Author: swampflix

The Not-So-New 52: Wonder Woman (2009)

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Welcome to The Not-So-New 52, your digital Swampflix comic book (adaptation) newsstand! Starting in 2007, DC Comics and Warner Premiere entered the direct-to-home-video market with animated features, mostly in the form of adaptations of well-received event comics or notable arcs. This Swampflix feature takes its name from the 2011 DC relaunch event “The New 52,” and since there are (roughly) fifty-two of these animated features as of the start of 2024, Boomer is watching them in order from the beginning with weekly reviews of each. So, get out your longboxes and mylar sleeves and get ready for weekly doses of grousing, praise, befuddlement, recommendations, and occasional onomatopoeia as we get animated for over fifteen years of not-so-new comic cartoons. 

It’s a testament to just how starved we were for Wonder Woman content in the aughts that this animated movie, which came out in 2009, was so well received. It’s not bad per se—in fact, in many places, it’s quite good—but this movie’s version of Steve Trevor is gross in a way that was probably apparent even at the time, but which has become even more apparent in contrast to the way that the character was portrayed by least problematic Christopher in Hollywood, Chris Pine, in the live-action 2017 film that was released just a scant eight years later. 

The 2009 Wonder Woman film starts in the distant past: Amazon Queen Hippolyta (Virginia Madsen) is locked in battle with god of war Ares (Alfred Molina), her former lover. As her warriors die on the battlefield, locked in combat with an army of mythical monsters led by her and Ares’s son Thrax, she turns the tides by beheading her own offspring. Preparing to do the same to Ares, she is stopped by Zeus and Hera (Marg Helgenberger), who tell her that they cannot permit her to kill a god, but they will bind his powers and allow her to hold him as her prisoner in perpetuity, granting her and her people a new home on the paradise-like island of Themyscira, safe from the dangers of “man’s world.” After she and her people build their new home, Hippolyta is granted another boon as she crafts a child for herself from the island’s clay, which the Olympians bring to life: a daughter, Diana (Keri Russell). Decades later, Ares remains under lock and key under the guardianship of Persephone (Vicki Lewis), a warrior who lost an eye when she jumped into the line of fire and took a blow that was meant for bookworm Alexa (Tara Strong) in the war against Ares in the prologue; this lack of interest in battle on the part of Alexa makes her the target of mockery for supposed cowardice by her older sister Artemis (Rosario Dawson), Hippolyta’s right hand general. When modern USAF pilot Steve Trevor (Nathan Fillion) lands on Themyscira after an aerial dogfight, a contest is held to determine which of the Amazons should travel beyond their peaceful oasis to return him to his nation. Diana wins this competition, but her excitement is short lived, as Ares’s escape while the island’s inhabitants were distracted by the contest means that she will not need to seek him out and return him to his cell. 

There’s a tonal issue at play here that drags this one down a bit. It’s got a PG-13 rating, and at the time of release, there was some outcry about the level of violence in this one. I think that’s reflective of a systemic issue, as this film is no more violent than Superman: Doomsday, which didn’t receive the same kind of criticism, and I think it’s owed solely to the fact that the combatants here are women. There is a decapitation (in shadow), but in the earlier film, Doomsday murdered an actual child (although the “camera” cut away), but because Amazonians (read: women) are doing the violence, this one received more criticism. It makes sense that this would get the MPAA rating that it did because of this, but the dialogue remains very PG. There’s a recurring bit that starts because Trevor says “crap” in front of the Amazons, then has to explain that it means excrement; each time after this that he uses the word, the Amazons take this as further evidence of the crassness and baseness of mankind, until Diana finally uses it herself at the end as a demonstration of her becoming more acclimatized to man’s world. That’s all well and good (if a bit pat and trite), but its failure to push the boundaries of the film’s rating demonstrates that the franchise is still trying to bridge a gap between appealing to (and being acceptable for) children while aiming to attract an older audience through a novel, more mature approach to storytelling. 

