Roger Ebert

“The Sixth Sense” is the movie that made its writer-director M. Night Shyamalan a cultural force, and he’s been one ever since. It’s also the movie that stereotyped him as a filmmaker whose work is dependent on plot twists. If you reading this piece about a 25-year old movie that grossed almost $700 million and has been in heavy rotation on TV ever since, you already know about the twist, and if you don’t, you should put this piece aside and watch it before reading further. 

I never had that luxury, though. I made an effort not to find it out, but it appeared before me anyway, quite at random. I was in my apartment in Brooklyn, where I lived with my family at the time. We were subscribers to the print edition of Entertainment Weekly, which functionally doesn’t exist anymore. The front of the magazine had little short pieces about various aspects of entertainment. I remember there was a two-page spread full of these little pieces, and in the outermost column of the far-right hand page was one about the twist ending of “The Sixth Sense,” a horror-mystery in which Bruce Willis, funny tough-guy actor, played against type as a child psychologist Malcolm Crowe, who is treating a young man named Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) who can see dead people.

I thought, “Oh, I’ll skip reading that piece and save it until I see the movie this weekend” — my wife had already seen it and loved it; we had a young daughter and would take turns going to movies by ourselves while the other stayed home. 

But as I turned the page, purely by happenstance, my eye fell on the exact sentence of the exact paragraph that revealed the “twist ending.” I wasn’t angry about it, though I was a bit irritated. I told my wife what happened, and she said, “You should see it anyway, it’s a good movie.” So I went to see “The Sixth Sense” anyway and loved it so much that I went to see it a second time a week later. 

I went into the movie knowing that Malcolm did not survive his shooting at the hands of a disturbed patient in the opening scene and was in fact dead throughout most of the story. This is revealed to anyone who hadn’t already figured it out in the scene where Malcolm’s wife Anna (Olivia Williams), who we thought was merely estranged from him and (at times) giving him the silent treatment, was mourning the loss of her husband. It was a treat of a different kind to hear the audience react as Anna drops the wedding ring and Malcolm tries and fails to pick it up while putting the truth together in flashback. It was as if I was seeing the film for the second time the first time.

But here’s the thing: I didn’t feel that I’d been robbed of anything, because it was a substantial film that had a lot more on its mind than pulling the rug out from under audiences, and many other qualities that made it worth seeing, and seeing again. The performances of all the main actors were exquisite —especially Willis, Williams, and Osment. The latter gives one of the best performances by a child actor in the history of movies. Steven Spielberg cast him as the little robot boy David in “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” on the strength of his work for Shyamalan. And there was more happening in the script than a delayed revelation: “The Sixth Sense” is a great movie about the psychological architecture of denial, as well as the concept of justice and the sad reality that a lot of wronged people can’t get any when they’re alive. 

I had a similar reaction to Shyamalan’s “The Village,” the ending of which was also inadvertently revealed to me when I heard some people in a restaurant talking about it. Knowing the ending of “The Village” didn’t hamper my appreciation of that film, either. Suffice to say that the movie has some of the same interests as “The Sixth Sense” but goes about examining them in a different way, and, as in “The Sixth Sense” — and “Unbreakable” and “Signs,” the two movies he made immediately before “The Village”—the “twist” is not what you take away from the movie. 

As Shyamalan’s career has progressed, he’s continued to make films that are dependent on big plot twists (such as “The Visit,” the low-budget smash that put him back on the map in 2015 after several years of not connecting with audiences). But he’s also made films that are not twist-dependent at all. His new film “Trap” is a cat-and-mouse thriller; stuff happens, some of it surprising, some knowingly preposterous. The works all have a particular aesthetic and set of interests that mark Shyamalan as an auteur whose work can be immediately identified as his work. He has a sixth sense for how to pull audiences in and hold them in suspense.

RogerEbert.com Co-Founder and Publisher Chaz Ebert recently spoke to journalist Randi Mazzella about her bestselling book It’s Time to Give a FECK:Elevating Humanity through Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion and Kindness, and we are reprinting what was chosen by the editors of Next Avenue as the Article of the Day, for August 5th. Please go here for more information.

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Randi Mazzella, NEXT AVENUE

It’s hard to imagine another time when people seemed more at odds with one another. Between the aftermath of the pandemic, the current political climate in the United States and global issues, it feels like there is nothing but bad news and frustrated people worrying that things aren’t getting better.

But author and activist, Chaz Ebert, still has hope. “When I started working on my book, I wasn’t sure why I was writing it,” explains Ebert. “But my family, especially my daughter, encouraged me to keep going. She said, ‘You need to write this.’ She was correct; this message is needed now more than ever.”

Ebert’s book, “It’s Time to Give a FECK: Elevating Humanity through Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion, and Kindness,” is about four fundamental values that Ebert believes can help us all to help ourselves and our community.

Understanding Forgiveness

To understand forgiveness, Ebert, 71, writes about a conversation with South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He said to her, “Without forgiveness, there is nothing. You remain a prisoner. Without forgiveness, the nation cannot move forward.”

“I came to realize forgiving someone is something you give yourself. When you forgive, you let go and sleep easier.”

For Ebert, Tutu’s words provided an “a-ha” moment. “Before speaking with Tutu, I always saw forgiveness as something you give to another person who has wronged you,” explains Ebert. “But I came to realize forgiving someone is something you give yourself. When you forgive, you let go and sleep easier.”

Another revelation Ebert shares is the power of forgiving yourself. When Ebert was 16, the first of her siblings to head to a four-year university, she discovered she was pregnant. Ebert says, “I was so ashamed. I had always been called a ‘leader’ and ‘such a good girl,’ and now I would disappoint my whole family.”

But when Ebert told her family about the pregnancy, she received nothing but love and support. They told her they would work with her to figure out a way for her to have the baby and finish school (Ebert graduated college, graduate school and law school).

She says, “It turned out, I didn’t need my family to forgive me. I needed to forgive myself.”

Understanding Empathy and Compassion

Many people get confused about the difference between empathy and sympathy. “Sometimes offering sympathy can seem like you feel sorry for another person,” Ebert says. “Sympathy can have a value judgment and come across as hierarchical like the person offering the sympathy feels superior.”

She continues, “With empathy, you are putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. It doesn’t mean you are trying to fix or change them, but that you feel for what they are going through.”

