For nearly a quarter century, the Chicago Palestine Film Festival has showcased film gems by or about Palestinians. One of the largest global populations of Palestinians lives in Chicago, concentrating in southwest suburban Bridgeview, also known as “Little Palestine.” After a narrow vote, Chicago became the largest American city calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. While violence peppers this century’s Middle East history, the current genocide in Gaza not only casts a dark cloud over all the viewings but also makes these films feel that more urgent. Palestinian films often explore four topics, capturing four phases of generational evolution: occupation, dispossession, diaspora, and discovery. We do not need these films to learn about politics. We need these films to do what films do: take us as close as eyes can see, to show us the travails of the human heart as it resists erasure. The festival opens with Lina Soualem’s somber, hopeful “Bye Bye Tiberias,” capturing the story of her mother, Hiam Abbass ("Succession"). Cinephiles will recognize Abbass as Palestine’s greatest cinematic export, an actress with nearly 100 credits to her name. Her expressions carry the weight of the entire Palestinian experience with tenderness. Soualem, like many of her generation, longs not only to know her mother, but her motherland. As their family faced displacement from their old village, Palestine begins to shift from a plot of precious land to an idea that hopes not to fade away. Soualem recalls Samira Makhmalbaf and Sophia Coppola as daughters of cinema royalty, speaking their own languages. The film expected to gain the most attention, however, will be Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen’s documentary “Israelism.” For forty minutes, we enter the world of American Jewish institutions, operating with great success in guiding their populations to a safe, strong Israel in a hostile world. Then, our main character—Simone Zimmerman—discovers that, despite a lifetime of acculturation about Jewish life, she is not able to disregard Palestinians. It was Jewish acculturation that compelled her to break off from pro-Israeli indoctrination and advocate for Palestinian lives. The filmmakers have been on a national tour screening “Israelism,” garnering much praise for its honesty and much criticism for its politics. Zimmerman comments in the film that opponents label those of her camp as “self-hating Jews.” I would suggest the greater avoidance comes from those who hide behind “the conflict is complex” slogan to quash engagement. My only wish is that this film appeared a few decades earlier. If there is a most important film in this festival, it is the biography of Marwan Barghouti, “Tomorrow’s Freedom” by Sophia Scott and Georgia Scott. I have been asked why the Palestinians cannot produce their own Gandhi or Mandela. Many regard Barghouti as that figure. Like so many other voices of freedom, much of his story unfolds while he remains in jail. Like so many of his predecessors, he contains his own complications and evolutions, allowing the Occupying forces to regard him as a monster hiding as a dove. Barghouti’s family, longing for him, speak as though he will find release. The more profound point here, present in all the films of this Festival, is that as they watch the Occupiers seize their towns, their homes, and their bodies, the Palestinians cannot help but persist. His resistance, whether from a rooftop speech or torture in solitary confinement in Israeli prisons, was not against Israel but against the Occupation. For a brief history of the plight of the Palestinians, Joshua Vis and Eric Schrotenboer’s film “The Law and the Prophets” provides journalist research through what at first seem to be ancient relics but are really former homes of displaced Palestinians. From there, we follow a full history not often taught. Highly stylish with modern graphics, you cannot help but to feel for the calculated, deliberate dispossession of the Palestinian peoples from their homes. Modern mainstream news coverage tends to be more sympathetic to the Palestinians than ever, yet still depicts the Palestinians as the primary cause of their own suffering. Vis and Schrotenboer’s film shows that the plight of the Palestinians is a generations-long erasure by multiple global powers without anyone intervening for them. Among the common terminologies and images in so many of these films is the concept of the Nakba, being the “catastrophe” of Israeli occupation. Nearly every film likewise features the checkpoints Palestinians need to give half of their days to; the odd wall that winds through the region, stealing Palestinian territory; faceless, nameless, fully-armed Israeli soldiers resembling the fascists from dystopian movies, breaking into homes. In nearly every film, the Palestinians live in an open-air prison, exercising their resistance to Occupation in their own ways. Likewise, among the short films, “High Roads” features women who run, stretch, swim, and research as their forms of resistance. The astronomers look to the cosmos as though it is their only access to freedom. In “Jabal,” young men entertain each other with ridiculous jokes in this road movie as they look for a lost population. In “Jamila,” a young American-Palestinian woman connects with her aunts seemingly through hair care but actually through shared sorrow. In “Dakhla,” a young Palestinian wonders from afar about his homeland and its chaos, reflecting on his identity through what may be a sentiment of survivor’s guilt. In “Pulse of Palestine,” we tour Nablus’ historical culture, as well as the roots of its activists and fighters. As I write this article, I wonder where we will be in a year. What will remain of Palestine? Who will remain of indigenous Palestinians? I must admit that I am far more pessimistic than the filmmakers featured in this festival and the Palestinians they portray. These films capture that determination.

Andy Kaufman doesn’t want you to watch his biopic. At the start of “Man on the Moon,” Kaufman (played by Jim Carrey) appears on screen, addressing us directly, using the squiggly voice he’d wield on stage and on “Taxi.” “I would like to thank you for coming to my movie,” he says before admitting, “I wish it was better, you know, but it is so stupid. It’s terrible. I do not even like it! All of the most important things in my life are changed around and mixed up for ‘dramatic purposes.’”  That opening was funny in 1999, but in 2024, it might be even better. Biopics have rarely been a creatively fertile genre—so many are made, so few are good—but in the last 25 years, they’ve seemed especially arid. It’s telling that, as commercially successful and acclaimed as “Oppenheimer” was, nobody thinks of it as a J. Robert Oppenheimer biopic. The movie’s too good to be considered “just” that—and Christopher Nolan himself has talked about conceiving the film as a heist movie, a thriller, anything other than a biopic. They show up a lot during awards season, but rarely are they taken seriously, no matter how many Oscars they win. The reasons why biopics remain so popular—and so often are underwhelming—are embedded in “Man on the Moon,” which screens at Ebertfest on Saturday, complete with a Q&A with screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. But you shouldn’t listen to Kaufman: His movie is as wonderful as ever. And it still serves as a guide to how to make a great biopic.  On paper, “Man on the Moon” seems to follow all the clichés of the genre. It’s a cradle-to-grave story about the rise and fall and rise again of an eccentric genius who was misunderstood in his time. Along the way, we see a highlight reel of his most memorable achievements. The movie even ends with the tear-jerking death of its main character—you can’t get more biopic-y than that. Throw in childhood hints of his odd brilliance and scenes of stuffy executives too square to appreciate his talent—plus a romantic subplot and cameos from his famous friends (playing themselves)—and you’ve basically checked every box needed for a can’t-miss prestige, Oscar-bait biographical drama. (Oh, and “Man on the Moon” was directed by Miloš Forman, who helmed the Best Picture-winning “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Amadeus.”) But much like Kaufman, who died of lung cancer in 1984 at the age of 35, “Man on the Moon” relishes upending conventions. Although not as radical or willfully combative as Kaufman in his prime, the movie (which received zero Oscar nominations and bombed at the box office) nonetheless exudes a similarly whimsical, questioning spirit, telling a biopic narrative without the annoying biopic trappings. Yes, we see Kaufman’s greatest hits—his “Mighty Mouse” performance on “Saturday Night Live,” his long-running bit with wrestler Jerry Lawler, his Elvis impression—but Forman resists offering the usual simplistic insights.  