When I first heard they were going to make a sequel to Blade Runner, my first response was "Why?"  But then when I heard that the "they" was director Denis Villeneuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins, the response was "Oh yes."

It doesn't need to be said that Hollywood is frequently dipping its toes back into the 90s or the 80s.  Sometimes it's to better give vision to what technology or budget wasn't able to do in the past -- such as the new It versus the television series It! with Tim Curry.  Sometimes it's a misguided attempt to follow up on the storylines of the characters we never really wanted to know about (T2 Trainspotting, anyone?).  But almost always, it is a cash grab.  No one will ever convince me that there was any sensical reason to make a live action Beauty and the Beast that was basically a copy of the animation while being inferior in every way.  Listen, Gus Van Sant, redoing Psycho in color, with the shot by shot replication may have been an interesting concept, but it was a complete and utter waste.

So is there ever a point where a remake or a sequel 30 years down the line is justified?  There are very very few films that make the cut.  In order to do so, the film has to be able to stand on its own, with its visual vocabulary, story, and themes as well as characters.  It should neither depend fully on the chemistry of what came before it, nor become some sort of narrative hash of its predecessors (The Force Awakens).

Blade Runner 2049 is that worthy sequel.

I always withhold spoilers, but apparently with this movie there were restrictions put forth by the studio to critics so that audiences would be able to enter the movie blind.  Denis Villeneuve has hit home run after home run the last few years -- Arrival, Sicario in just the past two, and he's known to pen opaque movies that yield different answers every time you watch them.  Given its begged for mysterious nature, Blade Runner 2049 doesn't necessarily offer up the same delicious murkiness that rewards each rewatch.  When you watch and rewatch the original Blade Runner, you are left with more answers and more questions.  Unfortunately, a film that depends on its reveal, at least in the studio's mind, is hollow.  Whether you think that applies here is up to you.

But this is a small complaint in the epic sprawl of dystopian Dickensian proportions that Villeneuve has created here.  Ryan Gosling plays "K" (short for his agent serial number, but also an alienated Kafka-esque handle) who is a Blade Runner uncovering a decades old mystery.  His journey takes him through the seedy underbelly of 2049 Los Angeles to dust-ridden collapsed epochs and beyond.

And that's it.  I could tell you more about what "Blade Runner" means or why it's an "agent serial number", but like all truly good sci-fi works, Villeneuve drops you into the story and peels back very little, allowing us to experience the world.

The story has Kafka, Nabokov, Dickens, and Pinocchio elements.  There are layers, deceptions misunderstood by those who cast them, and glimmers of light that are created for a blind man's cave.  Villeneuve weaves philosophical elements in, asking the age old question of what it means to be a human (and does it matter?).  There's a theme of subjugation (can servility be enforced?) and slavery -- a scene with children scrabbling in a workhouse, a woman that is trapped in body but not mind (but is she truly free?), and a woman that is trapped in mind but not body.

Just as striking as Villeneuve's poetic handling is of course, Deakins' work.  As you'd expect from a cinematographer nominated thirteen times for an Oscar, the visual artwork is really what makes Blade Runner 2049 the individual, striking capsule film it is.  The light and palettes that Deakins evokes make this film, whether it's the ash-choked cities or the gold-washed interior of the Tyrell building.  That perfectly shadowed opener is as stunning as the visually assaulting showcase in the third act with a gyrating Elvis.  There is no end to the beautiful scenes.  And we can't forget the rain, either.  Although K is only allotted a two-second blast of 99% purified water for a shower, we see water constantly elsewhere.  We see it when Joi (Ana de Armas), the adaptive holograph, "feels" tangibly for the first time, on the surface of the window whenever Joshi looks out (Robin Wright) -- how fitting that we can only see her through that screen! -- it's there when K is flying out of the city on his personal and ordered search, and in deluges in a climactic battle.

