Weekend Watch - Saltburn

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Emerald Fennell’s highly anticipated sophomore feature Saltburn. The film follows a scholarship Oxford student as he spends his summer holidays at the estate of one of his wealthy schoolmates and slowly inserts himself into that world of wealth. It stars Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Archie Madekwe, Paul Rhys, Richard E. Grant, Rosamund Pike, Carey Mulligan, and Alison Oliver and opened last week to a strong response from audiences even if its critic reviews are only a bit mixed. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: A-; so much of the film’s themes have been gone over time and again, but it executes them in such innovative fashion that you can’t help but be enraptured.

Should you Watch This Film? Maybe: filmgoers interested in a film that blends The Talented Mr. Ripley with Babylon are sure to be thrilled. People who find either or both of those films off-putting are probably in for a bad time, though.

Why?

                Saltburn delivers on its promises of exploring the excesses of the British aristocracy and the lengths that people will go to attain wealth through a twisted series of events. Fennell has delivered a depraved but highly entertaining story about class, education, and desire that is at its best when its actors get to show off the fullness of their characters’ idiosyncrasies and sociopathy. The film takes the premise of “eat the rich” to a whole new level that ultimately reads as much as a critique of middle-class social climbers as it does of the aristocracy that it puts on display. Keoghan, Elordi, Madekwe, and Pike, in particular, stand out in their performances, bringing the sexiness that the film requires to hold its audience’s attention as it dives deeper and deeper into the lifestyles of the denizens of Saltburn and into Keoghan’s Oliver’s need to be part of it all.

                In terms of its actual story, Saltburn is fairly reminiscent of Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, following a gifted middle-class college student who inserts himself in increasingly aggressive fashion into the life of his rich schoolmate and his friends and family. Keoghan’s Oliver Quick is perhaps more chilling than Damon’s Tom Ripley simply on his ability to lurk while hot, giving a more disconcerting lead performance than Damon’s obsessive one. The twist that kicks off the film’s third act comes only as a mild surprise, and Oliver’s final reveal (no, not that one) might leave too little to the audience’s imagination. Overall, though, the story works because of how fun it is to watch Oliver and his machinations play out, even when you’re pretty sure you know where it’s all headed.

                In addition to the film’s fun – at times, disturbing – story beats, the cast of characters keep things compelling as well. Archie Madekwe, who continues to have himself a year with his supporting performance here, perfectly plays the spoiled, but broke, American cousin of the Cattons, Farleigh Start. He plays smug and confident with so much smarminess that you can’t help but love to hate him. Even toward the film’s end, when his arc becomes more tragic, he brings just enough ridiculousness that you feel he deserves whatever comes, and he manages to never get shown up by any of the film’s “bigger” names. Jacob Elordi also happens to be putting up career numbers this year, and in Saltburn, his Felix Catton is aloof enough to draw the audience in and jealous enough to make them stay. His charisma and sex-appeal ooze from every scene he’s in, and you almost empathize with Oliver’s blend of obsession and frustration with the rich young socialite. Rosamund Pike, though secondary in the film’s cast of characters, gives a scene-stealing performance as the matriarch, Elspeth Catton. Her deadpan delivery of some truly wild lines brings an element of unexpected humor to many of the film’s tensest situations, and she plays so well off of every character she sits across from – Richard E. Grant’s Sir James, Keoghan’s Oliver, Elordi’s Felix, and even Carey Mulligan’s Pamela – elevating every scene that she’s in because you never know exactly what she’s going to do next, raising the whole cast up to her incredibly talented level. Obviously, though, Barry Keoghan carries the bulk of the film on his back, playing that unnerving little dude just as well as he ever has here as Oliver Quick. In every moment, his decisions, however uncouth and out-there they might be, feel true to the desperation of his character, and the actor feels like the perfect casting for such a uniquely depraved performance. I never doubted his willingness to fully send, and he full sends many MANY times in this film.

                A brilliant cast of characters, some truly gorgeous visuals, and plenty of wild story beats keep Emerald Fennell’s sophomore outing fresh and entertaining even as the themes it explores feel a bit overdone in modern popular media. The big swings taken by the filmmakers certainly won’t land with all audiences, but those looking to see a well-acted film that innovates and takes risks in the modern landscape of film are sure to be rewarded for their watch. Saltburn is currently showing in theaters around the country if you’d like to check it out while it’s still there.

Weekend Watch - Thanksgiving

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Eli Roth’s new holiday slasher, Thanksgiving, which opened in theaters this weekend. The film, which follows the citizens of Plymouth, MA, who are being terrorized at Thanksgiving by a masked killer one year after a disastrous Black Friday sale left multiple people dead, stars Nell Verlaque, Patrick Dempsey (sexiest man alive 2023), Rick Hoffman, Milo Manheim, Addison Rae, Karen Cliche, Ty Olsson, Jenna Warren, Tomaso Sanelli, Gabriel Davenport, and Joe Delfin as its ensemble of potential killers and victims. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B+; it’s got plenty of that tongue-in-cheek slasher humor and gory action to please any audience even if its story underwhelms in the final act.

Should you Watch This Film? Yes! This is a great time at the theater that never gets too serious or self-important, giving audiences just about everything they might want in a new classic slasher.

Why?

                Thanksgiving delivers up a fun, anti-Black Friday slasher ride that feels like Eli Roth at his most crowd-pleasing, never getting excessive with its gore while still maintaining the director’s twisted reputation with a collection of creative holiday-themed kills and injuries. It’s not a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination with a third act and mystery that end up fairly underwhelming in their execution due to an aggressively choreographed plot twist that even the most basic viewer can probably see coming from a mile away. There’s plenty of dangling plot details to potentially give us sequels if it does well enough, and I really hope that it does because the film’s themes of corrupt business owners, cross-town rivalries, and Thanksgiving-related shenanigans deserve to be further explored alongside its archetypal cast of characters.

                The best parts of the film are its moments of creative kills and attacks that often come out of nowhere. They had the audience in my theater absolutely losing our minds with creative use of industrial-grade ovens, corn cob holders, pilgrim axes, and the heavy doors of a restaurant’s dumpster. They are brutal in the most hilarious ways possible, living very much in the same space as Tarantino’s stylized gore. Each one leans into the film’s holiday motifs and feels like something you haven’t quite seen before in a slasher, at least not in this context. It’s fun to see this type of innovation in a genre that so often relies solely on tropes and familiarity, especially in recent years, to win audiences over.

                Story-wise, Thanksgiving jumps in with a promising premise – someone is out for revenge on the people responsible for a violent and deadly Black Friday mob one year later at Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the home of the original Thanksgiving (purportedly). After showcasing the horror of a mob at a Black Friday sale, which also introduces us to the film’s collection of characters, it gets into its present-day setting, a town amping up for a Thanksgiving celebration with cross-town sports rivalries, a parade getting prepped up, and lots of hurt feelings as the town approaches the anniversary of the previous year’s disaster. Every bit of dialogue is loaded with potentially incriminating statements to keep the audience guessing as to who the real killer is and whether there might even be multiple killers operating in tandem. For anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, it’s pretty obvious who the perpetrator(s) is (are?), but there’s enough smoke and mirrors and plenty of fun violence to make up for that lack of mystery.

                Each of the characters are fun and decently fleshed-out, with a well-selected cast of lesser-known actors portraying them (2023’s sexiest man alive Patrick Dempsey notwithstanding). Dempsey delivers a performance that works well in building up the setting as Plymouth’s thick-accented sheriff, worried about the impact of the killings on the town’s annual celebration of Thanksgiving. Nell Verlaque does the most as Thanksgiving’s new final girl, occasionally making some questionable decisions but never losing the audience’s support in a passable performance as a burgeoning scream queen. Her band of friends, comprised of Milo Manheim, Addison Rae, Jenna Warren, Tomaso Sanelli, and Gabriel Davenport, fills out the cast well, giving the audience enough individuality to make us curious about who makes it out and who might be the killer.

                Thanksgiving might not have the most surprising reveals and suffers some in its third act, but its fun characters, innovative violence, and tongue-in-cheek humor more than make it a satisfying time in the theaters and a welcome addition to the slasher genre. It might not be perfect, but there’s plenty of potential to follow it up with Thanksgiving 2 (or Easter or St. Patrick’s Day or July 4th) if Eli Roth wants to give us more, and I certainly hope that he does. It’s currently showing in theaters, and I definitely recommend checking it out this week as a way to celebrate the holiday.

Weekend Watch - The Marvels

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and (now that the studios have agreed to pay their writers and actors what they deserve) recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers is Marvel Studios’ The Marvels – the latest release from the MCU, featuring the team-up of Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Miss Marvel (Iman Vellani), and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) who currently has no official superhero alias in the cinematic universe. In addition to its leading ladies, the film also sees the return of Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury to the Marvel films, the big-screen debut of Kamala Khan’s family portrayed by Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, and Saagar Shaikh, reprising their roles from the Miss Marvel Disney+ show, and sees the introduction of the villain Dar-Benn, played by Zawe Ashton, and Prince Yan of Aladna, portrayed by Park Seo-joon. The film opened this weekend to what looks to be the lowest box office debut of any MCU film to date. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B-; it’s a great time at the movies, and the leads help make the film really fun, but many of the important story beats break down under any kind of close examination.

Should you Watch This Film? If you are a fan of any of these three leading characters from the MCU, this film does them justice, and you’ll find your fandom rewarded. I don’t know how much this film impacts the overall continuity of the “Multiverse Saga”, so it’s a “maybe” for any other Marvel fans. People who haven’t enjoyed the latest offerings of the MCU probably won’t have their minds changed by this one, either.

Why?

                The Marvels, like most of the MCU films post-Endgame, is a mixed bag of good ideas, fun characters, decent effects, and a thin story. In the case of this particular outing, the good ideas come in the form of creative action sequences and a very fun team-up. The effects feel a little bit more consistent than in some of the recent outings; though, at times, the CGI of Captain Marvel flying around doesn’t look overly lifelike. The characters don’t have overly complex arcs in this quick film, but their interpersonal relationships take center stage and make for some solid fleshing out of the three leads. In a broad sense, the story works – forcing Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers to actually address the fallout from her past actions and do her best to patch things up, both with the Kree and with Monica. Unfortunately, the finer details of the story are where it starts to fall apart with more plot-holes than even I am comfortable with in a superhero film.