Once upon a time, I owned this movie on DVD, having obtained it for a mere $5 from the CVS on Leon C. Simon, when I was a student at UNO. I have a very clear memory of watching the special features, which included several talking heads from the film’s voice cast, and Rosario Dawson using the word “warriess” several times, which I always found endearing. Dawson is giving a great performance here in general, with a couple of quite badass lines—my favorite of which is when someone teases her about her giant sword, and she replies that it “is but [her] dagger.” Very little in the film stuck out in my mind, however, other than the speedrun through the stations of the Diana of Themyscira canon: born of clay, paradise island, crashed air pilot, championship to determine the ambassador to man’s world, crusader for truth and justice. Once Diana comes to the modern world, there’s a distinct lack of charm in her fish out of water story that acts as a demonstration of why this narrative works better as a period piece; the Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman movie sets its events during WWI while the Lynda Carter TV classic was set in WWII (at least initially), as the earliest comics had been. This allows for there to be some natural chemistry between this isolated demigod princess and a man who can be a little regressive but still likable in that he was more aware than average for this time. Here, Steve Trevor is a total hound dog, in a way that would have been obnoxious even for a contemporary guy at the time of the film’s release. 

All of the stuff with Wonder Woman herself is great (minus a comment that she makes about Etta Candy that is supposed to shame her for being a stereotype), but I’d really rather not have heard Steve Trevor tell Queen Hippolyta that “[her] daughter’s got a nice rack,” even if it’s supposed to be a moment played for comedy (he’s bound with the Lasso of Truth). Later still, he tries to get Diana drunk with the implication that he expects to have the opportunity to take advantage of her! It’s vile, frankly. The rest of the film, as wonderful as so much of it is—the fight between the Amazons and the reanimated dead is a particular standout, especially as it exists both as set piece and as vehicle for closure on the Alexa/Artemis relationship—doesn’t make up for the fact that its male lead is an attempted sexual assailant by any other name. Edit all of that out and you have a 4-star animated flick, but it is in this film, and that leaves us where we are.

-Mark “Boomer” Redmond

Swampflix’s Top 10 Films of 2023

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1. Barbie – Greta Gerwig’s hot-pink meta daydream combines the bubbly pop feminism of Legally Blonde with the movie-magic artifice of The Wizard of Oz to craft the modern ideal of wide-appeal Hollywood filmmaking. It’s fantastic, an instant classic. 

2. Enys Men – In a year where the buzziest horror titles were slow-cinema abstractions (see: Skinamarink, The Outwaters), Mark Jenkins’s sophomore feature was our clear favorite.  More like an imagistic poem about loneliness and isolation than a “movie,” Enys Men is the psychedelic meltdown of id at the bottom of a deep well of communal grief.  It restructures the seaside ghost story of John Carpenter’s The Fog through the methodical unraveling of Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, dredging up something that’s at once eerily familiar & wholly unique.

3. Poor Things – Yorgos Lanthimos has always poked at assumed social norms as if they were a corpse he found in the woods.  That naive interrogation has never been as scientifically thorough nor as wickedly fun as it is here, though, to the point where he’s articulated the entire human experience through repurposed dead flesh. We love everything about this perverse Frankenstein story: every outrageous set & costume design, every grotesque CG creature that toddles in the background, every one of Mark Ruffalo’s man-baby tantrums and, of course, every moment of Emma Stone’s central performance as an unhinged goblin child.

4. Asteroid City – A new contender for one of Wes Anderson’s strongest works.  In The French Dispatch, he self-assessed how his fussy live-action New Yorker cartoons function as populist entertainment. Here, that self-assessment peers inward, shifting to their function as emotional Trojan horses. It has more layers of reality upon fiction upon more fiction upon reality than The Matrix, with gorgeous set design and an incredible cast of actors giving career-best performances.

5. The Royal Hotel – Kitty Green’s service industry thriller plays like a slightly more grounded version of Alex Garland’s Men, except the men in question swarm their victims like George Romero zombie hordes. A great film about misogyny, social pressure, and alcoholic stupor.

6. Smoking Causes Coughing – An anthology horror comedy disguised as a Power Rangers parody, Smoking Causes Coughing is another bizarro knockout from Quentin Dupieux (director of Rubber, Mandibles, and previous Movie of the Year pick Deerskin).  Apparently antsy about having to spend 70min on just one absurdist premise, Dupieux’s now chopping them up into bite-sized, 7-minute morsels, which is great, since every impulse he has is hilariously idiotic.

7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem – Not only the best Ninja Turtles movie in thirty years, but also the best mutation of the Spider-Verse animation aesthetic to date and the most a Trent Reznor score has actually sounded like Trent Reznor’s band. We were particularly delighted that it leans into the “teen” portion of its title by making everything as gross as possible and by making the turtles’ ultimate goal Saving Prom.

