The film adaption of the Tony winning musical DEAR EVAN HANSEN was met with such apathy at the box office and online venom upon its release that I put it on the back burner. I had been really looking forward to seeing it after my friends and family that saw it on Broadway sung its praises. The music and lyrics are by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who also wrote the songs for two recent favorites, “The Greatest Showman” and “La La Land”. Their blend of pop and traditional Broadway styles hit all the right notes for me in those two films. This is the first film adaption of their work from the stage (where it won six Tonys including Best Musical) to the big screen. Needless to say, I went in with lowered expectations. But what I should have expected is that all the online bitching was mostly noise. It’s certainly not flawless and while star Ben Platt brings power and emotion to the title character, it is sometimes distracting that he appears awful old to be in high school. Platt stars as a nearly invisible Evan. He’s riddled with severe social anxiety and depression. His opening song “Waving Through A Window” pretty much sums up not being one of the popular kids at any high school. He’s just wanting to be noticed in any fashion. We meet several other students, Zoe (the excellent Kaitlyn Dever from “Booksmart”) her volatile and explosive brother Connor (Colton Ryan from the original Broadway cast), Evan’s reluctant friend Jared (Nik Dodani) and the “in charge of everything” Alana, very well played by Amanda Stenberg. Through a contrived series of events that’s admittedly the weakest part of the film’s structure, everyone gets the impression that Evan is Connor’s only friend. When Connor commits suicide, his parents and sister Zoe believe that Evan has answers about their lost loved one. As the events around that phantom friendship spin out of control into bigger and bigger ripples, you realize that the movie would be over if Evan just told the truth. But the relationships and happenings here do drive some great music and powerful scenes. “You Will Be Found”, “The Anonymous Ones” and “For Forever” all leave you wrung out. Losing a loved family member is overpowering and having lived through that firestorm of emotions, there are moments that DEAR EVEN gets exactly right, as painful as they are to watch. Julianne Moore is excellent as Evan’s mother Heidi, struggling to make ends meet and resentful of the relationship with and time that her son is spending with Colton’s wealthy parents Cynthia (Amy Adams) and Larry (Danny Pino). Adams is strong in her role, in complete denial of her son’s tragic path and shattered more than once as the truth proves elusive. At the film’s core, Platt delivers powerhouse song after song. It’s clear that he starred in this role for many, many shows on Broadway and knows every nuance of Evan from the opening moments to the last. Yes, at 28 he’s too old for the part, but he brings a lot of intelligence to it, having lived it 8 shows a week. He’s excellent. The vocal performances were recorded live on set and the entire cast delivers. Sad and powerful, DEAR EVEN HANSEN gets a solid B.

One of our all-time favorite comedies, 1996’s THE BIRDCAGE is a fast-paced, hilarious winner with an incredible cast both in front of and behind the camera. Robin Williams is excellent as Armand Goldman, owner of a hugely popular drag club on the shores of South Beach. His number one star is his husband Albert, played to perfection by Nathan Lane in his breakout film role. Watching the early scenes with Armand trying to satisfy his diva partner Albert on and off stage, I was struck by what a great straight man Wiliams was for Lane’s over-the-top, LOL Albert/Starina. Credit legendary director Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Carnal Knowledge) for navigating Robin to some of his best work. When Armand’s 20-year-old son Val (Dan Futterman) comes home with the surprise news that he’s getting married to his college girlfriend Barbara (Calista Flockhart), Armand & Albert are shocked. When Val tells them that she and her parents are coming to visit the next day, their lives are turned upside down. What they don’t know is that Barbara’s father is the ultra-conservative Senator Keeley, co-founder of the Committee for Moral order. He’s trying to escape from a very embarrassing scandal involving his co-founder that’s the headline on every channel. He and his wife, the very proper Barbara Bush-like Louise (Dianne Wiest nailing every line) think the perfect escape from that publicity would be a fast trip to Miami to visit the Bushes and the Goldmans. When their two VERY different worlds collide, the laughs are non-stop. Hank Azaria steals every scene he’s in as the Goldman’s Butler/Houseman Agador. His inability to wear shoes, make dinner or play it straight are some of the best moments in the film. Christine Baranski is terrific as Katharine, Val’s mom who he’s never met, who might be the perfect cover when the Keeley’s arrive. Screenwriter Elaine May (A New Leaf, Heaven Can Wait) is at her brilliant best. She doesn’t miss one opportunity in the culture clash between flamboyant Albert and the uber conservative senator. On first viewing, the biggest surprise for me was how funny Gene Hackman is here. His comic timing is flawless and the final scene in the nightclub remains an all-time classic. So many great scenes. Albert’s attempt to walk like John Wayne, Armand’s barrage of dance instructions on stage (Fosse! Fosse! Twyla Tharp! Twyla Tharp!) and of course the entire dinner scene that fills most of the last 30 minutes of the film. I’ve rarely laughed as much and as often as I do every time that I watch this near perfect two-hour comedy and damned if it doesn’t feel 90 minutes long. Perfectly paced, written and performed, THE BIRDCAGE gets an A. Film buffs: if you haven’t seen it, look for the original 1978 French film “La Cage aux Folles”. It’s damn funny and an enjoyable companion piece to its American counterpart.

