MST3K, RiffTrax, and Beyond

Insidious: The Red Door ⭐⭐

The Little Mermaid ⭐⭐1/2

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One ⭐⭐⭐

No Hard Feelings ⭐⭐

Oppenheimer ⭐⭐⭐

New To Digital

Joy Ride ⭐⭐⭐1/2

The Little Mermaid ⭐⭐1/2

Coming Soon!

Thursday, July 27, 2023

A Tribute to The Christmas That Almost Wasn't (MST3K Special)

The Christmas That Almost Wasn't (review here) is the only tribute event so far that doesn't feature a brand new short as a lead-in. This could be for a couple reasons. For starters, this was a part of the Holiday week of Gizmoplex events, and we've already had two shorts this week. They also decided to debut two shorts during the Festival of Shorts event in January, which meant one of our live events didn't need one. I do have suspicions that the Festival of Shorts was only meant to debut Mr. B Natural, as that short is the only one of our bonus shorts that doesn't feature an intro by Pearl and Cynthia, but that's just speculation on my part.

So far, this is the only tribute event from the modern seasons of the series, bringing in an episode from the Netflix era. If nothing else, it's nice to appreciate the physical sets of this episode in comparison to the Flatimation aesthetic they've adopted. The Netflix sets are gorgeous. We are given some new segments with Emily and her Bots which show the difference, not entirely for the positive, but luckily the show still knows how to bring the funny, which is what's important. These segments feature Emily getting a cantankerous billionaire name created by a name generator (she's "Steve Forbes"), discussing what a sheltered freak Santa is, and we also see her reading a Christmas story to the Bots with Joel. Meanwhile, Synthia is obsessed with an Italian Christmas Donkey song...or something...I don't even know.

On this fourth night of Christmas fun, we get a lovely live Q&A from Phoenixville, with our guests Matt McGinnis, Jonah Ray, Emily Marsh, Baron Vaughn, Kelsey Ann Brady, Rebecca Hanson, Yvonne Freese, Tim Ryder, Deanna Rooney, and a special appearance from Devon Coleman. It's some really great content, with my personal highlight going to Kelsey, who has a very colorful portion where she describes puppeteering Crow, with an epic comparison between puppetry and a floating duck. They also get into a great discussion about fan opinion, of which Kelsey gets the laugh of the night with her epic waiving off the question (I think we all know what opinion she's been hearing ever since she picked up the Crow puppet and bless her for putting up with that nonsense). I love Tim Ryder's response of "We're not trying to make them mad," which is something that can be said for a lot of media that I think a lot of people should try and keep in mind.

It's a pretty fun gab session, and these things tend to play better in front of an audience as opposed to on a Zoom screen, creating better reactions from our cast. I've been very content with what has been offered from the Phoenixville presentation so far. But we're not done, for there is one more left.

To Be Concluded...

Monday, July 24, 2023

Cinema Playground Journal 2023: Week 29 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Barbie

⭐⭐⭐1/2

Genre: Comedy

Director: Greta Gerwig

Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt, Will Farrell, Simu Liu, Kate McKinnon

Happy Barbenheimer Weekend to all who celebrate! And whether or not you're exclusively Oppenheimer because you're a joyless loser, one has to appreciate the genuine effort to make everyone and their dog curious about a Barbie movie.

It's probably not as groundbreaking as it's being sold as, as it's practically a Matrix take on Toy Story, where a Barbie has a existential crisis that leads her to leave the confines of Barbieland to find the girl who plays with her in the real world. Barbie has the self-referential meta of The Lego Movie and The Brady Bunch Movie, with the aesthetic choose of 1994's The Flintstones movie, which gives the film demographic appeal to adults and men. The issue the movie bumps into is that for a film about a doll aimed at young girls, it's not really a movie for children. It's possible a child could watch it, but parents might want to be aware of it's sexual references and pretty deep systematic commentary that children likely won't understand. It's more of a movie aimed at adult women who remember playing with Barbie as a child, contrasting the world of Barbie to the real world they grew into. Director Greta Gerwig uses the idea of Barbie as a metaphor for growing up: being given so many ideas of who you can be, living in a world will suppress and ignore those ideas from you, and discovering the person you are. Barbie might be too complex for the audience you'd assume it should be targeted at, but it's a beautiful achievement for a film based on a toy. Just be warned that your four-year-old daughter will come out of it asking "Mommy, what's a gynecologist?"

The Miracle Club

⭐⭐1/2

Genre: Drama

Director: Thaddeus O'Sullivan

Starring: Laura Linney, Kathy Bates, Maggie Smith, Agnes O'Casey, Stephen Rea

Laura Linney plays an estranged cousin who was disowned after aborting her pregnancy returns home to Ireland after her mother passes away, finding her reception less than welcoming. She joins her family on a road trip to Lourdes as each seeks to heal something within them through a "miracle." The Miracle Club knows its audience, playing up to a demographic that has seen sappy generational family dramas exactly like this and are on the market for at least one more. The selling point being the cast, of which this one has Laura Linney, Kathy Bates, and Maggie Smith passing off passive aggressive remarks toward each other but longing for reconnection. Linney, Bates, and Smith are professional enough to give this movie everything they have even if it's not a movie that will go down as a career highlight for any of them. That's probably the best one can ask for with this movie, as it's a movie certain people will adore while others will ignore. Those who do watch it may be interested in the themes of paternal nature, including the children we have and the children that never happened, as well as how it shapes our relationship with those closest to us, as well as one's uncertainty in whether or not their paternal decisions are for the best.

