rescott-99350

AMERICANA is not a disaster. In fact, it's maybe 3/4ths of a very good movie. This neo-Western crime caper has a lot to say both about America's violent past and its fractious, identity politics poisoned present, but it should have taken the time to develop those ideas more fully.

Don't be fooled by Sydney Sweeney's top billing-she's probably the third or even fourth lead. She's fine enough, though her character is underwritten and stuck with a character trait that probably seemed better on the page than how it plays on screen. Halsey is fierce and along with Zahn Mcclarnon probably gives the movie's best performance.

AMERICANA looks and feels like an early Coen Brothers film or something Tarantino might have tried before Pulp Fiction, but it lacks the style, pace and wit that either of those filmmakers would bring to the material. But you could do worse movie-wise these days and if you go in open minded, you might just come away liking this one.

I've decided that the Ari Aster brand of "elevated" horror isn't really my cup of tea, but among the movies of his that I have seen so far, I do think MIDSOMMAR is the one I appreciated the most. If my lukewarm review rubs some people the wrong way, well so be it, Aster has many, many more supporters. He has a knack for painterly compositions and exploring complex but toxic psychological dynamics. Aster also doesn't always know how to pace his movies and isn't always sure when to delve into surreal dream logic or when its best to follow a more conventional plot. The most shocking things in an Aster movie are usually carefully deployed moments of body horror, but MIDSOMMAR and other Aster films rely much more on foreboding atmosphere than jump scares or shocks.

I've carefully avoided spoilers for MIDSOMMAR, because I do think if you can get on the director's wavelength, you'll appreciate his horror stories more than I probably do. To me, in this movie the best things are the performances (especially Florence Pugh, always riveting) and the rigorous and gorgeous production design. An endless Swedish summer day has never before seemed so menacing.

SUBSERVIENCE is like a Lifetime movie crossed with something you might find on SyFy (at the lower end) or Apple+ (if they had a big budget and were really trying). We get it...androids and AI are about to become much more omnipresent and with that comes inevitable dangers. There's hints of a serious examination of this around the edges of this story, but let's be honest, the movie exists to give us Megan Fox scantily clad and "acting" threateningly to our unsuspecting family. (Though they really shouldn't have been so trusting...nothing in this movie makes the idea of robot nannies seem remotely appealing.) The male lead makes dumb choices. The kids are weirdly trusting. Nothing unexpected or surprising follows. But Fox looks good and the rest of the movie has a generic, but reasonably convincing near future aesthetic, so if you're tired of all the holiday pabulum and want to indulge in some basic B-movie sci-fi exploitation, then maybe this movie is for you.