THE CREATOR Review

Visually absorbing if not thematically so. Though the ideas it's playing with and tropes it's utilizing may not be as shallow as they initially appear they tend to feel cursory due to the fact writer/director Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Rogue One) never finds the right groove for his film to slide into. The Creator is ultimately a movie of fits and starts in which each new promise of something exciting and/or interesting never fully delivers on as much.

It's an odd feeling, really, given mere minutes into the film I was bowled over by the authenticity imbued on an image of a massive spacecraft hovering over a more natural (and clearly real) location. I'm a sucker for when films can integrate futuristic or not yet realized elements into a more common and recognizable environment and Edwards has a great eye for such combinations that really allow both components to pop, but while I was immediately in on the aesthetic I kept wondering when I was going to be made to care or even be wowed by anything other than the framing.

Aside from a few in-world inventions, performance moments (largely from Madeleine Yuna Voyles in a really wonderful and really complicated role for a child to play), along with some questionable story turns there wasn't anything that made me sit up in a way that I was inclined to lean forward. Rather, I kind of shifted my weight to the other armrest to consider why the film didn't seem interested in leaning into its ideas either. The mission is fairly straightforward, but the intentions are not...always. Weirdly, and despite admitting it was beings operating on artificial intelligence who nuked Los Angeles, The Creator is determined to convince us the only thing left of our souls are the fingerprints we left on the programming within the robots we're now at war with.

DUMB MONEY Review

A loud and frenetic character piece that doesn’t always give its large ensemble enough for viewers to really invest in (get it), but also delivers stock talk succinctly enough for the casual viewer to understand while kind of inherently hammering home its ideas around power, exclusivity, and the frustration that comes with not having access to the biggest motivating factor of human behavior.

Eclectic director Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya, Cruella) knows the script from Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo has a lot going on (maybe too much at times) but he and editor Kirk Baxter (a frequent Fincher collaborator) seem to have understood the assignment from the get-go as there is a certain tempo to the film’s tone that allows for the transitions from one set of characters to the next and from one scenario to another to all feel like part of the same conversation. Whether it’s Pete Davidson, a DoorDash driver, scolding his brother immaturely for not selling at $11 million or Seth Rogen, portraying billionaire Gabe Plotkin, yelling at someone about his tennis courts there is a keen sense of forward motion in the construction of the film that keeps things moving as well as entertaining to the point you don’t question what is lacking or consider what could have been; you’re too busy trying to keep up with all that is going on to catch your breath, but most importantly…you’re having a good time.

A true time stamp of a film, Dumb Money is a thing of such recent history it may feel almost irrelevant in this moment but will undoubtedly serve as a fascinating encapsulation of this very specific snapshot in time years down the road. Presently, the casting makes this a lot of fun - especially in regard to the big wigs taking big shots – but this is Dano’s show and while, as someone from the South, I can’t tell whether he’s doing a good Boston accent or not, the performance itself is super charming and wholly endearing. We’re meant to come out of this rooting for Keith Gill and you absolutely do (I haven’t been able to stop asking for “tendies” since I saw the film).

BOTTOMS Review

I wanted to watch this again as soon as the credits (which were intercut with bloopers, I might add) ended. For 92-minutes writer/director Emma Seligman's (Shiva Baby) sophomore effort maintains a level of energy and intensity that shouldn't be overlooked. It's easy for movies to come out of the gate strong, it's admittedly difficult for movies to stick the landing, but one of the most overlooked and undervalued skills in filmmaking as a beginning to end process is maintaining the tone and energy you come out of the gate with through to the end and Bottoms comes out of the gate strong. Fortunately, Seligman and star Rachel Sennott's screenplay seemingly accomplishes everything it sets out to do, but more importantly it excels in doing so. The way in which the dialogue feels so natural, the rate at which the jokes land, and the simple creativity involved in crafting and conveying this hyper-realized version of high school where no one is subtle about or offended by which clique they belong to or where they land in the pecking order is simultaneously so impressive and so wildly funny that those aforementioned 92-minutes feel like nothing, a tease, which means all you can and want to do when the film ends is to watch it again immediately. 

Bottoms is a film as easy to appreciate as it is to be entertained by. It's not hard to spot all the ways in which Seligman and Sennott wanted to put their own stamp on the genre. This is still very much a high school movie in the vein of two best friends trying to get laid their senior year before leaving for college, but with the gender swap bit being only the first layer in their scheme to recontextualize this quest we've witnessed so many times before. Sennott and breakout star Ayo Edebiri are best friends PJ and Josie who are also both lesbians but are not involved with one another romantically. Josie is crushing on head cheerleader Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) who is currently dating the alpha male of the school in Josh (Nicholas Galitzine) while PJ would love to hook up with Isabel's right hand gal Brittany (Kaia Gerber) because she may as well be Cindy Crawford ;). Sounds simple enough, right? It is. Don't fret. Thematically we're not going for much more than some simple, universal truths about how tough it can be in those coming-of-age years, but it is in the attitude and style of how it presents itself that Bottoms really stands on its own.