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Drive Away Dolls is the latest film from Ethan Coen but the first without collaboration from brother Joel. While Joel whittled away with a stark, black and white adaptation of Macbeth starring an utterly joyless Denzel Washington, Ethan's film wouldn't feel out of place alongside a 70s B-movie double feature. Dolls is replete with cheesy transitions, awkward close-ups, obnoxious neon, vintage Coen accents, and a welcome-but-not-quite-good-enough use of Maggot Brain. It's also a mixed bag of indulgent violence, puritan degeneracy, and half-baked characterizations.

The film follows Jamie and Marian as they drive to Tallahassee, inadvertently picking up precious cargo belonging to a group of shady individuals who have killed to keep it in their possession. The film is an interesting but sometimes tedious clash of black crime farce and melodramatic lesbian dramedy, devoting infrequent time to either story for proper depth or development.

Positives first. The film is funny. Not always funny, not quite funny enough, and garishly lacking the type of transgressive abrasiveness to make the material shine...but in general, it's funny. Though the characters aren't drawn intricately, their details (both from the script and the performances) are emphasized and repeated to build adequate rapport with each other and the audience.

Dolls is also stylized, in a perplexingly cheap but modestly endearing sort of way. The gimmicky transitions and trippy, spacey moments help build vital momentum to keep the first half breezy and engaging. However, Coen's parlor tricks wane and drag when the plot thickens and the film must carry itself on the merits of its own internal logistics and validity. When that time comes, the Dolls implodes.

Again, Dolls is a grinding mishmash of crime comedy and lesbian dramedy, an interesting conceit which never works with itself to create unity or continuity. The stories of disparate, often as jarring and incongruent as the smash-cut transitions which hold them together like staples through skin. The material feels like a first draft or an untalented mockery of a Coens brothers' script. The heart, patience, and icily detached bemusement of their earlier work has been augmented into the dishearteningly ubiquitous trend of smug, self-righteously assured moral congratulation.

Every creative choice tugs and struggles against the others, but the real letdown of Dolls is its faux dedication to irreverence in its superior first half. When the plot kicks in, when our leads are finally given true agency in regards to the bigger picture, everything becomes easy.

What should be an elongated sequence of comedic tension and unpredictability quickly upends itself to give our intrepid little heroes the necessary resources for a clean, bland getaway. The tension deflates; the comedy deflates; the interest deflates; the irreverence inverts, praising Jamie and Marian as ideal ideological models. It's disappointing and honestly unexpected, but maybe Ethan's been watching South Park recently - in the end, he managed to make it gay and make it lame.

Overall, Drive Away Dolls is tough to criticize or praise too fervently because it's a film of halves. The first half is tonally breezy and characterizations (both heroes and villains) are striking but not overbearing. In the second, the tone and treatment of protagonists is eye-rolling. In the first half, the stakes are high, the style is laid back, and the journey is leisurely. In the second, the stakes are obliterated, the style is forced, and the journey feels like a ham-fisted means to an end. See it as a curious counterpoint to Joel's Macbeth, but don't go in expecting Fargo. 5/9.

Another season, another entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is the thirty-first entry into the franchise and, like at least the last twelve before it, does nothing to renew or revitalize the cinematic behemoth's trite formula. Peyton Reed is back in the director's chair, enthusiastically kowtowing to the demands of producers and ensuring there is no detectable sense of style or personal touch.

Quantumania plays like a cross between tediously scripted Saturday morning cartoon and embarrassingly generic Star Wars rip-off, evoking no sense of fun or wonder despite creative makeup, costuming, and digital landscapes. It's utterly disposable and completely forgettable, but the theater was full at 3:00 pm on a Thursday, so silver lining, it will line some cultural overlords' pockets with cash.

The film follows Scott Lang and company as they're sucked into the quantum realm, a land of mind-bending vistas and infinite possibilities. As Lang discovers the secrets of the realm and tries to protect his daughter Cassie, a new threat rises. Kang the Conqueror, one of Marvel's most powerful villains, takes advantage of the newly available Pym Particles, enacting a savage plan to nebulously do something or another. The film also introduces M. O. D. O. K, immediately butchering his characterization and badassery.

