Willem Dafoe gets an existential thriller with ‘Inside’.

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another installment of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

If you’re reading this newsletter, you probably know that the Oscars took place this past weekend, with “All in One Place” taking home seven trophies, including Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Actress, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor and Editing. But our coverage doesn’t stop when the show is over, because there’s still a lot to think about, dissect and discuss.

Justin Chang wrote about “Everything Everywhere” and how – strange as the movie may seem – it’s a very traditional family story that he’s turned inside out in his head multiple times and in many different ways. (Multiple opinions, so to speak.)

He wrote, “Then how do you explain the fact that ‘Everything Everywhere at Once’, with its phenomenal box-office success and seven Oscar wins on Sunday night, is now recognized as the most culturally and commercially significant Asian-American film ever made.” undoubtedly a game changer, and after about a century of Hollywood indifference to Asian characters, actors, stories and storytellers – plus recent years of heightened anti-Asian violence and rhetoric – this should not be taken lightly.”

With the acting awards for Brendan Fraser, Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Lee Cutis, and Ke Huy Quan, I researched whether this was the “year of the comeback” at the Oscars.

“Dreaming is something you have to believe in. I almost gave up on mine. To all of you, please keep your dreams alive,” Quan said in his deeply emotional speech. He concluded by saying, “Thank you for welcoming me back.”

However much there was to celebrate that evening, there was still room for improvement. While RRR’s “Naatu Naatu” became the first Original Song winner for a film from India as reported by Jen Yamato and Helen Li, no artists from South Asia appeared in the on-air performance of the song.

Michael Ordoña, James Reed, Amy Kaufman and Jen Yamato entered the after-party circles, from the Academy’s Governors Ball to Elton John and Vanity Fair events.

After all his work at the Governors Ball, photographer Jay L. Clendenin also got some amazing shots of Jamie Lee Curtis at the Beverly Hills Hotel the next morning.

‘Inside’

Directed by Vasilis Katsoupis from a screenplay by Ben Hopkins, Inside is something of an existential thriller about a botched art heist. When Nemo (the highly compelling Willem Dafoe) is trapped in a luxury apartment while trying to steal millions of dollars worth of art stored there, he fights to survive and finds an escape route. The film is now playing in cinemas.

Writing for the Tribune News Service, Katie Walsh said: “Katsoupis challenges the inflated value of art and reminds us that expression is inherently human and elemental. He is closer to the top of our hierarchy of needs than we may think. Katsoupis lays out these terrifying and challenging questions about humanity, but offers no clear answers or messages. character straight out of Greek mythology, who takes into account the forces of creation and destruction, but it is unclear whether it is Sisyphus, Prometheus or perhaps even Icarus.”

Emily Zemler spoke with Katsoupis and art curator Leonardo Bigazzi about the creation of the art collection that can be seen in Inside, in which both existing work was collected and new work was commissioned especially for the film. As Katsoupis said, “I had an idea in mind for the collection, but I needed an expert to make it legit. We’ve seen too many movies about art and the art is usually fake or similar. I really wanted everything in my film to be very, very correct.”

Amy Nicholson wrote for the New York Times: “Katsoupis and screenwriter Ben Hopkins aren’t about playing a believable prank. Katsoupis is more of a snotty provocateur with the elegance to pose so low. He taunts the rich and fills the stone dwelling with pointless luxuries that make it look like a Pharaoh’s tomb.… When boredom sets in, we’re given the lull to reflect on our own definition of art as Nemo the Criminal evolves into Nemo the Creator, whose tower escape device is a tool. His ghostly wall scribbles are therapy. They both deserve as much respect as anything with a price tag.”

David Fear wrote for Rolling Stone: “There are indications that some, if not most, of what we see isn’t real, especially as Nemo’s hallucinations begin to outweigh the more realistic scenes of his isolation. But the attempts of ‘ Inside’ to play existential mind games don’t quite succeed either, and you feel that the search for such pretentiousness is not a good hand for this film. … It is clear that big players can do a lot to sell a brilliant idea which eventually becomes both their differentiator and their own worst enemy.But not even an Oscar-nominated GOAT can escape something that looks so perfect on the outside and so flawed on the inside, easily thrown away and barely held together .”

