The aunt and brother thing… there is an unsettling darkness barely concealed under the pleasant rom-com veneer.
Steve Zahn, the GOAT.
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The Staircase 2004
Fraudulently omits material facts, calling into question the filmmakers’ tacit objectivity. Doesn’t mention owls once. But, this shit remains incredibly engrossing.
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The Staircase 2022
Worthwhile when it deviates from the documentary, adding seemingly factual information that was previously omitted (though this is far outweighed by information that seems like conjecture or outright fiction) and recreating/showing alternate theories for Kathleen Peterson’s death. Missing a lot of the real-world procedural jockeying and substantive discussions that I enjoyed in the doc.
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Top Gun: Maverick 2022
Doesn’t have Top Gun’s fleeting beauty (the opening credits, the motorcycle riding at sunset, Maverick cradling Goose’s body in the water), but delivers everything else. Glen Powell is very good as Millennial Maverick.
Also, features the conscious, but incurious, choice to make the U.S. the aggressor, amounting to nothing within the movie. The filmmakers have no interest in the broader ramifications of an international incident.
But the dogfights and Death Star trench run were sick.
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Top Gun 1986
No geopolitical depth or point of view beyond its surface-level focus on the U.S. military, so it’s not interesting on that front — doesn’t even bother being jingoistic. Really works as an action movie; Top Gun looks great and the aerial sequences are thrilling. Only kind of works as a character study, where Mav is an egocentric, reckless prick with some family baggage, though the filmmakers can’t give much depth to Mav beyond stating his past.
Mav remains unlikeable and immature…
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