One of the most critical aspects of empathy is listening. “If you don’t know what to do or say in a situation, just listen with an empathetic ear,” Ebert says. “That doesn’t mean you must agree or fully understand a person’s plight. Just ‘seeing’ and ‘acknowledging’ is to be empathetic.”

During the pandemic quarantine, everyone was isolated within their own pods. As Ebert says, “We spent a year being anxious. We couldn’t smile at each other, hug or spend time together. For many, socialization has yet to return fully the way it was pre-COVID.”

Because of what everyone has gone through, they are more in need of compassion and its power to help people feel less alone. Ebert writes in her book, “Empathy allows us to understand and relate to others deeply. Compassion leads us to want to help alleviate the suffering and lift the spirits of others.”

Understanding Kindness

People don’t need a lot of time or disposable income to be kind. Ebert believes small, simple acts of kindness can have a ripple effect. She explains, “When Roger was in the hospital, instead of asking, ”What can I do?’ people just did things for me. They brought food and jugs of water. They answered the phone so I didn’t have to use my energy telling the same details. Their kindness got me through a difficult time and helped me to be there for Roger.”

Kindness can come from the most unexpected places. “Howard Stern was so kind during Roger’s illness [he had cancer] and after his death in 2013. He had a true affection for Roger and Gene (Siskel), who used to appear on his show,” Ebert says. “Stern was always checking in and offering his support for Roger. He was rooting for him to get better.” Stern never spoke publicly about his actions.

“I was genuinely surprised based on his professional image,” says Ebert. “I had no idea he could be so caring and compassionate. It shows that you don’t always know everything about a person from their public persona.”

We Can Disagree and Still Care

For most of our country’s history, people could disagree with friends about politics or other important issues but remain cordial, even like one another. Ebert remembers years ago seeing Congress members like Tip O’Neill getting into heated but respectful debates with colleagues and then all of them going out together to get dinner or smoke cigars.

“Roger didn’t want me to continue his legacy but to remember him while forging my own independent path without him.”

Today, being on different sides is causing vicious fights at dinner tables and ending friendships. And it is worse in Congress; the May exchange between Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jasmine Crockett illustrates how far from respectful things have gotten.

Ebert believes we need to find a way to get back to a place of civil discourse, especially between friends. In the book, she talks about a disagreement with a close friend over NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem.

Ebert says, “I felt strongly that Kaepernick was doing what he felt was right to peacefully protest, while my friend adamantly opposed his actions. We got into an exchange that made me question how well I really knew her and whether our friendship could continue.”

When Ebert saw her friend a few months later, she was worried their interaction would be awkward. Instead, they embraced. “She still feels the way she does about Kaepernick, and I haven’t changed my opinion on the matter,” says Ebert. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t have affection for one another.”

More Than a Legacy

Ebert hopes her book inspires readers to take action. To help, she gives the reader blank journals throughout the book where they can write down their thoughts and ideas.

“Throughout my book tour, readers have said that having the prompts and workbooks inside the book have caused them to take immediate action,” Ebert says. “They have realized who they needed to forgive or what specific act of kindness or compassion they could do that day.”

During their time together, Roger and Chaz, who were married in 1992, had started charitable foundations, including the Roger & Chaz Ebert Foundation.

“Roger and I had 24 years together and I loved our work,” says Ebert. “But before he passed away, we discussed how I would move forward and he believed that anything that wasn’t fun or speaking to me anymore, I should let go. He knew I was my own person and had my own ideas, goals and causes that were important to me. Roger didn’t want me to continue his legacy but to remember him while forging my own independent path without him.”

For Ebert, that means focusing on organizations that help young adults, emerging filmmakers and technologists.

“To this day, I can still cry thinking of myself as that scared, embarrassed teen, pregnant and feeling I let everyone down,” says Ebert. “Remembering all of the kindness and compassion shown to me by family and friends, I feel it is my mission to support programs to help young people who feel unworthy or inferior. We are all important and deserve love.”

Credit and thanks to Next Avenue for permission to reprint.

Finally, at long last, HBO’s “Industry” will be getting a primetime Sunday-night slot with its third season. First debuting in 2020, the series hasn’t been able to pick up the viewership it deserves, despite having a dedicated online following. But, with season three it feels like the show is finally set to become the hit that it was always destined to be.

“Industry” focuses on a group of college graduates working at Pierpont & Company, a fictional London investment bank. In Season1, they were hired on a trial basis with only a fraction of them not only securing a permanent job, but a permanent spot in the series’ sprawling ensemble cast. What elevates the show from just being a simple workplace drama, is how Pierpoint continues to break and bend the characters in the series at its will. In an attempt for a release, the characters in “Industry” become increasingly volatile, and season three is no different. 

This new season of “Industry” begins on a boat, and is the beginning of a life changing event for a few of the series characters. Not gargantuan in size but fancy enough to be impressive, the boat and the fate of the individuals on it are at the center of a mystery that begins to chip away at Yasmin, who with season 3, is the series’ new lead. Throughout the episodes, the boat is revisited through flashbacks, first appearing in quick flashes meant to keep the viewer confused, until it explodes later at a point of no return. Along with the boat is the fractured Pierpoint & Company, which after Harper’s (Myha’la) firing in the season two finale doesn’t feel like the bank we were first introduced to in 2020.

Accompanying this change is the introduction of Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington), the head of a green-energy tech company, and Petra Koenig (Sarah Goldberg) a manager at Harper’s new job. Harington and Goldberg both instantly meld into the series, and it feels as if they’ve been a part of this show all along. Like most of the men in the series, Muck is the perfect mix of sleazy and pathetic, while Koenig’s bite appears to be just what Harpher desires in a business partner. 

While the alcohol, drugs and sex are still here, this season sees its characters getting wrapped up in some increasingly disturbing scandals and lifestyles that will inevitably change the status of this show forever. With each episode it feels like Season 3 is going to be the breaking point for characters like Yasmin (Marisa Abela) and Rishi (Sagar Radia), and while it’s easy to sympathize with even the worst of them, the meanness of these characters is what makes this show so special. Fortunately for “Industry,” this is a show where the worse its characters get, the more enticing the series becomes. 

