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CAPSULE: DIGGER (2026)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , Riz Ahmed, , Sophie Wilde,

PLOT: A narcissistic billionaire struggles to control the narrative after his oil drilling operation causes a global catastrophe.

Still from Digger (2026)

COMMENTS: Digger is, nakedly, Tom Cruise’s bid to finally land that elusive Oscar. Give him a producer’s credit and an 8-figure budget. A script for an issue film, but not on a super-polarizing topic like transsexualism: instead, make it a comedy with a populist spin about the ultra-wealthy screwing the little guy. Pair him with a director with a reputation for shepherding highbrow concepts into accessible, Oscar-friendly cineplex experiences. Add a top-notch supporting cast willing to concede the limelight. Throw money at the screen, promising a Vista Vision spectacle like only real Hollywood can do it. Given these resources, Cruise certainly does his part: under what looks like pounds of makeup and a fat suit that makes him unrecognizable except for the occasional Cruisian glimmer in his eye, he blusters his way through the madness, hitting every mark.

And yet, for all of this liveliness, box office receipts and reviews have already dug Digger an early grave. Which may be appropriate for a ghoulish comedy featuring a dying planet, a dying President, and a dying cat.

One drawback is that the film isn’t that funny. Iñárritu has a knack for contrived absurdity, but not for the sort of rollicking comedy that feels unforced and organic. Consider a moment in a high-stakes war room meeting when a general makes an off-color sexist remark, and President Compson (a gaunt Goodman) admonishes him to watch his language because there are ladies present. After a beat where everyone looks around the room in confusion, Goodman chortles, unable to sustain a straight face. That line would have been a screamer in Dr. Strangelove‘s 1960s, but, although it gets a reflexive laugh here, you almost immediately realize it doesn’t reflect contemporary reality: today, there would have been a Susie Wiles in that meeting, or at the very least a Natalie Harp. 

Which leads into the other major criticism of the film: it crams obvious messages into the shape of jokes, rather than finding the humor in the story’s situations. Digger is preachy, almost as hectoring as its caricature of a tycoon. And few enjoy being lectured at, even when they agree with the lesson. The script’s “meta” twist acknowledges this weakness, and comes close to apologizing for it; but in doing so, risks becoming even more condescending, explaining to the audience how satire is supposed to work and how you should process it. The tack the twist takes, however, ultimately serves a narrative purpose that is specific and surprising enough to avoid that pitfall. Still, the overall feeling that the film is talking down to the viewer is hard to shake.

Based on the sometimes brutal notices, that smug tone annoyed many critics. But in truth, it hardly ruins the film, which remains brisk and unpredictable. Digger is still strong when it focuses on uncomfortable truths. The centerpiece is a 10-minute (one take!) Cruise monologue where he speaks before some sort of court composed of a jury of ashen European extras from a film. Having given up on deniability in the face of a tsunami of death and misery directly caused by his choices, Digger surrenders to the inevitable opprobrium and tries the tactic of truth as a Hail Mary. Yes, we wrecked the environment. But what did you expect us to do? Ignore your demands for heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, jet fuel for trips to Mallorca, and Doordashed Big Macs? Forego squeezing every short-term dollar of shareholder value? Not kick the can of catastrophe down the road? Did anyone ever actually believe there was any way we would not ruin the planet? The message is heavy-handed… but it’s not wrong.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…even when you bump against the Tom Cruise of it all, and there’s no denying the thrill of watching him apply his signature intensity to a role as strange as this one… Iñárritu… fares better when he trades slapstick for Hieronymous Bosch-like surrealism during the middle portion…”–David Ehrlich, Indiewire (contemporaneous)

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IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY? (1969)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Michael Sarrazin, ,

PLOT: In Depression-era America, people take part in an exhausting dance contest for a big prize of $1500.

Still from They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)

COMMENTS: Long before the pop phenomenon “Squid Game” and contemporary reality shows, one New Hollywood flick used contests and challenges as the perfect metaphor for a materialistic and overly competitive society. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, based on the 1935 Horace McCoy novel, is the product of a specific Hollywood period characterized by creativity and vision. In the late 1960s and 1970s, American mainstream cinema, inspired by the French New Wave and theories regarding auteurist cinema, produced a series of socially-conscious, well-regarded masterpieces. Horses happens to be one of them.

The setting is the poverty-stricken America of the 1930s. The plot revolves around a group of people taking part in a dance competition for couples, which promises a big prize of $1500 for the winners. Jane Fonda plays the cynical, hardened Gloria. By happenstance she meets Robert (Michael Sarrazin) and chooses him as her dance partner for the competition. These two are the protagonists of our tale, and by following them in their struggle we get to know some other couples from the dance floor as well.

