Category: Movies

The Best UFO Movies of All Time

The Best UFO Movies of All Time

UFOs (or UAPs – “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena”) have been in the news as our military recently shot three different unidentified flying objects out of the skies over North America. That happened quickly on the heels of the now-infamous “Chinese Spy Balloon” that made its way over the country before that was shot down off the coast of North Carolina. Are all of these phenomena simply the discovery of advanced intelligence tech (most likely Chinese)? It’s certainly likely…but what if they aren’t? According to the website Live Science, the government investigated 366 unidentified objects in 2022…171 of which are still unidentified.

Of course, Hollywood has been telling us for years what these objects “truly” are–aliens. The flying saucer has been a staple of the movies since there have been movies, with the genre booming starting in the 1950s. While the flying objects have gotten more elaborate, the questions these movies ask have remained constant: Are we alone in the universe? And, if not, what do alien races want? With UFOs so in the news, this seems a perfect time to take a look at some of the best UFO movies of all time. Note: all of these movies are generally UFO-focused. The presence of aliens alone isn’t enough; we want there to be actual UFOs. The presence of spaceships isn’t enough; in spaceship movies, people know what the spaceships are. These movies all look to the skies, see that thing we don’t understand, and attempt to understand and respond.

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Review: “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”

Review: “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania”

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is the 31st movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the first in Phase Five of the ongoing storyline of the Avengers and Avengers-adjacent superheroes. Needless to say, Marvel knows how to make one of these movies now. The strength of the MCU has been in its ability to craft a formula that combines action, comedy, and characters you come to know and care about, all while moving one big story together. But the saying that familiarity breeds contempt is also true. Quantumania does not exactly inspire contempt. But the real problem is that it doesn’t really inspire anything. It’s not that its bad; its fine. But it isn’t any more than fine. To put it simply: it just…is.

Quantumania picks up at some point after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Ant-Man/Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is enjoying the celebrity that has come with helping save the world. His self-satisfaction has seemingly made him self-absorbed; his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton of Freaky) points out how he has stopped caring about helping the little man while she gets arrested for her actions at protests. As it turns out, Cassie is actually a scientific genius whose skills are being honed by the Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), his wife Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), and their daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly), the Wasp (even though they were blipped out of existence during Cassie’s formative years and…never mind, don’t think, just watch). Cassie has built an antennae to the Quantum Realm, the subatomic universe that Janet was trapped in for decades, Scott for five years, and so on. When she finds out, Janet freaks out, just in time for the doohickey to suck them all into the Quantum Realm (oops). Turns out, Janet has failed to tell those closest to her that, before her rescue, she was a freedom fighter/terrorist wanted by Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), who was banished to the realm. The gang gets separated, there are rebels who like or don’t like Scott and Cassie, depending on the moment. Janet brings Hank and Hope along to find Bill Murray (there’s a character name, but at this point, it just doesn’t matter), who is supposed to help but betrays them to Kang. Lots of fighting ensues. And then there are after credits scenes to tease future installments of the MCU, which I’m convinced is the main reason anybody is watching these movies anymore.

Most of the problems with the MCU are present here. Almost the entire movie exists in the alternate Quantum Realm, which means almost everything we see is very CGI-looking CGI. The best of the MCU (e.g., Iron Man, most of the Captain America films) remains very tactile–superheroes exist in our real world and do real world things, so their superhumanity remains tethered to their humanity. That was lacking here. Also lacking–for the most part–is character development. It seems like the powers that be believe we know enough about Scott (okay) and Hope (not really), so, for a movie named for their characters, we don’t get much of them realistically encountering these circumstances. Cassie is woefully underdeveloped; we saw her for about one minute in Endgame–this was the movie that should have fleshed her out, but it has to move too quickly to furthering the narrative (and MCU metanarrative) along that she just is the things she has to be (Hey, she’s a scientific genius! Hey, she has an Ant-Man suit and knows how to use it!). The only two characters who get something close to explaining them are Janet and Kang, but the former’s story is kind of unrealistic based on what we already know about her and the latter’s is inconsistent–at times overpowering and at other times pretty ordinary. Kang is the big bad of the next two phases of the MCU and thus should be consistently awesome, but, again, moving the story supplants developing his motivation.

