Female Film Critics 24/375
The new Superman iteration featured in James Gunn’s Superman, starring David Corenswet, evokes something in between the two, inspired by some of the most wholesome versions, including the animated Fleischer Superman of the 1940s and the more recent animated series of the 90s. Corenswet’s Big Red S is a both a smartass and incredibly earnest. He’s all heart.
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James Gunn has revitalized the genre, especially for DC, and given us a Superman we can truly look up to. This Superman leads with kindness, so much so that in the heat of battle he will stop to save a squirrel. His desire to be accepted by society, while still staying true to his innate virtue, pulls at your heart and inspires hope. Soar to theaters and see one of the best films of the year.
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As the film opens, Superman, the most powerful metahuman, has just lost his first battle. Rescued and taken back to his lair to rejuvenate, the Man of Steel realizes he must reconcile his alien Kryptonian heritage with his adoptive human family in Kansas. But, as he gets drawn into conflicts at home and abroad, his mental and physical muscle is questioned, giving tech billionaire Lex Luthor the opportunity to dispose of the not so super hero for good. James Gunn, has taken the reins of the latest Superman iteration and turned it into an intergalactic hodgepodge of humor and humanity.
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Writer/director James Gunn’s new Superman is a comic-book action-adventure super-spectacle that’s great fun. After a brief history of ‘metahumans’ on Earth, bloodied-and-battered Superman (David Corenswet) is first seen sprawled in Arctic snow, having been beaten by the hulking Hammer of Boravia. The key to James Gunn’s re-imagining the iconic superhero is his vulnerability; the Man of Steel is no longer invincible. His humanity is the source of his strength,
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While Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2 is a compelling courtroom drama, the even bigger mystery is why Warner Bros. only briefly released it in 50 theaters before it began streaming exclusively on HBO Max. Free-lance writer Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is summoned to jury duty in Savannah, Georgia on a murder case. The trial begins. After a night of drinking and arguing with her boyfriend, James Sythe (Gabriel Basso), Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood) leaves the roadside bar in a rainstorm. Witnesses saw them fighting and remember him chasing her out to the parking lot. Later, her corpse is found on rocks beneath a nearby bridge. Recovering alcoholic Justin is confused about the details of his own automobile accident that same night and confesses to his AA sponsor (Kiefer Sutherland) that he perhaps knows more than he’d like to admit.
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What the new version of Nosferatu is, is REALLY old school horror. A remake of the 1922 silent film of the same name that was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Nosferatu plays like it’s from the early days of moving pictures. It is a typical dark and foggy tale of obsession between a haunted young woman, portrayed way over the top by Lily-Rose Depp, and a terrifying vampire who wants to be her boyfriend. Played by Bill Skarsgård, the vampire Nosferatu is an unrecognizable gothic Wizard of Oz who sounds like he has asthma.
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Robert Egger’s version of Nosferatu is a film that has been nearly a decade in the making. The long gestation period has been used well with Eggers’ creating a Gothic horror that sweeps the audience away. Using both F. W. Murnau’s 1922 film Nosferatu, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel, as his source, Eggers has woven together a sumptuous story that feels familiar, whilst having enough of the director’s stamp to set it apart from other versions.
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For many years, Nicolas Cage refused to play Dracula, turning down major studio films but – now – he’s the legendary, bloodthirsty Count in Renfield. He doesn’t star in this thriller/horror comedy. Instead, the grisly story revolves around Robert Montague Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), Count Dracula’s long-suffering servant – a.k.a. “familiar” – whose job is to bring the infamous Transylvanian vampire fresh victims while he keeps up his super-strength by eating insects. Renfield first appears at a church group therapy session in present-day New Orleans. Coaxed by the support group’s leader, he confesses, “I am in a destructive relationship.”
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If Quentin Tarantino and Mel Brooks collaborated on a script it would be Renfield. The film is a satirical take on characters from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but with enough blood sucked and spilled to make The Inglorious Bastards anemic. There are more multiple dismemberments per frame in any flick so far this year and the film is only 90 minutes. John Wick is jealous.
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Although the almost two-hour run time feels too long, the repetitive film also reveals too little about J.R.R. Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult). It omits some intriguing details about the origins of his stories, runs others into the ground and leaves tantalizing topics like his relationship with fellow author C.S. Lewis unexplored.
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