As opposed to other artist biopics—“Ray,” “Bob Marley: One Love”—which seek to uncover the a-ha moments of inspiration that gave birth to indelible songs, “Man on the Moon” lets the germ of creativity remain unknowable. Why did Kaufman stage such an unusual TV special that included Howdy Doody? Because he liked the character as a kid, no big deal. Why did his 1979 Carnegie Hall show feature Santa Claus? Because he wanted to make something joyful. The film simultaneously demystifies and amplifies the ineffable spark that produces enduring art. You can watch “Man on the Moon” dozens of times and still never fully “understand” how Kaufman did what he did. Other biopics pretend to illuminate—“Man on the Moon” respects and preserves the mystery of what went on inside Kaufman’s head. That mystery is accentuated by Carrey, whose performance could also initially be viewed as biopic-y. If you’ve watched the endlessly compelling 2017 documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, you saw the ridiculous lengths he went to stay in character at all times. (The behind-the-scenes footage makes it clear his costars and director wanted to slug “Andy.”) But while biopics are often praised for how much the actor “disappears” into the role, and although Carrey embodies the comic’s demeanor, mannerisms, and different voices—including that of obnoxious alter ego Tony Clifton—the performance is not an act of mimicry.  Instead, you feel Carrey connecting to Kaufman, appreciating his flair for confrontation and his passion for challenging his audience. But, like the film itself, Carrey isn’t trying to explain Kaufman. As deeply as Carrey dove into Kaufman—and Clifton—on set, he leaves something fascinatingly unknowable about the man. “Man on the Man” suggests that no one fully “got” Kaufman—not his manager George Shapiro (Danny DeVito), not his girlfriend Lynne Margulies (Courtney Love), and not his best friend and creative partner Bob Zmuda (Paul Giamatti)—and the film’s arms-length approach is echoed in Carrey’s strategically distant performance. You walk away from “Man on the Moon” loving Kaufman’s bits but getting no closer to the artist. That’s how Andy wanted it, and that’s what Carrey honored.  As Kaufman warns at the start of “Man on the Moon,” are there important things in his life that are changed around for dramatic purposes? Oh, sure: Some biopic conventions can’t be entirely avoided. But few entries in the genre are as lovingly ambivalent as “Man on the Moon.” Most biopics want to convince you that their subject is the greatest, most amazing, most inspiring, most wonderful, most important individual the world has ever known. (They’re basically a feature-length campaign ad.) But while Forman and his collaborators have nothing but admiration for Kaufman, “Man on the Moon” eschews hagiography because of its satisfyingly unresolved quality.  Indeed, while his life and death are on display, there’s a refreshing neutrality to the presentation. Some scenes, you may find Kaufman to be a brave comedic anarchist setting fire to the banality of network sitcoms. Other times, you may think he’s just a jerk indulging his odd sense of humor in order to torture his fans. Your mileage will vary as an audience member, and 25 years later, I think that’s what makes this such a standout biopic. “Man on the Moon” loves Kaufman, but even it can’t entirely make up its mind about him. That’s not a weakness but, rather, a strength, leaving room for viewers to filter his life through our perspective.  Plus, the world itself has changed since this film’s initial release. In the late 1990s, selling out was still an artistic sin, with Kaufman held up as one of the champions of Never Compromising. But despite our modern entertainment landscape full of anti-comedy and niche performers, that attitude has mostly faded away—artists have learned to embrace their corporate masters. Is Kaufman a symbol of an honorable, forgotten mindset? Or was he just a pain in the ass, selfishly amusing himself? I lean toward the former while acknowledging the times that he veered toward the latter. “Man on the Moon” spotlights both sides—no judgments and no conclusions.  The further away we move from his death, the more enigmatic Andy Kaufman becomes. And the better his movie plays. Too many biopics want to assure us that they have all the answers—that an amazing life can be summed up in a few hours, leaving us with all the correct positive emotions as we exit the theater. “Man on the Moon” is suspicious of such niceties. So much of Kaufman’s prankish work was about misdirection, false appearances, elaborate schemes—why shouldn’t his film be equally self-aware about the limits of a “true” portrait of an artist? This movie won’t tell you what made Andy Kaufman tick, but it understands what he meant. Forget phony insights and fake uplift: Ultimately, that’s all I need from a biopic.

Minhal Baig’s “We Grown Now” is a film masterfully tied to the emotive potential of place. A period piece centered in Cabrini-Green in the early '90s, the film is as Chicago born and bred as the characters it loves throughout its runtime. Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez) are two young boys, best friends since birth as they say, living in Chicago’s infamous Cabrini-Green housing project. They live their lives in the quotidian but nostalgic ways many kids do: going to school, eating dinner with their families, and entertaining themselves in all the moments in between (telling popsicle stick-type jokes and gathering mattresses to jump on). It’s this overall simplistic and grounded approach to childhood that makes “We Grown Now” poignantly charming and the development of its story all the more affecting.  When tragedy strikes on the grounds of Cabrini-Green, a child’s life is lost in the crossfires of criminal activity, and the boys are forced to reckon with the psychic and physical consequences that are born in its wake. And so the title, “We Grown Now,” is less an observation of the process of aging and more a eulogy of lost innocence. It’s a document of Black life through the eyes of children who, on account of the sociopolitical factors of race and class, are forced to deal with adult problems and complexities far before their white counterparts. It’s a portrait of the beauty of youth and the heartening passion of childhood friendships but also a mournfully pointed finger at the fragility of these sacred pillars of upbringing. However, “We Grown Now” is not overly saccharine or pitiful. It’s a film defined by streaks of sunshine and attentive detail to seemingly unremarkable moments of child life. Utilizing location at every feasible scale, from the wideness of the city of Chicago to the minuteness of frames hanging on cinder block hallways, Baig’s direction plays a symphony with your heartstrings at every turn. Romanticized images of Black girls hula hooping on tar-black pavement, close-ups of balls bounced against brick walls in bored, passage-of-time play, and hazy sunlight through school bathroom meetups (when you should be in class) recall the mundane with nostalgic reverence.  The film’s geographical core of Cabrini-Green is the most infamous of Chicago’s many historied housing projects, and its filmic legacy is most likely to awaken memories of the dangerous, dilapidated corridors and crumbling, graffiti stained infrastructure in “Candyman,” a film that takes place in the same year of “We Grown Now.” While these are vastly different films, each laudable in their own right, their depictions are clear dichotomous representations of reputation and reality. Yet, “We Grown Now” doesn’t sidestep the underbelly of its locale. While utilizing it as a biographical moment in the lives of Malik and Eric, it also permits a full, real spectrum of its history: both the plague of crime’s collateral damage and the play and plainness of an overall happily lived life. Though Jay Wadley’s string-heavy score sometimes tips into oversentimentality alongside a few heavy-handed moments of dialogue, “We Grown Now” is largely firmly planted in authenticity. Baig’s direction stays consistent even in the film’s plaintive moments. The swapping between low-set cameras of youth perspective, high-angle shots that emphasize small scale, and honed attention to minute details maintains the whimsy and wonder of childhood. These repeated conventions are applied with romanticism in the film’s highs and brushed with melancholy in its lows, maintaining the perspectives of the young boys with powerful consistency.  James and Ramirez operate excellently as the film’s core duo, even as James’ Malik gets more of the main character treatment. The boys’ chemistry as best friends is believable between innocently playing the dozens and cutting class, musing on love and life with charming naivety, and even navigating the increasingly complex emotions that come with their disdainfully encroaching socio-political awareness. As Eric’s father, Lil Rel Howery displays an emotional range and palpability not typically attributed to his habitual comedic roles. Jurnee Smollett, as Malik’s mother, serves as the film’s contextual delivery of adulthood issues. Both depictions of these parental roles provide structure and color the film with a touching sense of protection, but “We Grown Now” belongs, unshakably and entrancingly, to the boys.

