Why Dune: Part Two should win the best picture Oscar
That is no small feat – this is a movie with many moving parts and much potential for off-putting density. (An honest reader of the book will tell you: Herbert frequently gets in his own way. The rich source material itself is no guarantee of quality storytelling.) If Part One was a thrilling immersion into a rare universe that felt genuinely alien and remote from our times, Part Two is the spaceship hurtling at full speed – and that spaceship, gloriously designed and rendered in sleek silver, landing on a planet in one of Villeneuve's signature shots of great, arresting contrasts in scale.
Part Two revels in such latitude of spectrum, the vertigo of vast swings – huge spice harvester next to palm-sized desert mouse, sonorous Hans Zimmer score to pin drop silence, intergalactic political intrigue in the extraction of water from one single human body. Giant sandworm, tiny prince, mountains of sand and flickers of spice. Timothée Chalamet as tremulous, humble young interloper to genocidal dictator bent on revenge, Zendaya from barely a presence to probable hero – plus a dose of (bald) Austin Butler as a memorably bizarre and magnetic villain and Florence Pugh, with her uncanny ability to appear natural in every setting, as an inscrutable princess in this game of thrones.
To wit, Part Two is, frame by frame, a beautiful film to behold, another feat of mesmeric alien vibes – a movie that I want to watch on repeat, at any level of sobriety, on any screen size, though preferably Imax, which was my single greatest sensory experience of 2024. It is not a perfect movie, at times it is too remote and lucid for its own good, its politics a little too shrouded by the sands (and with too few Arab actors for a people, the Fremen, clearly modelled on the Bedouin). But it is a spectacular one – a visual feast of bombastic and striking flair, a collision of forces too large for our world. All while maintaining a precise balance of angsty self-seriousness, self-awareness and pageantry that makes me laugh and clap my hands at the screen. Chalamet's Paul wrangling a giant sandworm through walls of sand? Austin Butler's Feyd-Rautha fighting to the death under Giedi Prime's black sun? Fremen blowing up enemy helicopters? Chalamet yelling in a made-up language and then declaring 'I am Paul Muad'Dib Atreides, Duke of Arrakis!' to 10,000 followers and one disappointed Zendaya? Delights! I live!
As I argued three years ago for Dune as best picture, watching either film provokes a guileless sense of wonder, an earnest appreciation for living at a time when such spectacle is possible – and convincing – on screen. Particularly in a year of unconvincing films (The Substance), or highly flawed (Emilia Pérez), devolving (love The Brutalist, but the second act …) and questionably lit ones (Wicked), Dune: Part Two is all the more refreshing. I'm doubling down on my argument for Part One, because Part Two is thankfully doubling down on its strengths: if the Oscars are, in theory if not usually in practice, an occasion to reward excellence in the collaborative art of film-making, to celebrate the fantastic illusions such collaborations can achieve, then it's finally time for Dune.
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The Independent
4 hours ago
- The Independent
‘Weapons' spins small town into chaos that mirrors real life, humor and all
If there's one thing Zach Cregger learned while writing and directing his upcoming horror movie 'Weapons,' it's that the best laughs won't come from the jokes he writes. The film follows Cregger's 2022 solo directorial debut ' Barbarians,' the widely celebrated genre-bending horror. This time, the young director bends even more, spinning a town into chaos when all children but one from the same classroom mysteriously vanish, leaving a trail of questions in their place. The Warner Bros. release hits theaters Friday and is as creepy as it is hilarious — a delicate balance that required Cregger to strip any intentionality behind his humor, he told The Associated Press. 'If the humor is coming from an authentic reaction that a character's having, then it works,' Cregger said. 'There's a lot of jokes that didn't make it into the movie that I thought were going to be so funny. And then we did a test screening, and nobody laughed and I'm like, OK, it's gotta go.' Paranoia runs deep in the film. The town's heartbroken parents are represented by Josh Brolin's character, Archer, whose son was among the missing. The students' teacher, played by Julia Garner, is determined to solve the mystery, despite parents blaming her for the disappearances. The humor here comes naturally, Cregger said, as characters navigate the absurd events happening around them. 'You're not playing for the laugh, otherwise you lose the laugh,' said Brolin, whose character stumbles through his grief, a state ripe for what he called genuine and 'embarrassingly funny' moments. Maybrook's unrest puts a mirror up to society If 17 kids up and ran out of their homes at 2:17 a.m. one morning with no trace, what would a community do? That question drove 'Weapons,' painting a picture of a town left reeling by the mystery. The film setting — the fictional small town of Maybrook, Illinois — is just as integral to the plot as any of its main characters. The town feels hyper realistic, a core tenet to the movie's ability to blend humor and horror, two genres that Garner said are 'opposite side of the same coin.' 'It's funny because this isn't even like a proper horror film,' Garner said. 'It has comedic elements and has horror elements, but it's kind of its own genre, in a way.' The town's reactions to tragedy and shock was intentionally meant to feel oddly realistic, Cregger said. Parents are outraged, storming into town halls and angrily demanding answers from the police, the school and, most pointedly, the students' teacher. Yet, when Garner's character is attacked in broad daylight, bystanders and store owners hardly bat an eye, a level of indifference that Cregger said is just as realistic as the parental outrage. 