8. M3GAN – Finally, a modern killer doll movie where the doll actually moves, a huge relief after spending so many years staring at the inanimate Annabelle.  M3GAN loves to move; she does TikTok dances, she actively hunts her prey and, most importantly, she never turns down an opportunity to give Michelle Pfeiffer-level side-eye.  It’s been a long time since this first hit theaters, but the increasing, insidious popularity of A.I. among tech bros kept it on our minds all year.  What a doll.

9. Infinity Pool – There certainly hasn’t been a shortage of “Eat the Rich” satires recently, but Brandon Cronenberg’s entry in the genre still stands out in its extremity.  Not only does it have Mia Goth’s most deranged performance to date (no small feat), but it’s also more willing than its competition to push its onscreen depravity past the point of good taste for darkly comic, cathartic release – careful to put every substance the human body can discharge on full, loving display. Plenty audiences were turned off by its disregard for subtlety & restraint, but that’s exactly what makes it great.

10. Priscilla – Sofia Coppola’s downers & cocktails antidote to Baz Luhrmann’s brain-poison uppers in last year’s Elvis.  Technically, both directors are just playing the hits in their respective Graceland biopics, but only one of them successfully recaptures the magic of their 1990s masterworks.  It’s one of Coppola’s best films about the boredom & isolation of feminine youth, which by default makes it one of her best overall.

Read Alli’s picks here.
Read Boomer’s picks here.
Read Brandon’s picks here.
Read Britnee’s picks here.
See Hanna’s picks here.
Hear James’s picks here.

-The Swampflix Crew

Destroy All Neighbors (2024)

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I have developed parasocial relationships with several of the key collaborators behind the retro splatstick comedy Destroy All Neighbors, which has me rooting for its success.  I met one of the film’s writers, Charles Pieper, at a local horror festival a few years ago, and we established one of the most sacred bonds two people can share: social media mutuals.  The film’s score was also co-produced by Brett Morris, who produces and co-hosts several podcasts I’ve regularly listened to for over a decade now, which is arguably an even stronger (one-sided) bond.  Several of the central performers—including Jonah Ray, Alex Winter, Jon Daly, and Tom Lennon—have all maintained the kind of long-simmering, low-flame cultural longevity on the backburners of the pro media stovetop that also encourages that same kind of parasocial affection, the feeling of rooting for someone to continue to Make It just because knowing of their existence feels like being privy to a deep cut.  It seems appropriate, then, that the film is about the kind of long-term, stubborn hustle artists must maintain to complete any creative project in a town like Los Angeles, and how that LA Hustle mindset can also get in those poor souls’ own way.  There’s a tricky balance between the lonely self-determination of seeing a project through even though no one else fully believes in it and the simultaneous need to foster collaboration & community to achieve success.  The people who made Destroy All Neighbors appear to understand the difficulty of that balance down to their charred bones because they’re all struggling with it in real time; all the audience can do is cheer them on from the sidelines.

Jonah Ray stars as the avatar for that LA Hustle mindset: a prog rock musician who has been tinkering with the inconsequential details of his unfinished magnum opus album for years, with no sign that he’ll ever walk away from the project.  Like all frustrated creatives, he blames his creative block on the minor annoyances of anyone within earshot, from the untalented nepo-baby hacks who cash in on their industry connections for easy success to the mentally ill homeless man outside his jobsite who’s just angling for a free croissant.  Things escalate when he finally lashes out at one of these annoying distractions from his “work”, a cartoonishly grotesque neighbor with an addiction to wall-shaking EDM (played by Alex Winter under a mountain of prosthetic makeup and a Swedish Chef-style goofball accent).  What starts as a neighborly spat quickly snowballs into a full-blown killing spree, and the frustrated musician’s Nice Guy persona is challenged by his weakness for violent white-nerd outbursts.  His grip with reality becomes exponentially shaky as his body count rises, and the film slips into a Dead Alive style approach to comic chaos and goopy puppetry, regularly delivering the kinds of practical effects gore gags that earn “special makeup effects” credits in an opening scroll.  Does the troubled prog nerd finish his unlistenably complicated rock album before he’s brought to justice for his crimes? It doesn’t really matter.  What’s more important is that he learns how to get along with the people around him instead of lashing out while he’s trying to tinker with his art project in peace.  It’s just a shame that by the time he figures that out, most of the people around him are reanimated corpses and cops with their guns drawn.

