Welcome to The Prime Sublime, a weekly column dedicated to the underseen and underloved films buried beneath page after page of far more popular fare on Amazon’s Prime Video collection. We’re not just cherry-picking obscure titles, though, as these are movies that we find beautiful in their own, often unique ways. You might even say we think they’re sublime…

“Sublime /səˈblīm/: of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe”

Very few would argue that the late, great Richard Burton was one of the finest actors of his time. That said, quite a few would probably argue that Burton’s output through the 70s revealed him to be a man in serious decline due to years of alcohol abuse. It’s clear in his performances and decreasing screen time, but I’d still happily go to bat for 70s films like The Wild Geese (1978), Equus (1977), and yes, even The Klansman (1974). The decade saw him taking all manner of roles including one in the ill-conceived Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), but as much as that rare foray into the genre damaged his already faltering reputation he happily agreed to one more horror film — 1978’s The Medusa Touch.

What’s it about?

John Morlar (Burton) sits in front of his television watching as a manned mission to the moon heads toward tragedy. Someone enters his apartment and proceeds to smash John’s head repeatedly with a heavy object. Police arrive on the scene of the murder and begin their investigation only to reel in shock when the corpse — well, what they believed to be a corpse — begins to breathe again. John’s rushed to the hospital and doctors immediately put the unconscious man on life support even as they marvel at the persistence of his still functioning brain.

While doctors ponder how he’s still alive, Detective-Inspector Brunel (Lino Ventura) is knee deep into investigating the attempted murder. He speaks with neighbors, former co-workers, and John’s psychiatrist, Dr. Zonfeld (Lee Remick), and the picture they paint is of a disturbed man who believed himself capable of causing immense harm merely by thinking it. Suspicious fires, car accidents, heart attacks, suicides, and worse are recounted through flashback, and as John lies unconscious in the hospital Brunel begins to suspect there’s still one more disaster yet to come.

What makes it sublime?

Movies about telekinesis were all the rage in the 70s with genre efforts like Psychic Killer (1975), Carrie (1976), and The Fury (1978) entertaining moviegoers nationwide, but The Medusa Touch has a different kind of feel to it. The film is less interested in traditional thrills and chills and instead unfolds as a mystery of sorts. The immediate question is who tried to kill John, and while audiences will probably reach a conclusion before the detective does the journey to the truth still manages to intrigue. (In Brunel’s defense, he’s a French detective working in the UK as part of an exchange program — at least that’s the script’s excuse while the real reason is that the film’s French co-financiers required a star of their own.) The bigger question, though, and the one the film plays more successfully at, is whether or not John’s terrible gift is even real.

The flashbacks we see involve John recounting his own truths, but how reliable of a narrator is he? He claims to have envisioned various things only to have them come true — he saw his school dormitory ablaze before a fire actually started and killed an abusive teacher, he pictures his parents being pushed over a cliff before their car’s brakes mysteriously release and run the couple to their death, he verbally instructs an obnoxious woman to off herself mere moments before she jumps to her own end. But is he seeing the future or causing it? Or is he simply embellishing false memories after true tragedy in order to take on the guilt and blame?

Director Jack Gold (Aces High, 1976) and writer John Briley (Gandhi, 1982) pose these questions without easy answers for most of the film. Is John a real threat or simply mad? The question is sold further through interactions with both Zonfeld and Brunel as their own disbelief is challenged in unexpected ways. John, though, is the one who ultimately convinces that it might just be both — he may have this power and he may be mad. “Why is it always destructive?” he asks of himself and his ability, and the pain on Burton’s face shows a man at true odds with himself.

His question is just as easily posed towards humanity itself, and John seems to be doing just that. For all our power, why is it so often used as a destructive force against others and the earth we live on? Brunel discovers journals in John’s apartment collecting clippings of tragedies large and small going back years, and he marvels at the unnecessary pain of it all. “When you see it all collected like this,” he says, “you realize how much disaster we live with.” We’ve arguably grown numb to the horror, and it’s only gotten worse as 24-hour news cycles see yesterday’s tragedies fade quickly as new ones take the stage.

The Medusa Touch is a slow burn horror thriller about a man who sees only the worst in people — and that includes himself. It’s a glorious downer of a tale that’s lacking a traditional monster, and instead it gives viewers a “villain” whose central motivation is more than a little difficult to argue with. He rails against the artificial glory of the church at the expense of the hungry, he slams a legal system more interested in punishing thought than corralling true crimes against others, and he makes clear his disdain for the cruel and the rude. John is essentially a template of sorts for the big bads in films like 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service and 2015’s unfairly maligned Tomorrowland, as he sees people themselves as the authors of humanity’s destruction. He’s punishing them on a grand scale, and like Death Wish‘s (1974) Paul Kersey with a longer reach he’s “found a way to do god’s dirty work for him.”

Burton actually plays third wheel here if you go by screen time, and the obvious realization that it’s some unnamed stand-in lying in the hospital bed through all of those scenes sees his time reduced even more. Still, though, the film would undoubtedly be a lesser watch without Burton’s involvement, and even as a glorified supporting player here his presence carries the movie. The scenes he’s in are intense and often unnerving — Gold takes great advantage of the actor’s haunting, grey/green eyes as a nod towards the Medusa of the title — and when he’s not on the screen the other characters are talking about him. He’s an interesting character given real power by Burton’s tortured performance as a man who despises people but still desperately wishes he could leave them alone.

The scene where John finally proves himself to an onlooker is a truly effective set-piece that frightens even before taking today’s connotations to 9/11 into account, and it works beautifully to set up a ticking clock of sorts in the third act. The use of miniatures might feel dated, but the ensuing carnage is grimly thrilling all the same as people are forced to consider deadly options and actions of their own. It’s cerebral horror, for better or worse, as the dialogue is every bit as powerful and lasting as the imagery of destruction and terror.

And in conclusion…

No one really talks about The Medusa Touch, and I’m not entirely sure why. It made little noise upon release in April of 1978, and Roger Ebert labeling it “the worst movie” of the year certainly didn’t help, but that guy’s been wrong plenty of times before. (And not that it matters, but the worst movie of 1978 is Irving Rapper’s Born Again.) It’s definitely a far more sedate entry in the telekinesis sub-genre, but its power builds throughout to a suspenseful, satisfying, and pretty fantastic finale unafraid to go dark. Add it to your queue, look into Burton’s eyes, and then just try to look away.

Want more sublime Prime finds? Of course you do.

When To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before released on Netflix in the late summer of 2018, nobody suspected it would become a pop culture phenomenon. So, it was no surprise that both the sequel and last installment in the trilogy were shot back to back in 2019. But as the narrative becomes more complex, sometimes it’s possible to lose some of the things that made the first film special. As is the case with To All the Boys: P.S I  Still Love You.

Picking up shortly after the ending of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, High school juniors Lara Jean Convey (Lana Condor) and Peter Kovinsky (Noah Centineo) are officially a couple after pretending to be one in an effort to help each other solve their own personal romantic woes – Lara Jean trying to save face after five of her secret love letters are unknowingly sent to their recipients, one of which was addressed to Peter, and Peter trying to win over his ex-girlfriend Genevieve (Emilija Baranac). The two end up falling in love with each other, and for a while, everything seems perfect for Lara Jean. That is, until John Ambrose McClaren (Jordan Fisher), the final recipient of her love letters, enters the mix in the second installment of the series, causing a slew of romantic troubles for Lara Jean that leaves her questioning her relationship with Peter.

Lara Jean’s insecurities are justifiable, being that she’s Peter’s second love after his breakup with a longterm girlfriend who is also her former childhood best friend. But Peter’s popularity and his ongoing secretive behavior only make things harder for Lara Jean, who gets into her own head and convinces herself that she’s only second best.

Of course, this allows the charming and lovable John Ambrose to tug at Lara Jean’s heartstrings. His natural allure not only makes him so personable with the residents of the Belleview senior living home where the two volunteer, but it also makes him someone Lara Jean can easily talk to. We also find that the two had much in common as young kids, making Lara Jean feel a deeper connection with him that she finds missing with Peter. This connection rings louder both in Lara Jean and in the audience’s heads as to why John Ambrose would seemingly be the much better choice for her. The differences between Lara Jean’s interactions with Peter and John are night and day, but with it comes inconsistencies that come off contrived in an effort to add more conflict to an already organic love triangle. 

The sequel seems too focused on the end results instead of pondering the rationale behind each character’s motives. For instance, why does Lara Jean, who prides herself on integrity and honesty, hide the fact she has a boyfriend from John Ambrose? Why does Peter spend so much time with his ex while still telling Lara Jean she is the only girl for him? There is so much time spent jumping from action to action without a natural sense of progression that Lara Jean and Peter feel like strangers to not only themselves but the audience as well.

This is unfortunate, because P.S. I Still Love You could have been better than its predecessor with a  willingness to address the topics of insecurities, sexuality, and anxiety that are typically associated with being a teenager in love, but the director wasn’t fixated with these elements as much as he could have been. If only there were more moments like Lara Jean and Peter’s first date and how it perfectly captures what it is like to experience something new for the first time, only to discover your lover shared this moment with someone else before you. It is these moments that prove why Condor and Centineo’s on-screen chemistry can’t be easily replicated as the two display a sense of much-needed vulnerability and earnestness to a script that insists on making them go against their characters at every step.

Maybe the change in director from Johnson to cinematographer-turned-director Michael Fimognari explains why the tone of P.S. I Loved You is too inconsistent when compared to its predecessor. From the questionable, if not frustrating, dialog uttered by Lara Jean and Peter, to the amazing soundtrack becoming more of a distraction throughout the film rather than as an assisting player. The film’s color palettes and framing look good, but at times that only distracts from the emotionally driven dialog and actions of the characters. This makes one wonder why Johnson was ever replaced, whose directing choices would have undoubtedly better touched upon the female gaze and rationale of Lara Jean.

To All the Boys: P.S I Still Love You is an incredibly frustrating watch because there are moments that remind you why you this series helped pioneer a romantic comedy renaissance. But a rushed last act that completely undermines John Ambrose’s character instead only shines a beaming spotlight on the inconsistencies of Lara Jean and Peter’s relationship. The cute ending that wrapped up To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before doesn’t work a second time, leaving the audience questioning the integrity of Lara Jean and Peter as a couple.

Welcome to 4:3 & Forgotten — a weekly column in which Rob Hunter and I get to look back at TV terrors that scared adults (and the kids they let watch) across the limited airwaves of the ’70s.

This week’s movie is from 1972, and sees a crime beat reporter on the hunt for a bloodsucking fiend in Sin City. Prepare to meet your match with The Night Stalker.

Where: ABC
When: January 11, 1972

The Night Stalker wasn’t the first supernatural procedural movie, but it’s definitely one of the most influential. Originally conceived by Jeffrey Rice as a then-unproduced novel called The Kolchak Papers, the story was subsequently adapted as a teleplay by I Am Legend author Richard Matheson and it paved the way for a television series and media franchise that’s among the very best the spooky procedural genre has to offer.

The Night Stalker marked the first of two TV movies that essentially served as pilots to test the waters for the show that followed. It’s also the better of the two, and one of the best slices of television terror of the ‘70s if you ask me. The story follows the titular hat-wearing reporter (played by Darren McGavin) as he investigates a mystery in Las Vegas. It turns out that people have been showing up dead and drained of their blood, and it looks like a vampire might be the culprit.

The cops aren’t big fans of Kolchak because of his dedication to the job. He uses police scanners to discover crime scenes, which makes him a general nuisance in the eyes of the authorities. On top of that, there isn’t a newspaper in town who hasn’t fired him, as he tends to go overboard when chasing a story. However, faced with a vampire dilemma, the cops decide to let him get to the bottom of the situation in exchange for him receiving exclusive rights to the story. However, part of the deal is that he must keep the vampire part a secret in his write-up, because who’s going to believe a real life bloodsucker is on the loose, right?

