‘The Legend of Ochi’ Unfolds with Big-Eyed Wonder

April 23, 2025

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Which one’s the Ochi and which one’s the Human? (CREDIT: A24)

Starring: Helena Zengel, Willem Dafoe, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson

Director: Isaiah Saxon

Running Time: 96 Minutes11

Rating: PG for Weird Parental Energy and Some Cuts, Scrapes, and Bruises

Release Date: April 18, 2025 (Limited Theaters)/April 25, 2025 (Expands Wide)

What’s It About?: On a secluded island village in the Black Sea, a girl named Yuri (Helena Zengel) lives under the iron will of her father Maxim (Willem Dafoe). Along with Yuri’s older adoptive brother Petro (Finn Wolfhard) and the rest of Maxim’s army of young boys, their lives are almost entirely dedicated to hunting a supposedly monstrous species of orange-furred, blue-faced primates known as ochi. But Yuri is more than a little bit skeptical of this arrangement. Sure enough, she soon forges a deep connection with an adorable baby ochi, and they then commence on a journey back home that will undoubtedly reveal the truth about the ochi and Yuri’s family history.

What Made an Impression?: It’s Not Easy Being…: It’s not just the ochi’s faces that are blue. Their eyes are deep and icy as well, as are Yuri’s. (Helena Zengel is pretty much an ochi in human form.) There’s also an unforgettable blue caterpillar. I was certainly feeling blue by the end of it (in the Miles Davis Kind of sense). Hopefully you will as well.
Throwback Vibes: Chances are pretty high that The Legend of Ochi will have you asking, “Is it the 80s again?” Specifically the puppetry-based creature features that dominated the decade like E.T., The NeverEnding Story, and Labyrinth. Ochi is just as painstaking and otherworldly as all of those with its own mix of puppets, animatronics, and computer animation. The plot is fairly standard-issue, but the level of craft is off the charts.
Communication Studies: Yuri eventually reunites with her long-lost mother Dasha (Emily Watson), who is basically the polar opposite of her estranged husband, insofar as she’s dedicated her years to studying the singular wonders of the ochi. Her most powerful insight is that they talk not with words, but with sensation. Accordingly, I’m finding it a little lacking to verbalize my reaction to this movie. So maybe it’ll be better if I just conclude with a list of emotions that I felt while watching: awe, curiosity, compassion, hope, gratefulness, tingles, frustration, triumph, relief.

The Legend of Ochi is Recommended If You Like: Throwbacks that aren’t too beholden to their forerunners

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Pigtails

‘Hell of a Summer’ is a Low-Key Doodle of a Slasher

April 3, 2025

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What the hell (of a summer)?! (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Fred Hechinger, Abby Quinn, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Billy Bryk, Finn Wolfhard, Pardis Saremi, Krista Nazaire, Matthew Finlan, Julia LaLonde, Daniel Gravelle, Julia Doyle, Rosebud Baker, Adam Pally

Directors: Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk

Running Time: 88 Minutes

Rating: R for Bloody Shenanigans and a Conversation About Getting Busy During a Movie

Release Date: April 4, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Veteran Pineway Camp counselor Jason (Fred Hechinger) had an embarrassingly tearful goodbye at the end of last summer, which he thought was going to be his last at Pineway. And it probably should have been. He is aging out of the gig, after all, and it doesn’t exactly pay like a full-time job. But the owners needed the extra help this year, or at least that’s what he keeps saying. But he really should’ve reconsidered, considering that … there’s a serial killer on the loose! Will Jason turn hero and save all his fellow counselors, or will everyone just die sad, unremarkably gruesome deaths?

What Made an Impression?: Two-for-One Deal: Hell of a Summer is written and directed by a pair of youngsters (Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk, who both also star), but despite their youth, they’ve assembled a throwback to the slashers of yore, particularly two that loom menacingly large over the rest of the genre. You’ve got the camp setting and ugly relentlessness of Friday the 13th, but with a little bit more personality than Jason Voorhees’ adventures. That’s crossed with the Scream-style setup of friends playing detective against each other, except that in this case most of them are a little dopier and a lot more superficial than Woodsboro’s residents. They’re not so infuriating that you’re begging for them to get sliced up, but you might just want them to go through some terrible trauma so that they’ll actually grow up.
Where is Everyone?: There’s one big unanswered question throughout Hell of a Summer: where are all the kids?! Or is this just an “Oops All Counselors” type of amp? Now, of course, the most likely answer is that the young attendees are scheduled to arrive at least one day after all the counselors, so they’re not supposed to be there at this point anyway. But the counselors never seem to behave as if anyone else is on the way! To be fair, that isn’t exactly unbelievable behavior from teenagers and young twentysomethings, but I nevertheless couldn’t help but be deeply affected by the lack of explanatory context.