In horror comedy terms, Destroy All Neighbors falls somewhere between the belligerent screaming of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and the nostalgic throwback to old-school splatstick of a Psycho Goreman.  If it does anything particularly new within the genre, it’s in its use of cursed guitar lesson YouTube clips instead of cursed camcorder found footage.  Jon Daly regularly appears on the prog nerd’s phone as the host of evil YouTube tutorials, filling his brain with poisonous ideas about how if people “get” or “enjoy” your music, you’re automatically a failure and a sellout.  He’s just one of many abrasive characters who live in the musician’s head rent-free, though, and to blame the murderous rampage on that one rotten influence would be to misinterpret the film’s overall push for communal art collaboration.  Otherwise, Destroy All Neighbors is just impressively gross in a warmly familiar way.  It’s playful in its willingness to distract itself from the main narrative just to have some fun with the tools & personnel on hand, exemplifying exactly what the nerd-rage prog boy needs to learn if he’s ever going to finish his magnum opus.  What’s amazing is that we’re still rooting for him to pull it off even after the liner notes for his unfinished album now include an “In Memoriam” section.  Regardless of whether you’ve ever tried to Make It in LA, anyone who’s ever worked on a noncommercial art project for a nonexistent audience should be able to relate (give or take a couple murder charges, depending on your personal circumstances).

-Brandon Ledet

Alli’s Top 10 Films of 2023

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1. Poor Things
I love everything about this movie: the imaginative sets and world design, the grotesque lil creatures that pepper background scenes, Emma Stone playing an unhinged goblin child, and every single outfit she wears while doing so. The entire cast is amazing, especially Stone, but shout out to Mark Ruffalo for throwing the best man-baby tantrums. Past those surface-level joys, the ideas are complex and amazing.  What responsibilities do we owe other people, especially in our own efforts to be free? Where does bodily autonomy start and end? Which societal expectations help or hinder us? It’s a lush work of genius. 

2. The Boy and the Heron
Dreams and memories blend with a wide array of art styles in what is probably the messiest and yet most poignant work by Miyazaki. Ultimately the messages and metaphors become muddled and unclear, but in a way that’s true to life. Should future generations hold onto the things older people built or just topple it over and begin again? Does he want us to take his work as meaningless doodles, or does he think the kids these days need to stop obsessing over every little detail and just go exist in real life? Yes, it’s typical curmudgeonly Miyazaki stuff, but to me, the complexity is so fascinating. Also, there are some very cute little weird guys (the entire theater experienced me squealing over them every time they were on screen; seriously, they’re that cute), and Robert Pattinson puts in the voice acting performance of the year.

3. Enys Men
We’ve all had too much time being isolated the past few years. I think at some point we all feel stir crazy and a little like we’re in a time loop. Watching the scientist protagonist spend every day checking the same flower, dropping a stone down the same pit, and ultimately having nothing change—until it does—hits close to home. How long can someone last doing the same things in the same place before they start experiencing weird stuff? What tasks do we have to give ourselves to make our days meaningful? The filmmaking here is just so cool and the vibes are very uncomfortable and haunting.  

4. Barbie
I was a Barbie-obsessed child of the 90s. I had a Barbie Dream House, complete with a Barbie toilet. I had too many dolls to count. I once pushed a boy who was bigger than me over and got in trouble for it, because he threw one of my Barbies on a roof (proto man-eating-feminist baby Alli was not to be trifled with). I was all-in from the start when I heard this movie was being made, while folks around me remained hesitant. I feel extremely vindicated that it’s as wonderful as it is. It’s a hot-pink meta daydream about plastic feminism and how the patriarchy can seep in and take control solely through books about horses or other innocuous male-driven media. I think a lot of people missed the point in thinking that reforming Ken was the focus of the movie rather than the butt of the joke, but the basic point of “Hey, check out these double standards” still got across. I’m very glad this was the most popular movie of last year.