                Starting with the positives, it’s very fun to see all three of these leading characters on the big screen, and having them work together as a team is the icing on that particular cake. Aside from a tertiary role in Wandavision, we haven’t gotten to see much of Teyonah Parris’s Monica Rambeau, and in this film, she proves to be quite a welcome addition to the team. Beyond actually figuring out what her powers can do, she provides a human connection for Carol/Captain Marvel to wrestle with, which wasn’t as fully present in the first Captain Marvel film, and she brings more of a grounded perspective to the trio, acting as the voice of reason between Carol’s brashness and Kamala’s fangirling. She’s a fun character that has potential to be even more important as the second of the MCU’s sagas unfolds. Kamala Khan/Miss Marvel at least had her own show leading into this film, but Vellani’s character finds her stride here as she becomes part of a team, realizing that she has more to contribute than just being a sidekick to more famous heroes. While Monica is the brains of the operation and Carol is the main character and strength of the trio, Kamala serves as the team’s heart, reminding them time and again of their individual and collective greatness, becoming the best part of the film in the process. Her interactions with each member of the team, with Jackson’s Nick Fury, and with her own family serve as the comedic heart of the film but also the emotional core of the film, as her arc from fan/b-lister to mainline superhero comes to full fruition. Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers, in contrast with Kamala’s heart-on-her-sleeve passion, has to be brought out of her shell some in this film, benefitting greatly in this regard from Kamala’s outgoing nature and her emotional connection to Monica and her deceased mother. She’s obviously still one of the most powerful beings in the MCU, but her character gets to play in that space a bit more, as she’s forced to reckon with her inextricable connections to those weaker than her and to come to appreciate those connections rather than shy away from them and the vulnerability that they bring. Those connections offer a much-needed depth to her character that makes her a more integral part of the universe moving forward.

                On the flipside, the story surrounding these three great characters lacks a solid narrative framework and feels like a shell that was built around the awesome team-up. It’s a film that makes for a great time while you watch it, but when you look back and think about it, you’re puzzled by the logic and many conveniences that happen in the midst of it. Zawe Ashton does a commendable job as the villain Dar-Benn, coming across as the desperate world leader that she’s asked to portray, but many of the character’s decisions feel more like they were meant to bring the characters to certain locations and set pieces rather than the coordinated actions of the leader of an entire planet (empire?). Don’t get me wrong, those set-pieces are mostly pretty solid – the musical planet with Prince Yan, the cat rescue, and the initial entanglement sequence all make for highly entertaining film – but it’s again not the most logical in terms of story development. Likewise, I found myself wondering multiple times about how Monica just knew certain bits of information about the universe and physics that pertained to their specific situations and how the trio moved on so easily from witnessing multiple potentially world-ending events in pretty rapid succession. The processing scenes are either missing entirely or much too short to be fully satisfying. But that also speaks to my initial point that this film is here to showcase the trio rather than explore the universe that they inhabit, which may or may not work all the time.

                The Marvels is at its best when its leading team is on-screen, working together, and interacting in fun and fresh ways; unfortunately, much of that fun comes at the expense of a cohesive story, with the writing feeling more constructed around the characters as opposed to the characters developing around the story. It probably won’t work perfectly for most audiences, and a bit more time spent on story development could easily have made this one of the best MCU films. As it stands, it’s still a very fun superhero film with memorable characters, some original action sequences, and lots of heart that just misses the mark on some of its story logic. I think it’s worth your time if you’re looking for a lighthearted action flick that’s currently showing in theaters. Otherwise, you can probably wait for this one to hit streaming if you’re a Marvel fan or skip it if you aren’t because I’ve seen too many people dumping on this film for not being “cinema” for me to tell those people to watch it. They’ve already made up their minds because Scorsese told them to, and they’re not changing for a Brie Larson superhero film. If that’s you, just don’t see it rather than wasting time trashing people for doing their jobs.

Weekend Watch - Five Nights at Freddy’s

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers is Five Nights at Freddy’s, the videogame adaptation from Blumhouse about a security guard at a shutdown children’s pizza restaurant who must contend with the violent tendencies of its haunted animatronics while he keeps watch at night. The film stars Josh Hutcherson as the film’s lead Mike, joined by Piper Rubio as his sister and charge Abby, Elizabeth Lail as local police officer Vanessa, and Matthew Lillard as the career counselor who places Mike at Freddy’s, Steve Raglan. It opened last weekend to some of the worst reviews of the year while also winning the weekend at the box office. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: C-, it’s not as terrible as people say, but a few tweaks would take it from just okay to something truly great.

Review:

                Five Nights at Freddy’s offers a slightly toned down but still atmospheric and jump-scare heavy horror film that just misses the mark on a few too many notes to feel totally true to its source material. Through its soundtrack, puppeteering, and creative twists on the game’s lore, it offers audiences a fairly fresh take on the horror genre, with lots of potential for any future installments. Unfortunately, predictable plot twists, inconsistent performances, and a miniscule level of the blood and gore that you might expect from such a film leave it as a middling offering to wrap up spooky season (or not if you’re trying to watch Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks).

                As far as capturing the feel of the video game from which it is inspired, I think this film does a decent job. It has plenty of jump-scares, Easter eggs, and lore-specific statements to please fans of the game. The soundtrack that goes along with it all really adds to the 1980s atmospheric theming with lots of synth and 16-bit sounds that really immerse the audience in the world – particularly in the film’s opening sequence, which features maybe the film’s best overall vibes. The disappointment comes when the camera cuts away from the instances of violence in order to maintain a PG-13 rating that will give it a larger audience base and box office haul. While the games maintain a palatable T for Teen age rating, they do this by minimizing the on-screen violence and relying heavily on jump-scares, which makes for a satisfying gaming experience. However, horror films that cut away from the violence and utilize primarily jump-scares are inevitably going to suffer in the ratings department, and I think here, the film could actually be a more critical success if it leaned a bit harder into the franchise’s Saw adjacencies and less on its marketability with 8-to-12-year-olds.

                Game creator and co-writer of the film Scott Cawthon has taken the lore of his hit franchise and twisted bits and pieces of it to craft what should be an original enough story for fans who came in knowing the depths of Freddy’s lore. It plays around with characters and storylines in a way that still gives us a satisfying story even if its beats are fairly predictable and familiar for the average moviegoer. The real breakdown is not so much in the changes from the source material but in the execution of the new story, which is rife with plot holes and less-than-surprising twists. Combine that with inconsistent performances from both Hutcherson and Lail, and you’re left with a somewhat disappointing story that still entertains but doesn’t really wow.

                Hutcherson is at his best in the film when he gets to just talk and be present, expressing more subtle trauma and emotionality quite well. It’s the moments when he has to explode and emote more intensely that his performance breaks down a bit and reverts too much to his younger self to be believable. Likewise, Lail’s performance as Vanessa feels too insincere in the film’s moments of emotional connection and simple explanations, but when the going gets tough, she exhibits fear and terror excellently in her expressions, giving the audience a glimpse at some potential horror greatness if she can nail those other beats. Lillard’s cameo moments work well enough, but it’s fairly obvious what part he has to play, and certain moments feel a bit more phoned in than I’d typically like – he’s not late-90’s/early-2000s Matthew Lillard anymore (at least not here). Piper Rubio might give the film’s best performance, but it’s not an overly complex one, as she gives the audience a glimpse into the childlike innocence that has been so often victimized by the film’s antagonistic forces. She is kind and good and a little bit airy, but it works well enough.

                Five Nights at Freddy’s struggles to find solid footing with an atmosphere and adaptation that almost work perfectly but break down like the animatronics in the presence of tasers when you take into account the film’s conventional plot and inconsistent performances that leave something to be desired. It’s by no means the worst film of the year, but it could definitely have been a much better film with just a few tweaks and really gone down as a great video game adaptation. As it stands, it’s a passable horror film on the level of most others, not really elevated or innovative but still thrilling in its creation of a suspenseful atmosphere and use of jump-scares.

Weekend Watch - October 2023 Recap

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week, we are looking back at the films released in the month of October, recapping those of note that have a shot at making their way onto this blog’s list of Greatest Films of All Time, categorized by likelihood into three groups – Long Shots, Possible Things, and Sure Things. October has been the first month where we’ve really felt the impact of the film delays brought about by the SAG and WGA strikes that are happening because production studios refuse to pay fair wages and provide proper benefits to their employees, bringing an abbreviated slate of films but a decent one that has at least a few films worth seeing ASAP and others worth keeping an eye on. Let’s get into it.

Long Shots:

Totally Killer: Amazon’s time travel slasher kicked the month off with a bit of a bang in the real of horror, leaning into the self-aware tropes that has permeated the subgenre of late with decent success. It’s probably not going to win any awards, but it’s always nice to have another decently solid slasher to add to the yearly watch.

The Royal Hotel: The indie thriller about Americans backpacking through Australia, starring Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick, has all the makings of a cult classic. It’s done solidly with critics and has divided audiences. It’s flying far enough under the radar that I don’t expect to see it suddenly rising in any of its ratings or awards odds, but there’s always a chance.

Last Stop Larrimah: Max’s crime documentary about an Australian town of eleven residents has landed to some minor amount of buzz. It lives in an interesting niche that might do enough for it to gain some awards recognition later this year, which it will need to improve upon its currently just average audience reviews.

Fair Play: Netflix’s marital drama/thriller has been lurking on the edge of people’s list of anticipated films and long-shots for awards all year. Now that it’s here, the Phoebe Dynevor/Alden Ehrenreich vehicle looks to be a solid effort but probably not the streamer’s best bet of nabbing awards this year. The film’s exploration of gender roles and corporate America has left audiences somewhat divided so far.

When Evil Lurks: The Argentinian supernatural horror film released on AMC+ this past week and has been heralded as one of the best horror films of the year. Its critical and audience success should spell further hype as the year wraps up, but its nature as a horror film leaves it inevitably as a long shot to get any kind of boost.

Possible Things:

The Burial: Amazon’s based-on-a-true-story legal drama about corporate takeovers and funeral homes sparked a lot of buzz this month. Its star-studded cast that includes Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones should be enough to get people watching, and its story and themes have also managed to resonate solidly with audiences and critics. Keep an eye out for it to potentially spoil some campaigns in the coming months.

Anatomy of a Fall: The only reason I’m not putting this in sure things is France’s decision to not name it as their Best International Feature submission for the Academy Awards. Otherwise, this year’s Palme d’Or winner about a woman accused of murdering her husband has all the makings of being one of the best films of the year. It opened this past weekend near me, and I’m looking forward to seeing it soon.

The Pigeon Tunnel: Errol Morris’s latest documentary, this one about legendary novelist John le Carré found a home on Apple TV+ this month. The author’s final interview has the makings of being an all-time classic in the hands of the skilled documentarian, definitely one to keep an eye on.

