Before tornado movies threaten to become a cottage industry, just remember that in spite of both the bad ones and the forthcoming plans for more that are being assembled on the drawing boards as we speak, the only one that ever reached blockbuster status was the 1996 action epic Twister. In the realm of tornado movies, we now have Twisters. Erroneous publicity misleads us to consider it a sequel, which it isn’t. In fact, Twisters has nothing whatsoever to do with Twister, aside from the fact that it consists primarily of the same computer-generated special effects and it also takes place in Oklahoma, where the Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein corn is no longer high as an elephant’s eye, but on its way to almost total crop destruction thanks to not one but an army of lethal, never-ending new twisters that seem to arrive every ten minutes, and the wind comes sweeping down the plain with pulse-pounding noise and life-altering force.  

There is also something of an obstacle-riddled romance, but nothing as interesting as the one in Twister. (You can’t improve on Helen Hunt and the late Bill Paxton, and only a fool would try.) The new female centerpiece is Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a lovely would-be scientist who grew up obsessed with weather, first shown in a prologue as a college student, placing some kind of gizmo inside the heart of a ferocious tornado in a dangerous project designed to record enough scientific data to give folks in the paths of devastating storms a better chance to prepare and run for their lives in advance of weather patterns. The research fails, killing three of her best friends who are blown away to Tornado Heaven, leaving Kate so depressed and disillusioned that she retires from studying the weather forever.

Five years later, she’s a meteorologist in a Manhattan research lab, safe and far away from the dangers of Oklahoma twisters. An old boyfriend named Jeb (Daryl McCarmack), one of the few survivors of the college tragedy five years earlier, appears suddenly and, for reasons known only by the screenwriter, talks Kate into returning to Oklahoma to track another deadly storm. Subplots about Jeb’s secret job working for a crook and a brief, aborted attempt to revive their stale romance are deleted fast between lightning flashes, ear-splitting wind tunnels and hail the size of billiard balls while Kate falls in with a new heartthrob named Tyler, played by drop dead Glen Powell, the fastest rising glamour-puss movie star since the young Robert Redford first appeared on the scene. The hot sparks between these two are leavened by their constant hostility. Kate and her crew aim to make a difference; Tyler is a storm tracker in it for excitement and adventure.  

References to the twister in The Wizard of Oz are annoying gimmicks inserted to inject some humor into the proceedings, including Tyler’s crew of storm chasers, with names like Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion. But clearly, the only true wizards in Twisters are not in Kansas anymore—or Oz. They’re the fearless computer geniuses who have conjured up the fantastic special effects in this movie and made them work—the tractors flying through deafening decibel levels of howling wind and rain, the towns razed and obliterated by airborne trucks, barns, farmhouses, trees, chickens and even a rodeo. The thunderous effects they create would keep the Weather Channel in business for years.

The sets, lighting design, and computer-generated special effects are superb, enhancing the viewer’s fascination with the subject matter. By comparison, the humans in Twisters are so unimportant and so undeveloped they seem like interlopers. The one-dimensional plot is tedious and the charm, good looks and style of the two leads are the only elements of the film that try but fail to invigorate. There don’t seem to be any limits to Glen Powell’s charisma. Even his smile is in Cinemascope and Technicolor, and he can act, too—although the benign script by Mark L. Smith is so mired in technology about pollen counts, anchor funnels, velocity measurements and silver oxide, and Lee Isaac Chung’s mediocre direction is so camouflaged in technical obscurity that they don’t give Mr. Powell much of an opportunity to show what he can do. The love affair part of the film is so wholesomely family-oriented that it’s about as sexy as an algebra book. There isn’t even one single kiss. 

Fortunately, the action sequences are nothing bland or dull, adding up to a whale of entertainment. I guess my scoreboard reads: Twisters, 10. People: 0. In the end, Kate prepares to return to New York, Tyler wants to know when she’ll come back, and there’s evidence that a lot of unfinished business is waiting to be solved. Twisters 2, anyone?

From the nasty fun corner of our big screen entertainment menu comes Longlegs, the feel-spooked hit of the summer. Here, writer-director Osgood Perkins has cooked up a horror film which both nods to the tropes and beloved elements of form in the B-movie genre while injecting it with intelligent twists, a keen visual and place-conscious eye, and variations on the form.

