'Jane Fonda in Five Acts' is a fitting tribute to polarizing icon

Jane Fonda is a polarizing figure, which is pretty amazing considering the fact that she is an 80-year-old Hollywood institution at some point. Her controversial photo op in North Vietnam during the height of the Vietnam war have made her one of the most hated (and admired) actresses of all time.

Of course, that fact that in addition to that she has been a phenomenal actress is sometimes lost on people. Unfortunately for her, although her '70s and early 80's output especially (films like Klute, The China Syndrome, Coming Home and On Golden Pond) has largely not had a lot of staying power with modern audiences. Of her many hit films, perhaps only 9 to 5 is widely recognized by people under 30, and even that may be a stretch.

The new documentary Jane Fonda in Five Acts does a great job of reminding viewers of what a remarkable career she had, and an improbable one, considering the fact that she had to emerge from the under the show of a domineering acting legend father -- Henry Fonda.

The expansive doc, which includes thoughtful, candid and moving recollections from Fonda herself, should make all must the most hardcore Fonda skeptics look at her in a new light. She was the product of a very dysfunctional home, with a father who who could be cold and cruel (I still admire him tremendously as a talent, but this doc leaves you thinking he was quite a monster) and a mother battling mental illness.

She developed insecurities about her appearance that continue to dog her to this day. And while Fonda makes no apologies for her self-evident plastic surgeries she is bittersweet about them, and it's clear that her looks will perhaps permanently play a factor in how she determines her self worth.

What the film demonstrates best though, is that Fonda is a master of reinvention -- from dutiful daughter, to upcoming ingenue, to sex symbol, to respected actress, to rabble-rousing freedom fighter, to popular star of exercise videos, to the wife of a mogul and so on, and so on.

The film can be faulted for placing a little bit too much emphasis on the men in her life (from her father to former husbands Roger Vadim, Tom Hayden and Ted Turner), although even she concedes that until maybe just over a decade ago she too tended to define herself based on who she was romantically linked to at the time.

But it does succeed wildly in showing what a sensitive, complex and compelling person Fonda was and is. Whether you like every film or every choice she made, you cannot argue she is some dilettante who was simply rebelling against her stuff shirt daddy. This is a vital, intellectually engaged person who seems tireless at a time when most of her peers have long ago retired or faded into obscurity.

Fonda is very much current -- appearing in a variety of films and anchoring her own show, Grace and Frankie, on Netflix. And based on her interviews in this, if nothing else, she is still super sharp and wise about the strengths and weaknesses of her public life.

As she has for several years now, she is believably apologetic about how much regrets posing on that Vietnamese military hardware nearly 50 years ago. Some will clearly never forgive her no matter how many times she says she's sorry -- and that's of course their prerogative -- but it'd be hard after seeing this doc not to acknowledge that she also contributed a hell of a lot to the women's movement, the sexual revolution, the civil rights movement and just the craft of acting, period.

'Never Seen It' - Episode 40 - 'Pump Up the Volume' means well

There's no way to get around it -- today is a rough day. The Kavanaugh-Ford hearings were infuriating, emotional and deeply disturbing. So forgive me for shilling for my movie podcast alongside my wife amid this chaos.

But, hopefully, our musing about the cult classic 1990 Christian Slater drama Pump Up the Volume, which we both recently watched for the first time will provide a bit of a reprieve from what is an undeniably dark timeline.

Click on the YouTube link below to listen to our hot takes, and of course you can find all our previous episodes on iTunes.

Don't remake 'The Wild Bunch', especially with Mel Gibson directing

I think it's a good rule of thumb that you shouldn't try to remake movies that is already really great or near perfect (*cough* Ghostbusters *cough*).

There are, of course, exceptions. I really admire Steven Soderbergh's take on Solaris.

