MST3K, RiffTrax, and Beyond: Cinema Playground Journal 2023: Week 7 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Superhero, Science-Fiction, Action, Fantasy

Director: Payton Reed

Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lily, Jonathan majors, Kathryn Newton, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Bill Murray, Corey Stoll

What's interesting about the Ant-Man movies is that each film is different from each other. Watching an Iron Man movie or a Thor movie or a Guardians of the Galaxy movie, each series has a thing that it sticks to, while Ant-Man switches its gears a lot. From the first heist movie formula to the second's beginning to end road chase and now with Quantumania's hard sci-fi fantasy, Ant-Man has established itself as a series that's not comfortable playing inside a box. In Quantumania's case, whether you're on board largely lies on how far outside the box you're willing to go. A heist movie and a chase movie have different structures, but they aren't too different from each other in spirit. Quantumania tries to keep that spirit by handing the screenplay to Rick and Morty veteran Jeff Loveness (and it does feel like a Rick and Morty script at times), hoping to keep itself weird and inventive while also fun and spirited. Sometimes it gets more serious than you'd expect from an Ant-Man movie (Scott's ex-con friends are sorely missed from this film), but there is a balance that works quite well because heist and chase narratives can be fun, but they're limited, while sci-fi narratives are freeing. Quantumania's sci-fi landscapes may seem quaint mere months after an Avatar movie, and it's certainly derivative of other franchises like Star Wars, but it makes up for it by keeping its pace moving with a spirited playfulness. It also wins points for its villains, and Jonathan Majors is an intimidating presence who looms large over the movie, and every scene with M.O.D.O.K. made me smile. I actually like the best of the three Ant-Man movies, but I like Spider-Man 3, so what do I know?

Marlowe

⭐⭐

Genre: Noir, Drama

Director: Neil Jordan

Starring: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange, Danny Huston, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Alan Cumming, Colm Meaney

Marlowe seems like such a good idea, bringing back a classic literary detective character with a film legacy that includes Humphrey Bogart and Robert Montgomery and turn it into a slick and smooth Liam Neeson vehicle. I mean, yes please! Why does this movie suck so much? Well, for starters adapting a legacy novel from outside the original pulp series is like doing a film adaptation of The Girl in the Spider's Web instead of The Girl Who Played with Fire (I still can't believe Sony did that). Nobody wants The Black-Eyed Blonde, they want The Big Sleep. But that's not saying something good can't be made, especially with this style and this cast. Marlowe should be a very good movie, but it has a vibe of everyone gaving up on it at some point. It feels like a play that everyone in the production looks bored with. All the dialogue is stiff and rehearsed, and those speaking it spit it out as if they're working past it rather than playing a character. It feels like the facsimile of a noir film that got lost on its way to be one. Or maybe it's trying too hard to feel like a 40's thriller, blissfully unaware that some presentations work in their era, but evolve as they age for good reason. It's rough to say that, because a vision is clearly here, but the film itself is failing to live up to it.

Oscar Nominated Short Films: Animated

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

⭐⭐⭐

Based on the popular children's book, this was a film co-produced by the BBC, Apple, and J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot, which means out of the five shorts featured here, it was hands down the most expensive to produce by far. Hell, just paying the cast probably cost more money than the others listed here, as it includes celebs like Idris Elba, Gabriel Byrne, and Tom Hollander. The film is meant for very young children (unlike several others here...one in particular), which sees an orphan boy looking for a home and befriending several animals along the way. There's a quaint charm to the production, like a Winnie the Pooh cartoon. It's very calm, peaceful, and relays a strong moral message (though don't tell children to make a home in the snow with animals, that would not turn out well). The animation evokes the illustrations of the book and is beautiful to look at.

The Flying Sailor

⭐⭐1/2

Inspired by an account of a sailor in 1917 who survived an explosion. This short imagines it as a sort of existential look at how precious life is. While I admire the imagination and work that went into it (some of the animation is quite lovely), ultimately it doesn't really stand apart from other dreamlike artworks I've seen. I've felt like I've seen a little too many stories like this before and I didn't find it very interesting. And it had a little too much animated wang. Not even My Year of Dicks had this much wang.

Ice Merchants

⭐⭐⭐1/2

This pantomime short sees a father and son living lives on the side of a mountain, harvesting ice to sell to villagers down below. This short feels contemplative in a way, while not exactly telling the audience to much about what it's contemplative about. The characters evoke a strong sense of history, living a life that is perilous with little notice, but not without care. The climax is tense and heartfelt, though I'll admit a little bit of disappointment in its final scene in how much of a wave off it can be. But I did get the feels during this short, which is what it wants.

