Have a nice trip, see you next

FALL

2022

Directed by Scott Mann

Written by Jonathan Frank and Scott Mann

Spoilers: moderate

Cat

BEAST

2022

Directed by Baltasar Kormákur

Written by Ryan Engle and Jamie Primak Sullivan

Spoilers: mild

F.T.: The Flatulent Terrestrial

SWISS ARMY MAN

Well, there might be weirder movies out there, but very, very few wear their weirdness this well.

2016

Written and directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

With Paul Dano (Hank), Daniel Radcliffe (Manny), and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Sarah)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Water, the source of all life

THE SHALLOWS

The Shallows wears the skin of one of my favorite movies, while feinting toward the substance of another, and if it doesn't reach the heights of either one, well, that's not its problem, because it's still the best treat of the season so far.

2016

Directed by Jaume Colett-Serra

Written by Anthony Jaswinski

With Blake Lively (Nancy) and Sully (Steven Seagull)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Cardboard Science: Do you wanna go to lunch, or do you wanna go to the moon?

DESTINATION MOON

Opening the decade with a big nuclear bang, this hyper-conservative Cold War tale of human advancement through atom-based capitalism remains influential—and pretty damned good on its merits, too, despite its frankly laughable assumptions about the way the world works.

1950

Directed by Irving Pichel

Written by Alford Van Ronkel, Robert Heinlein, and James O'Hanlon (based on the novel Rocketship Galileo by Robert Heinlein)

With John Archer (Jim Barnes), Warner Anderson (Dr. Charles Cargraves), Tom Powers (Gen. Thayer), and Dick Wesson (Joe Sweeney)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Robert Zemeckis, part XIII: The sun will rise

CAST AWAY

Movies about existential terror don't come much better than this one, and in the rare case they actually do, it's only because they're the same movie, except set in space.

2000

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Written by William Broyles, Jr.

With Tom Hanks (Chuck Noland), Helen Hunt (Kelly Frears), Chris Noth (Dr. Jerry Lovett), and Wilson (himself) (yes, he's really credited)

Spoiler alert: high

Reviews from gulag: The humanitarian diet

Hey, when our own food supply is contingent on patent ecological unsustainability, the brutalization of millions of slave laborers, and the mass torture of billions of defenseless animals, who the heck are we to judge what "ethical consumption" really means?  Today, we dig into Bone Tomahawk, Quest For Fire, and The Green Inferno.

BONE TOMAHAWK (2015)

When two bandits blunder into the territory of an unnamed, heretofore-unknown tribe of Indians not too far from the frontier settlement of Bright Hope, only one (David Arquette) comes out alive.  Making his way to town after his ordeal, it's about two minutes before he runs afoul of Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell) and his aged deputy Chicory (Richard Jenkins) and gets half his leg blown off.  That's how the local medicine woman Samantha (Lili Simmons) happens to be at the jail that night when the Indians track their enemy down; naturally, they seize both.  Thus the sheriff, his deputy, the woman's husband, Arthur (Patrick Wilson), and the Indian-killing fop Brooder (Matthew Fox) embark on a mission of rescue.  Their journey is long, and arduous, and longer and more arduous still thanks to Arthur's broken leg and the random encounters generated by writer-director S. Craig Zahler's twenty-sided plot dice.  Ultimately, however, the four doomed men find what they're looking for, and the fate in store for them is more horrific than they ever could have anticipated.

It probably ought to be a spoiler, though obviously it isn't, to say, "They're cannibals."  This is the selling point of Bone Tomahawk, as well as its Achilles' heel: it is a movie, written and produced in 2015, about a bunch of white guys following the trail of a bunch of red guys who turn out to eat white guys, and thus need to be eradicated with all the force the white race can bring to bear upon them.  But Tomahawk takes some of the edge off with a helpful token Lakota professor played by Zahn Mcclaron, who has the thankless role of explaining why nobody ought to get mad.  These Indians, says he, are better described as "troglodytes," and they're sure as hell not part of any tribe that he recognizes.  The real shame of it is, that despite being onscreen for just a couple of minutes, Mcclaron occupies the screen with a sufficient force—particularly as he pushes back against the arch-racist Brooder—that you kind of wish that he had accompanied the gunslingers on their quest, and maybe even that Tomahawk had more of a point beyond, "We wanted to do a Western with cannibals."  But, you know, there turns out to be an awful lot of wisdom in the Professor's refusal of the Sheriff's invitation.  So perhaps the point is that Indians are smarter than us white folk.

A savage is a savage

THE REVENANT

Go west, young man—and get yourself right torn to shit by a fucking bear.