Oppenheimer

⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Drama:

Director: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Ramify Malek, Kenneth Branagh

Christopher Nolan's latest finds the director doing a biopic of Robert Oppenheimer, the man who led the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb, which begat the creation of Godzilla. As a Godzilla movie, Oppenheimer is a failure, as it doesn't have Godzilla in it. As a biopic, it is very threaded, utilizing Nolan's trademark editing flow and light nonlinear style to keep the film's momentum from becoming a chore over its three hour runtime. However, I will confess I found a few elements a bit too "Nolan" for its own good. He utilizes the sound mix to beat down the viewer and keep them rattled throughout the film, though I was more bemused by it as a parlor trick to try and make its drama stronger. Despite Nolan's best efforts to make the film an intensely visceral experience, I found it difficult to view the film further than the lens neutral observer. That doesn't make it a bad movie, just one that kinda slogs through its own mud trail. The good news is that the drama and politics are interesting enough to make Oppenheimer worth a watch, but it's not the experience it sets out to be

Netflix & Chill

They Cloned Tyrone

⭐⭐⭐

Streaming On: Netflix

Genre: Science Fiction, Comedy, Thriller

Director: Juel Taylor

Starring: John Boyega, Teyonah Paris, Jamie Foxx, Kiefer Sutherland

Interesting twist on a science fiction premise finds John Boyega as a drug dealer who is gunned down, but fine the next day, leading to him, a pimp, and a hooker going down a conspiracy rabbit hole of what happened to him. The tone of They Cloned Tyrone is unique, because it starts out as a gritty street drama that soon takes a weird turn, then it turns comedic as the characters grow paranoid of its own bizarreness, with social commentary that reminds of Jordan Peele's horror efforts. It's an intriguingly fun spiral of a story, which probably loses something in a plot point being spoiled in the title. Movies this endearingly different are hard to come by though, which makes They Cloned Tyrone worth a watch.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Asteroid City ⭐⭐1/2

Elemental ⭐⭐⭐

Insidious: The Red Door ⭐⭐

Joy Ride ⭐⭐⭐1/2

The Little Mermaid ⭐⭐1/2

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One ⭐⭐⭐

No Hard Feelings ⭐⭐

New To Digital

The Flash ⭐⭐1/2

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken ⭐⭐1/2

New To Physical

Fool's Paradise ⭐⭐⭐

Kandahar ⭐⭐1/2

Love Again ⭐⭐

Coming Soon!

Friday, July 21, 2023

Attending the MST3Kon in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania!

So, on a whim I traveled to Pennsylvania for MST3Kon at the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville, which was a part of their BlobFest celebrations for the year 2023. This was something I don't normally do, but the thing is the last MST Live tour was supposed to come to Boise last year, but they got snowed out, and I always felt salty that I never got to meet the cast that day.

But making my way here was not easy. I'm an Idaho boy, and I've never been on the East side of the country in my entire life. I do not have the disposable income for a trip like this and my job can be very anti-flexible at this time of the year. I made it work, somehow, though my job did work like hell to keep me here, up to the point that they wanted me to work on the night of my flight. I had to rearrange some shifts and work almost nonstop to get the time I needed to fly out. It seemed like it was going to work out until I injured my back early on and was unable to get it checked out before flying out because I was so pressed for time. But I made my flight and wound up in Philadelphia on time and without a hitch in my travel plans.

The first thing I was struck by was this feeling of heat. I felt this unsteady discomfort of warmth as I was leaving the airport terminal, which I felt was odd because I felt the air conditioning should have offset it, but it's summer, so I didn't think too strongly about it. Arriving outside, the heat felt different than the heat I am normally used to and didn't realize what was going on until I picked up my car rental. I took one look at my car and wondered to myself "Why is it bone dry but look drenched like it's been raining?" At this point I realized it wasn't just hot, it was humid. I had experienced humidity before, but not for quite a long time, and I don't think I ever drove in it. As I drove my rental, the windows kept fogging over, which was...terrifying. I eventually found a balance for that, but the first hour was quite scary.

