Also: two star-studded movies that bypassed theatrical release.

Four years after rumors first began about its reprisal, the most anticipated TV series of 2017 — if not the decade or even the century — is finally here. Twin Peaks is a favorite show of ours here at FSR (in case you haven’t been able to tell) so we’re more excited than ever for its return. The rest of this week’s highlights seem so lackluster by comparison. But we are looking forward to two new movies starring such A-listers as Michelle Williams, Margot Robbie, and Brad Pitt eschewing theatrical release for premieres on the small screen, as well as a mini sequel to a beloved holiday movie, a remake of a beloved ’80s movie, the cable debut of an underrated animated film, and the latest season of an underrated series.

To help you keep track of the most important programs over the next seven days, here’s our guide to everything worth watching, whether it’s on broadcast, cable, or streaming for May 21–27 (all times Eastern):

SUNDAY

Twin Peaks (Showtime, 9pm)

Hey, did you hear Twin Peaks is back? More than a quarter century after the original series was cancelled by ABC, and concurrent with the 25th anniversary of the Cannes premiere of the prequel feature Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, David Lynch and Mark Frost’s strange murder mystery drama gets a reprise on cable. Most of the living cast members are back (Catherine E. Coulson, Miguel Ferrer, and Warren Frost all filmed their parts before their deaths), joined by Lynch movie vets Laura Dern and Naomi Watts, plus Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michael Cera, Jim Belushi, Eddie Vedder and other new additions. Little is known about the plot of the new series, which begins tonight with the first two of 18 episodes — none of which screened for critics in advance — except that it follows Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) as he returns to the titular Northwestern town. Even if you never saw the original Twin Peaks, you should tune in. We can help if you don’t want to feel lost.
Also on Sunday:
Bob’s Burgers S7E5: “Paraders of the Lost Float” (Fox, 7:30pm)
Billboard Music Awards (ABC, 8pm)
Twelve Monkeys S3E8 & S3E9 & S3E10: season finale (SyFy, 8pm)
The White Princess: episode 6 (Starz, 8pm)
American Gods S1E4: “Git Gone” (Starz, 9pm)
Family Guy S15E19: “Dearly Deported” — season finale (Fox, 9pm)
The Leftovers S3E6: “Certified” (HBO, 9pm)
Elementary S5E24: “Hurt Me, Hurt You” (CBS, 10pm)
Silicon Valley S4E5: “The Blood Boy” (HBO, 10pm)
Veep S6E6: “Qatar” (HBO, 10:30pm)

MONDAY

Suite Francaise (Lifetime, 9pm)

Challenging the idea of a “Lifetime movie,” this World War II drama directed by Saul Dibb (The Duchess) stars Michelle Williams, Matthias Schoenaerts, Margot Robbie, Kristen Scott Thomas, Sam Riley, and Ruth Wilson — quite the prestige ensemble. How did the network manage such classy original programming? The movie, a partial adaptation of Irène Némirovsky’s 2004 novel, was picked up by The Weinstein Co. back in 2013 during pre-production and opened in other countries in 2015 and 2016 but never wound up with a theatrical release in the US. The Weinsteins have a relationship with Lifetime, which airs their hit reality series Project Runway, so that explains the choice for it to broadcast the romantic period piece there. Don’t worry about Suite Francaise having been dumped (or delayed — it was previously set to debut on Lifetime last October) for lack of quality, as it currently has a 75% review score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Also on Monday:
Gotham S3E19: “Heroes Rise: All Will Be Judged” (Fox, 8pm)
Supergirl S2E22: “Nevertheless, She Persisted” — season finale (CW, 8pm)
The Voice (NBC, 8pm)
The Bachelorette S13E1 (ABC, 9pm)
Jane the Virgin S3E20: “Chapter Sixty-Four” — season finale (CW, 9pm)
Better Call Saul S3E7: “Expenses” (AMC, 10pm)
The Late Late Show Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special 2017 (CBS, 10pm)
They Call Us Monsters: doc debut via Independent Lens (PBS, 10pm)
Angie Tribeca S3E5: “License to Drill” (TBS, 10:30pm)
Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter S2E1 (Cartoon Network, 12am)

TUESDAY

Casual (Hulu)

While you (should) have Hulu to watch The Handmaid’s Tale, your next essential show from the streaming service is Casual, now starting its third season. We included the first in our list of the best TV shows of 2015, and while it didn’t quite make the cut last year (2016 was an amazing year for television), many fans and critics agree it’s actually getting better. Michaela Watkins stars in the cynical comedy-drama as a recently divorced psychiatrist living with her brother (Tommy Dewey) and teen daughter (Tara Lynn Barr), and the show mostly focuses on their dating lives. Humpday helmer Lynn Shelton directed the first episode of Season 3, while further installments are almost all directed by women, including Carrie Brownstein, Lake Bell, and Gillian Robespierre. And then Jason Reitman.
Also on Tuesday:
Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King: comedy special debut (Netflix)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine S4E21 & S4E22: “The Bank Job”/“Crime & Punishment” — season finale (Fox, 8pm)
The Flash S3E23: “Finish Line” — season finale (CW, 8pm)
The Voice: season finale (NBC, 8pm)
Genius S1E3: “Chapter Five” (National Geographic, 9pm)
Great News S1E9 & S1E10: “Carol Has a Bully”/ “Carol’s Eleven” — season finale (NBC, 9pm)
iZombie S3E8: “Eat a Knievel” (CW, 9pm)
The Americans S5E12: “The World Council of Churches” (FX, 10pm)
Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter S2E2 (Cartoon Network, 12am)

WEDNESDAY

Dirty Dancing (ABC, 8pm)

Are you ready to have another time of your life? In this three-hour (with commercials) remake of the classic 1987 movie Dirty Dancing, Oscar-nominated actress Abigail Breslin stars as “Baby,” while dancer Colt Prattes takes on the Patrick Swayze role of Johnny. While reviews haven’t been too favorable, unsurprisingly especially given the favor for the original, this still could be ratings gold if only for the nostalgic curiosity. For our own interest, there’s the cast, which includes Tony Roberts as the Catskill resort owner Max Kellerman and Bruce Greenwood and Debra Messing as Baby’s parents, plus Katey Sagal, Billy Dee Williams, and Modern Family’s Sarah Hyland. The new version promises to be even more socially conscious and features a soundtrack full of new versions of the first movie’s mostly retro tunes.
Also on Wednesday:
The Handmaid’s Tale S1E7: “The Other Side” (Hulu)
Arrow S5E23: “Lian Yu” — season finale (CW, 8pm)
Catfish S6E13 (MTV, 8pm)
Empire S3E18: “Toil and Trouble, Part 2” — season finale (Fox, 8pm)
Archer: Dreamland S8E8: “Auflösung” — season finale (FXX, 10pm)
Fargo S3E6: “The Lord of No Mercy” (FX, 10pm)
Gomorrah S3E8 (Sundance, 10pm)
Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter S2E3 (Cartoon Network, 12am)

THURSDAY

The Red Nose Day Special (NBC, 10pm)

The UK observed Red Nose Day 2017 in March with the highly anticipated premiere of Red Nose Actually, the short sequel to Love Actually. Aside from the charitable part of the occasion and biennial special, which supports children in need in America and around the world, the reunion of much of the ensemble of the 2003 holiday classic (including Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rowan Atkinson, and Bill Nighy) is the main reason to watch as it now makes its US debut as part of the program. NBC has tied all its Thursday evening shows to Red Nose Day, so you can help by starting with American Ninja Warrior and Running Wild with Bear Grylls (guest starring Julia Roberts), then tune in to the special. Apparently, America gets an extended version of Red Nose Actually featuring Laura Linney reprising her role opposite Patrick Dempsey.
Also on Thursday
The Amazing Race S29E11 (CBS, 10pm)
Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter S2E4 (Cartoon Network, 12am)

FRIDAY

Bloodline (Netflix)
Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower (Netflix)
War Machine (Netflix)

It seems Netflix is going to keep on delivering a heavy-hitter package of original programming — usually a new season of a major series, a significant documentary, and a star-studded movie — every Friday so let’s just lump them all together. First is the series, Bloodline, which is back for its third season with one of the most phenomenal television casts out there right now. Then there’s the acclaimed doc feature Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower, winner of an audience award at Sundance. It’s about a teen who led a movement of protest in Hong Kong against the Chinese government. Finally, War Machine is the latest film by David Michod (Animal Kingdom) and stars Brad Pitt with a satirical portrayal of real-life Four-Star US Army General Stanley A. McChrystal and his effort to end the War in Afghanistan. The rest of the cast includes Topher Grace, Tilda Swinton, Ben Kinglsey, Will Poulter, and Anthony Michael Hall.
Also on Friday:
Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter S2E5 (Cartoon Network, 12am)

SATURDAY

Storks (HBO, 8pm)

No, the 2016 Warner Bros. animated feature hasn’t spun off a cartoon series. Tonight is the cable broadcast debut of the movie, which was written and co-directed by Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Neighbors) with Pixar vet Doug Sweetland. Although it was somewhat well-received and did fine at the box office, it hardly made a mark culturally when released theatrically last fall. One thing we celebrated at the time is the performance by voice actress Katie Crown, who proves you don’t need celebrity names and their familiar speech to make a good animated film. Of course, it does have some of those, too, including Andy Samberg, Kelsey Grammar, and Jennifer Aniston.
Also on Saturday:
Doctor Who S10E7: “The Pyramid at the End of the World” (BBC America, 9pm)
Class S1E7: “The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did” (BBC America, 10pm)

Director Thomas Vinterberg and actress Trine Dyrholm discuss their first collaboration since 1998’s The Celebration.

In 1998, Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg released The Celebration. One of the defining films of modern Scandinavian cinema, Vinterberg took an entirely unique approach to crafting his family drama by forbidding the use of artificial lights, built sets, and placed props. Since then, Vinterberg has been nominated for an Oscar for his devastating 2012 film The Hunt. Also making waves in Danish cinema is actress Trine Dyrholm. Dyrholm appeared in The Celebration and would go on to star in Susanne Bier Oscar-winning In a Better World. Nearly twenty years later, Vinterberg and Dyrholm reunite for The Commune, Vinterberg’s unusually comedic film about life in a 1970s Danish commune. In anticipation of the film’s upcoming release, I spoke to the two greats of Danish cinema about their reunion and the politics of communal living. 