That said, all is not Hope-less. As I said, Quantumania was not bad. Even though the script is generally lazy and inconsistent, the cast does their best with what they have. Michelle Pfeiffer embraces being a rock-star action hero and carries as much weight as she can into this alternate reality. And Jonathan Majors, who is one of my current favorite actors (you owe it to yourself to see The Last Black Man in San Francisco if you haven’t), has lots of moments where you can see the awesomeness that his role in the MCU will provide. If you saw the TV show Loki (yeah, you’re supposed to watch the TV shows, too), he was exceptional in the last episode as a different version of the Kang character in that universe (it’s a comic book thing, just go with it). Plus, Paul Rudd is always super likable, so you can’t ever get really bummed out by a movie with him. So, thanks to the cast, Quantumania is still pretty watchable.

Quantumania may be evidence that the MCU has gotten lazy and the only motivation for releasing these movies is that people will still spend lots of money to go to see them. That’s probably true. But it’s also still okay to just go to see a big, loud, and fun movie in the theater. And Quantumania is probably still also that.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is in theaters.

(Photo credit: Marvel)

When the Surreal Becomes the Rational: “Knock at the Cabin” and Believing the “Unbelievable”

When the Surreal Becomes the Rational: “Knock at the Cabin” and Believing the “Unbelievable”

M. Night Shyamalan has not shied away from the intersection of faith and rationality. From Cole’s ability to see the dead in The Sixth Sense to Father Graham’s realization of the prophetic in Signs to the weight of mortality crashing down on the beachgoers in Old, Shyamalan’s brand of horror/thriller regularly dwells in the space where its characters are faced with the inexplicable becoming their reality and must choose how to deal with it. In his latest, Knock at the Cabin, Shyamalan makes the entire movie about the choice to accept the unbelievable when the unbelievable becomes the unavoidable.

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We Need Each Other: Community and “A Man Called Otto”

We Need Each Other: Community and “A Man Called Otto”

Otto is a pretty typical “grumpy old man.” Every day, he walks the block of his “gated” community (it’s a single street with a gate) and takes note of everything that his neighbors have done which violates the homeowner’s association. He does help his neighbors, but only because they are “idiots” who don’t know how to do the simple things he knows how to do and only after complaining about being called on to do it. As we dig deeper, Otto is not only grumpy, but truly angry; life has taken away the only thing he cares about and he has no desire to keep living. When a pregnant immigrant woman and her family move in across the street, however, Otto has to learn to come to terms with the anger that drives everyone away and see if he can embrace life with others, even if its not on his terms.

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2023 Movie Preview: Part One

2023 Movie Preview: Part One

Now that I’ve finished my review of the best movies of 2022, it’s time to look ahead to a new year of movies! And, yes, I missed January, but, to be honest, the best movies in the theater and on streaming in January are those from 2022, so I don’t think you missed anything really important. Today, I’ll give you my most anticipated movie for each month of the year through June. In Part Two, we’ll hit the rest of the year. Reminder: dates are always subject to change, so cut me some slack if I get one wrong. With that, let’s go…

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The Top 10 Films of 2022 – #1 – “Aftersun”

The Top 10 Films of 2022 – #1 – “Aftersun”

The setup and plot are a simple as simple can be: a father and a daughter are on vacation (or, because they’re Scottish, “holiday”) together at a beach resort. We follow them on that holiday. On the surface, that’s what we see. But, thanks to brilliant direction from first-time director Charlotte Wells and amazing performances by Oscar nominee Paul Mescal and young Frankie Corio, Aftersun is about so much more than that. In Corio’s Sophie, we see a young girl on the edge of leaving her childhood behind, but still finding needed comfort in it. In Mescal’s Calum, we see a man fighting to hold onto his daughter and her image of her father against the doubts that his life have pounded him with.

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The Top 10 Films of 2022 – #2 – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

The Top 10 Films of 2022 – #2 – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

I love big, sprawling movies that are about big issues: the meaning of life, the nature of humanity, time and space, the emotional heights and depths of our existence. And there was one movie this year that was the biggest and sprawlingest (okay, not a word, but this film deserves a new word) mediations on literally all of those topics and more. To be fair, Everything Everywhere All at Once could have been my #1 movie of the year because it’s not only big and sprawling, but masterful and as emotionally fulfilling as film gets. While I liked one other film just a hair more, that’s not a reflection on any unworthiness here. Everything Everywhere All at Once lives up to its name in all the best ways.

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“Missing” Misses the Mark with Too Many Twists

“Missing” Misses the Mark with Too Many Twists

I just got back from my daughter’s archery tournament and sat down to right this review. I looked up the phrase “too many twists,” and it turns out that the phrase applies to archery. When you put a new string on a bow, you twist it. But, if you twist it too often, it will negatively affect your aim. The bow cannot properly work when there are too many twists in the string.