Will there ever be a version of “Rebel Moon—Part 2: The Scargiver” that makes the movie and its franchise seem essential? Director and co-writer Zack Snyder has already tried to whip up his fanbase by teasing “R-rated” versions of the first two entries in his ongoing “Star Wars” ripoff cycle, a lifeless homage to that other IPed-to-death sci-fi series. The well-covered struggle to release the Snyder cut of “Justice League” notably improved what was only ever a passable super-programmer. It’s also established an unfortunate precedent for how “Rebel Moon” is now being advertised, as a victim of its own release strategy.   Unfortunately, while I can’t review a version of “Rebel Moon—Part 2: The Scargiver” that I wasn’t allowed to see, I can say that I doubt more (or just more extreme) violence and sex will improve this joyless expansion of the previous movie’s Kurosawa-sploitation space opera. The shortcomings that kept the first “Rebel Moon” from ever taking off are still apparent in its sequel, particularly Snyder’s disinterest in his actors’ performances as well as this movie’s vast array of bland visuals and flavorless dialogue. Like the last one, the latest “Rebel Moon” looks like it was rushed through production to compete with whatever “Star Wars” series is now streaming on Disney+. The Snyder faithful may see something in “Rebel Moon—Part 2: The Scargiver” that the rest of us can’t, but that doesn’t make this tired sequel any less puny. Previously on “Rebel Moon”: A group of misfit rebels banded together and seemingly defeated the Imperial Space Nazis, led by the goofily accented Regent Balisarius (Fra Fee) and the lanky rage-case fascist Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein). Noble was killed at the end of “Rebel Moon—Part 1: A Child of Fire,” but even the end of that movie hinted that he wouldn’t be dead for long. Sure enough, he’s back again and now angry enough to retaliate against the smalltown farmers of Veldt, an idyllic moon with Smallville-style fields of space-grain, Oshkosh B’gosh catalog-ready space-farm children, and “Asterix”-type longhouses, too.  Who will save the people of Veldt, represented here by the young and ripped hunter Den (Stuart Martin) and the older but also chiseled Hagen (“A White, White Day” star Ingvar Sigurdsson)? The same motley crew as last time, still led by the scowling ex-general Titus (Djimon Hounsou, the generically mysterious Kora (Sofia Boutella), and her unconvincing love interest Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), the last of whom is also from Veldt. In case you’re wondering what else has changed since the last “Rebel Moon”: there’s a scene where our heroes share what they’re really fighting for, which they emphasize through momentum-throttling, voiceover-smothered flashbacks.  Among other acknowledged influences on the “Rebel Moon” movies, Snyder claims kinship with the graphic-design-forward and stoner-friendly “Heavy Metal” brand of comics, an inspiration that Snyder teases in Martin’s character name (named after Richard Corben’s serialized space-barbarian “Den” comics). I don’t see it, and it’s not because Martin isn’t obviously trying to emphasize the sheer immensity of his emotions. I imagine that Den never lives up to his namesake because of of Snyder’s blunted vision and not Martin or his performance. For supporting evidence, see how often intensity and action figure poses stand in for character and detail in just about everyone else’s performances. More is often less in “Rebel Moon—Part 2: The Scargiver,” not only when it comes to the movie’s sweaty, vein-activating performances, but also its over-exaggerated and under-choreographed action scenes. Kora and Gunnar’s overblown romance is also defined by bold, sweeping hints at romantic passion, like when he unbelievably confesses to her what motivates him: “It was you. It was losing you.” Never mind the gawky adolescent phrasing and the unbelievably flat line-reading—this gesture towards big-ness exemplifies the Snyder-y style of “Rebel Moon,” a series whose sound design is always more convincing, in both its nuance and sheer volume, than whatever’s on-screen.  Seeing “Rebel Moon—Part 2: The Scargiver” in a theater would probably be the best way to go, since that way you can hear the movie loud enough to imagine you’re watching something better. Then again, the fact that Netflix produced both movies—their most expensive production of 2023!—and is apparently now releasing at least two cuts per installment, suggests that not many people will be able to see this movie beyond their living rooms. In this light, it’s hard to imagine the necessity of a separate R-rated version of either movie.  The problem with the “Rebel Moon” movies isn’t that they need to be bigger or heavier to be better. If everything else feels as anemic and negligible as the non-sexual scenes in a floppy, overproduced porno, then I don’t think that adding more of everything will greatly enhance anything. 

Set in 1992 in the northernmost United States, where criminals run drugs and guns over the border with Canada, "Blood for Dust" is a hard, nasty crime thriller about hard, nasty men. Directed by Rod Blackhurst from a script by David Ebeltoft, it tells you what kind of movie it is from its gruesome opening image and continues in that mode for another hour and forty-five minutes. It's anchored to a lead performance by Scoot McNairy that ranks with the best of classic neo-noir.  McNairy plays a traveling defibrillator salesman named Cliff. He and his wife Amy (Nora Zehetner) are Christians who attend church regularly and have a child with cancer, and there's nothing about Cliff that suggests he isn't sincere about loving his family and seeking solace in prayer and the word of God. But he's also the kind of guy who celebrates a big sale on the road by going to a strip joint. As the story unreels, we learn a lot of other things that complicate our image of Cliff. Somehow none of them make him seem like a hypocrite, just somebody who's contradictory, and whose in-the-moment decisions are powered by impulses we don't understand and that he's not going to explain to anyone, certainly not the viewer.  Cliff has a friend named Ricky (Kit Harington of "Game of Thrones"), a self-styled bad boy with a smirky face, a whooping laugh, an infectious self-confidence, and some of the least flattering facial hair you've ever seen. Ricky knows Cliff is struggling and offers him a chance to make a lot of money all at once by serving as sort of a mule, driving guns into Canada, trading them for drugs and driving back (or the reverse). Ricky tells his contact on the American side of the border, a gangster named John (Josh Lucas, nailing the character's reptilian swagger), that his buddy Cliff is perfect for that kind of work because he looks and acts like a milquetoast-normal guy who couldn't hurt a fly even if he wanted to. John agrees, assigning Cliff a mission and teaming him with a henchman and "minder" named Slim (Ethan Suplee—another of the excellent character actors gathered in this cast, which also features Stephen Dorff, who played a Ricky-like character in the 1996 crime flick "City of Industry").  Things get darker and more disturbing from there. It's best not to delve into the particulars, other than to say that there isn't anything new here in terms of crime-movie situations, violent or otherwise (Ricky is very much a chaos-stirring "live wire" type, familiar from "Mean Streets," "State of Grace," "Menace 2 Society" and countless other crime flicks), and that the movie is less interesting when people are shooting each other than when they're getting mad enough to consider drawing their guns in the first place; but also that, whatever its shortcomings, including too much solemnity and not enough jokes, there's no denying that the film creates a powerful mood and sustains it.   Cliff is a struggling salesman archetype, with all the burdens and secret corruption you'd expect from that kind of character. So, in a strange way, is Ricky, though he's more of a cowboy. If these actors were cast in a revival of "Glengarry Glen Ross," McNairy would be Shelly "The Machine" Levine," who justifies his shabby hard-selling of worthless real estate on grounds that he has a very sick daughter in the hospital, and Harrington would be Ricky Roma, the hotshot who brags about the big fish he's landed and holds forth on how bourgeois morality is for suckers. In the end, though, Cliff is the darker character because he does still have self-awareness, guilt, and the ghostly afterimage of a code. His criminality is borne of despair, and that film noir hero's belief that the system is rigged against the little guy and it's better to lash out and risk destroying yourself (and others) than let the days go by (water flowing underground). Cliff and Ricky also have that film noir hero aspect of being deluded and self-justifying. They're both less sinned-against than sinning, but you wouldn't know if from hearing them rationalize their actions. The entire cast operates at a peak level of craft, but McNairy's subtle, reactive performance helps elevate them all. The movie is good, but he's great. The former costar of "Halt and Catch Fire" brings a grubby, desperate "Everyman" quality to a character who is no better than the animals he gets involved with, just housebroken. It's not easy to give a blank-slate sort of performance without making the character seem undernourished or sketchy. This actor rises to the occasion. It's a living Rorschach blot of an acting job. Every five minutes you see something different. Technically, the film is impeccable. Blackhurst and his collaborators (including cinematographer Justin Derry, whose wide-frame compositions have a 1970s Gordon Willis vibe; editor Justin Oakley; and a brilliant sound team) have captured the dread and isolation that people on the fringes feel when they believe there's no hope. I never really thought of the early '90s as having a distinctive period flavor, but they did, and "Blood for Dust" captures it, right down to the mullets, the squarish TVs and computer monitors, and the red-orange glow cast by incandescent lights. Somehow this movie smells like cigarettes. It also has a steely menace—the real-world kind that hovers around the edges of a run-down gas station or abandoned house or patch of snowy woods way out in the country, where horrible things could happen and no one would know until a steam shovel unearthed a skull.  