Hell of a Summer is Recommended If You: Wish that Wet Hot American Summer had fewer laughs and more blood

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Decapitations

‘Saturday Night’ Seeks to Capture the Prelude to One of the Biggest Seventh Days of the Week of All Time

September 26, 2024

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I’m not Chevy Chase, and they’re not (CREDIT: Hopper Stone/Columbia Pictures)

Starring: Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun, Cooper Hoffman, Kaia Gerber, Andrew Barth Feldman, Tommy Dewey, Willem Dafoe, Matthew Rhys, J.K. Simmons, Jon Batiste, Naomi McPherson, Taylor Gray, Mcabe Gregg, Nicholas Podany, Billy Bryk, Ellen Boscov, Joe Chrest, Catherine Curtin, Leander Suleiman, Paul Rust, Robert Wuhl, Corinne Britti, Kirsty Woodward, Josh Brener, Brad Garrett

Director: Jason Reitman

Running Time: 109 Minutes

Rating: R for General Crudeness and Casual Backstage Drug Use, and One Unsolicited Private Release

Release Date: September 27, 2024 (Limited Theaters)/Expands October 4 and October 11

What’s It About?: As the prophet declared, “The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready, it goes on because it’s 11:30.” While that is a widely accepted maxim in 2024, a few decades ago it was met by the masses with an outpouring of skepticism. According to Saturday Night director Jason Reitman and his co-writer Gil Kenan’s telling, things were so touch-and-go that the first episode of Lorne Michaels’ brainchild barely made it to air in one piece. While the hour-and-a-half that began on the National Broadcasting Company at 11:30 PM Eastern on October 11, 1975 has since been immortalized, the hour-and-a-half that immediately preceded it was also apparently quite the transformative odyssey. And so, Saturday Night‘s log line is quite simple: the real-time chaos that led right up to the birth of one of the most famous TV shows of all time.

What Made an Impression?: Would You Accept a Wolverine in Place of the Truth?: Saturday Night is filled with an unending series of too-perfect coincidences that I don’t really have any interest in fact-checking (at least not in terms of whether or not they make for a worthwhile movie). Like, did John Belushi really refuse to sign his contract until approximately 15 minutes before the cameras started rolling? Surely that must have been sorted out days, if not weeks, earlier? I suppose it’s dramatically true enough, as Belushi was certainly known for being erratic. Some of these stunningly on-the-nose moments are kind of funny, like when Lorne has a sarcastic back-and-forth with a building employee who supposedly thinks that he’s producing Saturday night the night, as opposed to Saturday Night the TV show. But then there are similar incidents that I found myself groaning at, like Milton Berle lecturning everyone he encounters about the way that showbiz really works (although J.K. Simmons does play Uncle Miltie with the just right flavor of stunningly pompous).
Inescapable Iconography: It’s hard to imagine that Saturday Night will be anyone’s introduction to SNL. Even if you don’t watch every new episode like clockwork, you’ve surely encountered some of it through cultural osmosis. But save for a couple of semi-unavoidable bits, the movie mostly avoids the pitfall of simply recreating memes and catchphrases. Nevertheless, it isn’t like this is a completely untold story. The behind-the-scenes foibles have been recounted in numerous outlets on numerous occasions, and the characters are based on quite famous real people, many of whom are still alive. So it’s no surprise that some of these performances are mostly glorified impressions. To be fair, some of them are quite good impressions. Dylan O’Brien in particular captures the singularly rat-a-tat patter of Dan Aykroyd. Others have room to go a little deeper, especially Gabriel LaBelle in the lead, as he effectively captures the harried arrogance and earnestness of attempting to spark a revolution through television. But as good as LaBelle is, I can’t help but look at him and go, “That’s not Lorne Michaels.” It’s close, but not quite. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it is uncanny.
It’s Saturday Night, and You’re Not: I kind of wish that Saturday Night had gone the Weird biopic route, by maintaining some semblance of reality while obviously comedically exaggerating everything else. It certainly would have been in the spirit of a sketch show that has aired plenty of memorable parodies in its own right. Of course, it would be unfair to review it for not being something that it’s not trying to be. But it’s still fun to wonder, “What if?” As it is, we’ve got something that feels like cosplay populated by body snatchers. It’s energetic and loving cosplay, but the thrills are mostly theoretical rather than visceral.

