8/25-9/4

Bill Watterson's DAVE MADE A MAZE //

This doesn't quite work as well as it should—the tone is uneven, the characterizations thin, and the editing sloppy—but it has marvelous production design, an endearing love of good old-fashioned cinematic illusion, and a handful of laugh-out-loud gags. It's hard for me not to be charmed by a film with this much creativity on display, despite the rough edges, and an especially inventive hallucinatory sequence near the film's conclusion strikes a genuine note of strange beauty—proof that Watterson can do more than just wacky hijinks.

Added bonus: James Urbaniak has an interesting face.

David Mackenzie's RELAY //

Advertised as a fun thriller in the 1970s mold—more paranoid atmosphere than action—and it mostly delivers on that premise. Full of fun little screenwriter-y details about not only relay services for the deaf but also things like the arcana of postal forwarding: this is the kind of detail that I always love seeing in a thriller. The final act is a little disappointing—every cat-and-mouse film must eventually end with a confrontation, I suppose, but the film's great asset is its cleverness, and I'd hoped to see more of that cleverness on display as the film works through its climax.

Added bonus: Rami Malek has an interesting face.

James Hawes' THE AMATEUR //

The more I thought about it, the more I thought this movie didn't really know what it wanted to be. "CIA agent goes rogue because of personal vendetta" sets up a pretty good paranoid thriller, one that promises to even get a little thinky, especially given that the premise is, like, "this guy is not a cold-blooded killer but rather a flinchy tech nerd." But it sort of wants to have its cake and eat it too: it still wants to be an action-packed vengeance film, with stuff that blows up and spectacular setpieces like the exploding high-rise pool you see in the trailer. I saw the film in the hopes that it could walk that tightrope—an action film that maintains its nerd cred could work for me—but the film doesn't have faith in the brainy stuff, so it gets handwaved away, which makes the action-y outcomes feel unearned and hollow. Malek's performance isn't bad, but the overall arc of his coming to terms with his grief feels a bit draped over the film to give off the impression of seriousness—you kind of feel like things might have improved if the film shook off its gravity and gave itself more opportunities to cut loose. You have Lawrence Fishburne on hand, after all—he's at his best when it seems like he's having fun.

Added bonus: Riz Ahmed has an interesting face.

Ilya Naishuller's NOBODY

I sort of went into this thinking it was going to be "JOHN WICK, only a comedy," which it... kind of is, but the jokes are few and far between. Instead, it's maybe more of a "masculinity in crisis" film, which I have a limited tolerance for. Still, once this gets started—which takes longer than you'd expect—the themes don't really matter. The escalating battles are fun, and choreographed well, so I had a pretty decent time.

Added bonus: Bob Odenkirk has an interesting face.

About those bonuses: I honestly do think "faces" are at least as important to the success or failure of a film as, say, "plot."