“Dusk for a Hitman” is a husk of a great film. Director Raymond St-Jean has a sturdy central character—though the crime drama is based on the real life of Montreal fixer Donald Lavoie, much of it is fictional—made stronger through a deft ability to conjure a grim atmosphere around an actor capable of landing emotional grace notes in a threadbare story. Contract killings are carried out with cold efficiency and continual negotiations of loyalty, and these basic mechanics are enough to breezily pass the time. But the film’s incuriosity of the cutthroat world inhabited by Lavoie and his fractured inner life restricts this foreboding character study, rendering it merely serviceable.  Mostly taking place over the course of a year, “Dusk for a Hitman” begins in the Fall of 1979. Lavoie (Éric Bruneau), behind the wheel of his sleek caramel-colored Cadillac, is driving down a country road with a new, nervous partner. His young sidekick was assigned to Lavoie by their boss, Claude Dubois (Benoît Gouin), after the kid messed up a previous hit. Lavoie is accompanying him to finish the job. “Now that you have to help me, you’ll see it’s easy to kill a man,” Lavoie wryly says. The pair proficiently infiltrate the hideout of their target, shooting him in an outhouse. This is only half the task; in the quickness of a breath, Lavoie executes his partner.  Lavoie is Dubois’ best hired gun. The real-life hitman, in fact, would later admit that he murdered fifteen people for the crime boss, who, with his mob boss brother—the film omits the sibling—ruled Montreal’s underworld. Along with killings, Lavoie also collects debts and is an enforcer. Dubois so trusts him that the kingpin even shows the hitman where to find his buried loot in case someone is dumb enough to take him hostage. Outside of the close bond shared by employer and employee, St-Jean and Martin Girard provide little else about this organization's inner workings. So, if you’re looking for Henry Hill to give a “Goodfellas” explanation of Lavoie’s background and personal thoughts, you won’t find it in this film. That isn’t necessarily a negative. I’d even say it’s by design: Dubois dispatches rats and failures so quickly there’s no sense in learning their names. But I can’t help but feel more world-building could have happened: What’s Dubois’ territory, and how does his business hum? There’s a similar thinness to Lavoie’s family life. His wife Francine (Rose-Marie Perreault) is so basic she might as well be nonexistent. His young daughter, to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t even have a name. Lavoie mostly calls her the kid. Once again, you get the sense this is by design. Not unlike what Martin Scorsese did with Anna Paquin’s character in “The Irishman.” Lavoie is so consumed by the lifestyle of murder, cocaine, and money—that he barely has the bandwidth or desire to see his family as people worth knowing. But by the second half of the film, when Lavoie’s motivations shift toward protecting his family, there are only two very brief scenes featuring his daughter. It’s a kind of hollowness that, after a while, feels less like a window into the character and more like a severed thread.  Even the fraught relationship Lavoie shares with his screw-up of a brother leaves much on the table. The specter of an unseen abusive father, one sick with cancer, looms over their lives—to the point Lavoie sneers at the very mention of his dad. And yet, it’s a heartache perpetually gestured toward without ever being felt.  The compositions in “Dusk for a Hitman” are fairly conventional (Bruneau is always centered framed), and the score has the kind of ragged, heavy guitars infiltrating just about every action film or crime thriller. Their simplicity, nevertheless, works in a film about an unsentimental killer whose soul is so blackened he can barely recognize himself. Even with the mostly staid lensing, some instances with a deep depth of field do ratchet up the atmosphere. When Lavoie is released from prison, you’re sure Dubois will whack him because of the sharp visual language. St-Jean and DP Jean-François Lord play with such expectations. Some simple blocking keeps a third gangster in view during an interrogation, and the staging of an ensuing hit holds the other hired guns just within reach, mulling behind Lavoie. St-Jean is lucky to have Bruneau. The lanky actor palpably flexes his frame from still and rigid in a run-up to a murder, kinetic during the actual deed, and frazzled when coked up. Even when the script keeps his character at arm’s length, Bruneau quietly brings us in. The strained rivalry between Lavoie and Detective Burns (Sylvain Marcel)—which later takes an unlikely turn—only works because of Bruneau’s talent for granting us access to Lavoie’s innermost hurts. The same could be said of the underwritten love Lavoie displays for his family. It’s Bruneau who makes you realize how great “Dusk for a Hitman” could have been if only it had some extra shine, but who also allows you to be content that St-Jean’s crime movie is merely a sturdy installment in the genre.   

Say what you will about “Stress Positions,” the new indie comedy that marks the feature debut of writer-director-costar Theda Hammel: it's not overly consumed with coming across as likable to potential viewers. Not only does it take us back to the early days of COVID-19 (an era that many audiences may not feel particularly inclined to revisit, especially in the context of a comedy) but populates its narrative with some of the most spectacularly solipsistic and generally irritating characters imaginable. As approaches go, this is undeniably chancy, I suppose. Still, while some viewers may find her willingness to go to such extremes impressive, I suspect that many more will find themselves driven to the exits. Set over the spring and summer of 2020, the film centers on Terry (John Early), a guy who is hoping to ride things out in a Brooklyn brownstone belonging to ex-husband Leo (John Roberts) along with Bahlul (Qaher Harhash), his 19-year-old Moroccan nephew who works as a male model and has been laid up with a broken leg after being injured in a scooter accident. Terry takes his determination to protect himself and Bahlul from the potential horrors of the outside world to grand extremes: Spraying virtually every surface with an endless supply of Lysol, and removing every trace of the apartment’s long and lurid history as Leo’s chief party place. He also tries to keep potential visitors—save for the maskless MAGA neighbor who can fix the wi-fi and the GrubHub courier who is a regular fixture—away by insisting that the newcomer is too badly injured to have guests coming by. Of course, the news that Terry has a handsome and mysterious male model sequestered in his apartment is just the thing to raise the curiosity of those in his orbit. Before long, his best (and possibly only) friend, trans lesbian Karla (Hammel), turns up to check out the newcomer and to take a break from her wife, Vanessa (Amy Zimmer), an author who essentially stole the details of Karla’s life for her first novel and who is now struggling to come up with a follow-up. While Terry becomes increasingly frustrated and paranoid—not to mention injured after slipping on a piece of raw chicken—Karla does everything she can to befriend Bahlul and to help him figure out who he is. Their respective jobs become excessively complicated when Leo unexpectedly arrives with his new fiancé and others, all of whom have become consumed with the notion of meeting Terry’s mysterious guest for themselves. Some of the early going is quite funny, as Hammel starts things off in a cheerfully goofy tone. Terry’s determination to bang his pots and pans to support frontline workers without interrupting his latest rant is especially amusing. I also liked how the people in Terry's proximity try to curry favor from Bahlul in ways that only serve to underline their blinkered and occasionally racist perspectives. Karla tries to ingratiate herself by playing up her dubious Mediterranean heritage, Vanessa talks about the horrors of being forced to grow up around “blondes." While everyone is willing to talk about the evils and intolerant nature of all things American (in Terry’s case, presumably as a way of atoning for his bout of post-9/11 conservatism), none of them appear even to know if Morocco is part of the Middle East or not. This is funny to a point, but the problem with “Stress Positions” is that said point arrives about halfway through. The runtime that remains gets overloaded with too many plot threads, characters, and repeated punchlines, Hammel essentially turning the proceedings into a failed exercise in Blake Edwards-style farce.  Another problem is the inescapable fact that nearly all the characters seem to outdo each other in self-absorption and general awfulness without making them interesting. The only one who escapes this is Bahlul; perhaps the funniest and subtlest running joke is the way he quietly suggests that these people fawning for his attention are not nearly as special or exciting as they think. If the film concentrated more on this and less on the increasingly chaotic proceedings on display, it might have become more than an endless litany of smug obnoxiousness.

