Multiplex Madness
⭐⭐⭐1/2
Genre: Fantasy, Comedy, Adventure
Director: Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley
Starring: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Regé-Jean Page, Hugh Grant, Daisy Head, Chloe Coleman
Dungeons & Dragons has a large stigma to overcome. The RPG itself has been deemed "too nerdy" for mainstream for decades, but then again so were comic books and Star Trek, now both more widely embraced by the public than they've ever been. It also has to live down a previous film from 2000, notoriously one of the most disastrous blockbusters in film history (and I wouldn't have it any other way. I love that steaming pile of crap). But at first you don't succeed, try and try again. Several decades later, D&D is back on the big screen, this time less self-serious but more attentive to making the lore work for film. Made by the directors of Game Night, one of the best comedies of the last decade, this D&D movie sees that the strength of D&D is how tangible it is. D&D isn't definitively one thing, if anything it's a loose concept designed for escapism or just goofing off. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves embraces that, providing a loose adventure taken seriously enough to be involved in, but not so serious that the characters aren't having a laugh living in this world. A close comparison might be a Marvel movie, like Iron Man, as it's quippy and funny, and the action helps define it as an excellent ride. Some sequences are even more impressive than you'd expect, especially a sequence that follows Sophia Lillis's shapeshifting character being chased in one take. While the element of "fetch quests" might be too prevalent in the film, considering D&D's very core is about fetch quests, I think we should let it slide. If anything, there's too many dungeons and not enough dragons. But everyone involved in this movie is giving it their all in making a D&D film franchise a thing. And if this is D&D's last stand on the big screen, at least they went out screaming "LORD OF THE RINGS IS FOR PUSSIES!"
Malum
⭐1/2
Genre: Horror
Director: Anthony DiBlasi
Starring: Jessica Sula
I didn't know this going in, but Malum is remake of Last Shift, which is a film I've never seen but have heard of, but was interested in hearing was made by the same director. I'm pleased to say I have no comparison to hold back my opinion of this movie, so I can let it suck on its own merits. Solid make-up work highlights this dim attempt at a psychological horror flick, which sees a rookie cop taking a shift at the all-but-abandoned old police station her father went on a rampage in, only to find lots of ghostly spookums. The movie feels like it's taking influence from many haunted house movies throughout the years. Sometimes it's trying to be The Haunting, then The Conjuring, then Ju-On, and sometimes it's doing its own thing. I just wish it were good at any of it. Malum seems to distinctly know what it wants to be, but there's a limit on how deep down a movie's own rabbit hole I'm willing to go before I toss my hands up and say "You know what, movie? Do whatever. I stopped caring a while ago." The movie wants to be such a psychological beat down that the audience will never know what's real and what's not, but it never leads to anything that feels like what we witness bears any meaning. It's a lot of noise and imagery, some of which can be effective in hitting at the right moment, while others are bungled by just tossing itself out of nowhere. It doesn't help that so much of the movie seems to hinge on its sound design, which is very sloppy, feeling oddly disconnected from the image. It brings about a movie that feels muted, both in its suspense and its audience reaction.
Spinning Gold
⭐⭐
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Musical
Director: Timothy Scott Bogart
Starring: Jeremy Jordan, Michelle Monaghan, Lyndsy Fonseca, Jason Isaacs
Spinning Gold chronicles the true story of Neil Bogart and Casablanca Records, as they go from debt-filled indie label with an ear for talent to the host of some of the hottest sounds of the 70's, including KISS and Donna Summer. It's certainly an interesting story, and the movie tries like hell to do it justice, even if it seems like these good intentions are leading to the path to hell. It has a very strange tone, that's halfway through quirky wise-ass dramedy and schmaltzy nostalgic sentimental soap operatics, and it leans into both harder than it probably should. I think I understand why it's going for that, but it's more off-putting than charming. Its attempts to look lavish also backfire, because the movie wants to feel big, but its enclosed sets and obvious green screen work all make it feel tiny and quaint. I gotta respect it for sticking to its guns, even if they're backfiring. The film almost works as a metaphor for its story, working hard to sell itself without realizing its approach is flawed.
A Thousand and One
⭐⭐⭐1/2
Genre: Drama
Director: A.V. Rockwell
Starring: Teyana Taylor, Will Catlett, Josiah Cross, Aven Courtney, Aaron Kingsley Adetola
This drama sees a Black woman kidnapping her son from the foster system and hiding out in New York City, where they struggle to live through systematic racism and the changing landscape. The movie's drama can be aggressive, but I always got the impression that the film was built upon honesty, a genuine insight into a barely-scraping-by minority family, built upon a very strong performance by Teyana Taylor. The movie's climax is almost a misfire, as it's more complicated than the movie knows what to do with, but it does thematically tie the movie together as a experience of life and society's unfairness and the uncertainty of what comes next. There is also a bit of uneven schmaltz littered throughout, but that's about all that's holding me back from claiming this is the full package.
Trinket Box
⭐1/2
Genre: Horror
Director: Patrycja Kepa, Acoryé White
Starring: Augie Duke, Acoryé White, Sandra Ellis Lafferty
A couple moves into their new house where they are gifted with a necklace by their neighbor, which seems to cause strange hauntings and behavior around them. It's like someone liked the portion of the last Harry Potter book where a cursed necklace turned Ron into a whiny little bitch, so they decided to make an entire horror movie out of it. Now imagine that crossbred with Paranormal Activity, only abandoning the found footage gimmick. This is a movie that is obviously working with limited money, time, and resources. Most of its effort seems to have gone into making its horror scenes as effective as possible. The problem is that when the movie isn't going for the spooks, it doesn't seem to know what to do with itself. All the acting and drama scenes seem fumbled through, hoping to get to the next night haunt faster. It's all clumsy and choppy, with a strange softcore porn soundtrack. One can even argue that the horror scenes are trite and not very interesting too, but my counterpoint to that is that when everything is failing around them the way that they are, the competency of them should be relieving. But even that ends unfortunately with a conclusion that is abstract and unsatisfying, with the added thematic afterthought of "Racism, maybe?" If they had started with a fully formed idea and then added subtext to it, then maybe you could have worked this, but as is, the movie is just random shit in a horror package.