Pierpoint and the people left in the company feel like shells of themselves, and it’s with season three that “Industry” is questioning if its ensemble cast of characters can continue to exist in the raw way they have been. Going through the motions can only take you so far, both at work and in your personal life. There’s Yasmin, whose desperation to fill Pierpoints Harper-sized-hole just proves that Harper cannot be replaced, and Robb (Harry Lawtey), whose closeness with his clients continues to bring him closer to the edge. 

Robb in particular is still one of the show’s most fascinating characters, and Lawtey continues to deliver the show’s most unwavering emotional performance. “I don’t know why i’m still here,” He says at one point this season, and while he’s talking about his job at Pierpoint, it’s impossible to not think that he’s talking about his life as well. And he’s not the only one. He’s joined in this misery by Eric Tao (Ken Leung), the CPS managing director, and “Industry’s” standout performance. 

Often found as side characters in films, Leung belongs on the screen as a leading man. Leung’s performance is one that since “Industry” debuted at the beginning of the decade, should have garnered him an Emmy nomination. Like “Succession’s” Jeremy Strong, Leung toes the line between good and evil quite well, tightroping it until he inevitably sways either way. Hopefully, with “Industry” finally getting the famed Sunday-night slot, the series and its masterful performances will get more attention, and Leung–54 years of age–will finally get his flowers. 

As Eric, he is calculatingly cold as always, but like the younger workers at Pierpoint, he too is becoming fractured. Newly separated from his wife and reeling from the severing of his connection with Harper, Eric’s life is at a standstill. He haunts the Pierpoint offices like a ghost, and leaves it to hook up with women much younger than him, desperate to know if, in the bedroom at least, he’s incapable of failing. Harper too is at a standstill in her life since she and Eric parted ways, and spends this season desperately trying to make and maintain a thrilling albeit volatile connection once again. 

But sadly for both her and Eric, without the other, they feel stifled. There’s not enough at stake in their jobs or their new relationships, and it further pulls them towards each other, fleeting at times and final in others. The relationships–romantic, platonic, and all those in between–are put to the ultimate test in season three, and it is glaringly apparent that along with the show’s narrative structure, its relationships will be fundamentally changed by the final episode as well. 

What makes this show standout is that things can go well as quickly as they can go south–showcased this season in episode two, one of the most thrilling hours of television this year–which puts this series above its peers. But, with its first few episodes, it’s clear that with season three, “Industry” is unfurling into a different kind of beast. Instead of transforming the series into something unrecognizable, what creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay do is even bolder. The two mold the series to the point that while there’s a clear evolution happening, everything that initially made “Industry” one of the best shows of the decade still remains intact. It not only allows the series to grow but forces it to become the most impressive version of itself.

Whole season screened for review. Third season premieres on HBO on August 11th. 

Congratulations, Mr. Rupert Pupkin. You are definitely one of the creepiest movie antiheroes in the history of cinema, but you and your little “comedy” movie, Martin Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy,” have somehow persisted for more than 40 years, despite being weirdly not “funny” on the surface.

Pupkin is played by Robert De Niro, a hopelessly isolated character rather chillingly incapable of having any kind of meaningful communication with anyone unfortunate enought to be around him, and we usually wince a lot whenever he attempts to be funny or social. Pupkin’s target of obsession is popular late-night TV talk show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis), who is quite accustomed to being pursued by fans not so different from Pupkin, at least at first. As a matter of fact, we see him caught off guard by the sudden ambush of one of his more deranged fans, and that is how Pupkin comes to have a little private conversation with Langford as he is returning to his apartment.

Mainly for getting rid of Pupkin, Langford makes a little inconsequential promise in the end. Alas, this leads to more delusion in Pupkin’s troubled mind, and then the movie begins to blur the line between reality and delusion. As his delusion is getting bloated more and more, Pupkin’s pathetic reality is much more obvious to us, and we get a small bitter laugh whenever Pupkin’s self-absorbed state is disrupted by the voice of his annoyed mother from upstairs. (It is actually the voice of Scorsese’s mother, by the way).

At least, Pupkin gets a likely chance for admiration via Rita Keene (Diahnne Abbott), a young Black female bartender who was one of Pupkin’s schoolmates during his high school years. Probably because of their old time’s sake, she lets him have a dinner date with her, and he gladly boosts himself a lot in front of her, but she is just mildly amused while noticing more of what is going on right behind his back. Scorsese makes an interesting visual choice here; as the camera keeps focusing on Pupkin and Keene, a sense of embarrassment slowly dawns upon us, and we cringe more and more. 

Meanwhile, Pupkin is getting rejected again and again by Langford and his associates. This eventually results in one of the most painfully embarrassing moments in the film, but, curiously, Scorsese presents this supposedly big comic moment as dryly as possible. The camera of his cinematographer Fred Schuler often sticks to static positions, and it usually maintains the distance from the main characters while mostly avoiding close-ups throughout the movie. In addition, the spaces occupied by the main characters frequently feel empty and barren without much sense of life. Langford’s apartment and country house look more like under-furnished art galleries than real human places to live, and New York City in the film is presented as a bland and uncaring urban environment where its main characters are isolated in one way or another.

The screenplay by Paul D. Zimmerman seems to go for a cathartic punchline when Pupkin and a fellow fanatic fan kidnap Langford later in the story, but, again, Scorsese adamantly restrains himself and the movie. When Pupkin finally gets the chance to present himself on TV, Scorsese and his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker simply cut to the aftermath. We do see Pupkin appearing on TV later, but we are never sure about the audience reactions, and the same thing can be said about the ending, which may be as delusional as the final scene in “Taxi Driver” (1976).

It is well known that Scorsese was not exactly in a good place during this film’s production. His third marriage was over, and he was also quite physically exhausted after making “Raging Bull” (1980). He was not recovered when the production of “The King of Comedy” began. This probably explains why the movie is less visually lively and kinetic compared to many of his works, in addition to often feeling dry and distant.

I wonder whether the movie can be read as a sort of apology for “Taxi Driver” just like Brian De Palma’s “Carlito’s Way” (1993) is to “Scarface” (1983). As many of you know, “Taxi Driver” was controversial especially when it got associated with the assassination attempt of President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and Scorsese might have intended to present “The King of Comedy” as the comically straight-jacketed version of “Taxi Driver”.