Matthew Modine has been acting in movies for over 40 years. He started out in the '80s and '90s in a string of memorable films, including "Vision Quest," Alan Parker's "Birdy" (opposite another talented unknown named Nicolas Cage), Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket," and two Robert Altman ensemble dramas, "Streamers" and "Short Cuts." At 65, after a solid quarter-century of character work in TV and movies (including "Oppenheimer"), he has gravitas, entering every project with a relaxed air of authority. Modine brings all of his experience to bear in "Hard Miles," a sports drama based on the true story of Greg Townsend, an employee of a juvenile detention facility who turned his passion for cycling into a way to connect with the troubled teenagers under his care, by leading them on a 762-mile bike ride from the facility in Colorado to the Grand Canyon.  "Hard Miles" is an independent film through-and-through, of a type that Modine is known for getting involved in. He's the only name in the cast, the rest of which is filled out with talented newcomers and reliable character actors. He's also credited as an executive producer and helped shape the project with director R.J. Daniel Hanna and his cowriter and producer Christian Sander (who also cast Modine as a senator in the 2018 political drama "Miss Virginia"). Like a lot of the projects Modine says yes to, this one is a passion project. Not only is Modine a believer in prison reform to make rehabilitation as important as punishment, his own family endured a devastating incident of gun violence in the 1960s that shaped his perceptions of life, and eventually landed his traumatized brother, one of the survivors, in a facility similar to the one shown in the film. Did you know the real-life story behind the screenplay before you read it? No, I didn’t. But my brother Russell was in a reform school—I guess that’s what you call it. In the old days, they called it a juvenile delinquent center, but I think the language has changed now, and they call them “homes for troubled youth.” I visited him a lot when he was in that reform school. It’s only from about 15 to 17 years old, maybe 18, that young (particularly) boys get in a lot of trouble. For whatever reason, if they’re from a troubled home, they get attracted to a gang. It’s about three years of extreme immaturity and bad choices young boys make that have an impact, oftentimes a negative effect, on their whole lives.  Did your brother ever talk to you about his experience with the juvenile system? Yeah, my brother’s story could have easily been like the one the film tells. I’m sure that one of the thousands of people that Greg Townsend has helped to successfully [rehabilitate] is like my brother.  My brother Russell and my sister Elizabeth are actually my cousins. Gun violence is something that we know about all across the U.S.A. Gun violence is something that came into my family’s life. My mother’s sister, her husband, came home and shot her, and then shot himself in front of the two children, in front of Elizabeth and Russell, when they were only about 4 and 7 years old. Oh my god.  Yeah. The trouble that Russell was having as he entered his teens was obviously a repercussion of something that happened with his mother and father. Being witness to that was something that he struggled with for many years until he got into his 30s and really got into…being able to speak with a therapist to exorcise the demons from his psyche. It’s a story that I understand.   Greg Townsend has taken thousands of troubled kids on bike rides and had, I think, over a 90% success rate in turning them into productive, good citizens. I thought it was so exciting to be able to make a film that sets an example for our greater community across the U.S. to understand those young people and their difficulties, and not to give up on them, but to help to rehabilitate.  They used to call prisons “penitentiaries” and the root of that word is “penance.” It’s so important that if you do a crime, you serve the time and you get rehabilitated when you’re in the system, whether it’s a reform school or a prison, and come out and get on with your life. You shouldn’t be continually punished for your life for having made a mistake. We have to go back to that idea rather than creating lifetime criminals. We need a system that helps to rehabilitate and educate and gives people working skills while they’re in prison, so that when they come out they can get on with their lives.   I’m so, so sorry about what happened to Russell and Elizabeth. That’s unimaginable to me. He’s a good man, Russell. He lives in Utah. He’s got a whole bunch of grandchildren now. He married someone who has children, so he now has his and hers and theirs that they have together. He’s a good man.  What were the factors that led you to get so deeply involved with this movie? Well, first, it was Daniel Hanna. We worked together on a film called “Miss Virginia,” and I really enjoyed it. He’s a bright young new talent coming into the entertainment industry, and he was just really smart when we were making “Miss Virginia.” And when he had the opportunity to present this project to me, he said that I would win the Academy Award if I said “yes,” so that was a good place to start! [Laughs] And then I read it, thought it was a terrific script, and we went to work doing a polish on it with his co-writer Christian Sander. Then I met the young kids who would act with me, and it was an easy “yes.” I was just finishing “Oppenheimer,” and I was in Pasadena, so when I wasn’t working on “Oppenheimer,” we were doing the polish on the script.  And then began the bike training, just to get the kids in shape and have an understanding of how to do something as seemingly simple as clicking your foot into a clip. I guess that’s what they’re called? “Clips,” right? They are called clips, but I’m surprised to hear you asking me that because I’m not a bike guy, and from the film, I assumed you were a bike guy! Yeah, but I’m not a lycra bike guy. I live in New York City and I use the bicycle as a form of transportation, not as a vehicle for exercise and the kind of punishment that that class of bicyclists put themselves through! That’s a different level, those long-range touring bikes or rides that people do. The longest ride I ever do is go from Greenwich Village up to the Bronx to watch a Yankee game and then ride home!  That sounds nice. After a game, getting on the bicycle and pedaling, you go through the Bronx, and then you go through Harlem, and then you enter Central Park, and you have the long, long ride through Central Park at nighttime. On a hot summer night, it’s just magical. It’s really quite something. Were there any parts of your character’s struggle with his own experience of violence as a child—in particular his relationship with his abusive and now-elderly father, and his struggle to control his own temper—that you connected to personally?  Well, we all go through periods of difficulty in our lives. I’m grateful for the difficulties that I had, because I feel like – and this is another challenge that teachers are faced with today – is that in addition to being educators, they sometimes have to be disciplinarians. The teachers that I had when I was going to school, the ones that were quite strong, I remember them by name. The people that you could sort of coast through their classes, I can't remember what they looked like! I really do think that the ones that were pushing me were educators that saw that there was goodness in me, and that with a little bit of nudging, they could get more out of me, and help me to become a better person.  How does all that relate to filmmaking? On a film set, the director is often a teacher and an educator and a disciplinarian. What you’re faced with when you’re directing a film is that the enemy is time. You have a limited amount of time in order to be able to accomplish a goal, to get everything you need on that day of shooting in the can, as the expression goes, so that you have the raw materials when you sit down to edit the film to be able to tell the story.  I began in the business when I was quite young; all these directors in the '80s, whether it was Alan Parker who did Birdy, or Harold Becker who did Vision Quest, or Stanley Kubrick, or Robert Altman, were faced with a young actor who they believed in and had given an opportunity to act, and they know that they only had a limited amount of time in order to be able to get what’s best in me out of me. Sometimes they were quite strong and [used] what today might be considered inappropriate language to use on a film set, to tell an actor to be better. Greg Townsend, in the course of this film, is quite strong with the boys, and pushes them. But in pushing them, he is able to get the best out of them.  