Conspiracy Theory (1997, directed by Richard Donner)

Posted on April 24, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Jerry (Mel Gibson) is the taxi driver that most people would dread getting stuck with. He’s obsessed with conspiracies, ranting and raving as he drives his passengers around New York City. The moon landing was fake, he says. The New World Order is real. Fluoridation in mind control. Freemasons control the world. Black helicopters patrol the skies. Implausibly, Justice Department lawyer Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts) enjoys listening to Jerry’s paranoid monologues but she finds them to be a lot less amusing when they turn out to be true. Soon, she and Jerry are being pursued by Dr. Jonas (Patrick Stewart), the head of MK-Ultra and the man who bred Jerry to eventually become an assassin.

Conspiracy Theory has a good premise and a great Mel Gibson performance and Patrick Stewart is entertaining as the main bad guy. Though it really is just a slightly above average 90s action film, Conspiracy Theory is still a movie that seems prophetic. Many of Jerry’s theories were obscure and not well-known when the movie was first released, nearly 30 years ago. Today, a lot of them have been popularized by social media and podcasts. Conspiracies have gone mainstream. Jerry would love listening to Joe Rogan today. In fact, Jerry would probably have a podcast of his own. Because the movie was released in 1997, a lot of the things that Jerry talks about feel quaint and almost old-fashioned when you compare them to what Jerry would be ranting about today. Compared to today’s anti-vaxxers and 9-11 truthers, Jerry’s fear of the black helicopters seems harmless. Or, at least, it does until the black helicopters suddenly show up in the middle of a chase scene, nearly invisible in the night sky.

Conspiracy Theory can’t really hold up to Richard Donner’s best films. There aren’t as many memorable lines as in Lethal Weapon and it never finds the same balance between kitsch and art that Donner was able to find with both The Omen and Superman. Donner still gets some good moments, like the opening montage where Jerry scares the Hell out of a yuppie passenger played by Alex McArthur. I wish Conspiracy Theory had followed its premise through to its natural conclusion instead of having Jerry suddenly turn into what was then a typical Mel Gibson action hero. (Today, of course, it would probably be much easier for audiences to accept the idea of Gibson playing a mentally ill, paranoid conspiracy theorist.) Overall, though, both the movie and the theories hold your interest.

The Eric Roberts Collection: Hunting Season (dir by Eduardo Castrillo)

Posted on April 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yeah, I got nothing.

Seriously, 2016’s Hunting Season is so mind-numbingly dull and bad that I have no idea what to say about it. Usually, when I see an indie film that is this bad, I keep it to myself because I generally don’t believe in kicking people when they’re down. I’m far more comfortable trashing a bad film from a major studio than a mediocre one that was shot by some guy who put the entire budget on his credit card. But a visit to the imdb revealed several comments from people who worked on the film and were never actually paid for their efforts so screw it. This is one of the worst films that I have ever seen in my life.

Stock brokers are kidnapping people and hunting them for sport. Tom Sizemore plays Nick, who I guess is supposed to be the head stockbroker. If I sound confused, it’s because the soundtrack was so muddy that I often struggled to understand what people were saying. Sizemore disappears from the film, which is a shame because his unhinged, seemingly improvised performance was one of the only interesting things about the film. (At one point, Sizemore looked straight at the camera and extended his middle finger. I’m not sure if that moment was scripted or not.) Eric Roberts shows up for four scenes, playing the father-in-law of one of the stock brokers. The character’s daughter apparently has some sort of psychic connection with her husband and she shouted all of her dialogue. Clifton Powell shows up as a guy in a bar. Miguel Nunez Jr. plays an FBI agent.

Along with not being able to hear the dialogue, I also struggled to understand just where everyone was in relation to everyone else. The film was so haphazardly edited that it was impossible to really keep track of time or location or anything else that would have helped make the film interesting. It’s a talky film but good luck understanding what anyone’s saying. Most of the scenes have so many visible edits and so many close-ups that I got the feeling that everyone was on set at a different time. It makes for a disjointed and dull story. I couldn’t follow a bit of it.

