Cinema Playground Journal 2025: Week 49 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

100 Nights of Hero

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

Director:  Julia Jackman

Starring:  Emma Corrin, Nicholas Galitzine, Maika Monroe, Amir El-Masry, Charlie XCX, Richard E. Grant, Felicity Jones

Strange little artsy metaphor movie about girl power takes place in some sort of fantasy world with three moons, where Maika Monroe is in hot water with her patriarchal in-laws for not producing an heir for her husband, who refuses to have sex with her.  Why doesn't he have sex with her?  The movie can't be bothered to answer that.  I was under the idea that it might be repressed homosexuality but the movie never even addresses it.  He just doesn't.  That's kinda of a weird plot point to jump off of but we just have to run with it.  Maybe he just watched It Follows and doesn't want Monroe's monster cooties.  Yeah, let's go with that.  Anyway, she is given a hundred days to get pregnant and, instead of doing it and/or her himself, her husband just up and leaves her with his handsome friend.  Does he want the friend to get her pregnant for him?  Doesn't seem like it.  In fact, the husband holds no interest in getting her pregnant at all and they both make a bet that she won't sleep with the friend after a hundred days and if she does, they'll have her executed.

What even is this story?

It turns out the actual story the movie wants to tell has very little to do with the main storyline.  The movie is thematically about oppressed women who want their voices to be heard, mostly taking the form of Emma Corrin's servant girl character, who tells stories of the women who wish to also tell stories and are punished for it.  What does any of this have to do with the pregnancy plotline?  Nothing, really.  It's an overcomplicated and underdeveloped metaphor about a group of men keeping Monroe subservient to them.  And that's what makes this movie so frustrating to watch, because it functions as an ode to the power of the storyteller but betrays its own message because its own story is barren and incomplete.  That feels very unforgivable, which is a shame, because the movie otherwise feels like it was made with vision.  The movie is a quirky little slice of idiosyncrasy.  It's like if Edgar Wright and Wes Anderson collaborated to make a Yorgos Lanthamos homage.  It's narrative is just jerky and rapid fire to the point that it feels like aimless jabbering rather than anything meaningful.  It does have a good message at its center, though.  Those who resonate with it could very well be more forgiving of this movie's flaws.  It's a well-intended mess.

Fackham Hall

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy, Mystery

Director:  Jim O'Hanlon

Starring:  Katherine Waterston, Thomasin McKenzie, Tom Felton, Emma Laird, Tom Goodman-Hill, Anna Maxwell Martin, Sue Johnston, Damian Lewis

Hot off the heels of the Naked Gun reboot is a brand new spoof film, this time taking aim at historical British aristocracy dramas and murder mysteries.  Thomasin McKenzie plays a rich entitled girl who is lined up to marry a cousin, like the rest of her family, but falls in love with newly hired servant Ben Radcliffe.  When father Damian Lewis is murdered, all of Fackham Hall is under investigation, potentially exposing their affair.  The primary joke of the movie is the prim properness contrasting with the lowbrow humor that is rising around them.  If Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker and the Farrelly Brothers collaborated on a reboot of Downton Abbey, it would be Fackham Hall.  The movie is a tender homage to those types of films with hints of other comedic stylings, including Blake Edwards' Pink Panther films, Abbott and Costello, and a dash of Monty Python.  The movie is probably too hammy with some of its gags to hit the highs of its many influences, but this is also a movie that could have easily have been a disaster.  The film's excellent cast of talents fully committing to the bit makes it a charming and amusing, even when it misses the mark on its ambition of hilarity.  Katherine Waterston is my personal MVP for this movie, because she's an actress who absolutely would star in the type of drama this movie is mocking, but has the comedic chops the pull off everything the film desires of its cast.  It's that sort of confidence that the rest of the movie needs, though it works well enough as is.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

⭐️

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Emma Tammi

Starring:  Josh Hutchinson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Freddy Carter, Wayne Knight, Mckenna Grace, Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard

Calling the first Five Nights at Freddy's mediocre was generous.  Calling the sequel boring is an understatement.  The latest video game adaptation sees a vengeful spirit haunting a marionette puppet at a completely different Freddy's restaurant.  Through the power of contrivance, she winds up in the lives of the same family as the first movie and...does things.  It's a bunch of crap that the first film already did and did better, and when I can say the original Five Nights at Freddy's did things better, that's when you know you're in for a bad time.  Ultimately, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 might have some minor junk value if we weren't just stuck with these boring protagonists that these movies feel invested in, for some reason, trying to add more layers to their trauma that link straight to the stupid restaurant.  The problem with doubling down on the character arcs from the first film is that those arcs were dull and inane.  Taking them to the next level just turns the franchise's awful character-driven focus into mundanity pretending to be a freak show.  The main villain is at least somewhat creepy looking and worth a couple of jump scares, and its habit of possessing characters gives some actors a little bit of spice to their roles.  This is the only reason I can think of as to why Mckenna Grace is in this movie, who gets a sequence where she's allowed to be a possessed villain and she's actually quite good at it, even if it's only for a couple of minutes.  Other than that, she's just here to be here and is tossed aside when the movie is done with her.  I'm sure she got paid well, so I won't say she completely wasted her time.  I wish I could say the same for myself.

Hamnet

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Chloé Zhao

Starring:  Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn

This year's festival darling has entered the award season chat, becoming what most assume to be the third "lock" for a Best Picture Oscar nomination, following Sinners (which I'm rooting for) and One Battle After Another (which is this year's pattented "movie I can't stand that is probably going to win" entry).  This film adaptation of the Maggie O'Ferrell novel, Hamnet tells a dramatization of the love story and family of Willaim Shakespeare and Anne "Agnes" Hathaway.  Details about Shakespeare's life, especially as it related to his family, are sketchy at best, so the best we can hope for is an interpretation based on the few facts that we know about the time, period, and people.  Jessie Buckley plays Agnes, an outsider with a knack for medicine (which has most accusing her of witchcraft) who finds herself being wooed by a Latin tutor (guess who) played by Paul Mescal.  The two eventually marry and raise three children, including a twin boy named Hamnet, who's ill fate inspires his father to write a little play called First Action Hero AKA Hamlet.

Not a lot is known about the real life Hamnet Shakespeare, including how he died or what influence his father might have actually had taken from him in writing the play.  It's pretty much a forgone certainty that the Hamlet play was titled after him.  Hamnet as a story is a speculation of what might have been the purpose of this play and what deeper meaning it might have had to Shakespeare.  The Hamnet novel is a very interesting book because it's almost one of those dramatic interpretations of historic stories that Shakespeare would write himself, filling in the gaps of unknown details with internal monologues and plot beats written through poetry rather than realism.  It's like "The Tragedy of William Shakespeare" as told by William Shakespeare.  There are, of course, a couple of more modern flourishes that Shakespeare wouldn't have done, such as its nonlinear presentation and the fact that the book deliberately avoids saying the name "William Shakespeare" out loud to not distract from the tale of Agnes and Hamnet, but it feels like it's a work Shakespeare would have understood if he had a chance to read it.  Or he would have objected to the anacronisms and inaccuracies.  But if he were to to do that, we should ask him to hand his Julius Caesar play to the actual Caesar and see if his reaction is anything but "What the fuck?"  It's a great book, probably one of the best I've read in recent years.  If the movie were half as good, I'd be a very happy camper.

The adaptation is brought to us by Nomadland director Chloé Zhao, with a screenplay by Zhao and O'Ferrell, and is a pretty faithful work, if simplified.  There are aspects of the movie that feel dumbed down, with Agnes's outsider stature being much weightier in the novel and Hamnet having a more present role.  The presentation is also streamlined, opting for a chronological narrative, which is probably not something I would have done.  The film's ditching of the novel's nonlinear structure makes the plotting feel jumpy, though not without redemption.  Passionate performances by Buckley and Mescal underlined by Zhao's fierce direction counter it back to dramatic magnificence.  The movie is very pretty, very emotionally charged, and very sad, which is what the story demands of it.  Buckley has to carry most of the film on her own shoulders, empathically trying to translate her emotions into the audience.  She's just good enough an actress to actually enchant such a spell.  Probably the biggest hurdle that Zhao faces as the director is that sometimes her take on the story is too on-the-nose.  There's a scene where Mescal is standing on a ledge over a steep cape whispering the "To be or not to be" speech which is probably the most obvious thing she could have done in this movie.  Mescal makes the trite scene workable, but it might be a hair too much.  The movie isn't as powerful as the book because of things like this, but it's a very strong work of its own.  Like its source, the film is a story of the influence of love, using it to inspire creativity, and using that creativity as therapy for a broken heart.  It's a beautiful movie, which is what a beautiful story asks for.

But it still can't top the greatest Shakespeare production of all time...

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Eternity ⭐️⭐️1/2

Now You See Me:  Now You Don't ⭐️⭐️1/2

Predator:  Badlands ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rental Family ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Running Man ⭐️⭐️1/2

Wicked:  For Good ⭐️⭐️1/2

Zootopia 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

New To Digital

Sarah's Oil ⭐️⭐️

Trap House ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tron:  Ares ⭐️⭐️

Truth & Treason ⭐️⭐️1/2

Coming Soon!

Cinema Playground Journal 2025: Week 48 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Eternity

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy, Fantasy

Director:  David Freyne

Starring:  Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, Callum Turner, John Early, Olga Merediz, Da'Vine Joy Randolph

Congratulations!  You're dead!  Now you have to make the all important decision of what the rest of eternity is going to be like for your released consciousness.  Get it done in one week or you'll be dropped into eternal nothingness.  Good luck!  This is the situation Miles Teller finds himself in when he chokes on a pretzel and dies suddenly, jumping into an afterlife of a  crowded terminal nightmare.  Eventually, his wife, Elizabeth Olsen passes away and meets him there so they can plan the rest of their eternity together.  However, the situation complicates itself when her first love, deceased soldier Callum Turner, reveals that he has been waiting for her at this junction between both worlds for over sixty years.  Now Olsen needs to choose between the rest of eternity with the man she built a life with or the man she never had the chance to.  Why she needs to choose is uncertain.  There's always the possibility that they could all somehow choose the same eternity and just figure it out from there.  That's the main issue with this movie, it's that it really has to contrive its idea in loops to make its conflict work.  Everyone in this afterlife seems so taken aback that this situation even happened.  I call bullshit on that.  A widow who remarried doesn't seem like it should be that unique a circumstance.  This absolutely happened before.  And the premise of the afterlife is too basic and underdeveloped for it to really hit it off.  The premise of this movie hinges on the idea that the afterlife is "just one thing forever" and you have to decide what it is with travel agents at a crowded airport.  Are we sure this isn't just Hell?  Because this sounds an awful lot like purgatory.  It's a played up premise that's wants to enhance the themes of "what was" vs. "what could have been," but it can't take off because it feels strained.  The movie's safe space is in performance, especially with Elizabeth Olsen, who is so into her persona of a retro housewife that you could have sworn she got trapped in WandaVision again.  It's through these touching human moments that Eternity shines.  It's brand of farce just never justifies itself.

The Thing with Feathers

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama, Horror

Director:  Dylan Southern

Starring:  Benedict Cumberbatch, David Thewlis

If you ever wanted to see Big Bird kick the crap out of Benedict Cumberbatch, boy do I have a movie for you.  Based on a short story, Cumberbatch plays a widower who is grieving the loss of his wife, who eventually finds that he has an unexpected guest living in his home, a giant crow ("He's a wisecracker!") with the voice of David Thewlis.  It's a metaphor!  ::hammy grin::  The crow ("That's one 'o!'") is grief and he's living with it!  In all seriousness, this movie probably could have worked but its reach exceeds its grasp.  It wants to be so insightful and empathetic but while it's craftsmanship shows promise, the pieces can't always be taken seriously enough.  The movie's primary problem lies with how it has chosen to bring the crow ("I'm different!") character to life, which is wildly inconsistent.  The character is played by a man in a suit, which I fully support, and the suit is actually quite nice.  Unfortunately, it was obviously constructed to be effective in the shadows and when it needs to take a more prominent role in the story, it doesn't resonate and it becomes unintentionally hilarious.  There are points in this movie where the crow ("Oh brother!") is framed beautifully for unsettling effect.  They make the portions where it's not filmed effectively loom even funnier.  What's worse is that the crow (If you don't get what I'm doing here, you're in the wrong place) has dialogue and the costume isn't versatile enough for that kind of puppetry.  He instead talks without moving his mouth, like an old Garfield cartoon.  It's a movie that's trying to be powerful that becomes hard to take seriously.  But it tried, so I'll give it a pat on the head.

Wake Up Dead Man

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Mystery

Director:  Rian Johnson

Starring:  Daniel Craig, Josh O'Connor, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Hayden Church

By spending an absurd amount of money on the sequel to the 2019 mystery movie Knives Out, Netflix's quest to prove streaming is the place for the hottest movies might have accidentally proved to me that the theatrical experience is irreplaceable.  Last month, Netflix's limited theatrical engagement of Frankenstein allowed the viewer to soak in the film's luscious visuals, while my theatrical experience with both Knives Out sequels was a reminder of the thrill of audience engagement, being in a packed house full of people who are fully hooked and going on the same ride that you are.  You can watch all of these movies at home, but you only get one first impression, and having that impression while doing laundry or playing on your phone isn't the same.  That's probably why Netflix is content with producing as much forgettable garbage as it does, because they're perfect experiences if you're not paying attention to them.  Some movies aren't meant to be tossed aside so you can ignore the next movie on the autoplay option.  Every once in a while there is something special on there.  Probably the best Netflix original movie is Nimona, which I lament not being able to own on blu-ray, while my 4K copy of Knives Out looks lonesome without its siblings.

Wake Up Dead Man is the third movie in this series, which sees Josh Brolin play an angry priest who has been murdered in a seemingly impossible manner.  Daniel Craig's famed detective Benoit Blanc is hired to deduce the way the murder had been conducted, or was he killed by an act of God or Satan?  Wake Up Dead Man is darker and more measured than the other Benoit Blanc films, to the point where it's probably the least fun to watch.  But it also has the wildest and least predictable third act, which makes up a lot of ground.  Previous Blanc movies tried to subvert expectations by doing an unconventional presentation of its murder mystery, with both Knives Out and Glass Onion masking what their mysteries actually were until the third act.  Wake Up Dead Man is a more conventional mystery by comparison, it just stacks more mysteries on top of each other until the grand finale, where I thoroughly didn't know what the fuck was going on and was happy to hear an explanation.  There is a majesty to the way Johnson unfolds his mystery films, though Wake Up Dead Man might be more cumbersome.  The film has a lot of characters and it doesn't always know how to incorporate them into the story in a meaningful way, with certain actors only present to be suspects but not actually have a real role in it.  Knives Out and Glass Onion were both better at character balance in this regard, but Wake Up Dead Man is certainly a worthy ride to go on for anyone who loved both of those films.  With it, Benoit Blanc is establishing himself among the greats of detective fiction, up there with Holmes and Poirot.  Though he still has a way to go before he reaches the hights of Shelby Woo.

Zootopia 2

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Comedy, Fantasy, Action

Director:  Jared Bush, Byron Howard

Starring:  Gennifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Ke Huy Kwan, Fortune Feimster, Andy Samberg, David Stratharn, Shakira, Idris Elba, Patrick Warburton

I should probably not get my hopes up when Disney's animation studio decides to do a sequel to one of their movies.  The best one was The Rescuers Down Under and it's all been downhill from there.  I remember being warm to Fantasia 2000 and Ralph Breaks the Internet was fine, I guess, but Frozen II and Moana 2 were both punches to the gut.  Zootopia is one of my favorite Disney animated movies, as the studio/lifestyle brand did their own take on the buddy cop flick with their own style of anthropomorphic animal characters and made a movie that was both very funny and very heartfelt.  Both Zootopia and Moana were among my favorite movies of 2016 and Disney's last two animated movies were sequels to both of these.  With Moana 2 being an absolute nothing of a movie, should I have any hope for a Zootopia 2?  Maybe I had a sliver of one.  Moana 2 had an unfortunate production upend that resulted in the film they made, whereas Zootopia 2 was a more straightforward process, so there was a possibility of something better.  Besides, the buddy cop genre is sequel saturation at its finest and doing more Zootopia actually kinda makes sense as a genre piece.  If the world can have four Lethal Weapon movies, then Zootopia needs at least as many.  In buddy cop movie terms, Zootopia 2 one of those sequels that retells a lot of the original's most memorable jokes, only louder, while telling an entertaining, if less dynamic-servicing, story that will please fans of the original.  I guess that makes this the Rush Hour 2 of Disney movies.  I was kinda hoping for the Bad Boys II of Disney movies, but I'll take it.

The movie takes place a week after the first one.  Enthusiastic police bunny Judy Hopps is desperate to keep her momentum from saving the city by doing big time busts, while her sly fox partner Nick Wilde is more concerned about his own skin than actually solving crime.  Their latest case leads to a timid snake who might harbor a secret to Zootopia's origins and change the town's perception of itself forever.  To be honest, this is a little too lore heavy for me.  Zootopia's least interesting aspect is Zootopia itself.  I don't much care why animals evolved into a peaceful city.  Cartoons have done "animals as stand-ins for people" since their inception and they don't suddenly need an internal logic to this.  The story does provide some decent scenery change for the movie, though I'm not totally invested in where it's going, nor does it really feed into the character conflict between Judy and Nick.  The duo just kind of trots around on the quest and bicker, sometimes with endearment.  I do confess to be a little lost on what their relationship is supposed to be.  The screenplay to this movie reads like it's fangirling over shipping Judy and Nick together, which raises a thousand questions about interspecies sexual relations and procreation that I doubt a Disney movie is equipped to answer.  But Zootopia has always been an allegory for interracial relations, so I guess I shouldn't care.  The final movie holds itself back on defining it as anything beyond platonic, though it always seems excited about potentially opening that door.  Maybe Zootopia 3 will explore the meaning of the term "going at it like jackrabbits."

Also, Zootopia already has another evil mayor.  After a week.  I get that we shouldn't trust politicians but, my god, Zootopia's political system is fucked.

Anyway, I digress.  Those are all the things that make Zootopia 2 a little weird, but it's actually a fun little movie.  Not as good as the first, but the character dynamics are continually charming.  Judy and Nick are still an excellent pairing and the movie is still very funny.  Like the first, it's a buddy cop movie for kids and the tropes loan themselves well to the world the film creates.  The movie also gets surprisingly dark and heavy during its third act, which is it's strongest portion.  I was fully invested in how it was going to play out, even if the ride didn't compare to how charming the original was.  For what it's worth, Zootopia 2 is probably the best Disney sequel since Fantasia 2000, and the best Disney animation since Encanto.  It's not great, but it's a strong option for family movie night, which is exactly what it wants to be.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Now You See Me:  Now You Don't ⭐️⭐️1/2

Nuremberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Predator:  Badlands ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rental Family ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Running Man ⭐️⭐️1/2

Sisu:  Road to Revenge ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tron:  Ares ⭐️⭐️

Wicked:  For Good ⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Digital

Blue Moon ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bugonia ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Good Fortune ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Regretting You ⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Physical

Anemone ⭐️⭐️1/2

Bone Lake ⭐️⭐️1/2

The Conjuring:  Last Rites ⭐️⭐️

Coyotes ⭐️⭐️

Eleanor the Great ⭐️⭐️1/2

Gabby's Dollhouse:  The Movie ⭐️⭐️1/2

Primitive War ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Roses ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Coming Soon!

Cinema Playground Journal 2025: Week 47 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Rental Family

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama, Comedy

Director:  Hikari

Starring:  Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, Akira Emoto, Shino Shinozaki

Brendan Fraser takes his first major starring role since winning an Oscar in a soft schmaltzy dramedy where he plays a down-on-his-luck actor living in Japan who takes a job with a unique business where clients hire actors to perform certain roles in their personal lives.  Fraser is hired to pretend he's the long lost father of a little girl, only to wind up closely bonding with her.  I'm not entirely sure I understand the business at the center of this movie.  I understand the concept, because it's basically RPG prostitution, but it seems very niche, and the film both portrays it as being publicly successful and also underground simultaneously.  But it's an interesting idea that is therapeutic in theory.  Though, I also can't help but feel a lot of these problems are solved by therapy dogs (because PUPPY).  Taking the premise at face value, the movie is cute while also a bit potentially therapeutic in helping viewers identify potential voids in their own lives.  Fraser is constantly one of the most written-off actors of his generation but there's a huggable lug genuineness to him that I've always found charming.  That aspect of his profile is helpful here because Fraser is very tender and heartfelt in his role.  He plays a character who is dismayed at his lack of success but finds spending time with his make-believe family might actually fulfill something he didn't even know was missing.  Sometimes the movie gets so lost in the function of the business he's working for that it strays from that, but it's a worthwhile film for sentimentalists with a strong glow to it.

Sisu:  Road to Revenge

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Action

Director:  Jalmari Helander

Starring:  Jorma Tommila, Stephen Lang, Richard Brake

Sisu dun killed all the Nazis.  There are no Nazis left to kill.  He's gotta kill all the Commies now.  This sequel to the instant action classic sees the mute gold miner, who I assume is named Paul Marion Sisu and I'm not even going to look that up because that's how certain I'm right I am, returning to his Finland home post-World War II.  Unfortunately, Finland suceeded the land it was settled on to the Soviet Union, and Paul Marion Sisu pulls down his house board for board and moves it back to Finnish territory to rebuild it.  The Russians however hatch a plan to kill the "legend" who turned a host of Germans into splatter and unleash a man connected to Paul Marion Sisu's past to kill him before he leaves the country.  If you loved Sisu, Road to Revenge is even more Sisu.  Maybe a little bigger and wackier.  There are huge setpieces in this movie, and one might as well call it Sisu:  Fury Road as it's one big long road chase movie with epic death and destruction.  A lot of the stunts and action look pretty great for such a low budget movie, making the film an easy recommend for action enthusiasts.  The one thing I feel holds it back is that the movie probably goes a little heavy on its comedy.  I recall the first Sisu being fairly grim and angry, and the second one seems a little lighter in its mood, which is not entirely unwelcome.  The film can take it to a far-fetched level, turning action sequences into slapstick comedy.  There is a sequence where our protagonist sneaks through a group of sleeping Russians that is basically just Buster Keaton with gore and beheading.  But the movie is a rollicking good time, and the franchise is certainly begging for a third installment.  We made it this far, might as well ride it out.

Wicked:  For Good

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Fantasy, Musical

Director:  Jon M. Chu

Starring:  Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang

Wicked is back, I guess.  This time adapting the second act of the Broadway musical, but most of the interesting shit is over and all of this could have been an email.  This one sees Glinda stepping into the role of the Good Witch while the Wizard begins a campaign to mark Elphaba as "the Wicked Witch of the West," an existential threat to the people of Oz.  Meanwhile, a random house from Kansas falls on Elphaba's sister and you know what happens there because we all saw that movie.

To be frank, this movie is not anywhere near as fun as the first.  Most of that has to do with how little story it has left to tell and how unnecessary that story seems.  If you cut the fat from both of these films, Wicked could have been a solid three-hour movie.  Instead, they turned the meat of the musical into a good movie and made mediocrity out of whatever was left in hopes for that lucrative rabid fan cash.  What's sad is that probably worked out for them.  As a movie, Wicked Part Duex:  The Final Reckoning pads like a motherfucker, offering offering up redundancies and Easter eggs to more widely known Wizard of Oz canon.  The first half of the film feels like its repeating beats we established in the previous film.  Elphaba re-establishes herself as the odd outsider and Glinda is a peppy girl who is sad inside.  Then the movie pushes itself as the side quest happening around Dorothy and Toto and it just flunks.  Finally incorporating the classic Wizard of Oz tale into the movie is jarring, with the movie stumbling to latch its take of the characters onto the traditional story.  The implication that both of these stories are happening simultaneously feels nonsensical.  Offering up origins for the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion is interesting, but they're all rushed and a little dumb.  I'm still trying to figure out the Scarecrow storyline because its so underexplained and unnecessary.  Then there is the scene where Dorothy's house crushes Elphaba's sister, sending Dorothy on her journey down the Yellow Brick Road.  The entire sequence is just weird, as the movie seems to want to give Elphaba an emotional scene to mourn her sister, but it undercutting it a comical bitchslap fight with Glinda.  I'm not sure I know what the movie wants me to take away from this.

Looking at the positives, strengths of the production do carry over from one film to the next.  Production and costume design are still aces (though if this film wins both of these categories at the Oscars two years in a row when it's competing against Frankenstein, I'm going to riot).  Acting in all roles remains committed and quirky.  There is some juicy material here that saves the film from being a disaster, even if it just flings it into being joyously uneven.  What's interesting about this portion of the story is that Jeff Goldblum's role as the Wizard feels like it's hitting current political relevance, as the Wizard is a ham selling lies and knows people don't care that they're lies, while demonizing an "other" for the sake of misdirection from his own bullshit.  I'm still not convinced the Wicked Witch of the West is a good avatar for that.  She's one of the most generic villains you can have, so projecting onto her is easy, but she's also iconic as a cackling bitch and characterizing her as anything else feels forced.  Wicked humanizing her as an noble misunderstood outsider who has been masked with that iconography never fully worked for me.  That's probably what gets under my skin the most, because one could look at the first film as quirky fan fiction, while the second is "This is the real canon that they don't want you to know about."  It doesn't work, but they had fun trying.  Wicked fans will love it because it's more Wicked.  Maybe that's enough.

Art Attack

Sentimental Value

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Joachim Trier

Starring:  Renate Reinsve,  Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning

Art Attack is back, Jack!  This section has been on hiatus for a while for a couple of reasons.  First of all, my multiplex has been mostly gauntlets this year, which has been hogging my attention away from the indie cinema.  I attribute this to blockbusters failing to bust blocks, lately.  Incidentally, a lot of movies from my arthouse theater wound up at the multiplex to fill screens for a week anyway, which is probably for that afore mentioned reason, so I wasn't missing more than a handful of movies.  The weeks where new releases have been lighter showed the little theater wasn't showing anything of interest that I hadn't already seen (and a few screenings of classics to fill showtimes), so there just wasn't anything to write about.  But now we have Sentimental Value.  This was a movie I felt I needed to jump over there to see because of the strong word-of-mouth on it.

Renate Reinsve reunites with her Worst Person in the World director Joachim Trier for a new drama taking critics by storm, where she plays...another woman who is kind of a fuck up with emotional issues.  Boy, I'm sure glad she's showing her range.  Her father is played by Stellan Skarsgård, a film director who comes home hoping to film a movie based on his mother with her in the starring role.  Based on their bitter past, she refuses, forcing him to turn to Hollywood starlet Elle Fanning to fill the void.  If I'm to be honest, Fanning is slightly miscast here.  She's basically playing a Margot Robbie type "It Girl," and, as talented as Fanning is, that feels like it's a step beyond her profile.  Fanning is fine here, but she feels a little too meek to be the focus of so much attention.  The film's theme primarily seems concentrated on the idea of life influencing art, both intentionally and accidentally.  Skarsgård is a bit of an self-indulgent artist who lets his personal relationships suffer at the hands of his filmmaking, Reinsve is a stage actress who uses her personal pain to power her performance.  It's pretty good stuff, and it has a few digs at Netflix that won me over, because Netflix can rot.  I wish I loved it more, but I appreciate it for what it did achieve.

Netflix & Chill

Deathstalker

⭐️⭐️⭐️

🏆"Hurts So Good" Must-See Bad Movie Award🏆

Streaming On:  Video on demand

Genre:  Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Director:  Steven Kostanski

Starring:  Daniel Bernhardt, Laurie Field, Patton Oswalt, Christina Orjalo, Paul Lazenby, Nina Bergman

It's not often that properties featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 have a life after being featured on the show.  Godzilla and Gamera are the big exceptions, but that's because the former is a global icon and while the latter is less so, its films are from a country that has more reverence to Gamera than MST3K, while US reverence for both Gamera and MST3K probably run about even (and overlap more than don't).  Diabolik is another example, though that's a popular Italian comic book character and a reboot in a field of comic book movies dominating filmmaking was inevitable.  Even rarer is a sequel to a film featured on the show that gained a degree of popularity because it was on it.  Hobgoblins 2 only exists because MST3K showed Hobgoblins.  Demon Squad 2 is filmed with release pending, which is owed to being supported by MST3K fans through Kickstarter.  And, more relevantly, we have Deathstalker.  I don't think we can claim Deathstalker was rebooted because of MST3K, but Shout Studios currently owns the rights to both the Deathstalker franchise and MST3K, as well as the title role of the reboot being played by the star of one of MST3K's most popular movies with an onscreen MST3K actor in a supporting voice-over role, so it's hard to separate the Deathstalker reboot and the show.

Of course, Deathstalker is a reboot of, ya know, Deathstalker, the Roger Corman produced answer to Conan the Barbarian.  The latest film has Future War star Daniel Bernhardt take the mantle of the titular antihero, a wandering asshole who happens to be a badass warrior and accidentally gets caught up in heroics when all he wants to do is get paid and get laid.  Deathstalker winds up with a magical amulet, which has chosen Deathstalker to be the one who destroys an evil necromancer.  This is mostly an excuse for Deathstalker to wisecrack and kick ass.  The movie doesn't bother to "improve" Deathstalker.  It knows exactly what Deathstalker is and crafts a modern day love letter to the trashy subgenre that spawned Deathstalker.  The only step-up it has is more confident stunt choreography and imaginative, if intentionally camp, effects design.  The only thing in Deathstalker legacy that it doesn't indulge in is the exploitation of nudity and sexuality, but Deathstalker was a rapist in his original incarnation, so maybe it's for the best he has been toned down here.  Bernhardt's the oldest actor to tackle the role, but he's also the most charismatic.  His Deathstalker is kind of a delight and his smugness isn't off-putting, which is common for Deathstalker.  His little sidekicks are a treat as well, with Laurie Field playing the tiny wizard with Jeepers Creepers face Doodad, Patton Oswalt overdubbing Doodad's voice, and Christina Orjalo as the bratty theif Brisbayne.  The trio is a hoot.

If I were to describe this Deathstalker movie in comparison to the others, I'd say it's not a trend-chasing cashgrab and is made with wit and heart.  Imagine a movie with the limited resources of the direct-to-video Scorpion King sequels, but made by people putting in overtime to legitimately make it fun.  This and the new Toxic Avenger movie were the camp reboots I didn't know I needed.  I never thought I'd say this but I hope there's more Deathstalker movies in our future.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Black Phone 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Die My Love ⭐️⭐️

Keeper ⭐️⭐️

Now You See Me:  Now You Don't ⭐️⭐️1/2

Nuremberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Predator:  Badlands ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Regretting You ⭐️⭐️1/2

The Running Man ⭐️⭐️1/2

Tron:  Ares ⭐️⭐️

New To Digital

Anniversary ⭐️⭐️

Bone Lake ⭐️⭐️1/2

Roofman ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shelby Oaks ⭐️1/2

Stitch Head ⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Physical

House on Eden ⭐️1/2

Splitsville ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Coming Soon!