Although De Niro’s performance is the main show, I must mention that the three other main cast members in the film show considerable commitment. While he is usually remembered for wacky comedy films such as “The Nutty Professor” (1963), Jerry Lewis ably dials down his comic persona here for playing an aloof counterpart to De Niro. As Pupkin’s possible love interest, Diahnne Abbott holds her own during her several key scenes, and Sandra Bernhard is simply unforgettable as a woman who may be a lot more toxic and dangerous than Pupkin.

As we get more accustomed to comedy of embarrassment thanks to many other comedy films and TV series such as “The Office,” “The King of Comedy” becomes more, uh, accessible to us, and it also garnered much more attention as being a major influence on “Joker” (2019). (Whether that movie can be regarded as the 21st century heir to both this and “Taxi Driver” is another matter to discuss). By the way, I heard from one of my online acquaintances that there have actually been many people who identified themselves a lot with Pupkin, and I was both horrified and amused by that. I understand to some degree why some people can identify themselves too much with Travis Bickle or Arthur Fleck in “Joker,” but Rupert Pupkin? Are you serious? Now I am seriously wondering whether this is another sign of the ongoing human devolution in our time.

Was SDCC ‘Finally Back to Normal’ in a Post-Pandemic World?  That’s what SDCC chief communications and strategy office David Glanzer told Variety, but is it true? As Variety notes, last year’s SAG-AFTRA strike “forced almost every studio to pull their panels” and yet this year “with no obvious impediments in sight…the largest fan fathering in North America is set to mount its first regular convention in five years.” 

Sure, the big panels with generous swag were back, but new to me was an Hall H lottery for, to my knowledge, one specific panel: The Deadpool and Wolverine Celebration of Life. Those lucky enough to get in received a popcorn container and pins, but getting in was the problem. Contrary to the usual practice of people coming and going to Hall H from the beginning of the day until the end, people were cleared from the panel preceding panel for FX’s vampire comedy “What We Do in the Shadows” that ended two hours before Deadpool and Wolverine’s Celebration of Life. That was the beginning of the problem.

Even waiting to get into the vampire panel, the volunteers in charge of the lines as well as the security personnel weren’t in agreement. The press waiting to get in on studio passes were abruptly told to move because we were lined up in the wrong area, an area that for the 12 years I’ve been covering SDCC for RogerEbert.com has been used for press (and others) with studio passes to Hall H and where the person in charge of the press entry had told us to wait. We had already had our passes and bags checked and been wanded by security.

The “What We Do in the Shadows” event was a farewell to fans, this being the last season for the goofy show about four vampires trying to live on Staten Island. Based on Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s 2014 movie of the same name out of New Zealand, this mockumentary style comedy has been nominated for 29 Emmy Awards, winning a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards for Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes in 2022. This year, the series is nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards (Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Matt Berry, and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series) and five Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards (Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Program, Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes, Outstanding Picture Editing for a Single-Camera Comedy Series, Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series and Animation and Outstanding Stunt Coordination for a Comedy Series or Variety Program).

The panel included Kayvan Novak (Nandor the Relentless) via Zoom, Matt Berry (Laszlo Cravensworth), Mark Proksch (Colin Robinson), Kristen Schaal (The Guide), executive producer/writer Paul Simms and executive producer/director Kyle Newacheck. Novak stole the show by being totally in character throughout. The big reveal was that Season 6 will introduce a new character who awakens after a 50-year nap and upsets the chemistry between the quartet. Season 6 premieres on Monday, October 21st on FX with the first three episodes of an 11-episode season. All episodes stream the next day on Hulu where the previous five seasons are available. Internationally, the five seasons are available on Disney+.

Disappointed that we wouldn’t be able to stay over for the Ultimate Deadpool and Wolverine Celebration of Life, we headed to the Den of Geek party and the possibility of getting a free retractable light saber. With our retractable light sabers in hand, we relaxed to overloud music and the tea – not the kind of tea you drink, but definitely the kind you spill.

The mother and daughter who were sitting at our table had a tale to tell. One of her seven kids had won the Deadpool and Wolverine Hall H lottery, receiving a congratulatory email. There was no wristband or ticket. There were, however, more than the 6,000 people waiting in line. Yet 6,0000 is the capacity of Hall H. Not all of the lottery winners got in.

When we left Hall H after the “WWDITS” panel, we were crowded into one space and had to wait to go through a single exit on to the sidewalk. It took us over 30 minutes. One couple who was in that same panel, reportedly took 30 minutes to exit and then had to walk over a mile to get to the end of the Deadpool/Wolverine line and, in the end, didn’t get in although they had won the lottery.

Already in possession of two of those popcorn buckets, I was glad to have my Power Saber. The Den of Geek party didn’t have dancing, but as with last year had good food and who doesn’t want a retractable light saber with sound effects by Goliath? We went home before the unannounced Deadpool and Wolverine firework and drone show began.

The next day, Friday, there was more chatter about how Comic-Con International was going to put out this emotional fandom fire, but there were also two actual fires. The upstairs rooms of the San Diego Convention Center were temporarily evacuated for a fire incident, but that was quickly over. Yet that evening as we walked to a panel, we could see black smoke rising outside of the convention center in the Gaslamp district. We later learned one activation, for HBO Max’s “The Penguin” was evacuated after a fire broke out in the neighboring Brazilian restaurant. No one was injured, but people were displaced.

Otherwise, I was disappointed that National Geographic didn’t have its rooftop reception with brainy fare, having attended the last two years. Yet, in the cool of the evening, as the Google Play carousel lit up, the convention center was flooded with face eaters given to Hall H attendees for the “Alien: Romulus” panel. Definitely the big movie grand gestures were back at SDCC, but still, this edition wasn’t as robust as 2019.

Unlike 2019, Hall H was empty on Sunday without any panels. That’s the day I usually spend the morning and early afternoon in Hall H. Moreover, 2019 was the year the Comic-Con Museum opened with a splashy reception and an impressive exhibit dedicated to Batman that included Batmobiles. The next year had a Spider-Man exhibit. Last year the museum’s major exhibit during SDCC was devoted to the art of animation. While that was fun, the rest of the exhibits weren’t up to the same level and, even at its best, the museum can’t compare to the use of technology of Los Angeles’ Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. This year, no reception was planned for the Wednesday preview night and no new exhibits opened in July. There was, however, an auction of items, beginning on Sunday morning.