The Kolchak character is the highlight of the movie. Procedural fare demands the investigators to be engaging, and Kolchak is the type of lovable rogue you want to see. While the movie version of the character isn’t the same foul-mouthed rapscallion from the novels, McGavin’s iteration is still effortlessly charming and charismatic. His performance is also perfectly complemented by Simon Oakland’s portrayal of Tony Vicenzo, Kolchak’s long-suffering editor.

Director John Llewellyn Moxey anchors the movie around McGavin’s performance, but he’s also able to employ a healthy mix of humor and scares. The movie also perfectly captures the zeitgeist of its time period, as public trust of authority was at a low following incidents like the Vietnam war. Kolchak gave them a truth-seeking hero to rally behind, but looking at the state of the world nowadays, the film’s paranoia is proving to be timeless.

The Night Stalker is a movie that believes in the freedom of the press. For most of its swift running time, Kolchak tangles with authorities who want to prevent him from getting the full extent of the truth out there. In their eyes, he’s a menace who needs a leash on him, but Kolchak is a pitbull who doesn’t take too kindly to that. But that’s what makes him such a timeless and entertaining character.

When The Night Stalker originally aired, it drew largest audience ever for a TV movie at the time. These days, though, the film is quite overlooked outside of hardcore genre fan circles. You could even say that it’s an underappreciated gem in the grand scheme of things. However, one person who took notice was Chris Carter, the creator of The X-Files. who was directly inspired by the movie and its series spin-off while creating his own supernatural procedural. Fun fact: McGavin even appeared in the hit 1990s series, and Carter even wanted him to reprise the role of Kolchak before writing a fresh one for him.

The horror-centric procedural is currently enjoying a moment right now thanks to The Outsider, but the genre has been a big part of pop culture in some form or another for decades. Even successful shows like Supernatural and Grimm have adopted the formula to suit their own liking, but without Carl Kolchak, the landscape of the genre might not be the same.

Turn the dial (okay fine just click here) for more 4:3 & Forgotten.

The purpose of the Movies to Watch After column has always been to recommend the forebears of modern cinema, with all its constant classic film homages and other pop culture Easter eggs. Typically, I avoid the more obvious oldies in hopes that you’ve already seen them. But with movies for children, I like to highlight the popular essentials because kids are less likely to be familiar with the basics.

The animated sequel A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon is such a family film that is wonderful on its own, as another dialogue-free claymation feature from Aardman with cute characters and tons of visually-driven gags and adventure, but also leans on a lot of references to famous science fiction movies. Here they are, recommended for the kids to watch next in order to appreciate their influence:

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

This is the most blatant inspiration, to the point that Farmageddon almost feels like a claymation remake of the beloved Steven Spielberg sci-fi drama about a boy and his new alien friend. The plot of the second Shaun the Sheep film is about a boy sheep and his new alien friend, who like E.T. must figure out a way to get back home to his family while avoiding capture from government authorities and scientists.

There are plot beats lifted from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, from the start with the extra-terrestrial Lu-La being lured peacefully with food. And then there are iconic shots recreated for gags that work only for those of us who’ve seen the source, including multiple nods to the bicycle ride in front of the Moon bit (see one of Bitzer the dog’s signs at the beginning plus the more obvious moment with the flying recycling bin) plus a tribute to E.T.’s magical presentation of where his planet is compared to Earth. E.T. is also the most family-friendly of the features referenced in Farmageddon, meaning much of its audience, in fact, could be familiar already, but also any who aren’t can dig immediately into this pick right away.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Another Spielberg sci-fi classic that is heavily referenced in Farmageddon is this earlier, slightly scarier movie. The tribute is, almost entirely, of the audio kind and starts before the Shaun the Sheep sequel even begins. The sheep playing the keyboard in the Aardman production logo hits notes calling to mind the musical conversation between Earth’s scientists and the alien mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Later, the government agents access their secret base by playing the iconic five-note phrase from the movie, which is both an homage for viewers and possibly an in-film appreciation by the characters. The alien parents’ vehicle at the end also looks reminiscent of the mothership from Close Encounters.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Stanley Kubrick’s then-future-set masterpiece is not necessarily inappropriate for the main audience of Farmageddon — in fact, this collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke is rated G, suggesting it’s fine for all ages — but the hard sci-fi subject matter is likely to bore or go over children’s heads. However, if the kids appreciate the relatively “silent” cinema approach of the Shaun the Sheep franchise, they might be okay with some of the dialogue-free visual spectacle of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Either way, they will find some moments familiar: the burnt toast popping out of the toaster with the sun behind it set to “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” is a nod to the introduction of the Monolith during 2001‘s opening sequence. And that same fanfare by Richard Strauss, which is sort of the main theme for Kubrick’s film, plays later at the point of introduction of the Farmageddon attraction. Then there’s another music cue from 2001, Johann Strauss’ “The Blue Danube,” when Shaun, Lu-La, and Bitzer experience zero gravity and then encounter the International Space Station in reference to related sequences in the Kubrick.

Alien (1979)

This movie is not going to play well for the little ones, as it is one of the scariest movies of all time, but that’s okay since the nod is not as prominent as the others. When Lu-La pops out from the big sheep Shirley’s coat of wool, the little extra-terrestrial does so in the chest area. Surely that’s a visual reference to the iconic chest-bursting baby Xenomorph from the original Alien. This isn’t the first movie geared toward younger audiences that has such an homage — there’s already kiddie parodies in Shrek 2, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Despicable Me 2, and Ice Age: Collision Course (not to mention Spaceballs, which also skews younger). Many kids see some reenactment of the scene before they experience the real deal.

RoboCop (1987) and WALL-E (2008)

Even less appropriate for children, RoboCop seems to get a shoutout with the transformed van robot suit operated by the woman in black in Farmageddon. Much more appropriate for children, WALL-E seems to be referenced with the government agency’s robot assistant — unless they’re paying homage to Short Circuit. Maybe both are a stretch, but I’m surely not the only person to think of the two famous robots, the former being the villainous machine in the first RoboCop, while watching the Shaun the Sheep sequel.

A Grand Day Out (1989)

Here’s one that’s more the speed and style of Farmageddon. While not as famous as the other four titles on this list and unlike them it’s only an Oscar nominee (for Best Animated Short) and not a winner, A Grand Day Out is definitely a sci-fi classic. It’s also, like the Shaun the Sheep franchise, from Aardman Animation. The short is the first entry in the studio’s Wallace and Gromit franchise, of which the Shaun the Sheep series and films are spin-offs, and it’s about a trip to the Moon for a picnic because the lunar body is literally made of cheese. There’s a clip from A Grand Day Out showing on televisions in Farmageddon, which is kind of weird if their stories are part of the same universe.

There’s a tendency for us to call any particularly strong cinematic memory iconic. The images that were plastered into our minds as children always hold a nostalgic charge that in some cases inflates the meaning of the thing itself to an unreachable degree. One particular shot from the 1994 Disney animated feature The Lion King is not one of these cases. When Mufasa utters his line “remember who you are,” the rush of feeling that comes back is pure — the result of actual cinematic mastery.

As Simba contemplates returning to Pride Rock to take his rightful place as king, he is led to a clearing by Rafiki, who claims he will be able to see his father. The scene builds to a moment of heavenly intervention, as the younger lion is able to speak to Mufasa’s spiritual form in the clouds.

Directors Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff crafted an image that has such iconographic power that they made a relatively unremarkable piece of dialogue into a hyper-recognizable quote, which now carries with it a catharsis. The emotional power of the shot has much more to do with its construction than the spoken dialogue. As Simba looks up towards the sky and sees his father, the billowing clouds match the building score, as Simba is in absolute awe of the majesty and tragedy of his father.

Using swirling pinks, purples and yellows, animators created a kind of halo around Mufasa. It’s dynamic and bright, and the hues emanate ethereal power. The combination of bright warm colors like yellow and orange, combined with the cooler tones of purple and pink create a bittersweet interplay of feeling. You feel like your heart could just burst. There’s also incredible depth in the image. As you get closer to Mufasa in the center of the billowing colors, the cloud becomes brighter, hinting at some blinding otherworld.

This shot is iconic because of the nuanced, complex emotion it produces, that many of us as children viewing it for the first time may have never experienced before. It’s expressionistic and not didactic, unlike many children’s movies that hope to tap into a child’s emotional register. Wrapped up in one image is the sadness from Mufasa’s death along with the elated power of his life, which created an iconographic lightning bolt. It’s memorable because as children, we may not have been able to describe this feeling, but we knew it when we saw it. Allers and Minkoff gave children a visual vocabulary of expression that stuck in our minds for good reason.

An emotional viewing experience in film isn’t produced by a sense of visual realism, but by some impalpable concoction that fires neurons around in a viewer’s brain. Expressionism lets filmmakers tap into the intangible quality of emotions that we cannot see any other way, and filtered through a viewer’s brain, it becomes catharsis. It’s one of the most powerful things that filmmaking can do. This made it all the more curious when Jon Favreau’s 2019 photorealistic “live-action style” reimagining tried its hand at this iconic shot.

In the remake, Simba is shown looking up at a lightning storm, which has the faintest, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it outline of Mufasa’s face as he speaks his famous line. There are billowing clouds but in shades of dark blue and grey. When I was watching clips of the remake I had to crank my laptop brightness all the way up to even try to analyze the shot in question. The scene is incredibly dark — it’s supposed to take place at night — but the contrast is so low that Simba is essentially invisible in the shot.

Favreau seemed to be going for scale here; the cloud that represents Mufasa’s face towers over Simba’s indistinguishable form. Scaling the image so dramatically may have been Favreau’s attempt to inject the scene with some emotional power, but the monochromatic style makes it illegible and empty anyway. Mufasa’s disembodied voice produces little impact, and the lack of warm tones leaves the image cold. In the name of realism, Mufasa’s final conversation with his son culminates in a 30 second shot of a cloud.

The flatness of this shot is a particular bummer because of the mastery of the original. These two films serve as a case study for the idea that just because something looks more real doesn’t mean it feels more real. Yes, the 2019 shot looks like an actual cloud, at actual nighttime, with an actual lion sitting underneath the actual cloud. But stripping the scene of expressionism does much more harm than good and demonstrates a massive misunderstanding of filmmaking. The Allers and Minkoff shot feels more real than the Favreau shot ever could, and it’s why it will be the one remembered in the nostalgic cockles of our hearts.

This is part of our series Origin Stories, a biweekly column that uses film history to understand the hot topics of today. 

One of the biggest films to come out of the festival circuit last year, Portrait of a Lady on Fire is finally opening in theaters around the United States. Céline Sciamma’s love story is a marvel of a movie: beautifully shot, lyrically written, and emotionally unforgiving. This romance about a lesbian couple told by a lesbian filmmaker is more than just a fabulous film. It exemplifies everything that was barred from lesbians in cinema throughout history. To truly understand the years of codifying and stereotyping that filmmakers like Sciamma have to undo in order to tell lesbian stories, let’s take a step back in time.

As with most minorities in cinema, the full history in the early stages of filmmaking involving lesbians is scarce. This is especially true with any kind of queer cinema because the very survival of it depended on it being hidden within heterosexual films. During the silent era of filmmaking, there was more overt evidence of lesbian relationships because there weren’t strict regulations until the 1930s. Silents like Pandora’s Box and A Florida Enchantment showed clearer images of women together than what would follow in Hollywood. In one scene of the former (see the clip below), Louise Brooks dances with another woman, but after she is taken to talk to a group of people, the woman turns down a man who offers her a dance.

