Harry Carey to me). His comic delivery is matched by the story’s villainous twosome with Schumer delivering her insults with a hissing sneer while Rannels conveys a sweaty desperate need to serve her as her bumbling bro. The movie also has a major role for the comic ‘force of nature” Andre but aside from being the “big boss” (and very bossy), he’s given little to do as Dory.

The directing duo of Walt Dohrn and Tim Heitz keeps the pace at a fever pitch while tossing in a near-endless stream of music standards and original melodies. And like the previous films, you could almost get a visual sugar rush from the candy-coated color spectrum paired with the shimmering “sparklies”. The CGI is top of the line, though they don’t take as many stylistic chances as Dreamworks’ Puss In Boots flick from a year ago. Happily, some classic 2D animation from Titmouse Studios sneaks in with some knowing psychedelic nods to Peter Max and that YELLOW SUBMARINE. Sure, the trolls are still “homely/cute” as they bounce into the camera for tight close-ups, but the filmmakers do a deep dive into some classic animation icons of the last century. With their rubbery limbs and big eyes, Velvet and Veneer could’ve sung with Betty Boop or Flip the Frog in the 1930s. And then there are the natives of Vacay Land who recall a Muppet spin on Dr. Seuss. Much of this is merely a bonus bit of fun for the adults as the kids are mesmerized by the catchy songs and bombastically energetic lil’ critters. It’s a haphazard plot structure (the Bergens have little to do), but adults can zone out (but try not to snooze) as those TROLLS BAND TOGETHER.

1.5 Out of 4

TROLLS BAND TOGETHER is now playing in theaters everywhere

THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES – Review

So what’s one of the biggest complaints about modern movies (aside from pricey concession snacks)? Much of the grumbling concerns the many sequels to successful films, often leading to a franchise. Last week we had THE MARVELS and there’s another TROLLS romp bouncing into the multiplex this weekend. In a bit of convoluted logic, many studio execs may think, “If you’re sick of sequels, how about a prequel, instead?”. Yes, it’s semantics but it’s a way of bringing in fans of the original while not having to pay the big salaries of those older pricier casts. Now, we’ve got that “master candy maker” waiting in the wings to spruce his chocolate factory right before Christmas, and for Thanksgiving, we’re going back to that dreary dystopian future of a quartet of flicks we thought had concluded eight years ago. But since the author of its source books took a look back at its history, we’ll now get to see if “the odds” are still in their favor (Lionsgate Films) with THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES.

As the story begins we’re back on the mean streets of the Capitol of Panem as two children search for food. Dodging dangerous wild dogs they make it back to the squalid apartment they share with their Grandma’am (Fionnula Flanagan). Flash ahead seven or so years and the young boy, Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) gets ready for his high school graduation. He’s hoping he’ll be awarded the Plynth award which would take care of the expenses for Grandma’am and his older cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer). But he’s in for a shock at the ceremony when Dean Highbottom (Peter Dinklage) announces that to get this cash prize, he and his classmates will have to be “mentors” to the winning “tributes” competing for survival in the televised tenth-annual Hunger Games. Oh, and the mentors can increase their chances by coming up with new ideas (the ratings are slipping) to head game maker Dr. Gaul (Viola Davis). Soon Snow meets his assigned pair of tributes, one of whom is the beautiful, but defiant songbird from impoverished District 12, Lucy Gray Baird (Rachael Zeglar). She expresses her rebellious nature by crooning ballads that may earn her viewer support, but does she have the killer drive to eliminate her violent rivals? And what happens when the venue arena is nearly destroyed by undercover rebels? Will the crafty Snow find a way to give Gray the needed “edge”, especially as their emotional bond becomes more intense?