Eric Roberts has appeared in nearly 800 films. This one might be the worst.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The Border (1982, directed by Tony Richardson)

Posted on April 23, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Charlie Smith (Jack Nicholson) gets a job with the Texas border patrol and goes from scrounging in a California trailer park to living the high life in a duplex in El Paso. His wife (Valerie Perrine) is looking forward to spending all the money that he’ll be making as a border agent. But then Charlie discovers that his bigoted superior (Warren Oates!) and his partner (Harvey Keitel) are running a human smuggling ring. When the baby of a young Mexican woman (Elpidia Carrillo) is kidnapped and sold to an illegal adoption ring, Charlie is finally forced to take a stand.

The Border seems to be one of Jack Nicholson’s forgotten films and it really can’t compete with some of the other movies that Nicholson was making around the same time. Compared to films like The Shining, Terms of Endearment, and The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Border really does feel and look like a poorly paced made-for-TV movie. British director Tony Richardson doesn’t really seem to know what type of movie he wanted The Border to be or what he wanted to say about immigration. This is the type neo-Western that Sam Peckinpah could have worked wonders with but Tony Richardson just doesn’t seem to have any feel for the material.

Still, Jack Nicholson is pretty good here, playing the type of weary character that he specialized in during the pre-Batman portion of his career. I especially liked the scenes that he shared with Valerie Perrine, who gave a good performance as someone who viewed buying a waterbed as being the height of luxury. Harvey Keitel’s performance sometimes felt too familiar. He’s played a lot of similar villains but he and Nicholson act well together.

And finally, Warren Oates in this movie, bringing his rough-hewn authenticity to his role. This was the last of Oates’s films to be released before his premature death. Blue Thunder and Tough Enough were both released posthumously. Warren Oates is an actor who was only 52 when he died. Whenever I see him onscreen, I think of all the great performances he would have given if he had only made it through the 90s.

Anger Management (2003, directed by Peter Segal)

Posted on April 23, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Dave (Adam Sandler), a timid man who has never gotten over being humiliated when he was a teenager, is sentenced to anger management after a slight argument on a plane is blown out of proportion by a taser-wielding shy marshal. His therapist is Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson), whose techniques only seem to exacerbate Dave’s growing anger. Among Dr. Rydell’s methods are giving Dave an unstable “anger buddy” named Chuck (John Turturro), ordering Dave to get revenge on the guy (John C. Reilly) who humiliated on his as a teenager, and also encouraging Dave to cheat on his girlfriend Linda (Maria Tomei) with a woman (Heather Graham) that they meet at bar. Dave goes from timid to angry, Dr. Rydell starts dating Linda, and the whole thing is wrapped up with a totally implausible ending.

The idea of the star of Chinatown and Five Easy Pieces co-starring in an Adam Sandler comedy sounds like it should be exhibit #1 when it comes to talking about the decline of American cinema but I’ve always liked Anger Management. Casting Jack Nicholson as the seemingly insane Dr. Rydell was an inspired choice and Nicholson gives a real performance in the film as opposed to just coasting on his already-established persona. Anger Management came out a year after Adam Sandler’s first dramatic film, Punch-Drunk Love, and, even though Anger Management is a raunchy comedy from the start to finish, Sandler’s performance actually finds the reality in Dave’s situation. Sandler plays Dave as being someone who is sincerely trying his best to get through his court-mandated anger management without losing control. Nicholson and Sandler make for a surprisingly good team.

Of course, it’s an Adam Sandler comedy so it’s not for everyone. The humor is often crude and the film’s final twist is so ridiculous that it can actually leave you feeling like you might need anger management. But Anger Management does show how Jack Nicholson improves anything that he’s involved with and it also shows that Adam Sandler can act when he feels like it. Anger Management also gave us the meme of Jack Nicholson nodding his approval, meaning the film and the performance will live forever.

Film Review: Carnal Knowledge (dir by Mike Nichols)

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1971, Carnal Knowledge is the story of two friends, Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel).