'We definitely have a, 'Whoa, not my problem,' kind of a thing when chaos is occurring, because we see it so much on TV that I think we're able to just kind of tune it out, even when it's happening in front of us,' Cregger said. 'Living in America, I've seen crazy things happen with my own eyes right in front of me, and I've just kept walking for better or worse, so I don't know, it feels real.' 'Weapons' relies on imperfect characters Brolin — who's found wide-reaching success across Hollywood, from the 1985 classic, 'The Goonies,' to the Marvel universe — initially hesitated when approached for the film. As a father of four, facing his worst nightmare — losing his children — was 'not something I want to show up to work for,' he said. But 'Weapons' lends the characters a layer of depth that allowed horror, a genre he said is typically treated as cosmetic, to suddenly have 'depth, and humor and absurdity,' which, coupled with his own adult daughter's love of 'Barbarian,' was enough to convince him to sign on. The movie subtly mocks suburban life, as goriness and horror occur under the sights of nosy neighbors, corrupt police departments and struggling relationships. Each character that drives the plot forward is just as flawed as they are victims of tragedy. Gandy, the schoolteacher, is harassed by parents for her missing students, but is secretly battling alcoholism. Archer, the heartbroken father, is failing in his job and his marriage as he navigates his son's absence. Paul Morgan, played by Alden Ehrenreich, is a local beat police officer with secrets of his own. 'Every character is perceived in a certain way and then every character breaks,' Brolin said. 'It all comes down to this very base thing: What if you lost the thing that you value the most? How do you deal?' For Ehrenreich, who's found success in dramas, notably as a young Han Solo, 'Weapons' offered a different pace, but its horror wasn't what drew him in. Rather, he was captivated by the film's depth and weirdness. 'The weird resonance, the weird opening voice-over, the way it was written and the kind of emotional brokenness of these characters and the depth that I felt was in the writing, that was as deep as any drama I've read in years,' Ehrenreich said.
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
Weapons review – Zach Cregger's slick Barbarian follow-up is a bumpy ride
No one really saw Barbarian coming, the playful 2022 horror about an Airbnb reservation gone horribly wrong. That was part of the plan, a teasing trailer that only told a small part of the story and a swaggering title that promised something grander than we could initially see, and that might be why I found the reaction to be a little alienating. It was showered with euphoric praise upon release and first-time writer-director Zach Cregger, whose background is in comedy, was immediately heralded as a new king of the genre. For me, it was more trick than treat, a sizzle reel that showed Cregger to be a film-maker of considerable skill but also one who papered over the cracks of an exasperatingly illogical and uninspired script with flashy gimmickry. There's been an inevitable shift in the hype machine for Cregger's follow-up, the bigger, bolder and, thankfully, better Weapons, buzz that began when his spec script caused a talk-of-the-town auction months after Barbarian overperformed. Industry rumours suggested that Jordan Peele was so determined to land the project that when his company lost out to New Line, he parted ways with his management. There's since been over two years of anticipation – Cregger comparing the project to Magnolia, stars such as Julia Garner and Josh Brolin signing up, an all-out assault of a marketing campaign – and so second time around, it's virtually impossible not to see this one coming. Credit to the Warner Bros marketing team for still holding something back though, the jolting string of trailers highlighting enough of the standard WTF imagery without really revealing all that much beyond the striking premise. Seventeen children from the same class are missing. They all got out of bed at 2.17am and ran off into the darkness. The police are baffled and the parents are furious, aiming their anger at teacher Ms Grady (Julia Garner). She's one of many alternating viewpoints, which also include a parent (Josh Brolin), a cop (Alden Ehrenreich), a small-time criminal (Austin Abrams) and the one kid who didn't run away (Cary Christopher), slowly building a picture of what really happened that night. It's a tantalising set-up, pitched somewhere between Stephen King and the Brothers Grimm, and Cregger's careful slow build keeps us in thrall for the most part, eager to see just how the puzzle-pieces fit. The POV-shifting allows for his excellent cast to each get their moment, from Garner's nervy, vodka-swilling hate figure to Ehrenreich's quick-tempered philanderer, although Cregger's characters are all rather thinly drawn, resembling less the protagonists of thoughtful short stories and more the bodies one inhabits in a video game. They are in service of a magnetic drip-feed mystery plot that unravels so compellingly that it takes us a while to notice how empty it all is. On the one hand, it's a relief that unlike so many of his genre peers, Cregger isn't all that interested in the dirge of trauma horror and while those who wish to look for it might still find a deeper allegorical read of Weapons (probably the same few who laughably claimed Barbarian was a powerful #MeToo statement), it's mostly an engine of brute force, similar to a schlocky paperback you can't put down on holiday. But it's also crucially lacking something, an added element of surprise or sophistication. It reminded me of Denis Villeneuve's lurid missing children thriller Prisoners and while it's mercifully not as undeservingly self-serious, it's similarly handsome, high-end packaging for something that's