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With "Weapons" Cregger proves he's not a very good film maker, but a very good screenwriter: let's hope his "resident Evil" will show what we loved about "Barbarian"! As in "Barbarian," Zach tells a story that unfolds from multiple points of view, seeking the ambitious "Magnolia effect," revealing an event through the chorus of its participants' perspectives, while also adding a more marked grotesque comic verve. It's a shame that the result is only an Ari Aster movie, finally well written and acted, but directed, photographed and edited like a bad Blumhouse/James Wan film. After all, the promotion touts the production as being by the same studio that brought us such trash as "The Conjuring" and "It": which suggests that either Creggher wasn't given complete freedom this time, or that "Barbarian" was an isolated case. We'll see when he gets his hands on the smoking carcass of the "Resident Evil" franchise, his next project.

"The Master and Margarita" is one of those cornerstones of literature that are almost unrepresentable, just like "The Foam of Days", "Poor Creatures" or "Inherent Vice". We are somewhere near a Gondry-style "The Foam of Days" and not somewhere near a Lanthimos or an Anderson, unfortunately: that is, a great aesthetic and thematic mess, plagued by acting and casting from mainstream contemporary Russian cinema. In this sense, the very English Michael Lockshin plays the part of the regime director very well, flat and without any vision, only confusing and exhausting. It is very difficult to follow and appreciate the plot and its nuances, as well as to appreciate Bulgakov's incisive political and social flair in these two and a half hours of a movie that goes nowhere and makes you leave the theater with little or nothing. Read the book, forget this movie. Too bad!

Unfortunately this film is a big and very boring no. Coming from video art and theater, Masbedo make a huge misstep with their cinematic debut. Arsa is a figure that could not be more stereotyped: a pseudo-artist who lives in a cistern on a free beach and from there observes the world that touches her. Good premises, even if weak, that clash with a poor realization in the writing and superficial in the form. Boring, pedantic, badly shot, fluctuating acting, very weak writing for something that recalls "Parthenope" for emptiness and boredom, in the clumsy attempt to emulate the light and fairy-tale aura of an Alice Rohrwacker or a certain realism à la Martone, failing completely. An hour and a half of boredom and banality. Too bad!