'21 Catch-Up: LAMB, Dune, Last Night In Soho, Halloween Kills, TITANE

DUNE

  Thank every God for Denis Villeneuve's direction, Greig Fraser's eye, Tom Brown's art direction, and some of the best CGI ever committed to filmmaking: Dune has some of the most eye-popping visuals I've E V E R seen and evocative, brain-tickling sound design, BUT... some of the most serviceable, whelming writing latched onto it. The narrative isn't boring but it's not all _that_ engaging, either; if it weren't for the imagery and some strong performances (Chalamet, Bardem, Ferguson, Rampling, and Skarsgård [and Momoa who's such an effortlessly charismatic dude]) I would completely forget this movie. Fans of the book seem content with it because they're able to fill in the gaps but for those of us who haven't read it, it's full of esoteric holes and my trypophobic ass can't stomach it. B

LAMB

  Despite its painterly photography, stirring performances, and a typically-great trailer, Lamb is an entire waste of time. It's a great short film stretched to a full-length slog. The tale it's telling is so simple and to-the-point that there's agonizing bits of LITERAL nothing to pad it out; I could have gone to the bathroom (without hurrying back) and I wouldn't have missed anything. There are long, LONG shots of people drinking coffee, reading, or having mundane dinner conversations (don't forget the riveting scene where the dude washes potatoes!). Our two leads have no personality, chemistry, or even conflict whatsoever. The baby lamb girl stuff is funny but it also doesn't add up to much beyond some amusing imagery. The A24 Horror Movie Well has run fucking dry. C-

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO

  Basically the exact inverse of Dune. This helps me forgive Edgar Wright for Baby Driver but it's further proof that he's not gonna reach greatness again without collaborators, I.e. Spaced, the Cornetto Trilogy and Scott Pilgrim. There are numerous set-pieces that, in better hands, would be great to lay eyes on. The problem is Edgar Wright seems content--or worse: confident--to wield hideous CGI to tell that story; it's a fucking *great* story but, visually, it's often indigestible. And, again, is such a shame because the script is really strong and the cast is aces, particularly Anya Taylor-Joy and Terence Stamp. C+

TITANE

  This movie is almost nonstop fucking gorgeous; the second time I watched it I kept pausing it to gawk at the photography; there are so, so many frames from it that could be striking, evocative, fascinating stills unto themselves. It also has a confounding sense of humor, bold structure, and some of the most upsetting onscreen violence I've seen in the past few years. I have so much more to say but there's just too much to get through right now; this is a complex, wholesome, weird, disgusting, audacious, special movie. To paraphrase Ebert: movies like Titane are the reason I love movies. A+

HALLOWEEN KILLS

  I don't HATE this movie, like some fans do, but I definitely don't like it either - not on the whole, anyway. It's a mess but it's not 100% be-all end-all awful. If you're a Halloween fan and you're surprised by a bad sequel, you must be new here; temper your outrage, most of them are garbage with a few things here-and-there to appreciate: the opening credits of 4, the Cookie Woman scene in 5, Busta Rhymes doing the Spider-Man imposter meme in Resurrection, etc. There are pockets in Kills where great side characters are given some memorable, funny, idiosyncratic banter - which was to be expected since that's the best shit from Halloween 2018 (a significantly less-mixed bag). I'd watch a whole Altman-esque hangout comedy, based on Halloween night, featuring all the victims in Michael's path (it makes me want to do a whole post ranking the side characters between the two movies). McBride should stick to what he does best: Comedy. He's made some funny fucking TV doing that but, here, when he tries to be capital-S SERIOUS, it's glaring what his weaknesses are. When he wanted me to laugh, I laughed, but when he wanted me to be scared...I also laughed. Thus my experience with it is crystallized as a good time and I'll never watch it again. C-