Each participant carries their own misfortunes and desperation, and, at least for a while, the competition seems like an escape from their burdens. Not only does it promise rewards, but it conceals everyone’s misery in beautiful costumes and an elegant, festive atmosphere. The question is, is the contest really exploiting them? Their struggle for survival becomes a show for the masses, while the event gradually reveals its face as a deeply humiliating farce. Mental and physical breakdown is part of the program here, and in the end, that failure is what the paying audience wants desperately to consume.

Despite the absence of graphic imagery, within such a competitive and oppressive environment there is a certain dynamic that recalls  the microcosm of ‘s Salo, the 120 Days of Sodom (1975). Contestants try to appeal to the authorities—the event’s producers—through implied sexual favors. At the same time, the relationship between Gloria and Robert hints at a typical Hollywood romance, only to wildly subvert it by revealing its the fakeness and the process behind its construction. The uncommon narrative technique of flash-forwards suggests a tragic finale that only reveals itself fully towards the end.

All in all, this is a solid recommendation for everyone interested in classic cinema and movies with strong elements of social critique. It reveals the exploitative mechanisms at work behind the star system, and the show business, attacking even its own home, Hollywood. And although it takes the form of a tragic fable, it doesn’t lose its realism. It may not be a weird movie, but it is a subversive one for sure.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“A sordid spectacle of hard times, a kind of existentialist allegory of life.”–Variety Staff, Variety (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Brett Warwick, who said “I’m a little surprised that Sydney Pollack’s 1969 fever-dream masterpiece… wasn’t mentioned.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.) 

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

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    I think this movie is weirder than average
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    CAPSULE: THE BRIDE! (2026)

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    DIRECTED BY:

    FEATURING: , , Annette Bening, , ,

    PLOT: In the 1930s, a gangster’s moll is killed after Mary Shelley’s spirit possesses her and insults important men; soon after, Frankenstein’s monster convinces a mad scientist to animate her dead body as a mate for him, and the outcast pair go on a righteous killing spree.

    Still from the bride! (2026)

    COMMENTS: Just like ‘s Bride of Frankenstein, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! begins with a prologue in which author Mary Shelley describes her unwritten sequel to “Frankenstein.” Only this Mary is foul-mouthed, angry, and very dead. Despite this handicap, Mary is so determined to birth her untold story that she enters the body of 1930s Chicago party girl Ida as she dines on champagne and oysters in the company of gangsters, overriding the girl’s compliant meekness to speak through her, resulting in Ida being thrown down the stairs to her death. When Frankenstein’s monster (who’s quickly given the nickname “Frank”) comes to town to ask Dr. Euphronious to create a life partner for him, this is the corpse the pair dig up and reanimate. From that point on, Bride Jesse Buckley, amnesiac about her past life, will occasionally be possessed by Shelley’s spirit, surrendering her streetwise Chicago accent and suddenly speaking like a pissed-off Victorian Dorothy Parker on a three-day bender.

    The ghost of Mary Shelley (who, recall, was not only a novelist but also the daughter of an anarchist philosopher and a feminist pioneer) quite literally haunts The Bride! Her presence is about one-third literal possession, one-third meta-narrative conceit, and one-third symbolic feminist consciousness, with a touch of comic relief. It’s a strange and bold gambit that sets the unevenly absurdist tone of this oddball Gothic romance, and it provides recent Oscar-honoree Jesse Buckley the chance to reaffirm the fact that she’s the most versatile and accomplished actress working today. Her performance is necessarily schizophrenic, with the script frequently requiring her to switch accents in the middle of a line. Buckley understands the assignment, throwing herself into the role with risk-taking abandon, especially considering that she’s coming off a prestige performance as William Shakespeare’s grieving wife. Here, she embraces the campiness of the material, and her quick turnaround shows a willingness to accept absolutely any challenge and adapt herself to the requirements of the script. Without her in the lead, The Bride! might well have fallen flat on its face, rather than being a divisive work with defenders and detractors on both sides of the aisle. Let’s hope that, having gotten that Oscar under her belt at an early stage in her career, Buckley remains eager to take on these kinds of outré roles.