I think Jonathan Demme's version of The Manchurian Candidate, while it is not even close to approaching the original's greatness, a totally watchable thriller. There's True Grit, Scarface, a few others I can get behind. But by and large, I believe if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

So I was particularly displeased to learn that in their infinite wisdom Hollywood has apparently greenlit a remake of director Sam Peckinpah's seminal western The Wild Bunch, with the disgraced but somehow still viable Mel Gibson at the helm.

I suppose there is no stopping this project, unless of course a warranted #MeToo backlash occurs and audiences with short memories remember the fact that Gibson is on the record as someone who has physically abused women and has casually used racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic rhetoric, both in public and in private.

Frankly, I don't care that artists I like and admire like Will Ferrell and Danny Glover, appear to be cool with Gibson now. And I don't care that for years he was a compelling presence as an actor in the Lethal Weapon and Mad Max franchises especially.

The man doesn't deserve this opportunity -- and from a purely cinematic, cultural point of view he's all wrong for it.

Far too many people have misunderstood and under-appreciated the legacy of Peckinpah's 1969 western. It is more famous (or infamous) for its prolonged, bloody climax, in which our heroes, and countless others, perish in a sustained hail of slow motion bullets. It is an undeniably unforgettable sequence but its power is not derived from its gore, it's effective because the movie has taken great pains to set up the camaraderie and emotional stakes of its characters.

Gibson has demonstrated an almost obsessive preoccupation with the excruciating details of intense violence -- all of his films are linked by his consistent use of visceral horror to hammer home his points without on scrap of irony.

His wildly overrated Oscar-nominated war film Hacksaw Ridge was a case study in his distinct brand of blunt force trauma. The human elements of that film were ham-fisted and hokey, and all of the relationship scenes seems to be there simply to justify the inevitable bloodletting of the second half.

Sometimes, like in his action epic Apocalypto, Gibson's taste for blood can be undeniably infectious, but The Wild Bunch always had more going for it than tough guy posturing. It was really an elegy for a certain kind of honor-bound outlaw, and it was also a film thoroughly for and of its time, it couldn't possibly have the same effect if it came out today, and I'm not sure what could possibly be added or enhanced by trying to update it for today.

Perhaps a version with women or people of color would be a breath of fresh air, but clearly Gibson has not demonstrated the cultural sensitivity to take that on, so what I expect to see is a dumber, bloodier version of a film that has been rightly held up as a genre high water mark.

Meanwhile, I remain confounded by why Hollywood has chosen to forgive Gibson, especially considering the fact that he's never expressed any real remorse for his past behavior or seemed to demonstrate any growth since a series of widely publicized outbursts seemed to derail his career a little over 10 years ago.

For me, I will always remember his 2010 interview with a reporter who happened to be Jewish, back when he was trying to launch his first comeback -- when the journalist politely tried to reference his past transgressions, Gibson snapped at him, asked him if he "had a dog in this fight" and was generally indignant about the fact that he was being held accountable for things he had indisputably done and said.

Needless to say, I don't believe he's changed, or deserves a second chance. His whole career was chance enough. And this Wild Bunch remake? Well, I certainly hope it never sees the light of day, and if it does I hope people see it for the creatively and morally bankrupt project it will inevitably be.

If Bill Cosby's downfall has taught us anything -- it's that we can't cling to people's work forever -- at a certain point they need to pay a price for their transgressions. When is Mel Gibson going to pay his?

'Cat O Nine Tails' inspires me to consider calling it quits

A lot of people wonder why I am so 'obsessed' with movies. I often ask myself the same question.

My fallback position has long been that they have always been an escape from my real life frustrations and challenges. And there's some truth to that.

I think I also just get a giddy kick out of the creativity involved.

Some of it is just pure awe. I know I don't have one iota of the talent that these performers and craftsman do, and that makes me a little sad, but it is also reinvigorating for me.

I've recently become a devotee of Italian horror movie icon Dario Argento. It's been a slow and and steady courtship. I was first exposed to his classic Suspiria (which has a high profile remake due out this year) back in high school and it really struck with me, but it wasn't until recently that I started to dive into the work that bookended that 1977 masterpiece, and I have been enthralled ever since.