If you could be a Greg Townsend of acting for a second, what would you tell young people about how to do the job, and get better at it? Do you have any simple words of advice? There is no greater educator than the theater. I think that’s very important. When kids are in acting classes, they shouldn’t be doing scenes from TV shows or movies, they should be doing scenes from plays, working on plays, because there are bigger ideas in plays. There’s more to explore and investigate and more to learn about how to be a storyteller. That journey really begins with the memorization of the dialogue. If you get a role, you have to be learning those lines and understanding why the writer chose to tell this story. What is it about this story that made somebody want to sit down and write it? And why did they choose these words? That exploration into why takes you on a journey of understanding and of why you’re going to stand on a stage and say those words. It’s a process. And the thing that’s great about my job being an actor–and I think writers also–is that it’s the exploration into the other, of trying to understand other human beings.  Empathy.  I’ll quote Harper Lee in her book To Kill a Mockingbird: “We never really understand another person until we get inside their skin and walk around in it.” That’s what actors do by definition. I think that most people in the arts have a wonderful sense of our responsibility to one another -- how important it is to have a shared humanity. Not to demonize other people that we don’t understand, but to try to understand them.  You could have looked at my brother, for instance, when he was 16 years old and just thought he was a rebellious, stubborn, shitty teenager. But if you were going to play him in a movie, you’d look at the circumstances of his life and what led him to that point, and you’d go, “Oh my god, when he was a little boy, his mother was shot in front of him and his father then killed himself, and he was in the house for hours before the police came.” You think about how traumatizing that must have been for him as a child. When you realize that, by the time he’s 16 years old in the 1960s in the United States, there was rampant drug use and a sexual revolution, you start to understand why that person may have behaved the way they did. When we understand the why, we become a little bit more empathetic to people that we might otherwise just say, “Oh, look at this stupid teenager hanging out in the corner smoking weed. What a waste of life.”  Who do you think are some directors that you’ve worked with who really understood that idea of empathy?  Robert Altman, a thousand percent. I worked with Bob three times. I did a play with him in London called Resurrection Blues, "Short Cuts," and the first lead I had in a film was with him, in a movie called "Streamers," about some soldiers in the army, which we filmed in Las Colinas Studios outside of Dallas. It was a big deal for me, working with Robert Altman.  Stanley Kubrick, in his own way. He was very different from any other human being I’ve ever met, and I can’t compare the experience of working with Stanley Kubrick with other filmmakers, because we were together for almost two years over the course of filming.  Who else? I think Daniel Hanna is a very compassionate filmmaker. This is slightly off the beaten track, but there was a movie you were in called "Orphans," starring you and Kevin Anderson as delinquents who get taken under the wing of an aging gangster played by Albert Finney.  I love "Orphans." Incredible film. It’s not talked about now, which is a shame. Does it have any kind of afterlife? Do people ask you about it? What was your experience of shooting it? We thought we were going to win every Academy Award ever made. You had Alan Pakula directing, who’d done “Sophie’s Choice,” “All the President’s Men," and “Klute” and was a producer of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” with Gregory Peck. He was an extraordinary filmmaker. Then I had Albert Finney, who had won the Olivier Award for doing the play in the West End of London, and Kevin Anderson, who had been with the play for a long time. I think he started in Chicago and New York, and then did it in London. He’s a wonderful actor. It was extraordinary. What were some other movies that you’re really fond of that you feel didn’t get a chance for one reason or another? There’s a fantastic film that I directed called "If… Dog… Rabbit." I keep trying to find some way to meet Quentin Tarantino and get him to re-release the film. I would love to do a screening there. We just had a retrospective screening in NYC at the Roxy Theater. It was the favorite of all the movies that they played. And they played "Equinox," which is another movie I really love that Alan Rudolph directed. Wonderful, underappreciated director. A protégé of Robert Altman. So, "Equinox," "Orphans." "Birdy" has its fans. Outside of the U.S. it was a gigantic hit. In Germany, France, England, Japan, Italy, "Birdy" was a big, big success. It won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. But they tried to market it in the U.S. as two wacky kids from Philadelphia, and that’s not what it is. It’s a dark story about post-traumatic stress.  I’ll bet you’re pleased by how much attention "Married to the Mob" has gotten in recent years.   That’s wonderful, yeah. That was Jonathan Demme. A great filmmaker. A very empathetic human being with a great sense of humor and irony, and obviously something dark as well. I don’t even know how to put it all into words. Is it true that you were going to be Maverick in 'Top Gun' and turned it down? Yeah. First of all, I probably wouldn’t fit in the cockpit. You can’t be taller than 5’6, 5’7 to be in the cockpit of the plane! But yeah, I did "Full Metal Jacket." That was more my speed. "Top Gun" was just kind of what I call war pornography. You have been very actively anti-war and anti-gun violence throughout your adult life. Is that mainly because of what happened to Russell and Elizabeth? Or were there other factors? My father was a drive-in theater manager, and watching hundreds of movies during my youth, I always wanted to be a person who helped solve problems, not create them. I don't think that war is the answer to conflict. It’s terrible when wars happen and when Hamas goes in and kills babies. It’s a horrible situation. But the response to what they did is kind of like our response to 9/11, trumping up words about how there were Weapons of Mass Destruction, which we now know wasn’t the case.  Israel’s response now is…We don’t want to go into all the politics of this, but I don't think that war is the solution to our problems. We still behave like the early men in "2001," like the solution to a problem is beating someone’s head in with a bone. Now we can do it with drones, we can do it with guns, or like the Russians have done in Ukraine. I don't know if you saw 60 Minutes this weekend. When they talk about the millions of mines that the Russians have planted across Ukraine, I was imagining the ones that look the size of a frisbee because that’s what my exposure was from seeing the war in WWII movies, so I imagined millions of those frisbees everywhere. You know what they’re called? They’re called petal mines. Do you know about this? No, I don’t. They’re like flower petals. I think they only weigh four ounces. They fly over, and they drop them from airplanes, and they flutter down to the ground, and they look like leaves. So when you’re walking through the fields, it looks like a green leaf. And there’s just enough explosive in them to blow your leg off. Good lord. Yes. If ever there was a crime of war, a crime against humanity, that’s it for me. Dropping a million of these little four-ounce petal mines is just horrible. But yeah, I want to be part of solutions. I don't want to be an actor who creates problems, but I’ve played those characters who create problems!  You’ve been very consistent over time about having a certain moral or political compass that guides your choices. But surely you must have said yes to things that, in retrospect, you should’ve said no to. [Laughs] Yeah, there’s a couple that I wish I could have said “no” to! But in every journey there’s a lesson to be learned, even if it was something like “next time, I’ll avoid making that choice.” For the most part, I’m not filled with regret. I’m pretty thrilled and happy with the choices that I’ve made. 

