Annihilation

Facing "the Glimmer" : Annihilation

Alex Garland's Annihilation is a more than decent Sci-Fi film that suffers from a clunky first act. Happily, the film improves as it goes along and offers a smidgen of character development and a chunk of visual splendor. Natalie Portman stars as a veteran whose husband's Special Forces unit has disappeared into a mysterious alien orb, named the Glimmer,  that is expanding on the Southeast Atlantic coast. Portman is implausibly roped into a suicide mission with an all female crew to investigate the glimmer. The crew is picked off, And Then There Were None style, but not before each actress relates the trauma that propelled her into the mission. Since the crew has thesps like Tessa Thompson and Jennifer Jason Leigh, this unfolds well, though Gina Rodriguez botches her big moment.

The Glimmer is a zone of strange genetic splicings and mutations. Sometimes the CGI resembles a bad progressive rock album cover, but Garland and crew largely capture a vision of an alien nature that is both wondrous and terrifying. A novelist, Garland has displayed both here and in Ex Machina that he has a firm grasp of the themes underlying fantasy and horror. He has not displayed that he is a natural filmmaker, but Annihilation continues to display his promise, if not his skill at execution. (6/24/18)

Best of 2020

1. Vitalina Varela                                                                                 Pedro Costa
2. The Wild Goose Lake                                                                      Diao Yi'nan
3. Tomasso                                                                                           Abel Ferrara
4. Jeanne                                                                                              Bruno Dumont
5. Beanpole                                                                                          Kantemir Balagov
6. Dick Johnson is Dead                                                                     Kirsten Johnson
7. Emma                                                                                               Autumn de Wilde
8. The Platform                                                                       Galder Gaztelu-Urruitia
9. Preparations to Be Together For An Unknown Period of Time  Lili Horvat
10. Uppercase Print                                                                               Radu Jude

          Honorable Mention

          Assassins - White, Lovers Rock - McQueen

          The Assistant -- Kitty Green, I'm Thinking of Ending Things -- Kaufman

          Films I Enjoyed

          Rose Plays Julie, The Bra,

          The Devil All the Time, First Cow,

          Palm Springs, Come to Daddy,

          Nomadland, Martin Eden,

          Bacurau, Cut Throat City,

          Shirley, Babyteeth,

          Borat 2, Pieces of a Woman,

          Promising Young Woman, The Outpost,

          Collective, Blow the Man Down,

          Dinner in America, 

          Deerskin, The King of Staten Island,

          Teenage Bounty Hunter, The Vast of Night,

          Mucho Mucho Amor, The Hunt,

          Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Another Round,

          Let Them All Talk, Tenet,

          Gretel & Hansel, I'm Your Woman,

          Alone, Lucky Grandma,

          Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics,

          Uncle Peckerhead, Buffaloed,

          Scare Package, Minari,

          The Invisible Man, A Call to Spy,

          Little Fish, Vicious Fun, 

          Original Gangster, Black Bear,

          Caveat, All My Friends Are Dead, 

          Below the Mendoza Line

          Swallow, Possessor,

          Freaky, The Sound of Metal,

          The Wolf of Snow Hollow, Wife of a Spy, 

          The Dark Divide, Anything For Jackson,

          The Quarry, Her Socialist Smile,

          Mank, City Hall,

          Amulet, Sh*thead, 

          The Gentlemen, Relic,

          She Dies Tomorrow, Psycho Goreman,

          Call of the Wild, Project Power,

          The History of the Kelly Gang, The Nest,

          1 Dead Dog, Come Play,

          The Father, Thorp,

          Wonder Woman 1984,

          The Other Lamb, The Trial of the Chicago 7,

          Sea Fever, Kajillionaire,

          The Rental, Unhinged,

          Capone, Underwater,

          The Dark and the Wicked, Spontaneous,

          The Grudge, Wander Darkly,

          1 BR, Slaxx,

          The Vanished, 

          Bad Boys for Life, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga,

          Becky, The Old Guard

A votive candle of a movie...

The Greatest Showman

Zac Efron and Hugh Jackman toast their great chemistry in The Greatest Showman

Michael Gracey's The Greatest Showman strikes me as the most effective Hollywood musical in some time. Compared to the overly somber tone and punchless affect of Rob Marshall and Bill Condon's efforts in this genre, Gracey's color and dynamism are a welcome respite. The story, of course, is pure Hollywood hooey (here Barnum leads a proto Rainbow coalition), but Gracey succeeds in making the musical numbers sparkle and sing. Hugh Jackman stars as Barnum and it is nice that he has, before his clock runs out, found a musical project suited to his talents. Michelle Williams sings and dances more than adequately as his missus. Rebecca Ferguson, as Jenny Lind, sucks the energy out of the film when she appears, but both Zac Efron and Zendaya are effective as the secondary lovers. I was pleasantly surprised. (7/3/18)