MST3K, RiffTrax, and Beyond: Cinema Playground Journal 2023: Week 49 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

The Boy and the Heron

⭐⭐⭐1/2

Genre: Fantasy

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Starring: Varies depending on subbed or dubbed

Beloved Animation titan Hayao Miyazaki is back with a brand-new Alice in Wonderland tale, this one featuring a young boy who follows a strange Heron (with a man's head inside his beak) into a fantasy world to save his pregnant stepmother. Miyazaki is one of those talents whose name in the credits is good enough to tell a certain audience that this is one of the must-see movies of the year, so putting my thoughts to paper is meaningless, because everyone who is seeing it is already rushing to see it. I'm also not as inclined to hyper praise Miyazaki, as I find his movies artful and beautiful, but they make me sleepy. I'm not sure if you should take that as a knock against it, it's just that they're just soft and comfortable. The Boy and the Heron is another one, though per usual it's a trademark story that's equally weird and lovely. I'll leave it to Miyazaki fans to praise this one, because I don't really have the level of enthusiasm to recommend a Miyazaki movie to people who watch Miyazaki movies. That's best left to people who have watched way more Miyazaki movies than I have. It is really good, though. If you're only a casual viewer, like myself, it's worth a watch.

Eileen

⭐⭐⭐1/2

Genre: Thriller, Drama

Director: William Oldroyd

Starring: Thomasin McKenzie, Anne Hathaway, Shea Whigham

I don't make a habit out of tearing down to prop up, but while watching Eileen I couldn't help but compare it to another queer-coded dramatic thriller with added sexual tension from a few weeks ago, Saltburn. Saltburn is the one more likely to get attention, because it's an audacious movie that is tailored specifically to that audience that likes their movies to be twisty, weirdly stimulating, and feature a little bit of dong. Saltburn was a good movie, but it didn't play as well with me because it never felt like it was unfolding. It would telegraph itself, never subtly (in fact it would be screaming at you), then just hammer away without an actual flow to it until it gets to its ending, which wasn't nearly as surprising as it seemed to think it was. I admired its swing, but it didn't hit the ball home.

Enter Eileen, which is a queer-coded dramatic thriller with added sexual tension that cracks the bat.

Some are likely to dismiss it in favor of Saltburn, because its attitude and style is less bold, but on the other hand, Eileen doesn't feel like it's compensating for its lack of rhythm. Eileen just lets its story play. It starts with a slight social anxiety that builds up into a sexual tension between its two lead actresses, then it rattles the cage by metamorphosing its tension into a completely different tension during its climax. The play-out is an ingenious magic trick. The film follows Thomasin McKenzie as a young clerk for a boy's prison, who is also socially isolated woman who cares for her alcoholic father while lusting for a physical relationship. She then meets the facility's new psychologist, Anne Hathaway, who she begins to admire to the point of fawning over. The pair's relationship ultimately collides in an unexpected way, which is probably best to keep mum about to not hurt the experience. But the movie is quite the examination of a isolated woman's hopeful fantasies of longing, as we see the majority of the film play out through McKenzie's eyes, with the added flavor of little fantasies of what she feels in the moment. It also occurs to me that it also makes her something of an unreliable narrator, because I do find myself pondering of how much of the little moments of her romance with Hathaway were just something that played out in her head or a detail that she blew up through her heavy infatuation. There is an element of both absolute certainty and anxiety-fueled uncertainty that most romantic tension feeds on, only dialed to 11 and creating a thick atmosphere of what Hathaway's intentions really are. And when Hathaway does walk at a crossways with McKenzie, it's not to the path you'd expect it to. Or even another path you'd expect it to, as manipulation is kept to a minimum with this movie. Everything except McKenzie's mind is pretty straightforward. It's just a matter of weeding out what is fact and what is emotion.

My one main criticism holding me ever-so-slightly back with this movie is that while I did love how the climax they went for was executed, it does feel on the slight side. I understand why the movie felt this was the ending it needed to go for, as well as the movie's desire to not make everything clean. That being said, the ambiguity and lack of closure on certain elements does make the film more frustrating than it should be when it ends. I felt hungrier for something more weightier, whereas instead the film finds a journey's end and just floats away. It's not enough for me to reconsider calling this one of the best movies of the year, though it does sink the film lower that it probably could have been if it really nailed an ending to remember.

The Oath

⭐1/2

Genre: Faith, Adventure, Romance

Director: Darin Scott

Starring: Darin Scott, Billy Zane, Nora Dale

A lot of movies these days open with a small message from people who worked on them thanking the audience for supporting theaters and hoping they enjoy the movie. The Oath starts with the director and star bragging about how good his movie is. That's when you know this movie is going to suck.

The Oath is a movie made by people with promising technical skill who are trying to turn the script and resources of a direct to video Scorpion King sequel into the Braveheart of religious romances. The attempt being made is to turn a Mormon tale into an epic period drama, telling the story of Mironi, who is being hunted by ruthless king Billy Zane, marries a woman from Zane's harem, and in turn teaches her "the oath" of his religion. You can see the passion on camera in this movie. I have no doubt the people who made it were trying their damnedest (except maybe Billy Zane, who is doing the same paycheck performance that he's been doing in a lot of movies of this ilk). That makes it a more admirable attempt than a few religious movies I've seen this year, because like Journey to Bethlehem or Jesus Revolution (which are probably the two religious movies to watch in 2023 if you're going to watch any), it's a movie that feels like it's celebrating its faith instead of pandering to a pre-sold audience with some bullshit. And kudos for being a Mormon movie. Not sure I've seen many of those. I saw a western centered on Joseph Smith once, and that was about it. The Oath taxes itself, though. It doesn't have the money to be the movie that it thinks it is, and even if it did, the thick melodrama of it all would likely be a deathwound. Writer/Director/Producer/Star Darin Scott has gone full Kenneth Branagh in control freak mode and is so elbow deep in his own artistry that he's not seeing the hammy misfire that he's creating. Sometimes one's personal certainty can keep you blind to what l's quality and what's insufferable.

Art Attack

Fallen Leaves

⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Drama

Director: Aki Kaurismäki

Starring: Alma Pöysti, Jussi Vatanen

This Finnish romance can be best described as an ode to the unlucky lonelyheart, telling the story of two middle-aged people who work slight remedial jobs, indulge in their own vices, but long for just a hopeful connection as they meet and profess a desire to maybe get closer. But there are hurdles. Some are personal, and some are just bad luck. It's not a traditional romance of wooing and sexiness, as our leads are a pair who have long since settled into solitude and present themselves cautiously, often resulting in awkward silence, but with hopeful glances of optimism. The movie can feel bluntly real, but is also dryly funny at times, so there is a light sense of spunk to its dramatic sincerity. I think the movie leaned a bit into tropes in some areas, but it's a solid drama for those looking for a good foreign import.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Dream Scenario ⭐⭐⭐

Five Nights at Freddy's ⭐⭐

Godzilla Minus One ⭐⭐⭐1/2

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (no)

The Marvels ⭐⭐1/2

Napoleon ⭐⭐1/2

Oppenheimer ⭐⭐⭐

Saltburn ⭐⭐⭐

The Shift ⭐

Silent Night ⭐⭐⭐

Thanksgiving ⭐⭐1/2