In KINDS OF KINDNESS (2024), people confuse love and control in varying extremes, ironically sacrificing themselves in whole or part to complete themselves. It’s powerfully provocative, though as with other films by Yorgos Yanthimos (THE LOBSTER, POOR THINGS, etc.), emotional distance permeates the whole, whether intentional or not, that always denies me real empathy for the characters. Overall, I liked it a lot, for its bold originality and outright rejection of catering to expectations if for nothing else.

The movie is made up of three stories, each with different roles played by the same stellar cast that includes Willem Defoe, Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, and other great actors. Each story takes on the theme of love and the need to be loved, taken to extremes of debasement. I advise knowing as little as possible before you watch, so I’ll just give a quick plot description for my favorite of the three, which is about a woman who left her family to join a sex cult and is now searching for an unknown spiritual leader who can raise the dead. Each premise is killer stuff.

The things people do to each other and allow being done or do to themselves for connection is provocative and often depraved, both sad and absurdly funny at the same time. When I write horror fiction, I’m often drawn to exploring themes inverting good into evil by showing it in its extreme. Yanthimos does this really well in this film; again, it is boldly original. At the same time, his movies often strike me as overly artsy and cold, and while my brain often ends up extremely tickled, my heart doesn’t get very invested. A part of this is the dialogue, which is deliberately stilted, full of niceties and polite phrasing. This appears intended to contrast the forms of kindness to the dark potential of its content, but I had a hard time empathizing with anyone–a tall order, I know, when a character wants to do something horrible to please a horrible person who is controlling them, but that’s what good stories do, they put you right in their shoes. The film itself comes across as tightly controlled, making me think it might have been interesting to see it less so, more like its off-the-hook trailer.

Anyway, I liked KINDS OF KINDNESS a lot for its originality, ideas, and edgy psychological horror, and I’d heartily recommend to you if you value any of those things in a film and want to see something you haven’t seen many times before. While I wouldn’t call myself a fan of Yanthimos’s work, I guess I am enough of one to be certain to catch his next movie. His work is absolutely fearless.

In I SAW THE TV GLOW (2024), two teens form an unlikely kinship over their shared love of a dark late-night TV show, which offers them a dangerous but vivid reality more appealing than their own. As Maddy goes all the way, Owen is forced to choose the life he’ll live along with its regrets. This movie is weird, strangely hypnotic, and so ambiguous as to be frustrating. Overall, I’m glad I watched it, though I’m still not sure even now what I watched.

Owen (Justice Smith, whom I enjoyed in THE GET DOWN) is a young teen who ends up forming a bond with older teenager Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) over a teen horror show called THE PINK OPAQUE, about two girls who discover they have powers enabling them to resist Mr. Melancholy, who wants to draw them into a dark midnight realm to drain their essence. Both are not satisfied with their lives. Owen is confused and possibly impaired by a brain development issue; Maddy suffers loneliness and abuse and desperately craves escape. As they get older and increasingly obsessed with the show, which somehow feels more real to them than their own confining lives, they must ultimately make a choice whether to truly accept the world of THE PINK OPAQUE as reality or accept the world they live in as it is and make the best of it.

The movie is kind of slow, the dialogue awkward, the acting fairly monotone, and yet it strangely works. I was oddly mesmerized by it, enjoying it purely for being confidently weird, and I was definitely curious about where it was all going. Thematically, the movie appears to be about identity and how we project ourselves into what we see on screens. Where it’s all going is so ambiguous, with what we’re given being kind of a downer, that the sum is more frustrating than its individual parts. This was a case of a movie where ambiguity goes way beyond intention, particularly in whether THE PINK OPAQUE as real or fantasy and what it meant either way.

Overall, I liked I SAW THE TV GLOW. I didn’t love it, but it’s weird and different, and there’s definitely something there, even if the landing didn’t quite work for me.

In KAOS (Netflix), the Greek gods rule the modern world from Olympus, but some among the humans have had enough of their casual cruelty, playing roles assigned by the Fates in a prophecy that will bring about the downfall of Zeus and his family.

Going into this, I expected a campy, mildly amusing comedy-drama with Jeff Goldblum hired to be Jeff Goldblum the way Nicholas Cage is hired to be Nicholas Cage, and with allusions to Greek mythology to elevate it. Instead, I received a dark, humorous, surprising, and powerful story that explores the relationship with the divine, predestination, and rebellion against tyranny.

The characters are all likeable, and some are a lot of fun like the Fates and the Furies, but Goldblum chews every scene he’s in as Zeus, the paranoid king of the gods who so obsessed with the prophecy of his downfall that he actually helps bring it about, funny and menacing in turns. The actors aren’t the usual gorgeous creatures but look like regular people.

The world building is also amazing. Instead of the gods inhabiting the modern world somewhere in the backdrop, they are everywhere at the fore, resulting in a fantasy world rendered with real integrity, one that takes its own premise seriously and is utterly convincing from customs to costumes to culture.

As for the story, it’s intricately plotted and doesn’t hold any punches, while offering numerous tantalizing mythological cameos and twists on the old myths to produce something new. The themes themselves are mythological, dealing with justice, only they are inverted against those who deal justice unfairly, about breaking the cycle of oppression and overthrowing the gods themselves.

Overall, I absolutely loved it. Unfortunately, while the basic story wraps up–unfortunately with a little deus ex machina–the ending leans on seeds planted for a Season 2, and as of now, as far as I’ve heard, Netflix has not yet renewed it. Which is a bummer, as KAOS is bloody amazing.