Sure Things:

Killers of the Flower Moon: Martin Scorsese’s latest true crime epic has already struck majorly successful chords with audiences and critics alike, sitting solidly in the top-3 favorites to win this year’s best picture awards at most of the big shows. The highly necessary story helps put the film in a place of potential staying power as one that will be remembered for years to come.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour: Following hot on the heels of the remastered re-release of arguably the greatest concert film ever (Stop Making Sense), Taylor Swift released her concert film, which adapts her performance from the Los Angeles stop of her multi-million-dollar-grossing Eras Tour to massive box office returns and incredibly positive responses from audiences and critics. The high energy of the film and Taylor’s excellent capabilities as an entertainer make this one to catch on a very large screen if you can.

Weekend Watch - Killers of the Flower Moon

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Martin Scorsese’s latest crime epic, Killers of the Flower Moon. The film opened across the U.S. this weekend amid huge buzz for the prolific filmmaker’s return to the director’s chair. Based on David Grann’s nonfiction book of the same name, the film documents the Osage Indian murders of the 1920s, focusing on the perpetrators Ernest Burkhart and William Hale and one of the survivors, Mollie Burkhart. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Ernest, Robert De Niro as Hale, and Lily Gladstone as Mollie, and also features Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Cara Jade Myers, Jenae Collins, Jason Isbell, William Belleau, Louis Cancelmi, and Scott Shepherd in prominent roles. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B+; if a three hour and twenty-six-minute runtime sounds daunting, this film will not be your cup of tea. The positives outweigh the negatives here overall, but it’s not a film without flaws.

Review:

                Martin Scorsese is back with another weighty true crime story with some of his favorite collaborators and new faces as well. This one takes us to the plains of Oklahoma, the land of the Osage in the 1920s, where vast oil reserves made the Native Americans one of the wealthiest people groups in the world before the wealth drew American settlers looking to use intermarriage and “accidental” deaths to steal that wealth away. It’s a story that begs to be told, and Scorsese feels like one of the better choices to tell it, honoring the heritage and culture of the Osage even as he focuses the spotlight on the white perpetrators. The three central performances carry the film’s hefty runtime, not really lightening the load but making it a more acceptable slog. Is the film 20 to 40 minutes longer than it could be? Probably, but I think most of the length comes from an intentionally plodding pace rather than an excess of unnecessary story moments. It would feel a disservice to cut much of the story, but a more typical Scorsese pace could have shortened things a bit and made it more easily marketable to a wider audience.

                Your take on the latest Scorsese film will most likely come down to how willing you are to bask in the corruption and deceit of William Hale and his cronies because Scorsese really wants you to take it all in – to witness just how far American greed is willing to go and just how many people it’ll walk over to make a profit. If you come in knowing much about the story, the slow pace could frustrate rather than engulf and leave you wondering why you agreed to sit for this long watching a single film whose outcome you already knew. If you don’t know much, there’s enough from moment to moment that keeps even the slow moments engaging as the web becomes more and more complex. I’m not sure how effective putting DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart as the film’s focus is for the goal of the film, since he’s almost too much of a yes-man to feel like the scathing picture of an American capitalist that Scorsese loves to portray as his leading hero/villains. De Niro’s Hale as the lead could have been a truly chilling look at American greed, and Gladstone’s Mollie could have provided more of that victimized minority perspective were she serving as the lead instead. As it stands, the story has impact because of how tragic and seemingly thoughtless most of the deaths were, but it doesn’t go a long way in offering any modern condemnation of continuing American exploitations in the name of “progress” and capitalism.

                As I mentioned above, the three leads drive the film, even if their characters don’t necessarily receive the proper amount of screentime, respectively. DiCaprio is on his A-game as the leading man, blending the affability of Rick Dalton with the sliminess of Calvin Candy and the greed of Jordan Belfort to produce the bumbling henchman that is this film’s leading man. I don’t know that I’d go so far as to put it as the actor’s best performance, but in combining his three best performances, the actor unlocks something unforgettably gray and discomforting in this film. Gladstone turns in a career-making performance as Mollie, offering the audience a quiet but pervasive look into the viewpoint of the victims of these crimes. It’s a slow-developing performance that percolates as the plot of the film does, hitting its peak in the third act when she finally knows as much as the audience does and delivers the deathblow to Ernest’s illusions of coming back from everything that he has participated in with no lasting repercussions. It is De Niro’s performance, though, that truly dominates the film. His portrayal of William Hale will go down with Ledger’s Joker, Bardem’s Anton Chigurh, DiCaprio’s Calvin Candy, and Waltz’s Hans Landa as one of the best villains of the 21st century. He’s a character that’s so chilling because he really believes that his actions are justified and that his “good” deeds excuse any evils and victimization that result from his machinations.

                With captivating performances from its three leads and a story that absolutely has to be told, Killers of the Flower Moon outshines an excessive runtime and a focus on the wrong character to insert itself into the upper echelons of films released this year. It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, especially being as long as it is, but Scorsese’s filmmaking certainly hasn’t fallen off with this latest outing.

Weekend Watch - Loki Season 2, Episodes 1 & 2

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the opening episodes of Loki season 2 from Disney+. This new season of the show (the first to get a second season from the MCU Disney+ shows) sees the return of Tom Hiddleston, Sophia Di Martino, Owen Wilson, Eugene Cordero, and Wunmi Mosaku in their respective roles from season 1, joined in this season by Ke Huy Quan, Kate Dickie, and Rafael Casal in the new roles of OB, General Dox, and Hunter X-5/Brad Wolfe, respectively. This season is releasing weekly on Thursday evenings on Disney+. Let’s get into it.

Rating: B+; it maintains the solid production design and frenetic pace of the first season well, and the performances have only improved, but a lack of direction has me hesitant to call this new season a full-on improvement from the first.

Review:

                As far as season openers go, Loki season 2 has had two solid first episodes in terms of introducing its new characters and resolving most of the unresolved threads from season 1; however, it has so far done very little to bring in a compelling new conflict to fill the void now that Loki and Sylvie have convinced the TVA to accept branching timelines. (Also, this is not a show where you can jump in at the start of season 2 without having watched the first season and be fully in the know, so there’s that as well.) It feels like we’re moving toward either a showdown with Miss Minutes and Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer or with some new version of Kang/He Who Remains, but all of those characters were notably absent from these first two episodes aside from a few statues of Kang (who seems to still be played by Jonathan Majors despite his arrest and accusations of abuse). On the positive side of things, the show continues to improve in its production design and casting/performances, giving audiences more of that dingy brown retro TVA vibe that they loved in the first season and more of Hiddleston playing the complex anti-hero that Loki has become.

                With the story picking up basically immediately after the end of season 1, we are thrust very much back into the middle of things and are introduced to a new complication for Loki – he is experiencing time slippage while in the TVA, jumping back and forth between the past and present. This comprises the main conflict of the first episode, as Wilson’s Mobius and Mosaku’s Hunter B-15 are able fairly easily to convince most of the TVA leadership (aside from General Dox and her hunters) that branching timelines are acceptable. Their quest to anchor Loki in the present leads them to Ke Huy Quan’s OB (Ouroboros) who runs all the tech for the TVA and knows a lot about the flow of time. The resolution of that episode then leads into the second episode’s conflict, which is stopping Dox and her hunters from getting Sylvie and reverting the timelines back to a single timeline. This gets the band back together as Loki, Mobius, and Sylvie have to team up to stop this from happening, which ends up being fairly easy – much easier than any of the resolutions from the first season, and with such limited consequences as Sylvie leaving again, I’m hesitant to fully commit to the rest of the season.

                What bolsters this season opener, though, are the performances from the characters – old and new. Wunmi Mosaku turns in another solid performance as Hunter B-15, this time on the side of Loki and Mobius, delivering her stoic but inspired lines with just the right amount of camp to match the show’s energy. Sophia Di Martino doesn’t have quite as much to do in these first two episodes as she did down the stretch in season 1, but her portrayal of Sylvie still holds up as the jaded, powerful, witty Loki variant that she is, and I’m glad she’s still in the show. Kate Dickie gets to do a lot with her limited screen time as the “villain” of the first two episodes, and it’s always frustratingly fun to see her get to lean into that loathsome side of herself (like in Game of Thrones and The Witch), which she does again here, giving the audience someone to root against in the early goings of this new season. Owen Wilson’s Mobius hasn’t gotten as much into the actor’s surprisingly complex bag this season as he did, especially toward the end, in last season, but his buddy cop repartee with Hiddleston’s Loki forms the backbone of the show, and it’s still just as good here. Ke Huy Quan joins the show in the role of OB, which feels like a character that’s always been there, showcasing how seamlessly the actor fits in with the energy and vibe of the rest of the cast and the show, bringing levity, lore, and some level of stakes to these first two episodes, and I look forward to seeing more of him as the season progresses. Hiddleston is in his bag here in these first two episodes, getting to be more villain and more hero than he was even in the show’s first season, really leaning into the anti-hero side of the character. In these first few episodes, he feels more established and in control than he’s ever felt as the MCU’s iteration of the Norse God of Mischief, and it anchors the whole show, offering (for me at least) the most compelling reason to see where the rest of this season goes.

                As the show leans more heavily on its namesake, Loki season 2 has opened with a solid foundation of characters, performances, and production value that helps it overcome its somewhat lackluster stakes and conflicts through its first two episodes. I look forward to it hopefully amping up as we jump into the middle third of the season, and if the performances are any indication, I think we’ll continue to see why this show was the MCU’s first to get a second season. It will release weekly on Thursdays for the next four weeks, wrapping up on November 9th if you’d rather wait until it’s all out to binge it.

Weekend Watch - August/September 2023 Recap

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week, we are looking back at the months of August and September and highlighting the films most likely to have a shot at joining this blog’s list. As always, we’ll break them into three categories – Long Shots, Possible Things, and Sure Things – but (spoiler alert) it’s only Long Shots and Possible Things in this set of months. August wrapped up the summer blockbuster season in predictably lackluster fashion, and September ushered us into the season of indie awards hopefuls with little promise of actually delivering success in either sector (unlike the offerings coming in October, November, and maybe even December). Let’s get into it.

Long Shots:

Shortcomings: Randall Park’s feature film solo directorial debut about a trio of San Francisco young adults trying to find love opened to solid reviews for a niche romantic dramedy. Unfortunately for it, the film has mostly flown under the radar in gaining any kind of traction for the awards buzz this film would need to overcome the fan reviews, which are only just above average.

Jules: A sci-fi dramedy about aging suburbanites who suddenly find a space alien living in their midst has a quirky enough ring to it to pique some people’s curiosity, especially when considering its cast led by Ben Kingsley and Harriet Sansom Harris. Its unique story keeps it afloat even as the reviews seem to be getting worse by the day, lengthening this film’s odds of success.