The same is true of movies. A plot twist or two is a great way to build suspense and subvert expectations, adding to the enjoyment of the film. But too many twists start to feel like a cheat to get the result you want, tells the audience not to trust what they’re seeing, and stretches credulity so far that the movie misses being the effective thriller it could have been. And so it is with Missing. The first plot twist or two immerses you into a reasonably well-crafted mystery. But the movie goes for several twists too many, robbing the movie of the tension it was trying to achieve.

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The Top 10 Films of 2022 – #3 – “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”

The Top 10 Films of 2022 – #3 – “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”

2019’s Knives Out was a throwback blast–a single-setting murder mystery full of celebrities in the tradition of old Agatha Christie whodunits–with some contemporary twists. It was clever, suspenseful, and hilarious, with just a touch a social commentary. This year, writer/director Rian Johnson and his southern gentleman detective, Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc, returned with Glass Onion, which follows a similar formula, but, in my opinion, does so just a little bit better.

This time, Blanc is invited to a murder mystery weekend with the “Disruptors,” a group of friends who are also well-connected, influential types. A governor (Katherine Hahn), a fashion mogul (Kate Hudson), a celebrity scientist (Leslie Odom, Jr.), and right-wing Twitch commentator (Dave Bautista) all join tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton, who bears a not-unintentional resemblance to Elon Musk) for a weekend on his private island at which his friends will solve his “murder.” Two complications quickly arise. First, another friend, Andi (Janelle Monae), who has had some kind of falling out with the rest of the group, is also invited. Second, we find out pretty quickly that Miles has not invited Blanc, but that someone else has made sure he will be there. As should be expected, the proceedings result in a real murder, or maybe two, for Benoit Blanc to solve. And, as he did in Knives Out, Johnson subverts the formula: at the halfway mark, we go back in time to find out that there has been another murder which has led to Blanc’s invitation. We then revisit the events of the first half of the movie having been let in on that secret, which allows us to reassess various actions and motives. We then circle back to the big reveal, which leads to a (literally) explosive climax.

I, for one, would be satisfied if Rian Johnson just made Benoit Blanc movies for the next several years (the third installment is underway). He has such a knack for twisty stories that feel like they have real stakes. Glass Onion is right at home next to Knives Out and his time-travel flick Looper in that regard. He also has a great sense of creating character. Despite only having two hours to tell the story, we get eight well-drawn characters whose motives we understand quite well as the mystery unwinds. Craig seems to have even more fun with Blanc this time. Early on, we see him riding out the pandemic depressed at the lack of having a mystery to solve. The invitation to get Blanc to the island turns him into a kid in a candy store; he is so desperate for a mystery that he ruins the murder mystery weekend by solving it in the first two minutes with unbridled joy and satisfaction. I cannot wait to see Craig further flesh out this character in future installments. As with Knives Out and Ana de Armas, we get a fantastic representative “everywoman” character from Janelle Monae that we get to root for. While I thought almost all of the performances were great, Monae’s is the cream of this crop. Throw in a clever spoof of contemporary tech celebrity culture, a treasure trove of great lines (“Birdie, please tell me you did not think sweatshops are where they make sweatpants”), a number of fun cameos (including Hugh Grant, Yo-Yo Ma, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the voice of the island’s hourly “dong”), and the best Mona Lisa gag ever, and you get one supreme entertainment.

As we reach the end of the year, I love the serious, Oscar-bait, artsy type of movies. But what I love more are movies that suck you into their world and just let you have a great time there. As long as Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig keep doing that, I will keep ranking them among the year’s best. And that’s exactly where “Glass Onion” belongs.

“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” is streaming on Netflix.

(Photo credit: Netflix)

The Top 10 Films of 2022 – #4 – “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On”

The Top 10 Films of 2022 – #4 – “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On”

Back in 2010, real life couple (at the time) Dean Fleischer Camp and Jenny Slate put together a stop-motion animated video for a friend’s comedy show in around 48 hours with pieces found at a nearby bodega. Seeing the heartwarming reaction of the cynical hipster crowd, they released it only, and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On became a viral hit. A whopping 12 years later, a movie version they always wanted to make but couldn’t find the right project wound up at indie distributor A24, who let them make the quiet, sincere movie they wanted. Thankfully. Because Marcel the Shell with Shoes On goes way beyond a cute, funny animated gag reel to become one of 2022’s most emotionally beautiful films. Really.

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