Jonathan and Sandy meet in the late 40s, when they’re both assigned to be roommates at Amherst College. They’re both smart, handsome, and obviously from well-off families. They both believe that they have a wonderful future ahead of them and why shouldn’t they? World War II is over. America is the leader of the world and Jonathan and Sandy both appear to be future leaders of America. Sandy is shy and sensitive. When he meets Susan (Candice Bergen), he struggles to talk to her and when they date, he doesn’t know how far he should go with her. (When he tells Jonathan about getting a hand job from her, it’s obvious that Sandy didn’t previously realize such a thing was possible.) Jonathan, on the other hand, is confident and aggressive. He can be a braggart and he can be insensitive but there’s something undeniably attractive about someone who knows what he wants and is determined to get it. Soon, Susan finds herself torn between the two roommates, though Sandy is clueless that Jonathan is even interested in her.

Carnal Knowledge is divided into three separate parts, each taking place in a different decade and each shot in its own individual style. (The film was written by playwright Jules Feiffer and the script does very much feel like a three-act play.) As a character, Susan disappears after the first act but her relationship with Jonathan and Sandy haunts every bit of the second and third acts. By the end of the film, Sandy is no longer sensitive and Jonathan is no longer virile and one can’t help but feel that Susan, wherever she may be, is definitely better off without either one of them.

The second act is dominated by Jonathan’s relationship with Bobbie, played by Ann-Margaret. Bobbie is beautiful and heart-breakingly insecure. Her relationship with Jonathan starts with a dash of romance and then quickly becomes a trap for both of them. Jonathan is not ready (or mature enough) to settle down. Bobbie is desperate for him to marry her and willing to go to extremes to make that happen. The scenes where Jonathan and Bobbie fight are some of the most powerful in the film, with both Nicholson and Ann-Margaret giving the viewer raw and honest portrayals of two insecure people who are totally wrong for each other but also incapable of getting away from each other.

By the time the third act comes around, Jonathan has been reduced to paranoid ruminations about “ball-breakers” and can only get it up when he’s feeling like he’s the one in power. (Rita Moreno has a cameo as a very patient prostitute.) Meanwhile, middle-aged Sandy is dating an 18 year-old (Carol Kane) and clearly trying to live the free-spirited youth that he never had. Who is more pathetic? Jonathan, who bitterly realizes he’s never going to be young again, or Sandy, who is trying to deny the fact that he’s getting older?

Carnal Knowledge is a dark film and indeed, it sometimes feels like it’s a bit too dark for its own good. Even the worst people occasionally have a laugh. The script is full of sharp lines and the characters are interesting, even if they are for the most part unlikable. Still, there’s a staginess to the film’s narrative and director Mike Nichols never quite breaks free from it. That said, I still highly recommend this film. Not only is it a portrait of a culture-in-transition but it also features some wonderful performances, especially from Ann-Margaret and Jack Nicholson. (In most ways, Jonathan is definitely worse than Sandy but we still have more sympathy for Jonathan because Jack Nicholson is a considerably better actor than Art Garfunkel.) Ann-Margaret honestly portrays the heart-breaking insecurity that comes from being repeatedly told that you have nothing but your looks to offer. Meanwhile, Nicholson throws himself into playing the charismatic but immature Jonathan. We may not like Jonathan but we do, in the end, understand why he’s become the person that he has. It takes a certain amount of courage to play a character like Jonathan and, in this film, Nicholson shows every bit of that courage.

The Final Cut (1995, directed by Roger Christian)

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

A mad bomber is blowing up large chunks of Seattle and seems to have a vendetta against the city’s bomb squad. John Pierce (Sam Elliott), a burn-out who used to be the best of the best when it came to defusing bombs, comes out of retirement to help with the investigation. The only problem is that all of the evidence seems to be pointing at Pierce. Pierce does his best to prove his innocence while more and more members of the bomb squad get blown up.

The Final Cut has its moments. The lengthy opening scene features Amanda Plummer and John Hannah as two cocky members of the bomb squad who discover that defusing their latest explosive isn’t going to be as simple as they think it is. The final 20 minutes takes the film into Saw territory, with an underground lair and a woman who has been turned into a human explosive. In-between, though, the movie is often slow and Sam Elliott sleepwalks through a role that really demanded the low-budget equivalent of a Lethal Weapon-era Mel Gibson. (Wings Hauser comes to mind.) The actual identity of the bomber will be easy for anyone to guess though the bomber’s final fate is actually executed pretty well.