Another museum was conspicuously absent from the exhibition floor: Sci-Fi World Museum. Originally promoted as the Hollywood Sci Fi Museum, it was rocked with scandal in 2018, and this year had an aborted grand opening in Santa Monica. With the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures now open and the opening of the (George) Lucas Museum of Narrative Art expected in 2025, both the museums might be facing hard competition for the fan base that attends comic-cons.

The A-list stars may be back at SDCC, but with the absence of Star Wars and Netflix and the leveling down of its young museum, SDCC 2024 was not at the same level of 2019.

People like to pay a certain amount of lip service to the importance of young people participating in the electoral process. Still, in most regards, they tend to be either marginalized or outright dismissed. So it’s always a delight when those underestimated voices band together and flex their political muscle in unexpected ways. Recall, if you will, that 2020 Donald Trump rally in Tulsa with a much lower turnout than expected, reportedly largely due to TikTok users and K-pop fans mass-buying tickets they had no intention of using. More recently, the ascension of Kamala Harris to the position of presumed Democratic presidential nominee and JD Vance’s odious comments regarding so-called “childless cat ladies” have inspired fans of Taylor Swift to mobilize on Twitter to help get out the vote.

For an ideal cinematic representation of this phenomenon, you need not look further than “Dick,” the 1999 comedy that took one of the darkest periods in the history of American democracy – the Watergate scandal – and transformed it into a smart, sprightly, and hilarious comedy. It not only observed the proceedings, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-style, through the eyes of a pair of bubbly teenage girls; it suggested that they were actually Deep Throat, the then-unknown inside source utilized by Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward to help reveal the story to the world. 

Perhaps inevitably, it failed to click with audiences when it first came out. But over the years it has gained a cult following thanks to several factors: a clever screenplay that skewers both the scandal and the various treatments it had previously received in the media; a knockout cast headed by two young actresses who would be celebrated as the very best of their generation backed up by an absolute Murderers’ Row of comedy talents; and the silly but inspiring way in which its adolescent heroines recognize and develop their political agency in the most absurd manner.

Said teens are Betsy (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene (Michelle Williams), two best friends living in Washington D.C.—the former in Georgetown with her well-off family and the latter with her widowed mother (Teri Garr) in an apartment in the Watergate complex. The two girls sneak out late one evening to mail it, putting a piece of tape on the door lock so they can get back in undetected. This is, of course, the night of the infamous Watergate break-in, and to say they get caught up in the international scandal would be an understatement.

“Dick” appeared at the end of a decade that saw considerable effort go into rehabilitating the reputation of the disgraced former president. This started with the opening of the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in 1990 and the Nixon Center think tank in early 1994, culminating with his death later that year. This was followed the next year with Oliver Stone’s “Nixon,” an epic so solemn and stately in tone that critics at the time were pretty much legally required to refer to it as “Shakespearean” at least once. As loopy as it gets at times — and it gets very loopy as things go on — “Dick” serves as a bit of a corrective to this post-mortem veneration while reminding us exactly what led to his disgrace in the first place.

The film was the brainchild of director Andrew Fleming, who was riding high on the surprise success of the teen-witch thriller “The Craft” (1996), and co-writer Sheryl Longin, who reportedly had her own youthful encounter with Nixon when he and her family were staying at the same hotel. (She and a friend apparently tossed ice cubes at him.) Granted, the conceit of presenting well-known real-life events through a comically skewed take purporting to show audiences what really happened is nothing new—see Robert Zemeckis’s delightful 1978 debut “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” or the recent “Fly Me to the Moon” —but it requires filmmakers to find just the right tone for audiences who might not be familiar with the events depicted instead of becoming one increasingly tedious in-joke.

“Dick” finds that tone right from the start, and maintains it throughout. Sure, there are the expected bits about the tackier fads and fashions of the time, an equal number of jokes playing off the name “Dick” on which your personal mileage may vary (though the final one of those does earn a huge, if undeniably juvenile, laugh in the closing moments). There’s also a soundtrack jammed with the hits of the era, including a particularly inspired use of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.” 

However, the script knows its history, coming up with inspired explanations for everything from that infamous 18 1/2-minute gap to John Dean’s sudden willingness to testify against his former colleagues. It amusingly pokes holes in the ways we’ve processed the entire story in our collective consciousness: turning war criminal Henry Kissinger’s inexplicable reputation with the ladies on its head by showing him droning on about international diplomacy to a disinterested Betsy and Arlene. Woodward & Bernstein’s treatment is especially funny—instead of the dashing pursuers of the truth worthy of being depicted by Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, Will Ferrell, and Bruce McCulloch portray them as a pair of petty, bickering dolts.

Perhaps the smartest thing about “Dick” is the genuine affection it has for Betsy and Arlene. Contemporary reviews of the film have described them as bimbos and airheads and such, but, they’re just ordinary teenage girls—a bit giggly and silly, to be sure, but not dumb by any means. And the screenplay doesn’t treat them as such: they’re just at a point in adolescence where the issues of the world around them don’t have as much impact as the latest issue of Tiger Beat, The point is to see them gradually become smarter and more aware of their potential places in the world, without losing the sense of goofy effervescence that made them so appealing in the first place. This is the kind of character journey that Elle Woods would famously make in “Legally Blonde” (2001). Betsy and Arlene not only got to do the same thing a couple of years earlier, but they also got to bust out some swell roller disco moves in the process. 

Perhaps in response to “Nixon”’s stacked cast, “Dick” also brings in a crop of great comedic performers and lets them riff on their real-life counterparts. Among the highlights are Harry Shearer’s maniacal caricature of Liddy and Dave Foley scoring big laughs as Haldeman. Then there’s Hedaya’s scene-stealing work as Nixon, a performance so funny and inspired that, in the pantheon of great Nixon performances, I’d put him second only to Phillip Baker Hall in Robert Altman’s “Secret Honor.”

But it’s Dunst and Williams’ lead performances that make “Dick” rise. By the time Dunst appeared here, she’d already more than held her own against powerhouse co-stars in films as varied as “Interview with the Vampire” (1994), “Little Women” (1994) and had shown a flair for comedy in the satires “Wag the Dog” (1997) and “Drop Dead Gorgeous” (1999). Williams, on the other hand, had fewer credits, and the ones that she did have—most notably her work on the hit series “Dawson’s Creek”—didn’t often give her many chances to cut loose. That said, they make for a genuinely sweet, engaging team. 

