Features

‘2073’ is a dystopian hit on MAX

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Writer-director Asif Kapadia’s latest film offers viewers a glimpse of an American dystopia of the near future, about 50 years from now. 2073’s opening montage of drones, cameras, bombed-out looking cityscapes and rampant arrests and police brutality plays out while a bit of onscreen text tells viewers that the movie takes place 37 years after “The Event.”

In New San Francisco, Capital of the Americas, everything is covered in dust and rust, and a toxic golden haze fills the air. It’s got none of the charm of a foggy day in the City by the Bay, and all of the trappings of nearly every sci-fi film focused on terrible tomorrows. Beyond the opening, 2073 might feel familiar to viewers because it’s based on French filmmaker Chris Marker’s classic experimental 1962 film, La Jetée. La Jetée was also the inspiration for Terry Gilliam’s film 12 Monkeys.

Features

Control Freak scratches an itch on Hulu

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Control Freak is a new Hulu movie that reminds me of The Substance, in a good way. The Substance recently got a lot of awards season attention for its gore-dripping explorations of the unnatural pursuit of physical perfection, and Control Freak brings a similar ironic horror tone to its cautionary tale about personal perfection. It takes aim at the self-help industrial complex and all those social media gurus who are “here to help” and this free app based on ancient Hermetic law. Valerie (Kelly Marie Tran) is a formerly homeless woman who’s become a world famous motivational speaker. She lives with her husband in a swanky house where she’s getting ready for a tour of Asia while she slowly comes unwound due to an unceasing itch on the back of her head.

Movie poster of Look Into My Eyes. It features an illustration looking into the window of an apartment building. In the window is a woman sitting at a table illuminated by a candle.
Features

‘Look Into My Eyes’ documents contemporary loneliness and the supernatural

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Most Nashvillians will know filmmaker Lana Wilson for her Taylor Swift documentary, Miss Americana (2020). Wilson also directed the Brooke Shields documentary Pretty Baby (2023) as well as an examination of extremism and abortion in America (After Tiller, 2015), and a meditation on suicide in Japanese culture (The Departure, 2017). Wilson’s new movie, Look Into My Eyes reads like a blend of the filmmaker’s curiosities with interesting personalities and particular cultural trends. The movie was released by A24 in September and it’s now streaming on MAX. Look Into My Eyes is a mosaic portrait of a handful of psychic readers in New York City.