Stimulating, combustible, nauseating, and repulsive are all perfect adjectives to describe director, writer, co-producer, and co-editor Coralie Fargeat’s (Revenge) explorative and provocative The Substance. This film doesn’t just knock on the door of critiques of the societal obsession with youth and beauty but blows off its shutters. The Substance offers no subtlety in its themes. This film is designed to make its audiences feel as squeamish as the entertainment industry’s treatment of women, particularly older women. The impossible beauty standards and society’s preoccupation with youth (particularly young, attractive women) are nothing new. Fargeat meticulously brings this to the forefront and apologizes for nothing. Nor should she.
Category Archives: Drama
After Everything (2018)
Jeremy Allen White has a commanding presence. Whether he’s the troubled but brilliant New York chef Carmy Berzatto in FX’s The Bear or the successful but haunted professional wrestler Kerry Von Erich in The Iron Claw, Allen shows how to make his character the one that you can’t take your eyes off of in each scene. Before his recent success and recognition from this show and movie, Allen was known for his recurring role on Showtime’s Shameless. During the show’s decade-long run, White was carving out a name for himself on the big screen during that time with critically acclaimed but mostly unseen Afterschool, We Gotta Get Out of This Place Bobby, and co-directors Hannah Marks (Don’t Make Me Go, Turtles All the Way Down) and Joey Power’s romantic dramedy After Everything.
The Bikeriders (2024)
Director Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud) is an expert at creating ordinary characters, putting them in everyday situations, and allowing interactions and relationships to carry the story. He has masterfully accomplished this through films I adore, such as Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, and Mud, and through films, such as Midnight Special and Loving, that aren’t quite as good as a whole but still have well-crafted characters. The Bikeriders, his most recent film, follows a similar blueprint but fails to tell an exciting story or have a single character we genuinely care about. While well made with a stellar cast that put forward the effort, the film was a snoozefest.
The Dark Knight (2008)
Many deem Christopher Nolan’s (Interstellar, Oppenheimer) The Dark Knight the best comic book movie ever. Those and others consider Nolan’s three Batman films the quintessential superhero trilogy. The Dark Knight is the franchise’s standout, successfully eclipsing the superhero genre and delivering an eerie tale of good versus evil that requires many chief characters to make layered, moral decisions at a moment’s notice. In particular, The Joker (Heath Ledger – Brokeback Mountain, Monster’s Ball), the film’s villain, continually requires its protagonists to choose between what is best for them and society’s greater good. Fans of superhero movies and those who traditionally have little to no interest in that genre can equally appreciate The Dark Knight.
61* (2001)
HBO (now Max) has been producing its own feature-length films since 1982, averaging 10-15 releases each year. Most of these films have little to no marketing behind them, nor are they distributed by a major studio or star A-list actors. With very few exceptions, these films go mostly unseen. However, there have been exceptions. These include The Normal Heart, Bad Education, Live from Baghdad, and Behind The Candelabra. Perhaps HBO’s most celebrated and widely received original movie is the Billy Crystal-directed (Forget Paris, Mr. Saturday Night) 61*, chronicling the 1961 single-season home run chase between New York Yankees teammates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle.