#mark l. smith

The Boys in the Boat (2023)

Directed by George Clooney

Javi is also doing that, but the thing about Javi is that he is associated with the Big Tragedy. He was part of the thing that makes Kate want to cut herself off from “where she belongs.” So even though he’s reminding her of who she is and where she’s from, too, it’s in the wrong direction. Kate’s character needed somebody new to come into her life, not somebody from the tortured past. And what better “somebody new” than a guy who’s got all the love for weather she used to have, and all the challenging interest in her, with none of the “reference to tragedy?”

I mean they could’ve written Tyler to be a storm-chaser who lost someone, too. At the rodeo, he could’ve gone, “yeah, my parents died in a storm, there wasn’t an early enough warning system, so now I chase what I used to fear to help understand the thing that took my family from me,” yadda yadda, angst angst. But that’s not what they do. Because Tyler’s character doesn’t need to foil the tragedy. He needs to foil the fun. And the hope, and the enjoyment, and the bravery, that Kate’s character has been suppressing.

So what better character to start marking where Kate’s return-to-where-she-belongs journey is, with nicknames, than Tyler—the guy trying to understand her—and then once he gets an understanding, he’s the guy trying to push her to move forward?

The Revenant premiered in Los Angeles, CA on 16 December 2015 before its official opening in January 2016.

Michael Punke sold the film rights to his novel before it was even published in 2002, and the project stalled until Alejandro G. Iñárritu became involved in 2011. He and Mark L. Smith wrote the final screenplay, but the project was put on hold as Iñárritu went on to make Birdman (2014).

Vacancy

Twisters (2024)

Some people have a lot of nostalgia for 1996’s Twister. I’ve only ever thought of it as an "ok" movie – great special effects, but not much else. The standalone sequel (that last word is stretched to its limit here) is cut from the same cloth but a charismatic performance by Glen Powell and a few unexpected turns along the way make it a better film.

Five years ago, Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) thought launching sodium polyacrylate beads into a twister might absorb enough of its moisture to reduce its intensity, or even collapse it. Unfortunately, the first field test was a disaster. Her friends Praveen, Addy and her boyfriend, Jeb, all died. Today, the only other surviving storm chaser from the group, Javi (Anthony Ramos), works for StormPAR, a company that studies tornadoes. He wants Kate to help him and his team. She refuses, until she’s reminded of the destruction these unpredictable weather phenomena cause.

Today’s special effects allow us to put anything on-screen and disaster filmmakers – led by Rolan Emmerich – have pulverized our world many times now. Just seeing a tornado isn’t enough today but it was back in the ‘90s. I think this may have pushed writers Joseph Kosinski and Mark L. Smith (Kosinski wrote the story, Smith the screenplay) to put a little more thought into the characters and the plot than they would’ve even ten years ago. Twisters is essentially the same movie as its predecessor. Jo (Helen Hunt’s character) wanted to take our knowledge of tornadoes to the next level by getting one to suck up her Dorothy device (said device is the only “character” that returns for this follow-up). In Twisters, Kate wants to defuse tornadoes by getting them to suck up the beads. Both protagonists are traumatized by a past encounter with a twister and have a rivalry with another group of storm chasers. In Twister, our heroes were independently funded while the "corporate" group was the antagonist (or as close to antagonists as that movie got). In this movie, our heroine is with the corporate group and the people who make her eyes roll are led by YouTube storm chaser Tyler Owens (Glen Powell).

The slight change to have our heroine pitted against independent storm chasers pays off in a big way, though it has the unfortunate side effect of revealing more than one character to be one-dimensional cartoons. In fact, anyone aside from the protagonists is wildly underdeveloped. Tyler’s crew, for instance. Their appearances and introductions make them seem as though they’re wild misfits that together form the perfect team… but you’ll struggle to remember a single one of them after the movie is over.

The story provides the cast of Twisters with just enough. I’ll credit the movie working as well as it does primarily to the special effects and the cast. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell have great chemistry and the movie maintains just enough animosity between them to keep you interested without making you feel like you’re being strung along. Speaking of Powell, he’s great. His charisma makes him believable as a stormchaser and as an internet celebrity. Anthony Ramos as Javi is also good. You sense that a part of him might be attracted to Kate, or that he might’ve been interested in her once upon a time and that he hopes bringing her on his team will rekindle something or erase the tragedy that happened five years ago. In a way, he’s a bit slimy, so you’re not sure how you’re supposed to feel about the interactions of the three lead characters. You like Glen… but should you? There's a stigma to associate with "YouTube stormchaser", after all. You like him more than Javi. Is that intentional?

The special effects carry Twisters the rest of the way, with some impressive destruction during the climax and plenty of scenes beforehand that prove just how dangerous tornadoes are. There are many driving scenes – either towards or away from the storms – and at the end of each, the quick breathing I heard in the room told me more than one person had been holding their breath until it would be "safe".

While Twisters is a standalone sequel to a movie that was popular back in the day, it doesn’t feel like a desperate attempt to wring dollars out of a pre-existing audience. The weather effects are impressive and the performances – particularly that of Glen Powell – make this movie better than the first and what you hope to see when you sit down to watch it. (March 15, 2025)

Movies watched in 2024

Twisters (2024, USA)

Director: Lee Isaac Chung

Writer: Mark L. Smith (based on a story by Joseph Kosinski)

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