Though this may seem like a very small gesture in representation, an act like this meant a lot in a time when audiences gleaned more from what actors did on screen than what was said in a scene. The main character of Pandora’s Box (played by Brooks) is not necessarily phased by the interaction, but the camera cuts back to the woman on the dancefloor, looking longingly at Brooks. She turns a guy down, a defiant choice not to revert back to the affections of a man.

Moments like this were okay in early Hollywood films because they were never the main focus of the movie but were just tantalizing enough to fit with the risqué spirit of the 1920s. This continued into the early ’30s, which brought us some of the most notable moments of lesbians on screen in early Hollywood, including Marlene Deitrich kissing a woman while singing in a tuxedo in Morocco and Greta Garbo kissing a woman in Queen Christina.

Once the Motion Picture Production Code (or Hays Code) took effect in 1934, any clear evidence that female characters were lesbians, especially physical affection, was considered “sexual perversion.” This was one of the cardinal sins of cinema according to the Hays Code. If filmmakers wanted to include lesbian characters in their films, they would need to find a way around censorship.

One practice born out of this limitation is connotative homosexuality, which is when a character is implied to be queer through speech, mannerisms, and style. Certain characteristics that implied a woman could be a lesbian were things that made her more masculine. Perhaps she wore pants or was a controlling authority figure that lacked the motherly softness that heterosexual women possessed on screen. Since these masculine traits slipped by censors but indicated a character’s deviance from heterosexuality to those who could catch on, filmmakers continued to use them and they built a stereotype for the lesbian woman.

These masculine women hardly ever were characters the audience was supposed to love. They were either the butt of a joke (like in the clip below from the prison movie Ladies They Talk About.) An inmate warns Barbara Stanwyck’s character that the masculine and uptight woman in the bathroom “likes to wrestle.” The lesbian in the prison is someone to be avoided and scared of.

The incomparable documentary about LGBTQ cinema The Celluloid Closet discusses how these stereotypes of the butch woman became the villain in Hollywood films censored by the Code. It uses the example of an older vampire seducing an innocent young woman in Dracula’s Daughter, making lesbians out to be predatory women to be feared.

The few instances that lesbians did grace the screen and were a major part of a movie, they had to be punished by the end of the film. In The Children’s Hour, two women who run a boarding school are rumored to be in a romantic relationship with each other. Once one of them admits her actual romantic feelings, she ends up hanging herself at the end of the movie. Hollywood films could not condone homosexuality or it would be in violation of the Code. In order to still use the stories of lesbians without ever respecting them, filmmakers punished them to show the audience that what they do is wrong. These stereotypes were about invoking a certain feeling from the audience about lesbians, either for a laugh or a gasp. They were never about representation.

These exploitative images of lesbians were guided by what was acceptable by the Code, but they are undeniably influenced by the male gaze. The depictions of women who loved other women were almost always made by men. All women’s appearances on screen were dominated by what men found attractive, and that extended to lesbians. The first images of lesbians on screen in Hollywood were so codified and exploited that some of these stereotypes are still evident in movies made today.

The movement that is credited for decoding what lesbians looked like on film was the New Queer Cinema era that began in the mid-1980s. One of the influences on the inception of the New Queer Cinema was the emersion of Queer Theory in academia. Media’s depictions of sexuality and gender were being reexamined in a way that questioned how well they represented people’s lived realities. Within New Queer Cinema, lesbians could be represented on screen without being exploited for the sake of mainstream straight audiences.

Trailblazing films from this movement were Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames, Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman, and Yvonne Raider’s MURDER and murder. New Queer Cinema thrived thanks to the network of independent filmmakers at festivals around the world. Festivals embraced lesbian stories and lesbian filmmakers, unlike studios and mainstream cinema. Festivals were where filmmakers could interact with foreign cinema that they might not have been introduced to before, which included films that showed lesbians in a different light than Hollywood ever had.

Filmmaking has continued to embrace lesbian stories as it has evolved into 2020, but not without shortcomings. Male directors still have an easier time getting rewarded for telling stories that women, especially lesbian women, should be able to tell themselves. Todd Haynes’ Carol was nominated for several Oscars in 2016. Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue is the Warmest Color won the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2013. Films directed by women about queer women are so often underappreciated by the powers that be when they most often provide a radical perspective that should be celebrated.

Another issue that continues to arise with lesbian films is the aversion to calling them lesbian films. Movies with lesbian characters are hardly ever discussed in explicit terms. Audiences and even film critics have a difficult time ruling out lesbian characters’ possible attraction to men as well as women, therefore dismissing lesbians’ sexuality in order to fulfill their own fantasies. It’s impossible to evolve the history of lesbian cinema when we are too afraid to label movies with the word.

Knowing the history of lesbians on screen makes Portrait of a Lady on Fire even more marvelous. This love story between two women is void of any negative stereotypes from the beginning of cinema. The characters Heloise and Marianne (Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant) are women who aren’t defined by their feminine or masculine traits or represented by codified ideas of lesbianism. Sciamma, one of few lesbian-identifying women to direct a lesbian film, is unafraid to define it as such when speaking to media, despite their efforts to redefine her own movie for her. Lesbian films of today tell beautiful love stories and when contextualized by film history, they show how far lesbian representation in film has evolved and still has a long way to go.

Doc Savage isn’t as popular as Batman and Superman, but they might not exist without The Man of Bronze. The pulpy precursor to comic book superheroes has been around since 1933, inspiring the creation of DC’s most iconic characters and countless others. That said, these days he has been overshadowed by many of the spandex-clad crusaders that followed in his wake. However, the good news is that the O.G. might be on the verge of making an impact on the small screen, where he can make his presence known once again.

Deadline recently reported that the long-gestating Doc Savage movie — which at one point was to be directed by Shane Black and star Dwayne Johnson — is being turned into a TV series. While information is being kept close to the vest for now, the report notes that the show will feature Doc taking on rampaging dinosaurs and secret societies while packing some groovy gadgets and weapons.

The new series sounds like a serialized adventure show, and that’s what a Doc Savage project should be. The appeal of the old pulps and radio adaptations are their adventurous qualities, with the hero travelling around the world, battling an array of villains hell bent on unleashing some wicked master plans. Original author Lester Dent was an adventurer in his own right, and some of his globetrotting experiences informed the stories.

The show also has a treasure chest of stories and ideas to mine from. Whether it’s zeppelin battles in the sky, swashbuckling with pirates on the high seas, discovering prehistoric craters at the center of the earth, or contending with the ghosts of English royalty, the Doc Savage collection boasts an array of imaginative adventures where anything is possible. Every episode can present a different threat, set in a random corner of the world.

Furthermore, Doc is also a jack of all trades type of hero. While he doesn’t boast any superpowers, he has trained his body to be stronger than that of any other human being. He’s also a scientist, inventor, neurosurgeon, lawyer, and a detective. The character’s skills are essentially a mishmash of other pulp heroes such as Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes, albeit with a more complete skill set, but that’s part of his charm.

Since many modern viewers won’t be too familiar with the hero and his exploits, hopefully the show won’t modernize him too much. Black didn’t make his movie adaptation because the studio wanted to set the story in modern times, but we have plenty of superhero fare like that at the moment. The show can still be appealing to contemporary viewers — dynamic action, a diverse cast, no damsel in distress tropes — while retaining a period setting and an old school pulpy spirit.

Doc as a character is also earnestly good, and the stories are simple tales of right versus wrong. He’s incorruptible and kind to the people who deserve to be treated as such. But he doesn’t even kill the baddies as he has a strong ethical code that discourages him from taking lives. The Man of Bronze defeats his enemies with science and his own personal inventions, such as toxins which put people to sleep upon connecting with their body. In an age where even good two-shoes heroes like Superman have been given the cynical treatment, Doc Savage should remain fun, pure, and simple.

Pulp adaptations haven’t enjoyed the most success in the past, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be given the chance to succeed. While fun to watch, movies like The Spirit and The Green Hornet were mishandled attempts to give the classic heroes new life. Therefore, it’s important for the creators of Doc Savage to embrace what makes these stories appealing, and find a way to bring those elements to television.

Disney had a massive hit with computer-generated cats last year (this one, not that one), and now they’re having some success with a CG dog. The studio released the latest version of The Call of the Wild, which was acquired through the purchase of 20th Century Fox (now 20th Century Studios) and is mostly known for featuring computer-generated dogs and other creatures in place of the real thing so as not to abuse or even forcefully work any animals. The decision was costly, giving the Jack London adaptation an ill-fitting budget reportedly as high as $150 million. That will be difficult to recoup with a second-place domestic opening of just $24.8 million, but it’s better than anticipated.

Long-range tracking for the movie by Box Office Pro, reported at the end of December, showed an expected range of $15-20 million with a prediction on the low end of the spectrum. Last week, the site had lowered the range to $10-15 million and focused on just $13 million for its opening domestic gross. With fairly decent reviews, a substantial marketing campaign from the Mouse House, and a favorable grade (A-) from first-night audiences polled by Cinemascore, the overperformance is not that surprising. Ultimately, The Call of the Wild gave its CG-animal competition, Sonic the Hedgehog, a run for its ticket sales.

Here’s the weekend’s domestic box office top 12 by estimated attendance:

1. Sonic the Hedgehog: 2.8 million
2. The Call of the Wild: 2.6 million
3. Birds of Prey: 0.7 million
4. Bad Boys for Life: 0.624 million
5. Brahms: The Boy II: 0.621 million
6. Fantasy Island: 0.46 million
7. 1917: 0.45 million
8. Parasite: 0.32 million
9. Jumanji: The Next Level: 0.31 million
10. The Photograph: 0.3 million
11. Impractical Jokers: The Movie: 0.26 million
12. Dolittle: 0.2 million

The Call of the Wild also gave dog movies an uptick after a very disappointing downturn last year. But its opening-weekend audience, at 2.6 million, was smaller than previous Disney releases about canines in the coldest of regions this century. In 2002, the adventure comedy Snow Dogs drew around 3.07 million people on opening weekend. Four years later, the survival drama Eight Below drew a similar crowd of 3.08 million. Disney’s 1991 adaptation of Jack London’s White Fang, however, sold only 1.34 million tickets in its debut. Its 1994 sequel, White Fang II: Myth of the White Wolf, fared even worse with less than a million tickets sold on opening weekend. And the Disney adventure film Iron Will, also out in 1994, sold about 1.27 million. 

As it turns out, in the realm of dog movies, the one with the best opening weekend ever, like The Call of the Wild, involves a CGI pooch: the otherwise live-action Scooby-Doo opened in the summer of 2002 to the tune of around 9.3 million tickets sold. Its sequel, 2004’s Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed drew half the original’s audience, however, with an estimated 4.7 million tickets sold. You’d think Disney’s own Underdog, which is also based on a cartoon, would have also gone with a computer-generated pup, especially since Underdog was an anthropomorphic animal, but nope. Anyway, its ticket sales were only around 1.7 million.

Also surprisingly, Disney’s own live-action version of 101 Dalmatians from 1996 utilized 101 real dogs, though the spotless character did require CGI to remove his spots. That and its 2000 sequel, 102 Dalmatians, which employed the same digital effects, opened to respective audiences of 7.6 million and 3.7 million moviegoers. Disney’s talking-dog comedy Beverly Hills Chihuahua mixed in digital effects where needed. The theatrically-released original sold 4.1 million tickets in its opening. The movie’s two sequels went straight to video.

Another top seller, if we count it as a dog movie, is I Am Legend, which features computer-generated effects for dogs fighting but mostly used a real German Shepherd on screen. That movie sold around 11.2 million tickets in its debut back in 2007. More geared toward children and slapstick stunts, the 2001 Warner Bros. family film Cats & Dogs needed CGI for many scenes to mix in with the live animals. Its opening weekend attendance was 3.8 million. Its sequel, out almost a decade later, however, brought in just 1.6 million returning fans.

