This year’s 12th edition of the Scary Movies festival at Film at Lincoln Center premiered Ari Aster’s extended version of “Midsommar” this past Saturday.
As much as I've been bitching about the number of superhero movies out there, especially from the "Marvel Cinematic Universe," I have to say there are always exceptions to the rule. Take for instance "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," which plays like a solid 1970s political thriller and even has in its cast, king of the 70s paranoid political thriller, Robert Redford. Ya think that was coincidence casting? I think not. Then there's Shane Black's "Iron Man 3" which is far from being your average, by-the-numbers comic book movie. In fact Black's sardonically witty black comedy is destined to be some kind of future twisted, Christmas classic. Finally we have "Guardians of the Galaxy": A silly, but fun pop culture ditty that plays by its own rules, has a killer soundtrack and doesn't really adhere to any comic book movie conventions, safe for its anticlimactic ending, and features the kind of well-written and portrayed outcasts that invaded Lucas' original "Star Wars" back in 1977. In fact, this is the closest we'll get to a "Star Wars" in the meta era. I'm looking forward to this latest escapist adventure.