Villeneuve has always been drawn to direct films and stories with strong female characters, and that lean is apparent here.  Even while Gosling is the protagonist here, the emotional and philosophical core is held taut by Armas.  Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) is easier to follow than an overdone Jared Leto, who always seems to be straining a little too pretentiously hard.  Gosling however, plays a good Villeneuve leading man, giving us a hardened face while the emotion pools at his eyes.

2049 is not the same movie helmed by Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford in 1982.  It is a wholly new film with its own story, questions, and visual beauty.  It's a work that pays homage to the original while being something completely daring, exceptional, and extraordinary.

It's really best to go into Mother! without knowing very much, and how soon you figure out what's going on within the framework of the movie probably depends on how familiar you are with the allegorical backdrop.  And it really is just a matter of time, because director Darren Aronofsky wants you to figure it out.  He calls the movie "punk rock", probably meaning that it won't be appreciated by everyone, but also ostensibly because the film is an assault to your senses.

Aronofsky is not coy about it, from the title (with its "!") down to the very first word of the movie ("Baby?").  But despite how you feel about the schlocky, painfully palpable script (the closest thing I can think of is of how obvious The Matrix script is), he does accomplish the attack effectively.

Jennifer Lawrence plays the "mother" of the title, and the movie is tight on her.  Besides a few wide shots, every single shot is a close-up of her, a POV shot, or a shot from over her shoulder.  In fact, Mother! is on Lawrence as a close-up for 66 minutes of the film's 122 minute run time.  The camera is also very indicative of her mood.  During one of the early sequences, we get a tight extreme closeup shot of her face, intimately warm.  At a rebuff from her husband, the camera immediately pulls back, making us feel that distance.

The movie opens on what seems an idyllic situation -- she is married to an older poet and lovingly restoring the home that they share together.  Their situation is disturbed when a strange man shows up at their door and invited in.  What follows at first is a stressful drama that unfolds like a domestic Harold Pinter and escalates into something more.

Aronofsky is a master at this sort of escalation.  In everything from Requiem for a Dream to Black Swan, he is able to perfectly needle into your skin with disquieting notes before things build in a crescendo to a horrifying pitch.  If Mother! becomes too much, as it may in its Hieronymous Bosch-like sequences, it's because Aronofsky wants very precisely to take you there.

Javier Bardem and Lawrence do well in their roles, but they're not given much nuance.  However, I doubt Aronofsky wants them to have much complexity within the context of his story.  Lawrence is all glow and incandescence, like a Renaissance Madonna, while Bardem is more like an etched Goya.  As impressive as Lawrence's physical and emotional range is, she is clearly a passive entity here, someone who can only react to what is going on around her.

Although Mother! has clearly been polarizing, I can't imagine Aronofsky being any more pleased with it.  As a piece of visual cinema, it is certainly compelling.  At the very least it is stressful, disturbing, and pretentious.  At the most, it's exactly what Aronofsky wanted to accomplish with the film, and a conversation piece to boot.  It's interesting that Lawrence insists on explaining the allegory to everyone, even to the point of sitting her family down for the movie and explicating every factor piece by piece while Aronofsky chooses to remain quiet on the subject.  However, perhaps that is because he believes that everything that he needs to say is within the folds of his film.

 The 1973 match between Billie Jean King and Bobbie Riggs is the climax of Battle of the Sexes, but it is by no means the centerpiece of the latest film by husband-wife duo Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (also known for Little Miss Sunshine and Ruby Sparks).

Emma Stone is fresh off her La La Land win and wonderfully refreshing as Billie Jean King.  Although baring little in physical appearance to the actual tennis player, she embodies the mannerisms, the sounds, and the hunched over walk wonderfully.  The 1973 match is a media circus that she's unwillingly roped into, but only a small part of the larger battle she was fighting for feminism and women's equality.

Stone and Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs give nuanced, breathable performances as their real-life counterparts.  For all of Riggs' spouting of women good in the kitchen and in the bedroom, Carell is able to give humor and complexity to a man certainly deplorable, but also more complex than his manipulation of the popular opinion would convey.