Speaking of movies in which CGI was employed for safety, one of the recent dog movies that may have partly inspired the decision for The Call of the Wild to go full digital dog is Universal’s 2017 release A Dog’s Purpose. Reports of abuse circulating along with a leaked video of a dog in danger were met with a response from the director that the scene actually used CGI and an investigation cleared the movie of harm. Calls for a boycott didn’t seem to hurt its debut, which saw a crowd of around 2 million.

Dog movies have begun to decrease in popularity overall, it seems, at least excluding those of the action franchise variety (see John Wick). The 2019 sequel to A Dog’s Purpose, titled A Dog’s Journey and similarly based on a book by W. Bruce Cameron, drew fewer than a million people on opening weekend. The same year, A Dog’s Way Home, also based on a Cameron book, sold only 1.2 million tickets, and The Art of Racing in the Rain did fewer than a million as well.

Here is a look at the 25 top dog movies (family-friendly titles only) by wide-release opening weekend estimated ticket sales:

1. Scooby-Doo (2002): 9.3 million
2. 101 Dalmatians (1996): 7.6 million
3. Marley and Me (2008): 5.1 million
4. Scooby-Doo 2 (2004): 4.7 million
5. Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008): 4.1 million
6. Cats & Dogs (2001): 3.8 million
7. 102 Dalmatians (2000): 3.7 million
8. Eight Below (2006): 3.082 million
9. Turner & Hooch (1989): 3.076 million
10. Snow Dogs (2002): 3.066 million
11. The Call of the Wild (2020): 2.6 million 
12. The Shaggy Dog (2006): 2.5 million
13. Hotel for Dogs (2009): 2.3 million
14. Good Boy! (2003): 2.2 million
15. A Dog’s Purpose (2017): 2 million

As you can see, The Call of the Wild had the best opening for a dog movie in more than a decade. And viewers, specifically Disney fans, have more options than ever right now. Last year, the new streaming service Disney+ released its own dog sled movie, Togo, plus a live-action remake of Lady and the Tramp, which unexpectedly employed live dogs for its main characters. We don’t (yet?) know the viewership of these movies since Disney hasn’t revealed the numbers, but we can assume they’ve been watched by more subscribers than went to see The Call of the Wild this past weekend.

Welcome to Petition Worthy, a biweekly column that revisits canceled TV shows that we wish had a longer lifespan. In some cases, we’ll also make a plea for them to be given another chance.

Teen television was booming in the 2000s. The OC and One Tree Hill led the charge, but there were a few gems that never reached the same level of popularity or critical acclaim, even though they should have. One of these shows was 2004’s Life As We Know It, which boasted all the hallmarks of a good teen dramedy, albeit with more adult humor and an honest point of view.

Created by Freaks and Geeks alumnus Gabe Sachand and Jeff Judah and based on writer Melvin Burgess’ novel Doing It, the story centered around three Seattle high school students, Dino (Sean Farris), Ben (Jon Foster), and Jonathan (Chris Lowell) as they navigated life and love. They were also a bunch of horndogs, with sex on their mind “every five seconds.”

Rounding up the cast was Sean’s girlfriend, Jackie (Missy Peregrym), and her friends Sue (Jessica Lucas) and Deborah (Kelly Osbourne). Marguerite Moreau also starred as Monica Young, a high school teacher who was having an affair with Ben, which was perhaps a poorly timed storyline as the show debuted two weeks after the 20/20 interview with Mary Kay LeTourneau, a Seattle teacher who got pregnant by her 12-year-old student.

On paper, Life As We Know It comes across like a sex comedy about some obnoxious teens, but that wasn’t so at all. Sex has often been used as the driving force behind the motivations of some gross or annoying characters, but that wasn’t the case with these dudes. They were vulnerable, awkward, witty, and just an interesting group of people to spend time with as a viewer.

Of course, there were moments in which the teens were obnoxious. Take Dino, for example. In the pilot episode, he told Jackie that if she didn’t put out then he’d just find someone else who would. Moments like this made the characters unlikeable, but there were more scenes that depicted them like decent people. They just messed up sometimes.

But the appeal of these characters was the fact they weren’t always likable or admirable. They were teenagers who acted like dipshits from time to time, and while other shows have presented their young protagonists as flawed people, Life As We Know It was more unapologetic about how stupid they could be.

The show also presented realistic conversations surrounding activities of the carnal variety. They were non-judgmental and nuanced, with the pros and cons of the deed discussed in a way that was just honest and natural. The show made sure to add some salaciousness and drama to the subject; otherwise, it’d be boring. But its message was truthful and frank.

Sometimes the awkward adolescent experience was played for humor, though, most memorably in a storyline where Jonathan developed a temporary medical problem down there because he was playing with it too much. He thought he had “penis cancer.” This also just so happened to coincide with him dating Deborah, who really wanted to jump his bones and he was too terrified to do anything.

That was the thing about sex in this show: just as the characters found themselves on the verge of losing their virginity, something would come up that ruined their plans. Whether that was Jonathan developing a temporary bout of “penis cancer” or Dino being distracted with his mom boinking his hockey coach, you could always bet on the sexy stuff not being a smooth ride. It was frustrating to watch, as it was a case of witnessing people getting in their own way and not being able to tell them to get a grip.

If given the opportunity to find an audience, Life As We Know It may have found popularity as a show that spoke to teenagers and adults alike. Unfortunately, ABC aired it on Thursday nights at 9 pm, opposite CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and The Apprentice at the height of their popularity. It was doomed from the start.

Life As We Know It should have succeeded as it contained all of the elements that made other shows of its ilk ratings sensations while throwing in just enough realism and sex-positive themes to make it stand out from the pack. But the series was canceled before anyone had the chance to see it, and it was so under the radar at the time that it failed to attract a cult fan base.

That said, it’s never too late to discover an old show and fall in love with it. Life As We Know isn’t as risque or progressive as Sex Education, but its nuanced exploration of relationships among young people is very similar. Fans of that Netflix series who also appreciate more standard teen drama fare will probably get a kick out of it. Give this one a chance, and don’t let its legacy be just another series that got lost in the ether.

Jane Austen adaptations are hilariously witty period pieces that are always a delight to watch, and Autumn De Wilde‘s Emma. is no exception. Along with luscious costumes and sets, the film brings the posh world of Austen’s fiction to life with tactics more reminiscent of comedies that came long after the author’s death. Elements of screwball comedy are undeniably present in De Wilde’s version, proving just how ahead of her time Austen was.

Emma. centers around Emma Woodhouse (Anya Taylor-Joy), a rich young lady who is more concerned with setting up her friends than she is finding a husband of her own. She makes an orphaned Harriet Smith (Mia Goth) her latest project for matchmaking, but Emma’s foolproof methods for setting up her friends begin to cause more trouble than she anticipates. Her own feelings come into play and the man she thought she would never be interested in, Mr. Knightly (Johnny Flynn), starts looking pretty dashing.

Screwball comedies revolve around mostly the same topics in Emma.: love, sex, and gender roles. The genre’s beginning is mostly credited to It Happened One Night in 1934, but Jean Harlow’s stardom was flourishing on the same characteristics of a spunky screwball woman years before Frank Capra’s Best Picture winner. The key aspects of the genre revolve around quick, witty dialogue where men and women flip the script on society’s gender roles of the time. They cannot stand each other until they realize they’re perfect for each other and an exciting romance ensues.

One of the ways that Emma. upholds these screwball traditions is taking men’s masculinity into question. While scouting for the perfect suitor for her friends, Emma deeply judges the men around her and whether they are fit to be a husband. Mr. Elton (Josh O’Conner) is the source of a lot of laughs in the film, especially when the women around him clearly overpower him. He lacks the charm that the other men in the movie possess, and his inability to keep up with them makes for some quality snickers.

The other men in the film, namely Mr. Knightly and the elusive Frank Churchill (Callum Turner) are in competition with one another to be the most suitable bachelor in this small town. Mr. Knightly shows off his singing talents with the adored Jane Fairfax (Amber Anderson). Mr. Churchill loves engaging in flirty, yet refined conversation with Emma. They show off their grace on the dancefloor. Yet, these men become a little less than bumbling fools in the face of the women they love. Just as in screwball comedies, the way men are expected to act in the society of the film is never how they truly are. Screwball comedies and Emma. transfer that truth into comedy.

A key aspect of screwball comedies and Emma. is a misunderstanding. Beloved movies like Bringing Up Baby draw their ridiculous situations off of characters misunderstanding one another. Emma believes she can devise the perfect plans for matchmaking. She knows everyone’s intentions, who they like, and what to do to get them to fall in love.

None of her plans go as she envisions them and we get fantastic comedy out of watching her learn her lesson. Emma spends her days trying to get Mr. Elton to fall in love with her friend Harriet. She convinces Harriet to turn down a man who proposes to her because she is so sure that Mr. Elton is in love with Harriet. One evening, Emma gets stuck riding in a carriage with Mr. Elton and he confesses his love for Emma, not Harriet. Her plan has gone awry and now everyone looks ridiculous, especially Mr. Elton, as Emma has to turn him down.

The plot only gets more complicated from there. Everyone thinks someone is in love with the wrong person and watching this chaos that Emma has created is delightful. Great comedy can come out of miscommunication. As we love it in screwball comedies like The Lady Eve, we adore the same confusion that happens in Emma., especially since it happens to characters who think they have it all figured out.

One of the most notable couples to have made several screwball comedies together is Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. While their films Top Hat and The Gay Divorcee have music and dance, they also have the sex-comedy plots in between dance numbers. Rogers always hates Astaire at the beginning of their films. He’s a no-good dope whom she refuses to take seriously. They bicker incessantly, some of the best romantic comedy dialogue ever. Astaire never lets up on his pursuit of Rogers and that’s when he sweeps her into a glorious dance. From then on, Rogers is enamored and they eventually fall in love.

The same goes for Emma and Mr. Knightly. They hate each other at the beginning of the story. He is one of the only people to see through Emma’s conniving ways. She cannot stand that he thinks she’s wrong in meddling in other people’s lives. They never see eye to eye on anything. However, when they dance together at a party, it’s game over. Emma finally allows herself to see Mr. Knightly in a romantic way. They have to shut up and really look at each other for the first time. It ends up being one of the sexiest scenes without ever showing sex on screen. Thankfully, Mr. Knightly and Emma follow the same fate as Fred and Ginger. They realize they are perfect for each other thanks to the intimacy of dance.

There are many other small moments in De Wilde’s Emma. that feel as silly as screwball comedies, but the main connection is all straight from Austen’s novel. Most of the dialogue is lifted straight from the book, and so those quick-witted one-liners are from long before the first screwball comedy, whichever movie you argue that may be. Austen’s plot deals with the same themes, the same kinds of comedy, and the same wooing tactics as screwball comedies. Perhaps that’s why filmmakers continue to adapt her novels even to this day. They were ahead of their time in terms of how they joked about sex, gender, and marriage, and that continues to connect with audiences 200 years later.

Emma. is in theaters everywhere this week.

Acting is an art form, and behind every iconic character is an artist expressing themselves. Welcome to The Great Performances, a bi-weekly column exploring the art behind some of cinema’s best roles.

When you picture Carol Brady, the mom on The Brady Bunch, you probably think of an idyllic version of motherhood that most likely only exists on TV. You have to imagine for actors like Florence Henderson who became famous for playing these ‘virtuous mother’ archetypes it must become limiting – and exhausting – to make the same character choices, in the same kinds of roles, year after year. Eventually, they’ll want a break from the typecasting that’s defined their careers.

And while we never got an unhinged Carol Brady performance, South Korea did get to watch their own “National Mother” Kim Hye-ja distance herself from the sanitized matriarchs that made her a household name for Bong Joon-ho’s brooding neo-noir Mother.

