Turning Red: When it's at its best in the early portions of the film, Turning Red is a funny, sweet and vibrant tale that explores the plight of a young Chinese-Candian girl (Rosalie Chiang) trying to cope with the burden of her changing body and relationship with her strict mother (Sandra Oh) that controls every aspect of her life. During the second half when it leans heavier into exploring the supernatural mythology that provides its puberty metaphors with a fantastical edge, it becomes a jarring, directionless foray into a subgenre that just doesn't gel with the messaging it provides and tone it strikes during the rest of the film. There's enough good stuff present here to believe that Domee Shi-who is making her directional debut here- will eventually figure things out, her storytelling just isn't polished or focused enough to meet the high standard her longtime employers have established over the past 25 years quite yet.
Grade: B-
The Outfit: Oscar-winning screenwriter Graham Moore (The Imitation Game) has finally reemerged from the long hiatus he took after winning said gold statue in 2015 with a pretty strong directorial debut that makes his return feel particularly welcome. The Outfit is a crime mystery thriller that makes effective use of a single setting by turning a Chicago tailor shop that is frequented by seemingly every mobster in the city into a claustrophobic den of horrors where people's darkest secrets and true identities are slowly revealed over the course of a single evening where the confirmation of a rat among one of the outfit's operations causes mass upheaval within the city's criminal underworld. The damn fine performances from its central cast (Mark Rylance in an all too rare lead role as the owner of the tailor shop, Zoey Deutch, Johnny Flynn, Dylan O'Brien) seamlessly sell all the deceptive mind games and potential power grabs that are on display alongside the finely crafted suits and Moore's script does a good job of creating suspicion and misdirection as he's slowly unmasking who these people really are. It gets a little too cute with the onslaught of twists it unleashes in the final half hour and the pacing takes a pretty long while to settle into a consistent rhythm, but Moore has made a solid, contained crime film that proves he has a future as a director if that's the career path he wants to take.
Grade: B
X: X manages to both meet and subvert what people expected to see from a 70's-set slasher film that revolves around an amateur porn shoot at a secluded Texas farmhouse. Alongside all of the screwing and gory butchering of the doomed souls (Mia Goth, Brittany Snow, Jenna Ortega, Scott Mescudi, Martin Henderson, Owen Campbell) that are setting out to make their own version of Debbie Does Dallas, X finds the space to create a collection of characters that cleverly transcend the archetypal genre roles (self-absorbed party girl, conservative religious girl, etc.) they appear to be filling on paper by turning them into smart, relatable individuals who all have their own motivations to get involved with the production of this film, compose some of the most uniquely breathtaking shot selections to appear in a film of late and uses a smart, unexpected allegory involving an area of aging that isn't discussed much to power the villain's (also played by Goth under heavy makeup/prosthetics) motivations that helps generate some sincere empathy for her before all hell breaks loose in the brutal, eerie and darkly hilarious final act. Writer/director/co-editor Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers) displays a really assured touch in his cohesive, stylish packaging of this dynamic melting pot of influences, genres and themes and the cast (particularly Goth, Snow and Mescudi) displays the eagerness and emotional buy-in to go to the expected and unexpected places West needs them to go to bring his uniquely twisted vision to life. X might be not the most purely enjoyable slasher to come out of the revival movement that has emerged over the past half-decade, but it sure as hell is the boldest and most surprising.
Grade: B+
Deep Water: Fresh out of the secluded depths of the adult section of the Disney vault that the Mouse Brigade has made for the Fox releases that they don't give a shit about (which seems to be nearly all of them), Deep Water -aka as the film that birthed the romance between Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas that got the paparazzi through the early days of the pandemic in 2020-has landed on streaming just a few months after its planned theatrical release was officially canceled and the distribution rights outside of the United States were sold off to Amazon. Now that it's out in the world, it's not exactly difficult to figure out why Disney banished this project to the streaming purgatory.
Deep Water is a throwback to the erotic thrillers of the 80's and 90's that boasts a shockingly small amount of the over-the-top sex scenes, graphic violence and horny sleaziness that made the genre so appealing for fans of campy trash entertainment. There also appears to be some evidence that the version of the film that was released was given the good old fashioned studio meddling treatment in the editing room-which *surprise surprise* leads to some editing/storytelling gaps that almost certainly weren't present in the original version and likely led to the really shitty test screening scores that killed its planned theatrical release.
So, did the rough execution of its story and softening of the core erotic thriller elements completely sink Deep Water? Shockingly no and the efforts of the former paparazzi darling couple are solely to thank. Affleck and de Armas simply sell the shit out of their character's jealously-and-lust-fueled dynamic. Both characters are just so brazenly boastful about the evil things they're doing to hurt each other (de Armas' Melinda is openly cheating on Affleck's Vic with multiple men and Vic is proceeding to kill these men to get back at Melinda for being unfaithful) that it makes every scene in which they appear together endearing. The degree of hate, jealously and devilish playfulness present in these interactions creates the sheer confrontational electricity that exists between them that flat-out eviscerates the muddy writing, wonky editing and dull side characters that are actively trying to kneecap the tremendous work these titans of toxicity are engaging in to keep this janky ship on its intended course of mutually assured destruction. Now, who do I have to talk to help launch Affleck and de Armas' Oscar campaigns for next year?
Grade: B-
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