Oh, did we mention a truly new and newly unnerving demonic villain in the man called “Longlegs?” This conniving, Manson-esque serial killer (or killer by proxy), with a mop-haired, pasty-faced madman countenance and confessed obedience to “Mr. Downstairs,” is creepily embodied by Nicholas Cage. Cage, also the film’s producer, doesn’t have to dig very deep in his thespian and psychological playbook to conjure up the required frightful eccentricity for the job.

An added attraction in the film is the unexpectedly nuanced and magnetic performance by Maika Monroe, born and raised in Santa Barbara and an actress who first made her splash in another horror flick, It Follows, a decade ago. In Longlegs, she is less a classic imperiled damsel-ish “scream queen” than a complicated character with a past, decoding an ugly crime pattern involving slain families, girls with common birthdays and demonic dolls. She plays an FBI agent on the Longlegs case, with a “half-psychic” awareness and connections to a harrowing past only slowly revealed through the film. Monroe is excellent as the presumed voice of reason amidst the anarchic narrative and in the face of Cage’s manic manipulations. But reason starts to get real personal as the film careens into its surprise final act.

As one last touch of a winking easter egg in the film (they know that we know some devil-ish fun is at work here), the end credits break with tradition by scrolling downward — aka hellward. Meanwhile, Marc Bolan sings “Bang a Gong,” circling back to a quote from the song in the film’s intro: “you’re a dirty sweet/you’re my girl.”

Longlegs is a thinking person’s horror outing, validating the notion that such presumably “lowly” genres as action and horror can also be containers for cleverly crafted and engaging cinema art. It may scare the bejeezus out of some viewers or impress those of us seeking out sneak attack art-making on the summer movie circuit. Or both. 

See trailer here.

Even if you don’t know Sabrina Brier, chances are you’ve already met one of the many “friends” she plays on TikTok.

Best known for her New York-set point-of-view videos, the prolific 29-year-old comedian, actor and writer has amassed more than 800,000 followers in three years on the strength and utter relatability of her “That Friend” videos, which portray Brier playing a variety of characters ranging from well-intentioned and oblivious to downright hateable and entitled. For example: a wedding guest who dated the groom in high school and can’t stop bringing it up; a friend who is upset with you for inviting another person to dinner (she just wanted some one-on-one time); a friend who always finds a way to circle a conversation back to her; an extremely passive-aggressive roommate; and a friend who is embarrassed to have wealthy parents.

Brier’s online fame is so massive, it’s long since spilled over to into her real life. “I’ve had friends say to me, ‘You’re kind of like the mayor,’” she tells The Times over Zoom of what it’s like to leave her apartment and be waved to on the street. “I’ll never forget the first time,” she continues, remembering going out to eat with a friend who was visiting from out of town. “I had been viral for a month. Our waitress was like, ‘Oh, my God. You’re the girl.’ People just started to say to me, ‘You’re the girl. You’re the girl.’”

Since she first went viral on Instagram in August 2021 with a short video about how to upset New Yorkers (hint: it’s by pronouncing “Houston” like the Texas city), Brier has carefully leveled up her online presence with the eventual goal of crossing over into mainstream media. Thanks to her self-professed “obsessive” work tendencies, that plan is coming to fruition: Last year, Brier was named to Variety’s New York Power list. She also became a widely circulated meme. This past spring, she hosted Sabrina Brier & Friends at Hotel Cafe for Netflix Is A Joke Fest and guest starred on Abbott Elementary as “JessCa,” an overconfident sub who doesn’t believe in capitalizing names of cities and terms her classroom experience as “exceptionally mid.”

Early next year, Brier will release an audiobook — fittingly titled “That Friend” — about an aspiring NYC influencer whose advice podcast becomes successful just as her personal life falls apart. “I always knew I wanted to take my material and go long-form,” Brier says, adding that she initially hoped to move her writing to television before being approached by her editor at Simon & Schuster.