Red, White & Royal Blue: Amazon’s gay romantic comedy about a British prince and the son of the American president had fans and critics alike celebrating its fun and originality. It’s unlikely to go far beyond that consideration as far as all-time lists go, but it should stick around among the best rom-coms of the decade so far.

Blue Beetle: The first new hero from DC in some time opened to a lackluster box office performance and reviews that are just high enough above average to place it here. It’s fun, fresh, but maybe a bit too much of a rehash of other superhero origins to get enough traction to rise above its predecessors in the DCEU. Even its visual effects might not be enough to get that requisite nomination for superhero films.

Mutt: This indie film about a trans man who must deal with the emotions of being reintroduced to those who abandoned him when he first transitioned has the makings of something that could make it bigger than this film currently has. Above average reviews and a social setting in Hollywood that currently favors trans narratives featuring trans performers makes this a film to keep the corner of your eye on.

Gran Turismo: This is one of those films that has split fans and critics, seeing massive success with general audiences but below average reviews from critics. I think it comes down to the aggressive amount of advertising for its titular game and game system that critics seem to be punishing director Neill Blomkamp for more than anything else.

You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah: Another film that has divided critics and fans but this time from Netflix and in the reverse. This film about teen girls and their friendships and dramas has critics celebrating it to a tune of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 71, but audiences can’t seem to get over Adam Sandler’s involvement (or maybe they just don’t like positive depictions of female friendship and coming-of-age, who knows).

The Equalizer 3: Whenever Antoine Fuqua teams up with Denzel Washington, it’s worth mentioning, and the third film in their Equalizer trilogy has again hit the right notes with action fans while failing to wow critics, just like its first two installments. With other, more acclaimed, action films on this year’s docket, don’t expect to hear much more buzz from this sequel.

Scout’s Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America: Netflix’s documentary about the sexual abuse cover-ups and scandals in the Boy Scouts has generated some buzz in the world of nonfiction film, but Netflix’s formulaic style of documentary leaves it as a long shot for any wider recognition. Its topical examination will probably end up as a drama film in the coming years anyway.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe: Aitch Alberto’s adaptation of Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s novel of the same name hit just in time for Latin American Heritage Month in the U.S., and it’s seen some level of critical and audience success. Its nature as an indie darling has it looking more like a cult classic than an all-time great, but time will tell.

Sitting in Bars with Cake: The romantic dramedy film based on Audrey Schulman’s novel, inspired by true events, from Amazon seems to have found the right audience on that platform. Critics and fans are decently high on the Yara Shahidi-starring film, but not quite high enough to generate the buzz it will need to go down as one of the all-time greats.

El Conde: Pablo Larraín’s farcical biopic that reimagines Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a 250-year-old vampire has the makings of something great like The Death of Stalin, but it hasn’t quite landed as well with audiences or critics. Most reviews have been generally positive but hesitant to award it full marks due to its third act that doesn’t quite land as well as you might hope.

Amerikatsi: Armenia’s entry for Best International Feature this year has divided audiences and critics, mainly because critics don’t like that it’s trying too hard to be a feel-good film and drawing away from some of the harder hitting points of its historical narrative. Nonetheless, audiences have loved the film so far, and maybe its narrative about an Armenian refugee learning about his homeland from prison will gain more traction as it gains wider release.

A Million Miles Away: Amazon has really been nailing it with these films that are just good enough to be considered above average but probably not good enough to do much else. This one tells the dramatized true story of Jose Hernandez, a farm worker who worked his way to becoming an engineer and eventually an astronaut, in what seems to be an above-average crowd-pleaser headlined by Michael Peña in the leading role.

The Saint of Second Chances: Netflix’s documentary about the relationship between former baseball owner Bill Veeck and his son Mike has hit the right feel-good notes that you want in a sports documentary. With only above-average critic ratings, though, it’s hard to see this breaking into any awards conversation, which it will need to achieve the status of greatness.

The Creator: Gareth Edwards’s sci-fi film about AI and humanity hit screens this past month to wide acclaim from fans but a more critical response from critics, who have pointed out that its “original” story draws heavily on tropes from most other “great” sci-fi films. With excellent visuals, this could still snag some under-the-line awards buzz, but I’m still not sold enough because of its very average critical response.

Dumb Money: The comedy/drama adaptation of the GameStop Wall Street situation came to us fairly quickly in terms of turnaround, and with a stacked cast. Its comedic take on the situation smacks of trying to emulate the success of The Big Short, but the only average critical success doesn’t offer much hope that it’ll be able to attain that level of all-time greatness.

Saw X: The tenth film in a horror franchise isn’t necessarily the place you’d expect to see all-time greatness, but this film has actually managed to make it as the first in the series to be Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, so it’s worth noting. It might not go down in all-time history, but it’s still fun to see horror franchises innovating and improving with new installments.

Possible Things:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: The unique animation, fun narrative, and authentic humor have made this film a dark horse for Best Animated Feature. A smaller box office haul and the probably insurmountable greatness of Across the Spider-Verse probably leave this as a nominee at best, but don’t be surprised if this film sneaks in there.

Bottoms: Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott’s film about lesbians starting a fight club at their school to meet girls just might be the single best film from these two months. It’s funny, fun, and more original than its premise sounds, so a shot at an Original Screenplay nom isn’t completely out of the question to launch them into a position of all-time greatness.

Cassandro: The film about the titular gay amateur wrestler turned international phenomenon that stars Gael García Bernal just might have what it takes to spoil some actor’s hopes for a best lead nomination. This is one of those Amazon films that does more than enough to be considered good and might have what it takes in terms of representation and originality to make it great.

Flora and Son: Irish filmmaker John Carney tends to hit the right notes with critics and audiences with his feel-good dramedies about music, and his latest partnership with Apple seems to be in that same vein. I don’t know that it’s quite at the levels of Sing Street and Once, but don’t fully discount it just yet. A story about a single mom healing her relationship with her son through music sounds right in the sweet spot for Carney.

Weekend Watch - PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers (and a surprisingly large number of my wife’s friends), is the latest animated film about every child’s favorite group of crime fighting pups: PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie. The film is the sequel to 2021’s commercially successful PAW Patrol: The Movie, the first theatrical spin-off of the widely popular Nick Jr. show about a team of dogs who work with a boy to keep their town safe from a wide array of disasters, utilizing large vehicles in pursuit of this goal. Notable additions to the usual voice cast of the film include McKenna Grace taking over to voice the pup Skye, Taraji P. Henson voicing the new villain Victoria Vance, and Lil Rel Howery voicing Adventure City’s news anchor Sam Stringer. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: D without young children, B+ with young children; there’s really only one brief scene that makes this film feel like it’s paying any attention to the adults in the crowd, but the small children that permeated the audience were having a fantastic time.

Review:

                Anyone vaguely familiar with the PAW Patrol franchise probably gets the gist of what this film is about – there’s dogs, they have big vehicles, their boss(?) is an unexplainably independently wealthy child, they want to protect people from bad things happening – and if you’ve seen any marketing for this specific film, you probably know the rest – the dogs get super powers from a meteor and have to stop a mad scientist from stealing their powers and using them to destroy Adventure City. Nothing in this film feels overly original (or makes a ton of sense), but it delivers what the young fans of the franchise come to the theater to see – dogs in cool cars and outfits getting superpowers and doing even more than they usually can thanks to those new powers. The sense of delight and fun was palpable in the theater even if the actual film didn’t give me much in terms of content – the kid next to us in a Chase costume was having a spectacular time, and it was just endearing enough to keep me having a good time.

                The Mighty Movie is not entirely devoid of moments with a bit more depth than the television show typically showcases. This story focuses on the character of Skye – the smallest of the pups who flies a helicopter and, now, a plane as well – and her desire to prove herself as just as good as the rest of the crew despite her smaller stature. Her backstory as the runt of the litter who willed herself to being adopted by Ryder features in a flashback reminiscent of the flashback montages in Pixar films like Cars or Toy Story 2, complete with an emotional song and different color palette. It’s that moment that keeps this film feeling like it almost considered a broader audience than just the kids, but it quickly returns to the fast-paced, less-than-logical action sequences that the crowds came to see.

                While adults in the audience – especially those without young children – won’t find a lot in this film for them, it still delivers some emotional moments and plenty of the kid-friendly action that audiences come to this type of film to see, pleasing the kids in the audience as it should. Don’t expect groundbreaking animation like the Spider-Verse films or innovative stories like TMNT or Nimona, but just come in looking for a good kid-friendly romp, and you shouldn’t be overly disappointed.

Weekend Watch - Expend4bles

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the latest in Sylvester Stallone’s action franchise, Expend4bles. The fourth film in the series sees the return of Stallone as Barney, the leader of the titular team of military contractors, as well as Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, and Randy Couture in reprisals of their respective roles. They are joined this time by Megan Fox (Transformers), 50 Cent (Escape Plan), Tony Jaa (Ong Bak), Jacob Scipio (Bad Boys for Life), and Levy Tran (The First Purge) as additions to the team, Andy Garcia as the team’s CIA handler, and Iko Uwais of The Raid films as the new villain – Rahmat. The film opened in theaters this weekend. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: D+, this film is probably a C+ in its best form, but a truly convoluted story and more misogyny than you’d even expect weigh it down.

Review:

                Expend4bles offers more of the same fare that we’ve all come to expect of the franchise – classic action heroes getting to show off that they’ve still got it alongside some decently well-known up and comers while they try to stop the bad guy from doing something that threatens world peace (or whatever). In this particular iteration, Statham is given more of a leading role, while Stallone takes a backseat, which works for the pacing of most of the film’s action sequences, but leaves it lacking a bit of the goofy heart that has made the films as successful as they have been (at least financially), since Statham is stuck delivering his one-liners to dead (or soon-to-be-dead) henchmen more often than his aging associates.

                The mission is another odd point for the film, considering the absence of Stallone’s Barney for much of its runtime. The Expendables are called on by the CIA to infiltrate a hijacked cargo ship that is carrying a nuclear device and stop it from entering Russian waters while also uncovering the identity of a shadowy figure from Barney’s days before the Expendables and bringing him to justice. That second point is what makes Barney’s absence from most of the back portion of the film so odd. The character motivations of everyone on the team not played by Stallone end up becoming fairly shallow when he dips out. It ends up becoming a film about watching people do their jobs, sometimes with some entertaining action sequences and decent one-liners.