This was still early morning, and my hotel check-in wasn't until 3, so I decided to do some sight-seeing. I drove around the Philidelphia area hoping to find the Liberty Bell so I could send photos with a cheesy trite caption saying "I wish to speak to a manager. This bell has a crack in it." I successfully found the sidewalk to the Liberty Bell but did not find a parking garage. The thing about Philidelphia is that the streets are very narrow one-ways, and there are jaywalkers everywhere who will just walk out in front of your car with little notice. So, I wound up finding my desire to find a tourist destination being superseded by my desire to not run some schmuck over. I tried to double back but took a wrong turn, wound up on a one-way street leading to the bridge to New Jersey. New Jersey was the opposite experience. There were buildings and parked vehicles everywhere, but the whole spot was a ghost town. There were zero people driving on the road, and the few pedestrians I saw all looked like they were being haunted by the entity from the movie Smile. I felt safer with the jaywalkers because this place looked like it was evacuated and ready to be nuked. I did have some light consideration for driving across Jersey to reach the coast, but I felt like I was too jetlagged for a trip like that. So instead, I familiarized myself with the road down to Phoenixville, saw some gorgeous country in Valley Forge, and poked around the neighborhood to the Colonial Theater, which had its road closed off for BlobFest. I was thinking about checking out the place beforehand, but had difficulty figuring out where to park, so I kinda just made my way to my hotel to check in. I was disappointed that I couldn't attend the screenings of Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein they were hosting, but it intercepted by check-in time and was so tired that it was likely I was going to fall asleep in the theater. Incidentally, I still got back to my hotel before check-in and had to spend two hours trying not to fall asleep in the lobby. But it's better than trying not to fall asleep while driving, I suppose. I checked-in, wondered what I was going to get for dinner, and fell asleep almost instantly, because at this point I was awake for twenty-six hours on four hours of sleep. I woke up around 11, ordered something real fast, ate dinner, and fell asleep again, because holy shit was I done with being alive at that point.

The next morning was the big day. I made sure I was up early and ready, and made my way to Phoenixville, this time familiar with the parking lots so I knew where to go. But on arrival, it began to rain, because of course it did. So, we all stood in line getting rained, while it was still humid as fuck. By the time we got in, I was soaked from the rain and sweating like I've just got out of the gym. What's irritating about this is I put some effort into looking presentable that day, and now I was in line for the photo-op looking like a drowned rat. I was so wet that the name tag they gave me would not stay on, no matter how hard I tried. Just as I was two spots away from getting my picture taken with Joel, Jonah, and Emily, I noticed that my nametag was completely gone. At first, I thought it just fell off somewhere down the line, but then I looked forward in horror to the sight that somehow it was stuck to the back of the guest in front of me. I tried to subtly pluck it off and I don't think he noticed, but if there's any chance he did and is reading this, I wasn't trying to feel you up, dude. It was a Homer Simpson/Gummi Venus DeMilo situation.

The photo-op was fairly uneventful, otherwise. Emily was the one to greet me by name and a glowingly enthusiastic smile, while Joel and Jonah were smiles of warm acknowledgment. Mostly it was an in-and-out affair to keep the line moving. I looked like floating wet trash, but from Emily's attitude, I probably wasn't the only one. She kept saying to those around her "Oh, is it raining? I couldn't tell." with a sarcastic zing. From there we were led into the theater to get ready for the show to start.

The theater was already crowded, so I decided to go to the upper rows, which had less people in them. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but the back row was roped off. It was curious, but it was something that quickly left my mind. So, I went to the second to the last row toward the right end, which was just above the entryway, where I saw people coming and going. Festivities got to a slight beginning as Joel entered the room and quickly left without a word, which may or may not have been a bit, but the audience went loud with hysterics just the same. It didn't start for a few more minutes, but I did start recording some footage, because I wanted a record of this event to write this blog entry. If you're wondering if I'm going to post it, I am not. You're not missing much, because it looks like trash, because my phone is crap and you can barely see anything.

The show started with Joel getting up and doing an intro to the event, but he eventually gives way to the warm-up act of Paul and Storm, who sing a couple of songs. Probably the highlight of this portion is a patron gets up and goes to the concession stand during their act, but with the way the theater is set up, she can't do it without going through Paul and Storm, so they acknowledge her while still playing and point her to the exit (Paul also added "Quick, while she's gone...everybody...HIDE!"). Later during the second song, I saw her standing off to the side of the theater, trying to wait them out so she wouldn't interrupt them again. I guess she decided there was no correct way to go about this, so she walked back into the theater and, in a humorous gesture of peace, she offered Storm some popcorn. Since Storm is playing guitar and he has no hands to accept her offering, he just divebombs his face into her popcorn bag in the middle of the song, to which they just grind to an impromptu halt, because how can you continue from that? Paul chides Storm for a minute, but they played it up, because it's hands down one of the funniest moments of the night and they realize that.

After Paul and Storm, Joel introduces Jonah and Emily, who introduce the episodes they'll be showing off the for the night: The Batwoman, Demon Squad, and Munchie. Jonah vocalizes that he doesn't think they should be showing Munchie, but Joel says it's a fan favorite. Jonah responds "Maybe it's Matt's." (referencing series producer Matt McGinnis). Joel shoots back "Matt only likes it because he can cosplay as that kid." But talk quickly turns to Batwoman, which Emily says the thing she recalls the most is how many musical riffs they packed into the episode. She then says about the movie "It's a little bit Shape of Water..." which had the audience giggling, to which Jonah finished "But somehow even more horny," which brings the house down. But Emily feels like this was the episode where she hit her comfort zone on the show, to which Jonah relates to. And with that, they introduce Batwoman, which the audience was very rowdy for. Of the three episodes they showed tonight, this was the episode that I found myself most tepid on though I leaned positive, but the audience rolled with laughter the entire time. I feel like home viewing a Mystery Science Theater episode sometimes doesn't do it justice. Watching it with a crowd though, that's how you do it.

