Greig Fraser Archives - Silver Screen Riot

Denis Villeneuve is nothing short of a living maestro. No other working director can so skillfully transmogrify a heralded text into a jaw-dropping exercise in both art and commerce, making for a sci-fi epic that’s as artistically entrancing as it is nonstop thrilling. A masterclass in world expansion, Dune: Part Two picks up where the last chapter, released simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max in the doldrums of the lingering pandemic in 2021, left off while continuing to complicate the world of Arrakis, its mythology, its peoples, and what’s at stake for the entirety of Frank Herbert’s well-drawn universe. Villeneuve’s eleventh feature film presents a triumphant middle chapter that grapples with inner darkness, ruminative notions of prophecy and destiny, romantic entanglement, and familial tragedy in what is set to be one of the great trilogies and a true modern masterwork. Read More

We’ve seen the man become the bat plenty of times. In Matt Reeves’ The Batman, we see the bat become a man again. The Batman, a singularly gloomy noir caper that feels stylistically more akin to Se7en than The Dark Knight, presents one of the most distinctive versions of the iconic “superhero” (that term is used very loosely here) to ever grace the screen. Reeves’ vision is a far cry from the rinse-repeat superhero fare that so frequently pummels their way through the multiplexes. There’s sparse humor or frivolity and even less charm. As much as Batman can be grounded, stripped down to his essence as a character, and seen for the disturbed outsider that he truly is, this is what Reeves seeks to accomplish. And he largely does just that. Read More