You both collaborated on The Celebration eighteen years ago. Why wait so long to reunite?

Thomas Vinterberg: I am always looking for opportunities to work with Trine. She’s the most fine-tuned instrument you can find. I’ve always enjoyed that collaboration. I thought here was the chance to reunite with a purpose. I also felt that it was interesting to spin off of that thing we did together back then. The Celebration ended with them getting married and heading off to Paris. I thought, well here they are again as a couple. They grew up, and they matured, and here they are. I thought that was an interesting mirror.

Trine Dyrholm: I’ve always missed working with Thomas. So I was just happy that he called. For me, it was an inspiring collaboration because I think we’ve gained so much experience and it is much more interesting now to discuss the characters, the script, and work together. Thomas has become a very very talented director. He was already back then, but it was much more chaotic. Now he is very tough and is a good leader on set. At the same time, he can make an open space where you’re allowed to explore and find out things together. For me, it was a huge experience.

Thomas Vinterberg: It was a very different experience this time because Trine obviously had a bigger part in this. She has read so many scripts and been involved in so many films that she has developed a talent for knowing what a script needs. She’s rather demanding actually and challenging, which was fantastic. It paid off incredibly well in the film.

You used the word ‘chaotic’ to describe the production of The Celebration. I imagine when you’re working on that film with natural light and the Dogme 95 rules it can be very different than this film, which sounds much more controlled.

Trine Dyrholm: Actually, there were similar things. When we were sitting at the table with the whole commune, I felt, I’m a little older now, but it could have been…

Thomas Vinterberg: One of those days. Yes, there were many similarities. People are sitting around the dinner table who have crazy problems. The irony of Dogme, back then, actually was exposed by Trine. As much as we wanted to limit ourselves – we meaning me and Lars von Trier – as much as we limited ourselves and framed our work by these rules, we tried to set them free. Trine, to begin with, was a tiny bit discontent with that. She thought it wasn’t necessary creatively that I was saying, “You can just use the whole room. We’ll follow you with the camera. Whatever you like.” That’s not creative. We had the impression as directors that our actors and actresses wanted that, but actually, the country was the occasion. We had to start inventing limitations and rules and games to reinspire the actors.

People have described this film as being autobiographical. What does it mean for you to draw on something from your life?

Thomas Vinterberg: Well this is not based on a true story; it’s based on a true feeling. It’s been a stage play. So this is a play improvised by some actors in Vienna. All their midlife crises and divorces and whatever has been mixed into this, so it’s no longer my private story. Still, it’s very personal. I’ve been going through a tough divorce; I’ve grown up in a commune. I had a lot of experience that I could draw from. It’s a mix. It’s not exactly autobiographical, but it’s still made by a guy who grew up on a commune. There are similarities, there are parallels, but altogether it’s fiction. An example, they didn’t vote, my commune. They would talk it to the end until everyone agreed, but then the film would have been thirty-four hours. So we agreed in the stage play that we would make some fun out of voting.

Something I found very interesting about the film is how the members of the commune sort of serve as an audience to Eric and Anna’s problems. It’s very interesting that we’re watching people watching.

Thomas Vinterberg: That’s interesting. I never thought of that. I thought of, particularly Anna, but Anna and Erik’s relationship in the context of sharing. She has a dream, ideology, of sharing. She want’s to share her life with other people in a house, and she’s generous enough even to try and share her husband, and the house with her husband’s new wife. She becomes the ultimate experiment of that time. How much can you share before you break apart? Before you disintegrate your ego? Before you become nothing? I’m not answering your question. Maybe Trine can answer it.

Trine Dyrholm: Well I think it’s a big theme, what you mentioned, that you have an audience, you have witnesses to your downfall. That’s what a commune is, you’re together, and you’re sharing everything. You detour the route. At the end, when the daughter has to be the grownup and decide who is going to move, that is a family’s private life played out in a theater, in the room.

Thomas Vinterberg: The most powerful scene in the whole film, other than the one where you break down in the TV studio, is the one where you come home drunk, and you talk about having sex with other people. That’s a complete exposure of your inner desire in front of an audience.

Anna is such a great character. The commune is her idea, yet it seems to completely backfire against her.

Trine Dyrholm: I think she wants to be a free spirit and she wants everybody else to be free as well. She’s longing for something that she doesn’t know in the beginning. She’s bored of traditional family life, and I think that the commune for her is an idea of sharing everything. At that time it was normal, and you were kind of old fashioned if you didn’t allow all these things to happen. I like when she suggests the husband’s lover to move in. That’s what Mads [Mikkelsen] and Hanne do as well, well it’s not Mads and Hanne. Another couple. Well, it’s like, they do, and we can do it. I’ve talked to many women of that time, and some of them had a tough time because they were not allowed to show their real feelings.

Thomas Vinterberg: It was possessive to want your husband all for yourself.

Trine Dyrholm: And it is! The thought is good.

Thomas Vinterberg: There’s a line where Anna says, “Why did you tell me? You must love her if you’re telling me. It would have been okay not to tell me”.

Trine Dyrholm: “and if you’re not in love, just have sex with her.”

Thomas Vinterberg: Which was very normal for that time. Which shows how generous this character is.

Trine Dyrholm: I think it’s an interesting portrait to tell the story of a woman who had very high ideals and becomes a victim of her ideas. I can identify with it. You have high ideals, but you can’t live up to those ideals.

Anna’s breakdown at the end of the film certainly brings to mind the performances of Gena Rowlands. Did her Cassavetes films ever come to mind while doing The Commune?

Thomas Vinterberg: We both love Gena Rowlands. Maybe the hair.

Trine Dyrholm: Well I like her a lot. I didn’t look at her particularly, but of course, that’s the time also. We were inspired by that period, by Cassavetes and her of course.

This does seem like a lighter film for you. I think when people go into a Vinterberg film they expect this draining, somewhat horrific experience considering The Celebration and The Hunt. Even the disparity that runs throughout Far From the Madding Crowd. I was surprised by how often I was laughing during this film.

Thomas Vinterberg: I heard laughter building up at the opening in Copenhagen. Then you step onto this stage and create this beautiful arc.

Trine Dyrholm: Well The Celebration is very fun as well. It does have comedy elements.

Thomas Vinterberg: I found a DVD of The Celebration in New York categorized as a comedy.

Trine Dyrholm: I think this film is a Thomas Vinterberg film. It’s a combination of light and trauma.

Thomas Vinterberg: I agree with that actually, whereas The Hunt is just dark.

Trine Dyrholm: Wasn’t it funny as well?

Thomas Vinterberg: In moments.

Trine Dyrholm: I had a few laughs.

Well, The Hunt might just be Danish-funny. I have a dark sense of humor, so I can find something to laugh at in almost any film. But damn, that film is one draining experience.

Thomas Vinterberg: We enjoy stepping into the pain. It’s like people enjoying watching horror movies and getting scared. It’s just a Scandinavian tradition.

That’s a wonderful way to put it. I think perhaps that’s what I like so much about Scandinavian cinema. It finds a way to explore these feelings that will evoke almost the same reaction as a horror film.

Thomas Vinterberg: If you say the name of the troll, it will become smaller. I guess that’s why we talk about these matters all the time.

The Commune opens in a limited release on Friday, May 19.

‘American Gods’ takes a real look at depression and a fantastical look at the afterlife.

I never really got Dane Cook when he was on top of the comedy world. But seeing him sing off key while getting road head has endeared him to me like nothing else could.

“Git Gone,” the fourth episode of American Gods, might as well be a different show. Not only does it take place before the main storyline, but it’s also completely focalized on Laura (Emily Browning), a character we’ve until now seen only in Shadow’s imagination.

In the book Shadow and Laura have very little backstory. It’s implied that they were reasonably happy, but the nuances of their relationship and what drove Laura to cheat are left to the imagination. It only makes sense for Laura to get more of a say here. She deserves it.

And in giving her say, the show carries over and twists one very specific detail.

When they speak in the book, Laura admits to Shadow that she often felt like he wasn’t fully there, like he was dead. That’s right—she thought that about Shadow.

It’s an interesting play on characterization when one of your characters is dead, for sure. But in the show, the roles have been reversed. Shadow isn’t the one who’s barely there—Laura is.

And poor Shadow doesn’t seem to realize it.

Emily Browning (Laura Moon)

Laura’s depression is given a beautiful treatment. In the beginning, it’s practically wordless—given her isolation, it has to be. But the score more than makes up for it.

As soon as Laura’s introduced to the new card shuffler, the music changes. What was an Egyptian motif is replaced by a low, erratic whining on the cello that sounds, for all the world, like a fly’s buzzing? Over it, a delicate piano picks its way out note by note. The piano is Laura and the incessant buzzing is her depression, the call of death, following her home.

The buzzing takes physical form in the fly that bothers her while she’s reading. By killing the fly she quiets the buzzing, and she gets an idea for how she can quiet it forever. The cello stops as soon as the fly dies—for a moment, at least, Laura has conviction.

But she can’t go through with it, and the flies keep coming. Another makes an appearance during her conversation with Shadow in prison when her perfect plan fails. She thought she knew how to take control of her life, but she was wrong. (The fact that crows start following her just as frequently as flies suggests that there’s something more at work here, that there’s a reason her plan fails).

And then, of course, the flies come after her once she’s dead. It’s a lovely and striking doubled image—the flies circle her while she’s living to represent her disconnect with life. After she’s died, they’re there for the same reason. Their incentive is just a little more… physical.

Perhaps the saddest part of Laura’s depression is Shadow’s inability to see it. The night they meet, Laura asks him what she looks like. His reply? “Like you can get anything you want just by asking for it.” This is the beginning of an important, years-long misunderstanding in their relationship. Laura can’t get anything she wants. She’s miserable. And the part of her job she likes just got taken away from her, despite her protests.

