Us

Doppelgangers, evil twins, clones, and alter-egos have always populated volumes of parables in art and literature. The takeaway themes vary, but one of them is almost always: we are our own worst enemy. Beyond that, I’m not sure what to take away from Us. It’s a very well-acted and always mysterious yarn, but I’m not sure if I “get” it. It’s more funny than scary, and the big “uh-oh” eerie finish left me baffled. It swings for the fences, thematically, but I wish it had been more conclusive.

Captain Marvel

Who would win in a fight? Captain Marvel or Superman? Captain Marvel or the Hulk? Captain Marvel or Dr. Strange? You can practically hear the conversations comic-book geeks and eight-year-olds are having about Carol Danvers and how powerful she is – really. That’s probably the best thing about this: she’s seems to be one of the strongest and most powerful heroes in any of the universes, which raises the superhero stakes considerably. But I’ll admit I found this movie confusing, mainly because I’m not a big enough of a comic-book geek to keep track of all of the important colorful stones and glowing cubes, green people and blue people, planets and alternate universes, to fully understand what the hell is going on. But I enjoyed the actors and the fact that Captain Marvel seems to be more powerful than Superman. (I smell a Marvel/DC crossover!) Looking forward to finding out who will be her Louis Lane.

Greta

There are a lot of things to appreciate about DePalma. Audiences and filmmakers have been yakking about and discussing and dissecting DePalma for years and years. Often the conversation steers to: Is he serious? Is he kidding? Is this meant to be over-the-top and jokey? Is it meant to be this derivative? It’s possible that many filmmakers appreciate his movies so much because he was able to get away with so much. “I want to get away with that much!” They think. “I want to cheat like DePalma cheats!” The filmmakers of Greta are these filmmakers. Let’s rip-off DePalma but also wink at the audience that we know we’re ripping off DePalma, who also ripped-off himself, and who also ripped-off Hitchcock… Ultimately, you can see a lot of these plot points and goofs coming, so the whole experience is a bit dull.