Since the 1970s, Kim Hye-ja has appeared in countless South Korean TV dramas and commercials playing the stereotypical mother figure, most notably for 22 years on the show Country Diaries. For over three decades she played characters who act within a certain set of expectations and boundaries, influenced by the society and culture of the time period. Mothers were expected to act a certain way, which can dictate what a performer can or can’t do in a role. Because of this, Bong Joon-ho wrote Mother specifically for Kim, saying,

“I imagined that she must be sick of it… playing the same role over and over again.”

He gave her a character that explores the multitudes that exist within all mothers. He explained, “A mother’s love is the most noble in the world, but when that love becomes excessive it can turn into madness.” With her role, Kim Hye-ja was able to explore completely new aspects of a character she had become synonymous with.

And while it’s thrilling to simply see the incongruity between an actor performing against type, it’s watching Kim turn from her mawkish TV persona and explore the dark recesses of Mother’s matriarchal violence that makes her performance so utterly captivating.

But as an actor, you can’t really play something abstract like the ‘duality of motherhood’. Conceptual thematic ideas can inform a performance, but to bring a character off the page, you need to be making conscious choices that get you to the goal you set for yourself in a scene. And while actors should always remain receptive to spontaneity, to really give yourself a calculated throughline for a complex character like in Mother, you serve yourself best by beating out your scenes.

All the phrase refers to is going through the emotionally resonant moments of each scene and tracking the choices your character makes that help you achieve your goal. In a broad example, Kim’s character’s ultimate goal is to save her son’s life, so every decision she makes is in pursuit of that. By going line by line, she can attribute specific emotions to each beat, giving herself a granular understanding of how to convey those in the moment. It’s most helpful when navigating an emotionally precarious scene like in the film’s climax when the mother confronts an old man at a junk shop.

Kim’s character enters the scene with a secret the audience is in on: she believes the old man is behind the murder her son is accused of. But through their pedestrian conversation, Kim wordlessly reveals the true undercurrent of the scene that’s been secret to even the audience: she is going to torture a confession out of this man. She’s made sure that each line quietly punctuates this desire, creating a subtle layer to the scene so the revelation comes as a surprise; one she didn’t spell out, but rather let dawn on the audience. Bong Joon-ho said of this moment, “I felt a shudder, which proved to me how much I liked it.” But this wasn’t conveyed just through the intentions she set for herself, but also through sharp eye contact, and perhaps most importantly, her body language.

Body language is a vital part of live theatre, especially since you have to express emotions across large auditoriums, but it’s something that can be forgotten on film as an actor’s body is segmented in the frame. Here though, Bong Joon-ho and cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo make body language paramount to the mother by introducing her purely through physicality in the film’s opening shot.

We watch as Kim slowly walks towards the camera through an endlessly vast field, her face a blank slate, giving the impression of sullenness. As Byung-woo Lee’s bossa nova soaked guitar score fills the scene, the mother begins to languidly dance, swaying to the music as her choice of movement becomes more joyful and intentional. It’s reminiscent of a physical theatre practice called Viewpoints that can instill an actor with a fluid sense of spontaneity by focusing on ideas like kinesthetic response and spatial relationship. Viewpoints help an actor get out of their head so they can let their body inform the choices their character is making. There’s no set choreography to Kim’s movements here, she is merely listening to herself and going, quite literally, where the wind takes her.

The moments of dance that bookend the film help capture the core concept Bong Joon-ho and Kim Hye-ja wanted to convey about the duality of motherhood. In the opening, as the music slowly dies, the serenity of the mother quickly fades away. As the title card materializes on screen, we watch as the weight of reality hangs back on her shoulders. This physical shift is somewhat ambiguous in these early moments, and it isn’t until the film’s final seconds that it becomes clear what the dancing is really representing. The mother loves her son, and as we’ve seen will do anything to protect him, but all at her own expense. Rather than be burdened by motherhood anymore, she swiftly leaves him, gets on a bus, and through some self-administered acupuncture, begins to sway once again to the music. Dancing has always been the physical embodiment of the freedom she has been so desperately craving.

Kim Hye-ja had been discussing her role in Mother with Bong Joon-ho for over four years before filming even began, but Kim has arguably been preparing for this role her entire life. Her decades worth of experience playing the doting mom on television gave credence to her character choices and brought a layer to the role that may not have existed without her. Bong Joon-ho even said as much, “Without Kim Hye-ja, Mother wouldn’t exist.”

Kim Hye-ja described her character as a “beast, who acts on instinct.” But it is the inherent instincts of an actress who’s played mother to a nation for decades that ultimately gives this astonishing performance such teeth.

It was always a bit odd that Universal Pictures never quite got around to revisiting its famous monsters properly, especially with the knowledge that their movies from the 30s were a precursor to today’s blockbuster “shared universe” franchises. The studio finally realized how much of a wasted opportunity this was and went about creating the Dark Universe — infamous characters were cast, 2014’s Dracula Untold was ret-conned, photo-shoots were undertaken, 2017’s The Mummy was bungled into an action misfire — before disbanding the entire thing. Happily, the desire to bring these characters back into the light remains, and with writer/director Leigh Whannell‘s The Invisible Man that desire has resulted in a terrifically entertaining nail-biter that highlights the monster of the title by focusing on the woman he claims as his victim.

Waves crash against a rocky bluff, and in the shiny new house above, Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) is executing her escape. Go-bag in hand, she sneaks out of the high-tech house, runs through the woods, and leaps into her sister Alice’s (Harriet Dyer) waiting car. Her boyfriend Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) gives chase, smashes her window, and screams into the night as the sisters drive away. The days and weeks that follow see Cecilia reveal to Alice and their friend James (Aldis Hodge) that Adrian was controlling and abusive, and a sigh of relief comes when news hits that the wealthy and highly intelligent scientist has died by his own hands. Cecilia inherits his fortune, with telling strings attached, and soon finds herself terrorized by something — or someone — that no one can see. Worse, no one believes her.

Touches of Sleeping With the Enemy (1991) and Hollow Man (2000) aside, Whannell’s rebirth of The Invisible Man feels like a fresh take blending the most minimal of threads from H.G. Wells‘ novel with more urgent themes from today. The title may suggest otherwise, but this is arguably the story of a woman whose concerns and fears are ignored to the point that she herself may as well be invisible. Whannell’s direction is noticeably sharper than his script this time around, but even with those very visible bumps the film is a cracking thriller that slowly, expertly turns up the tension with suspense, scares, and one or two surprises.

Budget talk rarely belongs in reviews, but it must be pointed out how ridiculously good this movie looks and sounds. Whannell and his team — production designer Alex Holmes, cinematographer Stefan Duscio, and sound designers Chris Terhune & P.K. Hooker, to name a few — squeeze magic out of a Blumhouse budget delivering sharp visuals and exquisite sound design. From the modern look of Adrian’s coastal mansion to the more rundown and homey feel of James’ house to the other environments that Cecilia finds herself in, these locales feel alive and wholly separate from the next. To the film’s central conceit, each offers its own nooks and crannies from which the invisible man’s next act of harassment or pain will stem, and Whannell plays with those expectations brilliantly. He trains viewers to suspect the madman is onscreen even when he isn’t, and it works to keep characters and audiences alike on edge.

Whannell’s script isn’t quite as airtight, though, and while it works more than well enough to generate thrills there are a few beats that underwhelm. For one, you can’t help but wish the film had played with Cecilia’s sanity a bit longer in regard to her paranoia. It’s instead revealed early on that the invisible threat is indeed real, and while Adrian’s gaslighting works on the supporting characters the audience is left several steps ahead and waiting with minor frustration for the rest of them to catch up. The realization that Cecilia hadn’t told anyone about Adrian’s behavior — and the fact that we’re never given glimpse of it either — could have offered the possibility that Cecilia’s claims were nothing but delusions which in turn would force viewers into finding the truth. There’s also a stretch where Cecilia, having discovered a potential workaround in combating her invisible ex, decides instead to ignore that knowledge resulting in additional frustration. Others have their own annoying lapses in intelligence, but Whannell’s direction and Moss’ performance power through to deliver a winner despite the letdowns.

Moss is no stranger to playing women fighting back against male entitlement and worse, but while The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-2020) and Top of the Lake (2013-2017) touch on genre influences, The Invisible Man goes full bore with its scares, terror, and very human monster. Whannell’s script wisely keeps its themes as clear subtext while focusing on the genre elements, and Moss reveals herself to be a tough as nails protagonist. Her intensity comes through with a very physical performance, both in expression and full body encounters with her abusive ex, and the camera is with her every step of the way. As he did with Upgrade (2018), Whannell’s camera pulls viewers along for every push and shove leaving Moss little room to hide, and the result is jarring on the human level as much as it is the horror one.

Toss in a hauntingly effective score by Benjamin Wallfisch and a nice little punch of an ending, and it seems like Universal has finally found the right formula for revisiting their beloved monsters from the past — and that’s no formula at all. The Invisible Man exists as its own creation that, while inspired by a classic, is as modern a horror movie as you’re likely to find.

Only in her mid-twenties, Saoirse Ronan already sports a consistently noteworthy cinematic career. Anyone who’s paid attention to Hollywood’s heavy-hitting dramatic performances in the past decade knows her name (although most have struggled to spell it). Ronan’s filmography is a varied delight as she has managed to find a discernibly artful balance in her selection of roles thus far.

Not a day goes by when I don’t hope for the actress to eventually win an Oscar. After all, she’s a four-time Academy Award nominee, among other prestigious honors, as it is. This critical darling makes any movie better, so let’s explore how she does it.

Ronan began appearing on screen as a child actor, which provided its own set of limitations that snuck into her first roles. Her big-screen debut in Amy Heckerling’s 2007 rom-com I Could Never Be Your Woman amps up the cute more than anything else. Granted, that doesn’t make Ronan forgettable in this mildly satirical romp. Equipped with an infectiously bubbly personality and an abundance of bright-eyed charm, her adorable preteen musings about love and relationships makes her a scene-stealer opposite more seasoned performers such as Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd.

That same year, Ronan moved on to join the ensemble cast of The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, which although a generic seasonal flick remains lovely and toasty enough for anyone’s feel-good holiday.

That tiny selection of Ronan’s earliest roles proves at least somewhat precipitous for her big break in Joe Wright’s Atonement, for which she received her first Oscar nomination, in the Best Supporting Actress category.  The gut-wrenching adaptation of Ian McEwan’s equally devastating novel about choice, consequence, and misunderstanding hinges on the initial unforgivable act of Ronan’s difficult character, Briony Tallis.

Like the spunky Heckerling-penned teenager of her inaugural movie, Ronan’s Briony experiences confusion as romantic feelings bubble up in her young heart. But that’s where all similarities stop between the two characters. Juvenile, unknowing callousness causes a fatal rupture in the lives of many in Atonement, and that is down to Briony’s rash actions. And beyond the audience’s annoyance and anger at her childish thoughtlessness lies a scary vein of relatable truth.

The adult versions of Briony are depicted by excellent acting veterans Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave, but Ronan plants the seed — one that reads as almost needless, yet strangely understandable discontent. Her naturalistic reactions towards her resentful observation of adult lovers serve as a painful reminder of how, perhaps, we’ve all been a Briony. Hopefully, we’re lucky enough to avoid ruining actual lives because of such mistakes.

Ronan’s profile understandably skyrocketed soon after. Her final 2007 film, Gillian Armstrong’s magic-themed Death Defying Acts, as well as the 20th Century Fox would-be-blockbuster City of Ember, make a decent double feature if you’re looking for more endearing versions of the actress. Both films utilize Ronan’s youthfulness – her signature shrewdness and curiosity – to the fullest as she unravels darker secrets about their respective fictional worlds.