I should point out that at this point I started noticing voices behind me talking through the show. Apparently they had opened up the seats behind my row, and the people behind me seemed to have some behind the scenes experience with the show and was interacting with other people who seemed less familiar with it. It was partially amusing because at least one of them seemed to be watching the show for the first time. She seemed to think it was funny, but she really disliked the movie. I would randomly hear interjections like "I hate this!" or "Why is she in a bikini?!" A male voice next to them would respond "You're asking the wrong person."

We broke for lunch after Batwoman, while Joel picked several audience members to help with a theater door showcase when they returned, and Jonah and Emily went to the theaters around us that the feed was broadcast into to find a few more volunteers. Upon returning, they had the flatimation door setup on stage, while Paul and Storm performed another song. As they finished, Joel had their volunteers line up along the doors and demonstrate how they created the theater door sequence, where they had a person on the side of each door as a camera ran backwards through them. The highlight of this portion came from Jonah playing around and walking into the round frame of the last door and shooting a finger gun into it like James Bond. After this, Joel thanked various members of the crew, including producer Matt McGinnis, who he says is in the theater right now while pointing straight at me.

Oh wait...he's pointing at the seat behind me. The whispering people behind me were Matt McGinnis and his group.

Oh shit.

I have been recording all of these con segments with a producer directly behind me the whole time. To his credit, if he ever noticed, he never called me out on it. Thank you, Matt, for not being a narc.

From there on, they started making some fun announcements, which Joel started up by showing off a merch shirt being sold at the event that glows in a blacklight, while also letting slip they are playing with blacklighting for the upcoming fourteenth season. NEW SEASON HYPE! The primary portion of the announcements went to Jonah, who announces that "We've teamed up with the Chinese government on TikTok." They use the time to talk about starting a TikTok channel to help grow the fanbase, while they decide to film one right there in the theater by having Jonah ask the audience what they think about MST3K joining TikTok, only to have us yell back "IT STINKS!" (TikTok video here) We turned our attention to Emily to close out, who decided to address remaining Kickstarter rewards for Season 13, making the claim "We are pleased to announce that we thank you for you patience." She then promised we'd hear more about it soon.

The next episode they showed was Demon Squad. This was a slower burn than Batwoman, as the audience laughed more and more further into it than when it started, and even gave a rowdy cheer when Servo's voiced changed from Conor McGiffin to J. Elvis Weinstein. I also got to hear Matt McGinnis's real thoughts on this movie from the seat behind me, of which he was more gloves off with it than he was on the livestream.

Following a ten-minute break to stretch our legs, Joel came out to introduce Munchie, claiming he wanted to introduce it with Jonah, but Jonah was unavailable. Instead, Paul came up and stated that he was Jonah, to which Joel continued with the bit, claiming Jonah joined "Height-Watchers." But then an exclamation is heard from the audience of "THAT'S NOT THE REAL JONAH RAY!" as Jonah descends from the audience and takes his spot up front. With Jonah now at his side, Joel asks him what the experience was working on Munchie, and Jonah just responds "Bad." Pleasantries are kept short for this intro, as they choose to dive into Munchie fairly fast, though Joel reiterates his wish to see Matt cosplay as the kid from the movie, and Matt yells from the audience "I HEARD THAT!"

Munchie probably got the most laughs and most reaction from the audience. Watching this episode with a crowd is an experience, let me tell you. It's clearly the worst movie we've watched a country mile, and since we're a group of MSTies, the worse a movie is, the more vocal our reaction is going to be. At every point Munchie came onscreen, the crowd hollared and jeered, and jumped out of their seats during his various sudden entrances.

Post-Munchie is a Q&A with Joel, Jonah, Emily, and Matt McGinnis, who decided to stop judging me from the seat behind me and join the group onstage. The Q&A is filled with many highlights, including the little tidbit that they are going to try and have the rights cleared to every movie they hope to use next season before they do their next fundraiser, but they also concede that they'll also have to wait until the WGA and SAG strikes to end before they can actually go into production on the show (Jonah says he's back to the picket lines as soon as this is over). There are generic questions like what your favorite song on the series is, all the way to asking Emily what it was like to break the glass ceiling and become the first woman to host the show (to which Jonah hilariously interjects "I got this question..." and tries to answer for her). We also address questions about whether an animated film would work on the show (they say they'd rather shy away from it) to whether AI would ever be used on the show (AI is already used on the show, their names are Crow and Tom Servo). The Q&A comes to a satisfying close as the woman who fed Storm popcorn gets handed the mic, and asks him "Was it good for you too?"

