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Review by Sean Boelman
Rick & Morty kicked off a new trend in adult animation that many have tried (and failed) to replicate. We may finally have something that lives up to its precedent. Leveraging its tremendously talented cast and premise that is ripe for wacky, creative adventures, The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy ends up being one of the funniest, most charming adult animated series in quite a while.
The show follows two alien doctors who work at a hospital specializing in “rare sci-fi illnesses.” The elevator pitch for this show would be a cross of Grey’s Anatomy and Rick & Morty — and if that mixture of medical drama with absurd sci-fi humor appeals to you, this is sure to be an addictive new watch. As far as world-building goes, there’s nothing to really distinguish The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy from any number of other animated sci-fi comedies, but it accomplishes its goals well enough. The character design, while straightforward, is playful and colorful. And even though much of the series is set within the hospital, minus a few adventures outside, it feels satisfyingly expansive. That being said, where the show does stand out is its incredible sense of humor. There are lots of funny premises to be found in the series, from time loops to alien STDs, and the writer’s room really takes advantage of them. There’s a lot of really insightful and funny sex humor, but it never feels overly crude or out-of-place. 
The show also deals with some incredibly mature, complex themes, although this is par for the course for recent adult animation. Despite having a premise that’s inherently absurd and ridiculous, this show has what might be one of the best, most sincere depictions of anxiety that has ever been attempted.
Part of what makes the show work so well is that it gets us to care about the characters. We buy into the friendship between the two heroines immediately in the first episode, but we also get shockingly invested in the lives of all their coworkers. Even though some of them only take part in a few episodes, it feels like everyone who has a pronounced subplot is fully developed. The voice cast of The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy is also stacked, adding a lot of charm through their performances. Keke Palmer and Stephanie Hsu are great leads, having impeccable chemistry and infectious energy. Kieran Culkin nails the quirky and awkward love interest. Pop musician Sam Smith is also a stand-out in their supporting role. And that just scratches the surface of who’s in this cast — Maya Rudolph, Natasha Lyonne, Jay Ellis, Bowen Yang, Tracee Ellis Ross, and more all make appearances. Although the world of The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy may not be the most original, the writing is incredibly refreshing, allowing this to become one of the best new adult animated series in a minute. Between Hazbin Hotel and this, Prime Video is really stepping up its game in the adult animation sphere, and it’s an exciting time to be a fan of the genre. The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy streams on Prime Video beginning February 23. All eight episodes reviewed. Rating: 5/5
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Review by Cole Groth  Inspired by a true story, Meg Tilly and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret filmmaker Kelly Fremon Craig tell the story of Sharon Stevens (Hilary Swank), a recovering alcoholic hairdresser who finds a new purpose in life: saving the critically ill daughter of a recently widowed father (Alan Ritchson) in Ordinary Angels. Directed by Christian filmmaker Jon Gunn, this film feels a little overly sentimental at times. Still, it will make for great viewing for family or those looking for a story of everyday heroes doing something remarkable. Ordinary Angels is one of those saccharine movies meant for your grandparents. It’s incredibly satisfying and fairly easy to follow. Bolstered by two knock-out performances from Hilary Swank and Alan Ritchson, the film presents a pretty easy format: there’s a big problem that Ritchson’s character faces, and Swank’s character finds a way to solve it. The problems mount up very quickly. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical debt, failing livers, snowstorms, you name it, and he probably had to deal with it. The principal problem with a movie like this is that even though it’s framed through a true story narrative, it seems outrageous that anything like this could happen. I simply don’t believe that a woman could convince a group of hospital executives to forgive $400k in medical bills from one visit or get five CEOs to get private planes on standby to help out the little girl. It’s all a little too inspiring, and say what you will about how cynical that sounds; the film doesn’t do an amazing job of making the unbelievable stuff seem believable.  Even if it doesn’t seem entirely believable, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t emotional towards the end. Tilly and Fremon Craig’s script brings a great deal of sincerity, and Gunn also handles the emotions quite nicely. It’s perfectly illustrated to have everything come together in an almost magical way towards the end.