In the former, the audience fully believes her when she is able to ensnare the legendary illusionist Harry Houdini with her spontaneous wit. Meanwhile, the latter is actually a bit of a hidden gem in Ronan’s filmography. City of Ember may be simple in its narrative and ultimate moral, but this sci-fi family film comprises enough impressive production design and decent world-building to complement its lead’s charismatic presence. Ronan’s sheer earnestness makes it easy for viewers to believe in the movie’s fantasy.

Amid this broader fare, Ronan maintains serious actorly credibility by consistently collaborating with renowned filmmakers, too. She is effectively the only girl in a large collective of older men starring in Peter Weir’s survival drama The Way Back. Consequently, one would perhaps be forgiven for thinking she operates as a mere feminine mirror to masculine issues. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Ronan portrays the most affecting character in the film. She isn’t present during the entire runtime, yet with a character that is equal parts emotionally sentimental and resolutely independent, she is the easiest to connect to.

The results of Ronan’s auteur endeavors can be divisive within the general critical pool, though. For instance, Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones is extremely polarizing; as would be the case for any story dealing with the rape and murder of a child, and the aftermath of such tragedy.

Having spent years honing an undeniably arresting visual method for all his films, Jackson creates incredibly luscious cinematic landscapes, regardless of whether he’s tackling the toughest stories. Still, it is Ronan’s performance that really gets to the meat of her protagonist’s trauma and especially elevates The Lovely Bones beyond visual bombast. Her Susie Salmon has an unusually empowered voice, threading through the film and preventing it from falling into a sense of syrupy mawkishness.

Moreover, I laud a filmography that includes Hanna, Violet & Daisy, and Byzantium in quick succession. This marks the very beginning of a more experimental period in Ronan’s career, a time when a penchant for unconventionality permeates ostensibly predictable work. With these three movies, Ronan deconstructs, respectively, the action film, the comedy crime flick, and the vampire thriller.

Each of these films could stylistically sit among other genre classics but are infused with heightened sensitivity, despite the individual stories demanding some sense of heartlessness from Ronan. Whether she embodies apparently cold-hearted assassins in Hanna and Violet & Daisy or a more supernatural, if equally deadly, counterpart in Byzantium, her performance remains emotionally intelligent.

Clearly, one of the most appreciable things about Ronan’s resumé is her handling of the most repeated tropes. This is evidenced in The Host and How I Live Now, both of which take great inspiration from the boom of YA adaptations that flooded the mid-2010s after the successes of Twilight and The Hunger Games. The Host is even a Stephenie Meyer adaptation with aliens instead of vampires. These movies are basically Ronan’s closest attempts at being a prepackaged “strong female lead” — complete with mainstream Hollywood’s most thinly-conceived love interests — and she still imbues her passionate protagonists with gravitas.

As quickly as she morphed into a compelling lead actor, Ronan continues to blend more seamlessly into ensemble acts at the same time. The films have themselves become more eccentric. Better filmmakers are able to orchestrate this task without underusing her excellence, as proven by Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which is one of the director’s best endeavors simply because each performance weighs out one another splendidly.

Ryan Gosling’s psychedelic directorial debut, Lost River, lies on the moodier end of the spectrum and partially suffers from overindulging itself in garish imagery. However, witnessing the skillful, astute ways in which Ronan depicts a breadth of human experience in the film is in itself rewarding, even when it is unnervingly drenched in neon.

Furthermore, when speaking of Ronan’s minimal selection of voice-acting work, it has sometimes been necessary for her to serve a wider story more inconspicuously. The English dub of Studio Ghibli’s Arrietty and the rightfully lauded painted animation Loving Vincent make up her more successful bids. Of course, there is a flip side to this scenario: the animated fantasy film Justin and the Knights of Valour and an entirely inexplicable indie comedy-drama called Weepah Way for Now also exist (the latter is a live-action film but merely employs Ronan as a narrator). Neither necessarily speaks to Ronan’s vocal capabilities.

Save some minor speedbumps along the way, we arrive at the most definitive era of Ronan’s career: her return to leading lady excellence. Nikole Beckwith’s quiet dramatic indie Stockholm, Pennsylvania slowly gets the ball rolling. The film sees Ronan play a young woman who is kidnapped as a child. When she returns to her biological parents in adulthood, their reunion unspools deep familial wounds that prove suffocating and dangerous. Although the actress portrays an unavoidably muted character, her penchant for internal wistfulness is crucial in establishing substantial depth in Beckwith’s more implicit script.

John Crowley’s Brooklyn then ushered in a full-blown Ronanaissance of sorts as it brought along considerable awards season recognition, including her first Academy Award nomination in the Best Actress category (and second overall). This intense appreciation is absolutely valid, too; Ronan encapsulates the ideal mix of yearning and nostalgia in the best coming-of-age film of 2015. Looking back at her credits, all her years of delicately layered performances could have only logically culminated in this deeply resonant, mature picture of a young woman whose life is necessarily unrooted.

Not long after comes the genius of Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, which – like Brooklyn – weaves into viewers’ hearts in refreshing and inevitable ways. On the surface, this sort of coming-of-age tale appears well-told. Lady Bird focuses on a teen renegade who believes she’s wise beyond her years. She goes up against the confines of small-town living that stifles her but finds deeper connections to her roots than she initially realizes.

As the eponymous pink-haired rebel girl looking for a life outside Sacramento — “the midwest of California” — Ronan is more confident than we’ve ever seen her, fully transforming into the very epitome of relatable teenage dramatics. She throws acerbic verbal punches at almost everyone, from her best friend to her mother, and falls fast for boys who, for better or worse, aren’t at all what they originally seem. Nonetheless, we know from the richness of Ronan’s Oscar-nominated performance that Lady Bird chases a pure goal in her heart: freedom.

Ronan’s four post-Lady Bird offerings so far – including a reunion with Gerwig in Little Women, which netted her fourth Oscar nomination – have presented their own notable acting challenges. In a way, these projects can actually be paired off. They are complementary films that highlight certain strengths of Ronan’s.

On Chesil Beach and The Seagull are cut from the same cloth of theatrical agony — not so much in narrative content but, at least, where her characters are concerned. In both films, Ronan operates on feverish impulsiveness and striking honesty that ultimately results in tragedy. A less emotive actress wouldn’t have made this stark expressive transition so organic. However, Ronan refuses to draw straight correlations between vulnerability and weakness. It’s part of what makes many of her characters so complex.

Concurrently, Little Women and Josie Rourke’s Mary Queen of Scots are such gripping pieces of cinema because they go for the heart over the head. They are unapologetically emotionally charged character studies about feminine power and authority within stiffly established social hierarchies. These projects see Ronan play women whose strong-minded decisions fill the cinematic space with veracity and vivaciousness. That said, behind the scenes, Jo March and Mary Stuart are largely propelled by genuine openness and a right for women to use their voices ardently.

Time and time again, Ronan showcases adaptability and empathy as an actress and thus assures fans of her longevity in the film business. Her cinematic choices have allowed her to resist the confines of stereotypes when it comes to being an ingenue or a teen sensation, and this follows through to her adult years today.

On a more personal level, examining her films for this week’s edition of Filmographies has been particularly special. Ronan holds a place in my heart. She and I are only about a year apart in age and it has been a real privilege to watch a compelling actress represent a sizeable range of female characters in unique, nuanced ways. Growing up a girl was made easier because Ronan never shied away from the many versions of us, and she deserves to be celebrated for it.

It was only a matter of time before Disney started rebranding its Fox acquisitions. Going forward, Fox Searchlight will be known as Searchlight Pictures, while 20th Century Fox will be called 20th Century Studios. The logos for each will remain largely the same, but the changes represent a new era in filmmaking under the ownership of the House of Mouse. The new era commenced with the release of The Call of the Wild, which will go down in history as the first film to be released under the 20th Century Studios banner.

The change is Disney’s way of disassociating itself with the Fox outlets that still exist (Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Television Stations, Fox News, Fox Business, and Fox Sports), which are a part of Rupert Murdoch’s also newly rebranded media entity, Fox Corporation, sister company of Murdoch’s News Corp. Disney also understands the importance of promoting its own brand, and the Fox name might not correspond with that desired image.

But not everyone is happy with the updates, especially in regards to the 20th Century Fox logo being tinkered with. The logo represented 85 years of motion picture history and appeared at the start of some of the most iconic movies ever made. Many film buffs associate it with Star Wars, Die Hard, and Alien, and this development is viewed by some as Disney’s way of diminishing a studio’s legacy.

It’s going to take a minute for some people to get used to the new logo and all of the changes associated with it. That said, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened in relation to this particular logo.

The iconic gold emblem was created in 1933 by Emil Kosa Jr., a matte painter whose other famous works include the ruined Statue of Liberty shown at the end of Planet of the Apes. However, the logo was originally used for Twentieth Century Pictures, which merged with Fox in 1935 after William Fox lost control of his company. After the deal was finalized, the “Pictures, Inc.” part was replaced with “Fox” and the rest is history.

In the years that followed the merger, the logo was also reworked by other artists to keep up with the times. This began with Rocky Longo, who repainted the logo in 1953 to coincide with the studio releasing movies in the widescreen Cinemascope format, starting with How to Marry a Millionaire.

While logos being repainted isn’t the same as an entire word being replaced due to a change in ownership, the differences aren’t too great either. The Fox logo has been subtly modified several times throughout the years to reflect a change of some kind, and not all of those differences were too popular. Over time, though, people got used to them, and they all became a part of the studio’s 85-year legacy in their own way.

Interestingly enough, the 1935 version of The Call of the Wild was the first of Twentieth Century Pictures’ releases to open following the announcement of the Fox merger, and it was one of the last films still put out under that banner and with its logo. It’s quite fascinating that two adaptations of the same Jack London novel have been released when change is in the air with the legacy of the Twentieth Century studio. While the new movie’s timing could be coincidental, it feels quite poetic that the company has come full circle.

Episode rankings are a funny thing. They’re written with an air of authority, but they’re mostly a surefire way to confirm that your experiences are your own and your priorities are nothing like anyone else’s.

That being said, this is the definitive ranking of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes, and no other ranking will do.

And now it’s new and improved, updated to include the ten new episodes of the 14th season.

Fourteen years is a long time — long enough for fans to develop very different ideas of what makes a good episode. It’s also long enough for the show itself to have evolved very different values and goals than it started with.

If you want to read 2,700 words on the show’s evolving values written by yours truly, then click here.

If you want to read 1,800 words on the recent seasons’ most different five minutes, click here.

If you want to avoid reading as much as you can, you can skip ahead to the low numbers. Or the kind of low numbers. But then maybe come back and read the other entries, too, because I really poured my heart and soul into this list. And even the worst rated episodes are worthy of praise — I run out of anything bad to say at all by the third page. From there on out it’s just shades of good, better, and best.

If you’re really just here to see where the new episodes fall, the numbers are 130, 120, 100, 82, 75, 63, 60, 54, 48, and 40.

So poke around. Read as much or as little in whatever order you like. Just remember: This is still the definitive ranking, and no other opinion counts.

153. Frank’s Brother (s7e5)

“Those were the days…”

With 143 episodes, not every single one can be a winner, even with Lance Reddick and the admittedly brilliant “Shadynasty” pronunciation joke. The truth is that the gang are the heart and soul of Always Sunny, and the occasional interjection just isn’t enough.

152. A Cricket’s Tale (s12e9)

“Unbelievable. Yes, I’m gonna take the lemons.”

The same logic stands for this episode. While David Hornsby’s Rickety Cricket is one of the show’s finest accomplishments, this (relatively) straightforward story of redemption with a (relatively) shocking ending and virtually no input from the gang just doesn’t cut it. As the penultimate episode before the bombshell of Dennis’ departure, it feels like filler.

152. The Gang Does a Clip Show (s13e7)

“My legs have always been long. It’s a burden being tall.”