Writer/Director Paul Schrader continues the brilliant, dark renaissance he began with 2017’s “First Reformed” with his new film THE CARD COUNTER. Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina, A Most Violent Year) stars as Bill Tell, a quiet gambler moving from town to town like a nomad as he beats every casino’s house. He wins, but never enough to make a scene. He speaks, but never enough to let anyone penetrate his façade. Schrader’s written a powerful narration for Tell, who slowly lets you inside his thoughts. Tell silently checks into budget motel after motel, where he immediately takes down every mirror or picture, wraps every bit of furniture in white cloths that he ties in meticulous string knots. He writes in silence, accompanied only by his Scotch. By chance one day, he sees a military surveillance convention at a hotel casino he’s playing in and wanders into a lecture by Gordo (Willem Dafoe). Tell stays a moment but is recognized by fellow attendee Cirk (Tye Sheridan). For Tell, this is his worst nightmare. Cirk has ties to Tell’s past as an interrogator in the hellhole of Gitmo. It’s a past that Tell tries every day to forget, but it invades his nightmares. Courtesy of Schrader’s swirling camera that soars through twisted scenes of torture, cruelty, and madness inside the prison, you’re immersed in Tell’s nightmares alongside him. Schrader sets these loud, violent, bloody sequences up as the counterpoint to Tell’s everyday life. It’s effective on both sides of the equation. As Tell and Cirk start to spend time together, La Linda (Tiffany Haddish) enters the picture, asking Tell to join her professional gambling stable. Both La Linda and Cirk are intrusions into Tell’s carefully crafted world, and the moment Tell lets them in, you can feel Schrader getting ready to shatter Tell’s peace. Explosively. No one does that better than Schrader. Tell sees some chance to redeem himself by saving Cirk from the path that he’s on. Cirk’s path is forged by a violent childhood and revenge. Haddish surprised me here, I’ve never seen her in anything but comedies and she’s very good in the film’s least defined role. She never pails next to Issac, and that’s no small feat. He’s reliably excellent. Fellow Schrader fans will love the music score by newcomers Robert Levon Been and Giancarlo Vulcano. In moments, it’s a perfect and smile-inducing tribute to Georgio Moroder’s fantastic score for Schrader’s underappreciated 1982 thriller, “Cat People”. This one’s not for everyone. It’s methodical in setting up Tell’s solitary life. It’s loaded with bursts of violence and cruelty, along with graphic nudity and adult language. But Schrader seems to have a gift for pulling me into these tortured souls. Isaac’s Bill Tell is every bit the equal of Ethan Hawke’s Reverend Ernst Toller in “First Reformed”. Both find themselves on a tortured path to finality, but Tell’s choices seem more obvious in the retrospect of the final moments. THE CARD COUNTER is a patented Schrader dive to the dark side of human behavior and gets an A. But beware, there is nothing mainstream or fun being dealt here, just pain.