My Year of Dicks

⭐⭐⭐

Animated chronicle of a memoire of a girl who spent her teenage year in 1991 with various boys trying to lose her virginity, failing for one reason or another. Sexual, but not explicit, this short is very frank about lovemaking, and is very funny along the way. I found myself paralelling My Year of Dicks with Best Animated Feature nominee Turning Red, which was a far more family friendly movie, but their approach to their topics are similar. Both are very quirky and animated portrayals of the maturing of women's bodies that are exagerated for comedic effect, but always honest about what it's portraying. If one wasn't aimed at children and the other for adults, I'd almost claim it as a perfect double feature. This short also gets points for mentioning RiffTrax favorite Cool as Ice, so bonus points for that.

An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It

⭐⭐⭐1/2

This student film from Austrailia is almost too clever for its own good. It features a stop motion puppet who begins to suspect his life is a lie as he breaks out of the little stop-motion stage and tries to explore the studio where he is being filmed. Meta comedy, fourth-wall breaking, and just a hint of hilarious body-horror, I enjoyed this sort of Wallace & Gromit meets The Matrix story quite a bit. It's odd, it's smart, it's funny, and it's even unpredictable.

Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live Action

An Irish Goodbye

⭐⭐⭐

It's My Name is Earl meets The Peanut Butter Falcon in this movie which sees two brothers (one with down syndrome) mourning the loss of their mother, while one insinst that they finish a bucket list their mother had with her ashes. Pretty funny, and oddly sweet in a weird way, An Irish Goodbye is a bunch of dark humor clashing with Irish tempers, with a contemplative message about life and family. If The Banshees of Inisherin wins Best Picture this year, I almost hope An Irish Goodbye wins Live Action Short Film, just to compliment it.

Ivalu

⭐⭐⭐

Very arty short has a young girl searching across the landscape for her missing sister, unraveling, and even coming to terms with, why she would run away. To be frank, this short is very heavy. It's actually a bit of a sore thumb among the other nominees because of how heavily comedic many of the other entries are (The Red Suitcase being the exception). It handles its heaviness with a bit of a heavy hand, which I felt was a bit of a detriment, to be honest. I like discovering a little more about Ivalu as it went, but I always felt a bit at arm's length from the short emotionally because it felt more interested in being decorative than emotional. It looks really good, but I wish I felt something while watching it because I felt like I was supposed to.

Le Pupille

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Disney produced short with involvement by Alfonso Cuaron can actually be found on Disney+, if you want to check it out. And I do recommend you do, because Le Pupille is an absolute delight. This features a group of girls living at a boarding school with a group of strict nuns, who restrian the girls' childlike instinct almost too strictly. Funny, adorable, and even a tad heartbreaking in a yearning let children be children sort of way, this movie hits all the right spots. It's a wonderful production and it charmed me more than anything else I watched at the theater this week.

Night Ride

⭐⭐⭐

A woman accidentally steals a tram and finds herself having to pose as the driver for passengers along the way. This short is more simplistic than the others that were screened, as it simply just wants to be an amusing few minutes for the folks who watch it. It's fun and silly, with a dash of a tolerance message for folks who take the journey with it.

The Red Suitcase

⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Muslum girl is flown out to meet the husband she's been arranged to be married to, but she finds herself terrified to go through with it and tries to sneak through customs without being noticed. This anxiety inducing short plays suspense in the simplest ways, as it's clear the girl is terrified and feels that this is something that she needs to escape from. We have very little context for her relationship to her father or her husband-to-be, but it's clear from her reactions that if she is caught, she might rather be dead. The viewer's heart is with her as she ventures from spot to spot, just wishing to be away, no matter the cost. And cost does come, because while the final conclusion might not be the worst possible one, something very important is sacrificed, and one can't help but feel that no matter what, she is in great pain as the short concludes. Beautiful, artistic, and heartbreaking.