He makes gore somehow poetic and beautiful, but he also (at least in his earlier, more acclaimed work) has a real sense of humor that is both macabre and disarming.

Last night, I had the pleasure of watching the riveting Italian version of his 1971 film The Cat O' Nine Tails, part of his animal trilogy. The title is mostly nonsense, and animals aren't actually central to the plots of these films which can veer wildly from thriller to horror to romance and then comedy.

Watching this film was just so gratifying for me. It really helped clarify my innate desire to be creative and do be around creative people. Of course, the rub with this is that, is that more often than not can sometimes serve as a reminder of my own shortcomings as a wannabe writer, performer, what have you.

I have long straddled this conflict, do I want to be the person who writes, act in, or directs a really fun, crowd-pleasing potboiler like The Cat O' Nine Tails, or I am I destined to be the kind of person who can only write about these things from an appreciative, informed distance.

Of course, I'm not unique in this regard. The world is full of people who want to be in front of the camera but also don't know if they could handle it if they were.

Even now, while I work in entertainment, I still feel so far removed from what I want to be and what I think I am capable of. And it has made me question why I am doing what I am doing, and who, if anyone, this blog is for.

A short answer might just be myself, but I'm not content to make things or produce things that are just for me. I wish I could be that type of person, but I'm not.

What I do know is that I've been at it for four years now -- and perhaps it's time to hang it up and find something to do that I'm truly great at, where I can put more time in and come up with something special.

If I knew what that was I'd already be hard at work on it, but I haven't got a clue what my next big endeavor should be. I do know I've written over 1,000 articles, over 500 blogs, drawn over 1,100 movie posters, and I am still toiling in relative obscurity.

It's humbling but also a real challenge to make the most of the time I have left.

That being said, I want to thank everyone who ever read this, supported it, and even liked it. It's meant a lot to me and kept me going through a lot of low moments, just like the movies have.

‘Mandy’ is the trippiest Nicolas Cage vehicle to date

As I waited in line to enter to see the wild, unconventional new movie Mandy, I overheard a particularly obnoxious attendee discovering that actor Nicolas Cage was the star of the movie. “I didn’t know he was going to be in this?!” — she said, her voice dripping with disdain.

And it was in that moment that I came to realize what an uphill battle this beautifully strange trip of a movie faces. Cage has such a bad reputation with so many moviegoers, not just because of his more mediocre recent output but because a plethora of internet memes have turned him into a total parody of himself. It’s a shame because he is frequently very in control of his whacked out performance.

This was/is one of our greatest actors -- who had a remarkable run from the late 80s into the mid-90s, until movie stardom made him a little bit of a sell-out, although there have been occasional gems over the last twenty years like Adaptation and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

In this movie, he gives an extraordinarily physical, unglamorous performance that is really something close to the peak of all he’s ever done before - eccentric and crazy - but also deeply funny and profound. But he is not the whole show here.

This is first and foremost Panos Cosmatos’ one-of-a-kind vision, this is one of the most visceral, visually audacious movies I’ve ever seen with unsettling sound design abc a nearly incomprehensible narrative that is almost impossible to describe.

It’s a real statement movie — whose pacing and bizarre tone recalls David Lynch — and an ambitious attempt to make a pulp revenge movie on acid, which feels like a tone poem.

Ironically, the presence of Cage will be the only curiosity for any kind of commercial appeal. It’s actually pretty amazing that such a deliriously weird movie even got made, and while I’m doubtful it’ll get widely embraced now, I’m betting it’ll become a stoner staple for years to come.

It’s not for everyone. You have to be willing to go for a gory, surreal ride.

The audience I saw it with was clearly struggling with the material. There were a lot of uncomfortable giggles and shifting in seats (while the film isn’t overlong, it has glacial passages that you’ll either buy into or you won’t). When it was all over there was a smattering of applause, some sincere, some sarcastic.