For any film buffs out there, the 2019 documentary AN ACCIDENTAL STUDIO is an entertaining look at a studio that came out of nowhere and had a hell of a run. When Monty Python wanted to create their hilarious take on biblical films “The Life of Brian”, no major studio would touch them, bowing to the conservatives in power in the 80’s. Former Beatle George Harrison was friends with several of the comedy troupe and said “I’ll finance it”. What a smart choice that was. Not only was the film a huge hit against its budget, but it blazed a trail for folks outside the studio system to launch films. The film follows Harrison’s Handmade Films from its conception with funny and insightful interviews with Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Michael Caine and many others. They’re all frank, appreciative and sometimes apologetic for what they put Harrison through. Harrison is funniest of all, relating how he mortgaged his home to finance “Brian”, which grossed $21 million in the US alone, huge money at the time. Handmade made some terrific and memorable films, including “Time Bandits” and “The Long Good Friday” which won a Best Actor for Bob Hoskins. Hoskins would come back to Handmade for the 1986 hit “Mona Lisa”. They also made some absolute crap, including the Sean Penn/Madonna bomb “Shanghai Surprise”. A total train wreck of a movie, Penn delivers a funny interview about what an a-hole he was the entire time they were filming. Loaded with on-set footage and film clips, AN ACCIDENTAL STUDIO is a fast-paced trip down memory lane and an enjoyable ride that gets a solid B.

David Lynch’s strange 1984 filM adaption of “Dune” is an all-time guilty pleasure. Yes, it’s saddled with the shoddy special effects of the era (just pre-CGI era) some wild overacting and an almost impenetrable screenplay, but it’s also got Lynch’s twisted vision, Toto’s symphonic score and a decent cast. That cast pales in comparison to the all-star group assembled for DUNE, Denis Villeneuve’s visually stunning new adaption. Every actor delivers in perfectly cast roles. Timothee Chalamet (Lady Bird) is Paul Atreides, being groomed for his future inheritance of his father Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) power as one of the leaders of the known universe. His mother, Lady Jessica Atreides (Rebecca Ferguson) is a member of the Bene Gesserit, who have been foretelling the coming of one man that will bring peace to all worlds. They are pulled into massive political intrigue when they are given rule over the desert planet Dune, the only source of the mysterious “spice” that unlocks incredible power. The desert planet has been run for years by House Harkonnen and its Baron (Stellan Skarsgard in unrecognizable makeup) the “floating fat man”. Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) is scary as his nephew Beast Rabban, a lethal killer with thousands of loyal troops behind him. The planet itself is infested with giant sandworms 400 feet long that can swallow ships in a single gulp. Hidden in the mountains of Dune are the Fremin, who have resisted rule for thousands of years. They’re led by Stilgar (Javier Bardem in a memorable performance) and Chani (Zendaya) who’s been haunting Paul’s dreams long before he makes the voyage. I haven’t even mentioned Jason Momoa, in arguably his best film role as Duncan Idaho, a warrior in the Atreides forces or Josh Brolin as Gurney, the Duke’s bodyguard. Every part is perfectly cast. Villeneuve drops them all into an incredibly detailed, fully realized version of three different planets and a massive story that he instantly masters by splitting the chore of filming the book in two. By using the title card DUNE: PART ONE and stretching the running time to a fascinating and never boring 2.5 hours, he avoids the massive confusion that Lynch created by trying to jam the massive book’s epic story into a two-hour movie. The screenplay is excellent, with Villeneuve (Arrival, Blade Runner 2049) and Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Munich) delivering fleshed out characters and all the moments that fans of the novel or previous film version expect. The cinematography by Greig Fraser (Rogue One, Zero Dark Thirty) is beautiful and the production design by Patrice Vermette (Arrival, Sicario) is jaw dropping. Every set, every spaceship, every new world delivers beyond high expectations. Villeneuve has said that he sees DUNE as “Star Wars” for adults” and that’s an apt description. There are no goofy Ewoks for comic relief or robots arguing like an old married couple. It’s drop dead serious, and the stakes feel huge. When the massive attacks begin, the film feels more consequential. One of the characters says to Paul, “The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience. A process that cannot be understood by stopping it. We must move with the flow of the process. We must join it. We must flow with it.” Villeneuve cracked the mystery of adapting DUNE for the big screen. As a massive fan of the novel and the original film, DUNE delivers on every level. Unlike “No Time To Die”, DUNE was worth the long wait and gets an A. Here’s hoping that Warner Bros decision to release the film in theatres and on HBO MAX the same night didn’t dilute the box office so much that Part Two never gets produced. Villeneuve and we deserve a part two as legendary as this opening chapter.

