Multiplex Madness
Asteroid City
⭐⭐1/2
Genre: Comedy, Sci-Fi
Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Gilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan, Jeff Goldblum
Traditionally I don't care for Wes Anderson, so any and all fans may want to take whatever I say with a grain of salt. I get what he does, but I always stare at his movies blankly without finding them charming or interesting. It's great that he's committed to his thing, though. I'm happy for him. I had some draw to this one in its aesthetic, as its presenting itself like a script to a stage play or a cheap 50's TV production, but it almost wants us to believe it's a movie that accidentally has too much money. It's a movie with millions of dollars in the bank that wants to look like it only has hundreds, framing large, detailed sets and props like they're supposed to look like cardboard cutouts against canvas backdrops. That's cute and I enjoyed that. I also like how Anderson is playing with a genre-bending sci-fi "first contact" concept, which shows him pushing his comfort zone even if he never leaves it. My pitfall is the same one I always get with Anderson and it's that I'm just over it in twenty minutes, but the movie still has over an hour left and I just have sit here and take it. The things I wish this movie would do are things that Anderson would never do, so the fact that it doesn't lean into "cheap sci-fi" homage enough and saying it's "too Wes Anderson" isn't even something I can fairly criticize. It is what it is. He's an artist that is both free to be creative with his own pallette that's distinctly his and also boxed in because he does almost exclusively what his auteur status holds him to. People will love this movie for that and I can't even be mad at it.
God Is a Bullet
⭐⭐
Genre: Thriller
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Starring: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Maïka Monroe, Jamie Foxx
A cop tracks down a Satanist cult that kidnapped his daughter with the aid of an ex-member who claims the same thing happened to her. Claiming to be based on a true story, God Is a Bullet instead feels like writer/director Nick Cassavetes doing his own take on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo story of an investigator with unlikely help from a psychologically scarred pessimist, only done with a much heavier hand. The movie is very high on its own extremity. It even seems to think its nihilism is poetry. The film wades so much time waxing on about life being a few miserable decades followed by a dirt nap while its main character has a crisis of faith. It spends too long analyzing its own philosophy that it doesn't realize how long its prattling on. The film deserves to be much tighter than it is, as its stacked with dead end subplots and characters who spend entire scenes just trying to depress each other. When the movie does work, it's not great, but there are elements that show promise. I was invested in the main story, it just takes too long to travel through it and there are about five tying-loose-ends endings it has to go through before it's finally finished. The honest to god truth is that it feels like a Netflix show that was deemed overlong and boring and was mercifully pruned down to a still too long two-and-a-half hour movie and thrown into a theater without promotion to die. I'm sure that's a metaphor for the movie's entire global outlook, though.
Past Lives
⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Drama, Romance
Director: Celine Song
Starring: Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro
Past Lives is the story of two childhood sweethearts from South Korea separated after one immigrates to America. After years apart, the become reacquainted in an effort to find closure for the romance that never blossomed even as their lives lived in the time apart keep them from exploring it as deeply as they may need. The movie is a lovely ode to the missed connection, the thing that should have been that didn't happen for one reason or another. Its look at it is sad and reflective but never melancholy or resentful, looking for a silver lining in its clouds. What holds it back is that its screenplay isn't meaty enough. It feels intimately detailed at times, and undernourished in others. The film's flash-forward presentation doesn't heed it any favors, because while the passing of time is represented, their lives don't feel lived in, as if they stopped existing in twelve year gaps then just say "We're back, this is what happened while we were gone." This is rather minor nitpick in the grand picture of the movie, but it's what keeps its good instead of great. The movie sells itself on its commitment to the presentation that love isn't a fairy tale. It happens the way it happens often by happenstance. There's nothing romantic about that, but we love our rose-colored glass view of it. Maybe "the one" is someone else. Sucks to be them. Don't dwell on it. It's unhealthy.
Netflix & Chill
The Perfect Find
⭐⭐
Streaming On: Netflix
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Director: Numa Perrier
Starring: Gabrielle Union, Keith Powers, Gina Torres
Gabrielle Union plays a disgraced fashion journalist who is trying to rebuild her career under a former rival's company, but soon finds herself having an affair with the boss's son. The Perfect Find is a very basic pop romcom that feels like it wants to be steamy, but is always pouring too much water on its own fire; wants to be funny, but is more of "oh, what an awkward situation" than a laugh-generator; and wants to be romantic, but is very content on coasting on how attractive the leads are. The movie mainly seems to want to be vibes more than a story, as it often cues up soft tunes to play under its scenes, like the director has stuck earbuds in the viewer and is playing you their personal seduction playlist while you watch their movie. The movie trips over itself on its way to being a sexy good time, though while it's not particularly good, it's hard to imagine that romcom fans won't enjoy killing an hour-and-a-half to its smooth beat.
Unwelcome
⭐⭐
Streaming On: Shudder
Genre: Horror
Director: Jon Wright
Starring: Hannah John-Kamen, Douglas Booth, Colm Meaney
This fairy tale inspired horror film sees an expecting couple inheriting a cottage from a great-aunt's passing, which comes with the superstition of giving woodland creatures known as "Red Caps" and offering of meat each night. But as they find their neighbors to be less than neighborly, they also discover the superstition might also be a dangerous reality. Unwelcome is highlighted by a committed, unhinged Brothers Grimm presentation, with some imaginative fantasy design and outstanding creature effects. The Red Caps themselves are such devilishly charming elvish creatures that I found myself wishing they were in more of the movie. That kinda brings me to the downside, because the film doesn't lean hard enough in this direction. The Red Caps are largely irrelevant to the story of our characters, as they just burst in and create havoc and confusion in the climax. One could argue that fairy tales being structured like this is not unheard of, but a smarter screenplay could infuse everything more harmoniously. For the majority of the screentime, the movie is about a couple who are provoked and bullied by aggressive outsiders who wish them harm for no reason. Thematically the film seems to want to be about standing your own ground and fighting one's own battles (which is a weird theme to have when you start out with a pregnant woman being attacked by hoodlums with knives), but it never comes together, especially when one layers the fantastical subplot on top of it. It turns the film into something whimsical and quirky while also being angry and aggressive at the same time.
Movies Still Playing At My Theater
The Little Mermaid ⭐⭐1/2
The Machine ⭐⭐
New To Streaming
Love Again ⭐⭐
The Machine ⭐⭐
You Hurt My Feelings ⭐⭐⭐1/2
New To Physical
Avatar: The Way of Water ⭐⭐⭐1/2
The Covenant ⭐⭐⭐
Skinamarink ⭐⭐
Coming Soon!
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