- Wildcat lacks O’Connor’s oddness, but brims with passionEthan Hawke’s Wildcat opens, very nearly, with a familiar scenario: a dispiriting encounter between a young artist with an exacting creative vision and a conventional corporate gatekeeper with a checklist approach to what sells. The scene depicts a real-life exchange between 24-year-old Mary Flannery O’Connor (played by Maya Hawke, the director’s daughter) and her editor at ... read more
- Furiosa tells the story of a world (almost) without hopeFuriosa: A Mad Max Saga opens with a God’s-eye view of a fragile sliver of green in a vast expanse of rust orange: an oasis of life in the post-apocalyptic desert landscape of George Miller’s Mad Max films. How fragile the Green Place is, even its guardians don’t know. All they know is that ... read more
- Two things I wish George Miller had done differently in Furiosa: A Mad Max SagaGeorge Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a blast, and, while its box-office crash and burn is disappointing on a number of levels, it’s well-made enough that I’m sure it will go on to be watched, discussed, and even studied for years. (Read my review at U.S. Catholic.) No, it doesn’t outdo Mad ... read more
- Crisis of Meaning on Infinite Earths, part 1: The multiverse and superhero movies“The Multiverse Idea Is Rotting Culture,” Sam Kriss argued in The Atlantic all the way back in 2016. That was long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s massive “Multiverse Saga” even started to unfold, although the groundwork was laid that same year in Scott Derrickson’s Doctor Strange. Two years later, the creative and popular triumph ... read more
- Crisis of meaning, part 2: The lie at the end of the MCU multiverseQuestions of meaning and nihilism in the MCU multiverse and the Spider-Verse have become inseparable from the multiverse-policing agencies in both sagas. The Spider-Verse has the Spider-Society, while the MCU has the Time Variance Authority or TVA, first seen in Loki but coming to the big screen in the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine movie. ... read more
- Crisis of meaning, part 3: What lies beyond the Spider-Verse?It’s interesting to compare and contrast the TVA with the other Marvel multiverse-policing organization, revealed in last summer’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: the Spider-Society. (A sequel to 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Across the Spider-Verse is the middle movie in a projected trilogy, with a cliffhanger ending to be resolved in part 3, Beyond ... read more
- The Wild RobotThe last third stumbles, I think, in reaching for even larger themes while settling for a standard Hollywood heroes-vs.-villains action finale—but, thankfully, none of this detracts from what the film has already achieved. If the movie creaks a bit as it transitions from a winsome tale of an awkward mother of an awkward child learning ... read more
- SDG’s Top 10 Christmas movies list!Alas, between teaching both high school and university as well as my diaconal work, the only extracurricular writing I’ve been able to do is what I’ve called “quick wins”—i.e., short pieces I don’t have to work too hard on—for my all-purpose Substack, All Things SDG. I do hope to get back to more regular movie ... read more
- Paddington in Peru is pleasant, underachieving nonsenseIf you’re as much a fan of writer-director Paul King’s two Paddington movies as I am, you may think of them often while watching this threequel, from first-time feature director Dougal Wilson. Partly, perhaps, because you might just think of them often in general — but also because this film, while charting its own ... read more
- The Life of Chuck: Stephen King and Mike Flanagan on life, death, and the end of the worldLovingly adapted from Stephen King’s novella of the same name, The Life of Chuck was written and directed by Mike Flanagan, for whom the material is so well suited that King might as well have written it for him. Both storytellers are best known for horror, which The Life of Chuck is not, despite some ... read more
- Elio is a space adventure that Toy Story’s Andy would actually enjoyWhile this may not make it a great film, it does make Elio the kind of movie that will actually captivate young viewers in particular. Where other recent Pixar releases have been distinctly adolescent coming-of-age stories (Turning Red, Elemental) and/or focused on mature themes (Soul, Onward), Elio is fantastical escapism for children. It’s very silly; ... read more
- Gunn’s Superman is silly and sincere, and that’s good. It could be smarter.Insofar as writer-director Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) was hired to make an definitive break from the nihilistic, grimdark Snyderverse DC movies and recover a sense of Superman as a character so decent and generous that it’s okay if he’s corny: mission accomplished. This is the first new big-screen interpretation of Superman since the Christopher ... read more
- “Not I, But God”: Interview with Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to Reality director Tim MoriartyIn July of last year I interviewed filmmaker Tim Moriarty for The Catholic Spirit in connection with his documentary Jesus Thirsts: The Miracle of the Eucharist. His latest nonfiction film, Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to Reality, blends Eucharistic themes with concerns about digital technology as these motifs converge in the life and spirituality of Millennial ... read more
- Antidote to the digital revolution: Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to RealityI have long been proud of my kids for having spontaneously decided, many years ago, to give up all video games every Lent, except on Sunday afternoons and on any solemnities. Carlo Acutis, though, was next level. At eight years old, he was given a PlayStation console — and he resolved to limit himself ... read more
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