Handling the most pivotal role in the film, the character with the strongest connection to that original trilogy of books (stretched to four movies) is relative big-screen newcomer Blyth. We know “Corie’s” future, so Blyth must subtly give us a bit of behavioral foreshadowing. He appears noble, and we’re rooting for his budding romance, but there’s that “ultimate fate” that Blyth conveys well. It helps that he has chemistry with the Gray character, given spunk and song by Zeglar in a big switch from the sweet Maria in the recent WEST SIDE STORY remake. Early on she shows us that Lucy doesn’t have that murderous instinct, and must rely on rallying the masses with her music. Zeglar displays that panic in combat, but is in complete control as she becomes a country crooning crusader, reminding us of many “Nashville belles” like Patsy Cline. As for the “game bosses”, Davis channels a bit of her Amanda Waller persona from the DC “movie verse” (supposedly she’ll survive the recent “purge”) as the cruel devious, mad-scientist Gaul, sporting a single blue eye to make her more “alien”. Dinklage is a sneering sod as the equally cruel and deceitful academic, chugging tiny tubes of booze as he weaves his web of evil. The story’s only real comic relief role is deftly handled by Jason Schwartzman as the smarmy unctuous host of the televised global death match, weatherman/magician “Lucky Flickerman”, an obnoxiously flamboyant phony. The superb character actor Burn Gorman shows up in the film’s last half as a strict military man, but he’s given little to do other than to hover ominously over Snow and Gray.

To offer another connection to the previous quartet of films, their original director Frances Lawrence returns to helm the screenplay adaptation by Michaels Lesslie and Arndt of the Suzanne Collins novel. Once again he creates the look and feel of a grim, soul-crushing future world with desaturated colors as clouds drift over the double sword-wielding statue at the center of Panem. And that may be part of the many problems in that we’ve seen it already, four times over. While the original “opened up the story” by having the skirmishes occur in the more pleasant countryside, this one’s “game” is played in an empty concrete arena filled with slabs of stone and dark hallways. Then, when we believe a “conclusion” has happened, the film jumps ahaead to a new setting for a “B” plot that feels more like an entirely new tale. And it’s not nearly as interesting making it seem as though it will never really finish. The final “epilogue” has so many “future jumps” and foreshadowing (and a subplot that’s left unresolved) that the casual viewer will feel hopelessly lost and unsatisfied after such a long investment of time. Perhaps it would’ve worked more coherently as a streaming app miniseries. This certainly won’t gain any new followers of the franchise as only the hardcore fans will embrace the rambling, uninvolving THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES.

One Out of Four

THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES is now playing in theaters everywhere

Watch The Brand New Trailer For IMAGINARY

Pyper Braun as Alice in Imaginary. Photo Credit: Parrish Lewis

In theaters March 8 is the horror film IMAGINARY.

From Blumhouse, the genre-defining masterminds behind FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S and M3GAN, comes an original horror that taps into the innocence of imaginary friends – and begs the question: Are they really figments of childhood imagination or is something more terrifying lying just beneath?

When Jessica (DeWanda Wise) moves back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) develops an eerie attachment to a stuffed bear named Chauncey she finds in the basement. Alice starts playing games with Chauncey that begin playful and become increasingly sinister.

As Alice’s behavior becomes more and more concerning, Jessica intervenes only to realize Chauncey is much more than the stuffed toy bear she believed him to be.

IMAGINARY is directed by Jeff Wadlow (Cry Wolf, Truth or Dare, Kick-Ass 2 and Fantasy Island). The cast includes DeWanda Wise, Tom Payne, Taegen Burns, Pyper Braun, with Veronica Falcon, and Betty Buckley.

Check Out This First Look At Arkasha Stevenson’s THE FIRST OMEN

Nell Tiger Free as Margaret in 20th Century Studios’ THE FIRST OMEN. Photo credit: Moris Puccio/20th Century Studios. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Today, 20th Century Studios released a first look at its upcoming psychological thriller “The First Omen.” The film, which is a prequel to the classic horror film franchise, will open April 5, 2024, exclusively in theaters nationwide.

When a young American woman is sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the church, she encounters a darkness that causes her to question her own faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy that hopes to bring about the birth of evil incarnate.

