Atomic Fangirl

“2 to 2. … We are tied.”

Story: A woman (“Girlie”) takes a taxi home after a flight from Oklahoma. Clark is the the typical taxi driver guy. Girlie is a typical Midtown dweller. But when traffic deadlocks, they really start talking, and learning, about each other. Nobody’s typical, y’all.

Genre I’d put it in: Thoughtful Character Driven Pieces
Release Date: 2024 (2023 festival circuit)
Remake, Sequel, Based-On, or Original: Original (Black List 2017)

Gotta say: A film about two people talking? I figured this would be a blend of Waiting For Godot and My Dinner With Andre; a film of a play, and a film that feels like a play. Both absurdist, both focusing almost solely on two characters. So? I prepared myself for almost two hours of Very Deep Thoughts, and dug in. And I was surprised by how this simple, slice-of-life premise pulled me in so completely.

“Ain’t you supposed to be takin’ pictures?”

Story: 1960s Chicago was a time of big change. Not the least of which was the rising motorcycle gang scene. Let’s take a ride with the Vandals, a Chicago club that slowly turned into a gang as the years went by…and the OG members made room for new, younger, more criminally bent, members.

Genre I’d put it in: Subculture Docu-dramas
Release Date: 2024
Remake, Sequel, Based-On, or Original: Based on a book of photos by Danny Lyon

Gotta say: I remember learning about motorcycle gangs back in undergrad. I was a double major in Criminology and Health Education (which obviously led me to film stuff), and learning about how biker gangs really started with WWII vets looking for ways to get back to themselves after combat.

Adapting a book to a film is often a difficult task. The genres have different approaches to getting their stories across, and the book (that often deals with creating images in a reader’s mind) versus film (where “show, don’t tell” is typically the rule of the day) can be a jarring one. However, with Bikeriders, director Jeff Nichols crafts a film not from a story per se, but from a book of photographs. Does the visual book lend to an easily translatable adaptation? Well, yes and no.

“There always was, is, and shall be, war.”

Story: “45 years after the collapse” of civilization as we know it, Australia is little more than a vast wasteland of sand, and loss of hope. But there’s one piece of green – The Green Place. A young Furiosa and her sister Valkyrie live there in happiness, until one day raiders find their Eden, and Furiosa gets taken away. As the years pass, Furiosa tries to get back to the green, all the while lusting for revenge.

Genre I’d put it in: Well Executed Sequels That Should Have Been Shorter
Release Date: 2024
Remake, Sequel, Based-On, or Original: Based on the Mad Max film series, and follow up to Mad Max: Fury Road

Gotta say: Charlize Theron is the definitive Furiosa. She breathed life into the character, and owned that piece of Mad Max lore. That said, Anya Taylor-Joy’s take on the character is a quiet badass, biding her time until…well, I don’t think she entirely knows. Fueled by simmering rage and a longing for the past, this is the Furiosa whose actions blossom into the woman warrior we saw in Fury Road. And while riveting? It’s also a whole lot of storytelling that could have been condensed into a sharper, cleaner tale. Because honey. Honeeeeey. This movie could have been edited by machete. At over two an a half hours, it’s much too long, and the story suffers for it. Even with all the cool boom boom pow.