Battle doesn't hit all of the right notes.  It's a bit heavy-handed at times, like Alan Cumming's superfluous last lines.  And some of the contrived drama doesn't make sense -- the relationship between Carell and his grown son is puzzling, and King's relationship with the team hairdresser Marilyn Barnett (Andrea Riseborough) is given too much significance in terms of that final battle than makes sense.

However, the film thrives in the small moments that are thankfully free from explanation: a scene with two chocolate ice cream cones, another closed glance given in the locker room, and probably the most luminous hair salon scene shot in Hollywood.  Cinematographer Linus Sandgren (also off of La La Land) gives these scenes a halo, and allows us to bathe in their warmth.  All of the extreme close shots made by Dayton and Faris are therefore not uncomfortable or claustrophobic, but instead intimate.  In the scene where Billie Jean is getting her hair cut, we feel amazingly as if we're the ones that are being cared for.

It's a wonderful cast, and if some characters are more paper-thin than others, it also goes to show perhaps how some people are a bit blinder than others, no matter the issue.  Sarah Silverman, however, is brilliant in her role and I only wish she could have been given more screentime throughout (or if she could have even been given those Alan Cumming lines).

Battle does a good job showing that the main fight, and the "enemy" so to speak, was not necessarily Riggs, but a fight to grapple with social norms and belief of the time.  Especially in the light of media circus surrounding the match, it's a relevant film to watch in the wake of present times.  And if you think that 40 years has changed much, consider this interview with former tennis pro John McEnroe to experience more than a little deja vu.

Marjorie Prime takes place in a not too distant future (or perhaps an alternative present) where people can order holograms of deceased loved ones to aid their bereavement process.  Marjorie (Lois Smith) is an elderly woman slowly losing her grip on her own mind even as she feeds memories and words into a holographic representation of her husband Walter as he was when they first met (Jon Hamm).

Marjorie Prime is adapted from a play, and never quite loses that stagnant veneer even as the director tries to steer us into open fields.  His depictions of the world around the house are beautiful, albeit like arthouse versions of a stylized music video (vibrantly blue surf in the ocean, wheat sheafs blowing in the wind).  If that sounds derisive, it's not...entirely.  There's a moment where Marjorie is sitting in the pool that is sublime enough to overpower anything else.  And there's another moment where we get a close-up of Geena Davis' face, who plays Marjorie's daughter, that almost makes this film adaptation worth it.

But otherwise, we can't quite shake the feeling that at the end of the movie, there should be some sort of dimming of lights and a curtain drawn.  Other than that, it's cleverly written as director Michael Almereyda navigates Jordan Harrison's play about our construction of memory, and the idea of a shared memory, or an abolished one.  Painful memories shape us as much as good events, and to disavow them means an alteration of character.

Marjorie Prime is a sparse film that relies on the sonata of four characters.  Filming reportedly took 12 days, and it can feel more like an exercise in acting or a more restrained Black Mirror episode.  It is interesting to see the deviations Almereyda takes from the one room, such as the one flashback he allots each character throughout the film.  Although Marjorie is not a movie about technical fallacies, we can see that memory construction is fickle and also how each character's interaction with the hologram (or their memories) takes them away from intimacy of those around them.

Cinematographer Sean Price Williams and composer Mica Levi do some lovely, stirring work here, as usual.  However, although Almereyda's take is at turns thought-provoking, his film doesn't really do enough to justify its adaptation, nor will it hold in memory as long as the holograms do.

It's difficult to properly adapt a Stephen King novel, although there has obviously been no lack of effort -- there are over 40 film adaptations to date.  And part of that is because as tempting as his words are for film fodder, it's impossible to translate exactly what makes his books so edible.  The dark things that creep from the page and into our minds are never as satisfying on screen.  Furthermore, what King treats so well, namely the darkness of human nature, is too often sacrificed for gore or cheap thrills, or nowadays CG.

