We’re back again with another week of TV and movie releases to keep you glued to your couch this weekend.
Michael Myers is back on his bullshit in this weekend’s biggest release Halloween Ends. The film is reportedly the last installment in this franchise, and also may just be the last that will star the legendary Jamie Lee Curtis, so get your tickets now. One of the most buzzworthy movies ahead of next year’s Oscars, Tár, is out this week in theaters everywhere and Cate Blanchett’s performance is said to be among the best of 2022.
On the TV side, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law had its season finale this week and as much as the response to the show has been lukewarm, the last episode might change your mind altogether. The Rings of Power’s first season also came to an end, while Atlanta’s final season is moving along with each episode being better than the last. We recapped some of the best TV episodes this week and have given you the rundown of the movies to watch in theaters below. Keep reading and come back next week for more!
'Halloween Ends'
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Halloween Ends is insane—but the thing I’m trying to turn over in my head almost a full 48 hours after seeing it is whether or not it’s the good or bad kind of crazy. The conclusion of David Gordon Green and Danny McBride’s reboot trio of Halloween films jumps ahead four years after the killer (pun intended) conclusion of Halloween Kills to find the town of Haddonfield moving on after they all decided that “evil ends tonight” in Kills. While Michael survived the end of the sequel, he’s given up stalking Haddonfield denizens during this time , and as such, the town is reclaiming some level of normalcy—and hope. Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Allyson (Andi Matichak) live together in a new home. But, Haddonfield being Haddonfield and this being a Halloween movie, it’s only a matter of time before evil returns.
Yet how Ends presents its evil is done in such an audacious way that I can’t help but admire the film’s ambition even when it’s not working—which is often. The film rushes through its first act and brings with it some shaky characterization, particularly on behalf of Matichak’s Allyson—especially frustrating given how well the previous installments established her. This swing also sidelines the Laurie/Michael conflict, which might have worked better if Ends was the first of the Green/McBride trilogy, but it is a frustrating choice for the final film. Yet, despite all of this, I found myself in awe of its bravado once it gets cooking in the second and third acts.
The original Halloween is such a perfect movie that it’s a bit of a fool’s errand to follow up on it. Yet even though Halloween Ends stumbles and staggers in how it wraps up this reboot, it’s accomplished in a way that does manage to surprise. With a franchise this storied, that’s a hard task. —William Goodman
'TÁR'
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Being a conductor is all about controlling time. Or that’s at least what Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett in a performance that cements her as the presumptive favorite to win the Best Actress award at the Oscars next year) believes, stating at the beginning of writer/director Todd Field’s first film in 16 years. From that point forward, Field fills his nearly three-hour epic by playing with Tár’s time, cultivating distractions—metronomes, beeps, knocks on the door—meant to pull her away from working on her newest project. In these moments, wonderfully rendered by the film’s remarkable sound design, it’s clear Tár is losing control of what’s most important to her.
The premise for TÁR—the full caps presentation is the official stylization for the film, and how you react to that fact may determine whether or not it’s for you—is inherently simple. After an opening that establishes Tár’s bonafides within this world (she’s an EGOT, a soon-to-be-published author, a wunderkind conductor, and a massive creative force within the classical community), she begins work on recording Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, marking her final interpretation of his work. As she dives in, a series of events begins to draw Tár’s focus away from work on the Mahler as she’s forced to confront her past.
TÁR is getting a lot of attention for presenting a #MeToo story, but that thought is slightly reductive when compared to the larger themes Field is exploring. It’s much more focused and precise—reflective of its protagonist’s desire to control—tale about cycles of abuse, who loses in one’s pursuit of greatness, and the toll of ambition. Tár herself is a decidedly complicated figure, and thus, so is the movie—a kaleidoscopic vision that’s left me consistently turning over its themes—interpreting it over and over again as Tár does Mahler. Without a doubt, it’s one of the most thought-provoking, beautiful, and compelling films of the year, anchored by a meteoric performance from one of our very best. —William Goodman
'She-Hulk' Finale
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Spoiler alert for the season finale of She-Hulk.