I felt as if I’d witnessed a very vivid nightmare—and I mean that as a compliment. Some of Nicholas Winding Rehn’s work has that same kind of audacity and I appreciate the dreamlike swing for the fences that Cosmatos is attempting here, even if many viewers will be dumbfounded by it.

It’s a tough film to classify — when I walked out in a daze, a complete stranger asked me what it was about and I couldn’t find the words. It’s sort of a horror film — kind of a revenge picture but it also has elements of fantasy, too.

I should have said it’s an even more drugged-out version of Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. I’m a big fan of that film, and earnestly rebellious cinema in general, so yeah this one worked on me and will hang in my head for a long time.

From 'Hulk' to Henry Cavill: Superheroes need a sense of humor

I was a little surprised but not at all disappointed by the news that actor Henry Cavill is (apparently) giving up the role of Superman following some kind of public dispute over his contract with Warner Brothers/DC Comics. If anything, I was surprised by how many dedicated fans his performances as the iconic superhero existed.

For me, his sullen, surly turns were uninspired at best in forgettable or even off-putting movies that will not stand the test of time.

Cavill has been better used in The Man from UNCLE, where his stiffness was played for ironic laughs, and in Mission:Impossible-Fallout, where his physically imposing stature made for a great counterpoint to Tom Cruise's petite explosiveness, but the man is not charming. That's for sure. Which is part of why I cringe when his name is raised amid future 007 speculation.

It's interesting this news coming out when it did, because I happened to have just revisited another charmless (but fascinating failure of a) superhero film -- Ang Lee's infamous unpopular 2003 Hulk.

Now, they is a small but influential chorus of film geeks who have tried to redeem this film (not unlike those who try to argue aspects of the Star Wars prequels have merit) and I can see that temptation to read more into a great director's folly. For instance, I am someone who will defend Popeye and Cruising. But Hulk is no misunderstood masterpiece, it's just a mess.

I see what Lee was trying to do. It's admirable that he wanted to make a Hulk film where the Bruce Banner character's rage as inspired by suppressed childhood trauma.

Christopher Nolan succeeded better just two years later doing the same thing, trying to create a somewhat more realistic, grounded world for his larger-than-life hero (in that case Batman to occupy).

But Lee goes way to far in the sober drama direction, giving lead actor Eric Bana nothing to play but a series of pouts and grimaces. Jennifer Connolly ends up having almost if not more screen time in a performance that feels listless and totally tonally out of place. Curiously the only actor who seems to be having fun in the movie at all is a deliriously over the top Nick Nolte, who is at least entertaining as the nominal villain of the movie.

Sure, the effects aren't great, but that is the least of the movie's sins. Lee employs a silly, busy technique to try to approximate what reading a comic book is like with panels popping up into the scenes and the occasional goofy freeze frame. But there are only really two major action set pieces in the movie, maybe three if you count an uneventful tussle between Bana and peroxided bad guy Josh Lucas.

I agree that the fanboy hatred of the movie was probably more intense than the Lee film warranted, but I also don't blame people for being disappointed. A movie about a giant green monster should be somewhat self aware and at least a little funny.

I'm not talking about the self-satisfied Deadpool style of humor or the pained, forced quips of Justice League, but maybe some of the lovable silliness of the early Christopher Reeve Superman films.

Even Nolan's Batman movies and this year's Black Panther have some legitimate big laughs in them. These movies are clearly here to stay -- until the marketplace finally gets its fill -- so if we are going to keep sitting through these products (and of course, that's what they are) they could at least keep us laughing, so we don't think about the fact that we're being had as much.

Does David Lynch 'Dune' deserve cinematic redemption?

I am unabashed diehard David Lynch fan (his strange, Donald Trump sympathetic comments aside) and so like a lot of other cinephiles, I have cautiously tried to embrace his one foray into blockbuster filmmaking -- 1984's Dune.