The finest moment of the 13th season is, of course, the end of “Mac Finds His Pride.” But the second finest might very well be this episode’s motion-for-motion recreation of a scene from Seinfeld. Always Sunny has forever been compared to Seinfeld, and the acknowledgement of this comparison is great. Charlie’s uncanny Kramer impression is even greater. But the stroke of pure genius is the doubling up Dennis and Mac on Jerry, dressed identically and moving in unison, as a work-around of the fact that Seinfeld has one fewer cast member. It’s too bad this gem of a scene is buried in such a lackluster episode. While the show’s take on the classic clip show format is creative and interesting on paper, the interesting stuff starts too late, spins slightly out of control, and wraps up too quickly. A few more solid minutes of exploration might have worked wonders for this episode. Coming in under time and already padded with clips from past seasons, it’s much too ambitious for the amount of time it gives itself, and it suffers for it.

151. Charlie Wants an Abortion (s1e2)

“What’s not to get? Come to Philly for the Crack. It has a picture of the Liberty Bell on it… it’s funny and original.”

Ranking the earliest episodes of Always Sunny is tricky, because it was such a different show at the time. Dee is the voice of reason. Frank doesn’t exist. And Mac, Charlie and Dennis are just three self-serving jerks, rather than the absolute weirdos they eventually become. “Abortion” is still a fun episode, and one that drives home how unprincipled the (male) members of the gang are, but in retrospect it feels pretty mild. It’s a testament to the show that I’m making that pronouncement about the episode where Mac pretends to have murdered two abortion doctors to get laid.

150. The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell (s4e11)

“Yeeeeeeethhhh.”

This might lose me a lot of credit, but I don’t like the Liberty Bell episode. I think it’s a shark jump that in any other show would mark the beginning of the end. The fact that Always Sunny has produced 8 and counting amazing seasons since ought to be enough to make me change my mind, but I shan’t. I do like Mac’s wooden teeth, though.

149. Charlie’s Home Alone (s13e8)

“I don’t know why I’m screaming. This doesn’t hurt at all.”

Two-parters have never been this show’s strongest suit, and this one feels stretched especially thin to accommodate Glenn Howerton’s partial absence from the season. I love watching Charlie Day being dirty and gross, and that rat vomiting montage is a sight to behold. Unfortunately, as well as Day carries it, the script is unusually simplistic for Always Sunny, beginning as a straight Home Alone parody and more or less telegraphing every move. (When Charlie mentions twice that he has to “drink yellow,” is there any doubt in anyone’s mind where he’s going to end up?) It’s a fun enough episode, but it’s lacking in the complexity (and characters) that make the show great.

148. Dee Made a Smut Film (s11e4)

“I mean, we’re just air conditioners walkin’ around on this planet, screwin’ each other’s brains out!”

Look, I love Ongo Gablogian as much as the next guy. If I had my druthers, Danny DeVito would be contractually bound to wear that wig at least once per season. But on the whole, I think the episode falls short. It’s a conversation about the value of art that’s been had before and will be had again, and nothing new or surprising comes out of it. It’s a rare Always Sunny episode without any real bite or creativity, and I don’t love it. I’m sorry.

147. Wolf Cola: A Public Relations Disaster (s12e4)

“I just puked on my dick.”

The thing that rubs me wrong the most about this episode is twitter’s readiness to give the Reynolds family a second chance. The internet is a fickle place, it’s true, but only in one direction, and forgiveness has never come so easily as it does for Wolf Cola. That tiny complaint aside, the whole episode feels a little played out, a revival of old hits (Wolf Cola, Fight Milk) without the wry self deprecation of “Frank Falls Out the Window” or “The Gang Recycles Their Trash.” It feels like a late-series episode. Thank God season 12 has some of the best episodes, as well, to prove that the show isn’t actually slumping.

146. The Gang Finds a Dead Guy (s1e6)

“Let me tell you something with absolute honesty and concern for your well-being. Tom Brady would kick your ass.”

Another relatively straightforward plot from the early days that pales a little with time. Seeing Dennis lie with practiced ease to take advantage of a grieving woman is a mild day compared to what we’ve gotten used to. In the context of a brand new show, however, it’s pretty admirable, paired as it is with Nazis and the horror of aging. Always Sunny may not have started out as artistically bizarre, but it did have a strong beginning of broaching absolutely any subject.

145. The Gang Squashes Their Beefs (s9e10)

“We bought this biiiiitch.”

This is a rare instance of the show’s bulk getting away from it. The whole joke is, of course, that the gang have unresolved beef with everyone they know. Unfortunately it makes for a pretty unwieldy episode. It does shine in its moments of focus, however, such as Liam McPoyle’s eye insecurity and Frank and Hwang’s standoff to the sweet sounds of “Genius of Love.”

144. Making Dennis Reynolds a Murderer (s12e5)

“Very nice!”

This is an experimental episode that, in my opinion, just doesn’t make it. A send-up of Making a Murderer and the rash of true crime documentaries of the time, the episode isn’t so much a parody as a straight remake with the gang inserted. It’s a brave swing, but I think it’s a miss.

143. Gun Fever (s1e5)

“How you like me now, log?”

Remember when Always Sunny had straightforward plots? Me neither, but the first season was about as close as it ever got. “Gun Fever” presents a normal mystery that the gang actually solve, and while they manage to screw it up, their reasoning and solution aren’t all that bad. It would be a fine episode in a normal show, but with the foresight of how insane things eventually become, it’s a little lackluster.

142. Mac and Dennis Buy a Timeshare (s9e4)

“Where do I put my feet?”

In almost every situation, Always Sunny has a straight man — someone who’s a little more grounded in reality. Who that is changes wildly, and part of the beauty of the show is that you never know who’s going to be the rational one. In “Timeshare” the straight man is Frank, but he’s stuck in a coil, for reasons that are fabulously never explained. And without the grounding force of a straight man, the rest of the gang is instantly duped into every scam that comes their way. It’s fun to see the blind leading the blind, but failure’s not as rewarding or as funny when it comes so easily. I do love that coil, though.

Welcome to this week in home video!

Before the dreaded invention of the internet and the wretched, faceless avatars that populate it, the Invisible Man franchise revealed the transformative villainy of anonymity. Baked into author H.G. Wells‘ core concept is the idea that when stripped of their identity but still fully engorged on ego, men will flaunt their barbarous selves. The Wolf Man is a curse. Frankenstein’s monster is a pathetic beast who should not be. Dracula is a creature of the night. The Invisible Man is an asshole.

For the 2020 iteration (that’s number six in the Universal series, hollow men and their memoirs not included), writer/director Leigh Whannell updates the mad descent of wickedness into the body of an abuser who clearly didn’t need any push into a murderous state. Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is introduced as a physical threat to Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) as he comes screaming out of the woods and thrusts himself through her sister’s car window while she’s attempting to flee in secret. He’s a very real terror. His eventual invisibility doesn’t accentuate his horror, but hers.

We’re told that two weeks after their roadside encounter, Griffin has slashed his wrists and left Cecilia with a $5 million inheritance. His spineless brother Tom (Michael Dorman), who also represents his estate, explains that she’ll get the money in monthly increments as long as she is not declared mentally unfit or is convicted of a felony. We’re watching an Invisible Man movie, so we know the score.

Most of the film sees Cecilia begging others to believe her. Adrian is alive. He’s invisible. He’s the source of all the weird shenanigans going on in the home of her friend James (Aldis Hodge). Then James’ daughter Sydney (Storm Reid) is punched bloody. Cecilia’s sister Emily (Harriet Dyer) has her throat cut. Cecelia is dumped into the psychiatric criminal ward.

With limited options and no one on her side, Cecilia takes matters into her own hands — or wrists, as the case may be. Knowing that the narcissistic creatin cares only for the child growing inside her, she draws Adrian into the light by digging into her veins with a fountain pen. A fight ignites, guards are called, guards are murdered, an escape is made, and a mad dash to Sydney’s house erupts.

There, Cecilia claims her victory by blasting five bullets into the beast’s chest. The Invisible Man goes down like his OG pre-code predecessor, full of holes. Only, it’s not the terror we were led to believe him to be. The man in Adrian’s sci-fi suit is the jellyfish brother. Adrian, the abuser, is found imprisoned behind a wall, bound and gagged, apparently a victim himself. Cecilia is free of all charges; she only needs to admit that Adrian wasn’t pulling the strings after all.

No.

Adrian is guilty. She’s an expert in his manipulation. It’s where his true genius rests. He bends reality around his will. She will not fall for it, nor will she admit it.

Cecilia has experienced a lifetime of eye-rolls and quizzical glances. She won’t take the doubt of others any longer. She doesn’t have to wait for their belief. She knows what she knows. Adrian is guilty, and he will not walk away from this cruelty unscathed.

As a favor to James, Cecilia goes through the motions of trying to capture Adrian’s guilt on tape, but he won’t budge on the story he’s concocted. At his home, where the cameras can see them enjoying a friendly dinner, Adrian lays all the blame on Tom, acting aghast at her accusations. She never considered it could go any other way. Time to fight fire with fire.

She excuses herself for the restroom but goes to the closet where she previously stowed Adrian’s other invisibility suit. Doing to him what he did to her sister, Cecilia takes his knife and puts it in his hand and drags them both across his throat. The camera sees suicide. We know better. We see justice.

We’re a proof-driven society. We need to see it to believe it. However, we often only see what we want to see. The world must fit into the definitions we ascribe to it. Invisibility suits? That’s crazy! Wait, they exist? Huh. It turns out you were right about that one Cecilia, but no way you could be right about the puppet master Adrian. That’s a bridge too far.

The Invisible Man does what all good remakes should do. Whannell takes a strand from the book, and James Whale’s 1933 adaptation, and applies it to a fear plaguing a contemporary audience. The beast is not the protagonist. We’re not here to empathize with him. We’ve done enough of that already. His prey should be our concern.

We need to stop being surprised. When woman after woman after woman after woman arrives with accusations of atrocity, we need to press pause and reckon with their words. Monsters exist. Start listening.

Cecilia couldn’t wait for those around her to find belief. She could only place her faith in herself. She knew the truth. She couldn’t and shouldn’t wait for society to catch up with her knowledge. Satisfaction sat in her hands. The rest of us should be ashamed. Our disbelief and refusal to listen is our culpability, and it aligns us with monsters. Who’s the asshole, now?

Welcome to Elements of Story, a biweekly column about narrative tropes, what they mean, and why they just won’t go away.

Biologically, butterflies are a clade of insects within the order Lepidoptera. Like a number of other insects, they have a four-stage life cycle: adults lay eggs that hatch into larvae (caterpillars) and then pupate into an almost coffin-like chrysalis before dramatically bursting forth into their final, winged adult form. They are generally active during the day, which is why they tend to have more colorful wings than their often maligned, usually nocturnal kin, moths.

But when it comes to their presence in storytelling, butterflies represent far more than the sum of their biological parts. Different cultures have imbued butterflies with a wide range of symbolic meanings. Viewing butterflies as meaningful in some sort of way, however, is practically universal. The ancient Greeks paved the way for Western culture’s reverence towards butterflies by referring to the insect and the human soul with the same term: psyche.

Moving eastward, the hugely popular Chinese folktale of star-crossed lovers Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, who are kept apart but reunited in death as a pair of butterflies, has the creatures representing the human soul, but in a way fundamentally linked to relationships and romantic love, instead of being individualistic. The tale dates back to at least the 10th century and has spawned countless variations over the ages.

In the Americas, the Aztecs had the sinister goddess Ītzpāpālōtl, who takes the form of an obsidian butterfly. The list goes on.

Symbolic butterflies are prominent across storytelling and visual art forms, but one thing unique to movies is the way in which butterflies of significance appear overwhelmingly blue in color. While there are some blue-winged species out there — most notably the blue Morpho, a cinematic favorite and also the butterfly emoji — they are actually quite rare. You’re unlikely to encounter a truly blue butterfly in person without going to a butterfly conservatory.