Cinema Playground Journal 2025: Week 46 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

The Carpenter's Son

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Lotfy Nathan

Starring:  Nicolas Cage, Noah Jupe, FKA Twigs, Souheila Yacoub, Isla Johnston

Say what you will about this edgelord flick that tries to do a psychological horror take on the story of Jesus Christ, but it's interesting.  And it sure as hell isn't boring.  Nicolas Cage plays "The Carpenter," and unnamed protagonist based on Joseph, who protects "The Mother" and "The Son," AKA Mary and Jesus, from those who might harm them once learning that his "son" is actually the son of God.  Meanwhile, "The Son" resists temptation from "The Stranger," a sadistic little girl who represents you-know-who.  She spends most of the movie making "The Son" uncomfortable with her serpent's tongue.  No, that's not a metaphor, she has a literal "serpent's tongue," a snake that crawls our of her mouth.  She can do that.  As sacrilegious as the film might seem at first, I actually don't sense anything malicious about this movie toward religion in general.  It may very well be a movie made by an atheist wanting to shock with their heresy, but it actually comes off as having a more genuine heart than that.  It feels like it was made in the imagination that Jesus was a scared little boy surrounded by enemies, and it's a movie portraying his fear by inducing dread and utilizing gore.  Most movies depicting Jesus are much softer, wanting the be beautiful even if the period of time that Jesus lived in likely wasn't (The Passion of the Christ notwithstanding).  I kind of respect this movie for portraying a harsh surrounding that's usually sanitized.  This movie also could have been done better.  At it's heart, this movie is about a boy with overprotective parents keeping secrets from him who discovers he has superpowers.  This might as well be the pilot to Smallville.  But The Carpenter's Son will likely have cult appeal based on its unconventional approach to its subject matter.  Maybe some of that cult following might be in the Christian community.  The movie might surprise you.  I just hope you're comfortable with newborn babies burning to death in a blazing fire.  That happens in the first five minutes.  In close-up.  Buyer beware.

Keeper

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Osgood Perkins

Starring:  Tatiana Maslany, Rossif Sutherland

Most film directors bring about their latest project in about two to three years.  Osgood Perkins has pushed that to about six months, proving that, no matter who your favorite director is, they're a lazy son-of-a-bitch.  Perkins' second film this year, after The Monkey, was actually born from the writer and actor's strikes from 2023 while The Monkey was stalled from production.  Perkins worked some loopholes with Canadian writers and actors who were not part of the American unions and went to production on this movie.  I wish I could say it didn't look like a rush job but it kinda does.  Keeper is a horror movie that stars Tatiana Maslany, who agrees to a weekend at her boyfriend's cabin, where spooky stuff begins to happen.  It's a rather basic creepshow premise that isn't going to win much awards in originality.  In fact, the whole idea feels underdeveloped.  Perkins' distinct and exciting direction and Maslany's committed performance are both at war with a boring script, one that lacks thematic material, characterization, and just content in general.  The movie can be exceptionally creepy when it wants to be, but it suffers from slowdown and a dull performance by co-lead Rossif Sutherland doesn't help keep the film interesting.  Perkins is still one of the most distinct voices in genre work today, and even if Keeper ain't a keeper, he's still on full display and firing on all cylinders.  That's proof enough that he hasn't lost his mojo.  He just needs to find another Longlegs to put his best foot forth.

King Ivory

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Drama, Thriller

Director:  John Swab

Starring:  James Badge Dale, Ben Foster, Michael Mando, Graham Greene, Melissa Leo

Police officers hunt drug dealers and yadda yadda yadda...look, this movie sucks and I don't want to talk about it.  Chances are you've seen a dozen street movies of law vs. kingpins and drugs in the past.  This one does everything those movies do except does it slowly and dully.  Waiting for King Ivory to do something interesting is like waiting for grass to brown and die during the summer.  I got so bored during this movie that I started listening to the foley work.  It really started to weird me out, from drowning men making gurgling noises above the surface of the water to kissing noises that sound like someone aggressively tongue wrestling with a Tootsie Pop.  It's a hard-edged production done with grime and grit, but its screenplay can only interest in minor patches and doesn't seem to have the balls to really hit hard.  The movie has so little confidence in itself that it feels the need to subtitle Ben Foster, who is playing a character with a removed larynx.  His dialogue can be rough but it's really not that hard to make out, and it comes off as if the filmmakers are assuming their audience is full of idiots.

One positive note is that this is one of the last performances of the late Graham Greene, who passed away earlier this year.  MSTies will remember him best from Atlantic Rim and RiffTrax fans from the Twilight saga, but we won't hold either of those against him.  He really was a good actor.  Unfortunately, King Ivory isn't a great requiem for him.  Making a boring movie isn't a crime, but movies like King Ivory argue that maybe it should be.

Muzzle:  City of Wolves

⭐️

🏆"Hurts So Good" Must-See Bad Movie Award🏆

Genre:  Action, Thriller

Director:  John Stalberg Jr.

Starring:  Aaron Eckhart, Tanya van Graan, Karl Thaning, Nicole Fortuin, Adrian Collins, Hakeem Kae-Kazim

Muzzle:  City of Wolves is a sequel to a movie that I've never heard of.  If it's anywhere near as funny as this one, I'm going to have to check it out.  This movie has a full-blown police funeral for a dog, complete with Aaron Eckhart giving grief-stricken seething vengeance eyes.  If that doesn't perfectly sum up exactly what kind of movie this is, I don't know what does.

Eckhart plays a gruff hard-boiled cop who has a group of trained dogs by his side.  When an underground kingpin threatens to kill his family unless he willingly commits suicide, he goes on the run to shoot the bad guys and protect his wife and baby.  That premise might seem mundane but the way it's executed makes the movie a riot.  This movie has so many clichés that it might as well be a dark 'n' gritty reboot of Jack Slater from Last Action Hero.  The movie piles on so much outdated turns that weren't even good when they were popular that it feels like it should be a parody, but it's so fucking serious that it clearly sees itself as edgy.  This movie is utter crap.  It's really funny crap, based primarily on how misguidedly sincere it is, but it's still crap.  I wholeheartedly recommend this movie based on that, because its sincerity needs to be seen to be believed.

Now You See Me:  Now You Don't

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Adventure

Director:  Ruben Fleischer

Starring:  Jessie Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher, Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt, Rosamund Pike, Morgan Freeman

I saw the first Now You See Me when it came out.  Didn't really like it.  I'm not even sure I understood what it was about, but the one thing that nagged at me that I never forgot was that the movie was focused on magicians and had an opportunity to pull off a lot of fun in-camera visual tricks and instead it was a bunch of CGI bullshit, answering the eternal question of "How'd they do that?!?!" with "They didn't."  I don't think I've ever seen a movie completely lose focus on its own appeal like that.  Anyway, I didn't watch the second one because I assumed it would be more of the same.  Now I'm here watching the third because I have nothing better to do.

This threequel sees a young group of magicians who are inspired by the legendary "Four Horsemen" to do small-scale "steal from the rich, give to the poor" jobs.  The actual Four Horsemen show up on their door, selecting them to help out with a bigger heist of a giant diamond.  It's all an excuse to showboat and do a lot of monologues about how in control of the situation everyone is.  I will admit I had more fun with this one that the last time I visited this franchise, though I share some of the same annoyances.  A convoluted plot, an over-reliance on computer graphics, a lot of running around without a visible goal, and a twist ending that mistskes "Huh?" for mind-blowing.  It's a collection of problems the Now You See Me franchise has had since movie one.  It's just in the most zippy and enjoyable package they've ever presented.  What I enjoyed about this movie is that, while it's aimless, it is very spirited.  The young blood characters have so much spunk that they bring zest to the proceedings.  That being said, there are probably too many characters in the movie.  There is a little bit of wiseness to how the film works with this because it's assuming the audience is already familiar with the Horsemen and selects to give the young stars more development time.  Ariana Greenblatt is the showstealer of the trio with a couple of parkour sequences that highlight the movie.  Meanwhile, the Horsemen are here more for bravado, talking about how great they are and chumming about because it has been a while, letting the audience know what they've been up to since they've last robbed someone.  There are a few surprises in store, some are genuinely good and others feel like post-production tinkering, but if you're a fan of Now You See Me, then I imagine this trilogy capper is mostly what you hope it would be.