But that’s not what Shadow sees. He tells her what she looks like, not what she is. For him, the two are one and the same. He falls in love with what he sees, while Laura drifts.

Emily Browning (Laura Moon), Ricky Whittle (Shadow Moon)

But while so much of Laura’s state of mind is left to interpretation, her kitchen table speech to Shadow is a remarkably clear insight into her mentality. Between the fly imagery, Laura’s speech about being resentful of not being happy, and Emily Browning’s excellent disengaged states, this episode is a beautiful glimpse into what it’s like to be disconnected from life.

It’s a very honest but understanding study of depression.

It’s also refreshingly free of an arc. Laura doesn’t get better, but neither does she spiral out of control. You might be tempted to say that her death serves as a final irony, but of course, it doesn’t because she comes back. Laura’s depression isn’t a character in the story—it’s simply the way she is, and she’s just trying to navigate life with it.

That doesn’t mean it’s pretty. The most devastating and strange part of Laura and Shadow’s story is the revelation of what love means to them. In last week’s episode, Shadow said that he never believed in love until he met Laura, but now he believes the shit out of it.

With Laura’s death, however, we get the stark reality of her feelings toward Shadow. When Anubis asks her if it was love that brought her back, she says “It wasn’t. But I suppose it is now.” Since Shadow gave her the sun in Mad Sweeney’s coin, he is the sun to her now. Everything else is dim.

And Laura has decided that’s love.

Emily Browning (Laura Moon)

It’s love defined by someone who’s never actually felt it. She’s heard it described as one person being more important than anyone else, maybe even inexplicably. And now, confronted with a physical manifestation of that description, she’s accepted that she’s finally feeling it. She even uses some classic aphorisms—“ he’s the light of my life” and “I’ll have my own private sunshine.”

It matches, on paper, what you hear love is like.

It’s a great admission and distinction for the show to make – this sure as hell isn’t love conquering all, love defying death. There’s a very real reason she’s back and, for lack of a better thing to call it, Laura’s calling it love. As with all things in this show, there is no sentiment. Stronger forces are at work, and human feelings are moot. The best we can do is accept them and, if we want, try to apply the names of human feelings to them. We can tell Death to fuck himself and if one person literally shines brighter than everything around him, we can call that love.

Emily Browning (Laura Moon)

But maybe Laura’s going to be okay. Just like she’s found “love” in death, she’s also found her strength. The mystery of who killed the droogs in episode one is finally solved, and underneath the slaughter, we hear a strobing cello again, similar to the buzzing music of Laura’s depression but stronger, more focused.

When she was alive, Laura seemed to thrive only in conflict. Now that she’s dead, she has a lot more opportunity for it.

One conflict that shines especially brightly is her confrontation with Audrey. Their scene in the bathroom is gross and profoundly funny. It’s uncomfortable and outrageous and reminiscent of an improv sketch with an especially ambitious prompt. But it works, and it’s the pain beneath the outrageousness that sells it. Betty Gilpin is, as usual, excellent—in a show that can get a little wordy, her interpretation of the dialogue is marvelously real. 

Emily Browning (Laura Moon)

“Git Gone” is the first episode of American Gods to stray at all far from the source material. It’s strayed so far, in fact, that it’s almost completely new. But what it’s added is a deep and much-deserved backstory for Laura, as well as a fascinating facet to her character. What do you do when you’re suicidal and you wake up dead? Or when the relationship you were ambivalent about is all you have left?

Laura has changed so much that even having read the book I’m excited to see what happens next.

Plus 9 More New Releases to Watch This Week on Blu-ray/DVD!

Arnaud Desplechin offers a fun, yet forgettable film to open the 70th Cannes Film Festival.

Opening the Cannes Film Festival is no easy feat. Festival audiences – critics especially – sit down for their first film with high expectations, excited for the films to come. Most recently, the opening night films have been a mixed bag. Last year, the festival presented Woody Allen’s Café Society, a sweet yet ultimately meandering ode to old Hollywood. Of course, there are always disasters, such as the 2014 opener Grace of Monaco. Debatably, there hasn’t been a great opener since 2012’s Moonrise Kingdom and Midnight in Paris the year before that. Unsurprisingly, yet disappointing nonetheless, the streak of mediocrity is left unbroken by Arnaud Desplechin’s Ismael’s Ghosts.

Desplechin most recently played Cannes in 2015 with the outstanding My Golden Days. A sequel to Desplechin’s breakout film My Sex Life… or How I Got Into an Argument, the film starred Mathieu Amalric as a neurotic academic looking back on his first love. Amalric has appeared in nearly all of Desplechin’s films, primarily playing different versions of the same character. In Ismael’s Ghosts, Amalric stars as Ismael Vuillard, a character who was last seen in Desplechin’s 2004 film King’s and Queen. Like Dedalus of My Sex Life and My Golden Days, Ismael is to be plagued by a woman he once loved.

Ismael’s Ghosts opens with a flashy, quick-cut, Broadway Danny Rose-type narrative. A group of men sits around a restaurant table and trade gossip in the life of Ivan (Louis Garrel). This narrative of narratives is revealed to be a film that Ismael is in the midst of directing. He has found success as a filmmaker and has recently entered into a healthy relationship with Sylvia (Charlotte Gainsbourg). The two head to Ismael’s beach house during a break in filming, only to have their serenity interrupted by Carlotta (Marion Cotillard), Ismael’s wife. The stinger is that no one has seen Carlotta in twenty-one years, and she has been pronounced dead. Ismael is thrust into a manic state, conflicted by Carlotta’s decision to abandon both her husband and her father. His mania disrupts his relationship with Sylvia, the production of his film, and any proper reunion with Carlotta. Meanwhile, while Ismael seemingly begins to lose his mind, Carlotta and Sylvia start to build a complicated relationship of their own.

The ghost of the film’s title is, of course, Cotillard’s Carlotta. Essential in the evolution and disintegration of her surrounding characters, Carlotta remains a cipher. In a moment of exposition, Carlotta recounts her decades spent living on the streets, before she fell in love with an older Indian man who would eventually die, thus her return. Earlier in the film, in one of many heated conversations, Ismael states, “the present is shit.” Apparently, his obsession with the past is keeping him afloat – albeit barely – but when Carlotta returns, Ismael, and the film with him, falls off the rails. Gainsbourg’s fine performance as Sylvia is what moves the film while Amalric is allowed to take his commonly seen zany and neurotic qualities into overdrive. He goes mad, throwing the film into questionable territory.

Even as Ismael’s breakdown frustrates both his producer and his audience, there is much fun to be had in Ismael’s Ghosts. Small moments such as Cotillard’s Carlotta dancing along to Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe,” and Ismael’s imposed visit to Sylvia’s apartment after a first date are delicious. These are just two examples of the beautiful –and beautifully French – moments that pervade the feature. The overwhelming Frenchness of Ismael’s Ghosts perhaps makes it the perfect film to open the Cannes Film Festival. It may not be great, but it does showcase powerhouse performances from some of France’s best actors. Simultaneously, it works as a mildly successful journey into the mind of one of the country’s most talented working filmmakers. Ismael’s Ghosts may not break the string of sub-par films to open Cannes, but it is nevertheless a fun, though forgettable, entry in Desplechin’s oeuvre.

Welcome to Missed Connections, a weekly column where I get to highlight films that are little known and/or unfairly maligned. I’ll be shining a light in two directions — I hope to introduce you to movies you’ve never seen and possibly never heard of, and I’ll attempt to defend films that history, critical consensus, and maybe even your own memories haven’t been very kind to.

This week’s admittedly a stretch as it’s well known enough and most critics count themselves as fans, but it came to mind recently for another reason all together. The great Powers Boothe passed away last week, and among his many memorable performances in films like Tombstone and Frailty or television shows such as Deadwood sits a pair of movies with director Walter Hill. 1987’s Extreme Prejudice pits Boothe against Nick Nolte as a rough and tumble villain, but it’s the earlier film that gave him both his first co-lead role and what would become a rarity in his career, the opportunity to play the hero.

Southern Comfort takes place in the swamps of Louisiana in 1973, and it wastes no time on unnecessary setup. We’re introduced in quick order to a small group of National Guardsman heading into the wet woods on a weekend assignment, and before the opening credits have completed we’ve been told all we really need to know about each of them. Poole (Peter Coyote) and Casper (Les Lannom) are first and second in command, Reece (Fred Ward) is an aggressive wildcard, Stuckey (Lewis Smith) is a dimwit, Bowden (Alan Autry) is overly eager to the point of imbalance, and both Cribbs (TK Carter) and Simms (Franklyn Seales) are left wondering what they’ve done to deserve landing them in the middle of a swamp with a bunch of gung-ho white guys.

Standing apart from the fodder are two guardsmen, neither of whom are any more invested in their service than the rest of the gang. Spencer (Keith Carradine) is a likable wise-cracker whose promise of having arranged “ladies of the evening” for the weekend’s end leaves most of the men raring to go, while Hardin (Boothe) is the somewhat reluctant newcomer to the group. We get no great depth from any of the men, but each of their characters is made clear as efficiently as possible, and within just a few minutes the film’s simple and straightforward tale of survival explodes to life.

Lost after only a few hours in the swamps, they make the unwise decision of “borrowing” some boats they come across, and their foolishness is compounded when the crafts’ owners gather on the shoreline in silence. Rather than show a collective respect and words of apology, Stuckey fires off a burst of fire from his machine gun towards the men. They’re blanks – all of the guardsmen have been been issued the non-lethal ammo – but the men on the shore don’t take kindly to the act. One shot later and Poole’s head pops open from a rifle round sending the weekend warriors into panic mode and into the water.

From that point forward the film is a brutal tale of survival as the remaining men display both a misguided need for vengeance and a desperate desire for escape. A series of deaths follow as a result of guns, knives, spiked booby traps, and nature itself, and along the way the various character types clash and bond in expected and unexpected ways.

Testosterone and idiocy fuel behavior that leads to a few early demises while pure bad luck ends in a few others, but through the carnage Spencer and Hardin distinguish themselves as men who plan on surviving the weekend and getting back to their dull, every day lives. The latter, having already made his distaste for the Louisiana Guard, its members, and this unpleasant swamp known makes a promise to himself and the wife he has waiting for him back in Texas. “I don’t know how I’m gonna do it, but I’m gonna fight my way out of here.”