It is a story of a group of kids who must band together to fight a monster that is eating children in the town of Derry, Maine.  Each child faces demons, literal and figurative, as the shapeshifting monster starts stalking them, often wearing the guise of an evil clown.

Hollywood's latest attempt isn't too shabby, but it's not nearly as good as it should be or half as good as it thinks it is.  There's some sort of weird distance between the audience and director Andy Muschietti, and this is evidenced most in the timing of the film.  The most important element of any horror or comedy film is the timing of the takes, and as a movie that combines both genres, It falls short egregiously.  There are too many moments where you feel a missed opportunity, as in a jump scare that could have been or a joke that doesn't land right.  The constant misses only underscore how much better the movie would be with just a little tweaking.

The 2017 film attempts to tackle the gargantuan book by simply paring it in half.  Whereas the sprawling novel jumps back and forth between the present and the past (a group of kids in the past and a crisis involving the the same group 27 years later), the movie simply concerns itself with the events that take place in 1988.  It's commendable to disavow an attempt to scrunch the enormous book into one movie, but it feels cheap as well.  Instead of being an allegory on coming of age, memory, and of returning home, It turns into some sort of Stranger Things hash.

It's unfair to compare it to Stranger Things, since that TV series owes 95% of its breath to Stephen King and movies of Steven Spielberg wonder and Stand By Me camaraderie.  But It doesn't earn a comparison to the classic Stand By Me.  It tries, but it's a pale shadow that won't last the decade.  Stephen King's original story is about outcasts, a group of kids who are labeled as "others" for various reasons, and very human flaws, as well as the pervasiveness and truth about adult distance.  Although we get brief glances at the tribulations of the kids in the "Loser Club", we never fully understand the depths of their misery and so their triumphs aren't nearly as meaningful.  Spielberg more effectively conveyed how dismissive adults can be with just a little bit of staging in E.T..  Muschietti only manages to hint that the adults are absent or destructive merely because of the manipulations of a clown.

There's much to be sad, however, about the chemistry of the young cast.  Each of them are a bright gem, and it's entertaining to inhabit the time with them.  All of them are a delight, even if some are less fleshed out than others, and Sophia Lillis is like another Elle Fanning a la Super 8.  On that note however, if there could ever have been an advised update to the story, we could have done without the damsel in distress bit that she plays at one point.  Bill Skarsgard does a commendable interpretation of Pennywise, the evil clown, with mannerisms not far from Heath Ledger's Joker.  It's hard to say whether his face will haunt this generation the same way Tim Curry's clown mug did back in the day, but it won't be for lack of trying on his part.

The true star of this film, and what elevates it beyond what it probably deserves, is the cinematography.  Cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung breathes vitality, eeriness, and beauty into each scene.  It is not a scary movie, unfortunately.  But Chung gets it as close as he can.  The opening looks like a Cuaron/Lubezki collaboration, and it's just of a child running down the street in the rain.

It is doing so well in the theaters, I doubt Muschietti will alter anything for the sequel.  And it's admittedly a fun movie to watch.  But it doesn't do what it should, and it won't age well.  There's too much of the same inane scare action, and it doesn't have enough locomotion to carry the movie.  The CG distances us from what should terrify us, and often I found myself laughing at what was happening on screen instead of cringing.  More than anything, it felt like watching a movie on what children are afraid of rather than the darkest recesses of human nature and fear.

Despite its flaws, King's movie at least has a chance to shine in Muschietti's interpretation.  Although there was rampant disappointment at Cary Fukunaga's departure, it appears that his take on the book was to alter it horrifically.  Muschietti fought to bring back some key elements in the book, and to attempt to capture what made the book so winning -- namely the loyalty and love of the Losers Club.  If for nothing else, see it for that as a filler before Stranger Things ​returns next month.

