Film Shapes

For all Sam Raimi's standing in the industry and the adulation in which he's held, by my reckoning, his last good film was 1995's The Quick and the Dead . I haven't forgotten his Spider-Man  films (really disliked those) and there are a couple I've missed, sure, but Marvel took a risk signing him on for this. The good news for Feige and co is that it works. It's more inventive than recent MCU films, what with the multiverse angle that was road-tested by the Loki  (and WandaVision to a lesser extent) TV series, and its smattering of Raimi touches. It's arguably the best of the phase 4 films so far. Brief rundown - a demon is hunting a girl, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez, and you're on your own pronouncing that first name) to steal her power of traversing the multiverse (multi-traversing?). Our Strange (Universe 616) is co-opted into helping her avoid said nasty. Cumberbatch is supreme (though not Sorcerer Supreme) as Strange, and he's well supported ...

The nutters responsible for the oddly engaging Swiss Army Man have upped the ante with this multiversal ode to familial love. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, credited as Daniels, have Michelle Yeoh play Evelyn Wang, a frazzled owner of a coin laundry. We're introduced to her as she's preparing for two concurrent events - a Chinese New Year party and a trip to the tax office - both of which are causing a fair amount of strain. Her husband, Waymond, played by Short Round himself, Ke Huy Quan, is attempting to serve her with divorce papers; her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu) is not best pleased to be there, especially with her girlfriend Becky (Tallie Medel) in tow; and her crotchety father, legendary James Hong, is all patriarchal glower. It's amazing to see this guy still turning it out - he's 93 and imdb has him down for 451 acting credits! Among those are roles in The Sand Pebbles , Chinatown , Blade Runner and Revenge of the Nerds 2: Nerds in Paradise . Like I said...