Saturday Night is Recommended If You Like: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Really sticking it to the censors, Bricks

Grade: 3 out of 5 Affiliates

‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ is Maybe a Little Too Chill

March 21, 2024

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Ghostbust a Move (CREDIT: Sony Pictures)

Starring: Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Dan Aykroyd, Kumail Nanjiani, Emily Alyn Lind, Celeste O’Connor, Patton Oswalt, Logan Kim, Ernie Hudson, William Atherton, James Acaster, Annie Potts, Bill Murray

Director: Gil Kenan

Running Time: 115 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Paranormal Freakiness

Release Date: March 22, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Ghostbusting generations old and new are back in business again. And not a moment too soon, because New York City is about to be targeted with some apocalyptic shenanigans. When an opportunistic slacker (Kumail Nanjiani) sells a suspicious orb to Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), the captive spirits in the Busters’ firehouse start acting rather fishy. Well, fishier than usual. It turns out that a millennia-old supernatural being named Garraka might just be trying to make a comeback. And if he has to freeze the Big Apple in the middle of summer to pull it off, well, then that’s just what he’s going to do. Meanwhile, Phoebe Spengler (McKenna Grace) is feeling adrift, because she’s still a minor and can’t fully participate in the family business. So she starts hanging out with a seemingly friendly ghost named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), although Melody may just have her own machinations in mind.

What Made an Impression?: What’s Cooler Than Being Cool?: Frozen Empire is in no rush to deliver on its core premise. The icy villain doesn’t show up in full until the final act, so his ultimate defeat isn’t exactly filled with tension. I couldn’t help but wonder if it would have made more sense to invert this approach. That is to say, let New York freezing over be the inciting incident, and then figure out from there how to thaw it out. Instead, director Gil Kenan and co-screenwriter Jason Reitman (who inherited the franchise from his father while directing 2021’s Afterlife) mostly aim for a hangout vibe, with a bunch of random ghosts creating mild chaos while the human characters chit-chat about their favorite paranormal topics.
The Gang’s All Here: One of the major promises of Afterlife was the return of the original Ghostbusters, but that basically just amounted to a glorified cameo. This time around, Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts are all actually fully fledged members of the cast, which somewhat downplays the need to just play the greatest hits. So while Frozen Empire isn’t overly burdened by fanservice (give or take a scene of Paul Rudd earnestly admitting that busting makes him feel good), it’s never fully clear what the context of this world is, vis-a-vis the wider public’s recognition or lack thereof that ghosts exist. They sure seem rather ubiquitous, but there are still authority figures (like William Atherton reprising his role from the original) trying to shut down any busting operation, when it feels like the citizenry ought to be demanding that the Ghostbusters be added to the list of government-provided emergency services.
Who Believes in Ghosts?: If there are more Ghostbusters adventures to come, and I think there just might be, why not take an approach similar to that of the Fast and the Furious series and invite back into the fold everyone who’s ever been in a Ghostbusters movie? Frozen Empire kind of utilizes this approach, but the next chapter could take it even further by re-enlisting the likes of the Lady Ghostbusters. Then just focus on crafting a sufficient new big bad and ignore the fight to win over the hearts and minds of the public. That battle’s surely already been won! Frozen Empire hints towards this maximalist approach, but it’s a little too attached to its underdog roots to really run with it.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is Recommended If You Like: Talking to ghosts, but pretending that you’re too cool to talk to ghosts

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Proton Packs

‘Pinocchio, Pistachio, Toro! Toro! Toro!’

December 13, 2022

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What’s up, Pinocchio? (CREDIT: Netflix © 2022)

Starring: Gregory Mann, David Bradley, Ewan McGregor, Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton, Ron Perlman, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, Burn Gorman, Tim Blake Nelson, John Turturro, Tom Kenny

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Running Time: 117 Minutes

Rating: PG

Release Date: November 9, 2022 (Theaters)/December 9, 2022 (Netflix)

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio – or as I refer to it, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pistachio” (because of that Rugrats episode where the babies call Pinocchio “Pistachio”) – is pretty dang lovely. It hasn’t quite inspired some baby-speak-style quoting from me to follow in the footsteps of the Rugrats version, but that’s okay. Furthermore, I thought that it was Cate Blanchett who was voicing the Fairy and her sister Death, but that was actually Tilda Swinton, while Cate was the voice of the monkey. That realization pretty much sums up my reaction in general to this whole movie, as Pinocchio’s stop-motion wooden walking was similarly mind-altering.