2015

Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Written by Mark L. Smith and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (based on the novel by Michael Punke)

With Leonardo DiCaprio (Hugh Glass), Tom Hardy (John Fitzgerald), Domnhall Gleeson (Capt. Andrew Henry), Forrest Goodluck (Hawk Glass), Duane Howard (Elk Dog), and Melaw Nakehk'o (Powaga)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Out upon that deep water, these men saw the horizon

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA

Possessing certain elements that are positively fantastic, in every sense of the term, it's easy to ignore the parts of In the Heart of the Sea that aren't—including the parts that are actively aggravating.  Taken all in all, however, Heart is fun and sober-minded in equal measure (and in all the right places, too)—and I kind of half-love it, just for existing.

2015

Directed by Ron Howard

Written by Charles Leavitt, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver (based on the book In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick)

With Chris Hemsworth (First Mate Owen Chase), Benjamin Walker (Capt. Ben Pollard), Cilian Murphy (Matthew Joy), Brendan Gleeson/Tom Holland (Thomas Nickerson), and Ben Whishaw (Herman Melville)

Spoiler alert: moderate

The Adventures of CrusoeBot 5000

THE MARTIAN

The Martian is STEM propaganda with an inhuman bent, but despite the weaknesses inherent in that description, it works.

2015
Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Drew Goddard (based on the novel by Andy Weir)
With Matt Damon (Mark Watney), Jessica Chastain (Melissa Lewis), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Vincent Kapoor), Jeff Daniels (Terry Sanders), Kristen Wiig (Annie Montrose), Donald Glover (Rich Purnell), Mackenzie Davis (Mindy Park), Michael Pena (Rick Martinez), Kate Mara (Beth Johanssen), Sebastian Stan (Chris Beck), Aksel Hennie (Alex Vogel), and Benedict Wong (Bruce Ng)

Spoiler alert: moderate

It's the Mesoamerican way

KINGS OF THE SUN (1963)

Directed by J. Lee Thompson
Written by Elliott Arnold and James R. Webb
With Yul Brynner (Chief Black Eagle), George Chakiris (King Balam), and Shirley Anne Field (Ixchel)

APOCALYPTO (2006)

Directed by Mel Gibson
Written by Farhad Sarfinia and Mel Gibson
With Rudy Youngblood (Jaguar Paw), Dalia Hernandez (Seven), Morris Birdyellowhead (Flint Sky), Jonathan Brewer (Blunted), Raoul Trujillo (Zero Wolf), Gerardo Taracena (Middle Eye), and Ricardo Diaz Mendoza (Cut Rock)

Spoiler alert: moderate for Apocalypto, high for Kings of the Sun

If you want to bless me, you'll have to bless my bottom

WATERSHIP DOWN

The movie for the morbidly depressed yet deeply spiritual toddler in your life.

1978
Directed by Martin Rosen and John Hubley
Written by Martin Rosen (based on the novel by Richard Adams)
With John Hurt (Hazel), Richard Briers (Fiver), Michael Graham Cox (Bigwig), Harry Andrews (Gen. Woundwort), and Zero Mostel (Kehaar)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Catching up with the (super) classics of horror, part III: We're having an adventure, just like the Goonies!

THE DESCENT

2005 (The United Tyranny)/2006 (Freedomland)
Written and directed by Neil Marshall
With Shauna Macdonald (Sarah), Natalie Mendoza (Juno), Alex Reid (Beth), Saskia Mulder (Rebecca), Myanna Buring (Sam), and Nora-Jane Noone (Holly)

We've all missed movies that we should've seen.  Here are three of mine, that might surprise you.

Spoiler alert: high

The ocean is a desert with its life underground

ALL IS LOST

Robert Redford dies for a hundred minutes.  It's decent.

2013
Written and directed by J.C. Chandor
With Robert Redford and Scott Witherell (Our Man)

Spoiler alert: mild, but goes to severe with more than adequate warning

I wish John Brown had nuclear weapons

12 YEARS A SLAVE

The feel bad movie of the year!  It's entirely possible, even probable, that I appear to have stolen that, though I did make it up; but that's because it is the most obvious damned thing you could say about this great movie.  And it may not be true.

2013
Directed by Steve McQueen
Written by John Ridley (based on the book by Solomon Northrup)
With Chiwetel Ejiofor (Solomon Northrup), Michael Fassbender (Edwin Epps), Lupita Nyong'o (Patsey), Benedict Cumberbatch (Ford), and Brad Pitt (the Magical Caucasian)

Spoiler alert: N/A

No poets need apply

GRAVITY

This movie stopped me from suicidally ideating.

2013
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron
Written by Jonas Cuaron and Alfonso Cuaron
With Sandra Bullock (Ryan Stone), George Clooney (Matt Kowalski), and Ed Harris (as Mission Control?—hell, yeah!)

Spoiler alert: moderate