Director Roger Christian is a long-time associate of George Lucas’s and also worked on Alien as a production designer. That’s probably why the sets, especially that underground lair, look surprisingly good for what was obviously a direct-to-video B-movie. Five years after The Final Cut, Christian would attain an infamous immortality when he was the director unfortunate enough to be credited as directing Battlefield Earth. Compared to Battlefield Earth, The Final Cut is damn good movie.

The Last Detail (1973, directed by Hal Ashby)

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Billy “Badass” Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and Richard Mulhall (Otis Young) are two Navy lifers stationed in Virginia. On shore patrol, they’ve been assigned to transport a 18 year-old seaman to a Naval prison in Maine. The kid has been dishonorably discharged and sentenced to eight years in the brig for trying to steal $40 from a charity box. (The charity was a favorite of the wife of his commanding officer.) Buddusky and Mulhall are expecting to find a hardened punk but instead, they end up escorting Larry Meadows (Randy Quaid), a timid teenager who suffers from kleptomania and who doesn’t seem to understand just how bad things are going to be for him for the rest of his life. Not only is he going to do eight years in the brig, surrounded by hardened criminals, but his dishonorable discharge is going to follow him for the rest of his life.

Resenting having to take Meadows to prison and also feeling that he’s getting a raw deal, Buddusky and Mulhall decide to make a few stops on their way to Maine, so that Larry can enjoy what little time he has left and hopefully lose his virginity before being locked up. In between brawling with Marines, visiting a brothel (where a young Carol Kane plays one of the prostitutes), and hanging out with a group of hippies (one of whom is played by Gilda Radner), Meadows comes to think of Buddusky and Mulhall as being his best friends. Unfortunately, for Meadows, both Buddusky and Mulhall have their job to do.

Hal Ashby’s road picture is a character study of three men who are all lifers, even if they don’t realize that. Both Buddusky and Mulhall hate the Navy but they also can’t relate to anyone who isn’t a member of the service. Meadows’s entire future has been pre-determined because he tried to steal $40 but he doesn’t realize it until its too late. When the film came out, it was controversial due to its “colorful” language. In an interview, screenwriter Robert Towne defended the frequent profanity because, as he put it, when you’re in a situation you hate, “that’s what you do. You bitch.” Hal Ashby’s loose direction captures the road trip feel as the three leads reluctantly head to their ultimate destination.

The Last Detail features one of Jack Nicholson’s best performances. Buddusky is cynical and doesn’t trust anyone other than Mulhall but even he knows that Larry Meadows deserves better than to spend eight years in the brig. Along with lending his star power to the film and standing by director Hal Ashby when Ashby was arrested for marijuana possession, Nicholson also played a big role in the casting of Randy Quaid as Larry Meadows. (The other final contender for the role was John Travolta but Nicholson insisted on Quaid). The 6’5 Quaid towers of Nicholson and Young, making him look as if he could escape any time that he wants. But Larry is so naive that he doesn’t want to make any trouble for his “friends.” Though this wasn’t his first film, The Last Detail is the film that made Quaid one of the busiest character actors of the 70s and 80s and it also, at least temporarily, made him a part of the Jack Nicholson stock company.

Both sad and funny, The Last Detail is one of the best films of the 70s and features Jack Nicholson at his most unforgettable.

Icarus File No. 23: The Last Tycoon (dir by Elia Kazan)

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Based on the final (and unfinished) novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1976’s The Last Tycoon tells the story of Monroe Stahr (Robert De Niro).

Monroe Stahr is the head of production at a film studio during the early days of Hollywood. Stahr is an unemotional and seemingly repressed man who only shows enthusiasm when he’s talking about movies. He may not be able to deal with real people but he instinctively knows what they want to see on the big screen. Stahr is a genius but he’s working himself to death, ignoring his health concerns while trying to create the perfect world through film. He’s haunted by a lost love and when he meets Kathleen Moore (Ingrid Boulting, giving a remarkably dull performance), he tries to find love with her but, naturally, he doesn’t succeed. Meanwhile, he has to deal with his boss (Robert Mitchum), his boss’s daughter (Theresa Russell), a neurotic screenwriter (Donald Pleasence), an impotent actor (Tony Curtis), and a lowdown dirty communist labor organizer (Jack Nicholson)! Sadly, for Stahr, McCarthyism is still a few decades away.