There's a breathy, languidly muted tone to Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled, like in Nicole Kidman's soft Southern drawl.  Girls are dressed in pastels and hushed ruffles, and scenes of a plantation with sunlit flickered mist flow through the film.  It's a deceptive velvet armor though that encases a deliciously directed adaptation of a story that originally starred Clint Eastwood in 1971,

Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell) lies wounded under a tree, but seems to have come to a stroke of luck when he is found by a young girl named Amy who then helps him to her girls' school in Virginia.  The setting is a sultry south in the midst of Civil War, but this world is removed from the action, the only reminders plumes of smoke in the distance and subdued explosions.  Contrary to the warfare that surrounds them, girls conjugate French verbs and Coppola is careful to always put soldiers at a distance or through a barrier the few times they inhabit the scenes.

McBurney asks several times throughout the movie and of the different girls:  "Are there any men here?" Or several variants of "Is there a man in your life?"  The answer is always no, which is likely why the environment and plot transpires the way it does thenceforth.  Farrell is unctuous, manipulative, and charming in all the right ways to all the women and girls of the school as he recovers from his leg wound.  But he underestimates them, much to his detriment.

It's easy to similarly underestimate The Beguiled.  It's a subdued film in an entertainment climate that is excessive.  There are several moments that Coppola could choose to go up close or to relish in the squeamishness.  However, it's her restraint that gives strength, not unlike several of the characters involved.  Unlike the 1971 film, this film takes the side of the women of the story.  Although McBurney appears to be in power in the beginning, we see this time that ultimately it is the man that is being objectified in the story.  The females have desires that go beyond his personal charm but cater to their own motivations.  His power is in fact subverted.

I have little desire to reveal too much of The Beguiled except to say that close attention should be paid to all the details, which are mirrored and contrasted in the second half of the movie.  Although this is the most dialogue-heavy of Coppola's films thus far, so much is created through her use of mood and the physical and facial expressions.  The climactic scene is simply a masterpiece.

All of the players here are phenomenal.  This is possibly one of Farrell's best turns, as he's able to give a complex and layered performance even as he somehow believably amps up physical chemistry in all the necessary situations.  Nicole Kidman is a resolute, Southern purring matron whose lovely yet tenacious figure gratifies Coppola's vision in every way.  Thank god we can finally see Elle Fanning's talent under a capable director.  This, I have the feeling, is what Refn was going for in Neon Demon, in her innocent seduction that is both natural and ruinous.  And we can't forget long-time collaborator Kirsten Dunst, who is able to evince warring emotions even as she exemplifies the film's ephemeral restraint.

For Coppola, when she first handed the script to first time collaborator cinematographer Philippe le Sourd, there was no question that The Beguiled had to be shot on film.  The Kodak 35mm suits the hazy, grainy mutes of the mood perfectly.  The 1.66:1 ratio chosen not only because it's old-fashioned, but also because it forces the camera to focus on character and their movements intimately, which was the intent of the story.  For the final product, le Sourd pull-processed the footage in order to increase the grain, strengthen the range of the pastel colors, and to sharpen some of the details in the dark.  The result is a visual story that hearkens to both its fairy tale and gothic elements.

Coppola is the second female to ever win the Best Director award at Cannes this year with The Beguiled.  And if the reasons why aren't readily apparent, take a closer look at the strings that pull the film together.  Weaving a strong narrative with the langorous visuals that don't alienate its viewers while choreographing a stellar cast to perform at its best, The Beguiled is a real pleasure, like a tangy lemonade on a sultry summer day.

Ain't Them Bodies Saints, which is director David Lowery's previous feature, was a hazy detached western romance that could have been considered "Terrence Malick Lite" what with the light-filled cinematography, the oft-murmured monologues made with strained hushed voices, and the low camera angles.  A Ghost Story, which reunites stars Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck of the aforementioned movie with Lowery, took the director's sensibilities and veered them into an almost unforgivable territory.  Posing as a rumination on love and loss, the film only serves to keep its audience at a distance and its lack of connection makes us apathetically irked rather than artistically moved.