The pair invest their roles with a kind of grounding that allows them to come across as recognizable people instead of mere bimbos. Take Arlene’s infatuation for Nixon: The conceit of a teenager fangirling over Richard Nixon is deeply silly, but Williams plays it with a real sense of conviction; it’s hilarious without ever tripping over into cruelty. When she holds up the microphone to Nixon’s tape recorder and delivers a rendition of Olivia Newton-John’s “I Honestly Love You,” it’s both side-splittingly funny and weirdly touching. 

“Dick” largely failed to find an audience when it opened in theaters for a number of reasons. The ad campaign devised by the studio was aimed entirely at its young stars’ fan base (who presumably had little practical working knowledge of the details of the Watergate scandal); they likely preferred the more salacious outrages of that summer’s “American Pie.” At the same time, older viewers assumed that it was little more than an extended episode of “That ‘70s Show” and gave it a pass. It also had the misfortune to hit theaters a mere two days before “The Sixth Sense” became a genuine phenomenon.

Happily, “Dick” would begin to find its audience via home video and would eventually go on to become a cult favorite. However, the underlying message of the film—that young people, and young women in particular, can make a difference in the world —is one that not only continues to ring true today but now feels more timely and relevant than ever. Who knows? Perhaps one day, these politically fraught times may inspire another movie along similar lines. If it does, here’s hoping it’s as inspired and inspirational as “Dick.”

Your investment in Zack Snyder’s creative vision will likely determine how badly you need to see the R-rated director’s cut of “Rebel Moon,” Snyder’s grim Netflix space opera adventure. This new director’s cut adds 120 minutes of footage, including a numbing wealth of computer-animated gore and a bit more sex. Some of this new material adjusts without significantly enhancing Snyder’s stab at a “Star Wars”-style sci-fi pastiche and an over-extended update of “Seven Samurai” that mainly takes place on the storyboard-perfect farm planet of Veldt. 

Some new scenes add more information about the characters’ motives, while others extend already lifeless action sequences. This new material usually only lets the previous version’s footage play out slower. In its new form, “Rebel Moon” now seems mediocre where it used to be outright bad, a frequently monotonous fable that confuses volume with intensity and generally resembles cut scenes from a video game that you’ll never get to play.

Where the previous release of “Rebel Moon” sometimes sped through superfluous flashbacks, this new director’s cut wades through them while still being over-reliant on leaden expository dialogue and faux-lyrical voiceover narration. Now we get to spend more time with the robot warrior JC-1435 (voiced by Anthony Hopkins), who mostly watches and frets over the people of Veldt as they prepare to fight the implacable space fascist Admiral Noble (Ed Skrein) and an inexhaustible army of Nazi-looking Imperium soldiers. There’s also more backstory connecting Noble with Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious orphan hiding out on Veldt. Kora leads a group of castoff fighters, including former Imperium General Titus (Djimon Hounsou) and cyborg swordsperson Nemesis (Doona Bae), in protecting Veldt from Noble. 

Everybody good in “Rebel Moon” has lost somebody that they’ve loved, usually because they had no other choice but to either kill for or be killed by the Imperium. Now they kill the Imperium’s soldiers with impunity, even the few who express misgivings, and especially that one guy who, in the movie’s second half, begs to be spared for the sake of his wife and children. He gets shot in the face and so do a few other Imperium soldiers, many of whom get pumped full of holes with laser guns in slow-motion. Noble also betrays a few more of his informants and allies, presumably establishing how badly he and the Imperium need to be stopped. It’s still hard to understand why we need to see the same process of collaboration and violent betrayal play out so many times and at such punishing length in “Rebel Moon,” as if repetition necessarily added meaning instead of just extra steps.

“Rebel Moon”’s grisly action scenes remain pretty monotonous, featuring way too many stock poses and gestures, and at such length that even diehard fans will likely wonder why so much dramatic short-hand was used. Too much money’s on the screen for the movie’s big fight scenes to be flat-out ugly. Still, there are only so many times that you can be impressed by turgid bloodletting wrought by stick-figure heroes whose physical movements are never graceful or well-choreographed enough to warrant so much slow motion. Everything blends together (often literally, given the eye-straining soft-focus camerawork and butter-colored lenses). Only the most hardcore Snyder fans will care about what happens to protagonists who explain away their personalities rather than embody them through their behavior. 

Stunted by Snyder’s literal-minded, reproduction-heavy imagination, “Rebel Moon” lacks the sort of emotional inflection needed to justify its indulgent length. There are some additional stabs at a topical/timely subtext to the movie’s hammy anti-fascist parable in this new director’s cut, particularly whenever a supporting character forgives one of the leads for doing whatever they must to survive. It’s also pretty telling that the best new material in this new release of “Rebel Moon” is an extended sex scene in “Chapter 2,” a relatively tender reunion for Kora and her meek farmer beau Gunnar (Michiel Huisman). Sadly, Kora and Gunnar’s sex doesn’t match the tone or style of the movie since it presents the two leads as human-scaled individuals instead of over-inflated effigies of suffering and badass revanchism.

More of everything doesn’t otherwise enhance this new version of “Rebel Moon,” whose shameless and uninspired cribbing from superior films soon makes six-plus hours seem interminable. The best scenes remain the ones that don’t revolve around people. I said it before, but I maintain that Snyder’s latest only really sings when big objects are either exploding or crashing into other large things. The director’s cut of “Rebel Moon” features the same imaginative shortcomings as the last edition. It’s campy and joyless and will never be more than the sum of its well-oiled parts, a feature-length mood board for Snyder and his collaborators, and a pretty slog for everyone else.

The Belfast schoolchildren stand in their classroom, singing “Óró Sé do bheatha abhaile,” a traditional Irish song, in the Irish language required in their school. They drone the lyrics, looking bored out of their minds. Two boys in the back, sharing earbuds, are pretending to sing along but are actually listening to another kind of music, hip hop, by an exciting new local trio called Kneecap. Kneecap rap in the Irish language. It isn’t something you hear every day. This brings up one of the many interesting points made in Rich Peppiatt’s “Kneecap,” a funny, exhilarating film about the real-life Kneecap, where the members of the group – Liam Óg (stage name Mo Chara), Naoise Ó Cairealláin (stage name Móglaí Bap) and JJ Ó Dochartaigh (stage name DJ Próvaí) – play themselves.