Art Attack

Of an Age

⭐⭐⭐1/2

Genre: Drama, Romance

Director: Groan Stolevski

Starring: Elias Antonio, Thom Green, Hattie Hook

Australian romance sees two men bond while taking care of one's trainwreck sister, only to have a brief romance before being separated for ten years. Of an Age has a really strong plot structure, at first telling of a sudden emotional connection that leads to desire and even sexual awakening. Then it's third act is about the aftershock of leaving that moment behind, as some things change and others can't move on. In some ways it's a perfect story about first love, right down to the near-absolute that it often isn't to be. If it stumbles anywhere it's that while the handheld cinematography is striking, it's often focused way to tightly. This might be because the director wants the audience to study the actors' faces for their emotional response, but at times it feels like the blocking is getting lost because it's off-frame. At any rate, the performances are golden and keep the film feeling like a real moment in someone's life.

Netflix & Chill

Sharper

⭐⭐⭐

Streaming On: AppleTV

Genre: Thriller, Crime

Director: Benjamin Caron

Starring: Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, Briana Middleton, John Lithgow

This little pile of plot twists is about a group of con artists who work their marks and each other. The movie almost works itself backwards in a Memento style, showing who is screwing over who, as layers are peeled off the narrative. The issue with this movie is that as the film's "trust no one" motif becomes clear, it's not hard to keep two steps ahead of it, even as it tries to pull the wool over your eyes. I found myself always assuming someone was conning someone in each segment of the film, and it wasn't really hard to figure out who was playing the game. It leaves you with the impression that if these characters were really as smart as they're presented to be, they wouldn't be falling for it. So at the end of the movie, these hard aces come off as big dummies, which is a bit of a kick to the gonads. That being said, the movie is slick and fun to play along with. Even if you can guess what's going to happen, it's actually fun to make the guess itself. I'll give the movie props for that.

Unlocked

⭐⭐1/2

Streaming On: Netflix

Genre: Thriller

Director: Jim Tae-joon

Starring: Chun Woo-hee, Im Si-wan, Kim Hee-won

Very contemporary thriller from South Korea sees a woman's smartphone hacked, and is soon stalked by the culprit, who uses her private information against her. Part of me wants to go to bat for this movie and say I dug it, because when it's working it's quite cracking. But I also feel like there are patches where it pushes itself too hard and others where it doesn't push itself hard enough. It's a movie that comments on how modern technology means none of us truly have privacy anymore, and it does so in some smart ways. Ultimately it's let down by some of the creative choices in its protagonist and antagonist. With the former, the movie never seems to decide whether she's a fighter or a victim, so it tries to compromise with a middle ground but doesn't quite succeed. The latter is under-characterized by the choice to keep him as cold and mysterious as possible, but it mostly just feels like a non-character who is ten steps ahead because the plot needs him to be. But it wouldn't be truthful to say the film is void of interest value, and can investing in the heat of the moment. There's a chance that the movie will be obsolete ten years from now as technology evolves, so I say watch it now while it's as relevant as possible. You may get a kick out of it.

Oscar's Trash Can

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

⭐⭐⭐1/2

Oscars Nominated: Best Animated Feature

Genre: Mockumentary, Comedy, Drama

Director: Dean Fleischer Camp

Starring: Jenny Slate, Dean Fleischer Camp, Isabella Rossellini, Rosa Salazar, Thomas Mann

To put it bluntly, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is cuteness overload. Every little movement this movie makes is a contender for most adorable thing I've ever seen. Based on the YouTube shorts, this film is a fictionalized documentary about the "discovery" of the tiny talking seashell Marcel, who uses his internet fame to search for his missing family. It's a film that spends copious amounts of time watching a little animated shell talk softly, giving off a unique outlook from such a small point of view. It's not a film for those who wish for plot momentum in their films, however Marcel is such a wonderful presence that one can't help but treasure the time we spend with him. Its a soft but funny film for those who take comfort in just seeing him do what he does, and the movie is even oddly existential in its own unique and quirky way.

Will it win Best Animated this year? It's tough to call. This is the first year in a good long while where neither Disney nor Pixar have a strong contender in the game (Turning Red was nominated, but let's face facts, the only advantage it has over its competition is Pixar's dominant track record). And Puss in Boots and Pinocchio are just as good as Marcel in different ways, which could give either Dreamworks its first victory since 2005 or Netflix its first ever. But Marcel humbly stands next to them, hoping to be noticed, but happy to be there.

Oscar Nominees (bold indicates Best Picture nominee)

Aftersun N/A

All That Breathes N/A

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed N/A

All Quiet on the Western Front ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Argentina, 1985 ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Avatar: The Way of Water ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Babylon ⭐⭐

The Banshees of Inisherin ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths N/A

The Batman ⭐⭐⭐

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ⭐⭐⭐1/2