Splinter Unit: "Wicker," reviewed.

Olivia Colman meets her Wicker husband. (Black Bear)

The movie makes such a point, as it were, of Wickie’s bed-breaking prowess that you can’t not be reminded during its various, vigorous marriage-consummating montages that he’s not some forgiving polyblend. He’s 100 percent artisanal wicker. There isn’t enough lube in our perilously petroleum-plundering world, never mind this isolated, preindustrial village. 

Wicker? I hardly etc. etc. My admiring Washington City Paper review is here.

Call It Ishmael: "Whalefall," reviewed.

The will-the-or-won’t-they tension is almost too much to endure. (20th Century Studios)

Part ‘127 Hours’-style survival thriller, part ‘Field of Dreams’-coded Making Posthumous Peace with Dad flick, part Nolanesque fantasia of slippery timelines and synchronized epiphanies, all marine gastrointestinal nightmare, ‘Whalefall’—which Daniel Kraus adapted, with co-writer-director Brian Duffield, from his own 2023 novel—is truly its own warm-blooded beast.

My Washington CIty Paper review is here.

"Onslaught," reviewed.

Adria Arjona leaves it all on the field in Onslaught. (A24)

I haven’t seen The Guest, director Adam Wingard’s prior misused-veteran flick, but I responded, up to a point, to the Reagan-era charms of Onslaught. My Washington City Paper review is here.

I Have Bad News About the Dog Star of "The Dog Stars"

A boy (Jacob Elordi) and his dog and his plane. (Fabio Lovino)

We’re left wondering why Scott wanted to make this movie. His contemporaries who’re still working have turned their attention in recent years to long-contemplated dream projects and/or summations of their guiding obsessions: Steven Spielberg, 79, waited for his parents to die to make The Fabelmans, then returned to his seminal subject of extraterrestrial ambassadors this year with Disclosure Day. Francis Ford Coppola, 87, had completed the first draft of his 2024 opus Megalopolis in 1984, four decades before the movie hit theaters. Michael Mann, 83, spent decades trying to get the already-all-but-forgotten 2023 biopic Ferrari made. He’s about to start shooting Heat 2, a sequel to the 1995 masterpiece that he’d already previewed back then with a 1989 made-for-TV version and elements of the Mann-produced NBC shows Miami Vice and Crime Story.

My Washington City Paper review of the 88-year-old Sir Ridley Scott’s latest is here.

"Mutiny" asks, What If "Plane," but on a Boat?

Take my word for it: his stubble is as perfect here as in every other scene. (Dan Smith / Lionsgate)

No camera subject has ever had a more magnificent stubble than competitive diver-turned-model-turned-action star Jason Statham. His lithe and lethal physicality, even at the silverback age of 59, remains impressive, but his shadow not-quite-beard is perfect. It’s always five o’clock somewhere, and that somewhere is wherever Jason Goddamn Statham happens to be scowling. 

My Washington City Paper review of Mutiny, from the director of Plane and the producer/star of The Transporter, The Bank Job, A Working Man, and too many others to contemplate, is here.

Great Power, Great Responsibility 4eva: Spidey's Got a "Brand New Day"

It seems I’m a little higher on this Thunderball / Ghost Protocol (read: fourth) installment of the Tom Holland-era Spidey series than many of my esteemed colleagues. My Washington City Paper review is here.

Equine Intervention: "The Odyssey," reviewed.

Never leave Pattinson alone to brood. (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal)

My Washington City Paper review of The Odyssey is here.

Welcome to the Planet(s): "Supergirl," reviewed.

Supergirl is unique in that it’s a largely faithful adaptation of one specific comic book story, and a recent one at that. But it never reaches the heights of inspiration ascended by its source material, Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. It doesn’t even come close. My Washington City Paper review is here.