5. Asteroid City
Yet another movie on this list that’s all style and complex metaphor about surviving forced isolation, but this one has a sense of self-deprecating humor about it! It’s a movie about a televised documentary about the making of a play, which is a ridiculous concept only Wes Anderson can get us on board with for an hour and 45 minutes. Impeccably stylish and effortlessly funny, this belongs in the same breath as The Royal Tenenbaums as one of his strongest works. 

6. Skinamarink
If you thought I was done talking about movies that deal with being stuck in one place, you were wrong! No story about two kids getting trapped inside a house has ever delivered more digital fuzz or existential dread. This is a bad-vibes-only 90s horror fever dream that still has me thinking about it all the time even a full year after I saw it. A Freudian family-dysfunction nightmare, dread fills every single frame. There’s something about it that shook my inner little kid who remembers staying up too late, under-supervised and watching weird cartoons while every single noise in the house was the scariest thing in the world. Plus, I watch kids for a living, and I keep seeing that damn phone around the houses where I’m sitting. 

7. M3GAN
A.I. is taking over the minutiae of our lives, and some tech bros without enough cultural knowledge to know better would like it to take over art as well (GROAN). Most A.I. horror fails to capture how casually insidious that desire is, but not M3GAN. It’s a Frankenstein-eqsue horror about nerds not thinking through the consequences of their actions, because they’re just too excited about what they’re doing to care, which is exactly the problem. Also, it’s a very funny horror comedy with a very creepy robot girl. 

8. Smoking Causes Coughing
Quentin Dupieux continues his streak of absurdist horror-adjacent nonsense for weirdos, and we should all love him for it. A parodic “super sentai” force, powered by the harmful chemicals in cigarettes, fights giant reptile monsters until they’re sent on a wilderness retreat to work on their teambuilding. They end up telling spooky stories instead, so the film takes a hard left turn into the horror anthology genre. It’s disgusting, and I love it.

9/10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem & Nimona (TIE)

Both of these animated films are about self-acceptance and about how sometimes the bad guys just need a friend to push them in the right direction. They’re also both examples of how children’s media outside of Disney is often much fuller of heart and emotion. They’re funny, visually wonderful, and absolutely silly. Nimona made me tear up from feelings. Mutant Mayhem made me tear up from laughing.

-Alli Hobbs

Lagniappe Podcast: Prince of Darkness (1987)

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For this lagniappe episode of The Swampflix Podcast, Boomer, Brandon, and Alli discuss John Carpenter’s Santanicosmic horror Prince of Darkness (1987).

00:00 Plot is Optional
01:56 The Not-So-New 52

11:13 Krampus (2015)
13:39 Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
17:00 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
19:33 The Holdovers (2023)
22:32 Dream Scenario (2023)
24:09 Suitable Flesh (2023)
26:10 The Boy and the Heron (2023)
31:40 The Royal Hotel (2023)
34:03 Poor Things (2023)
41:45 Stroszek (1977)
46:23 Citizen Kane (1941)
51:52 There Will Be Blood (2007)
53:51 The Seventh Seal (1957)
01:01:11 Christmas Evil (1980)
01:04:52 Shin Kamen Rider (2023)
01:10:12 Time Bomb Y2K (2023)
01:16:28 Crazy Horse (2011)
01:21:34 Peppermint Soda (1977)
01:28:12 The Lathe of Heaven (1980)

01:35:37 Prince of Darkness (1987)

You can stay up to date with our podcast through SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, TuneIn, or by following the links on this page.

-The Lagniappe Podcast Crew

The Not-So-New 52: Batman — Gotham Knight (2008)

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Welcome to The Not-So-New 52, your digital Swampflix comic book (adaptation) newsstand! Starting in 2007, DC Comics and Warner Premiere entered the direct-to-home-video market with animated features, mostly in the form of adaptations of well-received event comics or notable arcs. This Swampflix feature takes its name from the 2011 DC relaunch event “The New 52,” and since there are (roughly) fifty-two of these animated features as of the start of 2024, Boomer is watching them in order from the beginning with weekly reviews of each. So, get out your longboxes and mylar sleeves and get ready for weekly doses of grousing, praise, befuddlement, recommendations, and occasional onomatopoeia as we get animated for over fifteen years of not-so-new comic cartoons. 

