"ANIARA (2019)"

The old axiom "There's just no winning the human race" reoccurred to me frequently throughout my viewing of Aniara, the pessimistically meditative new Swedish sci-fi feature from writer / directors Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja, based on the epic poem by Harry Martinson. Combining modest means with a truly grand scope, the filmmakers have managed to come away with a surprisingly multi-faceted work.

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN 9

Welcome, welcome, to another installment of Everything Old is New Again, the column where I write, sometimes at length, about the Remakes, Adaptations and Legacy Sequels coming to screens great and small in the months ahead. I also occasionally throw in stuff that only tangentially fits just because I kinda wanna talk about it for whatever reason? I dunno, I just follow my gut.

This is a bi-monthly column (the kind that means every two months, as opposed to the kind that means twice a month; I'm not a machine) and hoo-boy! This latest installment is a doozy! Don't hold me to this, but I *think* this is the most flicks I've had to cover in a two-month period? Though to be fair, I do include a pair of direct-to-streaming mini-series, but they seemed definitely worth mentioning.

Warning: Get ready to read a LOT of titles so long it will seem like I'm joking but I assure you I am not. Mostly they're book titles, but still! It's like a Fall Out Boy track list down there sometimes!

Also: If you like dolls walking around, talking, maybe questioning their existence or killing some hapless nobodies, THIS is the EOINA for you.

So here we go, with all the applicable entertainments brought to you, for fun and profit, this coming MAY and JUNE.

"THE INTRUDER (2019)"

Deon Taylor's The Intruder is uneven, riddled with clichés, largely poorly directed, seems edited with a hacksaw and stuffed at the margins with useless ADR dialogue. In short, it's trash. But then why did I absolutely love it?

"AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019)"

It's fair to say I was suffering from a spell of Franchise Fatigue leading up to my viewing of Avengers: Endgame but...that may be the perfect headspace to go into it with?

Do you realize it hasn't even been a full year since Avengers: Infinity War came out (or Endgame: Part One if ya nasty) but in that time, two other Marvel movies have hit theaters? Wanna know where Ant-Man was when Thanos blew into town? You've gotta see Ant-Man and the Wasp. And then you've gotta go see Captain Marvel (who was teased in the Infinity War post-credit stinger) so you'll know...who the hell that even is. It's starting to feel like homework.