Most of my lasting memories of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker come from the memorable comedy send ups of them via Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live, the comedy routines of Sam Kinison and my astonishment at the gullibility of the American public as the Bakkers ridiculous empire imploded. As Kinison once famously quoted Jesus in his comedy routine, flipping through an imaginary bible, “Where in the hell did I say to build a waterslide?....” The new biography/drama (and from my perspective, hilarious dark comedy) THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE is a brilliantly acted, engrossing film. Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, Molly’s Game) gives an award-worthy performance as the outgoing, passionate Tammy Faye, from her earliest, simplest of beginnings to her incredible rise, fall and search for her own, right life. Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man) matches Chastain, serving up a Jim Bakker born of ambition, loaded with zealous greed and internal conflict. Jim and Tammy Faye’s revolutionary religious message perhaps could have only thrived in the 80s, with a traditional vow of poverty replaced by a thirst for wealth, fueled by brazen fundraising that seems to buy more furs than charity. We see the couple from their days in Bible College, through their rise from puppet shows to fame and fortune. Jim is the media savvy guru who manages to grab 5 times as many viewers as competitor Jerry Falwell, played to perfection by Vincent D’Onofrio (Full Metal Jacket). Cherry Jones dominates the film as Tammy Faye’s stepmother. Her scenes with Chastain are the backbone of the film and Jones (Signs, Defending Jacob) arc from beginning to end surprises in its emotional depth. Chastain is excellent as Tammy Faye, battling her inner voice and empathetic heart that wants to speak out against the bigotry and constant hate spewing from Falwell. Chastain even sings all of Tammy Faye’s songs, recreating heartfelt ballads and bombastic hymns with incredible accuracy. Director Michael Showalter (The Big Sick) and his team cleverly create many real-life moments to perfection, including Jim and Tammy’s disastrous interview with Ted Koppel on Nightline and Tammy Faye’s warm embrace of an AIDS patient long before it was acceptable in society. Jim comes off like a greedy, selfish, misogynistic asshole, and knowing that just last year in 2020 he was peddling a magic elixir cure for Covid on TV, it’s safe to say he hasn’t changed a bit. There’s much more to Tammy Faye than the heavy makeup and complete lack of social filter. There’s a caring and universal love of all people that was, in retrospect, more demonstrative of any religious teaching than any one hundred carnival-barker TV preachers put together. Chastain’s performance is a fitting tribute to the goofy, outspoken woman that lost her way, found redemption through her actions and walked to her own impulsive, caring voice. THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE gets an inspiring B, waterslides be damned.

Last night, on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, Apple TV+ released their beautifully filmed-on-Broadway capture of COME FROM AWAY. It’s a musical that’s been on our radar for a while, but I couldn’t wrap my head around how you could make the story interesting. It’s the based-on-a-true story tale of the 38 planes that were diverted from the USA to the tiny town of Gander, Newfoundland. Using a nearly bare stage, a couple tables and a lot of chairs, the story takes flight as we see the passengers on their planes, panicked air traffic control teams and the population of the very quiet town folk. It shouldn’t work, but it does. Beautifully. As the town’s population goes from 9,000 to 16,000 overnight, Gander becomes representative of how we all treated each other in the days and weeks after the 9/11 attacks. Using humor, plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and heart-breaking scenes as well, the musical builds for over two hours to a powerful and moving ending. The talented cast plays many roles, popping in and out of all their characters with effortless ease. Joel Hatch is a standout as the Mayor, as is Jenn Colella as American Airlines pilot Beverly. As more of her career is unveiled during the play, it’s fascinating to see who was among the 7000 strangers that descended on the town. This is David Hein and Irene Sankoff’s first musical and it does a great job conveying a lot of information while weaving in some of the traditional Newfoundland music that gives it an authentic feel. “Welcome to the Rock”, “Screech In” “Me and the Sky”, ‘Stop the World”, “Prayer” and “Something’s Missing” are all memorable tunes that will get stuck in your head. Filmed in May 2021 at Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, the camera work is terrific, pulling you into the stage performance the same way that the filmed version of “Hamilton” on Broadway did. The Dolby Atmos sound mix and 4K capture looks and sounds amazing on Apple TV+, it’s like having the best Orchestra ticket for the show imaginable. Funny and moving, COME FROM AWAY perfectly captures the spirit of love and support that we all felt in America (and beyond) after the attacks of 9/11. It’s a powerful tribute to that time in our history and gets an appreciative A. Stay tuned for the end credits and see photographs of the real people portrayed, along with the actors you just saw play them.