    The rest of the cast largely plays straight man to Buckley’s crazy. Bale is a fine Monster, digging into the traditional loneliness and dignity of the character, playing him in a realistic register and always willing to yield the spotlight to his co-star. Annette Bening’s mad scientist is eccentric enough, but again does not overshadow the Bride. Penélope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard also play it straight as a pair of detectives on the monster couple’s trail, advancing the film’s secondary feminist subplot along more familiar lines. Gyllenhaal’s famous brother Jake delights in a small supporting role as a Gene Kelly type hoofer who dances in the fictional films beloved by Hollywood musical fanatic Frank.

    Bride!‘s weirdo energy doesn’t stop with its wackadoo Mary-Shelley-possesses-a-moll premise or its Frankenstein-in-30s-America setting. Maggie Gyllenhaal directs The Bride! like the wannabe cult-film it seems destined to become, scene-by-scene and with little concern for superficial coherence. Sometimes characters are understandably horrified by Frank and his Bride’s gruesome appearances, while at other times these monsters who walk among us are treated as unremarkable. (Despite her cadaverous appearance and disheveled makeup, Buckley finds herself a target of numerous lechers.) At times characters appear onscreen in the various black and white features cinephile Frank insists on catching at every stop. The couple manages to stumble into the only 80s punk-scene venue in 1930s Chicago for a night on the town. An incongruous dance scene in he middle of a black tie gala in which the mischievous Shelley appears to possess the entire entourage serves as a centerpiece.

    There’s enough crazy to go around, and along the way, there are as many references to Young Frankenstein and Bonnie & Clyde as there are to Bride of Frankenstein—and for reasons that barely fit, the film’s message is structured around an angry variant of Bartleby’s “I would prefer not to” philosophy. There is a “normal” story here, but Gyllenhaal eschews it in favor of a directorial philosophy fashioned around, as she has her Mary Shelley put it, being “disobedient and ungovernable.” It’s exactly the out-there directorial effort we would hope for from an actress whom we first noticed in Donnie Darko, and whose best-known acting credit is as a submissive in the BDSM comedy Secretary. Unfortunately, The Bride‘s box office performance suggests that Gyllenhaal may have already squandered her shot at being Hollywood’s next go-to female director, but we’re hoping she will continue to deliver the gonzo goods rather than reforming her “disobedient geometries” by chasing the almighty buck.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “…a pulpy, punk-rock romantic tragedy that’s chaotic, weird and beautiful, but also confusing and confounding.”–The Cleveland Plain Dealer (contemporaneous)

    Apocryphally Weird

    65*: SOUTHLAND TALES (2006)

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    “Some audience members get very angry if they can’t process and understand the story in one viewing, and they see that as a design flaw in the film itself. Other people are more open to obscurity and complexity and the idea of needing to revisit something. Those are my favorite kinds of films.”–Richard Kelly

    DIRECTED BY: Richard Kelly

    FEATURING: Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Justin Timberlake, Nora Dunn, Wood Harris, Christopher Lambert, John Larroquette, , , Mandy Moore, Holmes Osborne, Cheri Oteri, Amy Poehler, , Miranda Richardson, , Will Sasso, Wallace Shawn, Kevin Smith

    PLOT: In the near future, a terrorist attack transforms America into a cryptofacist police state. The third anniversary of that attack proves to be a day of great significance, with the launch of a new national surveillance agency, the release of an energy source/mind-altering drug called Fluid Karma, and the debut of an enormous luxury zeppelin improbably named for the wife of Karl Marx. On this day, the fates of multiple citizens collide, including an amnesiac action star who has written a startlingly prescient screenplay, a porn actor overseeing a burgeoning branding empire, a former beauty queen-turned-spymaster, a venal fundamentalist vice-presidential candidate who is being bribed by an assortment of neo-Marxist agitants, an international cadre of cult members whose purported invention of a perpetual motion machine masks an effort to bring about the end of the world, and, maybe most importantly of all, a war veteran and his twin brother searching for each other.

    Still from Southland Tales (2006)

    BACKGROUND:

    • Kelly envisioned the film as part of an epic multimedia saga. In-film titles identify sections of the movie as chapters 4-6; the first three chapters were released as graphic novels (now out-of-print collectibles).
    • The film had a notorious premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival when Kelly submitted the film before it was completed. He finished neither the editing nor the visual effects in time, and the extremely poor reception received by the work-in-progress prompted him to cut more than 20 minutes prior to general release (including virtually all of’s performance as an Army general). The version shown at Cannes has since been released, although Kelly himself describes the film overall as unfinished.
    • Several members of the cast are alums of “Saturday Night Live.” Kelly intentionally cast them to play up the screenplay’s satirical elements, and in general wanted to give his actors a chance to play against type.
    • Budgeted at $17 million, Southland Tales grossed less than $400,000 at the global box office.