“The First Omen” stars Nell Tiger Free (“Servant”), Tawfeek Barhom (“Mary Magdalene”), Sonia Braga (“Kiss of the Spider Woman”), Ralph Ineson (“The Northman”), and Bill Nighy (“Living”). The film is directed by Arkasha Stevenson, based on characters created by David Seltzer (“The Omen”), with a story by Ben Jacoby (“Bleed”) and a screenplay by Tim Smith & Arkasha Stevenson and Keith Thomas (“Firestarter”). The producers are David S. Goyer (“Hellraiser”) and Keith Levine (“The Night House”) and the executive producers are Tim Smith, Whitney Brown (“Rosaline”), and Gracie Wheelan.

Win Passes To The St. Louis Advance Screening Of Emerald Fennell’s SALTBURN

Academy Award winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) brings us a beautifully wicked tale of privilege and desire. Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family’s sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten.

The score is by composer Anthony Willis (Promising Young Woman, M3GAN).

Amazon MGM Studios’ upcoming film SALTBURN will premiere in theatres nationwide on November 22nd.

https://www.saltburnfilm.com/

The St. Louis advance screening is Tuesday, November 21st, 7pm at AMC Esquire.

Please arrive early as seating is not guaranteed.

ENTER AT THE LINK: https://amazonscreenings.com/YTkLK83590

Rated R

Courtesy of MGM and Amazon Studios

“Varg Veum” – TV series review

“Varg Veum” is the eponymous title of this Norwegian crime series. The star (Trond Espen Seim) is a former social worker turned private detective due to frustration with the failings of public service agencies. More accurately, he was fired for beating up a drug dealer who was pushing product to kids he was trying to protect. In classic genre style, Varg is a scruffy fellow with a marginal income trying to do some meaningful good for people and the community between times he has to tail cheating spouses to keep his business afloat. The Norwegian series aired from 2007 – 2012 and must have been popular in its homeland, since Seim returned as the same character in about a dozen movie incarnations filmed during and for several years after its run. Topic is releasing its six-episode first season for streaming here.

This is one to enjoy without having to binge, since each episode is a new case. It’s advisable to see them in order, since progressive relationships between Varg and the cops – mainly detective Hamre (Bjorn Floberg) – and another acquired colleague also follow tradition as trust and respect among them grow, albeit rather slowly. That and a few other sources provide bits of comic relief in the mostly serious proceedings. Though less violent than our typical domestic fare, Varg does tend to recklessly put himself in danger more than one with his limited fighting skills should attempt. Unconsciousness is no stranger to Varg, though it’s somewhat offset by the occasional upswing in his romantic life.

The stories are diverse and generally well-written, maintaining suspense and tension in most episodes. Industrial pollution, financial and political corruption, robberies, murders and infidelities are all fodder for these scripts. One admirable aspect of the series is the moral complexity of its tales. Good guys and bad guys aren’t just cookie-cutter types. Exploration of characters’ characters makes these play out with a richer texture than many, with a number of highly intense dramatic moments. If you also find Episode 5 to be relatively weak, fear not. Episode 6 was the strongest.

Varg Veum winds up being a character most fans of crime fiction should find a satisfactory repository of empathy. If so, there are six more episodes in Season 2, and all those movies floating around somewhere.

“Varg Veum: Season One,” in Norwegian with English subtitles begins on Topic on Nov. 9, 2023, with two episodes streaming on Topic on that date and with two more released each week thereafter.

RATING: 2.5 out of 4 stars

MADAME WEB First Trailer Drops And Stars Dakota Johnson

MADAME WEB opens in theaters on February 14, 2024.

“Meanwhile, in another universe…” In a switch from the typical genre, Madame Web tells the standalone origin story of one of Marvel publishing’s most enigmatic heroines. The suspense-driven thriller stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, a paramedic in Manhattan who may have clairvoyant abilities. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures…if they can all survive a deadly present.

Directed by SJ Clarkson, watch the first trailer now.

MADAME WEB stars Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott

Listen to Dakota Johnson talk about the film below.

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