                The biggest saving grace that keeps Expend4bles watchable, like the other films in its franchise, are the action sequences. An opening villain takeover of a desert compound gets things going, showcasing Iko Uwais’s capabilities as a fighter for any unfamiliar with his other work as he dominates the grunts that try to come between him and his prize. The chase with military-grade ATVs, a cargo plane, trucks, and a Humvee makes for a solid wrap-up to the first act – nothing overly creative, but it still works to establish characters, conflict, and keep the audience engaged. Statham then gets his own infiltration sequence that works really well in the second act before being elevated by the addition of Tony Jaa and plenty of hand-to-hand combat for both of them. The big team-up moment is fine with enough gunplay and knife play to keep those hungry for action happy, even if the stakes feel fairly basic and understated. The final showdown is probably the weakest in terms of actual action, focusing more on reveals, elevating the stakes, and offering the audience payoffs, which leaves it somewhat underwhelming after a series of solid fights up to that point.

                Odd but predictable story choices, fun but mostly basic action sequences, and a marked lack of character development for anyone leaves Expend4bles as a disappointing and barely entertaining offering in theaters this weekend. This probably shouldn't come as a huge surprise to anyone who’s seen the first three films, but it would’ve been nice to see it improve just a bit in the direction of its second installment, which remains a decent B-level action flick, rather than the predictability and underperformance of the first and third installments. Nonetheless, here we are coming into the last week of September, so hopefully, we’ll be kicking back into gear in the next few weeks with awards season rolling ever closer.

Weekend Watch - A Haunting in Venice

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Kenneth Branagh’s latest Hercule Poirot film – A Haunting in Venice. This one finds Branagh again in the role of the Belgian sleuth, joined again by a star-studded cast of victims and suspects, including Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Riccardo Scamarcio, and Kelly Reilly. The film takes on a slightly different tone than Branagh’s other two Poirot films, leaning harder into the horror elements of its subject matter, loosely adapting Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party. It opened this weekend in theaters. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: C+, the horror elements are a welcome addition to Branagh’s fairly nondescript detective film series, but minimal character development and a fairly predictable mystery keep the film in a middling tier of films.

Review:

                A Haunting in Venice improves upon the Poirot formula with some new elements of supernatural horror and the use of far less CGI in its cinematography and set design to give us a decently passable entry in the canon of mystery films – superior in almost every way to its predecessor Death on the Nile and arguably better than Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express as well. The new ensemble of characters, while not overly fleshed out or dynamic, provide some solid performances with more to do than the cast of Branagh’s previous two entries in this current Poirot series, which then (surprisingly) gives Branagh less to do, again improving upon the flaws of the first two films, saving us from an excess of Branagh’s wild attempt at a Belgian accent. The story and mystery are still fairly simple and easy to follow and unravel, leaving this film stranded somewhere in the middle in terms of its watchability.

                Venice finds our detective living in retirement in the titular city, enjoying the sights and eating pastries on his balcony while a bodyguard – Riccardo Scamarcio’s Vitale Portfoglio – keeps supplicants at bay. It is only the arrival of his friend, mystery author Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), with an offer of debunking a medium at a séance followed by a murder at said séance that can bring Poirot back into the game. The mystery unfolds as the other Poirot films have, with a group of mostly familiar celebrity faces trapped in a single location while the detective endeavors to discover which of them committed the crime. The actual mystery is two-pronged, with the purported murderer most likely also responsible for a past murder in the same location, but it’s not the mystery that holds the audience’s attention for the majority of the film, as the perpetrator(s) quickly become apparent to most viewers. The true hook for the story (and the film) comes in the form of the supernatural elements in the second act. While the séance is quickly debunked, other seemingly supernatural occurrences continue throughout the film’s run, plaguing Poirot specifically with haunting children’s songs, phantom appearances in mirrors, and frightening images abounding in the film’s second forty minutes or so. While it’s not on the level of a James Wan film, for a PG-13 mystery horror, the suspense, atmosphere, and jump scares do a solid job of achieving that element of horror lite needed to season the mystery well.

                One thing that Branagh has done well with his Poirot films is casting his ensembles of characters, and Venice continues in that tradition. While the characters are little more than archetypes, each of the actors portrays their archetype well. Branagh’s Poirot himself has arguably less to do in this film than in either of the other two entries, and that allows the actor to lean into the more endearing parts of the character without coming across as overtly self-serving, as he has in the past. Fey brings some levity and intensity to her role as the washed-up mystery novelist looking to revitalize her career with a new Poirot-inspired story. Yeoh seems like she gets to have the most fun as the nebulous medium Mrs. Reynolds, playing the woman with a connection to the other side with just the right blend of airiness and insanity. Dornan’s veteran physician suffering from PTSD offers a reminder of the actor’s versatility and ability to exhibit some level of depth and emotionality when given the opportunity. Finally, Kelly Reilly brings her A-game to the eternally mournful, not fully adjusted diva and host Rowena Drake, playing tragically bereaved mother and potential femme fatale with aplomb, rounding out the leading cast in satisfactory fashion.

                A Haunting in Venice improves upon Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot formula in almost every facet with well-cast characters, more believable visuals, and elements of horror that make the film more interesting, but at the end of the day, the predictable mystery, lack of character development, and familiar tropes leave it as a basic mystery, just fine, but not groundbreaking. It’s fun to see Branagh getting better at making his Poirot mysteries, so if he does adapt another, maybe it’ll be the one that finally hits the nail right on the head.

Weekend Watch - Bottoms

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Bottoms, the high school comedy from Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott, starring Sennott alongside Ayo Edebiri, Ruby Cruz, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber, Nicholas Galitzine, Miles Fowler, and Marshawn Lynch. The film follows lesbian best friends (Sennott and Edebiri) as they start a fight club to try to hook up with their crushes. It opened last weekend to wide acclaim (critical and fan-based) and jumped immediately onto Letterboxd’s list of the top-rated 250 narrative feature films on their site. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: A; this is legitimately the most laugh-out-loud funny film I’ve seen in theaters in a long time, and with the addition of some solid performances and writing in between jokes, it’s an excellent film.

Review:

                 Bottoms puts together a perfect blend of quirkiness, heart, high school hijinks, and pure comedy to insert itself into the conversation for the best modern teen comedy. The comedic performances from Edebiri, Sennott, and Lynch stand out from the crowd with perfect timing, playing excellently off each other in what ends up being a brilliantly paced, quick hitting high school comedy. Sennott and Seligman put together a fun premise with memorable characters and goofy situations that feels unquestionably original and fresh, aggressively self-aware and thoroughly entertaining from start to finish.

                Ayo Edebiri is in the midst of a huge come-up right now, with voice performances in the Ninja Turtles and Spider-Verse films that came out this summer, an Emmy nomination for her performance in The Bear, and now the co-lead in one of the most popular comedies of the year so far. Her turn here as Josie is probably the most complex character, and she plays the awkward but driven young woman charmingly. Rachel Sennott follows up her critically acclaimed 2020 partnership with Seligman in Shiva Baby with yet another mildly unhinged, uproariously funny turn as PJ, the ringleader of the impromptu girls’ fight club. Marshawn Lynch is the not-too-surprising stand-out of the supporting characters, playing the girls’ history teacher, Mr. G, arguably the film’s funniest character, holding his own in the film across from these two incredibly talented actresses, even outshining them in some scenes.

                While I am very aware that I am not Seligman and Sennott’s target audience as a straight white guy, I still found their film to be highly enjoyable and never unapproachable in its humor or storyline. The caricaturized version of high schoolers that they present in the cheerleaders, football players, outsiders, and nerds makes for a quality satire of the high school experience, specifically for girls, but one that is easily recognizable for anyone who’s been to an American high school in at least the last twenty years. The story of girls with crushes looking for love is nothing new, but its execution with the comedy, situations, and ultimate over-the-top climax that brings it all together is on a level of originality that you just rarely see in your mainstream modern comedies.

                Bottoms is a refreshingly original take on the high school comedy genre, bolstered even higher by some solid comedic performances, excellent humor, and a story that never feels tired and never loses its pacing, making this one of the must-see films of 2023. Seligman, Sennott, and Edebiri represent a talented group of rising stars in modern Hollywood, and I’m excited for them to have this film under their belt as a classic comedy to look back on as their success continues to climb. Marshawn Lynch might be the most unironically funny athlete-turned-actor to date, and he gets to put that on full display here; I look forward to seeing even more of that. The originality and representation in Bottoms also goes a long way in moving the film industry in a positive direction as well. All-around, this film represents a huge step in the right direction for the American film industry, and I’m glad that it exists and that I got to see it this weekend.

Weekend Watch - Gran Turismo

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers is Gran Turismo, based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough – a Play Station gamer whose skills at the titular video game allowed him to become a professional racer. The film stars Archie Madekwe as the gamer-turned-racer, joined by David Harbour as his chief engineer Jack Salter, Orlando Bloom as the marketing executive who first pitched the idea Danny Moore, and Djimon Hounsou as Jann’s father Steve who played soccer professionally in his younger days. After a brief delay from Sony, the film got its wide release this weekend to massive audience fanfare but middling responses from critics. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B; there’s definitely two different tones to this film, and one of them is much better than the other (plus, I had a wild viewing experience that will make this film unforgettable for me).

Review:

                I’ll start out by saying that, based on my experience last night, the target audience for this film is ten-year-old boys (because, collectively, my wife and I had eight kids in that range on either side of us), and it works great for that demographic, with enough for the adults and sports film fans in the audience to keep it widely marketable. It’s a feel-good story about an underdog making his dream of becoming a professional athlete come true thanks to his skills at a video game – just hearing that, you probably know what kind of audience this is going to draw the most. It helps that director Neill Blomkamp was willing to get creative with the racing sequences and give audiences a strong video game adaptation with just a few simple visuals that keep the whole thing feeling fresh even while the two biggest races in the film (Nürburgring and Le Mans) have both featured just as prominently in the two other biggest films about professional racing in the last ten years (Rush and Ford v Ferrari, respectively).

                While the film’s story might not be the most innovative ever brought to screen, it does offer a fresh look at the modern world of motorsports, showcasing both its highs and lows through the eyes of a virtual outsider in the main character of Jann. Unfortunately, his venture into professional racing doesn’t begin in earnest until about halfway through the film, making its first act drag as it tries to build tension in an audience that already knows how it’s going to end up. Had the arc about Jann qualifying to be Team Nissan’s first “sim racer” been about fifteen minutes shorter, I think this film might have better critic scores than its current 46 Metascore and 59% Tomatometer. It spends most of that time reminding the audience how accurate the game Gran Turismo is to real racing and generally serving as an advertisement for Sony’s product, which is one of the big reasons why I think it could have been pared down to make a better and more universally successful film.

