Rian Johnson drops by for the traditional premiere, and a bonus film you should check out if you can.

Stealing once again from Mike D’Angelo (and some others), I’m going to try to be doing relatively short capsules here, which means trying in part not to go over a lot of context. Realtively light day since it was opening.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery: B+/A-

I realized as I was making my schedule that I’ve seen every single one of the Benoit Blanc flicks for the first time at PFF; Knives Out was the closing back in 2019, Glass Onion was a Centerpiece a couple years ago (Johnson has always shown up as well for a Q&A, and he’s a delight). These always work best with a crowd – the first one especially was amongst my most memorable theatrical experiences – and the latest is no different. Johnson still knows his way around a mystery, though this one isn’t as structurally playful as the last ones are, and probably for the best. I haven’t seen Knives Out since release and I feel I may have overrated Glass Onion a tad in retrospect. Dead Man for sure has a much stronger emotional core than the last two – funny enough but not a straight comedy (not unwelcome). Josh O’Connor makes quite the good protagonist, as an earnest priest in a parish in the thralls of a personality cult, and the rest of the cast acquits itself quite well even if their characters aren’t always the strongest (Glenn Close ends up on the better side compared to the past years). If I seem a little more reserved, it’s only because it’s so hard to match up to the novelty of the first, especially that ending. A scene with Bridgett Everrett reveals itself to be the heart of the movie, and I appreciate the genuine reckoning with religion even if Benoit doesn’t really wrestle much himself. No creative exhaustion yet as I can tell.

Lesbian Space Princess: B

This one isn’t showing until Sunday and then next Friday, but since I saw a screener of it early in advance of a filmmaker interview with Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese I thought I’d just jot some quick thoughts down. In short: it’s cute! I had a nice enough time with it – Shabana Azeez proves an adept voice actress, and the Aunty Donna guys are always fun to be around. It’s the kind of adult animation that throws a lot of jokes at you, enough that at least one of them will probably hit (there’s at least a couple that made me laugh a lot). All in all, a good debut and I’m curious to see what they’ll do next.

Tomorrow: Checking in with some German movies, and the newest Chloe Zhao.