As the event got out, I found out that attendees were given a free tote bag full of goodies! Some of this stuff I had already bought at the merch store, but...FREE TOTE BAG! It was better than the plastic Walmart sack I was hauling around because I came grossly unprepared for this entire thing. Though to be fair, it was a nice, sturdy Walmart sack. Way thicker than the ones we have in Idaho. So we all went to the lobby for snacks and drinks, and also got in line for a signing session. I selected one of my swag posters for the signing, and got our three leads to sign it. It was cool to get five or so words with them, even though I had to keep it brief to keep the line moving. I got to tell Emily and Joel how far I came for this little con, and related to Emily that the primary reason I flew out was because her group's Boise tour date was cancelled. She gave me a knowing nod and said "I remember that," telling me about how all the roads were closed off because of the snow. Joel seemed to know very little about this, so he listened attentively to it. During this exchange, Jonah was conversing with someone else, as my poster was slid to him to sign. I seemed to catch him off-gaurd, because he was still talking to the other person while he signed it, then he saw me and seemed to realize it was for someone else. But what I loved about my interaction with Jonah is that he swiftly caught his bearings, and we had a humorous exchange afterward. Jonah is very quick and witty with a conversation, and I don't know if I ever really appreciated that about him, but I certainly do now. Meeting him in person really gave me perspective on why Joel hand-selected him to be the new host on the series.

As my allotted time ended, I got to shake hands with Joel and Jonah, which was a high point of my life. I didn't shake hands with Emily, so I can only assume it's because she was terrified of me. But I have no hard feelings about that. I am pretty off-putting and scare people easily.

I wish I could say I mingled more. There are two things that must be pointed out about this point in the day, though, and the first one is my back pain was flaring up. Sitting in a theater for hours did it no favors, and it was politely asking me to go home and go to bed or it will retaliate by hurting me. The second was that I don't go to cons, and the primary reason is because crowds give me headaches. So if anybody caught someone standing off to the side, away from people, that was probably me, with a throbbing head and a stiff lower back. I did talk to some people, notably the people who run the theater, and I had a nice chat with them about some of the monster movies they showed that week that I wish I had attended. And I stayed a good long while, watching the place disperse. I came all this way, I wanted to stay until the end. By the time I did leave, there were only a few patrons left and the crew were starting to clean up the place. The only member of the MST cast that was left was Joel, who was still greeting people, while Emily and Jonah had been long gone.

I finally made my journey back to my car and made the ride back to Philly to get packed to my long flight home. Upon returning to my hotel, I made the discovery that either through rain or humidity, the poster I had signed somehow got moist and was a bit ratty now. I was disappointed in that. But you know what? I got to meet my heroes. There are things I wish I could have told them that I never got to, but I was there. I got to say hi to them, I got to make them smile and laugh with me. That's worth more to me than a signature. I'll always have that.

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Cinema Playground Journal 2023: Week 28 (My Cinema Playground)

Note: Sorry for the lateness of this post. I was at BlobFest this weekend attending MST3Kon which kept me pre-occupied.

Multiplex Madness

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Action, Adventure, Spy

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Cary Elwes

What if Tom Cruise was so in love with the scene from the first Mission: Impossible where he performs a magic trick that he based an entire three hour McGuffin chase around it? Well, now we know.

There's an arrogance to making a two-part film that's hard to escape, because there needs to be enough story to sustain five to six hours worth of film and both parts need to work as cohesive wholes. A lot of two-part films struggle with this, even this year's otherwise outstanding Across the Spider-Verse, and the only example I can think of that pulled these goals off satisfactorily are Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is a fun movie, but it feels superfluous, like it easily could have told this story in the first act of one movie that was probably the same length as this one. This film sees Ethan Hunt going rogue (again) almost immediately at the start of the film, chasing after key that could control a powerful A.I. called "The Entity," which he intends to destroy so no global superpower can control it. But the Entity has achieved such a degree of awareness that it's also after its own key. And the majority of this movie is devoted to back and forth chase sequences over who does and does not have a portion of this key, fluffed out with character moments that rarely reach a weighted conclusion before the film's end. I probably would have been more content with Dead Reckoning Part One if its personal character beats did achieve a finality in this movie, which is something Across the Spider-Verse achieved more effectively. Dead Reckoning sets up certain ideas, but never really follows through with them. There are bits and pieces of an Ethan Hunt origin story that we catch glimpses of, but it never elaborates on. We don't know what is going on in any of it, setting up a history between him and the human villain that the film never embellishes (but presumably will in the sequel?). That's bullshit storytelling.

