Movie Death Match: "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" v. "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial"

New pod! We took the critical insight of Filmspotting and added the primal thrill of bloodsport to create Movie Death Match!

In our Disclosure Day themed debut episode, two "passionate and highly credentialed advocates" argue the relative merits of Steven Spielberg's two friendly-visitor classics. Representing 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind is Margaret Weitekamp, curator nonpareil! Pounding the table for 1982's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is Jen Chaney, critic extraordinaire!

I'm grateful to them both for their game participation and to Filmspotter-in-Chief Adam Kempenaar for the opportunity to administer firm-but-fair cinematic jurisprudence.

The French 2075: "Arco," reviewed.

My Washington Post review of Arco, the Oscar-nominated feature debut sci-fi from French director and cowriter Ugo Bienvenu, is here.

The Desert of the Real, in the Real Desert: "Dune Part Two," reviewed.

Timothée Chalamet and Denis Villeneuve on location on Arrakis. (Niko Tavernise)

I feel better about my headline than I do about “the sandworm has turned.” Reviewed for WCP.

A Rogue One: "The Creator," reviewed.

John David Washington and Madeleine Yuna Voyles in an Gareth Edwards film. (Disney)

My Washington City Paper review of The Creator — Monsters, Godzilla, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Edwards’ new sci-fi epic — is here.

Under the Skin Job: Blade Runner 2049, reviewed.

All I'm allowed to tell you is this is a photo of Ryan Gosling. (Stephen Vaughn)

I seldom write same-day reviews, but because Blade Runner 2049's embargo was abruptly lifted before it even screened in DC, I had to scramble. I'm very happy to be able to say it's a triumph, a satisfying much-later follow-up in the new tradition of Mad Max: Fury Road, Creed, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But... better than those, even, would you believe.

Here's the review. Enhance!

By Any Means Necessary, Any Which Way You Can: War for the Planet of the Apes, reviewed.

Caesar (Andy Serkis) came to eat bananas and kick ass, and he's all out of bananas. (Fox)

What a Craig Finn-style blockbuster summer we're having this year. Nothing as visionary as Mad Max: Fury Road from 2015, maybe, or as congruent with my own sensibilities as The Nice Guys from last year, but everything I picked sight unseen for my Village Voice/LA Weekly summer movie preview—Wonder Woman, The Beguiled, Baby Driver, Spider-Man: Homecoming—has so far avoided embarrassing me. I even liked Rough Night okay. It's possible I'm not all that discerning a critic.

But my praise for War of the Planet of the Apes is well-founded. Even though I saw the movie weeks before I was assigned to write about it, which might be why the review is uncharacteristically (I hope) light on specific observations.

I'm seeing Dunkirk—and talking with Christopher Nolan!—as soon as I get home from my present holiday in Scotland, and Atomic Blonde and Detroit in short order after that.

Handling the Fingering: Alien: Covenant, reviewed.

Katherine Waterston is more heavily armed than Sigourney Weaver was in her first xenomorph encounter. (Fox)

My fanboyish impulses mostly come out whenever there's a new ALIEN. Mostly.

I tried not to splash too much corrosive blood on the deck in my dissection of Alien: Covenant.

Imperfect Organism: Life, reviewed.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson are better than Life. (Sony)

Life, the new anti-space-exploration space movie from Swedish director Daniel Espinosa and starring my beloved Rebecca "Ilsa Faust" Ferguson plus some other famous people, is no Gravity. Or Interstellar. Or The Martian. But it's aight. I reviewed it for NPR, and then, having finished reviewing Life, I recalled The Onion's lovely backhanded obituary for Roger Ebert from 2013.