There’s a lot of talented people in The Last Tycoon and it’s undeniably interesting to see old school stars — like Mitchum, Curtis, Dana Andrews, Ray Milland — acting opposite a Method-driven, 30-something Robert De Niro. This is one of those films where even the minor roles are filled with name actors. John Carradine plays a tour guide. Jeff Corey plays a doctor. This is a film about Golden Age Hollywood that is full of Golden Age survivors. It’s a shame that most of them don’t get much to do. The Last Tycoon is a very episodic film as Stahr goes from one crisis to another. Characters show up and then just kind of disappear and we’re never quite sure how Stahr feels about any of them or how their existence really shapes Stahr’s worldview. Robert De Niro may be a great actor but, as portrayed in this film, Monroe Stahr is a boring character and De Niro’s trademark tight-lipped intensity just makes Stahr seem like someone who doesn’t have much to offer beyond employment. This is one of De Niro’s least interesting performances, mostly because he’s playing a not-particularly interesting person. Mitchum, Pleasence, and the old guard all make an impression because they’re willing to coast by on their bigger-than-life personalities. De Niro is trapped by the Method and a total lack of chemistry with co-star Ingrid Boulting.

Still, this is the only film to feature both De Niro and Jack Nicholson. (The Departed was originally conceived as a chance to bring De Niro and Nicholson together, with De Niro being the original choice for the role eventually played by Martin Sheen.) Nicholson’s role is small and he doesn’t show up until the film is nearly over. He and De Niro have an intense table tennis match. Nicholson doesn’t really dig deep into Brimmer’s character. Instead, he flashes his grin and let’s the natural sarcasm of his voice carry the scene. It’s nowhere close to being as emotionally satisfying as the De Niro/Pacino meeting in Heat. That said, Jack Nicholson at least appears to be enjoying himself. His natural charisma makes his role seem bigger than it actually is.

Why was The Last Tycoon such a disappointment? Though unfinished, the book still featured some of Fitzgerald’s best work and there’s a huge amount of talent involved in this film. The blame mostly falls on Elia Kazan, who came out of retirement to direct the film after original director Mike Nichols left the project. (Nichols reportedly objected to casting De Niro as Stahr. While it’s tempting to think that Nichols realized that De Niro’s intense style wouldn’t be right for the role, it actually appears that Nichols and De Niro sincerely disliked each other as Nichols also abandoned the next film he was hired to direct when he was told that De Niro wanted the lead role. Nichols choice for Monroe Stahr was Dustin Hoffman, which actually would have worked. If nothing else, it would have provided a Graduate reunion.) Kazan later said that he did the film solely for the money and it’s obvious that he didn’t really care much about the film’s story. The film has some good scenes but, overall, it feels disjointed and uneven. Kazan doesn’t really seem to care about Monroe Stahr and, as a result, the entire film falls flat.

Previous Icarus Files:

The Eric Roberts Collection: Megaboa (dir by Mario N. Bonassin)

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Bless the Asylum and their love of giant monster movies!

In 2021’s Megaboa, a group of college students accompany Dr. Malone (Eric Roberts) a field trip to a remote island. They’re on the island specifically to explore some caves and study some drawings. It’s time to have some fun with anthropology! But when Dr. Malone gets bitten by a venomous spider, a group of students go off in search of an orchid that can neutralize the venom. This eventually leads to them discovering that they’re not alone on the island. There’s also a giant snake, a megaboa if you will.

This is pretty much a typical Asylum film. Giant snakes, tank top-wearing heroines, and Eric Roberts hamming it up in his usual delightful fashion. “Far out!” Dr. Malone says when he first sees the giant snake and how can you not agree with him? Those who complain that the Asylum makes cheap movies are missing the point. The film may be cheap but they’re almost always fun as well. This one features a giant snake that is actually kind of cute and it also features a scene of someone shouting, “Get me out of here!” after being swallowed by the snake and how can you not enjoy that? It’s like a much more honest and self-aware version of Anaconda and, best of all, it’s got Eric Roberts delivering his lines with a twinkle in his eye. He knows better than to take any of this too seriously and hopefully, you do as well.