A Ghost Story has an interesting enough premise -- after an untimely death, Casey Affleck's character returns to his home as a white-sheeted ghost to find himself only able to witness the passing of time and the change of his lover from the background.

The problem is that we spend so little time with Mara and Affleck that we don't care sufficiently for them and even the flashbacks to their relationship show discord and a complete lack of chemistry.  Why does Affleck linger?  There's really no good answer for that.  And Lowery's attempt to show the depth of grief that Mara feels through the onerous long-take of her eating through a pie feels like the distraction of a magician's assistant to divert our eyes away from the lack of any real movie magic of romantic connection.

There are some good flickers in A Ghost Story:  his portrayal of the passage of time is creative and engaging, but is practically ruined by his insistence on using long takes.  We get it, you want us to completely witness the mundane task of Rooney Mara dragging out garbage all the way out to the curb.  The most egregious example of this is what serves as the film's thematic linchpin, when a party guest in the house waxes philosophical in a seemingly never-ending nihilistic strain about the futility of humanity.  Oh how the audience wishes that at some point Affleck would burst in and exact some poltergeistic rampage, but instead one of the only times that Affleck takes such action is in a scene when he's apparently infuriated by the sight of a dairy product (kidding, kind of).

Speaking of egregious though, is the misuse of the talents of Mara and Affleck.  Affleck, for goodness sake, is under a sheet for 85% of the movie and whatever Lowery's claims that his acting skills shine through the bedsheet, he is literally just a blanket with two black holes.  And consider also that there is a framework of wires and petticoats under that sheet to allow Affleck to move the way he does.  At least Tom Hardy could emote through his eyes even while impeded by Bane's mask and distorted voice in The Dark Knight Rises (which he did to artistic aplomb).  For all we know, Affleck could just be an unpaid intern for a majority of the movie.  Rooney Mara is hardly in the movie at all, reminiscent of the time we were promised that Guy Pearce would be in Prometheus only to be given a disappointing 8 minutes of him under heavy makeup, barely recognizable.  At least she got a pie out of it, I guess.

A lot of A Ghost Story is beyond belief, and not in a supernatural sense.  Why does Lowery shoot on a 1.37:1 ratio with rounded out edges (if not to make the movie instagram-ready)?  Why waste what could have been an ingenious take on a haunting from the side of the ghost?  Why were Mara and Affleck together in the first place?  Also, do ghosts just inhabit the sheets of wherever they died?  What if they don't have a blanket near them when they pass away?

The seeds of a good story are what keep A Ghost Story from completely tanking in terms of ratings.  Also Lowery's tendencies to shoot the present in chilly colors, while illuminating the past with warm tones, are rudimentary but still lovely.  Unfortunately, the bare bones of A Ghost Story make one doubt the integrity of any of his earlier features.

I may be the only one who feels this way, but there's something off and a little too ostentatious about how buff Chris Pratt is in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel.  When he dons a grey sweatshirt, he looks a little overstuffed, as if he's actually wearing fake muscle padding.  Even more so than Chris Evans' bulging bicep in Captain America: Civil War when he prevents a helicopter from flying away​, Pratt's workout regime seems to check off the box of superhero movie requirements.

And this is one of the few (although pronounced) flaws of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.  No, not Pratt's abs necessarily.  But a weirdly pronounced lean by director James Gunn to fulfill superhero movie tendencies.  Family drama, unfortunate literal explanations of characters' pasts, and a will-they/won't-they relationship that actually only has chemistry in the telling of it.  Whatever you feel about it, Peter Quill's (Chris Pratt) dancing, which bookended the first movie, encapsulated the nonsensical joy and the thumbing of its nose at the ridiculousness of the bloated Marvel market of the time, and what made that movie really work.

Director Gunn would have done better to highlight irreverencies once again, and Vol. 2 flags when it gets too serious.  It's only then that we see how thin (to the point of lazily written) the characters are -- and you begin to wonder how their personalities are going to stand up against the clash of the whole Avengers cast when they all come together.

