Michael Myers and Laurie Strode in Halloween Ends (2022)
The final installment in David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy is every bit as disappointing as you would expect from a team bankrupt of any new ideas. Green’s last chapter in an ever-declining saga pits longtime protagonist and bona fide horror icon Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) against a new evil that terrorizes Haddonfield and brings Michael Myers out of hiding for one final, anticlimactic showdown. While Green’s first installment honored Carpenter’s original vision and reinvigorated the franchise, his latest effort strays miles away from everything that made that film enjoyable. While one can recognize the ambitious choices made in this head-scratching sequel it amounts to little more than a mismatch of poorly-executed ideas and a meandering plot, loosely tied together by a screenplay so trite that one can barely believe it was greenlit at all.
There is a scene a little bit less than halfway through Blonde, where Marilyn Monroe receives a standing ovation after the premiere of her film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She’s shedding quiet tears as she is surrounded by applause, whistles, and the adoration of everyone in the room. Marilyn then thinks to herself, “for this, you killed your baby.” It’s around here that you might get the idea that director Andrew Dominik does not like Marilyn Monroe all that much. Continue reading Even When We’re Inside Her Womb, Blonde is a Boring and Trite Marilyn Portrait→
Pearl (2022). Directed by Ti West. Starring Mia Goth.
Have you ever wanted something so bad you would kill for it? This question becomes the motivation for our protagonist in Pearl, the second installment to Ti West’s trilogy. As a prequel to the well received release of X earlier this year, Pearl explains the actions set forth in X, specifically Pearl’s rise to stardom. Having worked on both, Mia Goth and West create a film that simultaneously entertains and frightens the audience.
Three Thousand Years of Longing Promotional Poster
The beating heart of George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing lies in the power of narratives and what they mean to us as viewers. The film follows Tilda Swinton’s Alithea, a narratologist who travels to Istanbul, where she attends conferences and gives speeches about the history and power of storytelling. After finding and cleaning an old glass lamp, she accidentally releases Djinn, played by Idris Elba, who grants her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. From there, the film takes an interesting turn. Instead of becoming an action-packed and fantastical epic where Alithea makes wishes with disastrous consequences – she is reluctant to make any wishes. And to convince her, Djinn decides to sit down and tell her all the details of his long life and imprisonment: his great loves, his great regrets, and his great suffering. Continue reading Three Thousand Years of Longing and the Endless Allure of Storytelling→
To kick off the Fall 2022 semester, the crew at FIU Film Studies would like to introduce you to our new series: Flashback Flicks. Every week, one of our editors will select a favorite film or cult classic that we recommend to you, our readers. This week’s pick is Steven Spielberg’s 1981 film, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Continue reading Flashback Flick: Raiders of the Lost Ark→