Art Attack
The Blue Caftan
⭐⭐⭐1/2
Genre: Drama
Director: Maryam Touzani
Starring: Lubna Azabel, Saleh Bakri, Ayoub Missioui
My arthouse brought in some flicks that were submitted for the International category at the Oscars but didn't make the cut. The first is The Blue Caftan, which hails from Morocco, telling a story between a married couple who run a caftan tailor shop, the husband a closeted gay man and the wife dying from cancer. It's a very quiet movie that favors reflection, as we see the struggle of his personal deception as the woman who he has lived his life with prepares to be laid to rest. What I found interesting is the strong relationship between the pair, in that even if the relationship was at odds with one partner's repressed sexuality, you could define the love and affection between the two and why they are together. If the movie didn't have that piece of its soul on display, I don't see it being have as investing as it is.
Return to Seoul
⭐⭐⭐1/2
Genre: Drama
Director: Davy Chou
Starring: Ji-Min Park, Oh Kwang-rok, Guka Han, Kim Sun-young
A film co-produced by several countries (including the premise-involving France and South Korea), Return to Seoul was claimed by Cambodia for the Oscars race but didn't quite make it, though I've still seen it pop up on end-of-the-year favorites lists. This movie sees a Korean orphan who was raised in France return to South Korea where she attempts to find her parents. A very basic-sounding premise is more complex in her actions than is story, as thematically the film is about a woman who is lost. She doesn't know who she is, and she thinks that if she finds out where she comes from, it will answer the question of who she's meant to be. Instead she finds that the questions answered may not satisfy her and feel alien to what she needs. As to what she needs, she doesn't know. That's another question she needs answered, and she tries to fill that blank in a variety of ways. It's a film about the misery of uncertainty, projecting an image of one's self that masks how confused one is with a carefree nature. And there are also the moments where she starts to look content, which causes her to hit her own self-destruct button, because there is still the anxiety of uncertainty in happiness. It's an interesting journey of following her emotional state, and if you can keep up, it's quite the ride.
Netflix & Chill
Tetris
⭐⭐⭐1/2
Streaming On: AppleTV
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Director: Jon S. Baird
Starring: Taron Egerton, Nikita Efromov, Sofia Lebedeva, Anthony Boyle, Toby Jones
Anybody who has an interest in video games owes it to themselves to learn the much-more-complex-than-you'd-think story of how Tetris left Russia and became the most popular puzzle game in gaming history. If you've never heard it, now there is a movie that exists to bring you up to speed. The film follows game licenser Henk Rogers as he makes his bid to own a piece of distribution of a then-new Russian game Tetris, but in doing so finds contracts so tangled up that he may actually have a chance at worldwide distribution. But business on Soviet soil becomes potentially dangerous as politics start to get involved in the bidding war for a simple little puzzle game. The drawback to this film is that you can easily see the elements of it that were spruced up for Hollywood, but one can't deny that they infuse this already crazy story with an entertainment value that helps keep its tone playful, like a video game. To an extent, the movie feels less grounded as it goes on because of this, and since the story by itself might have been good enough to serve as a movie by itself, I can see this not being everyone's cup of tea. But for those who might be experiencing this story for the first time, they'll be whisked away by it, and then dare to look it up to see how much of it was factual. It's a blast.
The Unheard
⭐⭐
Streaming On: Shudder
Genre: Thriller
Director: Jeffery A. Brown
Starring: Lachlan Watson, Brendan Meyer, Nick Sandow, Shunori Ramanathan, Michelle Hicks
Those who don't like their suspense movies slow burn will do best to look elsewhere, as The Unheard takes its sweet time to get where it's going. Personally, I found there to be an exceptional amount to like in the film, but it never comes together the way it feels like it should. The film centers around a deaf woman, played by Lachlan Watson (they played Glen and Glenda on Chucky!!!), who undertakes an experimental procedure to regain her hearing, but finds herself hearing strange, possibly supernatural occurrences in her house. Watson is a really good lead for the film, and their performance is quite nuanced and investing. I also really dug the cinematography, which seems heavily influenced by John Carpenter's Halloween, and I quite liked the sound design as well. The movie gets more problematic with its themes, of which the film tries to be a metaphor for anxiety stemming from trauma, attempting to move past it and being snapped back unexpectedly. The ideas it plays with are interesting, but its delivery grows more chaotic with the more elements it adds to the brew. Quite simply, it's a movie about deafness that threatens to become just noise.
Movies Still Playing At My Theater
65 ⭐⭐
Avatar: The Way of Water ⭐⭐⭐1/2
Champions ⭐⭐1/2
Cocaine Bear ⭐⭐⭐
Creed III ⭐⭐⭐
A Good Person ⭐⭐1/2
Jesus Revolution ⭐⭐1/2
John Wick: Chapter 4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Lost King ⭐⭐⭐
Scream VI ⭐⭐1/2
Shazam! Fury of the Gods ⭐⭐⭐1/2
New To Digital
Champions ⭐⭐1/2
Creed III ⭐⭐⭐
The Son ⭐⭐⭐
New To Physical
Missing ⭐⭐⭐
Plane ⭐⭐1/2
Coming Soon!
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