Despite all this, Vol. 2 is undoubtedly a scenic, blithesome journey.  Even if the idea isn't as fresh as the original, overall Vol. 2 is a tighter script and snappier narrative.  The derivations from canon aren't always welcome (Ego's role is one that begs to be turned into a joke as much as his name should be, and Mantis is a mere shadow of her empowered original self), but are buoyed by an intensely likable cast.  The action scenes are better choreographed so that we are able to fully enjoy and comprehend everything that is going on.  The quips are generally more comfortable and you want to love the characters more even if you don't fully remember them from the first outing.  Baby Groot is undeniably delightful and darn it if Karen Gillan doesn't make Nebula an even more compelling character this time around.

All of the compliments here sound backhanded, but all in all, Guardians moves at an enjoyable clip, avoiding the bog of introducing the next movie in the Avengers-verse, or so much of the over-exposition current films suffer from.  More than any other film this year, it delivers in laughs and appreciable action.  What makes it different than all the other superhero movies that attempt to achieve the general checklist, is that it appears to do it in service of the movie rather than in service of a profit, which so many of today's superhero movie veneers aren't able to conceal.  In the same way, Baby Groot is cute in a way that never comes off as annoying or ingratiating even if it could have done so easily.

Chris Pratt admittedly banters better than he emotes, but he's sort of a perfect representation of Guardians of the Galaxy: better at cheeky humor than aphoristic relationships, and yet so good-natured and good-hearted that you can't help but overlook its weaknesses to appreciate its whole.

The first ten minutes of any sci-fi are crucial to an assurance of what kind of storyteller it is whom we've entrusted our next two hours to.  Are we in the hands of someone who overdoes it with exposition?  Are we in the future or a sort of alternative relatable present?  Are these people we would want to be stuck in space with?  Sunshine dropped us into the laps of a crew, comfortable with each other and with the layers of grime and sweat which instantly made us feel their confines and their fatigue.  Interstellar interposes a moment of fraught space tension travel with the immediacy of a rural home and family.  And of course, Alien had an eerie sense of poise and isolation from the beginning.

Life has a technically impressive beginning, quickly establishing a sense of zero gravity and spatial flexibility with its camera movements.  The main action of the opening scene with the crew of ISS is at a distance, allowing us to witness each crew member and garner first impressions from all of them by a cursory sentence or two.  ​Life therefore, from the get-go, is about relationships and how the characters relate to each other as well as to the new presence on their ship.

Comparisons to Ridley Scott's Alien are possibly inevitable, given that Life is similarly about a crew that encounters the first evidence of extraterrestrial life.  While researching the single-celled organism in a highly controlled lab, their interference with the creature leads to a rapid evolution and unforeseen and terrifying consequences.

Life veers too closely to Alien in some scenes to avoid association, and that's unfortunately much to its detriment.  One only has to look at how Scott is able to create a masterpiece of tension using only a blinking green dot in a scene where they're tracking the alien and then compare how it's done similarly in Life to feel that.  The best way to accept Life is not necessarily as a mediocre sci-fi movie, but rather as an updated 1950s creature feature.  Then we can comprehend what director Daniel Espinosa has attempted here, and maybe...just maybe...forgive those snippets of scenes where we see the film through the alien's point-of-view.  There are the barest bones of character depth here -- more a promise that is unfulfilled than anything else -- and yet we can fully appreciate that he has finally assembled a cast in a horror movie that doesn't make unfathomable idiotic decisions, even though he feels the need to narrate the intelligence of each flawed decision made.  Think of Life as a final girl scenario with intelligent altruistic individuals.  This, thankfully, allows us to fathom the magnitude of the alien's power, rather than believe we could have done better in a similar situation.