I mentioned earlier that Gunn’s a Christian because he does a great job incorporating religion into the film. Hollywood doesn’t quite understand how to integrate Christianity into movies, and it’s important that films like this recognize it as a very helpful thing for some people. Ritchson’s character is anchored through his religious beliefs, which is believable, and Swank’s character is not. This is what life is like, and it’d be nice if other movies could do this. Life is so miserable nowadays, and maybe nostalgia isn’t the best way around it, but it’s also necessary to remember that movies are supposed to be an escape. Do you want to feel happy during this bleak winter? You’d be well off watching this. If you’re looking for something to see with your mother that doesn’t push any boundaries and is just decent overall, Ordinary Angels is that movie. Ordinary Angels releases in theaters on February 23. Rating: 3.5/5
Review by Sean Boelman
Robert Morgan's STOPMOTION. Courtesy of Samuel Dole. An IFC Films and Shudder release.
You do not often see animation in the horror genre, which is surprising considering how the medium allows imagination to flow freely. Despite an interesting concept and some very spooky imagery, Stopmotion is underwhelming because it struggles to find its narrative rhythm and hold the audience’s interest.
Stopmotion follows a stop-motion animator who finds the line between reality and her imagination blurred after the death of her overbearing mother. For the most part, it’s a very standard psychological horror flick, but what makes the film stand out is its incorporation of stop-motion animated sequences as the protagonist’s work comes to life. Considering that director Robert Morgan’s background is in stop-motion shorts, it’s no wonder that the animated sequences are the strongest part of the movie. With horror animation, Morgan’s creations are crude and grotesque, but they have an incredible level of detail nevertheless. Although the images and symbols aren’t particularly novel, Morgan uses them effectively to create a lingering, unsettling effect. However, Stopmotion is dragged down by its dreadfully slow pacing. It’s clear from the moment the movie starts that this is designed as a slow burn building up to an explosive climax. While the conclusion is satisfyingly gory and weird, the hour and 15 minutes that precede it feel like Morgan and co-writer Robin King were more interested in creating eerie imagery than telling a cohesive, compelling story. 
Aisling Franciosi in Robert Morgan’s STOPMOTION. Courtesy of Samuel Dole. An IFC Films and Shudder release.
The themes that Morgan and King explore are nothing new to the genre: grief, obsession, legacy. A few moments show the potential to be something unique — like a storyline involving the protagonist’s toxic relationship with her mother — but these are generally brushed aside because of the emphasis on horror rather than drama.
This emphasis also wreaks havoc on the character development. Although the protagonist has her arc (albeit a conventional one), none of the supporting characters are remotely interesting. We meet the protagonist’s boyfriend (Tom York) and a mysterious, nameless girl (Caolinn Springall) whose role in the story is needlessly confusing. Frankly, it would have been more interesting to see this story told from a wholly isolated perspective, with Aisling Franciosi as the only performer in the movie. Franciosi is an incredible actress, and she made a lot out of this role despite how little it gives her to work with. The character has few defining personality traits, yet Franciosi makes the role feel entirely authentic — even during the far-fetched final act. Stopmotion is the type of directorial debut that is more effective as a demo reel than a satisfying film in its own right. Robert Morgan is clearly very talented, with a knack for creating genuinely unsettling imagery, but this movie lacks the focus on storytelling and character development that is necessary for effective horror. Stopmotion hits theaters on February 23. Rating: 3/5
Review by Sean Boelman
The pairing of Canadian provocateur Bruce La Bruce (The Misandrists) with the source material of the infamous Pier Paolo Pasolini (Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom) seems like a match made in heaven. Unfortunately, The Visitor delivers on little of that promise — an exercise in grotesque style-over-substance that, while aesthetically intriguing, doesn’t amount to a particularly rewarding experience.
Billed as a “pornographic remake” of Pasolini’s Teorema, The Visitor tells the story of a refugee who infiltrates the lives of an upper-class family, seducing them one by one and causing them to have a spiritual awakening. Frankly, if you’ve seen any of La Bruce’s past work, you know what you’re getting into. And while the ambition of this project is admirable, it’s not always as thoughtful as it wants to be. La Bruce clearly has a lot on his mind, and while this concept seems like it could be fertile ground to explore his anger — anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism — it’s all a bit frustratingly executed. Although it clearly wasn’t the intention, there are certain points at which the film treads dangerously close to the “magical negro” stereotype, even if La Bruce is ridiculing the white characters. The most frustrating thing about The Visitor, though, is how painfully direct it can be. Everything La Bruce wants the audience to know is delivered via an expositional newscast voiceover or as on-screen text. Although lines like “eat out the rich” are enough to get a decent chuckle, they’re also frustrating in how they bash the viewer over the head with the message. 