                Though the film is about Jann’s story, it features more of a hybrid three-man leading performance from Madekwe, Harbour, and Bloom, each with his own story and contribution to the main plot. Bloom’s Danny Moore feels the least fleshed out of the trio, serving more as the optimistically skeptical head of the threesome, a catalyst who’s never completely bought in to the story unfolding as a result of his dream. Harbour gives a more grounded (and impactful performance) as the technical head of the trio, serving as both the coach and washed-up former pro in the same role, and he brings a lot of fun to his part. Madekwe, in his first starring role shows some flashes of potential, exploring the emotions of racing and being an outsider and living out his dream all at once. It’s not necessarily the most demanding performance, but he brings a depth to the character that you don’t always see in these types of films. Djimon Hounsou anchors the cast (and probably helps solidify Madekwe’s performance) by playing the disapproving father who cares deeply for his son and isn’t convinced that video games and racing are setting him up for the most success. He takes a fairly cliché role and turns it into something deeply impactful by the film’s end, as only Hounsou is capable of doing.

                Intense and original racing sequences coupled with some solid performances for a sports film help make Gran Turismo a quality addition to the genre despite some overlong love paid to its video game sponsor and a fairly familiar story. Be aware that if you go see this in theaters, you might have talking/farting/barefoot boys on either side of you, but that you’ll probably have a good time despite all that too. This film probably isn’t going to win any awards, but it will win over its audience.

Weekend Watch - Blue Beetle

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Blue Beetle, the latest origin story from the DC Universe of comic book films. The film stars Xolo Maridueña as the titular hero, Jaime Reyes, joined by his family – Damián Alcázar, George Lopez, Adriana Barraza, Belissa Escobedo, and Elpidia Carrillo – and love interest Jenny Kord, played by Bruna Marquezine, against the villains Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon) and Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo). The film serves as the first unofficial entry in the new reboot of the DC Universe, now helmed by James Gunn and Peter Safran. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B+; it’s a fairly formulaic story, but the film uses that to explore new themes and fun characters in the process.

Review:

                Blue Beetle plays it safe with the familiar superhero origin story, complete with the evil version of the hero, comedic test-run of the hero’s new powers, and a shady corporation after the hero for his powers. Within that formulaic story, though, the filmmakers explore new themes, thanks in large part to the Latino hero and his family. The film features strong – and well-crafted – Latino representation, something that has up to this point been mostly sidelined in mainstream superhero films, and in that, it gets to dive into themes of immigration, microaggressions, American exploitation of Latin America and Latin American immigrants, and the privatization and militarization of police. It’s a surprisingly deep well of thematic elements to draw on and play into for a superhero origin film, but those themes are what keep it afloat and set it apart even as its plot and some of its visuals leave something to be desired.

                Blue Beetle’s other primary highlight comes in the form of its stellar cast. No one feels out of place, and each performance brings something fresh and fun to the film, keeping it light even as it delves into some heavier material underneath. Maridueña is a natural as the leading man, stepping into the role of Jaime Reyes with just the right blend of cool and hesitancy. His performance helps sell the audience on the character and sets the whole franchise up for future success on his charisma. Each member of the Reyes family also brings their own flair to the film, providing the film with the heart that it needs to connect with the audience. Marquezine gets to have some fun in her ample role as the love interest and unintentional catalyst for Jaime/Blue Beetle, serving as more than just a damsel in distress or a quest giver – giving a solid performance across from some of the film’s biggest powerhouses (Sarandon and Lopez) in most of her scenes. I don’t know that you could have cast a better villain than Susan Sarandon in this iteration of Victoria Kord. She plays entitled white woman, rich billionaire, and military industrial capitalist in such a loathsome way throughout the film, making her one of the simpler villains that we’ve seen in recent comic book films, but also the easiest to root against.

                A simple and too-familiar plot, along with some inconsistent visual effects, hold the film back from being an instant classic, but engaging and relevant themes and a cast that play their roles brilliantly help make Blue Beetle a passable and enjoyable introduction to a new hero and a new era of the DC Universe. The new universe feels like it’s headed in a fun and engaging, if a bit too safe, direction, and I look forward to seeing more of Jaime Reyes and his supporting cast in the future films from the movie studio.

Weekend Watch - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, the latest reboot of the TMNT franchise, this time written and produced by Seth Rogen and written and directed by Jeff Rowe (of The Mitchells vs. the Machines and Gravity Falls fame). The film features the vocal talents of Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon as the four titular turtles, joined by the likes of Jackie Chan, Ayo Edebiri, Maya Rudolph, John Cena, Paul Rudd, Ice Cube, Hannibal Burress, Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Natasia Demetriou, Giancarlo Esposito, and Post Malone to fill out the rest of the mutant and human cast. The film opened last weekend to surprisingly high reviews but middling box office returns. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: A-; this is quite possibly the best Ninja Turtles content that’s ever been produced, and it deserves recognition for also being some really high-quality animation too.

Review:

                In a not-so-surprising turn of events, filmmakers have finally found a non-muppet-based winning formula for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, and that formula is to lean harder on those first two words than they do on the third one. Mutant Mayhem delivers what its title promises – more mutants than expected and some truly wild and crazy fight scenes utilizing them. It also brings with it a healthy dose of heart, humor, and authenticity (strange in an animated film about mutant turtles, I know) that wins the day for the film, making it my second-favorite animated film of the year so far.

                By leaning into the teenage and mutant aspects of the quartet of heroes, Mutant Mayhem sets itself apart in a fun, humorous, and heartfelt way from its predecessors. Featuring references to memes and pop culture that current 15-year-olds would reference and talk about, leaning into the archetypes of the four turtles and how they actually translate to real teens, and centering around the turtles’ desire for acceptance allows the film to follow the familiar beats of a high school comedy with plenty of mutant ninja action connecting its pieces together. In a lot of ways, this film feels more like the successor to Sky High or The Lego Movie in the ways that it blends realness with humor, action, and fantasy than it does a successor to the TMNT films of the 90s or even the television shows of the 2000s and 10s, and that’s a good thing.

                Mutant Mayhem also follows in the footsteps of its more recent predecessors – Into the Spider-Verse, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, and Across the Spider-Verse – by delivering some great animation, comedy for kids and adults, and some all-time needle drops to tie it all together. Where Disney and Pixar have embraced animation that blends realistic textures and images with fantastical settings, Sony and Paramount have stepped into this realm of stylized animation, with Sony copying comic book panels and art styles in its animated Spider-Man films and Paramount putting on displays of 2-dimensional meets 3-dimensional in a way that showcases the realness of the world in science fiction settings. In TMNT, that looks like oddly misshapen but highly detailed human faces, grungy buildings that match the sewers below, and mutants that look like monsters but still have hearts of gold. This animation carries over into the action sequences backed by some great songs, all of which feel fun, original, and well-directed for the target audience while still keeping the non-kids in the room happy.

                The only true knock against Mutant Mayhem (and reason why it doesn’t receive a higher rating) is that its stakes never get high enough to induce that high-octane thrill that the action scenes deserve. There’s great action front to back, but you never feel like the outcome of the fights is in question. Even when they get down, the turtles and their allies never quite stay down long enough to get you worried that they won’t be getting back up again. The downs don’t hit quite as hard as the ups, and they are overcome a bit too easily for the film to feel fully earned. I still love it and had a great time watching it, but I wish that the stakes had felt more dire. There’s enough humor to warrant a few more down moments, but they don’t come, so here the film sits at an A- with potential for an A+ somewhere (probably) on the cutting floor.

                Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem comes through on its promises of mutants, mayhem, teens, turtles, and ninja action in a glorious way, with plenty of heart and humor to carry it over the finish line, even if its stakes never quite get to a dire point that leaves you on the edge of your seat. Hopefully, the film does well enough to get the sequel that it deserves (and maybe a solid TMNT trilogy for once) because it really is a great time at the theater and so much better than anyone was giving it credit for going in.

Weekend Watch - July 2023 Recap

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week, we are looking back at the month of July, giving recognition to the best films of the month, categorizing them by their likelihood of making this blog’s list of Greatest Films of All Time. July continues 2023’s trend of months (besides May) with better films than we usually expect, with three of the year’s most anticipated films all actually landing successfully with audiences, and plenty of other offerings that have legitimate shots at earning greater recognition as the year goes on (particularly with the SAG and WGA strikes lessening the press for the other upcoming films this year). Again, the three categories of film are Long Shots, Possible Things, and Sure Things. Let’s get into it!

Long Shots:

Joy Ride: The female ensemble comedy from Adele Lim about a group of friends who travel to Asia to help one of their group find her birth mother landed with solid reviews at the beginning of the month. It delivers on the comedy and with some solid performances from its leading ladies. Some review bombing on IMDB (classic) keeps it here in the long shots, but love for its screenplay could bode well in awards season.

Theater Camp: The niche mockumentary about a theater camp starring Ben Platt and Molly Gordon hits the notes that theatre nerds love. Is it going to be everyone’s cup of tea? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean its status as a lingering cult classic couldn’t get it into the land of All Time Greats.

The Deepest Breath: A documentary about freediving from Netflix and A24 could spell some major love come awards season, but for now, mixed positive critic reviews leave it as a long shot. The nerve-wracking, beautifully shot film can be seen on Netflix if you want to boost its chances.

They Cloned Tyrone: A modern sci-fi blaxploitation film from Netflix, starring Jamie Foxx, John Boyega, and Teyonah Parris? Count me in! The comedy/mystery/thriller walks the fine lines of its genres well and will probably stick around as another of this year’s cult classics more than an All-Time Great.

Stephen Curry: Underrated: Apple TV+ and A24 teamed up on this sports documentary about the greatest 3-point shooter of all time to tell his story. Framed as a coming-of-age film about an underrated, undersized guard, it hits most of the right notes but has gotten some criticism for its climax coming at the wrong point of Steph’s career. It sounds like another successful hit for NBA fans that may or may not hit with other audiences.

Possible Things:

Wham!: Netflix’s documentary about the iconic 70s and 80s duo of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley is sure to scratch the itch of Nostalgia for the Gen X-ers that populate the streamer these days. It’s landed well with critics as well, boding well for its awards potential, though other music docs and celebrity bio-documentaries could believably keep it out.

Lakota Nation vs. United States: This is a poignant documentary about the fight of the Lakota Nation to reclaim the land that has been stolen from them throughout history by the U.S. government. It checks the boxes that you want to see from a good documentary, but its under-the-radar status might keep it out of contention.

Earth Mama: With some of the bigger releases of the year currently in flux, indie films like this one are currently looking better and better in their chances to make the list. Savanah Leaf’s intimate portrait of a single mother in the Bay Area has garnered some buzz among the audiences who have already seen it, and as it continues to expand to more theaters, expect that buzz to keep rolling.

