Beast - Directed by Baltasar Kormákur
(from left) Nathan (Idris Elba), Martin (Sharlto Copley), Mare (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries) in Beast.
Sometimes the simplest pleasures are ones most worth pursuing. Simple does not necessarily mean stupid, incoherent, or lacking in craft, as an entire history of B-movie cinema has proven, and the firmly-in-the-latter-category Beast serves as a prime example of how to do simple right. Director Baltasar Kormákur continues here in his particular niche of survivalist stories, demonstrating an understanding of tension and escalation that many films, even ones with much bigger budgets, fail to grasp.
Dr. Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) brings his teenage daughters Mere (Iyana Halley) and Norah (Leah Jeffries) to South Africa to connect with their mother’s roots after she passes away from cancer. As they stay with family friend and conservationist Martin (Sharlto Copley), it becomes clear that, despite an outwardly peaceful family dynamic, Mere blames her father for being absent during her mother’s final months, Nate is wracked with guilt over unresolved cracks in his marriage, and Norah desperately tries her best to keep the peace. These concerns soon become secondary after Martin and the Samuels encounter a village that’s been slaughtered—and a lion driven mad by the poaching of its entire pride.
To amplify the tension, Kormákur and cinematographer Philippe Rousselot shoot scenes as extended single takes, treating the camera as an invisible fifth character that not only occupies the others’ space but physically follows the action and character beats. It’s a compelling stylistic choice that turns characters’ simple movements between locations into twisting journeys where the unknown might be just out of the line of sight—the characters’ and the audience’s. This is cinema as spectacle distilled down to its rawest form, where basic storytelling leads directly to visceral and emotional catharsis. That Beast manages to be quite so powerful offers a welcome reminder that simple pleasures can still occupy an essential place at the movies.
Beast is available to watch on Peacock
Jackass Forever - Directed by Jeff Tremaine
Left to right - Johnny Knoxville, Sean McInerney, Rachel Wolfson, and Steve-O
Returning at a time when much of the world is being more cautious than ever, the risk-seeking, anything-for-a-laugh cast of Jackass prove that the biggest threat to their well-being is themselves. In Jackass Forever, the fourth big-screen entry in the now two-decades-old series of pranks, stunts, and fails, Knoxville and director Jeff Tremaine invite a new generation of jackasses to take the biggest hits. It’s the group’s most joyous installment to date.
Tremaine and series lead Johnny Knoxville exude a contagious enthusiasm over the course of the film’s fleet 96 minutes. They’ll do anything for a laugh, and the audience will happily oblige. The pair saves the really nasty stunts for Ehren McGhehey, who appears shellshocked, shaking, and traumatized after 20 years of Jackass; his moments of leg-quivering fear are justified. After all, Knoxville ties him to a chair, pours honey over his head, stuffs his pants with salmon, and rings the dinner bell for a hungry bear.
Knoxville could have hung up his spurs after the trash masterpiece that was Jackass 3D, where Tremaine found the perfect balance between the abjectly disgusting and the awe-inspiring. Coming out during a pandemic that locked so many of us away from our families Jackass Forever appeared just when we needed what it offered most. A quick visit with old friends and enough laughter to leave your gut hurting.
Jackass Forever is streaming on Paramount Plus.
The Banshees Of Inisherin - Directed by Martin McDonagh
Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell
Friendship breakups, at least those between longtime pals, hurt like hell. They burn your spirit and leave you displaced, sometimes just as harshly as the end of a romance can. In The Banshees of Inisherin, Pádraic has been deeply feeling this ache, strolling around his (fictional) island of Inisherin perplexed and in denial alongside Jenny, his loyal donkey companion. Played by an ever-expressive, career-best Colin Farrell, whose heartrendingly boyish, puppy-dog face and perennially saddened eyebrows redefine the meaning of expressive, Pádraic can’t figure out why his lifelong buddy Colm (a terrific, poetically anguished Brendan Gleeson), “just don’t like him no more.”