He and Spencer are the clear lead protagonists here, and it’s in their character baskets in which viewers will rest their eggs of interest and investment. They display common sense and reason even as the humid air around them fills with blood. Typically it would be a toss up between the two fast friends as to which would survive to see the outside the world again, but while Hill’s script (co-written by Michael Kane and David Giler) offers up some stereotypical fodder to the genre movie gods in the form of the rest of the unit Hardin and Spencer feel different. A respect grows between them, one built on attitude, intelligence, and a sense of humor, and even under the duress of a fast-moving action script the pair become fully-formed friends before our eyes. Credit for that is due to Hill’s camera and to the performances of both Boothe and Carradine, but it adds the pleasure of a “buddy” picture into the confines of a survival thriller.

Both characters capture our desire to see them survive, but Boothe’s Hardin is a special kind of joy. He begins the film already regretting the life decisions that have landed him here but grows increasingly angrier and more pissed off as the events unfold. Hardin is a man with a wife and a life back home, and he has little patience for the immaturity and recklessness on display from the others. His growing disgust with their antics leads to altercations both verbal and physical, and Boothe displays the cold, seemingly impossible mix of intensity and laid back demeanor that would become his trademark.

The swamp fills the screen with its beauty and possibility, but Hill and cinematographer Andrew Laszlo (who would return to a different wild a year later with First Blood) also ensure its menace grows before our eyes. Even in daylight the place becomes one of unease and insecurity as the possibility of death awaits around each turn and armed shadows move between the trees. The daytime nightmare is aided by the sounds of Ry Cooder‘s score adding to both the atmosphere and energy.

The only “bad guy” we meet really is a one-armed trapped (the always great Brion James) as the rest remain mostly faceless until the film’s third act. They’re given neither personalities nor backstories and instead become an amorphous enemy like the Indians of old westerns or interchangeable German and Japanese soldiers of World War II epics. That approach though is given a suspenseful spin late in the film when Hardin and Spencer arrive to the relative safety of a local community get-together. Families and children party and eat while the two men suspect their enemy hides in plain site, and the scene builds some strong suspense before erupting in more violence.

Southern Comfort remains an immensely satisfying and entertaining tale of survival despite its relative simplicity. Deadly threats and disposable characters are the norm, but we’re given the unusual bounty of two likable protagonists brought to life by talented, charismatic performers. I remember reading somewhere that the freeze-frame ending is meant to suggest an uncertainty as to the outcome – I can’t recall where though and may have made that up – but even if true it feels like just one more surmountable bump on the road to Hardin and Spencer’s friendship and the long lives they have ahead. I would have welcomed more pairings between Boothe and Carradine (Deadwood almost counts), but I’ll settle for their weekend together in the swamps of Louisiana.

Follow along every Monday with Missed Connections .

Buy Southern Comfort on Blu-ray/DVD from Amazon.

Wow, Bob, Wow! What a night!

I should be writing this as a film journalist, a film critic, film writer, whatever it is I am. But I’m not going to do that. I’m not sure I can. There’s plenty of that sort of thing out there today, anyway.

Instead I’m going to write this as what I’ve been long before I started this job and what I’ll still be long after I stop it: a bona fide, certified, verified Twin Peaks super-freak. And as such I gotta tell you, with all due respect to my family, friends, and ex-lovers, last night was the greatest two hours of my entire life.

If you saw it, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I mean, holy shit, right??? I’m not sure I ever had fully-formed expectations for this new season, but whatever half-developed thoughts I had floating around got blown out of the ether by what I saw. It’s been 10 years since David Lynch released a film, and apparently he’s been using that time to amplify everything that makes him him. We were taken to a world that felt the same but different, familiar but uncertain, and louder in parts, yes, but mostly more subtle, insidious, quiet like the sort you find before the most vicious of storms. This Twin Peaks is darker, more daring, more artful, more confounding, and more capital-L Lynch than anything he’s ever done, and if this is truly to be his last narrative effort as he has claimed, then it’s shaping up out of the gate to be the perfect culmination of an unparalleled career.

Seriously, I’m trembling as I type this, and not just because these first two episodes contained some of the most frightening moments I’ve ever experienced in front of a TV, but also because of how Lynch and his co-conspiring co-creator Mark Frost masterfully returned us physically and emotionally to the town of our collective nightmares. Much has changed in Twin Peaks. Much has not.

First and foremost, Twin Peaks isn’t just in Twin Peaks anymore. The premiere featured four oscillating storylines in four different locales: Twin Peaks, New York City, Buckhorn South Dakota, and Las Vegas. Before we delve into those, though, a few other points of interest.

There are, as expected, two Coops we’re contending with. The first we see, the good Dale, is still in The Black Lodge, but that sentence is coming to an end. More on that later. The second Coop, the doppelganger who escaped The Black Lodge in the season two finale, is in full-on BOB-mode, crappy long hair and all, and leading a trio of criminals in Buckhorn, two thugs and a moll. This is the same Coop who bashed his head into the mirror, the same Coop possessed by BOB, but we don’t learn the immediate consequences of his return, only that it’s been more than 24 years since “Agent Cooper” was seen by anyone in Twin Peaks.

By the way, we learn the above tidbit from the still-together and married-now couple of Deputy Andy and Lucy, whose son, Wally – adorkable – was born just before “Coop’s” disappearance. Given that Lucy was already a few months pregnant at season two’s end, we can infer bad Coop hung around town only a month or so.

Another interesting tidbit we learn from Lucy is that there are two Sheriff Trumans, “one sick and one fishing.” Presumably, the one who’s sick is Harry, and sick probably means really sick, as in incapacitated. I say this because one, we already know the actor who played Harry, Michael Ontkean, didn’t return to the cast, and two, because we already know that Robert Forster, who was offered the Sheriff’s role in Twin Peaks’ original run but had to pass, is playing Frank Truman, Harry’s older brother, who was introduced to fans in Mark Frost’s recent found-document novel The Secret History of Twin Peaks. Frank, a former high school football star and Green Beret in Vietnam, was Sheriff after his father and before Harry, then left Twin Peaks, vacating the office for his little brother. Though we don’t see him during the premiere, likely the story will be he came back to town and office once his younger brother took ill.

Speaking of returning characters, Ben Horne’s still running The Great Northern but his brother Jerry has left the hotel business for the far more lucrative legal weed industry Washington State enjoys. Jerry’s specific area of interest – bet you could have seen this coming – is edibles. Deputy Hawk is now Deputy Chief Hawk, and Margaret Lanterman – that’s right, The Log Lady – is still translating cryptic messages from her log. The message tonight, for Hawk: “Something is missing and you have to find it.” The first thing I thought about when this was said was Coop’s proclamation in season two that if he ever went missing, he hoped Hawk was the man they sent to find him. Seems like “they” might.

On an off-screen note, Catherine Coulson, the actress who played The Log Lady, died shortly after production began. We’re not sure yet if tonight was all we’ll see of her, but she was note-perfect. The episode is dedicated to both her and Frank Silva, the actor who played BOB, who passed in 1995.

Back to those other locales: We’ve talked about Twin Peaks, and we’ve danced a little with the South Dakota storyline. Vegas we saw in only a single scene in a single office in which a Mr. Todd, played by Mulholland Drive’s Patrick Fischler, gives an errand boy some cash and makes some cryptic comments about his boss, who sounds BOB-level evil. All this is fascinating, if sinister, but by far the most intriguing new note in this discordant symphony is the New York City storyline. In a protected loft in a skyrise, a young attendant watches a glass cube that’s also monitored by various cameras. It’s obvious he’s waiting for something to manifest in the cube, and when it does – during a lovemaking session with his lady-friend – we get the night’s most frightening sequence as the cube goes black, a faceless, blurred being appears inside then breaches the cube and slashes the young lovers apart. I had a real Se7en moment when this was happening, screaming/crying “What’s in the box? What’s in the boxxxxx?” at my TV. Later, we see good Coop manifest in the same cube, but moments before the attack. The connection? Ha! It’s only the first episode, there are no connections here, only dangling carrots. But we do know from the young attendant that the space and the cube is owned by an unnamed billionaire. I’ll bet you dollars to donuts right now that billionaire is Audrey Horne.

In South Dakota there’s been a vicious murder. A woman’s head is found in bed with a man’s body. Only one other set of fingerprints is found in the room, belonging to the local high school principal, Bill Hastings (played by Matthew Lillard). Bill’s having an affair with the dead woman, see, but says he didn’t kill her. He does, however, cop to having a dream about killing her. If we know anything about Twin Peaks, it’s that dreams are never dreams. Hastings has more than a few shades of Leland Palmer to him, which makes us wonder if Buckhorn is where “it is happening again,” especially since bad Coop and crew are there, or at least his crew is until Coop kills them all for double-crossing him. The last to live is Darla, who’s name Coop keeps saying, at least as I heard it, as “Diane.” Coop is seeking some kind of information pertaining to a symbol he shows Darla on an ace of spades. You might have noticed this symbol looks a lot like a bloated version of the old Black Lodge symbol. And this info he’s seeking, it might be in the possession of Ben Horne; when Coop asks one of his cohorts for an update, the fella mentions he’s got an in with the source’s new secretary. Earlier in the episode we met Ben Horne’s new secretary, Beverly, played by Ashley Judd; given the actress’ star quality and the fact that otherwise the Horne scene has no real purpose other than updating characters, expect Bev to be more than just a secretary, kind of like Jones was to Thomas Eckhardt in the original series.

While in Buckhorn bad Coop also murders Hastings’ wife with a shot through the eye, the same wound our body-less victim boasted. Coop/BOB kills different than Leland/BOB; the latter was manic and demonstrative, flamboyant almost, while the former is cold and calm, more seasoned, less personable, and in turn somehow even fucking scarier. The wig MacLachlan is wearing helps. I honestly thought it was Michael Madsen the first time I saw him.