About Dry Grasses: Nuri Bilge Ceylan is one of the biggest Turkish directors in the modern era, and his latest film, which gained quite a bit of recognition at Cannes, maintains his run of solid outings. It’s currently only in limited release in the U.S., but inevitable awards love should expand its audience base and get its scores more reliably trustworthy.

Afire: Christian Petzold’s romantic dramedy about a group of friends caught in the midst of a forest fire is another international film that dropped in the U.S. this month with some level of success and acclaim. The German director could finally see success on a wide level, but a stacked category of submissions from other European nations will probably keep it out.

The First Slam Dunk: This film has quietly garnered a lot of acclaim already, leading up to its American theatrical release this year. Winning the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year and sitting as one of the highest-grossing anime films of all-time, the film about a Japanese high school basketball team, which adapts the manga series Slam Dunk, could be quite the contender in the coming months.

Talk to Me: A horror film directed by the Australian YouTube duo RackaRacka (a.k.a. Danny and Michael Philippou) shouldn’t be doing as well as it already has, but here we are. The supernatural horror has already garnered high praise, with some calling it Gen Z’s Hereditary. Don’t sleep on this film as the year continues to unfold.

Sure Things:

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One: While I may not have been crazy about this latest entry in Tom Cruise’s espionage empire, most critics and audiences have been. A poorly timed release date has kept its box office numbers down, but that barely matters with the amount of love it continues to receive from people’s ratings and reviews.

Oppenheimer: With so many people calling this Christopher Nolan’s best film, it’s easy to see this film carrying its critical and commercial success into a very successful set of awards campaigns for director, picture, actor, supporting actor, supporting actress, screenplay, and plenty of technical awards as well. This sits up there with Across the Spider-Verse in the category of best films of the year.

Barbie: The other (more controversial for some reason) half of Barbenheimer weekend also continues to see success with audiences and critics. Its great acting, production design, writing, and direction, aided by what’s looking to be a billion dollar box office haul by the time it’s all said and done, looks to spell all-time greatness for Greta Gerwig’s first main-stream hit.

Weekend Watch - Haunted Mansion

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Haunted Mansion, the latest of Disney’s films based on rides from their parks. This film is in no way related to the Eddie Murphy film from the early 2000s except in its inspiration coming from the same ride. The current film stars an ensemble cast of LaKeith Stanfield, Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, Tiffany Haddish, Danny DeVito, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chase Dillon, and Jared Leto. It focuses on Dawson’s Gabbie and her son Travis (Dillon) who have bought a new home outside of New Orleans with the goal of turning it into a bed and breakfast and have discovered that it is haunted, leading them to turn to a series of experts – a physicist, medium, historian, and priest played by Stanfield, Haddish, DeVito, and Wilson respectively – to rid themselves of their ghost problem. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B-; this film isn’t “good” like last week’s slate of excellence, but it knows its lane and delivers a solid film for its genres and target audience.

Review:

                Haunted Mansion is every bit the Disney ride adaptation that we’ve come to expect, never quite hitting the highs of the first Pirates film, but delivering a quality blend of goofy effects, Easter eggs for the devoted fans, and light comedy in the midst of serious stakes. For me, I’d say this film outperforms the more recent ride adaptations – Jungle Cruise, Tomorrowland, The Country Bears, and The Haunted Mansion – thanks to better comedy, better acting, and a simpler story.

                The humor can be hit and miss, but for my wife and me, it was certainly more hit than miss – even if the rest of the audience didn’t quite seem as tickled by a lot of it. This can’t come as much of a surprise, considering writer Katie Dippold’s track record – writing such hits as Parks and Rec’s “Indianapolis” and “The Set Up” but also flops like Ghostbusters (2016) and Snatched. The jokes and characters all feel very trope-y in an endearing way that keeps the film familiar even if it’s not overly original. With a story that does a good job of establishing characters and connections, including a fun heist-esque montage of recruiting the various players, the film is at its best in the first two acts with a third act that rushes a bit to get the characters to a conclusion that only feels satisfying for one of its characters but leaves you happy enough with the outcome.

                The actors help to make their archetypes work well, introducing unique flairs to their characters to help them stand out against the familiarity. Dawson plays maybe the most familiar character in Gabbie, the unsuspecting homeowner and mother who gets caught up in a haunting. She plays her with the right amount of heart and backbone to hold the unlikely team together. Dillon’s Travis plays an interesting addition/sidekick to Gabbie’s character, struggling with his recent disconnection from his father (Gabbie’s husband). Dillon brings a lot of fun to the son character while still giving a deep enough performance to make his character arc interesting. Stanfield’s Ben Matthias has the most depth of the film’s players, struggling with an inner grief that he portrays in a surprisingly heartfelt and moving way for such an otherwise simple and comedic film. His acting far outweighs the rest of the cast for most of the film, but he manages to tone it down enough in the funny moments to get some laughs for himself as well. Wilson, Haddish, and DeVito deliver the most laughs of the film as the supporting cast, each with their own unique takes on the familiar character tropes. Wilson’s priest with a shady background, Father Kent, brings that familiar Owen Wilson squirrely charm to the typical unorthodox priest character. Haddish’s medium, Harriet, gets the most laugh-out-loud moments and lines in the film, coming across as a fraud with just a hint of authenticity, keeping the energy very light as we’ve come to expect from the skilled comedienne. DeVito’s historian, Bruce Davis, mostly exists to give some exposition, but he also gets some moments to be the funny, irreverent old man that DeVito so often embodies these days.

                With an ensemble cast that brings a solid blend of heart and humor to the familiar (and maybe a bit too rushed) story, plenty of nods to the ride that inspired it, and just enough mild and goofy horror moments, Haunted Mansion is a passable and fun time at the movies that won’t necessarily break any new ground in its genres but should please the crowd. It far outshines some of the more recent live action Disney outings, but it also won’t be making anyone’s top-10 family or horror or comedy films any time soon. Go in hoping for a lighthearted good time that won’t make you think too hard, and you won’t be disappointed.

Weekend Watch - Barbenheimer

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week, we’re looking at the cinematic event of the year, the double release of Barbie and Oppenheimer, which have combined to form the 4th-largest American box office weekend in history – and the only one headlined by non-franchise films. Barbie comes from director Greta Gerwig, cowritten by her and Noah Baumbach, starring Margot Robbie as the primary titular character, joined by Issa Rae, Alexandra Shipp, Kate McKinnon, Hari Neff, and many others as the many iterations of the iconic doll and Ryan Gosling as the leading Ken, joined also by Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa, and many others as the other Kens in Barbieland. America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt, Will Ferrell, Helen Mirren, and Michael Cera round out the star-studded comedy that has ruled the weekend. Oppenheimer, from writer/director Christopher Nolan, stars Cillian Murphy in the titular role, supported by another star-studded cast, headlined by Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Alden Ehrenreich, David Krumholtz, Benny Safdie, and Florence Pugh. Both films, and this weekend, are sure to go down in cinematic history, so let’s get into it.

Barbie Letter Grade: A-; this is the type of film that studios should strive to get back to for their blockbusters!

Oppenheimer Letter Grade: A; Nolan delivers a masterclass of a biopic, drawing excellent performances from every actor in the film!

Barbie Review:

                Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is sure to go down in history as a modern classic of satire, production value, and comedic excellence. Every role in the film feels perfectly cast, from Margot Robbie’s complex leading lady to Ryan Gosling’s perfectly himbo-coded Ken to Will Ferrell’s bumbling CEO to America Ferrera’s harried mother/secretary to every supporting Barbie, Ken, and Allan. It’s a fantastic cast that help sell Gerwig’s vision of the mythical Barbieland and the almost real “real world” and allow the film to thrive in its massively important messages of female empowerment and the importance of defining yourself intrinsically rather than extrinsically.

                Barbie’s production design might be some of the best of the year, starting obviously with Barbieland but extending also to the real world, particularly the office-scape of Mattel where we get a particularly fun chase scene and some great contrast to the brightness of Barbieland. The attention to detail that went into the creation of the sets and their intentional artificiality makes this a film that will undoubtedly stand the test of time. The subtle (and not-so-subtle) changes that occur there throughout the movie only add to the film’s sense of itself, drawing the audience into a fantasy land where truths about our own world can be put on full and aggressive display as only satire can do.

                The comedy and story of Barbie, as crafted by Gerwig and Baumbach and then delivered by their stellar cast, hits the right note in just about every scene. The depth of the film’s satirical critique of modern society can only be appreciated when you take a step back and look at the whole thing. This is not a film, as some have argued, that “hates men” or “wants to set the feminist movement back fifty years” or “seeks to villainize all men”. It is a film that uses its childlike premise and perspective to peel away the façade of society’s nuances and lay everything out in its most basic terms. The reverse parallel between Barbieland and our own world highlights the flaws of gender-driven/sexually-motivated systems of power – namely that they are overly reductive and generally ineffective in creating well-running, equitable, informed, and ethically acceptable societies. By showcasing this argument through humor (sometimes self-deprecating, sometimes on-the-nose, sometimes slapstick, sometimes other forms), the audience is invited to embrace gender as a definition of self without it being a cookie-cutter or archetypal label that defines your entire potential for life. Patriarchy is the film’s villain, not because the filmmakers view men as villains, but because they want to reject fully the idea that gender (or implicitly, income, occupation, family status, nationality, race, sexuality, age, etc.) can define anyone’s individual worth or efficacy. You need only look at the story arcs of both Barbie (Robbie) and Ken (Gosling) to see that this is the message being portrayed. The only real issue with the film’s story/comedy/messaging comes in its climactic monologue from America Ferrera’s Gloria in the third act about the struggles of being a woman in a patriarchal society. The monologue itself is excellently done, hearkening to Laura Dern’s Oscar-winning performance in Baumbach’s marriage story in its tone and content, but its issue lies in the fact that the moment feels a bit unearned, given all that we’ve seen of Gloria’s life up to that point in the film (not a whole lot). For a character to make so many sweeping statements speaks to the state of her society, but when so much of the film has taken place away from that society, it feels like there should have been a little bit more lead-in to the moment, however valid it might be.

                Barbie is one of those big studio films that manages to live up to the hype thanks to some excellent performances, great production design, and solid writing that leave audiences with a minimally flawed film and a great time at the theater. Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, and Ryan Gosling again have the fullness of their talents on display in this film that is sure to stick around for a while in modern cinematic discourse.