Everyone, including Pádraic’s worldly sister Siobhan (a gracefully affecting Kerry Cordon), who herself dreams of a better life elsewhere, asks him: Have you been rowing? But how the feck is Pádraic supposed to know? The best thing he figures he can do is to make continuous attempts to fix what he doesn’t comprehend is broken, a persistence that disastrously backfires on Colm, who’s been going through an emotional crisis of depression. His time left on this earth is rapidly vanishing, Colm feels. And he has nothing of substance to show for himself apart from an escalating sense of despair, which he only confesses to his local priest.
Considering McDonagh’s former outings, you won’t be surprised to learn that The Banshees Of Inisherin is wildly funny. What you might find surprising is the ravaging, tearful storm that brews right beneath that humorous surface as soon as you become acutely aware of it. That storm wants to swallow you whole, spit you out and then dare to mend your broken heart somehow, right after you make peace with your own impermanence. The film convincingly argues that you must let it.
The Banshees of Inisherin is streaming on HBO Max.
Avatar: The Way of Water - Directed by James Cameron
Avatar: The Way Of Water not only delivers upon everything its predecessor established, but advances them in ways gleaming and ocean-deep, through the eyes and heart of a cinematic storyteller with a passionate and well-documented love of the sea. When watching—or more accurately, experiencing—Avatar: The Way Of Water, the thing that will perhaps feel most awe-inspiring is the dignified beauty of the underwater ecosystems Cameron has created.
Throughout the film’s first hour and act, screenwriters Cameron, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver remind audiences of the union of venerable ex-Marine Jake (here, fully living in his Na’vi body) and resourceful Na’vi Neytiri (the terrific Zoe Saldaña), now married with children. But the danger from Na’vi’s worst enemies—the greedy “Sky People”—persists. So the Sullys have no choice but to make the sacrifice of leaving the jungle to protect the Na’vi from becoming targets of ruinous humankind
The whole package here is so ambitious, yet intimate and gently tempered in its quieter moments, that it feels heartening to be reminded of what a big-budget Hollywood movie can be when it refuses to get crushed under pointless piles of rubble and noise.
Avatar: The Way of Water is in theaters now.
Emily The Criminal - Directed by John Patton Ford
Aubrey Plaza in Emily The Criminal
There is no fantasy element to Emily The Criminal, Aubrey Plaza’s character study about a woman locked out of the job market by an incident that remains on her permanent criminal record. But whether it’s one character’s dream of owning a Los Angeles apartment or Emily’s vague assertion of “I just want to be free,” the film’s possibility of what could be feels like desperate, relatable escapism. The opening scene wastes no time illustrating how the system has failed Emily, who comes from a middle-class background, is tens of thousands of dollars in debt, and remains unable to land a white-collar job thanks to her criminal record. But it’s a faceless interviewer catching her in the lie that her record is based on a misdemeanor DUI—her crime, we learn, was a felony assault—that reveals what we really need to know about Emily: her tolerance for BS is low.
For Emily, making a living means juggling shifts at a thankless meal delivery gig out of an apartment she shares with vaguely unpleasant roommates. There’s mention of painting portraits, but she seems to have neither time nor energy for anything but doodling sketches. While her friend floats the idea of landing Emily a job at her cushy ad agency, fellow food deliverer Javier (Bernardo Badillo) slips her the number for a “dummy shopping” job: make $200 an hour using stolen credit card numbers and fake IDs to buy goods for the black market. It’s illegal but not unsafe, says quietly confident ringleader Youcef (Theo Rossi), inviting participants to leave the scheme whenever they like.
Plaza, whose inner demons always seem to live just below her muted surface, is distinctly suited to walking a tightrope between desperation and empowerment. Spoiler alert: We do indeed learn the truth about Emily’s felony—a moment Plaza downplays with assured restraint—and it further drives home the idea that her financial woes and combative philosophy are two sides of the same coin. While the details of Emily’s trauma might be unique to her, Ford’s no-frills approach takes us closer to documentary than allegory; he dares us to put ourselves in her shoes.
Emily The Criminal is streaming on Netflix now.