Kate Erbland wrote for IndieWire: “For a movie so fixated on art – expensive art, crazy art, serious art – ‘Inside’ leaves its most compelling questions too early. What’s the point of this art in the face of the real necessity? When Nemo uses a precious statue to open a door, his conversion seems obvious; as soon as he takes another one and folds it into a tent, it’s done. It’s much too blunt, too, just like “Inside”. Real art asks questions, it doesn’t answer them in the simplest words.”

‘Continue’

Written and directed by Paul Weitz, Moving On blends Neil Simon/Mike Nichol’s sophisticated farce with an incendiary Robert Altman-esque sensibility. At an old colleague’s funeral, Claire (Jane Fonda) tells Evelyn (Lily Tomlin) that she intends to kill the late woman’s husband, Howard (Malcolm McDowell), in revenge for a traumatic past event that led to until the end of it. marriage to Ralph (Richard Roundtree). The film is now playing in cinemas.

For The Times, Gary Goldstein called the film “a funny and bittersweet tale of love, friendship and, yes, revenge”. He added: “Having become something of a female version of Matthau and Lemmon, Fonda and Tomlin not only gleefully display their soulful chemistry, but also deftly bring nuance and pathos to their characters’ many emotional twists – big and small. If so, it doesn’t come as a huge shock given the length, breadth and quality of their careers, but it’s moving and awe-inspiring to watch nonetheless.”

A. O. Scott wrote for the New York Times: “It becomes clear quite early on that Moving On is entering strange and risky genre territory. If the term ‘rape revenge comedy’ sounds like an oxymoron, this film won’t convince you otherwise. … It’s missing something different here – a ridiculous energy or satirical boldness that could plunge the premise into a disturbing life, or else a deeper, darker core of emotion.”Moving On” hides in the kindness and easy charm of its stars. What, like I said, always fun to watch. What could be the problem.”

Writing for the AP, Lindsey Bahr wrote: “This is one of those rare films that balances a darkly funny conceit with authentic, emotional resonance and allows Fonda, Tomlin and co-stars Malcolm McDowell and Richard Roundtree to really act, in instead of playing cheap, humiliated caricatures of seniors… Hopefully performances like this will remind screenwriters, directors and those who make the decision what is being done to give our living legends a proper role while still having an audience.”

‘Full river red’

Directed and co-written by Zhang Yimou, Full River Red became the biggest blockbuster of his long career in the filmmaker’s home country of China, which is currently the country’s sixth-biggest film of all time. Based on a famous historical poem and starring Jackson Yee, Shen Teng and Lei Jiayin, what pretends to be an epic crime thriller mixes comedy and political intrigue. The film is now playing in cinemas.

For The Times, Justin Chang wrote: “What lies at the heart of the maze is best left unexplained here, though it may explain why the film became a blockbuster (it grossed over $600 million at home) and the largest commercial.” success of Zhang’s prolific, by turns charming and controversial career. “Full River Red” is the title of a famous poem – a lamentation and war cry (“There we stay on barbarian beef”) believed to have been written by Song dynasty general Yue Fei – known to almost everyone in China that it should know it by heart. Adding more than a touch of jingoism to this otherwise funny, mechanistic parlor trick, it sets off a rush of emotion that can make your heart sink or beat faster.

Brandon Yu wrote for The New York Times: “Despite a prolific filmography of great arthouse fare that often delves into the vastness of Chinese history, the filmmaker has laced a dynastic war fable with elements of a slapstick crime thriller. But the easygoing charm , usually offered up by Shen as a goofy sidekick, serves as a saving grace amid the seedy political games…. The light-hearted tone that permeates it keeps it going, immersing the viewer in mostly light-hearted entertainment over its two-and-a-half runtime. half an hour.