Grade: Cate Blanchett Voiced the Monkey?!

‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ is Very Similar to the First ‘Ghostbusters,’ and I Would Be Very Surprised If Anyone Argued Differently

November 16, 2021

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Ghostbusters: Afterlife (CREDIT: Screenshot)

Starring: McKenna Grace, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd, Logan Kim, Celeste O’Connor, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, Bokeem Woodbine

Director: Jason Reitman

Running Time: 125 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Shooting Lasers at Those Ghosts

Release Date: November 19, 2021 (Theaters)

Ghostbusters: Afterlife plays all the biggest hits of the original Ghostbusters, but in rural Oklahoma instead of Manhattan. A gluttonous spook chomping away, squishy treats running amok, hellbeasts hooking up, “Who you gonna call?” – it’s all right here! It’s like a recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live: perfectly professional, and it probably works best for those who haven’t seen the first edition. As for those who were around for the original, there’s the thrill – or sting – of familiarity. This time around, the main busters are a few precocious kids, as opposed to a crew of childlike adults, so the vibe is at least a little different, although pretty much everyone involved takes great pains to capture that 1984 mojo as best they can.

I frequently wonder why repetition is demonized so much more in cinema than it is in other mediums. Revivals are an essential piece of live theater, musicians are expected to play the same songs over and over at their concerts, superhero comic books thrive on retelling the same stories, etc. But when you trot out a repeat at the movie house, you might draw big crowds, though you likely won’t win much critical praise, at least not as much as you did the first go-round. It probably has something to do with scale and budget. It takes years to assemble sequels and reboots, so there is a lot riding on them to be worth it. Ghostbusters: Afterlife plays it safe, so we’ll probably continue to see proton packs around town for decades to come, but I don’t know if anyone will also start emulating Paul Rudd’s plaid ensembles. (Well, maybe they will, but less because of this movie and more because he’s the Sexiest Man Alive.)

I didn’t want to be preoccupied by all this context while watching Afterlife, but it’s kind of unavoidable when you’re as plugged into culture as much as I am. When I try to think about this movie in and of itself, I can at least say that I appreciate that Carrie Coon and McKenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard were free to do their own thing, more or less. And there is one scene that I must admit is just undeniably satisfying, and that is when a bunch of Stay Puft marshmallows impishly run amok in a brand name department store. It’s cute and chaotic – an eternally winning combination. It’s also curious and a little unpredictable, which are qualities that the rest of the movie could have definitely benefited from.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is Recommended If You Like: SNL recurring sketches, the Minions going shopping in the first Despicable Me, Dead actors resurrected by technology

Grade: 2.75 out of 5 Spooks

‘The Turning’ is a Workmanlike Piece of Gothic Horror Until It Is Overcome by an Astoundingly Abrupt Ending

January 23, 2020

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CREDIT: Patrick Redmond/Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures

Starring: Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard, Brooklynn Prince, Barbara Marten, Joely Richardson

Director: Floria Sigsimondi

Running Time: 94 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for General Spookiness, Fantastically Rude Children, and Artfully Composed Bathtub Shots

Release Date: January 24, 2020

Take a classic gothic horror tale, pair it with a director of classic music videos, and what do you get? Almost certainly a spooky atmosphere. But will the narrative be just as effective? The Turning is based on Henry James’ 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw and it’s directed by Floria Sigismondi, who is best known for colorful clips like Katy Perry’s “E.T.” and Rihanna’s “Sledgehammer.” Perhaps that rock ‘n’ roll background is why The Turning is set squarely in 1994, with the death of Kurt Cobain serving as one of the last moments that Kate (Mackenzie Davis) experiences in the outside world before descending into a pit of terror. She has been hired as a live-in tutor and nanny for a couple of orphans in a perpetually autumnal mansion that looks at least as old James’ story.

Kate is immediately haunted by ghostly visions, and while she generally trusts her own eyes, she has reason to believe that she is just dreaming or that the kids are playing tricks on her. While the younger of the two, Flora (Brooklynn Prince), is mostly sweet, the older one, Miles (Finn Wolfhard), is the epitome of disaffected, possibly sociopathic adolescence. The Turning is most effective as a portrait of how hate can linger and infect an entire household, whether or not the phantom sightings are real ghosts. Miles was apparently close with the former groundskeeper, who died in an accident and is described as a brute of a man. Meanwhile, the housekeeper (Barbara Marten), who looks like she’s been there since the house was built, is aware of all of these dynamics but is more concerned about keeping everything difficult under wraps.