The MCU runs the gamut from inspired to miserably inept. Quantumania proudly slots into the center of the spectrum, not nearly as imaginative or well-crafted as Iron Man or Infinity War, but not as boring or portentous as Thor: The Dark World or Eternals. It squeezes so snugly into its predestined mediocrity that it's difficult to scrape up thoughts which haven't been said of any other MCU film from the last two years.

The tone is still scatterbrained due to incessant quipping, the filmic craft is still laughably corporatized, the CGI is still creative and complex though horrendously fake-looking, the villain is still stripped of all complexity or intrigue, and the heroes are still indestructible paragons of status quo ubiquity.

Specifically, Quantumania's story unfolds sluggishly before kicking into hyper-speed. There's hardly time for character introductions, let alone character growth. A few minutes' stretch sets up a story of trust, subversion, and calculation, but is quickly bolled over for an overplayed, gratingly uninspired rebellion angle. By the time our characters are situated in this strange new world, the final act has started, and quickly becomes a typically rote slog.

None of the performances elevate the film, though Paul Rudd is eminently likeable and Michael Douglas plays up to the stupidity of the material, charismatically smartassing his way through the adventure. Kathryn Newton is charming enough, Michelle Pfeiffer lends legitimacy to the inanity, and Evangeline Lilly...doesn't really have much to do, honestly.

Jonathan Majors is the disappointment of the cast, always just teetering on the verge of sobbing no matter the scene or context. Kang is an all-powerful force of destruction, but Majors plays him like he never left the set for The Last Black Man in San Francisco. He's a great actor, but not an intimidator - he may have added thirty extra pounds of muscle to transform into a daunting presence in Creed III, but he didn't here; all he has here is a cool-looking cloak.

What else is there to extrapolate after thirty previous entries? For perspective, the Bond franchise has been running for sixty years and just recently celebrated the twenty-fifth entry into its franchise, and where Bond has reasonably shifted its values, identity, and presence throughout several decades, the MCU continuously doubles down on its commitment to assembly line productions.

The true shame is that, despite the staggering volume of the genre over the last twenty years, its context and potential for alteration (fundamental or superficial) has hardly been mined. Imagine a three-hour sweeping superhero epic, a dusty superhero western, or a psychological horror of superpowered insanity, all of varying budgets, tones, moods, styles, and complexity.

Take the thought further - hire legendary filmmakers like David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson, Darron Aronofsky, the Coen Brothers, David Fincher, or (your favorite filmmaker). Sure, not everyone would go for the idea, but those who do would surely produce something of staggering ingenuity and creativity; the inexhaustible subtext of a superpowered world could be explored for decades, and these production companies have limitless resources to explore it.

All a pipedream. Rather than force their audiences to grow up, Marvel and DC eagerly cater to their infantilized, developmentally arrested fanbases, slapping together content like Chinese day laborers, desperate to keep the dopamine perpetually dripping. Guardians of the Galaxy 3 will be here soon, The Marvels soon after that.

Writing this review was tedious enough; I cower to think of recording thoughts for MCU film number thirty-eight, number thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, onward and onward for eternity, until the Canadians invade, the dollar collapses, or The Living Tribunal is caught in a human trafficking scheme. Either way, blessed release.

There are few filmmakers like Darron Aronofsky. His early work is sublime, his aughts work is interesting and unconventional, but his recent work has been disappointing. Noah and Mother! Are cleverly visceral and anarchic, but they're also bogged down in religious symbolism and shallow metaphor, lacking the substance of the filmmaker's greatest films. The Whale is a nice return to form, even if missing Aronofsky's trademark frenetic hysteria. Written by Samuel D. Hunter, and adapted from his play, the script is not spectacular, but it is dense, thought-provoking, and well-paced.

The film follows Charlie, a morbidly obese man who teaches English for an online college. Having recently come to terms with his own mortality, Charlie tries to reconnect with his daughter, volatile and callously apathetic Ellie. The entire story takes place within Charlie's apartment; nurse Liz and proselytizer Thomas also visit, and the film's drama is drawn from each character's unique interactions with the others.

Chamber pieces are in vogue, most likely because of the limitations presented by the pandemic. At least five films in the last three months (The Menu, Glass Onion, Skinamarink, Knock at the Cabin, and The Whale) have taken place in one primary venue. The technique is usually a mark of miniscule budgets or ambitious screenwriters, but these films (sans Skinamarink) are at least relatively expensive and reasonably conventional.