The Running Man

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Action, Adventure, Science Fiction

Director:  Edgar Wright

Starring:  Glen Powell, Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo. William H. Macy, Michael Cera, Lee Pace, Emilia Jones, Daniel Ezra, Jayme Lawson, Katy O'Brian, Sean Hayes

I have a polarized history with The Running Man.  I saw the 1987 Schwarzenegger movie when I was a tween and it established itself as the greatest movie my innocent eyes had ever gazed upon.  I then read the Stephen King (AKA Richard Bachman) book in high school and...didn't like it.  For the last few decades I attributed that to my rose-colored glasses of the movie version, which was quite different to the source material.  I re-read the book recently to confirm this, and no, the book just sucks.  It's a nihilistic and cynical work, admittedly for the right reasons, but it's one that just rages out without anything productive or enlightening in its content.  And the last fifty or so pages read as if King had written himself into a corner and just gave up on the entire thing, rendering the story just a angry rant that just abruptly cuts off.  I do not recommend the book on this one.  The 1987 movie, though, that's still a top tier camp classic.  10/10, will watch again, and if the choice were between The Godfather and The Running Man, I'd pick The Running Man in a heartbeat.

Now, Edgar Wright is here to put his own stamp on The Running Man.  My initial thought was yes, I absolutely want this.  Then it occurred to me it was probably going to be based on the book and not the Schwarzenegger movie, and that made me sad.  Wright's version of the King novel might have promise, but Wright's version of the Schwarzenegger movie would have been transcendent.  But I'll give it a look.  I love Wright as a filmmaker, and if anybody can whip that book into shape, it's him.  And he does break through and turn a shitty book into something that could potentially win me over.  But he's still held back by the not-so-good source material.

The Running Man sees Glen Powell playing Ben Richards, who desperately needs quick cash to buy medicine for his sick daughter.  He applies to the game shows on "The Network," and is selected for "The Running Man," where Richards must survive as a fugitive for thirty days, but if he gets caught, he dies.  Fans of the book will be more pleased that the concept hasn't been radically altered for this film, while the screenplay mostly stays faithful to the story's structure as well.  This is for better and for worse, because the book doesn't have a great structure to begin with.  The movie takes the worst aspects of the book and tries to salvage them by "Edgar Wright-ing" them up, which pays off in that it's no longer a dull work of stoic cynicism but a fast-paced work of cynicism that's kinda funny sometimes.  You can have fun watching this, but its social commentary is still clumsy.  It's bad enough that the parody concepts like "FreeVee" and "New Dollars" didn't even read well on the page but hearing them in live dialogue makes them sound even dumber.  But probably the worst aspect of this movie is something that can be said for m "person starts an uprising against the tyranical government" media, which is that the message can be easily misunderstood.  One can easily watch this movie and think it's about one brave "Republican" and his war against "Fake News" and "Liberal Media," and the only sources you can trust are "The People's Voices" on YouTube and Elon Musk's dumpster of a social media empire.  The Running Man's social satire is pretty irresponsibly delivered because, taken at face value without analysis, it might make the radicalized even more radical.

But the movie isn't all bad.  Most of its weaknesses can be attributed to the faults of its source.  The movie actually improves on the book in a number of ways.  The book is slow and not very exciting, Edgar Wright's film is a capable ride from start to finish.  Characters from the novel who jump in and leave are given fairly beefed up roles, a lot of it with mixed results (Michael Cera's additional action sequence is put into play out of stupidity) but I appreciate the effort.  The movie is also much funnier than its grumbling counterpart, which helps lighten some of the mood.  It's definitely helps the tryout stage of the story, which I think is supposed to be funny in the novel but is done through a lot of racist slurs and sexism.  Here, it actually is funny, because Powell is so in on playing someone who is so irritated about being there that my laughter couldn't be contained.  The movie also changes the book's objectively terrible ending.  Elements of the ending are still present, but there is an added post-script that recontextualizes as being less "life sucks and then you die."  To be honest, the new ending is pretty shitty too, but it is unquestionably a less abrupt note to go out on.

The Running Man is Wright's weakest movie.  If I were to take anything away from that, it's that Wright is starting look look like he's someone incapable of delivering an unentertaining movie.  This movie can be a hoot, it's also frustrates as much as it delights.  Just be prepared for that and you'll probably like it just fine.  And we'll always have the Schwarzenegger movie, which is destined to be the most iconic version of this story, faithfulness and quality be damned.

Trap House

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Action

Director:  Michael Dowse

Starring:  Dave Bautista, Jack Champion, Sophia Lillis, Tony Dalton, Whitney Peak, Kate del Castillo, Bobby Cannavale, Inde Navarrette, Zaire Adams, Blu del Barrio

For a wrestler-turned-actor that most of the prime talent in Hollywood seems to have nothing but praise for, Dave Bautista has made a lot of schlock this year.  It feels like it's every few weeks I'm seeing him in an Afterburn or an In the Lost Lands.  This weekend he's in another low-budget action flick from another small-time distributor, though I am at the same time not surprised by what it is while also being surprised at how much fun I had watching it.  Trap House sees Bautista play a DEA agent who, for some reason, has gear readily available to his teenage son.  After a fellow agent is gunned down and the DEA fails at supporting his family, Bautista's son nabs a bunch of his father's gear and gathers a group of friends to crudely steal from the drug cartel in a series of hit-and-run robberies.  The cartel eventually notices the DEA gear and starts targeting DEA agents.  The story is a pretty solid groundwork for this movie, although it's not a particularly memorable screenplay.  The movie can be ripe with melodrama when it feels like it, but it counterweighs it with a lot of spirit.  The group comaraderie of the kids is flavorful and endearing, and watching them muck around from their clumsy first hit to being neck deep in something they can't handle is actually more investing than I expected to be.  Meanwhile, watching Bautista trying to figure out who is doing the hits has a quirky pleasure to it.  The movie is pedestrianly made, the action is nothing to write home about, and the movie's biggest twists are obvious from the get-go, but this movie is more fun than it has any right to be.  I could name a hundred ways it could be better, but I can't say I didn't enjoy the basic ride as presented.  If it ain't broke...

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Black Phone 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bugonia ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Die My Love ⭐️⭐️

Good Fortune ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Nuremberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Predator:  Badlands ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Regretting You ⭐️⭐️1/2

Springsteen:  Deliver Me from Nowhere ⭐️⭐️1/2

Sarah's Oil ⭐️⭐️

Tron:  Ares ⭐️⭐️

Wicked Part I ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Digital

Kiss of the Spider Woman ⭐️⭐️

One Battle After Another ⭐️⭐️1/2

Soul on Fire ⭐️

New To Physical

Caught Stealing ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Downton Abbey:  The Grand Finale ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Freakier Friday ⭐️⭐️1/2

Him ⭐️

The Naked Gun ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Spinal Tap II:  The End Continues ⭐️⭐️1/2

Together ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Coming Soon!