For the most part, The Turning is a fairly straightforward, patient (perhaps to a fault) tale about how difficult it can be to escape a toxic environment, even when it is so clear that you must get out. It seems to be heading towards a conclusion that works perfectly fine for such a setup, but then it is interrupted by one of the most puzzling endings I’ve ever seen. This hardly qualifies as a spoiler because it is nowhere near clear what this finale actually is. It’s enough to make you suspect that the last reel of film is missing. (Or, since we’re now in a digital projection era, I suppose the error would’ve been that the last 10% of the file didn’t convert properly.) The closest comparison I can think of is the famously nonsensical ending of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, but in that case, it is clear that it was tacked on after the fact and thus easy to dismiss as not really part of the rest of the movie. I would be willing to do the same with The Turning‘s ending, but it very much feels like it is there for a reason. Alas, it’s a reason that never reveals itself. It’s just plain baffling, and thus hard to call this movie anything but incomplete.

The Turning is Recommended If You Like: Leaving five minutes before the ending

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Dead Fish

Movie Review: For Better and Worse, ‘IT: Chapter Two’ Goes Full Stephen King

September 5, 2019

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CREDIT: Brooke Palmer/Warner Bros.

Starring: James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Jay Ryan, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, James Ransone, Andy Bean, Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Martell, Sophia Lillis, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff

Director: Andy Muschietti

Running Time: 169 Minutes

Rating: R for Bloody Clown Chomps, A Few Stabbings, Nervous Vomiting, and Creepy Nudity

Release Date: September 6, 2019

IT: Chapter Two is solidly built upon a foundation of a melancholy truth about human existence. When we’re young, we may vow to keep what’s important to us as children just as important when we became adults. But somehow, some way, we all forget some of the things we once held dear, while also remaining stuck in some of the patterns we thought we would eventually grow out of. The Losers Club of Derry, Maine represent the epitome of this mercurial attachment to the past. And so it is that 27 years after their first series of misadventures, they must return to once again defeat the supernatural evil entity that terrorizes their hometown.

This melancholy setup is an apt formula for psychological agony mixing with real in-your-face terror, but the trouble with Chapter Two is that so many of the scares are so scattered from the overarching purpose. Winged insect-bird hybrids popping out of fortune cookies and an old naked lady who turns into a floppy-breasted gargoyle are plenty creepy in and of themselves, but these moments just keep piling onto one another as a series of random horror set pieces, and the effect is eventually exhausting. Even some of the moments that actually feature Pennywise (like a gay couple being beaten up by a mob only to then fall victim to the clown or a cute little girl bonding with Pennywise over facial deformity) are effective mini-movies unto themselves, but they could have easily been cut without losing the main thread involving the Losers. Their story of coming to grips with what won’t leave them alone is effective when the full-to-bursting script actually focuses on them. Ultimately, IT: Chapter Two is decidedly overambitious and overdramatic, but it is a fascinating mess, embracing Stephen King at his weirdest and most extra.

IT: Chapter Two is Recommended If You Like: The most unfiltered Stephen King adaptations

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Hidden Memories

This Is a Movie Review: IT (2017)

November 24, 2017

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CREDIT: Warner Bros.

I am surprised that I haven’t come across more (or any) takes of IT that talk about how big a deal abuse is. Because as far as I can tell, that is what the whole thing is all about. Like, I’m pretty sure Pennywise is a metaphor for an entire town poisoned by a legacy of abuse. And that is what makes this movie scary. Every member of the Losers Club has a home life that ranges from sad to actively dangerous, and then when they go out into town, they are beset by shockingly violent bullies, who themselves are the victims of brutish parenting. It makes sense that Bill steps up as the leader, as the worst his dad does is refuse to confront his family’s loss head-on. The relative stability in that unit is allowed to be rocked by the death of younger brother Georgie because abuse has a long tail.

IT often presents its abuses and the responses to it with some combination of baroque and grotesque. Bev’s sexual advances from her father are met with their bathroom being filled with buckets of blood. Eddie’s mother, who fuels his hypochondria, is not just obese, she is so abnormally shaped that it looks like she has a bunch of balloons under her dress. The evil in IT is both morally and aesthetically ugly. In the town of Derry, it only makes sense that a force of pure evil would take the form of a smiling, dancing clown.

I give IT (2017) 400 Floats of 500 Too’s.