Of these five films, The Whale feels most purposeful in its use of a single location, most likely because it's adapted from a stage play, and written by a playwright. The film is an intimate story with refreshingly small but impactful stakes; it's focused and thematically dense enough to hold attention throughout, implicitly justifying its economical narrative and construction.

The Whale feels and watches like a play, for better or worse, sometimes simultaneously. Much of the early dialogue is clunkily expositional and characterizations are lean. However, there is deceptive depth to characters' conflict and relationships, leading to provocative questions posed throughout, both subtly and explicitly.

Although The Whale's plot doesn't usually unfold organically - much of its movement is spurred by someone entering or exiting a room, much like a sitcom - its scenes are impressively balanced between brevity and elongated elegance. Plotting is clunky but expedient, and the sum result has an impressive sense of internal rhythm and timing. The Whale is eventually too lumbering and overstuffed, but this is the result of an overaccumulation of sharp observations, rather than a confused, non-committal slog.

The Whale is sharp and thoughtful, but it's also abjectly miserable. It's a type of story where every character is melodramatically "broken" and searching for a new light to guide their spiritual redemption. Directors who miscalculate this type of drama churn out Noel and Simon Birch, but Aronofsky is obviously too skilled to produce such pablum.

Instead of a lighter sense of emotional misery, The Whale is dark: the apartment is dark, the script is dark, the characters are dark; any optimism springs from either regret or misplaced nostalgia. Aronofsky is often cynical, but he abandons all hope before entering The Whale's worldview, falling into cold misanthropy, even blunt nihilism. Whether or not the film's dramatic integrity is deep or focused enough to warrant such hopelessness is up to the viewer.

The general depression of the film does not overshadow its characters but springs from them. For all of The Whale's thematic probing, twisting, and questioning, there's a surprising and disappointing lack of agency to the entire affair. Charlie and friends continuously, and drearily, wallow in their own circumstances, never attempting to overcome or improve on life's knockdowns.

Admittedly, this lack of self-ownership may be the point, as all involved are either battling addictions or too young, arrogant, or naïve to broaden their perspectives, but The Whale's overwhelming feeling is one of self-pity and helplessness, both learned and innate. The film tries to abruptly reverse course in its final moments, but this mismatched contortion is not enough to wash the taste of pathetic failure out of one's mouth.

The drama of the film is solidly elevated by Aronofsky and his cast. The director restrains himself throughout, creating space and time for Hunter's dialogue to breathe. Although his technique is consistently successful, I couldn't help but wish the script allowed for greater and more frequent Aronofskyesque flourishes.

There is a point wherein The Whale seems to be lifting off, to finally be careening off its meticulously placid railing, but the attempt fizzles; in seconds, the story is back on track and its repetition resumes, as if the potential for deviation never existed. Like its story, the film's camerawork is stark and dry, a decidedly serious attempt to chisel high drama and court sophisticated audiences. Those who consider themselves highbrow will probably swoon, but I gravitate toward the raw, kinetic verve of Aronofsky's earlier work - I prefer my senses engulfed.

As mentioned, The Whale is greatly elevated by its performances, most notably Fraser's. His transformation into a 600 pound man (made possible by heavy prosthetics) is striking and absorbing, but his performance is impactful mostly because of the pain and remorse in his eyes and heart.

Fraser plays into the misery porn well, eliciting true sympathy and genuine care from the characters and audience. He's soft spoken and understands the overbearing pathos of the material, presenting vulnerabilities not typically seen from a past action hero. Aronofsky presents the material deftly, but Fraser makes it work. The rest of the cast - Sadie Sink, Ty Simpkins, Hong Chau, and Samantha Morton - play dutifully into the melodrama, portraying their corrosive sad sacks with palpable humanity.

The Whale is so stuffed with drama that it has a little something for everybody, at least those who can overlook its general misery and dour outlook. There are soulful themes of past mistakes, parental absence, and potential redemption; characters are outlined well, if not too deeply felt or particularly relatable.

The film is a nice showcase of Aronofsky's talents as a minimalist and a magnificent showcase for Fraser's maturation as an actor, but it's just too enamored with its characters' misery to give viewers the catharsis of their redemption. Fans of adult filmmaking should see it for the talent both behind and in front of the camera, but I can't pretend the average moviegoer will come away whistling and satisfied.