JohnDeSando

Margret Qualley is the reason to see Ethan Coen's neo-noir, Honey Don't. She plays PI Honey in Bakersfield, CA. She walks so regally in such perfectly shaped trousers with such perfect red lipstick that she could have walked right out of a 1950's dark thriller, which echoes Raymond Chandler loud and clear. Like Bogie at his best, she reeks of self- confidence and no nonsense while harboring a lust for girls, who easily share her passion.

Young women are dying or disappearing, a plague that seems to point to their participation in a bogus small church, headed by a young reverend, Drew Devlin (Chris Evans), who uses his church as an opportunity to seduce the youngest and most vulnerable girls. As sick as the reverend is, Margaret just needs to nurture her sexuality with the likes of MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), a police officer with a similar love of women.

The answer to the deaths and the outrageous professional miscarriages are answered per usual neo noir, whose seedy atmosphere is usually dark but sun bleached in similar death-appropriateness regardless of its California sunshine. What's important to witness is an abundance of smart dialogue with the right insouciance that Bogie and Bacall would approve. Its companion Drive Away Dolls, also with Qualley, has the same mock-seriousness and I predict the third in the trilogy will have, along with Qualley.

Although this little film is by any measure a toss off, lacking the depth of The Maltese Falcon (MG Falcone!) or the more modern noir qualities of the Chinatown, it makes up in touches like Honey's turquoise Chev SS or the obtuseness of Charlie Day's detective, Marty, who cannot understand Honey's consistent refrain, "I like girls." Nor do most men in the fifties, much less macho fifties noir.

"I break into a place for no reason, it's not a feather in my cap, it's my ass in a sling." Marty Metakawitch

Honey Don't! Is a relaxing hoot for the end of the summer and a joy to see find Ethan Coen's voice after sharing it with his brother, Joel.

Not since Lord of the Flies or Mosquito Coast has a director captured as well as Ron Howard the horror of living outside civilization in a natural world fraught with danger-mostly from themselves. From the likes of Da Vinci to Pavarotti, this is not the Howard we have known-it may be better, even if he has hitherto had little sex and animal slaughter, much less male frontal nudity-yikes.

I must give it to writer/director Ron Howard, his Eden is anything but a paradise, and his historical drama unlike any of his other films. It's more depressing than any of his I can think of, and his characters so unlikeable that identification with them is low. Yet, at the same time it is such an absorbing dark drama that audience might question if the film has the literary legs of, say, Lord of the Flies.

Dr. Frederich Ritter (Jude Law), a German physician, in 1929 settles on the isolated island of Floreana, in Ecuador's Galapagos Archipelago. The world economy after WWI has tanked, so he and his wife, Dore (Vanessa Kirby), go it alone until they are not. Howard takes us through the steps of real-life adventurers accommodating themselves to newcomers, who bring the troubles Ritter and Dore thought they left behind.

It would be easy to attribute the thematic underpinning to an allegory about Darwin's "survival of the fittest," but there's more here having to do with the power of possession and sex, especially when the Baroness (Ana de Armas) arrives to cause mayhem that civilization nurtured to madness not on these secluded islands but everywhere.

Ron Howard's Eden is a challenge to the aud to figure out if they could survive any better than the film's principals. For us nerds, the challenge is to absorb all the hints that civilization is screwed no matter where it relocates. Eden is a myth, so get a plan that might work.

Spike Lee has one of his best films ever in Highest 2 Lowest, a traditional police procedural but intellectually elevated by being based on a masterful 1963 Akira Kurasawa ransom film, High and Low, with the same trajectory to classic as the adaptation of Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai into The Magnificent Seven. Highest 2 Lowest is one of the best movies of the year and one of the top crime movies of all time.

Music mogul David Kin (Denzel Washington) is threatened to be personally and professionally dethroned by the kidnapping of his son, Trey (Aubrey Joseph), by criminals unknown until later. It is revelatory to see the police navigate kidnapping with the social-media challenges that attack the high-profile dad for the way he deals with the demands of the crooks, the public, and morality.

Lee has a field day playing the racial tensions between the races, including this time Puerto Rico and Cuba and who knows how many others in the biggest melting pot ion the world. Lee makes the conflicts lyrical with music that inspires community and love.

The love letter to New York by cinematographer Matthew Libatique is beautiful as well as complementary to the complex plot and the NY vision usually accompanying a Lee movie. The beautiful landscape belies the ugly proceedings as King is morally challenged by a twist in which he becomes responsible for the ransom of a child not his own. It's a personally and publicly Hobson's choice that Denzel handles with Oscar-nominating dexterity.

Oscar-worthy is his face off with the kidnapper. The rapping motif is jaw-droppingly expert and electrifying. Denzel carries it off with the cool mastering that makes him one of the top actors of his generation.

In a logical comparison with Michael Douglas's Gordon Gekko of Wall Street, Denzel's King is less impressive if only for the wide range Douglas's script gives, yet the studio rapper scene in Higher is a tour de force for Denzel. Look for this outstanding drama on Apple TV+. Just don't miss Highest 2 Lowest.