A few more interesting things about bad Coop: he still uses a handheld recording device, this one digital of course; he’s got another Gal Friday, Chantal, and not only do we actually get to see her, she’s played by Jennifer Jason Leigh; and lastly, when he’s done with Darla, he makes a call, one he thinks is to Phillip Jeffries – the missing agent played by David Bowie in Fire Walk With Me – but who isn’t Phillip Jeffries, and who knows about bad Coop’s meeting with Major Garland Briggs. Several things jump out here: one, why is bad Coop talking with Jeffries, who hasn’t been seen since a year before Laura Palmer was murdered? Two, why is bad Coop meeting with Briggs, who was an agent of The White Lodge? Three, who’s he actually talking to? Bowie was supposed to reprise his role in the new season but passed just before shooting began, and Don Davis, who played Major Briggs, passed more than a decade ago, so how their questions get answered is anyone’s guess. All we do know is that the person on the other end of Coop’s call seems to be in a prison elsewhere in South Dakota, a prison bad Coop downloads the schematics of onto his recording device.

As for good Coop, back in The Black Lodge Mike the one-armed man tells him he’s free to leave and Laura Palmer herself sends him off with a kiss and a whisper, just like she did in the original series. Only this time, we see Coop’s reaction to what she whispers, and it seems downright fearful. As he starts to leave, passing a white horse like those seen in the old series by Sarah Palmer in visions, Coop is told the condition of his freedom: his doppelganger must come back before he can leave. Telling him this? “The evolution of the arm,” a.k.a. “the Man From Another Place,” that little guy in the red suit from the original series. He is Mike’s amputated arm, and now he’s a tree with a faceless, fleshy strobe light for a skull. The quirk is gone from the character and now it’s pure nightmare fuel.

Fun fact: the arm likely evolved because Michael Anderson, the actor who played the Man From Another Place, is a grade-A asshole who’s accused Lynch of some truly unseemly and insane things over the years. Good riddance.

Coop starts his rough transition out of The Black Lodge, but only after bumping into Leland, who tells him to “find Laura.” Whatever the hell that means.

A few more familiar faces close out the episode, including Madchen Amick’s Shelly, James Marshall’s James, and Sarah Palmer herself, Grace Zabriskie. Shelly mentions a daughter, presumably by Bobby Briggs, named Becky (who I bet is played by Amanda Seyfried), and we also learn from her that James was in a motorcycle accident of some significance. This struck me as odd, Shelly talking up James, especially when she defends him to other women by saying he was “always cool.” I searched my brain and I can’t think of a single verbal interaction between Shelly and James in the original series, not even so much as a “Hello;” did they become better friends in the interim? More than friends? And why is Balthazar Getty making eyes at Shelly across The Road House? Time will tell (or it won’t, this is Twin Peaks). And if you paid real close attention, you might have noticed there’s a guy who looks an awful lot like Jacques Renault tending bar at The Road House. Only that’s impossible, right, because Jacques was smothered by Leland in the original series. Explanation? Same actor, different Renault. In the credits Walter Olkewicz, the actor, is billed as Jean-Michel Renault, the heretofore unknown fourth Renault brother.

So when all the strobing stops and the smoke settles, we have our basic set-up for the new series: good Coop has to get bad Coop back in The Black Lodge to get free, but bad Coop knows this and “has a plan.” What that plan has to do with Chantal, Bill Hastings, the glass cube and its billionaire, the mystery men in Vegas, and of course the folks of Twin Peaks, only the devil and David Lynch know.

As for us, we know this much: something truly wonderful and strange began last night, and like it did before, Twin Peaks seems poised to forever alter visual storytelling.

Peak TV has come home.

For this week’s After the Credits review, Matthew welcomes on Birth.Movies.Death‘s Scott Wampler to talk about Ridley Scott’s bleak, Michael Fassbender-dominant Alien: Covenant. They discuss their expectations going into the film, including what they know about Covenant and what they expect based on Prometheus. Then they come back after seeing the film and dig deep into spoilers for Ridley Scott’s latest film. Is it a good Prometheus sequel? A good Alien prequel? Is it even a good horror movie? These questions and more, answered.

Listen to the episode below:

Follow host Matthew Monagle (@labsplice) and guest Scott Wampler (@ScottWamplerBMD) on Twitter.

Subscribe to One Perfect Pod wherever you get your podcasts and don’t forget to leave us a rating and review. It helps others discover our channel. As always, follow @OnePerfectShot on Twitter for all the latest happenings in the world of film.

The new prequel sequel posted the fourth best opening of the franchise.

It sounds worse than it is to report Alien: Covenant opened lower —estimated at $36M—than both Prometheus ($51M, or $56M adjusted for inflation) and Alien vs. Predator ($38M, or $55M adjusted for inflation). Technically, with inflation adjustment, the new prequel is also posting a debut that’s smaller than Alien 3‘s ($19M, or $41M adjusted for inflation).

Opening numbers reflect the excitement for a movie and not its overall success or appreciation, and those top three Alien installments were very big moments for the franchise in terms of fanticipation. And each was met with a level of disappointment, so the follow-ups to each, Covenant now included, were not as enticing to moviegoers.

Fortunately for the franchise, which has plans for at least two more prequels (totaling four films set before 1979’s Alien, which makes sense for the series that popularized the term “quadrilogy”), Covenant was also cheaper to make than Prometheus and its worldwide gross is already higher than its budget (reportedly a smidgen under $100M).

Just as it is here, Covenant is underperforming compared to its predecessor in most territories, though it’s actually doing better in many Asian markets. Even with an opening weekend gross on the low end of box office projections, especially those made after it earned an impressive but ultimately front-loaded $4M on Thursday night, there’s no reason for Fox to be concerned.

For those who did go see the prequel sequel over the weekend, reception has been similar to that of Prometheus. Both movies earned a ‘B’ grade through Cinemscore polling, and their review aggregate scores on Rotten Tomatoes are exactly the same at 72% —the average rating was higher for Prometheus, however.

Overall buzz seems to be that people either really love Covenant or downright loathe it. How many fans of the franchise can truly give up on the series, though? Especially as it gets closer to forming a direct link to the original movie, possibly even with an appearance from a digitally de-aged Sigourney Weaver back in the role of Ripley.

Even if the next installment still isn’t up to Prometheus levels on its opening weekend, that fourth one should bring everyone back into the theaters, out of urgent curiosity for how it will all connect.

When it comes to prequel film series, though, its hard to predict interest far in advance because there’s no consistency among them all. Star Wars prequel openings were each bigger than the one before, despite the dissatisfaction with The Phantom Menace. Star Trek reboot and The Hobbit openings, meanwhile, dropped with each installment.

Non-spinoff X-Men openings since the main series went back in time with First Class have been up and down. The first and third are among the franchise’s worst bows, while the second compared fairly well to its best. No matter what, Fox will never stop making them, either.

Planet of the Apes, which sort of counts and is another Fox franchise, has so far been on the incline, but early predictions for the upcoming War for the Planet of the Apes have it opening lower than the other two.

Depending on what it offers, the next Alien might continue the decline or see a jump in anticipation. But it’s hard to imagine how much more story there is between Covenant and the first Alien. At the end of the new movie, we know that the colony ship with its 2,000 hibernating inhabitants is pretty much doomed. Could we see a movie entirely set on the Covenant as the aliens tear through so many bodies? Would such a sequel have Katherine Waterston’s Daniels dead from the start or returning for more action as she battles both Xenomorphs and Michael Fassbender’s bad robot, David?

More of the familiar seemed to be both an appealing factor and a repellant for moviegoers, depending on what they want from this franchise, so a more centralized cat and mouse game, whether more haunted house oriented or action heavy (are some of those colonists military?) could be key for at least keeping the former group on board.

Two things the Alien prequels will continue to have, as far as we’re certain, are Fassbender and director Ridley Scott, both of whom should keep its audience intrigued — especially if there are somehow even more Fassbenders on screen at once going forward. And the franchise brand name will always provide some fuel.

To compare to another franchise, Covenant opened slightly bigger than Terminator Genisys, a movie that brought back star Arnold Schwarzenegger and still seemed to kill its franchise with its disappointing box office. That is until just this morning we reported that the Terminator series is in fact continuing with original director James Cameron on board as a producer. There’s just no death to some of these properties.

The best of the season’s offerings in one succinct supercut.

May is in full swing and with it the Summer Movie Season is ready to bloom like a big, bright flower and spread its pollen all over the box office. We’ve got apes waging war, men dressed like spiders saving the day, a Rock on the beach, a wondrous woman, Harry Styles in uniform, pirates making a comeback, mummies making a comeback, Edgar Wright making a comeback (!!!!!!!!!), Marky Mark fighting robots, James Gunn and Luc Besson pushing the parameters of sci-fi, dark towers rising, and aliens landing.

It’s going to be one hell of a summer, that’s for sure, and to help you keep up with all of it, check out this visual preview edited by Amon Warmann that hits all the high notes in perfect pitch. Then, for a more verbal account of everything you should be looking forward to in the coming months, check out FSR boss Neil Miller’s podcast with /Film editor Peter Sciretta and our own Jamie Righetti that delves into all the delicious details.

Once you’ve checked them both out, hit up our Twitter and let us know what films you’re chomping at the bit to sink your eyes into. Around here, we’re all tied up in knots waiting for Alien: Covenant, It Comes at Night, and – duh – Baby Driver. Let us know where you stand.

We talk to a film festival programmer about the ups and downs of the recent Netflix boom.

Netflix is changing the game on how films are distributed. They made huge waves at Sundance this year when they scooped up over fourteen titles from the Sundance film festival. Many of these titles will never see a theatrical release and will just be a Netflix Original that graces the search engine on a new Friday. The big issue here is that many of these smaller festival films would traditionally have a lengthy run throughout regional film festivals to build that old magical marketing known as word of mouth. Netflix doesn’t see any reason to promote their acquisitions, especially when the release window occurs within weeks, not months of the debut of these features.