Of course, movies have featured butterflies of every color of the rainbow, but the bright blue ones are disproportionately represented relative to their scarcity in the natural world.

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride opens with protagonist Victor sketching a blue butterfly and ends with the titular character finding peace with her murderer finally brought to justice and transforming into a kaleidoscope of butterflies –again, all blue.

A character also bursts into blue butterflies in Satoshi Kon’s Paprika, albeit under far more nightmarish circumstances. In Tarsem Singh’s The Fall, the fantasy version of Charles Darwin spends the entire film searching for the rare “Americana exotica,” a fictional species of blue butterfly also featured prominently on the poster.

All of this begs the question: why?

The first and most technical reason has to do with color theory. Complementary colors — hues opposite each other on the color wheel — contrast each other in ways often regarded as optimal for appealing image composition, a rule of thumb that film has appreciated since the introduction of color but has reached whole new levels ever since the introduction of digital intermediates revolutionized the color grading process.

As more than a few commentators have already pointed out, cinema loves no pair of complementary colors more than blue and orange. Human skin color ranges from pale yellow-pink to dark brown, which all fall within the basic realm of orange. As such, when a scene involves a character interacting directly with butterflies, blue becomes the front-runner for butterfly color by default, and looking at the consistent blue/teal-orange aesthetic across various examples of blue butterflies in film suggests this is far from a lucky accident.

The second has to do with biology. Blue is a popular color — according to some polling, it’s the winner of the popular vote for favorite color overall — but when it comes to living things, true blue is actually extremely rare. Even plants and animals with blue in their common names (blue whale, blueberry) are more accurately described as grey or indigo in color.

The most naturally occurring color in animals — think the pink of flamingos — comes from pigments sourced from their diet. But this almost never happens with blue. The vibrant blue of peacock feathers or the wings of a blue Morpho is the result of something called structural color, in which tiny prism structures reflect light in such a way that the surface appears blue to the eye. It’s physics instead of chemistry; if you ground up blue Morpho wings, you wouldn’t get a vivid pigment, just some greyish dust because you destroyed the prisms responsible for the color.

While structural coloration is responsible for a range of hues across a range of creatures, it’s almost universally responsible for vivid blues seen in animals. In other words, seeing a truly blue animal is special and rare, so it’s quite fitting that the color tends to appear in the most thematically significant creatures.

A similar trend can be seen with regards to the narrative use of blue flowers, as there are no naturally occurring blue pigments to be found there either (although manipulating anthocyanin can give plants a blue-ish color — or a true blue via genetic engineering); blue flowers are quite prominent in fantasy, such as the blue roses in A Song of Ice and Fire, and for fictional plants with special powers, like the blue poppies in Batman Begins.

Butterflies carry millennia of symbolic heft from cultures spanning the globe in their delicate wings, but a lot of the appeal for cinematic storytellers just comes from the fundamental nature of what they are. Conventional film-writing wisdom reveres the character arc, the notion that a protagonist comes out at the end of the story fundamentally changed from the way they came in. Biological metamorphosis is hardly unique to butterflies, but their particular trajectory from lowly caterpillar to tomb-like chrysalid and finally majestic butterfly makes them the closest natural counterpart to the three-act structure and the Hero’s journey that one could ever hope to find — especially when they come out of that struggle with brilliant blue wings for emphasis.

The Indiana Jones franchise turns 40 next year, and to mark the milestone event, a brand new movie will hit theaters. Harrison Ford is returning as the titular archaeologist, but Steven Spielberg appears to be handing the reins over to another director. Who knows what to expect from the next outing, but it should be a fun, pulpy adventure nonetheless.

Throughout the years, however, other Indy movies have been discussed that could have resulted in more screen adventures for the archaeologist. Granted, maybe it’s for the best that a couple of these proposed movies didn’t happen, but for the most part, they actually sound quite good. And besides, most of them would have turned out better than The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at the Indiana Jones movies that could have been.

A Supernatural Horror Movie

The Indiana Jones movies boast some scenes that wouldn’t seem out of place in a horror film (the face-melting in Raiders of the Lost Ark, for example), but this movie would have pitted the hero against an ominous threat. Written by Diane Thomas of Romancing the Stone fame, the story followed the archaeologist through a haunted castle, but those are the only details about the project that are known at this time. In the end, though, Spielberg vetoed the idea because he’d just produced Poltergeist and didn’t want to repeat himself with something similar.

Indiana Jones and the Monkey King

Before The Last Crusade came to fruition, George Lucas toyed with this idea for the third movie. Chris Columbus was hired to write the script, and he came up with a story that featured ghosts, Nazis, pirates, gorillas, undead armies, pygmies, and peaches that could bring people back to life.

The story begins with Indy getting into a battle of wits with the ghost of a dead nobleman in a haunted castle, but the cusp of the tale takes place in Africa, as Indy searches for a lost city where the Fountain of Youth is located. Upon arrival, though, he crosses paths with the Monkey King, gets killed and resurrected, and engages in a game of chess where the pieces are humans who disintegrate after being eliminated from the game.

The idea was ultimately shelved after Lucas and co. deemed it too far-fetched and unrealistic, not to mention problematic and stereotypical in regards to its portrayal of African people. Still, an Indy movie from the writer of Gremlins does sound fascinating, no matter how off the rails it would have been.

Indiana Jones and The Lost Continent

Information about this one is scarce, but the assumption is that the film would have seen Indy on a journey to find the lost city of Atlantis. The video game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis — which was released in the ‘90s to much critical acclaim — was viewed by some as a precursor to a new movie. Still, in the end, those rumors amounted to nothing more than speculation.

Indiana Jones and the Saucermen from Mars

In the ‘90s, George Lucas began developing an idea for a fourth movie in which Indy would have faced off against Russian spies and aliens. The script was initially written by Jeb Stuart, but Jeffrey Boam, who penned The Last Crusade, inherited those duties later on.

In this one, Indy becomes smitten with a linguist who is conducting research on a mysterious cylinder. However, she disappears on their wedding day, and he tracks her down to a secret military facility where he learns that she’s been investigating UFOs. Shortly after, though, a spaceship appears, and it doesn’t take long until they find themselves having close encounters of the third kind.

The project was canned due to the release of Independence Day, another movie that revolves around an alien invasion scenario. However, aliens did make their way into the franchise eventually with The Crystal Skull, showing that anything is possible in this universe.

Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods

This is the most disappointing project to never see the light of day. Written by Frank Darabont, this was Spielberg’s preferred choice for the fourth movie, but Lucas wasn’t a fan of his drafts, which prompted him to hire David Koepp to write the film that became Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Darabont’s script borrowed elements from The Saucermen from Mars, though the alien invasion stuff wasn’t as heavy-handed. The story took place in the 1950s and followed an Indy who was past his prime, and rumor has it he also had a daughter. However, after coming into possession of a crystal skull, he sets off to find the City of the Gods to discover its secrets, which brings him into contact with extraterrestrial beings who anoint him as their chosen one.

Some of Darabont’s ideas found their way into The Crystal Skull, but this one will go down in history as a case of wondering what could have been. All because one important person wasn’t a fan of a script, even though his peers thought it was excellent.

The latest coming-of-age series from Netflix combines two of the streaming service’s best. I am Not Okay with This is actually produced and directed by Jonathan Entwistle, who also gave us The End of the F***ing World, and similarly adapted from a comic book by Charles Forsman. The new series is also executive produced by Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen, who oversee Stranger Things.

“I’d love for it to be like the ugly sister to Stranger Things,” Entwistle told journalists on a set visit for I Am Not Okay with This (via Bustle). Both involve a telekinetic teenage girl and they share actors from IT, but otherwise, they’re pretty different. Still, if I curated lists of TV series to watch after…, then it’d be an obvious choice. I’d probably slip in Out of This World just for fun, too. But I only recommend movies to watch after…

This week’s Movies to Watch After… recognizes the direct and indirect cinematic roots of I Am Not Okay with This as I recommend fans go back and learn some film history, become more well-rounded viewers, and enjoy likeminded works of the past, even if it’s the fairly recent past. As always, I try to point you in the easiest direction of where to find each of these highlighted titles.

IT (2017)

The first installment of Andy Muschietti’s two-part adaptation of Stephen King’s 1980s novel IT broke out the two young stars of I Am Not Okay with This, Sophia Lillis and Wyatt Oleff. They also previously reunited for IT: Chapter Two and the extended music video for Sia’s “Santa’s Coming for Us.” Lillis and Oleff have become very close friends since meeting on the set of this movie, and that relationship supposedly led to Oleff’s casting.

Maybe Oleff is just typecast as boys named Stanley since that’s also his name in IT. Or, maybe child actors from IT are the best choice for characters who learn their friend is a superhero and then get a bunch of comic books to research the matter and help them test their new powers. After all, that was also the case with Shazam! (also recommended), which co-stars fellow “Losers Club” member from IT Jack Dylan Grazer.

Stream IT with subscription on Fubo TV

Frozen (2013)

I almost just included Shazam! officially on this list because I wanted to feature at least one superhero movie. Chronicle was another possibility. But I wanted the movie to be about a female character, preferably one in her teens. Most major puberty-metaphor superheroes are male, like Spider-Man (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was another idea) and Harry Potter, while young women wind up being more the subject of supernatural-rage horror stories, a la Firestarter and Carrie.

Frozen isn’t that different, as its super-powered character exposes her abilities to the world during anger and nearly kills someone then flees the scene. At one point, she was nearly a more concrete Disney villain as a result. But like Sidney in I Am Not Okay with This, she’s not really a bad person, just someone who doesn’t understand or now how to control her powers. I know it’s silly to recommend Frozen as the superhero example, but the “best” alternative is a Jean Grey focused X-Men movie, but both X-Men: The Last Stand and Dark Phoenix are unworthy.

Stream Frozen with subscription on Disney+

Human Beings (2012)

Between The End of the F***ing World and I Am Not Okay with This, Jonathan Entwistle has shown a distinct style and interest that makes his eventual feature directorial debut easy to imagine. He’s actually been tapped to make that mark with a new reboot of Power Rangers. Because I enjoyed the last Power Rangers movie, I’d love to see him work with those same actors for a sequel instead, but either way I’m curious about his take.

While he’s never directed a feature, Entwistle made a number of shorts, as well as commercials and music videos, prior to breaking out with his first Forsman adaptation. Human Beings is the last of the shorts, an award-winning teen movie that feels like an antecedent of I Am Not Okay with This with its jock bully boyfriend (played by Emma. co-star Callum Turner in a very early role) and its big deal high school party and its cool music cues. Maybe next season can put all the characters in animal costumes, too, since that’s the main visual intrigue of the film.

Stream Human Beings free on Vimeo

Secrets of the Psychics (1993)

For the documentary pick for this edition of Movies to Watch After.., I’d love to recommend a film about real life superheroes, but the kind with actual superpowers not just the true costumed vigilantes and community guardian angels. Unfortunately, telekinesis isn’t real, and we’ve got James Randi, aka The Amazing Randi, to thank for confirming this fact. He’s a former magician who became an expert in debunking supposed psychics, healers, and others purporting to have supernatural or paranormal abilities.

Telekinesis is one of the alleged psychic powers that Randi exposes as fraud in the Nova episode Secrets of the Psychics. Among those he investigates are telepathic psychics, but he’s also famous for going after the telekinetics, people who bend spoons and keys and move objects “with their minds.” Think of him as the man following Sydney around in I Am Not Okay with This, since if a true story, Randi would be coming after her to prove her to be a fake. Also recommended is the more recent biographical feature documentary about Randi, An Honest Liar.

Buy Nova: Secrets of the Psychics on VHS from Amazon (or just easily find it streaming unofficially online)