The Irish language was nearly stomped out of existence. Speaking in Irish is seen by many as a political act. Kneecap was formed in 2018 amidst the controversial “discourse” surrounding Sinn Féin’s proposed Irish Language Act. The Irish Language Act would legally place Irish on the same level as English, which would include garda interrogation rooms and the courts. The “Óró Sé do bheatha abhaile” scene is a snarky representation of the various strands of dialogue at play around the Irish language. A language needs to grow in order to live; it needs to be present in the Now. A traditional song from a century ago has no relevance to the 21st-century kids singing it. But a trio of angry men screaming

C.E.A.R.T.A 
Is cuma liomsa foc faoi aon gharda, 
Duidín lásta, tá mise ró-ghasta, 
Ní fheicfidh tú mise i mo sheasamh ró-fhada

is another thing entirely.

(Translation: 
R.I.G.H.T. 
I don’t give a f*ck about any Garda A lit joint,
I’m too fast, 
You won’t see me standing too long.)

Now that’s a living language. 

Unsurprisingly, Kneecap’s music caused a wave of controversy, mostly because of their gleeful detailing of their drug use, but also because of exposing their asses with “BRITS” on one butt cheek and “OUT” on the other. A newscaster tut-tuts: “This is the true face of the Irish language.” The Irish language advocates did not consider Kneecap good ambassadors for the language and, in fact, were hurting the cause. Meanwhile, Kneecap was playing sold-out shows, where hundreds of kids were screaming lyrics in Irish. Shouldn’t the Irish language people welcome this development? Of course, they don’t!

One film can’t explain all of the complexities around the Irish language and its history, but “Kneecap” does a remarkable job laying it all out (while also making it fun). The film’s style is frenetic and propulsive, profane and provocative, peppered with jokey asides, stylistic flourishes (slow-mo, animation), and pulled along by a snarky voiceover (reminiscent of Ewan McGregor’s voiceover in “Trainspotting”). The film is unabashed in its portrayal of drug use and the realities of life in West Belfast among the generation nicknamed “the Ceasefire Babies.” (Journalist Lyra McKee wrote a remarkable article for The Atlantic in 2016 called Suicide Among the Ceasefire Babies, saying, “We were the Good Friday Agreement generation, spared from the horrors of war. But still, the aftereffects of those horrors seemed to follow us.” Tragically, infuriatingly, McKee was right. In 2019, she was murdered at a protest in Derry.)

Naoise’s father, Arlo (Michael Fassbender), was in a paramilitary group and has been on the run for 10 years after faking his death. (He tells his son, “Every day I am not captured is a psychological victory against the occupiers.”) His absence from Naoise’s life has been catastrophic for both Naoise and his depressed mother (the excellent Simone Kirby). The film opens with Liam refusing to speak English in a police interrogation. A translator is called in, JJ Ó Dochartaigh, who teaches music at an Irish language school and is married to an Irish language activist. JJ learns that Liam and Naoise have written a song called “C.E.A.R.T.A.” He helps them record it in the makeshift studio in his garage.

Their gigs at first are teeny. They play in pubs, where old men drink Guinness at the bar, wondering what the hell is going on. Word spreads. Kids start showing up. JJ joins the trio, adopting the name DJ Próvaí. He wears a balaclava onstage (in the colors of the Irish Republic’s flag, of course) because he’d probably lose his job and his wife. They call themselves Kneecap after the “kneecapping” punishment endured by drug dealers from Irish paramilitary groups. (There’s one such group after Kneecap. They call themselves “Radical Republicans Against Drugs,” and they are scary guys. They burn down JJ’s garage studio.)

Hip hop’s origin story comes out of the ad hoc, the DIY, “outsiders” screaming their voices at a mainstream that ignores them. Hip-hop is inherently political; it is legitimate protest music. The controversies around N.W.A.’s lyrics are a case in point, but we don’t need to go back in time to provide context. (The ongoing persecution of Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi is the worst example of its kind and probably the most important thing going on in hip-hop right now.) Governments fear freedom of speech. So, too, do advocate groups who want to control the narrative. Kneecap blasts through all of that.

Liam hooks up regularly with a girl (Jessica Reynolds) on the other side of the tracks (not Republican, in other words), and their sex is wild and passionate, filled with balaclava-wearing role-play and political disagreements shouted in the heat of passion. (Is it “North of Ireland” or “Northern Ireland”? Hot!) In one of their arguments, Liam tosses in a furious reference to Ireland’s 1916 Proclamation. This doesn’t feel cheeky or intellectualized. It feels local and authentic. Some viewers might need footnotes. The film barrels on without you.

Having the Kneecap members play themselves was a bold choice, and it pays off. They’re engaging and unself-conscious, and professional actors like Fassbender and Kirby bring out the best in everyone. “Kneecap” is “about” a lot of things, and its pace makes it impossible to resist getting swept up in it. I’ve been following Kneecap for a while but didn’t know much about their backstory. “Kneecap” isn’t an underdog rags-to-riches story. It’s about the right of people to say what they want to say, to criticize the power structures ruling their lives, and to create a community of opposition. And, yes, to put “BRITS OUT” on their butt cheeks. That’s free speech, too.

I didn’t think Doug Liman could deliver a worse film than “Road House,” the plastic, overwrought remake of the 1980s cult classic. With “The Instigators,” his second film of the year, he manages to make Matt Damon, in a re-teaming from their Bourne days, so void of any charm that the director makes this among the actor’s least crowd-pleasing offerings. This Apple TV heist flick is underwritten, dreary, tedious, inert, and without any stakes. I almost hesitate to write too much about it because this soulless dreck feels so unworthy of adding blemishes to the white page. 