Batman: Gotham Knight was the third direct-to-DVD release that DC submitted for the approval of general society. Releasing in 2008, it was intended to be consistent with the then-ongoing Christopher Nolan Batman films, specifically taking place between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. I was really looking forward to this one at the time, and I remember being less than excited about the final product at the time. Serving as a series of six interconnected vignettes, the film was imagined as DC’s answer to The Animatrix, and although I didn’t much care for it when I first saw it (in fact, I distinctly remember buying the DVD, watching it once, and then trading it in for credit at Wherehouse Music almost immediately), my estimation of it has gone up in the intervening years. Maybe I’ve just grown more accustomed to non-Western art styles or more accepting of changing styles within a single narrative, but this one is pretty fun. 

In the first segment, “Have I Got a Story for You,” penned by A History of Violence screenwriter Josh Olson, several teenage friends gather to tell one another about having seen the urban legend figure of Batman battling it out on the streets with a supervillain: one describes him as a cyborg, another as some kind of vampire, and a third as a monstrous human/bat hybrid with giant wings. If that sounds familiar, you may have read the 1975 story on which it was based, or (more likely) you’re thinking of the 1998 episode “Legends of the Dark Knight” from The New Batman Adventures. This one isn’t a new story, but it does take advantage of the different art styles available from Studio 4°C, the art house that directed this one. Some of the art here could be considered ugly, but it works both as an intro to this particular omnibus-style film and in its own right. 

The second segment, “Crossfire,” is written by prolific comic book writer and author Greg Rucka and animated by Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell). It introduces one of the throughlines of the overarching narrative, the background element of a looming gang war between the forces of Sal Maroni and a mobster known only as “The Russian.” This one serves as a character study of two Gotham City detectives for the Major Crimes Unit. They work directly for Jim Gordon and have conflicting feelings about their leader’s association with Batman – Crispus Allen, who is planning on resigning as he feels that he and his partner are stuck running errands for a vigilante (including the return of the captured felon from the first segment to his cell in Arkham Asylum), and Anna Ramirez, who believes that Batman has changed Gotham for the better. The two end up in a crossfire between the Russians and Maroni’s forces and are rescued by Batman, who tells them that Gordon is a good judge of character, and that he recognizes them and trusts them based on Gordon’s belief in them. 

The third (and in my opinion best) segment is “Field Test,” animated by Bee Train (.hack//Sign) and written by Jeff Goldberg, who was perhaps the closest to Nolan’s work of anyone involved with the production (other than David S. Goyer, who we’ll come back to), as he was associate producer on The Prestige and The Dark Knight before becoming co-producer on Inception and The Dark Knight Rises and executive producing Interstellar. This is the segment with the most pathos, as a mechanical malfunction in a WayneTech satellite is shown to have the side effect of creating an electromagnetic field, which resident tech genius Lucius Fox is able to reverse engineer into a device in the Batsuit that can deflect bullets. Bruce first uses it to frustrate a businessman whom he suspects of having had a local aid worker killed and uses a PDA that he steals from the man to force Maroni and the Russian into a confrontation that he can mediate to force a truce (to keep them from expanding their war into the civilian population while he collects enough evidence to put them away). However, when one of the henchmen is gravely injured by a bullet deflected by the new device, Batman becomes distressed by the violence that is so like the kind that took his parents from him. He gets the man to a hospital and forgoes the use of the deflector belt for the time being. 

Although this one is my favorite, it is worth pointing out since I haven’t so far that no one from the Nolan films is reprising their roles here, but having Kevin Conroy, who is the definitive Batman as far as I’m concerned, more than makes up for it. The only drawback to that is that his voice doesn’t always match with the animation style that the film has. It’s most noticeable here, where Bruce is drawn in a very pretty, bishōnen style, but which I mean that he’s always looking at the camera like this: 

Or this: 

And there’s something about it that just doesn’t set the right mood, even if this is the strongest link in this chain. 

