Lupine Intervention: "Wolf Man," reviewed.

Leigh Wannell’s 2020 Invisible Man was so strong that I had high hopes for his next update of a Universal Monsters classic. But his new Wolf Man is oddly toothless.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "A Complete Unknown"

Timmy as Bobby. (Fox Searchilight)

I was less than enthused when I read Timothée Chalamet would be playing Bob Dylan in a biopic set during the most widely-covered period of Dylan’s career, circa 1961-5. But I’m glad to say I was wrong! Placed within the Dylan Cinematic Extended Universe, James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown is not as original as Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There or the Coens’ Inside Llewyn Davis, nor is it as informative as No Direction Home, the 2005 Martin Scorsese documentary that covered this same Dylan era — and takes its title from the lyric that immediately precedes “a complete unknown” in “Like a Rolling Stone.” (I actually like the way this suggests Mangold’s dramatization of the same era as a companion piece to Marty’s fact-based account.)

I was glad to sing the praises of the new movie alongside Stephen Thompson and Bedatri D. Choudhury on today’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, wherein I also sneak in my traditional plug for my latest Christmas mixtape.

Girlfight the Power: "The Fire Inside," reviewed.

Ryan Destiny and Brian Tyree Henry as Claressa Shields and Jason Crutchfield. (MGM/Amazon)

If you don’t wanna take your folks or your grandma or your kids to Nosferatu (it’s good!) or Babygirl (haven’t seen it yet), and you want something more uplifting than A Complete Unknown (it’s good!), I endorse the boxing biopici. My Washington Post review is here.

"Moana 2" is a Sea-Plus Musical Sea-Quel

Maui and Moana return in Moana 2, a film as inspired as its title. (Disney)

The Disney musical sequel Moana 2 is, like David Lynch’s surreal adult masterpiece Mulholland Drive before it, a repurposing of material originally intended for the small screen. My Washington Post review is here.

Bigger, Longer, and Uncut: "Gladiator II," reviewed.

Pedro Pascal and Paul Mescal get down to it. (Paramount)

“Gladiator was the one where Ridley Scott revived the sword-and-sandals genre that had been dormant for decades while also managing to suggest that our addiction to spectacle—one he himself had then been nurturing for 20 years—might not be altogether healthy, for individuals or democracies. 

“Gladiator II is the one where he throws in a CGI shark. “

My Washington City Paper of the unlikely 24.5-years-later sequel is here.

A.I., Boomer: "Here," reviewed."

Robin Wright and Tom Hanks get decades shaved off by an A.I. tool called Metaphysic Live in Here. (Sony)

On Here, the reunion of Forrest Gump principals, for the Paper of Record.

Lots here about Bob Zemeckis’s obsession with still-janky digital de-aging tech. Spike Lee’s 2020 war-vet drama Da Five Bloods achieved more stirring results by making no attempt to hide its 60-something-year-old cast members’ ages in the flashback scenes set during their combat tours in Vietnam half a century prior.

I’m rooting for Zemeckis. Flight is great. I liked Allied, his 2016 WWII espionage thriller that no one saw, too.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Joker: Folie à Deux"

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga need to talk. (Warner Bros.)

I saw The Silence of the Lambs again at the Alamo Drafthouse two nights before I saw Joker: Folie à Deux, which reminded me of author Thomas Harris’s Silence sequel novel (and Ridley Scott’s film adaptation, after Silence director Jonathan Demme declined to return) Hannibal in the way it wants to punish those who loved 2019’s Joker.

I didn’t. But I liked Folie à Deux even less. And I’m still higher on it than my conversation-mates Joelle Monique and Glen Weldon!

Pop Culture Happy Hour: "Megalopolis"

Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel, above the fray. (Lionsgate)

Aisha, Glen, Bedatri and I recorded this dissection of Megalopolis a mere 12 hours after the screening ended, which we all acknowledged is not time enough to process an overstuffed epic that Coppola has been working on in some capacity for more than half his life. Fun conversation, though.