There’s a solid chance you’ve already been spoiled on the She-Hulk: Attorney at Law finale if you scrolled Twitter yesterday, but just in case you haven’t, let’s address the big green elephant in the room right up top, the meta-infused sequence which arrives in the middle of the episode. As the episode “Whose Show is This?” begins to tie together various plotlines into a stereotypical superhero brawl, Jen exits her own show into the Disney+ UI and eventually into the She-Hulk writers’ room to berate them for this latest plot turn before finally smashing into Marvel Studios headquarters to confront Kevin Feige. Only it’s not Feige, but an AI named K.E.V.I.N. responsible for creating all of the MCU’s stories. The key takeaway here is a desire to break away from the well-worn and established formula of the MCU, and thus Jen takes agency of her own series and changes her ending. It’s an inspired conclusion I deeply admire but have trouble finding effective.
My issues with this conclusion stem from many of the grievances I had when the series debuted, chiefly among them is the fact that She-Hulk’s attempts at meta feel defanged. Just because the series acknowledges the problems of the MCU and changes them doesn’t immediately signal a wide swath of changes to the MCU moving forward, nor are the (presumably Feige-approved) jokes as clever as the show believes them to be. If I’m wrong, I’ll happily eat crow, but this conclusion feels like a one-off bit specifically designed for this show with no long-term ramifications. Perhaps I’m rubbing against the idea of meta-ness in media writ large. Still, the overall effect rings hollow to me and is a bit like Marvel trying to have its cake and eat it, too, as if we’re supposed to give extra credit for the show acknowledging its own flaws. My colleague Jack King rightly identified it as a “crown-approved jester playing to court.” I’ll go a step further: it feels so pleased with itself that the attempts at self-awareness come across as smugness to me.
The version of She-Hulk I enjoyed best was the episodes wherein Jen’s dual lives intersected in legitimately compelling ways (specifically the fourth, fifth, and sixth episodes). When She-Hulk returns for a sophomore season, I hope the show will prioritize that over meta jokes that feel akin to pats on the back. — William Goodman
'The Rings of Power' Finale
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Rings of Power’s first season, which concludes today with its eighth episode, has really kicked up its pacing in the last few episodes, presenting an epic tale worthy of Jackson’s films. Yet, not every single element of the series works as well as we’d hoped. It’s become readily apparent that the Harfoot storyline isn’t quite as engaging as it initially appeared, causing the pacing of these episodes to stall when shifting to them. However, the other elements of the show (specifically the friendship between Durin and Elrond) work exceptionally well, giving me hope there’s a chance the series can find better footing. Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have a lot of lingering plot strands to close throughout this finale. Given the epic scale of the last two episodes, we’re keen to see how they tie everything together. In short, it’s must-see-television. —William Goodman
'Atlanta,' Episode 6
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When: Thursday, Oct. 13
Where: FX and Hulu
I love hitting play on Atlanta screeners without having a damn clue what to expect. Sure the show’s taglines give a little bit of each episode’s plot away but they’re usually vague (and brilliant!) enough that you still don’t have a clue about what’s coming next. Season 4’s “Crank Dat Killer”—which had the tagline, “Ay, Ya’ll remember how we used to hit the club and do the Pool Palace and Crank Dat and nobody got shot? Yeah me neither”— gave us everything that makes the show great.
In Episode 6, we have a celebrity cameo from Soulja Boy, a groundbreaking guy-on-guy kiss, social commentary about issues plaguing the community (like the toxic reselling trend plaguing the sneaker community), and another instance of Paper Boi (Alfred Miles) literally fighting for his life. The episode kicks off with Earn (Donald Glover), Darius (LaKeith Stanfield), and Paper Boi talking about a serial killer who has been targeting people who made dance videos to Soulja’s “Crank That” in 2007. Paper Boi is lowkey one of them and now he fears that the killer is after him. Meanwhile, Earn and Darius are trying to get their hands on the latest pair of Nikes and while they can easily shell out the cash, their shoe dealer wants a little more from them than just money. How far are they willing to go in the name of sneaker culture? You have to wait and see for yourself.
One thing I will confirm is that Stanfield delivers one of his best (and funny in the most subtle of ways) performances to date and it’s really a pity that we won’t be seeing him on this show weekly when the show ends. Atlanta is always bizarre and dreamlike while giving you a dose of reality about the state of the world. The show’s writers are very much inspired by YouTube and social media but they take what they find and turn it into a clever, witty, downright hilarious masterpiece week after week. —Karla Rodriguez