Segment four, “In Darkness Dwells,” was written by David S. Goyer (who contributed to all three Nolan films) and animated by Madhouse (Beyblade, Vampire Hunter D). This segment follows Batman as he pursues the kidnapper of a local church cardinal into the sewers and learns that his opponent, the so-called Killer Croc, is acting under the influence of fear toxin that is continuing to be created by the on-the-loose Scarecrow. It’s the most action-focused of the segments and is more interested in creating interesting visuals than pushing the narrative forward, and it works for what it is, with several fairly tense sequences that really had me on the edge of my seat, credit where credit is due. The segment that follows, “Working Through Pain,” sees the return of Studio 4°C as the animator, with Brian Azzarello taking on writing duties. This one picks up immediately where the previous chapter left off, with Batman being shot by a hallucinating man. He cauterizes the wound and spends the larger part of the segment trying to find his way out of the sewers while flashing back to learning pain management techniques from a woman named Cassandra, who took him in when he was rejected by a monastic order which promised to teach him to work through physical pain. This one is probably second best, as its shift in focus to Cassandra and her own story; the same monks previously took her in when she was posing as a boy in order to learn their ways, only to eventually expose and shame her when they are unable to break her spirit as she excels in their order. In the sixth and final segment, Madhouse returns to provide animation for the story “Deadshot,” penned by longtime animation writer Alan Burnett. It’s straightforward enough: the shady businessman from earlier in the film hires the titular assassin to kill Batman after he lures the Dark Knight into the light by staging an assassination attempt on Jim Gordon. It’s a fine end, if not necessarily a climactic one. 

There’s less to talk about here than in the previous two films. The segments range from acceptable to quite good, but they never reach the point of being truly amazing. At a brief 76 minutes, it’s worth checking out, even if you don’t care all that much about Nolan’s films. 

-Mark “Boomer” Redmond

Britnee’s Top 15 Films of 2023

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15. No One Will Save You – Like Priscilla, this is a great film about loneliness. Except, instead of being trapped in Graceland, our main girl is dealing with home-invading aliens.

14. The Holdovers – An instant holiday classic. The movie version of a comforting bowl of chicken noodle soup on a chilly winter’s day.

13. M3GAN– Finally, a modern killer doll movie that isn’t afraid to be weird AF.

12. Priscilla – I didn’t know that Graceland was so scary. Sofia Coppola did a wonderful job telling Priscilla Presley’s story.

11. No Hard Feelings – Raunchy comedy is not dead! I haven’t seen a film this funny in a long time, and now I have hope for the future.

10. May December – All of the campy made-for-tv drama is extremely fun, and then Charles Melton makes it clear that this film is actually about how trauma ruins lives.

9. The Iron Claw – Coming from someone who dislikes sports dramas, this is an incredibly powerful movie with outstanding performances, particularly from Zac Efron (never thought I would say that). I wanna cry just thinking about it.

8. John Wick: Chapter 4 – Another fantastic edition of the greatest action franchise of our time. This was my favorite theatrical experience of 2023. I saw it with a group of girlfriends, and we had so much fun cheering John Wick on while almost going into cardiac arrest from all of the intensity.

7. Past Lives – A love story that isn’t actually romantic but is so deep and real. It slowly pulled all sorts of emotions from me and then really hit me in the feels at the end.

6. Talk to Me – Grief horror is my new favorite sub-genre. There’s just something about covering your eyes in fear while crying at the same time that really makes me feel alive. 

5. Barbie – I didn’t expect this to be such a meaningful personal experience. But seriously, how can I rent one of the Barbie Dreamhouses from the set? I bet the utilities are included. 

4. The Royal Hotel – I’ve never been to Australia nor have I worked at a bar, but my god, this film captures the unnerving feeling of being trapped in a misogynistic environment fueled by alcohol. Every woman needs to have a Hanna in their life. 

3. Beau is Afraid – This is such an accurate depiction of living with anxiety, which is what makes it so terrifying yet beautiful. Ari Aster is a genius, and I adore his sick and twisted mind.

2. Infinity Pool – Mia Goth is at her peak when she’s playing deranged characters, and this is her best film yet. I loved how batshit and unique the story is, and I can’t wait for the next Brandon Cronenberg fever dream.

1. Saltburn – The trashiest film of the year, one that has influenced the youth to embrace filth. It’s everything a modern movie should be.