Cinema Playground Journal 2025: Week 45 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Christy

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Drama, Sports

Director:  David Michôd

Starring:  Sydney Sweeney, Ben Foster, Katy O'Brian

Sydney Sweeney finally stars in a movie that's halfway decent, but she made Americana on her way there, so she still deserves to be given shit.  Christy is the second biopic of the year focusing on a groundbreaking women's sports icon, following the Millie Muscles biopic Queen of the Ring from many months ago.  This one focuses on women's boxing icon Christy Martin, chronicling the ups and downs of her career as well as the emotional and physical abuse she put up with from her manager/husband, James V. Martin.  Christy is a better film than Queen of the Ring, though this has a lot to do with Queen of the Ring's ill-advised tendencies to make shit up if they thought the story was getting boring.  Christy doesn't feel too far removed from what Christy Martin's life story actually was, whether it's dramatically engaging or not.  This mostly hurts the early portions, where the movie has this weird tendency to not let itself breathe.  It will switch to a scene for two lines then jump to the next two-line scene, wanting to cover as much ground as possible very rapidly and abruptly to get to the meat of Martin's story faster.  The film feels more balanced after this, though it isn't made with any particular flair.  Boxing scenes are brief and not very exciting, while the movie seems willing to coast on performance instead of screenplay.  Sweeney and co-star Ben Foster are pretty good, but they aren't given a lot that's interesting to do outside of their big pre-determined moments to shine.  Christy is a movie for the sports biopic enthusiast, though it likely won't have much of a lasting legacy because it isn't consistently impactful.

Die My Love

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama, Thriller

Director:  Lynne Ramsay

Starring:  Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield, Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek

Most trades are saying Die My Love is an allegory for postpartum depression.  If it is, it's a failure, because the movie comes off more as an allegory for monogamous boredom as Jennifer Lawrence moves into a country house with Robert Pattinson and grows more unhinged at her husband's seeming growing indifference to their relationship.  None of Lawrence's problems seem to stem from the birth of their child.  In fact, the baby almost seems to be collateral damage in the making.  Most of Lawrence's sufferings seem to specifically stem from lack of sexual gratification, as her partnership with Pattinson moves from "fucking wildly in every room on a whim" directly into the mundanity of a domestic life.  Is postpartum depression related?  Possibly.  Like most depression, postpartum is about psychology and chemical imbalance, which makes postpartum itself just a triggering circumstance, but the film uses postpartum as something incidental, symbolic of lifestyle trasition and not directly linked to motivation.  That's just my read of this film that's more symbolism than story, wanting the viewer to read between the lines rather than follow a narrative.  If the movie thinks it's sly, it's shockingly dense because it's not that hard to read.  Too much of the movie is obvious.  There are a lot of shots of Lawrence on all fours in a feral pose, crawling around like a wild animal in a cage who yearns for freedom.  It's one of the movie's stupidest metaphors but it seems obsessed with it.  As an experience, the movie just isn't interesting.  The film wants to thrill with the intense emotional state of the actors but everything is so heightened that their reactions stop being understandable even if the emotions behind them are relatable.  The most frustrating thing about it is that it could easily be something powerful but chooses to be intentionally impenetrable.  If only Lawrence got some penetrating, then this entire mess could have been avoided.  Am I right?  ::raises hand for high five::left hanging::

Grand Prix of Europe

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy, Sports

Director:  Waldemar Fast

Starring:  (English voice cast) Gemma Arterton, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Hayley Atwell, Lenny Henry, Rob Beckett

Unmemorable but spirited, this family film is a German/UK co-production, telling the story of a young mouse who is desperate to pay off her father's loan and jumps in as a driving double for the world's greatest race car driver when he injures himself.  The movie will never be a true contender for finest animated filmmaking, as it's very Saturday Morning in its vibes.  What it succeeds in doing is being a showcase of zippy setpieces, silly characters, and bright colors.  If your child's favorite Pixar movie is Cars, this could potentially be a movie they stumble upon on streaming and watch twice in an afternoon.  Of course, my personal interest piqued based on the sexy voices of British heartstoppers Gemma Arterton and Hayley Atwell.  It's not much, but I'll take what I can get.

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Drama, Fantasy

Director:  Mailys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han

Starring:  (English voice cast) Lily Gilliam, Victoria Grosbois, Yumi Fujimori, Cathy Cerdà, Marc Arnaud, Laetitia Coryn

This French animated film is an adaptation of the autobiographical novel The Character of Rain by Amélie Nothomb, telling the story of a Belgian toddler living in Japan who experiences everything in life for the first time.  She forms a deep bond with her nanny, who doesn't talk down to her about the joys and tragedies of life.  The film is a lushly animated depiction of innocence so that the darkest of its themes can feel threatening to the beauty of its joy.  Little Amélie is unafraid to be heavy and existential as it tackles things like death, predjudice, and change.  Each of these is something Amélie is learning about for the first time as she discovers the world isn't centered on her and there are things outside of her control that will make it more difficult.  Whether the film is a quality family option is up to the parents.  In addition to the thoughtful thematic material, the movie is a soft drama, so more hyperactive children likely won't sit and watch it.  The movie could be watched as a family if one chooses to, though.  Adult animation appreciators will likely be the ones to love it the most.

Long Shadows

⭐️

Genre:  Western

Director:  William Shockley

Starring:  Dermot Mulroney, Dominic Monaghan, Jacqueline Bisset, Blaine Maye, Sarah Cortez, Chris Mulkey, Anthony Skordi, Ronnie Gene Blevins

Schlocky western melodrama features an impossibly noble young man who seeks to avenge the deaths of his parents, learns to gunsling, and falls in love with a prostitute.  You know, a bunch of shit from the "Do-It-Yourself Western Movie" kit.  A cheap movie I can live with.  This movie is an underwritten and over-acted relation of a trite plot that hundreds of westerns have already done with the exception of a laughable ending that is admittedly exclusive to it.  And it's cheap.  A movie like this could save itself with charisma and character development, neither of which the movie feels like it's that interested in.  There are a couple of notable performers here, including Dermot Mulroney, Dominic Monaghan, and Jacqueline Bisset, all of which are wasted.  The movie's character personality is reduced to generic monologues about trauma and cheesy flashbacks.  Meanwhile, the film's third act twists feel like they're the only aspect of the film made with actual imagination, even if they're so stupid that the film crosses into accidental comedy territory.  The one virtue I can see in this movie is that it feels like it was made by people who have genuine love for the western genre and just want to do a simple period revenge flick.  But with that love comes blindness to its own faults, because the rose-colored glasses are strong with this flick.  Long Shadows feels like a modern day version of one of those low budget B-movie westerns that shot on convenient locations and backlot sets that were filmed in a week and flooded the market during the 1950's.  It's quickly put together and shoddy, made for an audience that exclusively watches movies exactly like it with little care for quality.  It's hard to justify going to the movies to see this when the sensible option for your western revenge fantasy kick is to stay home and replay Red Dead Redemption.

Lost & Found in Cleveland

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy, Drama

Director:  Marisa Guterman, Keith Gerchak

Starring:  Martin Sheen, Dennis Haysbert, June Squibb, Stacy Keach, Yvette Yates Redick, Santino Fontana, Jon Lovitz

Television's biggest antique show, Lost & Found, comes to Cleveland and the various citizens gear up to put their heirlooms and valuables up for appraisal.  The people who created Lost & Found in Cleveland certainly love to get lost in their character work.  That's a good thing because the intention of the film is to contextualize all the personalities you might see at an event like this.  I like the idea of this movie, I'd have rather seen a version of this movie that doesn't feel this empty.  If I can state something admirable about the film's production, it's that it is made with consistency in its off-beat vibes.  What makes the movie frustrating is that its so busy vibing with itself that it rarely amuses.  I couldn't help but get impatient in waiting for it to actually tell a story.  Movies this lighthearted shouldn't be this boring.  The movie finally gains a pulse once it arrives at the antique show, but it has taken so long to get there and the path was such a lumbering slog that it doesn't hit like it should.  It's a shame because the movie can charm if its not meandering around, running with gags and plot beats that aren't working.  I'd like to see this production team work on a different movie, something more straightforward with fewer characters, and see if it brings about a better result.