The first time I tried to watch it, I found it thoroughly incomprehensible and couldn't finish it. The second time I was  somewhat arrested by the visuals, but still dumbfounded.

But then I hunkered down and actually read Frank Herbert's Dune, the classic sci-fi novel Lynch was attempting to adapt, a work that is widely beloved but also infamously dense, complicated and hard to adapt both visually and verbally.

I must say that seeing the movie with the book so fresh in my mind was the absolute best way to experience it -- and for the first time I found the film much more engaging and compelling.

I know Lynch has disowned it, bemoaning the fact that he did not have final cut and wasn't able to make the film he wanted to make. Of his ten feature films, it is almost always ranked as his worst by most critics, with this film's defenders largely seen as little more than eccentric contrarians.

Well, count me among that latter group. This is a surprisingly faithful adaptation -- it's almost akin to being Lynch's Spartacus -- and it has a really striking visual palette. Sure, some of the effects don't hold up great (most 1984 effects don't) but many do -- and the set design, costumes and make-up are largely spectacular and feel authentic in terms of the worlds the book conveyed.

I can see how it all feels totally obtuse and confusing to someone who hasn't read the book -- this film is almost like an anti-Star Wars, it's humorless, grimy, and slow-paced. It's so heavily influenced by the book's unique world-building that it's almost as if it's in another language even though the sterling cast is speaking English clearly.

For at least the first half, the movie is a pretty arresting sci-fi epic that captures the spirit and much of the narrative of the book but the running time only allows for so much plotting and it starts to feel like it suffers from trying to stuff in too much. Although, I will say, his intentionally disgusting take on the infamous villain Baron Harkonnen has launched some hilarious anti-Trump memes.

The recent, acclaimed documentary Jodorowsky's Dune has cemented the idea in many cinephiles minds that director Alejandro Jodorowsky's expensive, long-planned version of this film (shelved in the late 1970s) would have been the definitive take on this material, but there's no reason to presume that.

Having just read the book I do think there's material there for a great film but it needs to be both streamlined and made more accessible, without of course completely disregarding the universe the narrative takes great pains to create -- this is no small feat for any filmmaker.

Director Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049, Arrival) has been vocal about wanting to take this behemoth on and I think he has the chops to do it. He definitely has proven his adeptness with thinking people's sci-fi, big budgets and eye-popping visuals.

I do think however, that Lynch's version should not be so contemptuously dismissed -- it has a lot of virtues and it nothing else, it helped introduce the director to many iconic members of what would become something of a stock company of actors, including MacLachlan, who has become both a Lynch muse and surrogate for decades now.

It's disappointing box office performance and relative lack of a directorial stamp (although there are plenty Lynchian moments in this movie) have probably doomed this version of Dune's reputation forever, but it's just a different kind of sci-fi film than we were accustomed to then and now -- more baroque and stilted -- a style I found fascinating, but which I can see alienating a lot of viewers.

That being said, the book isn't for everyone either.

Ironically, Lynch was approached to direct Return of the Jedi by George Lucas the year before this movie was released, and it's fun to contemplate what he might have done with the finale to that classic trilogy. Dune demonstrates the challenge of marrying his sensibility with what is supposed to be a rousing adventure, but the result is not so much a mess and an intriguing misfire.

Faye Dunaway deserved better: Looking back at 'Mommie Dearest'

I've written about Mommie Dearest here before. It's not just a camp classic, it's a thing to behold. Faye Dunaway's lead performance is beyond over the top -- it's pure insanity -- but also sort of breathtaking and unforgettable.

What's infuriating and sort of tragic is that this film (which has since been embraced as a cult film) effectively ruined her career.

In the wake of #MeToo, we've started to be forced to yet again look at Hollywood's policy of banishing actresses long before they're ready to pack it in. Of course, rejecting lecherous producers' advances is far from the only reason talented women have been sidelined.