Why exactly is this bad news? Shouldn’t films being released from prodigious film festivals like Sundance and Cannes on an accelerated schedule never seen before be a wonderful thing? Beyond supporting regional film festivals with material to grace their screens, would smaller festival films like The Artist or Moonlight ever have gotten the attention they built without lengthy festival runs? Certainly, the journey from Telluride, Toronto, or New York film festivals have more prominence than smaller regional festivals, but word of mouth is a valuable marketing tool for many of these films that don’t have big name actors and marketing budgets behind them.

Mudbound, Netflix

The feeling I got from the Boston Movie Festival circuit was one of frustration. Area film festivals such as the Boston Underground Film Festival (that specializes in genre fare) and the Independent Film Festival Boston had limited selections available for them to program. A quick glance over to a film festival like The Overlook Film Festival or Chicago Critics Film Festival and you begin to see very similar programs. A studio like A24 seems to understand the relationship of film festivals to a successful film, seeing how they were the ones that distributed Moonlight. They provided Overlook Film Festival and Chicago Critics Film Festival with regional premieres of two of their biggest summer titles with A Ghost Story and It Comes At Night. Beyond that though, everyone is running the same films because the selection is fewer than ever before thanks to Netflix. There are no questions about the power and influence Netflix has over the movie industry in 2017, hopefully, they work with film festivals to bring attention to their releases instead of releasing them unceremoniously on their streaming service.

I had the opportunity to talk with Brian Tallerico, Producer of the Chicago Critics Film Festival, about the difficulties they faced when programming films this year. (The Overlook Film Festival declined to comment). 

Did you find 2017 film festival harder to program for than in years past?

Yes. But it’s maybe not in the way you think. It’s because the window from the festivals from which we get most of our programs to our festival has shrunk. The Grand Jury Prize winner from Sundance was never something we could consider because it premiered on Netflix the next month. When we started this five years ago, VERY few films that played Sundance were off the table by our May festival but that seems to be changing. Even SXSW had the issue with Win It All and Small Crimes dropping before our fest, which was less than two months later. We’re incredibly happy to have a Netflix film in our lineup this year but they’re definitely changing the game by adjusting windows more than anything and that has made programmers have to adjust.

Is Netflix the biggest problem or is Amazon also an issue?

It’s mostly Netflix but Amazon has definitely impacted the scene.

How important is the film festival circuit to an indie film’s success (in your opinion)?

Huge. Festivals build buzz for films and maintain a sense of community among film lovers that is the fuel for the independent film scene as a whole.

What studios still understand how valuable a resource this can be?

A24 above all others, and, yes, that’s because I’m biased in that they’ve given us major films every single year we’ve been in existence, including titles as big as Obvious Child, The End of the Tour, and A Ghost Story. From the beginning, they understood our purpose: trying to build buzz for movies we love. Others who have been essential partners include Magnolia, IFC, Fox Searchlight, GKids, and more. We’re happy to be working already with new companies Neon and Gunpowder & Sky too.

Is genre fare harder to program than others because even that market is being bought?

That’s interesting. I might argue that genre fare is harder because of the really good ones – It Comes at Night, The Witch, It Follows – are getting national releases and can be harder for a small fest to get, but I’d have to think about how Netflix has impacted the genre fest market. It doesn’t seem to be hurting things like Overlook or Fantasia Fest at all.

The film going experience is important. Many of the films bought by Netflix will never be shown in theaters. Do you believe film festivals are more vital than ever?

Undeniably. It’s not just the ability to see a film on the big screen but to interact with fellow film lovers and often the people who made the films. There’s a community angle to the best film festivals that can’t be replicated at home.

How exactly to you fix a problem like Maria…Netflix?

You don’t. I happen to think they’ll pull back on the throttle a bit when it comes to the weekly premieres/pick-ups rate we’ve seen lately but they’re not going anywhere. It’s like asking how you fix a problem like Facebook or Twitter. You may hate them but they are a part of the dynamic now in the film world, including festivals, and working with them and supporting what they do well is key: exposure for films that wouldn’t otherwise play anywhere near most people.

While Yorgos Lanthimos’s second English language film can’t quite match The Lobster in several regards, it still paints Lanthimos as one of the most promising and distinctive auteurs working in film today.

After a snippet of Schubert’s Stabat Mater against a dark screen, The Killing of a Sacred Deer opens with a close-up of a human heart, exposed in the final stages of surgery. This first shot is incredibly indicative of the film that follows: precise and invasive, graphic yet sterile, unapologetically clinical, and arguably difficult to watch. The dialogue that ensues soon after between Farrell’s Steven Murphy, a cardiologist, and his anesthesiologist and friend, Matthew (Bill Camp), lets viewers familiar with Lanthimos’s work know that they are getting exactly what they signed up for, while certainly leaving those unfamiliar wondering why the hell everyone is talking like a socially awkward automaton (you do get used to it, believe it or not). Steven and Matthew talk about their watches, specifically their watch straps. Matthew prefers leather, while Steven strongly favors metal. As is typical of Lanthimos’s work, it seems equally possible that this discussion is a metaphor for something much deeper than watch straps, or that it truly is just a discussion about watch design. Story wise, Sacred Deer is in much more familiar territory than The Lobster–though no less unsettling for being somewhat less off-the-wall. There is admirable innovation in Sacred Deer, but it is a matter of approach more than content.

Sacred Deer is quick to reveal the strange friendship between Steven and sixteen-year-old Martin (Barry Keoghan), but takes quite longer to reveal its significant origins, which quickly begin to spell trouble for Steven and his seemingly perfect family, composed of his ophthalmologist wife Anna (Nicole Kidman), daughter Kim (Raffey Cassidy), and son Bob (Sunny Suljic). In most other hands, the raw materials of the story would very likely be shaped into either melodrama or bona fide horror. Lanthimos dabbles into the latter at times, making perhaps a little too good use of a screeching score that heightens an awareness of the physical pain depicted on screen through inspiring strong physical discomfort in the viewers themselves. He steers well clear of the former, though, usually letting moments of icy quietness reign supreme overheated emotional explosions. Perhaps even more so than The Lobster, Sacred Deer steers clear of making appeals to the viewer’s heart, though this film provided far more potential occasions to do so.

There is no doubt that many will dislike the film for its coldness, but it does serve a purpose. Leaving the most affecting emotions at the door enables Sacred Deer, like Lanthimos’s earlier films, with more room to engage with the viewer intellectually. However, this latest film does not have the obvious universality of The Lobster (after all, literally everybody can relate to the difficulties of being and/or not being in a relationship), which, in conjunction with its artfully maintained emotional distance, gives the film a decided sense of emptiness.

Overall, Sacred Deer does not match many of The Lobster‘s greatest strengths, but it perhaps, more importantly, does not share The Lobster’s greatest weakness: consistency. For many viewers, The Lobster was more like two films than one; a more or less universally acclaimed dark satire and then a slow drama that received a much more mixed reception. Love or hate it, Sacred Deer is very much a consistently paced, plotted, and styled film.

For this reason, while Sacred Deer is not Lanthimos’s strongest film to date, it displays an increased consistency and stylistic confidence that paints a promising picture of Lanthimos’s future. The Lobster was one of the unique releases of last year (or 2015, depending on where you live); Sacred Deer assures that Lanthimos is well on his way to becoming one of the most distinct and stylistically identifiable directors working today.

How the director tells serious stories with a sense of wonder.

If ever there was a word to describe the kind of atmosphere a Wes Anderson movie emits, that word without a doubt would have to be “whimsy.”

“Playfully quaint” is in part how Webster’s defines “whimsy,” and that might as well be a quote from an esteemed critic geared towards any of Anderson’s films. His characters and the worlds in which they live are slight exaggerations of our own, part reality and part absurdity, comedic and tragic alike. Team this with the obvious artifice of the characters’ costuming and the general production design, and you get films that are almost more theatrical than they are cinematic, stories that come with their structures exposed and ingrained into the narrative.

In particular, though, the whimsy of Wes Anderson and indeed the obvious artifice of his cinema take on a decidedly childish slant, and that’s meant to be a compliment. Despite his mature content – his films have dealt with robbery, murder, deceit, divorce, willful destruction of property, suicide, unrequited love, much death, and all shades of ennui – there is always a child-like filter over the narrative, an air of wonder and novelty that seems eager to learn, to experience, and thus imbues the film with a buoyancy that counters the more serious themes.

In the following essay from Phillip Brubaker made for the fine folks over at Fandor, just how the director creates this atmosphere, aesthetically in particular. It comes down to pairing imagery with theme, and as Brubaker deftly illustrates, Anderson’s a master.

A fan film of epic proportions.

Get ready to start angry-tweeting me: I’ve never seen a lick of Game of Thrones, not a single episode. It’s not an intentional oversight, I’m not willfully ignoring the biggest thing to hit TV in the last decade, it’s just one of those shows that has hovered around the three-slot on my series-to-see list, but one and two keep turning over thanks to the onslaught of great television out there right now, so I never get to it. Admittedly fantasy isn’t my favorite genre, and dragons leave me a little blah, but I’m not so stuck up the ass of my own preferences that I can’t recognize the series’ greatness and appreciate the need to experience it.

All this is to say, I’m about to introduce a short film whose quality and articulation I found to be exceptional, though I’m going to describe it using a lot of words I don’t know. If you are a fan of the show, however, all this should make perfect, intriguing sense.

Written, directed and produced by Irish film students Shane Gibson and Ciaran McIlhatton, the film is called The Wild Wolf and it centers on the character of Brandon Stark, relative of Lyanna and Ned, and his duel with Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish for the hand of fair Catelyn Tully, all of which is a predecessor to Robert’s Rebellion. Clocking in at 16 minutes, it’s full of exquisite – and I assume faithfully-accurate – production design, and the performances, led by Gibson himself as Stark, are top-notch. If this is the kind of storytelling the series boasts, I need to reevaluate that list of mine.

So even though I’ve never seen any Game of Thrones, and even though owing to that deficit I personally was lost at moments, I can’t deny the appeal and excellence of The Wild Wolf from both a narrative and a technical perspective. And if I can enjoy the film as much as I did, imagine the level of enjoyment if you’re a die-hard Game of Thrones fan.

It’s been a tough week and it’s only Tuesday.