Nuremberg

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama

Director:  James Vanderbilt

Starring:  Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Leo Woodall, John Slattery, Mark O'Brien, Colin Hanks, Wren Schmidt, Lydia Peckham, Richard E. Grant, Michael Shannon

If Nuremberg was released thirty years ago it probably would have been a heavy award season favorite.  Today, it's old fashioned to a fault, though if one looks at it through the lens of those historical "actors doing ACTING" dramas of yesteryear, the movie is above average.  The film is a dramatization of the post-World War II Nuremberg trials, concentrating heavily on Hitler's trusted officer Hermann Göring, played by Russell Crowe.  The framing device uses Rami Malek as a psychiatrist who analyzes Göring to keep him mentally stable for trial.  It's an interesting storytelling device because it has an approach of getting to know the humans behind the atrocity, while also being cautious of a silver tongue, framing their own crimes in the most innocent possible light.  I think this was done in a more compelling way in Zone of Interest, though I'll admit Nuremberg is satisfying in a "meat and potatoes" kind of way.  It's a movie more likely to satisfy Boomers than the modern cinephile who is used to more nuance.  But there is still something that hits about two dudes in a room getting pissy at each other.  Maybe it's a bit too long, but Nuremberg has the sauce.

Predator:  Badlands

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Science Fiction, Action

Director:  Dan Trachtenberg

Starring:  Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi

Two good Predator movies in a row was unprecedented.  Three is a miracle.  Predator usually works best as a gung ho actioneer of gruff antagonistic protagonists squaring off against something even more antagonistic than they are, which is why I'll always prefer the original Predator and 2010's Predators to 2022's Prey, which is a very adequate "girl defies the patriarchy" movie with an alien in it.  It's a good movie, but not as memorable or as rousing as muscles vs. lasers.  That being said, Prey director Dan Trachtenberg has also proven he's the shot-in-the-arm that the franchise needed after Shane Black's The Predator strangled it and left it for dead.  Trachtenberg takes the franchise in unexpected directions, scaling it back for Prey, animating an anthology in Killer of Killers, and finally focusing on the Predator as the protagonist in Badlands.  This is kind of what Adam Wingard was going for in Godzilla x Kong:  The New Empire last year, where he wanted the movie monsters to be the central plot-moving characters of his story.  Trachtenberg has an advantage in that the Predator race is more humanoid than Godzilla or Kong, being much smaller and able to communicate more clearly.  This also effectively brings it back to the idea that the protagonist is a badass (ugly) motherfucker being terrorized by something big and nasty, which I appreciated.

Predator:  Badlands sees a young "Yautja" (this is the nerd name for the Predator race) named Dek who goes on a dangerous hunt for an "unkillable" apex predator known as the Kalisk, wanting to prove he is worthy of his clan.  Along the way, he is aided by a damaged robot by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation (the fist tie-in between Alien and Predator film media that was not specifically in an Alien vs. Predator movie), who was tasked to capture the Kalisk.  It's not a complicated narrative, but it successfully lore-expanding without being and exposition dump.  If it seems overly familiar, that's because the Predator's rituals have basically evolved into that of the Klingons from Star Trek.  And here we basically have a buddy movie between a Klingon and an android.  The movie is little more than a lost Next Generation episode focusing on Worf and Data, just modded with Predator skins.  It's a solid Next Generation episode, though.

The film is nothing if it's not an action spectacle.  The film embraces the sci-fi action of the Predator franchise on a level we have yet to see from it.  Dek is an interesting protagonist to the story, one that speaks no English and is absurdly stoic.  Levity is brought to the film by Elle Fanning's robot character Thia, who is constantly plucky and pleasant, contrasting Dek's sour mood.  The duo make a pretty effective pairing, and it's their interplay that makes the movie a fun watch to counterweight the flashy action.  And that's the one word I'd use to describe this movie:  fun.  The movie is practically a non-stop ride, and even ends on a note showing the ride isn't going to stop any time soon, similar to Predators.

If there were one thing that kind of irks me about this movie, it's that it feels way too animated.  The movie uses CGI to enhance Dek's facial expressions, but he's almost "too expressive," in a way that makes a Predator's facial features look silly.  The film is filled with crazy setpieces that are pretty cool, but they also feel bloodless and without consequence, and some of them defy reasonable physics.  And the cap on this is that they also give Dek a cute little pet as a sidekick.  That's not really what I'd call a Predator vibe, if I can speak for myself.  Sometimes the movie feels like a cartoon, and that's when it starts to feel exhausting.  It's also a testament to its skilled production team that it can win me back when it's at risk of losing me.  Because of this, Predator:  Badlands most certainly is not the best Predator movie, but it's another win for Trachtenberg and further proof that the keys are in safe hands.

Sarah's Oil

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Cyrus Nowrasteh

Starring:  Naya Desir-Johnson, Zachary Levi, Sonequa Martin-Green, Garret Dillahunt

There's a scene in Sarah's Oil where Zachary Levi has an urgent discussion with lady supporting player Bridget Regan and a newly introduced Black supporting player.  White performers Levi and Regan have all the dialogue in this scene, arguing over the rights of a little Black girl, while the nameless Black man just stands to the side and stays silent.  Boy, if I could sum up this movie in one image, it would be that.

The film centers on a young Black girl named Sarah who inherits a piece of land and suspects there might be oil on it.  She entrusts prospector Zachary Levi to help her mine it, but he might also need to help her protect it from claim jumpers.  The movie is clearly a dumbed-down portrayal of the Black experience designed to ensure a white guy's non-racism is the hero of the story, and the movie's heights of melodrama can be absurdly shameless.  On the plus side, it's a mostly harmless, if heartless, depiction of an interesting story.  Zachary Levi does fairly well here, playing a generic "I'm one of the good ones" trusted white friend, one that talks fast like a grifter but wears his heart on his sleeve, the type of role he has always played just fine.  The problem is that he's wrestling the spotlight away from the person who should be the protagonist, and it feels as if it's done so because the movie needs a minor brand name celeb who also isn't a minority.  Add in his comedic personality wrestling with the film's melodrama, the film is just an odd flavor.  On the scale of movies about Black people made for white people, Sarah's Oil does it's job in convincing its conservative viewers that they aren't racist because they watched a movie and sympathized with a Black child.  It's very clear it has limits of how compelling it's willing to be, taking cheap shots in sentimentality rather than forming anything with gravitas.

Unexpected Christmas

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy, Romance

Director:  Michael Vaughn Hernandez

Starring:  Tabitha Brown, Lil Rel Howrey, Anna Marie Horsford, DomiNque Perry, Reagan Gomez-Preston

Oh snap!  Holiday family tension is about to boil!  A recently dumped woman returns home for Christmas only to discover the man who broke up with her is dating her sister.  She the decides to ramp up the tension by setting up her gay best friend as her own boyfriend.  It's a movie that doesn't seek to reinvent the wheel in any shape or form, though it does overcomplicate its simplicity with a subplot about land being purchased something something something big business vs. community.  It's largely not important, but generic plot beats might weigh you down with a melodramatic presentation of holiday farce.  The film's strangest aspect is how it seems to give up on being a comedy halfway through and becomes a bunch of senseless flailing dramatic outbursts.  An undemanding audience might find the film to be cozy.  What comedy it does have is played up, rarely doing a well-staged comedic moment, but its humor is lightly amusing while never crossing into unpleasant.  It's an unambitious film that just exists to exist.  There's not much to gain from watching this movie, but the best thing that can be said about it is that its an inoffensive presentation of almost nothing.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Back to the Future ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Black Phone 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bugonia ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Good Fortune ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Regretting You ⭐️⭐️1/2

Roofman ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shelby Oaks ⭐️1/2

Springsteen:  Deliver Me from Nowhere ⭐️⭐️1/2

Stitch Head ⭐️⭐️1/2

Tron:  Ares ⭐️⭐️

Violent Ends ⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Digital

Black Phone 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Frankenstein ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Good Fortune ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

No Other Land ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

The Smashing Machine ⭐️⭐️1/2

Waltzing with Brando ⭐️⭐️

New To Physical

CODA ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Coming Soon!