In Dunway's case, the reputation for being 'difficult' is largely what dogged her -- and she very well might have been -- but being combative never seemed to hurt most male performers' careers in the slightest.

Faye Dunaway, still a babe.

During the '70s in particular, following her iconic, breakthrough '60s role in Bonnie & Clyde, Dunaway had quite a remarkable run -- with both Chinatown and Network making many all-time greats lists -- and she scored other box office hits with movies like The Towering Inferno and Three Days of the Condor.

By the time Mommie Dearest came along she was a major, in-demand draw. And when it bombed, she became something of a pariah. Yes, she did continue to work for many years, and she deserved some of the blame for picking bad projects like Supergirl. Yes, there was some unfortunate plastic surgery too, but more than a few male actors have made that mistake too and still succeeded professionally.

But how many bad movies did an actor like Matthew McConaughey have before he made his big career comeback? How many bad movies has Nicolas Cage made, and he's still hanging around, God bless him.

Male actors get a million opportunities, no matter how bad their box office or how awful their off-screen transgressions. Hell, Kevin Spacey is still appearing in movies, for God's sake.

The death of Burt Reynolds got me thinking about this -- and don't get me wrong I loved Burt Reynolds -- but the dude also got a million career life preservers, and he still is barely relevant to any filmgoer under 30.

A co-worker and I were just musing about how younger people probably have no idea who Gene Hackman is. And what about Faye Dunaway? She will sadly be best remembered now by young people as the actress who accidentally flubbed the Best Picture announcement alongside Warren Beatty (another icon becoming rapidly unsung) at the Oscars almost two years ago.

She deserves better. Better than the backlash to Mommie Dearest, better than the exile she has largely experienced over the last several decades. There are so many actresses like her who deserve second chances. They have gravitas and grit -- skills that are sorely lacking among the younger crop of up-and-coming stars.

They're just waiting for that part that is worthy of them, that will remind audiences of why they fell in love with them in the first place.

A couple years back Lily Tomlin gave a glorious, career-best performance in Grandma. That's the kind of work I'm talking about! And I don't want to hear about how audiences don't want to see older women in movies because Book Club made close to $70 million largely thanks to Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen.

It just takes a little courage, and some respect.

RIP Burt Reynolds: They don't make them like the Bandit anymore

Hollywood superstar Burt Reynolds, who died today at age 82, was one of my first big cinematic heroes as a kid.

I can't really intellectualize why -- I was probably drawn in my by his famous mutaschacioed grin on the old VHS boxes, and his brand of good ole boy humor was vastly appealing to a youngster who was prohibited from venturing past PG-13 territory.

Sure, the blooperific The Cannonball Run wasn't high art or even coherent storytelling, but for little Adam it was pure fun, and the copious amounts of car crashes and cleavage certainly didn't disinterest me either.

I later came to appreciate Burt Reynolds more as an actor and a cultural icon when I discovered his breakthrough role in the 1972 film Deliverance, where he delivered an Oscar worthy performance as a kind of idealized masculine male who is brought down to earth by circumstances beyond his control. It's a powerful, riveting role that suggested a very different career path for Reynolds, who quickly cashed in on his burgeoning sex symbol persona with a succession of star-making roles.

It's hard to convey just wha an enormous star Reynolds became in the 1970s into the early 1980s. No one before or since has had such a consistent streak of popularity, at one point ranking number one with exhibitors for five years in a row.

And while some of the movies he churned out were trash (and he frequently admitted this), there are plenty of gems like The Longest Yard, White Lightning, Hooper, Starting Over, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Sharky's Machine and probably his most beloved film: Smokey and the Bandit.

This improbable blockbuster is such a remarkable time capsule of the era in which it was released -- the free wheeling, almost improvised spirit of it, the music, the goofy anarchic charm -- I got to see it recently and just had a ball even if it felt like something from a totally different universe from the one we're living in now.