It’s hard to think of a contemporary mainstream male filmmaker who consistently writes better female characters than Alex Garland. Before his directorial career began, he primarily focused on stories about men: his novel The Beach (which was adapted for the Leonardo DiCaprio film) and the screenplays to “28 Days Later,” “Sunshine” and “Dredd.” It certainly wasn’t as if he was incapable of writing women—“28 Days Later” and “Sunshine” are both excellent in this regard—but since stepping behind the camera, it’s striking how often his films have featured female leads and questions of gender equality. Even more impressive is that—except for one glaring exception (and, for the record, I think it works in that movie)—Garland’s films tend to be fairly subtle in their handling of these issues. He never stoops to reducing his women to Strong Female Characters.  Over the last decade-plus, there’s been much conversation about the Strong Female Character, Hollywood’s attempt to compensate for generations of male-driven action movies by occasionally letting a woman take the lead. Blockbusters such as “The Hunger Games” and “Wonder Woman” were encouraging signs of progress, but the trope quickly became a cliché, these types of roles slowly turning into a monolith. And audiences grew restless. As novelist and playwright Sophia McDougall put it in The New Statesman back in 2013, “What do I want instead of a Strong Female Character? … I want a wealth of complex female protagonists who can be either strong or weak or both or neither, because they are more than strength or weakness. Badass gunslingers and martial artists sure, but also interesting women who are shy and quiet and do, sometimes, put up with others’ shit because in real life there’s often no practical alternative.”  When the concept of the Strong Female Character started gaining popularity, it wasn’t necessarily meant to indicate that these protagonists had to be physically strong—just that they were layered and involving in the same way that their male counterparts were. But kicking ass soon became more important than any other characteristic. Years after Sigourney Weaver in “Aliens” demonstrated what a great Strong Female Character could look like—she even got an Oscar nomination—the dimensionality got stripped away, the Strong Female Character simplified into the lifeless “empowered” avatars we saw played by the likes of Brie Larson. Garland’s thoughtful women occasionally do shoot guns or wreck shit. “Ex Machina,” “Annihilation,” “Men” and his latest, “Civil War,” are set in very different universes in which very different types of women have to navigate worlds in which they don’t feel safe—for very different reasons. Sometimes they’re up against an alien menace. Sometimes it’s a strange stalker. Sometimes it’s the fact that American democracy is imploding. Regardless of the circumstance, for his characters to survive, they’re required to go far beyond being “strong.” Unfortunately, that’s what’s so jarring—and, ultimately, disappointing—about “Civil War”: It’s the first time Garland has viewed one of his heroines so narrowly. But before we discuss where Garland went wrong with his new film, let’s look back to what he’s done right in the past. His 2014 directorial debut, “Ex Machina,” might superficially feel like a sci-fi thriller you’ve seen many times. It’s about an arrogant tech super-genius, Nathan (Oscar Isaac), who has created a robot, Ava (Alicia Vikander), that he’s sure he controls—on cue, though, he will be disabused of this notion as his creation breaks free. But it’s the specifics that made “Ex Machina” chilling. Specifically, it was Garland’s decision to conceive Ava as shapely and desirable. To be sure, there have been several alluring female robots over the history of sci-fi—the subservient android women of “The Stepford Wives,” the idealistic Maria in “Metropolis.” But Garland was after something spikier: Adorned with Vikander’s beautiful face, “Ex-Machina”’s attractive robot was clearly the product of Nathan’s horny, megalomaniac, misogynistic mindset. (Tellingly, Nathan’s obedient personal assistant, played by Sonoya Mizuno, is also a good-looking android.) But unlike past cinematic robot beauties, Ava won’t be held in check by her male creator for long. When one of Nathan’s programmers—the bright but sweet and timid Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson)—is invited to his compound to study Ava to determine if she has achieved genuine consciousness, she quickly seduces Caleb, who falls for her. But are Ava’s feelings real? Or are they part of a scheme to escape? Garland envisioned Ava as attractive not just to concoct a prickly love story but to comment on gender inequality within a sci-fi/Frankenstein narrative. “The thing about female objectification is that it’s sort of inarguable that it happens,” Garland told RogerEbert.com. “There’s no real debate to have about it, it’s just so obvious. The film is definitely interested in aspects of that. The key thing about female objectification is that it creates a block that prevents you from thinking about what is actually going on inside the mind of the thing that you’re objectifying. … I like the idea that there is this obstacle preventing viewers from thinking about what is going on inside the mind of this machine that looks like a girl in her early twenties.” Brilliantly played by Vikander, who portrays the character as varying shades of innocent, beguiling and calculating, Ava may not ostensibly be the film’s main character, but she’s unquestionably its most complex. In “Ex Machina,” we study her, just like Caleb does, unaware that Ava is working us. Eventually, Ava flees the literal prison of the male gaze in which she finds herself trapped, outsmarting Caleb and Nathan—not to mention the viewer thanks to the twists in Garland’s script. In Garland’s directorial debut, Ava’s attractiveness is a feint that forces straight male viewers to recognize how much they don’t see when they’re gawking at beauty. Caleb and Nathan never learn who the real Ava is, leading to their downfall. We’re often conditioned to fear the A.I. character in a sci-fi film—Garland and Vikander got audiences to root for her. Questions of gender were woven into Garland’s next film as well, which remains his finest. Released in 2018 after some internal clashes—financier David Ellison thought the movie was too intellectual and remote, demanding changes (which, thankfully, didn’t happen)—“Annihilation” bombed but quickly became a beloved cult item. Starring Natalie Portman alongside Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez and Tessa Thompson, the movie (based on Jeff VanderMeer’s novel) chronicled an unknown alien presence that has crash-landed in Florida, creating a mysterious realm known as the Shimmer that humans have tried, unsuccessfully, to explore. After Lena’s (Portman) soldier husband Kane (Oscar Isaac)—who she had begun to feel distant from because of problems in their marriage—returns home barely alive from one such expedition, she and three fellow scientists/doctors (Leigh, Rodriguez and Thompson) enter the Shimmer to determine what happened to Kane. Part action film, part horror movie, “Annihilation” (which draws heavily from Tarkovsky’s existential sci-fi drama “Stalker”) sees its female characters battle frightening creatures and fire weapons, but Garland didn’t want the headlines to be “Girls Star in Typical Guy Film.” “They happen to be women. There’s no great discussion of it in the film,” he said. “I’m not planning to do any great discussion of it promoting the film. It’s actually the absence of discussion that I think is more interesting.”  Indeed, “Annihilation” comments on feminism by not commenting on it, flipping “Stalker”’s premise by having its protagonists be women, whereas Tarkovsky populated his odyssey with brooding men. Garland doesn’t include a single scene in which skeptical men wonder how these ladies are going to pull off their mission. Lena and her colleagues never have to prove their value—they’re all supremely capable. (In fact, Lena is a former soldier herself.) In the process, Garland compiles a collection of Strong Female Characters who are strong in both senses—vividly rendered but also skilled fighters. And they’re never depicted as simplistic superheroes—they occasionally make mistakes, which sometimes prove fatal, and they understandably freak out at appropriate moments. (The mutant bear scene may be the single scariest film moment of the last 10 years.)  Because Garland and his actors insist on these female protagonists remaining flawed, vulnerable humans, “Annihilation” is that rare mainstream action film to explore deeper issues, such as loss, commitment, acceptance and regret. Garland is as invested in these women’s emotional lives as he is the terrors that await them. They’re not just navigating the Shimmer, they’re each coming to terms with something unresolved in their life, finding closure in the most extraordinary of settings—especially Lena. If we accept the retrograde gender stereotype that insists dudes want movies with spectacle while ladies want movies about feelings, Garland cannily crafted an incredible mutation of the two. How many action flicks are also a haunting examination of marriage and grief? If the Strong Female Characters of Garland’s first two films—and the accompanying observations on masculinity—avoided being too overt in their commentary, he went wildly in the opposite direction for his follow-up. “With ‘Men,’ I just sort of thought, ‘Screw it, I’m just gonna go straight into this,’” Garland admitted, later adding, “[I]nstead of running underneath, it sits there on the surface.” As unsubtle as its title and released two years after Garland’s TV series “Devs,” “Men” is an intense, sometimes darkly funny folk-horror film about Harper (Jessie Buckley), a widowed woman who journeys to the English countryside to escape the pain of her husband’s mysterious, shocking death. (We’ll get details about that in flashbacks.) Harper just wants some peace, but she’ll discover that this village is filled with men (all played by Rory Kinnear) who are different degrees of creepy and/or menacing. Alone in a big, secluded house, she becomes fearful of a disturbing naked man looming outside the premises, but even the community’s more seemingly respectable males—including a judgmental priest who insists her husband’s death is her fault—seem to be out to get her.  Men aren’t just problematic in “Men”—they’re monsters—and while some criticized Garland for the obviousness of his points, I thought the film worked because of how relentless, imaginative and terrifying he made those obvious points. There’s a playfulness to casting Kinnear as all of these different men—even a bratty boy—that winks at the knowing absurdity and on-the-nose commentary. And Buckley is terrific as a woman processing intense trauma who quickly realizes even worse trauma is heading her way.  