With a cast that includes Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Jessica Chastain and Ciaran Hinds, and a screenplay by Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman, Layer Cake) I expected a lot more from THE DEBT. Flashing back and forth between 1997 and 1965, we meet three legendary Mossad agents that are being newly heralded because of a published book about their 1965 mission. On the trail of Nazi war criminal Vogel (Jesper Christensen from “Casino Royale”) in East Berlin, they are to capture him and speed him across the Berlin wall by train into captivity. But nothing goes as planned and they are immersed in a violent, long psychological standoff with the twisted Nazi leader. In the modern-day story, Rachel is played by Helen Mirren, in the flashbacks to the mission, Chastain. Rachel and Stephan Gold (Wilkinson now, Marton Csokas then) is committed to carrying on their legend, while Rachel and David (Hinds now, Sam Worthington in flashbacks) struggle with a secret so big that it threatens to shatter historical events. For an espionage thriller, it’s a bit low on thrills and they grow more predictable as the story meanders forward. As game as Chastain is for a good fist fight, I enjoyed the story set in 1997 far more, with Mirren and Wilkinson dominating the screen. Mirren almost saves the whole affair with the decisions she makes near the finale. Wasting its powerful cast, THE DEBT ends up owing us a film more worthy of its subject matter, barely managing a C.

Our parents were always passionate about music and musicals and introduced us at an early age to musical theatre. I am so glad they did and have worked to pass that same world on to my kids. I have superb memories of seeing CAMELOT with my mom way back in the early seventies, during its return to theatres after the original 1967 release. It’s one of our favorites and a film we revisit every few years. Richard Harris is King Arthur, half singing some of the songs but pulling the role off with such style and humor that you never stop cheering for his new kingdom to succeed. Vanessa Redgrave is stunning as Guinevere, his new bride and love of his life. Franco Nero is terrific as Lancelot, the perfect (in his own mind) Knight who’s traveled from France to join Arthur’s round table. The first hour of the film is lightweight and fun, detailing Arthur’s new dream and the assembly of his new style of law and peace In England. The songs by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe are among their best. “Camelot”, “I Wonder What the King is Doing Tonight”, “Lusty Month of May” and “C’est Moi” are all classics, enjoyable and set a happy tone. But the middle hour of the film brings a new tone as romance stirs between Lancelot and Guinevere, Arthur’s bastard son Mordred (David Cummings) arrives with the solitary goal of destroying everything Arthur has created and the dream of Camelot begins to disintegrate. “If Ever I Would Leave You” and “I Loved You Once In Silence” are somber, beautiful songs but only with age do you realize how SAD the last half of the film is, it’s a heartbreaker! I’m a huge fan of Richard Harris, he’s so damn likeable that its cuts to the quick when his most trusted people betray him. Redgrave’s final scenes are powerful. Harris would buy the rights to the stage version later in life for $1 million, adapting the musical and touring for years with huge financial success. Nero and Redgrave really did have great chemistry. They married after the film and had a family, acting together again in 2010’s “Letters to Juliet”. Director Joshua Logan also brought “South Pacific” and “Paint Your Wagon” to the big screen. His love of closeups is on full display here, but thankfully he avoids those annoying color filter swipes he used in “South Pacific”. It’s hard to go wrong when you’re capturing the Academy Award winning sets and costumes created by John Truscott and wrapping them in Alfred Newman’s full orchestra arrangements. Traditional, old-fashioned, of its time, witty and well-made, CAMELOT soars for more than “one brief shining moment”. A classic in our house that we revisit often, it gets an A.