    INDELIBLE IMAGE: There’s little agreement as to whether Southland Tales is a good movie or not, but the one thing that seems to be beyond dispute is that is Timberlake’s Venice Beach lip sync to The Killers’ “All These Things That I’ve Done” is the standout scene. Timberlake’s yokel narrator Pilot Abilene spends the bulk of the film drawling overheated speeches that rely heavily on the Book of Revelation, which he delivers in the tone of a pothead conspiracy nut vainly trying to lift the scales from your eyes. But here, as he struts through a rundown arcade in a drug-induced haze wearing a blood-soaked undershirt and cavorting with a kickline of PVC-clad nurses, Pilot Abilene claims the screen for himself, demonstrating more comfort with the film’s absurdities than anyone we’ve seen thus far. It’s the one moment where Kelly’s delivers his commitment to over-the-top imagery with any degree of lightness; instead of the ponderousness of significance that accompanies every other set piece, this dance scene really dances.

    TWO WEIRD THINGS: Mirror on delay; rehearsing the performance-art assassination

    WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Richard Kelly is ambitious to a fault, a spectacularly indulgent filmmaker who never had an idea he didn’t want to film and who makes sure you notice every element of his worldbuilding. Southland Tales is a quintessential Kelly experience, with one layer of Philip K. Dickian paranoid surrealism piled upon another layer of Altmanesque interconnectedness, rinse and repeat. The film has been carefully crafted to confuse, with absurd situations, offscreen backstories, and red herrings combining to keep characters and viewers equally at sea.

    Original trailer for Southland Tales (2006)

    COMMENTS: What good is a blank check? If cinematic success affords a director the chance to fulfill their dream, what dream should Continue reading 65*: SOUTHLAND TALES (2006) →

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    CAPSULE: FINALLY DAWN (2023)

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    Finalmente l’alba

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    DIRECTED BY: Saverio Costanzo

    FEATURING: Rebecca Antonaci, Lily James, Joe Keery, Willem Dafoe

    PLOT: After losing track of her sister during a casting call in 1950s Rome, Mimosa ends up spending a long night with a Hollywood actress and her hangers-on.

    Still from Finally Dawn (2023)

    COMMENTS: Mimosa’s mother appreciated the actors’ performance in The Sacrifice—the black and white film which opens Finally Dawn—but is annoyed that all the movies these days obsess over war tragedies. Mimosa’s striking sister thought the film lovely; though perhaps not quite so lovely as a studio swain finds the sister. And Mimosa herself? She loves movies, and probably doesn’t love the quiet police official she’s engaged to. She joins her sister at Cinecittà the following day for an extras casting call for a new sword and sandal epic; though not selected (Mimosa’s modesty does her no favors with the film crew), she accidentally meets Josephine Esperanto, a star she greatly admires. When she’s hand-picked by the leading lady for a small cameo, so begins Mimosa’s long night of drinks, drugs, and rumors of a tiger escaped in the Eternal City.

    Finally Dawn is slick, with the atmosphere of a period-period-epic. But the general malaise of the grand actors confounds Mimosa, and her lack of fluency in English does her no favors. (This is allayed when an affable bilingual American gallery owner played by a quietly charming Willem Dafoe smooths over the proceedings.) She’s brought to a fine restaurant, whisked to an opulent palazzo party, and otherwise has luxury and intrigue thrust upon her as her various hosts curry favor with this quiet Roman girl who has escaped the jadedness which weighs them down.

    Saverio Costanzo’s film unwraps with an easy-awkward charm: easy on the eyes, as these are the beautiful people; awkwardness emerging from the unkindness found amongst those beautiful people, foisted upon an everywoman who is torn between wonderment, confusion, and a desire to just get home. Even with their flaws, the characters are all likable, to one degree or another—although Josephine Esperanto’s shenanigans with her human toy make for at least one uneasy scene—and Rebecca Antonaci’s turn as Mimosa evolves from endearing deer-in-headlights into compelling mistress of her fate. Finally Dawn concludes with a low growl, as Mimosa’s maturation arc lands with a soft, barefoot walk alongside a soft, toothful companion.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “…chronicles the dreamlike quality of a night that eventually descends into a nightmare… a surreal vision of coming-in-age via cinema, and James fully sells the movie star mayhem at its center. But it can’t overcome its meandering script and hollow depiction of the era.”–Maureen Lee Lenker, Entertainment Weekly (contemporaneous)