From the jump, the unfocused script by Casey Affleck and Chuck MacLean makes “The Instigators” a chore to watch. The retired Marine Rory (Damon) and an alcoholic Cobby (Affleck) are two stiffs thrown together with the hot-headed Scalvo (Jack Harlow) by local Boston crime boss Mr. Besegia (Michael Stuhlbarg) and Richie Dechico (Alfred Molina). The city’s present mayor, the ruthless Mayor Micceli (Ron Perlman), is facing off against the underdog Mark Choi (Ronnie Cho). The two bosses think Micceli is going to win in a landslide like he always does. At his victory party, which requires a bribe for entry, there is bound to be plenty of money. The seemingly easy job, however, goes south when Micceli loses, leaving Rory and Cobby fleeing from the heist with nary any loot to show for their troubles. 

The only worthwhile treasure is a chain belonging to Micceli containing the combination to a safe. The desperate mayor dispatches Frankie (Ving Rhames), a cop, to hunt down Rory and Cobby. The pair leap across the city, taking Rory’s therapist, Dr. Donna Rivera (Hong Chau), hostage in the process. Despite the stacked cast, the premise is thin. 

“The Instigators” commits the unconscionable sin of somehow underusing every one of its actors. Stuhlbarg charges in with a big accent, but, along with Molina, pretty much disappears a third into the film. Paul Walter Hauser appears briefly as a fixer while Toby Jones, playing the mayor’s attorney, barely counts as background. Rhames merely broods. Pearlman sometimes yells. No one is a fully fleshed out character, including the film’s two leads. While we’re given some convoluted reasons why Rory and Cobby, respectively, need the money, those stakes aren’t felt during the film. Instead, the script attempts a half-baked triangle between Rory, Cobby, and Dr. Rivera — Cobby and Dr. Rivera attempt to do some form of flirting, maybe? — that totally fizzles. 

The film isn’t attractive, relying on garish coverage. The needle drops are among the most perplexing I’ve ever heard. The lyrics to “Ball of Confusion,” “People moving out, people moving in/Why, because of the color of their skin” soundtracks Rory and Cobby riding toward a pristine beach house (if this is a joke, Damon and Affleck do not sell it). “Downtown” jumpstarts a high-speed chase. “Jump Around” gives rhythm to a crowd of people chasing after money floating in the air a la Kubrick’s “The Killing.” The song choices lack coherency so much that they feel as though Liman forgot to turn the shuffle off on Spotify. 

None of this is helped by Affleck simply being miscast. While his morose persona should work for the sullen, sarcastic Cobby, he just sucks the energy away from the script’s banter. Neither Cobby nor Rory is particularly likable (or interesting for that matter). Damon tries to wield his usual charm, but it lands with a thud amid poorly conceived scenes and even worse rhythm between him and Affleck. In a better film, maybe, their dynamic would work. But in such a fatally flawed project, you come to wish Ben Affleck were opposite his good friend Damon. At least then we’d get some rhythm or some chemistry. Instead, this is a buddy film, made to mirror the absurdity of a Coen brothers flick, that lacks wit and amusement. 

“The Instigators” takes zero pleasure in entertaining. The heists are not intriguing or attention grabbing, even the planning of them feels like more of an annoyance than an opportunity to enrapture. The spectacle is flattened under tawdry VFX. Car chases are poorly stitched together. Unsurprisingly, the bracelet is a yawn-inducing MacGuffin. The film contradicts itself, takes little interest in its characters, and appears to only desire to provide its audience a stiff nap. “The Instigators” arouses no memorable scenes, feelings, jokes or profundity. At most, it’s a collection of moving images.

This movie opens with views of a manual typewriter, and indignant words being spelled out letter by letter. The time and place of this new movie co-directed by Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman, who also wrote the screenplay, becomes clear. It’s the United States in 1918, and the Spanish Flu is making its way to its shores. We soon see some vintage (fictional) headlines, including “Wear a mask or go to jail.” Oh dear. Is this period film aspiring to be a parable of Our Own Time?

Kinda sorta not really. Although the milieu of “Coup!” speaks allegorically to the pandemic of our own century, it does so softly; the movie is ultimately more a tale of class warfare than public health. The writer of the indignant words — among them “Immigrants and outsiders, colored and voiceless, demand closures!” — is newspaper columnist J.C. Horton (Billy Magnusson), who presides over a kingdom by the sea while writing breathless accounts of urban riots that he pretends to have been present at. His journalistic work, of course, does not fund his lavish estate; there’s a reference to his father having been a meat magnate and to J.C.’s muckraking having exposed his poor practices.

But before we properly meet the pompous, hypocritical J.C. and his rather less stuck-up wife Julie (Sarah Gadon), we see Peter Sarsgaard trimming his mustache before a mirror, messing with another man’s passport portrait, and bidding farewell to a corpse before taking on that corpse’s identity: that of Floyd Monk, newly employed to be the chef at the Horton estate, which shall eventually go into a form of lockdown that allows Monk to usurp Horton’s authority over his other servants (Horton insists on calling them “staff,” as if that means anything), his family, and much else.

Sarsgaard adopts a delightfully plummy Southern accent as the cheerfully spiteful rebel who enjoys tweaking propriety at every opportunity. Displaying a missing index finger that resulted from an injury he is proud to say he suffered on San Juan Hill, he can barely resist a sneer and eye-roll when Horton observes, “We are against mechanized mass slaughter here.” He can’t resist testing how far on thin ice he can skate, as when he stage-whispers “Why don’t you kiss my ass, nancy boy” to J.C. and, when asked WHAT he just said, revises it to “Why don’t we get some sassafras for the boy.” He plays three-card-monte with Horton’s young daughters and allows Julie to play poker with him and the staff. We eventually learn of the real indignation behind Monk’s pose, and once the character’s anger is compelled to emerge, the indignation is briefly bracing.

That indignation doesn’t really end up getting this representative of the underclass anywhere. (That’s putting it mildly.) And it’s a bumpy road to get to it. Mrs. McMurray (Kristine Nielsen), the imperious head of the household help, is righteously skeptical of Monk, so the chef contrives to get her out of the way with help from some mildly toxic mushrooms. It’s when Mrs. McMurray reacts to the dosing that the movie shows its central flaw. Breaking into a sweat, she begins chanting, “The power of Christ compels you,” and then pukes pea-green onto J.C. This pointless “Exorcist” reference isn’t a third as clever as the moviemakers seem to believe it is and reflects a tiresome self-satisfied tone that is made a fair bit more tolerable by Sarsgaard’s juicy lead performance.