Superb as a standalone film and the perfect chapter between Civil War and Infinity War for Marvel fans, 2021’s BLACK WIDOW is a kickass thriller with equal doses of family drama and laughs peppering the action. The film opens with Natasha Romanoff and her sister Yelena as children living a pretty idyllic life in a small Ohio town. Like the opening sequence in the recent hit “A Quiet Place Part II” those small town life scenes make what follows all the more tragic. Their dad Alexei (David Harbour from ‘Stranger Things”) gets home from work, huddles with their Mom Melina (Rachel Weisz of ‘My Cousin Rachel”) and soon they are on the run from Shield/Hydra and the girls disappear into a massive secret operation run by the very bad Dreykov, embodied to perfection by Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast). We flash forward 20 years and meet the Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) we know as Black Widow, estranged from her fellow Avengers as the result of the events of “Civil War”. There is an unstoppable force of young lethal women after her. Their trail leads back to her former family and importantly for the film, back to her sister Yelena, now played by Florence Pugh (Midsommar, Little Women). To say Pugh is the best thing in the film would be ignoring Scarlett as Black Widow, but together they form the perfect fighting duo. Their verbal sparring is as great as their physical fights, which equal the hand to hand combat of any Bourne or OO7 film. Speaking of Bond…..okay I’ll get to that later. Their trail leads back to Mom and Dad with hilarious and exciting results that are left best for your own discovery. A snowy jailbreak scene is a hilarious highlight with jaw dropping action, as is a BMW and motorcycle chase through narrow Europe streets. So back to Bond. I think writer Eric Pearson (Thor:Ragnarok) is a huge OO7 fan as he sprinkles enough easter eggs and direct references to seventies Bond to satisfy any Fleming buff. Natasha is watching “Moonraker” on her tiny TV in her hideout. The villain’s lair is a direct reference to Drax’s climactic lair in Moonraker. The “taking over the world by putting a massive web of hypnotized women around the globe” is a direct lift from “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”. I could go on and on but suffice to say BLACK WIDOW feels like a Bond film in all the right ways. It’s globe hopping adventures, megalomaniac bad guy, opening action sequence detached from the rest of the film and music score by Lorne Balfe (Mission Impossible: Fallout) are all Bondesque. Stay tuned after the credits for a sequence that serves as a direct tie to these same characters and their adventures in the upcoming Disney+ series “Hawkeye”. Fast, fun, dramatic and enjoyable, BLACK WIDOW is a great addition to the Marvel series and earns a B. We watched it opening night at home and the Disney+ 4K and Dolby Atmos presentation rocked our living room. We love going to the theatre, but wow did it play well at home.

WOW. This is the way to do a sequel. John Krasinski returns to the writer/director chair and surpasses the original with the amazing A QUIET PLACE PART II. The film opens on Day One, with a nearly perfect fifteen-minute sequence of small-town life as Lee Abbott (Krasinski) visits the local grocery store for some snacks on the way to his son’s baseball game. The store owner seems a bit distracted by the news of a huge catastrophe somewhere far away. Krasinski sets up the baseball game as an almost lyrical peek into a perfect, quiet life. We again meet his two deaf children Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe) and their interactions are hilarious and supportive. Lee’s wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) silently encourages Marcus, calming his nerves about the game. “Just Breathe” seems to be her mantra. Neighbor Emmett (Cillian Murphy) brings Lee up to speed on the game as both their boys take turns at bat. And then, something massive comes barreling down through the clouds, flaming like a giant asteroid down toward the Earth. The baseball game immediately breaks up and within moments, the first of the creatures we know from the original arrive, tearing the fabric of the small town apart in a fantastic, suspenseful, action packed opening that leaves you stunned. The story then flashes forward to after the events of the first film. Lee is gone, most of civilization appears to be destroyed and Evelyn, her baby, Regan and Marcus leave their farm in search of food, people…..whatever is left. They meet up with Emmitt, a shell of his former self and living alone deep within a factory. The brilliance of the story is that it doesn’t take the audience for a fool. It knows that we know the creatures hunt based on sound, but very poor eyesight. The film knows that we are dreading a predictable post-apocalyptic story, so it turns our expectations on their heads. I won’t ruin any of their quest by detailing it here. Krasinski does a masterful job of