He brilliantly paid homage and tweaked his '70s persona later with his most acclaimed role as porn film director Jack Horner in Boogie Nights. Reynolds is the anchor that grounds that incredibly stylish ensemble movie in reality, and I believe he was robbed of a richly deserved Academy Award for his performance in it.

I also recently caught what was likely yet another attempt at that elusive Oscar, a bit of a vanity project swan song called The Last Movie Star, in which Reynolds plays an aging facsimile of himself, an over-the-hill action movie veteran who is haunted by lost loves and lost roles.

The real life Reynolds often lamented the failure of his longterm relationship with actress Sally Field and roles he passed on that became career-defining turns for the likes of Jack Nicholson (Terms of Endearment, One Flew Over the Cuckoo'e Nest) and Bruce Willis (Die Hard).

The Last Movie Star wasn't really the great last role Reynolds wanted it to be -- he's fine in the movie -- but the film itself is a bit of a maudlin mess. But his posthumous part in Quentin Tarantino's highly anticipated Charles Manson adjacent film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood may just be the fitting finale he deserves.

Either way, his legendary status as one of the movies' all-time coolest, most charming tough guys is firmly established and I for one will miss his grin forever.

Impressive 'Searching' works way better than it should

Searching is an unabashedly gimmicky movie. Like the found footage movies whose DNA it borrows, it tells its entire narrative through online videos, Facetimes, video chats, breaking news livestreams, etc. It definitely stretches some credibility from time to time, and yet I enjoyed the hell out of it .

I was consistently thrilled that they both pulled off the feat and made a genuinely absorbing who-done-it in the process.

The other elephant in the room, which never factors into the plot of this movie in a totally refreshing way, is that this is the second mainstream, accessible vehicle with a predominately Asian cast to hit the big screen, following the runaway success of Crazy Rich Asians, which makes it feel like a really special moment in movies, that hopefully will continue to be replicated.

The difference is that Crazy Rich Asians is based on a best-selling book, is a broad comedy, and has a glamour factor this movie doesn't. Searching relies almost entirely on the underrated enduring charm of it star, John Cho, and a fun plot which keeps surprising you just when you think it can't have anymore momentum.

It revolves around a dutiful single father whose teenage daughter goes missing. The film does a phenomenal job of establishing their relationship early on through snippets of social media ephemera and allows the disappearance to sink in rather realistically.

Once that inciting incident takes place the movie delves into far more interesting territory -- it begs questions about how much we really know about the ones we love, the footprints we leave with out social activity on the web and just how many breadcrumbs a person can leave behind in a situation such as this.

It helps that Cho's character is a highly intelligent, motivated person, who largely does what we all hope we'd do under these circumstances, but he also isn't some resolute action movie cliche. The film establishes that he is uptight and anxious, by showing the texts he frequently composes but then doesn't dare send, a nice touch that I haven't seen in many movies before.

There are some great latter act twists I won't spoil and a strangely compelling dramatic performance from none other than Debra Messing that's worth shouting out -- but I think what's almost more important about this movie is what it represents than the propulsive plot points.

It's another breakthrough for diversity. Like I said earlier, the fact that Cho is Asian and this plot centers around the disappearance of an Asian girl is unspoken and incidental, which is something we need more of. And the film's use of technology, while in your face, feels relevant and gripping.

I will say I am not so sure it fully works as a big screen cinematic experience. Something about the film feels like it'd play better on Netflix or just on a smaller venue. This is clearly not a movie where they spared no expense. It's small and it feels small.

That being said -- every time I thought this film had run out of gas and exhausted its stylistic parameters it through another curveball at me, and by the time the film ended I genuinely couldn't have predicted where it was going -- which is a really impressive thing for someone who watches as many movies as I do.

Searching feels like the kind of movie Hitchcock would have made if he were an active filmmaker today. It is an almost old fashioned mystery told with a perspective steeped in 2018.