There is a truly gifted crew assembled on both sides of the camera here, but there's a sense of things not quite coming together.  Ryan Reynolds plays his usual smart-aleck, likable rogue to the point that it's almost like Deadpool is making a cameo -- which might have to do with writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick who penned Zombieland and...yup, Deadpool.  Jake Gyllenhaal similarly plays a flawed character on the brink of breakdown that he almost (at this point) tiresomely fills with some vexing acting tool, like the hard blink of his Loki in Prisoners or that lean coyote gleam of Nightcrawler.  Rebecca Ferguson is as stunning as ever as a CDC officer, but some kind of drinking game could probably be formulated over how many times she says "quarantine" or "firewall".  The three of them, as well as the rest of the cast, are simply so likable though and talented, they're winning enough to make Life work, for the most part.

Far more interesting, are Espinosa's choices in how to make the characters interact with each other and with the alien.  Ferguson is always putting the alien at a distance (aside from her use of the word firewall), and so her character is seen through glass or at a distance whenever possible.  The fate of each character often correlates with how they interact with the alien, and even the alien formulates a sort of synthetic starfish formation near the beginning in an imitation of the gloved hand it first interacts with.

It's not cinematographer Seamus McGarvey's best work (even his most recent Nocturnal Animals blows this away), but again it suffers from comparison to other sci-fi films.  The best directors and cinematographers have made the foray into space, from Denis Villenueve to Stanley Kubrick, and Hoyte Van Hoytema to Emmanuel Lubezki.  As much as we can appreciate Espinosa's use of a single camera to focus our perspective, the zero gravity tricks dazzle better in a read page from Ender's Game and the lack of spatial clarity in the ISS reduces the fear of being stuck in a small space with a monster.  Admittedly, although there's something undeniably alluring about the genre, it takes something really spectacular to make an impression in what's becoming an over saturated frontier.

What's lovely about watching an Asghar Farhadi film is that you find yourself paying attention to even the minutest details from the outset.  Part of this is due to a reputation that has built from former movies of tautly crafted stories where we're provided all of the pieces in order to come to wholly independent conclusions.  Part of it is because he demands your intelligent care from the onset.

That's why when his latest film, The Salesman, opens with an apartment building literally crumbling around its inhabitants, we wonder...what does it mean?  What does it already reveal of the relationships of the main characters, married couple Emad and Rama?  Do the fissures represent the state of their marriage or of the society around them?

And we're off.

Farhadi places clues throughout the story while always obscuring the actual events, and he thus encourages the audience to act as judge and jury.  Unlike a Kong monster that rages across the screen in the first five minutes, the absence here is what causes suspense. In A Separation, we never actually see the central event take place, and About Elly is a delicious Antonionian exercise.  This is another reason why a Farhadi movie is so refreshing (and also one of the several why his films are rather stressful to take part in), because the exercise of watching his movies goes beyond the end credits.  He takes ordinary, relatable characters and then forces unusual (albeit not always extraordinary) situations on them to see how a person's outward personality can change when put under duress.  Similarly, how we as an audience interpret events or take sides can reveal more about our personality when we discuss afterwards.

In The Salesman, married Iranian couple Emad and Rama move into a temporary home while taking part in a stage production of an adapted "Death of a Salesman", but become involved in an altercation due to circumstances with their previous apartment tenant.

Although technically, Farhadi's movies could be termed as domestic dramas, they're paced more like thrillers, with meticulously spaced events that rampantly increase strain.  The build-up is as insidious as well as palpable, making his climaxes as surprising and explosive as they are inevitable.  He always easily aligns us with characters before making them spiral to a place where we're completely uncertain as to what will happen next.  Can we comprehend the actions they take at this point?  Do we want to?

Because Farhadi wants to impose as little of directness on the audience as possible in order to give space for their own discovery, it feels antithetical to project too many of my narrative interpretations.  However, actor and actress Taraneh Alidoosti and Farhadi regular Shahab Hosseini are as masterful as the story arcs that bind them irrevocably.  There are definite patterns of censorship and public humiliation present.  As an actor, protagonist Rana should be able to empathetically put himself in the shoes of others, but The Salesman is the question and sometimes the challenge of whether we can do the same to the characters on screen.