unveiling it scene by scene. The acting is fantastic across the board. Simmonds and Jupe are probably the best young actors working today. There are scenes of incredible physical pain and anguish for Jupe and he delivers them so well, they cut any parent (or grandparent) to the core. Simmonds and Cillian Murphy have some of the film’s best moments as Regan and Emmitt’s trust evolves. Blunt is a kick-ass hero. There are two major parts of the film where multiple seismic events are happening at the same time. Krasinski and his editor Michael P. Shawyer (Black Panther, Creed) cut between them so brilliantly that the suspense is doubled and tripled, leaving you on the edge of your seat. Then damned if they don’t do it to you again. The ending twist leading to Emmitt yelling “Get Inside!!!” is so well executed that I never saw it coming. The structure of the entire film is taut, edge-of-your-seat suspense for its lean 90-minute running time. The special effects work is very good and not overdone, while Marco Beltrami jolts you with a spooky and propulsive music score that gets under your skin. It’s the perfect complement to the moments of absolute silence that pepper the movie. With all its surprises it feels like the best M. Night Shyamalan film he never made. Krasinski continues to surprise as a director. His work here is even more sure handed than in the original. A QUIET PLACE PART II is a rarity, a sequel to a great film that’s even better than the original. Buckle up for one hell of a ride. This one gets an A+. Keep telling yourself, “just breathe…..”

The original “Conjuring” film was the scariest movie since “The Exorcist” in my book. Its first sequel was pretty damn good too, loaded with creeping dread and nice scares. Alas, the third time is definitely not the charm, as the second sequel THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT doesn’t live up to its legacy. There are a few good moments to be had, including the film’s opening sequence as Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) battle a demon that has invaded a young boy named David. Jullian Hillard (The Haunting of Hill House, Wandavision) is a great little actor and his scenes depicting the demon bending his body into evil, grotesque shapes while he spouts deep-throated bellows are scary, gross and pure horror fun. When his sister’s boyfriend Arne begs the demon to leave the young boy alone, it willingly jumps into Arne’s body. The opening ten minutes is loaded with visual cues from “The Exorcist” including the priest’s arrival backlit by a single, foggy streetlight and Arne pulling a Father Karras. The rest of the film never equals the opening for sheer horror. Soon, Arne is seeing and hearing disturbing things and it’s a very bad time for his work to involve a chainsaw. Troopers find Arne walking by the roadside, covered in blood. The Warren’s are called back to help save Arne and provide his defense in court, creating the first real-life example of “not guilty by reason of demonic possession” ever pled in a courtroom. Like the rest of the Conjuring films, this is based on a true story, but true life was never quite this scary. John Noble (Walter from “Fringe”) is terrific as a former Priest in town that helps the Warren’s track down the source of the evildoers. Unfortunately, the story wanders all over the place, even flashing back to the start of Ed and Lorraine’s romance as teenagers. Wilson and Farmiga are really good in their roles and convey a real sense of love and commitment to each other and to defeating the nasty spirits. But it just felt to me like I was bouncing between a routine episode of Dateline, a couples origin story and Arne being locked up with a demon in more ways than one. Jump scares and sudden sounds are well used, as always, but after the opening sequence, it was just never very scary. I come to these movies to be dragged down into suspenseful horror. Maybe it’s director Michael Chaves (the Curse of La Llorona) just doesn’t have the chops to pull it off, but It’s pretty disappointing compared to the first two films. I kept waiting for bigger or more inventive scares. Producer James Wan said that they wanted to move away from the “Haunted house” set up depicted in the first two films and I think that move leaves the film stagnant. Maybe if he’d stayed in the director chair, this would have been more compelling. At one point, a character walks into the famous room at the Warren’s with all the trinkets and memorabilia from the other, much scarier films in the franchise. All it did was remind me how much better most of those films were. The painting of that scary Nun on the wall as he walks around the room gave me more creeps than anything else in the last hour of this installment. Decent but unsurprising, pedestrian where its predecessors were superb, THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT features mild PG-13 scares bathed in R rated blood. But those first ten minutes pack a hell of a punch…… I’ll give this one a C.