Oppenheimer Review:

                Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has set a new standard in biopics, delivering a devastating historical narrative in a way that keeps its audience fully engaged and guessing for its entire three-hour runtime. It is a dialogue-driven film full of hearings, interspersed with conversations about politics, metaphysics, and the scientific community that never actually manages to feel as boring as all of that sounds, which is a triumph in and of itself. Nolan manages to deliver a well-paced narrative that only gets you lost a few times and that is one of the most well-acted films of the year, top to bottom.

                At its heart, Oppenheimer wants to tell the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer as honestly as it can, taking the good with the bad and leaving the interpretation up to the audience. It invites you to empathize with the historical figure who is at least partially responsible for one of the biggest atrocities in history, and it accomplishes this goal not by attempting to justify any of the evils that he wrought but by showcasing the human behind it all. Oppenheimer isn’t a hero or a villain or even an antihero; he is a man thrown into some of the muddiest waters in history and asked to swim back to the surface. We get to see the worst parts and best parts of Oppenheimer’s life – both personal and professional – as portrayed in Cillian Murphy’s subtle but gripping performance. The people he wronged along the way and his awareness of that wrongdoing play a key role in making this film as successful as it no doubt will continue to be.

                While I wish that the narrative let you in on a bit more of its side characters’ (RDJ’s Lewis Strauss and Jason Clarke’s Roger Robb for examples) motivations, the overall narrative structure – jumping around between hearings and history – works well in keeping you engaged and presenting its true message, which is only tangentially related to the person of Oppenheimer. The film’s final moments, though not chronologically the last point in the film’s timeline, offer a chilling and gut-wrenching conclusion to Oppenheimer’s work. From the very start of the film, we see Oppenheimer plagued by this fear and guilt and fascination over the work that he conducts, offering an awareness of his own nature and the nature of humans toward self-destruction. His participation in and enthusiasm for the creation of the atomic bomb only serves to reinforce this message, and Nolan makes it all the more clear when we finally see what it is capable of (in gloriously enrapturing cinematography and sound design). Nolan wants his audience to understand that our “othering” of our fellow humans and our own selfish desires for self-preservation over the good of all others are in fact leading us down a path of self-destruction, just as Oppenheimer set himself up for his own demise, the human demand for “defensive weapons” has set us up for our own violent destruction.

                Led by Cillian Murphy’s commanding performance and a plethora of strong supporting performances, Nolan’s Oppenheimer manages to tell the truth about its subject while also offering a deep truth about humanity, marking it as the new gold standard for biographical films. It’s not always the most perfectly paced or explained film, but on the whole, it offers a new perspective and a meaningful message that the world needs in this time.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week, in solidarity with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, I’ll be refraining from giving any actual recommendations, and just stick to reviews and ratings. The topic this week, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the latest in Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible franchise – Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One – which opened this weekend in theaters. The film stars Cruise, joined by his usual gang of Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg alongside returners Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, and Henry Czerny from previous films in the franchise. Newcomers to the film’s ensemble include Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Greg Tarzan Davis, and Shea Wigham. Dominating this weekend’s box office and receiving high praise from critics and fans, it looks like Cruise and McQuarrie have another action hit on their hands. Let’s get into it.

Letter Grade: B+; while not the worst film in the franchise by any stretch of the imagination, this feels like a clear drop-off from the past few entries.

Review:

                Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is a “part one” in so many frustrating and endearing ways. On the upside, none of the great action sequences feel rushed to get to a conclusion, allowing the audience to experience them in their fullness. For this, the film’s near-three-hour runtime doesn’t end up feeling nearly that long, and you’re left with a really fun theatrical experience. On the flipside, the film struggles to tell a complete story with compelling characters and stakes, which is something that the past few M:I’s have done incredibly well. Dead Reckoning Part One’s villain has what feels like a shoehorned connection to Ethan’s past to try to force the audience’s rooting interest, but it never really works since his motivations are left fairly ambiguous – both in the past and the present. Also, as a part one, the audience can tell that everything is building to what is going to be some sort of cliffhanger, and in this particular one, we’re left feeling that the stakes of the whole film were fairly small because of how it all ends up. Yes, you want to know how it all ends up, but not because of some looming threat to the heroes (which is a bit overplayed, I’ll grant you, but it works), rather because the audience has to know whether this whole film was actually worth the effort – is “the Entity” truly as devastating and world-threatening as the film would have us believe through exposition?

                Don’t get me wrong, the technical aspects and stunts of this film are excellent, and anyone saying otherwise probably walked into the wrong film (Sound of Freedom if I had to hazard a guess). It’s clear that McQuarrie has learned from the successes of Fallout and Top Gun: Maverick, utilizing some truly excellent visuals and camera work in all of the big action sequences to truly give the audience that feeling of being part of the action. It’s thrilling in the best way possible, and knowing that most of them are real stunts done by real performers just makes it that much more impressive. Cruise’s requisite highlight stunt in this film might not quite be as insane as his hanging off the side of a plane from Rogue Nation, but it still impresses as he jumps off a cliff on a motorcycle in the film’s climactic sequence. It’s fun and over-the-top in a way that reminds you of how great these films can be when firing on all cylinders.

                In terms of performances, none stand out as truly excellent, but none are terrible either. Cruise gives one of his more dynamic turns as Hunt, giving some humor in the midst of his single-minded dedication to the mission and his team. Atwell is a welcome addition to the franchise as career-criminal “Grace”, bringing a freshness to the film that is much needed even if her start is a bit slow before stepping into her own in the back half of the film. Rebecca Ferguson is a great actress, but she is tragically wasted in this film, serving more as a plot device than character, a disappointing deviation from her past roles in Rogue Nation and Fallout. Vanessa Kirby again holds her own as the White Widow, playing the role with all the charm, confidence, and menace that she did last time around. Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis bring a fun buddy comedy energy to their roles that fills in for the noticeably lessened roles of both Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames.

                Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One feels in many ways like a return to the median for the espionage thriller franchise, giving great action sequences and visuals with a less-than-compelling story, passable acting, and stakes that feel like they should be higher to set up for a truly satisfying conclusion in Part Two. There’s no denying the fun factor of Dead Reckoning, but its other entertainment pieces could definitely have been better executed, leaving it as a bit of a question mark going forward to its second half.

Weekend Watch - June 2023 Recap

                Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week, we are taking a look back at the month of June, making note of the films worth keeping an eye on that got a wide release in the U.S. in its thirty days. June has been a fairly disappointing month as of late, giving us such heaters as Hustle, Eurovision Song Contest: The Legend of Fire Saga, Luca, and Toy Story 4 – none of them bad films, but none truly in contention for the best films of their respective years. This June was different, giving audiences three really solid films (two all-time greats) in the midst of all the mediocrity. You have to go back to June of 2014 with the release of Edge of Tomorrow, How to Train Your Dragon 2, 22 Jump Street, and The Fault in Our Stars to get a June with this much heat all in one month. As always with recaps, we’ll be breaking the films into three categories – Sure Things, Possible Things, and Long Shots. Let’s get into it.

Long Shots:

Elemental: While it certainly wasn’t the worst animated release of the month, it wasn’t in the top two as it marked another drop in consistency for Pixar. It’s difficult to see such a well-intentioned film do so poorly, but it seems that audiences and critics agree that it just doesn't have that classic Pixar magic that endears the story to its viewers. It could still luck out with some success after its streaming release, so keep an eye on it.

The Flash: Another of June’s disappointing blockbusters was DC’s Flash movie. It leans so heavily on nostalgia that it makes audiences fairly happy but keeps critics low on the product due to its middling story. Some surprise visual effects nominations or a potential sudden surge in box office support could spell a bit more success, but I’d be surprised.

The Blackening: The horror comedy opened to higher reviews than most people anticipated, marking it as a sure thing for cult classic lists but still a long shot for much else. Its blend of genres don’t necessarily spell the success that it’ll need to see once awards start dropping to make it a true all-time great.

Extraction II: Chris Hemsworth’s action thriller sequel has proven to be an even bigger crowd-pleaser than his first. Netflix has found its niches in animation, romantic comedies, and movie star action thrillers (we’ll see if they can break into another when Rebel Moon drops later this year). Hemsworth’s sequel falls solidly into that third category, marking one of the streamer’s best offerings in the genre so far but probably still not an all-time great.

Asteroid City: Wes Anderson’s latest film has his fans buzzing, and that’s about it. It looks great and has his typical writing quirks that make him so popular in his lane. Unfortunately, wider audiences and critics haven’t been super high on this film, and with so many other well-produced films still to come this year, it’s believable that this’ll be left off most award nominations just like his last film (The French Dispatch).

No Hard Feelings: This film has done better than anyone gave it credit for, and that’s due purely to the two actors heading the thing up. Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman have brought back the raunchy romantic comedy with a vengeance, keeping audiences laughing and critics happier than usual in such films. It’s still hard to see it making much more of a splash than this though.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: The last of June’s disappointments came on its final weekend. It’s a fine action film but a half-hearted Indiana Jones film, and we’re left with a box office flop that sends the saga out with more of a whimper than a trumpet blast.

Possible Things:

Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed: Max’s documentary about Rock Hudson and the contrast between his public ladies’ man persona and private LGBT+ lifestyle checks a lot of the boxes that the great documentaries do, but it happens to have released the same year as many other actor-centric documentaries also about relevant issues, so it’ll probably fall by the wayside even though it is pretty solid.

Nimona: I mentioned Netflix’s success in the animation department earlier, and this graphic novel adaptation is the perfect example. With a unique animation style, fun voice actors, and a quality story, this film marks itself as the current underdog to watch in the best animated movie of 2023 race (behind another June release that we’ll get to in a few minutes). Don’t let the other great animated film of this month be your only one of the year – give Nimona a shot as well.

Blue Jean: The British film about a closeted teacher under threat of being outed in the 1980s got its American release this month to a continuation of its success from across the pond. Critics and audiences have been solidly high on it. Unfortunately, this looks like a year with little room for much prolonged indie success, and that will probably be limited to just a couple of films that most likely won’t be this one. But it’s still better than most of the other June films, so keep an eye on it.

Sure Things:

Past Lives: Since its festival release earlier this year, Celine Song’s film about longing, immigrants, and memory has had people buzzing. With its theatrical release, that buzz has only grown, pleasing audiences and critics with its moving and realistic portrayal of its story. Song’s direction and writing and the performances have all garnered praise and will probably make some noise down the line as well (I’m rooting for a spouse showdown in the Original Screenplay category between Song and her husband Justin Kuritzkes who wrote the upcoming film Challengers, but we’ll see).

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: This film already looks to be the best animated film of the year, with some going so far as to call it the best animated film of all time and even calling for it to win this year’s Best Picture awards. The follow-up to Sony’s first Spider-Verse film has succeeded in living up to the hype, and I’m excited to see where it ends up.