-Britnee Lombas

Night Swim (2024)

/ swampflix / 3 Comments

I cannot tell the difference between enjoying a gimmicky horror movie and enjoying getting tipsy to a gimmicky horror movie with my friends.  Is the January schlock horror flick about the killer swimming pool genuinely enjoyable, or did I just enjoy hanging out in an empty multiplex on its opening night, opening a couple smuggled cans of sparkling wine to share with pals?  Unclear.  What I do know is that every calendar year deserves at least one wide-release horror about a killer object, and this year we’re being spoiled with at least two: the one about the killer pool (Night Swim) and an upcoming one about a killer teddy bear (Imaginary).  Last year, we were even more spoiled with an especially fun one about a killer doll powered by A.I. (M3GAN).  Other recent triumphs include one about a killer dress (In Fabric), a killer jacket (Deerskin), a killer weave (Bad Hair), and the killer pool’s distant cousin the killer water slide (Aquaslash).  I’m already looking forward to next year’s Panerasploitation pic about killer lemonade, which could learn a thing or two about how Night Swim stretches a simple premise about killer liquid to fill up a feature runtime. If nothing else, it would make for a fun time-killer on the first Friday of 2025.

If there’s any clear argument against Night Swim’s value as a novelty horror about a haunted object, it’s that it gets distracted from its killer [INSERT NOUN HERE] premise with a second, unrelated noun: baseball.  Wyatt Russell continues his campaign to replace Kevin Costner as the go-to Baseball Movie guy by starring as a Major League player whose career is derailed by a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.  Conveniently enough, his doctors prescribe that he starts water therapy to help lessen the severity of his MS symptoms, an easy win for a man who just bought a house with a haunted swimming pool.  In the ideal version of this movie, the pool would be a deadly threat simply because it is a pool, and all action & dialogue would take place either poolside or underwater.  In the version we got, the pool is deadly because Wyatt Russell wants to play baseball again, making a bargain with the evil pool to regain the lost functions of his body so he can return to the majors.  The pool grants his wish but requires a sacrifice, so Russell has to choose which of his two children he loves less (much like Fritz Von Erich in The Iron Claw).  The choice is hilariously easy for Baseball Dad, who has one athletic child and one indoor kid. Still, at some point in the bargaining process he becomes a zombielike soldier who carries out the pool’s evil will even when he’s not swimming – possibly because roughly 60% of his body is made of water, an additional vulnerability on top of his all-consuming obsession with professional baseball.

Distractions on the baseball diamond aside, Night Swim provides plenty of evil swimming pool content for anyone tickled by its premise.  It touches on as many pool-related activities as it can in 100 minutes, ranging from the genuinely spooky (reaching into a filter or drain without being able to see what you’re touching, sometimes being greeted with sharp objects or mysterious wet hair) to the deeply silly (horrifying games of Marco Polo, chicken fight, and diving for coins).  It cheats on its killer-object premise as often as it can, not only by making Baseball Dad a walking pool zombie but also by filling the pool with the CGI ghosts of past sacrifices.  It also shamelessly borrows iconic scares from much better films, referencing both the toy-in-the-drain sequence from IT and the Sunken Place reality break from Get Out.  That latter allusion at least feels true to the liminal realms of underwater swimming, though, and Night Swim is at its most convincingly cinematic when the evil pool becomes a boundaryless void disconnected from the baseball-obsessed suburbia above the water’s surface.  In one of its most inspired scenes, Kerry Condon (following up her Oscar nominated performance in Banshees of Inisherin with the formidable role of Baseball Dad’s browbeating wife) goes for an ill-advised nigh swim and the camera assumes her POV, revealing demonic jump scares as her head rotates from underwater to sideways surface breaths.  It’s a clever gag that can only work in a movie about a killer pool, which is all we’re really looking for in this kind of novelty.

The most potentially divisive aspect of Night Swim is its decision to mostly play its swimming-pool premise with deadpan seriousness.  There are a couple moments when it winks at the audience (most notably in a scene where Wyatt Russell explains his miraculous recovery from MS with the inane line “We have a pool”, delivered directly to camera), but for the most part its goofy tone is underplayed.  There’s plenty of humor to be found in the fact that every single thought in these non-characters’ heads could be neatly categorized as either “BASEBALL” or “POOL”, but the film thankfully never dives into the self-mocking parody of a Cocaine Bear.  The pool is deadly serious business to them, and the inherent silliness of the premise is allowed to speak for itself in contrast to their poolside misery.  A lot of audiences will be frustrated by that refusal to indulge in full-tilt horror comedy, but not every first-weekend January schlock release can be a clever crowd-pleaser like M3GAN.  It wasn’t Night Swim‘s job to constantly jab the audience in the ribs and ask, “Isn’t this killer pool movie hilarious???”  That task is best left to a small group of tipsy friends with a couple hours to kill on a Friday night.

-Brandon Ledet