incredibly silly and straightforward. The tricksy structure and repetition of scenes from different viewpoints would have one believe there's a labyrinthine plot to be uncovered but Weapons is far hokier and, frustratingly, dumber than it would seem, relying on staggeringly incompetent police and wilfully ignorant citizens. Cregger remains a remarkably confident and alluringly immersive director, constructing some wonderfully rattling shocks and moments of seat-clenching unsureness. His canny mood-conjuring grips us in the moment (the film is a fun, reactive experience with a big audience) and he draws a fantastically scary and nightmarishly odd performance from a late-arriving actor whose name would be a spoiler to reveal but his storytelling crumbles even before the lights come up. The finale might up the violence to a wince-inducing level but it doesn't cut anywhere near as deep as it could have, chaos without meaning. Cregger might be expanding and improving his arsenal, using his skills more effectively than he did in Barbarian, but there's still something missing. Something sharper. Weapons is out in Australia on 7 August and the UK and US on 8 August
The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
Weapons review – Zach Cregger's slick Barbarian follow-up is a bumpy ride
No one really saw Barbarian coming, the playful 2022 horror about an Airbnb reservation gone horribly wrong. That was part of the plan, a teasing trailer that only told a small part of the story and a swaggering title that promised something grander than we could initially see, and that might be why I found the reaction to be a little alienating. It was showered with euphoric praise upon release and first-time writer-director Zach Cregger, whose background is in comedy, was immediately heralded as a new king of the genre. For me, it was more trick than treat, a sizzle reel that showed Cregger to be a film-maker of considerable skill but also one who papered over the cracks of an exasperatingly illogical and uninspired script with flashy gimmickry. There's been an inevitable shift in the hype machine for Cregger's follow-up, the bigger, bolder and, thankfully, better Weapons, buzz that began when his spec script caused a talk-of-the-town auction months after Barbarian overperformed. Industry rumours suggested that Jordan Peele was so determined to land the project that when his company lost out to New Line, he parted ways with his management. There's since been over two years of anticipation – Cregger comparing the project to Magnolia, stars such as Julia Garner and Josh Brolin signing up, an all-out assault of a marketing campaign – and so second time around, it's virtually impossible not to see this one coming. Credit to the Warner Bros marketing team for still holding something back though, the jolting string of trailers highlighting enough of the standard WTF imagery without really revealing all that much beyond the striking premise. Seventeen children from the same class are missing. They all got out of bed at 2.17am and ran off into the darkness. The police are baffled and the parents are furious, aiming their anger at teacher Ms Grady (Julia Garner). She's one of many alternating viewpoints, which also include a parent (Josh Brolin), a cop (Alden Ehrenreich), a small-time criminal (Austin Abrams) and the one kid who didn't run away (Cary Christopher), slowly building a picture of what really happened that night. It's a tantalising setup, pitched somewhere between Stephen King and the Brothers Grimm, and Cregger's careful slow build keeps us in thrall for the most part, eager to see just how the puzzle-pieces fit. The POV-shifting allows for his excellent cast to each get their moment, from Garner's nervy, vodka-swilling hate figure to Ehrenreich's quick-tempered philanderer, although Cregger's characters are all rather thinly drawn, resembling less the protagonists of thoughtful short stories and more the bodies one inhabits in a video game. They're in service of a magnetic drip-feed mystery plot that unravels so compellingly that it takes us a while to notice how empty it all is. On the one hand, it's a relief that unlike so many of his genre peers, Cregger isn't all that interested in the dirge of trauma horror and while those who wish to look for it might still find a deeper allegorical read of Weapons (probably the same few who laughably claimed Barbarian was a powerful #MeToo statement), it's mostly an engine of brute force, similar to a schlocky paperback you can't put down on holiday. But it's also crucially lacking something, an added element of surprise or sophistication. It reminded me of Denis Villeneuve's lurid missing children thriller Prisoners and while it's mercifully not as undeservingly self-serious, it's similarly handsome, high-end packaging for something that's remarkably silly and straightforward. The tricksy structure and repetition of scenes from different viewpoints would have one believe there's a labyrinthine plot to be uncovered but Weapons is far hokier and, frustratingly, dumber than it would seem, relying on staggeringly incompetent police and willfully ignorant citizens. Cregger remains a remarkably confident and alluringly immersive director, constructing some wonderfully rattling shocks and moments of seat-clenching unsureness. His canny mood-conjuring grips us in the moment (the film is a fun, reactive experience with a big audience) and he draws a fantastically scary and nightmarishly odd performance from a late-arriving actor whose name would be a spoiler to reveal but his storytelling crumbles even before the lights come up. The finale might up the violence to a wince-inducing level but it doesn't cut anywhere near as deep as it could have, chaos without meaning. Cregger might be expanding and improving his arsenal, using his skills more effectively than he did in Barbarian, but there's still something crucial missing. Something sharper. Weapons is out in Australia on 7 August and the UK and US on 8 August