What saves Dead Reckoning is that as a Mission: Impossible movie it certainly does its Impossible Mission well. It's a breathless globe-trotting adventure of action, hijinks, plot twists, and daring do-gooders. The I.M.F. dream team of Ethan, Luther, Benji, and Ilsa are all back and doing the work that we love seeing them do, this time joined by a thief named Grace, of which the film serves as something of an origin story for her in the process. She probably has a little too much in common with Thandiwe Newton's Nyah character from Mission: Impossible II to stand on her own two feet as her own character, but Hayley Atwell is an absolute charmer in the role. Her chase scene handcuffed to Tom Cruise through the streets of Rome is probably the highlight of the action sequences, though unlike the other street race through Rome movie this year, Fast X, it's not a downhill experience after that. All the action sequences hold their own and are worth the price of admission by themselves, right down to the big base-jump stunt that Tom Cruise is selling in the advertisements and a pretty spectacular train crash sequence. The use of A.I. as the film's villain is interesting, because it gives our heroes an antagonist that is incorporeal, seemingly everywhere, and knows their every move. But it also gives interesting insight to Ethan's mind, because his outlook is that since the Entity is trying so hard to stop him, that means it has calculated a scenario where Ethan wins, and Ethan bets everything on that.

Mission: Impossible is the most reliably entertaining franchise currently running (lukewarm second film aside), and Dead Reckoning doesn't exactly hurt its record. This mission just feels more hollow than the others, even if it can still bring the thrills. There's nothing here to make the series feel like its running on fumes, but one does leave the film hoping the next film is meatier than this one is.

Netflix & Chill

Quicksand

⭐⭐

Streaming On: Shudder

Genre: Thriller

Director: Andres Beltran

Starring: Carolina Gaitán, Allan Hawco

Quicksand is an interesting movie, even if it's never actually a good one. What easily could have been "Open Water in the mud" is instead delivered as a story of a couple with seemingly irreconcilable differences in a situation where they're forced to look each other in the eye and figure out how to help each other, cue passive aggressiveness, bickering, and bittersweet reconnection in the face of mortality. Quicksand breaks down as it fails to reach the dramatic heights that it aims for. Part of this is because of casting, as Carolina Gaitán and Allan Hawco probably both fit the roles on a surface level, but their personal back and forth lacks the chemistry it needs to center an entire movie on them. They just don't feel like a believable couple, and I don't know if it's because the movie never establishes a moment of non-misery between them but it's hard to feel for them when we don't feel a spark within them. But as a survival thriller, Quicksand has sequences that serve its story and successfully thrill, meanwhile others lack impact and just feel present to bump up the runtime to eighty minutes. There's enough here to show the promise of a better movie, but it also makes you wish you were watching that movie instead.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Asteroid City ⭐⭐1/2

Elemental ⭐⭐⭐

The Flash ⭐⭐1/2

Insidious: The Red Door ⭐⭐

Joy Ride ⭐⭐⭐1/2

The Little Mermaid ⭐⭐1/2

No Hard Feelings ⭐⭐

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken ⭐⭐1/2

New To Digital

New To Physical

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Beau is Afraid ⭐⭐⭐

Kandahar ⭐⭐1/2

Scream VI ⭐⭐1/2

Shin Ultraman ⭐⭐⭐

Sisu ⭐⭐⭐

Coming Soon!

Sunday, July 9, 2023

Cinema Playground Journal 2023: Week 27 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Insidious: The Red Door

⭐⭐

Genre: Horror

Director: Patrick Wilson

Starring: Patrick Wilson, Ty Simpkins, Sinclair Daniels, Rose Byrne

My experience with the Insidious franchise is limited. I saw the first one years ago and the second one only last week. Haven't watched the prequels yet, but that felt like the bare minimum I needed going into this one. The Red Door was directed by original star Patrick Wilson in his directorial debut, who picks up nearly a decade later with returning stars himself and Ty Simpkins (and also Rose Byrne, Andrew Astor, Steve Coulter, Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, and Line Shaye returning in far more limited, semi-cameo roles), as Wilson's character, estranged from his family, takes his son to college, which simultaneously awakens the repressed memories of the Further and the beings that haunt it. The Red Door is surprisingly heavily invested in the personal drama of these characters, wondering whether, probably rightfully, a "happily ever after" is even possible for them. The tone is sentimental, as Wilson doesn't seem interested in telling a ghost story, wanting instead to tell a story of a regretful father trying to reconstruct his relationship with his son. Also ghosts. The movie's tendency to lean into this causes it to be casually paced, sometimes remembering that it's a horror movie at the last second. Because of this, I think Wilson probably should cut his teeth on indie drama instead of horror. The horror scenes are frustrating, as Wilson has a tendency to frame them with promising set-up with subtle spooks creeping into the frame, then he flashcuts to them screaming with a loud shrieking soundtrack. The Red Door left me feeling that there was little interest in another full Insidious movie, but rather an epilogue that was forced to be reformatted. It's uneven, but it has some enjoyment in it. Sinclair Daniel is a wonderful, charismatic addition to the film that keeps slow scenes charming. It's not a movie I'd fully recommend, though, unless you're investment in these characters is high. But this is the fifth Insidious movie, so I guess it's possible you are, otherwise the franchise wouldn't have gotten very far.