It’s often easy, as someone who blogs about pop culture for a living, to miss other news initially. Inside the rabbit hole of op-eds about science fiction and video essays about cinematography, we don’t often keep CNN running in the background. But there are days in which the world’s news overwhelms us. It’s easy to see, as the editor of such a publication, when the weight of the world begins to push down. Our contributors are a little slower to respond when asked about their upcoming, they’re often at a loss for ideas, and our team Slack is quieter than normal. It’s how you know that there’s just something about today that feels heavier. The usual joy of putting words to the appreciation of art begins to wane.

The last 48-hours have been fairly tumultuous. The terrorist attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester was horrific. Inside the world of film, we also learned with heavy hearts of what director Zack Snyder’s family has been going through since his daughter died in March. And this morning, we learned that Roger Moore, iconic actor and ambassador for children around the world, passed away at age 89. And Vanity Fair released a set of Star Wars: The Last Jedi covers that included this one:

These losses are not equal in their scope and sadness, but in the aggregate, it’s not hard to see how it feels as if we’re being collectively punched in the chest. Life is like that, sometimes. It doesn’t adhere to our emotional schedule. What I can say is this: it’s okay to feel these losses and recognize in each situation our own humanity. It’s also important to be respectful of those we’ve lost. Yesterday, I was disheartened by some of the response I saw to the Zack Snyder story on Twitter. There were people out there openly celebrating the fact that Snyder had been forced to hand the reigns of Justice League off to Joss Whedon. Have I been openly critical of Snyder’s vision for the DCEU? Yes. But no one with a beating human heart would ever wish something so tragic upon another person. We love movies. They are important. But our discussion of movies doesn’t trump our humanity. Our thoughts go out to Zack Snyder’s family, and the families of those who lost loved ones in Manchester, and Roger Moore’s family, and James Bond fans everywhere, and everyone who feels the weight of the world today.

If it seems like we’re a little slow today, it’s because we’re taking a moment to allow our thoughts to be everywhere, so that we may recharge and refocus on doing what we love and (hopefully) providing others a needed distraction in the form of pop culture discussion in the future.

Today in Pop Culture History

Drew Carey turns 59 today. His show, The Drew Carey Show, was a point of pride for those who (like me) grew up in the Greater Cleveland area. Moon over Parma, indeed.

On this day in 1984, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom opened in the US.

At Cannes on this day in 1994, Quentin Tarantino presided over the premiere of his film Pulp Fiction, which would go on to win the coveted Palme d’Or.

What You Need to Know Today

Mel Brooks has confirmed that he’s talking to MGM about possibly doing another Spaceballs movie. We’re for it.

Nü Spider-Man Tom Holland has already booked his next franchise gig, as he’ll play young Nathan Drake in the upcoming Uncharted video game adaptation for director Shawn Levy.

Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures inked a deal this week with eOne to further distribute its films around the globe. This is a little Hollywood insidery for our taste, but here’s what’s important: Megan Ellison continues to take over the world of film and we’re here for it.

ICYMI

Ciara Wardlow checked in from Cannes with a review of Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer, his follow-up to The Lobster.

H. Perry Horton, our resident Twin Peaks expert, shook down Sunday night’s premiere and sifted through the shocks, revelations, and questions from David Lynch’s return to TV.

Jacob Oller somehow got a headline with the phrase “clone-boning” through our editorial process. We’re going to have to revisit our standards one of these days. Maybe.

Shot of the Day

In loving memory of Sir Roger Moore…

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (1974) DP: Ted Moore & Oswald Morris | Dir: Guy Hamilton pic.twitter.com/ZtmIwa77YM

— One Perfect Shot (@OnePerfectShot) May 20, 2017

More than an action, it’s an emotion.

There’s something so cinematic about driving at night. It’s the balance between darkness and light, the encroaching black all around you pierced by the headlight beams, the traffic lights, the streetlights, the glints of neon in the buildings and business you pass. Nightdriving is simultaneously serene and sinister, it’s a reflection of a haunted mind, a restless spirit, and a troubled soul. Travis Bickle, Lou Bloom, The Driver, nightdrivers one and all.

In this montage from Aletranco – a debut montage, at that – the best bits of nightdriving from films like Drive, Taxi Driver, Nightcrawler, Nocturnal Animals, The Big Lebowski and others have been cinematically sewn together into a graceful and ominously contemplative stream of conflicted consciousness. The result will make you want to grab your keys and set out on a twilight sojourn of your own.

Less than two months after the ‘Final Chapter’ hit theaters, producers have already announced plans for a six-film reboot.

When Resident Evil: The Final Chapter bowed from theaters on March 31 of this year, audiences said goodbye to one of the odder success stories in recent history. Spanning six movies over fifteen — that’s one-five, folks — years, the Resident Evil series has walked the line between domestic flop and international blockbuster and walked it well, grossing about $271 million at home and more than $1.2 billion worldwide.

It should come as no surprise, then, that German production company Constantin Films is looking to immediately reanimate the franchise’s corpse, announcing a new six-film franchise at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and tapping horror icon James Wan to serve as the executive producer for the films.

It might seem kind of foolish (or ghoulish) to push another franchise into the world before the corpse of the original has cooled, but fans have reacted to this news with a surprising amount of optimism. The phrase “faithful adaptation” doesn’t exactly come to mind with Paul W.S. Anderson’s films; poke around the Resident Evil corners of the internet, and you can already find people expressing relief that the contentious director will no longer be involved and fan casting their perfect adaptation of the popular video games. The only problem? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and there’s a lot of not-broke going on with the way Resident Evil currently sits.

The Resident Evil franchise has always been one of my favorite Hollywood curiosities. Willed into existence by the husband and wife team of Anderson and star Milla Jovovich, the series abandoned the storyline of the games it was based on almost immediately, choosing instead to be a vehicle for Jovovich’s blossoming career as an action star and Anderson’s alt-rock blockbuster aesthetic.

Anderson himself has long been a contentious figure in film circles. While movies like Soldier and Event Horizon have picked up a cult following in the years since their release, his biggest impact on film culture can be felt in the short-lived “vulgar auteurism” debate, itself an alt-rock adaptation of the popular mode of film criticism. There’s a hidden art to loud movies, the line of thinking goes, and nobody makes movies louder than Newcastle’s native son.

It’s fair to say that the Resident Evil films are more a W.S. Anderson joint than anything else these days, and that fact has not been lost on the critics sent to review them. No single film in the Resident Evil franchise has scored higher than 35% on RottenTomatoes; despite this, Resident Evil has grown into one of the stealthier blockbuster franchises of the last seven years. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, the poorest domestic performer to date, still managed to gross over $300 million worldwide against a budget of $40 million dollars. Resident Evil: Retribution picked up $240 million at a $65 price tag; Resident Evil: Afterlife made $300 million on a $60 million investment. These three films have been especially effective outside of the United States, too, earning an average of 84.6% of their gross on the international market.

But the games themselves have never been just one thing. The most recent entry in the genre, Resident Evil: Biohazard  — sort of an inside-baseball joke, since the franchise goes under the name Biohazard in Japan — subverted many of the elements that made the others popular by switching to the first-person perspective and angling more for a Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibe than the action-horror hybrid the series has become. Pick the elements you want from the games you like and you can justify pitching a Resident Evil film as a new World War Z, Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, or even a horror-themed riff on The Matrix, giving Wan and his team a pretty wide degree of latitude in what sort of franchise they’d like to make.

And while Wan might be an obvious choice to serve as cinematic showrunner for a new Resident Evil series — few filmmakers movie between authentic horror films and six-figure blockbusters as efficiently as he does — that doesn’t mean he’s not the right man for the role. Wan has smartly found ways to spin The Conjuring off into a handful of horror franchises focusing on the Warren family and their supernatural cases; outside of the Universal Monsters, it’s the closest thing the horror genre has ever had to a sustained cinematic universe. Financial success followed, too. For a combined total of $66.5 million, Wan’s three Conjuring films have grossed $895 million worldwide.

That should give Resident Evil fans some small reason for hope. If early attendance numbers are to be believed, Hollywood is in for a pretty rough summer, one where the first installments of two hopeful blockbuster franchises — King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword and Ghost in the Shell — both collapsed moments after leaving the gate. Setting aside the question of whether any movie should announce a sequel, let alone five, before the first one has even been made, if anyone can find a way to weave the Resident Evil movies into something cohesive and engaging, it’s James Wan. Love him or hate him, Paul W.S. Anderson took the giant sandbox that the Resident Evil games offered him and found his way to a billion dollars at the global box office. Imagine the success that could follow if the next franchise is, well, you know. Good.

Whatever you think of the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise, it’s been directed by some great talents.

Fifteen years ago, everyone thought the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was a joke. Disney was adapting a ride from its theme parks, one involving pirates, which up until were then notorious flop fodder. But it wound up being extremely popular, one of the top three movies of 2003, well-received by critics, and Oscar-nominated not just in technical categories but also for Johnny Depp as Best Actor. A lot of that achievement is thanks to director Gore Verbinski, a versatile filmmaker who went on to helm the first two sequels, each of which made more money than one before it.

Then Rob Marshall took over for the fourth installment. Mostly associated with musicals, including the Best Picture of 2002, Chicago, Marshall seemed ill-fit for the franchise but although his entry is the worst-reviewed, it’s nearly tied for highest-grossing worldwide. And now we’ve got Norwegian filmmakers Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg at the helm of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Early reactions have called their sequel the best since the original, a return to what we all enjoyed that first time around. With their fifth installment, the franchise is set to sail past the $4B mark in total global gross.

Regardless of what you think of the quality of the franchise, though, all four directors are very talented and have made more acclaimed works outside of their Pirates entries. In fact, they’re all Oscar nominees — Marshall for directing Chicago, Ronning and Sandberg for Best Foreign Language Film with Kon-Tiki, and Verbinski, who actually won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature with Rango. Their advice to other filmmakers certainly isn’t something to shrug off, which is why we’ve collected six tips from the lot of them, with each director represented once for every installment they worked on.