“It felt very cosmic because it made sense completely. I love short form, but I’ve obviously done so much of it. The thing I haven’t done as much of is long-form. I’m eager. I love serial stories [and] a long arc. It’s why I love television so much. There is so much underneath every 45-second video that could be a whole episode of something. I feel really proud of the way that [‘That Friend’] represents my TikTok material. … You can expect a lot of what you’re used to with my stories, but I’m taking you much further on the ride. It’s hopefully going to be really satisfying for people in a different way.”

It only takes one conversation with Brier to realize that her star is too big to stay contained to phone screens. Originally from Woodbridge, Conn., Brier says she “very much grew up on the stage” with a playwright mother, who would occasionally place her in bit roles for a production. Brier also participated in theater in high school and at Smith College, where she also did improv and stand-up comedy. Upon graduating in 2017, Brier moved to New York and became a talent manager assistant, eventually landing at Door 24 Entertainment, which — fun fact— now represents her as a client. “I wanted to be on the creative side, that was never a question for me,” says Brier, who transitioned to writer’s assistant in 2019. When the first year of COVID sent everyone into lockdown, Brier started tinkering with a pre-Reels Instagram, where she filmed comedic videos she thought might appeal to New Yorkers.

“I’m from Connecticut, and I have a lot of friends who are native Brooklynites,” Brier says of the Tristate Area-specific inspiration behind her earliest videos. “I could see it was striking a chord, and I was able to find a niche.” After building a local audience, Brier started branching out, making videos about her and her friends’ experiences living and dating as a 20-something in New York. “I definitely write from real life,” Brier continues. “And the reality of my life these past seven years in the city has been that I work a ton, then I put the work away and I go out with my girlfriends. I take care of them, and they take care of me. I went to a women’s college, I have so many communities of women around me. All of the best [ideas] would end up coming out of social situations. I always found that if something irked me, that probably was going to get a good reaction on TikTok.”

Brier constantly has her antennae up for ideas that could make for a funny situational sketch. For instance, one hangout revealed a story where someone ran into an ex-boyfriend the rest of their circle never liked. “I took that story and regurgitated it as a TikTok, and it went super viral,” she says of what became “When Your Best Friend Runs Into Your Ex,” which now has nearly 1 million likes on the platform. “It just became tidbits of my life, tidbits of things that either happened to me, to my friend, or something happened to my friend with her friend, but I’m having an internal reaction to it. … I also just have too many friends, which has always been a thing with me.”

One of those friends is fellow comedian and podcaster Hannah Berner, who recently debuted Netflix comedy special, “We Ride At Dawn” and occasionally appears in Brier’s sketches — one from June has Berner playing “That Friend Who Travels More Than You Do.” “Hannah is, like, America’s golden retriever,” Brier says of Berner, who has utilized TikTok in a similar way to build a global audience. “Sabrina is not only smart, hysterical, and kind, but her hustle to consistently put out high-quality content has really set her apart from other creators,” Berner said.

Elsewhere in Brier’s digital rolodex is “Abbott Elementary’s” Quinta Brunson, whose creative career also took off online, first with a 2014 viral Instagram clip, which quickly became a meme, and then with a successful Buzzfeed Video residency. The two became friends after Brunson followed Brier on Instagram (where else?), which led to a DM conversation where the showrunner said she’d been discussing a potential “Abbott” guest spot for Brier. “I obviously was already a fan,” Brier says. “Because I 100% want to be a showrunner. That was a huge goal of mine, to have my own show where I’m in front of the camera and behind the camera.”

Brier also says connecting with Brunson “was a huge lesson in how you never know who’s paying attention.” Once she was on the “Abbott” set, Brier channeled her energy into acting while simultaneously observing how Brunson operated as showrunner. “I’m shadowing and watching Quinta’s every move — because that’s what I want to do, too, is wear all of the hats.”

After all, why couldn’t she? From Justin Bieber to Bo Burnham to Please Don’t Destroy, there exists a strong precedent for entertainers transitioning from Internet fame to household name. “I do think it’s interesting to watch this gap between the internet and television. … I feel like we can see the bridge being built. It’s not quite built yet,” Brier says. “I think it’s something that I used to feel insecure about, like, ‘Oh, am I just going to be known as an internet actress?’ And then I realized, what’s so wrong with that? I am working at my craft in a very serious way. Just because it’s 45 seconds per video doesn’t doesn’t make it less important.”