Art Attack

The Lesson

⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Director: Alice Troughton

Starring: Richard E. Grant, Daryl McCormack, Julie Delpy, Stephen McMillan

Interesting dramatic thriller tells the story of an emotionally abusive author who hires a writing tutor for his son, which turns into a tense relationship between the pair after reading each other's work. It's a smartly constructed movie, with a rich look and tone, while Richard E. Grant is sensational as the temperamental figure at the center of the conflict. The best aspects of the film are how it conveys a change in tone or emotion through lingering glances of its actors. What's funny about this movie is that it's a bit too in love with itself. It's a film about writing, but it occured to me that its screenplay is to devoted to its climax being poetic rather than dramatically resolving. The central conflict of the movie is primarily about a story's third act, and I found it ironic that I, myself, found the third act of the film wanting. However, the film feels meticulously constructed to be exactly what it is from top to bottom, and I feel like the dramatic turns are just part of the film's identity. It's an imperfect work, but one with promise.

Netflix & Chill

The Out-Laws

⭐1/2

Streaming On: Netflix

Genre: Comedy, Action

Director: Tyler Spindel

Starring: Adam DeVine, Nina Dobrev, Pierce Brosnan, Ellen Barkin, Michael Rooker, Richard Kind, Julie Hagerty

Get it? Out-Laws? Like a cross between in-laws and outlaws?

Yeah, I feel tired too.

This Happy Madison joint sees a bank manager suspecting his future in-laws of being bank robbers, and hijinks ensue. The comedy is clumsy, though a few dumb laughs might take you by surprise in a minefield of groans. The movie isn't particularly great by even the stingiest of Adam Sandler production metrics, but Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin are inspired casting, and Richard Kind and Michael Rooker are reliable in just about any character actor role you give them. Adam DeVine is capable as the wimpy lead stuck in the middle of action sequences (which are actually pretty well done, all things considered), but a little bit goes a long way with him. He's far and wide the least funny/interesting thing in this movie, which creates frustration when the camera switches from stronger performers to him. But the film is a better showcase for him than Jexi was, so there's that.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Asteroid City ⭐⭐1/2

The Blackening ⭐⭐⭐

The Boogeyman ⭐⭐1/2

Elemental ⭐⭐⭐

Fast X ⭐⭐1/2

The Flash ⭐⭐1/2

Joy Ride ⭐⭐⭐1/2

The Little Mermaid ⭐⭐1/2

No Hard Feelings ⭐⭐

Past Lives ⭐⭐⭐

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken ⭐⭐1/2

New To Digital

The Blackening ⭐⭐⭐

Shin Ultraman ⭐⭐⭐

Coming Soon!

Sunday, July 2, 2023

Cinema Playground Journal 2023: Week 26

Multiplex Madness

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Adventure, Action

Director: James Mangold

Starring: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelson, Antonio Bandaras, Toby Jones, John Rhys-Davies

Given this film's rocky reception at Cannes, I imagine the real info any Indiana Jones fan wants on Dial of Destiny is whether or not it's better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and whether it's worth an investment. That's probably going to depend on one's reception to the decried fourth film. If you feel unrelenting bitterness toward it, you need to A) touch grass and B) probably skip this one, and leave your Indy memories to the first three films because it's unlikely a new film will appease you and you should probably accept it. If you lean softer on Crystal Skull's existence, another modernized tale with the adventurer might be an appetizing course, and I'd say it's worth a shot. I liked Crystal Skull because its best moments are really fun and I think most of you are monsters. I liked Dial of Destiny too.

The one key difference between the two is that Crystal Skull seemed to be approached as if Indy's adventures never stopped, and even though it's a past-his-prime Indy, he's still fully in the game. Dial of Destiny is a story of an Indy who has aged out of it and left that life behind him, forced into one more relic chase for the good of history. Director James Mangold lacks the youthful exuberance of Steven Spielberg, which might be a benefit to the story of an elderly hero. It can be harmful when Mangold tries to replicate the past of the franchise, as it feels murky and out-of-step. The opening 1944 sequence is a cute idea, since we never had any Indiana Jones movies from that era so it feels like it's filling a gap, but it feels like dark and hollow representation of what Indiana Jones was back in the day, even if there isn't technically anything wrong with it (aside from CGI Harrison Ford bouncing around like a rubber band). Mangold feels more at home with old, grumpy, and complaining Harrison Ford, and the the modern MacGuffin chase sequences are a fun thrill ride. Phoebe Waller-Bridge shines as Indy's latest sidekick, and her charisma ensures the film's flow constantly humored and engaging. The movie's drawbacks may also be virtues in some areas, depending on how you look at them. The movie echoes aspects of previous installments in ways that feels a little bit like The Force Awakens, but at the same time it feels like it's more subtle and careful about them, wanting to craft a story first and line it with nostalgic subtext.

For me, the only point I wasn't enjoying the film were the last ten minutes. The ending of the film feels like it's poetic on the drawing board, but its execution is undercooked and abrupt. But I'll give them points for ideas that are creative and true to Indy's character, even if they feel incomplete. It's not quite the ending I'd like to see Indiana Jones go out on (I prefer the ride into the sunset of Last Crusade or the wedding in Crystal Skull), though I thank them for trying to give me something refreshing.