As a result, the movie feels like it is missing the substance that really sets apart Pasolini’s work. Although Pasolini’s films are certainly shocking, and subtle is not a word the filmmaker had in his dictionary, they built to something. The political message came first, and the shock was just a method to convey it. With The Visitor, it feels like La Bruce wants to shock, and the message is simply the justification to do so.
Unfortunately, the movie runs out of steam far too quickly. The edgiest and most provocative moments happen early on, and the rest of the film largely feels like it’s just weird for the sake of being weird. The final act, largely devoid of sexual content, somehow feels even more meandering than the belligerent barrage of depravity that proceeds it. On one hand, the over-the-top performances work in the movie’s favor to an extent. What we are watching is meant to be exaggerated and theatrical, so it’s fitting that nothing feels rooted in reality. However, this undermines the character development in many ways. Bishop Black’s performance never feels particularly mysterious. The rest of the cast is never particularly alluring. The dynamics don’t entirely work. In many ways, The Visitor seems like someone trying to imitate the work of Pasolini without truly understanding the essence of the filmmaker’s substance. As a stylistic exercise, it works and can be pretty entertaining. However, it’s frustrating that Bruce La Bruce didn’t take this opportunity to make something more meaningful. The Visitor premiered at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival. Rating: 2.5/5 Review by Daniel Lima  Regardless of one’s political affiliations, it’s hard to find any sympathy for police officers charged explicitly with clearing people out of their homes. The Legionnaire makes a valiant attempt to engender that sympathy through its portrait of a cop torn between his sense of duty to his badge and his roots. While the way it builds out his world is admirable, it can’t help but feel constrained by its own narrative limitations. Germano Gentile plays an Afro-Italian riot officer — one of the jack-booted troops with shields and batons who hit protesters and clear out apartment buildings of unwanted tenants. He emigrated to Italy from Africa, and his brother and mother still live in the apartment building he lived in as a child, along with a community of squatters who have a longstanding agreement with the building’s owners. Now, the owners want them out, and Gentile has to contend with navigating a war between two sides of his life. Some familiarity with Italian history and current events is helpful in understanding the film, and I must admit I have only cursory knowledge of any of that. The country has seen a large influx of migrants over the past several years, leading to a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. Left-wing politics have played a large part in the nation, and the community of migrants seems to identify themselves as communists. Squatters have a decent amount of legal rights. Everything beyond that, however, was left for me to infer.  Fortunately, one of the greatest strengths of the film is how much it communicates: entirely organically. The cluttered, beleaguered apartment of the squatters is no paradise, but all that clutter is evidence of a place that has been a real home for hundreds of people for decades. The pristine settings Gentile’s cop finds himself in feel almost austere by comparison, clean and presentable but devoid of personality. The warmth and diversity of the migrants, devoted as they are to the well-being of the community, is likewise contrasted with the camaraderie of the police. Jovial and tight-knit as they are, the constant casual racism and meat-headed bravado created between the sole Black officer and his supposed brothers-in-arms begs the question: why is he even there?
The two brothers, like everyone else in the cast, give solid performances. Both Gentile and Maurizio Bousso, as the apartment-dwelling brothers, are tenacious, driven, and stubborn men, certain in their convictions, even though their parallel paths may put them against one another. That said, it does feel like a piece is missing from Gentile’s story. Considering how lived-in his former home is, it feels like a jump to then join the police force, then a special unit that might see him evicting people he grew up with. While the film does wring as much drama from that scenario as possible, that lack of definition ultimately feels like a writerly contrivance. This is almost certainly the case; The Legionnaire is an adaptation of director Hleb Papou’s short of the same name. Expanding the scope of that earlier film invites questions that hadn’t needed answering, and at a scant eighty minutes there simply isn’t enough time to truly flesh out both sides of this story. As hard as it is to imagine having real empathy for a riot cop, just a bit more context for his motivation in joining and staying in the force would have done wonders. Even so, The Legionnaire does a good enough job cultivating a particular feel for both sides of the world the brothers find themselves on, and the intensity in their performances carries the film even as you wish to spend more time taking in their surroundings. This is an unusually accomplished first feature for a director, and I look forward to whatever he may bring in the future. The Legionnaire is now streaming on Film Movement Plus. Rating: 3.5/5 |