Women are often the leads in horror movies—think of Jamie Lee Curtin in “Halloween,” Shelley Duvall in “The Shining” or Neve Campbell in “Scream”—and with “Men,” Buckley became part of this cinematic tradition. But Harper’s peril is as much about the weird men in this hellish village as it is about getting to the roots of her husband’s death. (The audience learns that he was abusive, and when he tried to make amends, she understandably rebuffed him, prompting him to impulsively jump to his death. The dead husband eventually makes his return during the film’s harrowing finale, emerging as just one more iteration of the demanding, disturbing men who want something from Harper.)  Although Buckley is a wonder at being horrified and fighting for her life, there’s a deeper metaphysical aspect at work in “Men.” Whether consciously or not, Garland continually foregrounds female characters whose external battles are connected to larger societal factors or intimate emotional wounds. Granted, he’s hardly the first filmmaker to marry a protagonist’s outer struggles to his or her inner pain, but what is notable is that he always ensures his female leads push beyond the stereotypes of that particular kind of character. Ava is no pliable robot beauty. Lena is a conflicted wife, genius scientist and also a warrior. And Harper is no generic scream queen—she’s not facing off with a killer but, rather, toxic masculinity itself. Maybe that’s why, despite its considerable achievements and audacity, “Civil War” feels like Garland’s first misstep. It’s not the only reason why his dystopian thriller about a future America embroiled in a violent civil war falters, but his inability to conceive his main character in compelling terms dooms the film. For once, he has given us a clichéd Strong Female Character.  You can’t fault Kirsten Dunst, who’s believably tough as nails as Lee, a seasoned war photographer who’s traveled the world documenting bloodshed. Now, though, Lee has come home, shooting an America that’s tearing itself apart. Nonetheless, her gritty professionalism remains—as far as she’s concerned, it’s just another war zone—and she wants to make it to Washington, D.C. in time to get some killer photos of the imminent fall of the U.S. government. There’s a job to do, and she’s the best in her field. Lee is as skilled as any Garland heroine, but he’s never before seemed so uninterested in his protagonist’s inner life. Instead, he just wants to feed her into a formulaic storyline. Early on in “Civil War,” Garland pairs her with Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a fresh-faced aspiring photojournalist who’s long admired Lee. Naturally, Lee doesn’t want to bring this kid along—war zones aren’t an ideal place to babysit—but in one of the film’s several convoluted moments, she is talked into it by the rest of her team. Why does Lee acquiesce? Because it allows Garland to craft a predictable character arc: Slowly but surely, the no-nonsense journalist will take naive Jessie under her wing, coming to care about her and practically serving as a mentor for this young woman. Lee has chosen work over a personal life—in “Civil War,” she will get a sense of what it’s like to be a mother. There’s something potentially intriguing about that idea—an examination of how accomplished professional women struggle to “have it all”—but Garland hasn’t thought through the conceit. This is a problem across “Civil War,” which is murky in its exploration of journalism and slapdash in its handling of its characters. Stephen McKinley Henderson’s veteran reporter, who’s physically impaired, miraculously becomes an action hero when the situation requires him to run over deranged militia members with his car. Wagner Moura’s cynical, seen-it-all journalist suddenly gets incredibly emotional during that same scene when a colleague is gunned down. (Surely this isn’t the first time in his storied career that he’s witnessed such a terrible moment.)  But Lee is especially disappointing because we’ve become accustomed to Garland poking holes in the Strong Female Character archetype, coming up with smarter, more engaging alternatives. Lee doesn’t have to grapple with overt sexism—America’s going to hell, so there are more pressing dangers awaiting her—but she also isn’t facing the internal dilemmas or societal/gender ills that have impacted Garland’s previous heroines. In their place is a telegraphed trajectory for Lee that’s thoroughly phony. Just as Jessie starts to find her footing as a war photographer—feeling blazingly alive in the midst of firefights and near-death experiences—Lee predictably begins to shut down, the cumulative effect of all those battlefields and the trauma of seeing a war-torn America proving too much for her. But Lee’s mental disintegration seems arbitrary—something that has to happen because Garland needs it to. In the past, Garland always let his women call the shots—their desires or their fears drove the action—but in “Civil War,” he pushes Lee around the chessboard to make glib points. The film’s big ideas—about America’s implacable divisions; about the ways that Americans indifferently view overseas war zones, confident that such problems could never happen here—overshadow the characters. Lee is superficially strong, but she’s mostly a cipher. When she finally arrives in D.C. during a violent siege, she tries to snap out of her shell-shocked state—the pro has, for once, let emotions get in the way—but it’s fairly obvious that Garland is building to a grand “tragic” moment in which she will unwittingly sacrifice herself to protect Jessie. Lee isn’t a person—she’s an ironic symbol of what happens when a supposedly dispassionate journalist develops a conscience. She’s meant to elicit our sympathy, but Garland hasn’t bothered to give her the layers he’s so skillfully provided his earlier female characters.  That’s a shame, although it doesn’t negate the array of indelible roles he’s written for women over the last 10 years. Ava, Lena and Harper’s competence, strength and brilliance are never viewed as remarkable—it’s just who they are. But “Civil War” is the first time Garland has failed to look beyond his protagonist’s bold surface. He of all people should know that the complexity of a great female character is more than skin-deep. 

“What made you talk to them?” “Still kinda putting that together in my own mind.” That really is the impossible question at the center of HBO’s wildly influential “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,” isn’t it? Why did Robert Durst talk to Andrew Jarecki? What compelled a man who had seemingly gotten away with multiple murders to have all of his flimsy explanations destroyed and then top it all off with one of the most infamous conclusions ever, in which it sure seemed like Durst confessed on a mic he didn’t know was open?  Nine years after that landmark TV show, Jarecki and his team have returned with a six-episode follow-up titled simply “The Jinx – Part Two.” The four episodes sent to press don’t really answer that question other than to further reveal a man with such a strong ego and corrupt support system that he thought he could do anything. He talked to them because he didn't  understand consequences. He never had to.  Once again, Jarecki proves himself as good as it gets in the true crime docuseries genre, deftly constructing his episodes in a way that doesn’t just provide details but places them in the context of this defiantly strange story. I wish HBO trusted journalists enough to send the final two, so it’s hard to say if “The Jinx – Part Two” lands with the same impact as the first chapter. But how could it? The premiere, airing on April 21st, starts while “The Jinx” aired in early 2015, and the world was learning about the crimes of Robert Durst. There are fascinating sequences in which it feels like we’re watching Durst and his team respond weekly to the show about him and seeing Durst’s panic meter rise. By the air date of the last episode in February, he was planning to flee the country, using a fake ID and withdrawing large amounts of cash. He was clearly headed out when he was arrested in New Orleans on the same day that the finale of the first show aired. He might have been gone forever one day later. Most of this is explained in great detail by Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney John Lewin, the erstwhile star of the show's first half. Not only did he interview Durst shortly after that 2015 arrest, but he also led the prosecution against him in 2020 that proves the thrust of this show—the trial for the murder of Susan Berman. While Jarecki’s show included some fascinating evidence, including that truly damning “cadaver letter” that so clearly had Durst’s handwriting on it, the thrust of Lewin’s investigation, at least as far as the show is concerned, was to dismantle the people around Durst. If the original HBO show is any guide, Robert Durst is a talker. Did he confess to anyone? Did he tell anyone he was in Los Angeles when Susan was murdered? What do the people in Robert Durst's life know? This emphasis leads to a riveting second episode, in which Durst’s twisted cadre of friends and colleagues are examined, including people actively trying to help him flee the country. There are interview subjects who shrug their shoulders at the fact that Durst dismembered a man while never really admitting what it’s all about: Money and the desire to be near wealth. These are parasites, including even a juror on one of Durst’s trials, people who use a flimsy definition of friendship to obfuscate their own moral responsibility when to comes to enabling a murderer. After that chapter, “The Jinx – Part Two” becomes a standard courtroom doc for a couple of episodes. It’s understandably a little less potent than the first series in this midsection simply because of how much we know about this case 10 episodes into the two-part series. It’s still well-made television because of Jarecki’s level of craft—watching this in comparison to so many sleazy and shallow true crime series further amplifies how little artistry and compassion usually goes into this genre—but viewers looking for the same kind of impact as the 2015 outing may be disappointed. The people around Durst, some of whom were recorded in jailhouse visits, became more interesting than the man himself. I think that's not only inevitable but kind of Jarecki's point in the first 2/3rds of “The Jinx – Part Two”: Evil rarely operates alone. It takes support structures of business colleagues who look the other way and friends who excuse any behavior to stay in the circle of privilege. And sometimes, it takes a filmmaker to knock it all down. Four episodes screened for review. Premieres on HBO on April 21st.