1. ABS: Always. Be. Shooting.

Early this year, Verbinski took part in a Reddit AMA to promote his latest, A Cure for Wellness, and he was asked to share any “techniques or lessons” he’s learned. His answer:

I would say my one piece of advice would just to always be shooting. Just ‘ABS’, as we say. There’s no reason not to. You’re never going to have the perfect set of circumstances. You’re never going to be in an ideal situation with the right script or the right cast or the right budget, so you might as well get used to it. Grab your phone, grab your friends, tell a story, chuck it in the trash, tell another one. Chuck it in the trash if you don’t like it. If you like it, put it out there. Just that waiting and thinking that you’re waiting for some sort of conduit or some access point to become a filmmaker. You are a filmmaker. Just take that to heart.

2. No Egg McMuffins

Somewhat related to the above advice, in an Ain’t It Cool News interview posted one day later, Verbinski implies that filmmakers shouldn’t be too picky but they also shouldn’t play it safe. Acknowledging the diversity of his filmography, he says to take chances:

You have to approach every movie like it’s your last. I think that boundary of “I’m not sure” is a great place to be, pushing right up against that seam of the unknown. A Pirate movie is not supposed to work. That’s great, let’s do it! “Have you ever made an animated movie?” “No, don’t know how. Let’s do it!” The gig is gonna be up someday, so why not just go for it?…I mean, I like an Egg McMuffin, but I don’t want to make one.

3. Don’t Ask for Permission

Speaking of taking chances, Verbinski would say not to let anyone keep you from doing so. During a keynote address to game makers at the 2008 DICE Summit, he recalled having to defend Johnny Depp’s characterization of Captain Jack Sparrow to Disney during the making of the first Pirates movie and used the anecdote to offer the crowd this creative advice (quotes via The Escapist and Wired):

The trick is to not ask for permission…You are willing something into being. You do not ask for permission…Our audience wants us to surprise them. They demand it of us. When they see something that’s new, they will champion it because they discovered it

A few years later, while promoting Rango in an interview for DIY magazine Verbinski reiterated when asked about any studio push back:

I just don’t ask for permission. I grew up in the time of Old Yeller, the Wicked Witch of the West. I don’t know when we decided that drama had to fit in a Happy Meal box. I think kids can handle a lot more than we realize — we constantly underestimate our children. We made the movie for the child in all of us. I expected them to squirm a little bit during the existential crisis of the character, but they were quite mesmerized.

A split-screen montage of life and art.

At the conclusion of La La Land, Damien Chazelle shows us a rich fantasy sequence that corrects the missed opportunities of the film. It’s a complete refusal of the film’s events until then, one that turns Los Angeles into a dream factory where Mia’s climb to creative success isn’t impeded or hindered, and neither is her relationship with Sebastian.

It’s a sequence that challenges the notion of success, because while in reality Mia has fulfilled her creative aspirations, she’s lost something along the way – Sebastian – and this sequence is her way of demurely lamenting what might have been if only this city of stars had aligned for the two of them not just professionally, but personally.

This discrepancy, between fantasy and reality, is the subject of the following comparative, split-screen supercut from Tobie, an editor and filmmaker who has taken scenes from Chazelle’s final sequence and paired them with their “real versions” from earlier in the film. It’s a comparison of vibrancy and dullness, kineticism and potential, and life and love, and there’s no question which version of events Mia would prefer, but life, ultimately, isn’t about one’s preferences, it’s about reconciling them with what you can actually achieve.

As you watch, note not just the narrative and thematic differences between the two realms, but also the technical aspects Chazelle employs to distinguish them: color filters, framing, pacing, and action versus inertia.

“Kant said human reason is troubled by questions that it cannot dismiss, but also cannot answer. Okay, so what are we talking about here? Morality? Choice? The randomness of life? Murder?” – Abe Lucas, Irrational Man

Depending on whom one is talking to, the name Woody Allen might provoke either a warm glow of cinematic nostalgia or a cold shudder of moral disdain. Allen’s alleged abuse of his stepdaughter Dylan Farrow, along with his well-attested predilection for far younger women, has tainted his reputation for many and given pause even to ardent fans. But part of what makes the moral conundrums of Woody Allen so lurid is that the director seems to be working them out, year after year, in the plots of his films. No other filmmaker has provided so complete (and, at times, heavy-handed) a record of their evolving ethical preoccupations, nor invited such ready comparison between their work and personal life. To detractors, each romantic pairing between Allen (or one of his surrogates) and a younger female co-star amounts to a kind of dare, a willful flouting of bourgeois morality.

In keeping with both journalistic objectivity and the present state of the evidence, I’ll not presume Allen guilty of the worst offenses he’s been accused of (including abusing Farrow). But even leaving these aside, much remains to be explored surrounding the ways Allen engages himself, his characters, and his audience in morally charged predicaments. Three films, in particular, seem representative: Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Match Point (2005), and Irrational Man (2015). None of these is considered Allen’s best work, nor is any the clearest exemplar of his personal style, but all plunge unabashedly into Dostoevskian ethical quandaries, and taken together they represent a startlingly explicit picture of Allen’s moral concerns.

To refresh the reader’s memory, here are the plots of the three films. Crimes and Misdemeanors tells two parallel stories — one involving an ophthalmologist named Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau) who has his mistress killed when she threatens to reveal their affair, and another involving a married documentarian named Cliff Stern (Allen) who falls for another woman. Match Point follows tennis pro Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) as he falls in love with, and then — under similar circumstances to Judah — murders, an actress who’s dating his soon-to-be brother-in-law. Finally, Irrational Man concerns a troubled philosophy professor named Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix) who, in the midst of an affair with one of his students, resolves to murder a corrupt judge to restore meaning and exuberance to his life. In each film, Allen crafts a kind of thought experiment — a hypothetical world in which to explore his intuitions around murder, infidelity, meaning, and chance.

One interesting thread to track across the three films is Allen’s shifting relationship to religion. Allen’s identity as a Jewish filmmaker has generally been more cultural than religious, but in Crimes and Misdemeanors, the role of faith is foregrounded. Judah, the biblically-named protagonist, is revealed early on to be a skeptic of religious faith — a disposition, we’re led to assume, that contributes to his decision to have his mistress killed. In the immediate aftermath of the crime, he is haunted by pangs of religious guilt and has  of his Jewish upbringing. And although Judah is never punished for his crime, suggesting an absence of cosmic justice, the dominant impression Allen leaves in the film is that religious faith is a necessary (if not entirely plausible) check on human cruelty. “If necessary,” Judah’s father says in a flashback, “I will always choose God over truth.”

And yet when Allen revisits the story in Match Point, God is altogether absent from the proceedings. Chris Wilton bears none of Judah’s religious misgivings but instead places his faith in chance. In the film’s opening moments, as a tennis ball teeters along the top of a net, Chris reflects in voiceover: “The man who said ‘I’d rather be lucky than good’ saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck.” Whereas the drama of Crimes and Misdemeanors revolves largely around Judah’s conscience, Match Point’s tension hinges on whether Chris will be caught. It’s as though the latter hero’s amorality represents, in Allen’s mind, the logical result of the slippery slope away from God begun by the former.

By the time Irrational Man was released in 2015, Allen’s Judaism had long since taken a sideline in both his films and his life. Appearing in the 2013 documentary The Unbelievers, he explains, “You can’t live a life based on delusion…You’ve got to constantly not only be challenging your own beliefs but be willing to say that you had been wrong and misinformed for your whole life and change your views.” But if the existential despair of Irrational Man’s Abe Lucas is any indication, this loss of faith hardly brought an end to Allen’s searching. Like Chris, Abe is heavily preoccupied with the role of randomness and chance in human affairs (we’re told it’s a major subject of his philosophical work), but he’s unable to derive the psychopathic thrill from it that Chris does. Abe — and, it would seem, Allen — has long since moved past an ability to believe in religion, but he nevertheless pines for its consolations (he says of Kierkegaard, “he was, after all, a Christian; how comforting that would be”).

Paradoxically, Abe regains a sense of meaning by committing a murder — precisely the act that, in the former films, attested to the universe’s meaninglessness. What’s more, Abe is thwarted in his attempt to kill his student at the film’s end because he trips on a flashlight and falls down an elevator shaft — a flashlight that he had won for her by guessing a random number at a carnival earlier in the film. Allen appears to have come full circle: the meaninglessness of Crimes and Misdemeanors and the dumb luck of Match Point give way, at last, to a kind of cosmic justice.

If all of this seems less than clear or consistent, Abe Lucas’s words may bear reminding: “much of philosophy is just verbal masturbation.” Nevertheless, there is no question that Allen has been grappling over his seemingly interminable career with a particular set of questions — questions that, as Kant (and Abe) put it, he “cannot dismiss but also cannot answer.” Among these are the relationship between moral law and cosmic order; the role of luck, chance, and randomness in human affairs; and the blurriness of the line between minor infractions and unforgivable sins.

It’s this last topic that bears most heavily on Allen’s personal life, as well as our relationship to his films as viewers. While there’s no reason to believe that Allen has ever committed a murder, the tribulations of his romantic life have long been on display, both in his work and in the press. Take 1979’s Manhattan — arguably his finest film. Consider that the central relationship in the film, between a 42-year-old Allen and a 17-year-old Mariel Hemingway, is said to have been based on Allen’s relationship with actress Stacey Nelkin, which he denied until 2014. Further consider Hemingway’s claim that, after shooting, Allen made advances toward her, which she rebuffed. Are these behaviors permissible, or loathsome? Is our impression of them merely the product of what Allen has called Americans’ “infantile” relationship to sex? Is there any objective authority to which we can appeal to say that these behaviors are wrong?

It’s no accident that Allen tends to juxtapose the crime of murder with lesser offenses of infidelity and old-young relationships. Given the conviction expressed in his films that the moral law depends on a God who isn’t there, it’s no wonder that he finds himself perpetually troubled by the dual impulses of guilt and rebellion. He seems confident that certain transgressions are mere cultural taboos, while others are genuinely wrong — but where to draw the line? Where indeed. Even for those of us who feel that morality can be conserved without recourse to cosmic meaning, the experience of attending and enjoying Allen’s movies remains perplexing. Should one think twice about being a Woody Allen fan? It’s a question I cannot dismiss, but also cannot answer.