Megaboa is fun. It’s like the type of films that I used to look forward to watching on the SyFy channel. Get together with a group of your wittiest friends and watch it. Don’t be afraid to talk back to the movie. Don’t be afraid to laugh when the snake first shows up. Tell the characters when they’re doing something dumb, that’s the point of the film. Megaboa is pure entertainment.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Brad’s emotional response to SINNERS (2025)!

Posted on April 21, 2025 by Bradley Crain

I love Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan, and it really goes back to their collaboration on CREED. No movie has stirred my emotions in the past decade as much as CREED. I laughed, I cried, and I got pumped up even though I watched the film in the theater by myself. I would go on to tell every person I knew that they had to see the film. I couldn’t imagine that any other combination of writer, director or actor could have created a better continuation of the world that began with Stallone’s original story. CREED is a classic of its own as far as I’m concerned.

I had not heard about SINNERS until Arleigh shared the trailer here on The Shattered Lens a couple of weeks ago. That’s when I saw that it was a Ryan Coogler film starring Michael B. Jordan. That caught my interest even though I didn’t stop and actually watch the trailer as I was in the crunch of tax season. And then Leonard dropped a review of the film on April 17th.

Sinners (dir. by Ryan Coogler)

I don’t go to the theater often these days but I decided that I just had to see the film over the Easter weekend. I talked Sierra into going with me on Saturday morning, and all I told her was that it is a vampire movie from the guy who did CREED. I purposely read nothing else about the film because I know that Coogler and Jordan make magic on the screen when they work together. I didn’t want anything else influencing my initial experience with the film in any way.

Rather than spend any time on the plot of the film, I just wanted to spend a little time talking about how the movie made me feel. First, watching Michael B. Jordan interpret the Smoke-Stack characters in such different ways was pure joy for me. Any person who has read my articles knows that I have a tendency to obsess over the actors I really like. I don’t believe there is an actor under 40 years of age that enjoy watching perform more than Jordan. I’ll watch anything he does throughout his career. Second, there is something so interesting about Miles Caton in the part of the singer and guitarist Sammie Moore, aka Preacher Boy. That deep voice of his almost didn’t seem to go with those fresh face features. I can see why the other characters reacted to his singing and playing the way they did because the man has real talent. I was surprised that this was his first film based on the confidence he carried throughout. Third, it’s always fun to see Delroy Lindo in any role. Fourth, I liked the relationship between Smoke and Annie (Wunmi Mosaku). When I first saw Annie standing in the doorway and looking at him by the small grave, my first inclination would not have been that those two had been in a relationship together and that he was at the grave of their child. To me it was a nice surprise that the painful history being shown was shared between those two and that they still loved each other. I also really wished I could try her fried catfish. I also liked certain aspects of some of the other characters including Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), the Chow family and Cornbread.

The music is incredible in SINNERS. I won’t pretend to be an expert on the blues, but I know what I like, and I liked what I heard. I’ve always been a fan of the movie CROSSROADS with Ralph Macchio and Joe Seneca. Both movies are in awe of the power of the blues, and I was somewhat surprised that Ryan Coogler’s “vampire movie” was showing such an interest in the music as a character and not just a soundtrack. I liked the scene where Stack introduces Miles to Lindo’s character Delta Slim. I like the music at the juke joint, and the out of left field trip through the musical decades was a unique and powerful choice that showed a director not afraid to go wherever his intuition takes him. My “joint” would probably feature country music, but I’ve always said I can like any music as long as it’s good. The music in SINNERS is great.

I will say that the things that interested me the most, mainly the development of the characters, took a back seat once the vampires were revealed. I wanted to get to know these characters even more. The action was well filmed and there were some surprises along the way, but once the vampires emerged, I felt like I was watching a movie I had seen before. Even though it was extremely well done, the film’s special quality seemed a little less. With that said, Smoke’s late stand against the Klan was exciting and emotionally satisfying.

Overall, I would give SINNERS a solid 4 stars out of 5 based on my initial viewing. I will revisit the movie at some point, but I’m letting the film seep into my bones at the moment. Coogler seems to be a filmmaking genius and I haven’t stopped thinking about his latest movie over the last few days. I have a feeling this movie will continue to grow on me with repeated viewings.