Joy Ride

⭐⭐⭐1/2

Genre: Comedy

Director: Adele Lim

Comedy: Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, Sabrina Wu

Pre-release review! Like No Hard Feelings, I found myself lucky enough to get a preview screening of this movie. Unlike No Hard Feelings, this movie actually looked good, so I was more hyped for this one.

Joy Ride (no relation to the Paul Walker/Steve Zahn thriller) is about a lawyer on a business trip in China with three friends tagging along, as they get detoured into finding her birth mother. It's a little bit Return to Seoul, except as a raunchy road trip comedy in China. If there's anything that can be said about Joy Ride it's that it has a fire in its belly. It's constantly on the move and throwing jokes out every two lines. The movie's spark of rambunctiousness is infectious and it's refusal to calm down and let its characters breathe keeps engagement high. It can be a detriment at times, at some points throwing plot at the characters because it knows it needs to progress its story but doesn't always know how to do so organically. It would probably be annoying if the movie weren't as funny as it is and done with a cast as charismatic as this. They're playing archetypes that are a little too basic (the smart one, the edgy one, the horny one, and the weird one), but they work their roles with endearment so when the movie does go for the feels, you feel it too.

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken

⭐⭐1/2

Genre: Comedy, Fantasy

Director: Kirk DeMicco

Starring: Lana Condor, Toni Collette, Jane Fonda, Annie Murphy, Coleman Domingo

A movie like Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken plays its cards upfront, as you can probably guess from the title that it's a coming-of-age comedy of a girl who is both a teenager and a Kraken, and one can probably guess how it plays out from there. The story sees a Kraken family in hiding on the mainland and their teenage daughter Ruby learning her heritage, while also befriending another girl at school who happens to be the Kraken's enemy, a mermaid. The film is playful with its metaphors of teenage angst, with outsider Ruby Gillman feeling like a monster because, by human standards, she is a monster, but a misunderstood one, meanwhile the pretty, popular girl is a more beloved creature that is quite deceptive. The whole "You can't judge a book by its cover" and all that. The film touches on a few pubescent allegories that Turning Red touched upon last year, but it lacks that film's nuance with the subject, choosing instead to be a bigger, bolder, flashier entertainer. Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is fun to look at, with its rich textures and neon lighting and its animation is a very cutesy, rubbery style that harkens to old animation techniques (Ruby herself has very Olive Oil body movements), and it ends with a kaiju fight, which I obviously loved. Its script isn't quite there yet, needing a bit more beef to keep its pace up and an enrichment of its ideas. It's a cute movie that's almost a really good one, but it doesn't quite hit that mark. It's also unfortunate that it came out the same weekend as a far better animated movie that you can watch at home...

Netflix & Chill

Nimona

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Streaming On: Netflix

Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Comedy

Director: Nick Bruno, Troy Quane

Starring: Chloe Grace-Moretz, Riz Ahmed, Eugene Lee Yang, Frances Conroy

Based on the 2015 graphic novel, Nimona is shapeshifting mischief-maker in a futuristic neo-medieval kingdom who befriends a framed knight who tries to clear his name. Nimona hits a lot of themes of a Frankenstein movie, showing a character who is born different and treated with cruelty who becomes a reflection of the way they're treated. Nimona is treated like a villain, so she considers herself a villain, someone with the power to make people's lives miserable, and it gets to the point where the only joy she has comes from just being a shit to others. She also is defined by her loneliness, where she is self-sufficient, but yearns for a "partner in crime," which leads her to someone else who has been shunted by society. Nimona hates being called a monster, but the film does what the best monster movies do and tells the story of an outsider. Nimona even takes it one step further and becomes a celebration of its outsider status, finding an inner glee in creating chaos in the system that dares deem one an outsider. More to the point, the film is infused with LGBTQ+ themes, to the point where its lead characters are a gay couple. This movie is absolutely going to get pummeled by the "gays are grooming your children" dipshit crowd, because its a movie with gay characters and themes that is both animated and targeted partially at children, on a service that most families own, no less. But it has a bold message of being one's self in the face of a world that condemns you for it, showing that it isn't afraid of it. Its beauty is in how it accurately portrays bad faith and bigotry, like how prejudices are passed down and ignorance becomes commonplace without it being challenged. The film is beautiful and nuanced and wildly entertaining at the same time. It might even be ahead of its time, but considering it has the potential to make waves right now, it's arguably a film we need at this moment. Nimona would take pleasure in that chaos, which makes it perfect. That's so metal.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Asteroid City ⭐⭐1/2

The Blackening ⭐⭐⭐

The Boogeyman ⭐⭐1/2

Elemental ⭐⭐⭐

Fast X ⭐⭐1/2

The Flash ⭐⭐1/2

The Little Mermaid ⭐⭐1/2

No Hard Feelings ⭐⭐

Past Lives ⭐⭐⭐