MST3K, RiffTrax, and Beyond: Cinema Playground Journal 2024: Week 15 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Arcadian

⭐️1/2

Genre: Horror, Thriller

Director: Ben Brewer

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Jaeden Martell, Maxwell Jenkins, Sadie Soverall

Nicolas Cage survives the apocalypse with a pair of sons, living out in the middle of nowhere where strange creatures come out at night. Arcadian stumbles and fumbles it's way through its family drama in a land of monsters without a genuine vision of what it's supposed to be about. How did the apocalypse come about? The movie doesn't care. Everything piece of information we get is incredibly vague, and it even chooses to explain exposition in a game the young characters play which basically amounts to "Guess the premise," which certainly is a choice. What are the monsters? Doesn't matter. The movie mostly creates them as showcases for suspense sequences, but they throw too many ideas in a blender to the point that they're just abstract concepts that make little sense. They look like an abominable love child of Horace Horse and the Cloverfield monster, and can appearance suck up people in their rectum and cocoon them (or something, I honestly can't tell because the monster sequences are terribly executed). They also act like ants sometimes, grouping together and can even travel as a giant ball, like Critters. The difference between Critters and this movie is that Critters was comical and this movie is stone serious. Maybe I would be easier on this movie if the drama were more interesting, but it's just a rehash of A Quiet Place, but people are allowed to talk and done much worse (except with Nicolas Cage, so brownie points for that). It has an aura of not wanting to bother with certain elements while trying to pass it off as minimalist. Even if the movie were minimalist, if you're not prepared to actually tell a story, your movie only comes off as a string of nonsense. One or two good scenes is not enough good will to carry ninety minutes.

Civil War

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre: Thriller

Director: Alex Garland

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson

War! Huh! Yeah! Good god, y'all! What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'! Alex Garland seeks to prove those lyrics correct in his latest (supposedly final) directorial effort, where we follow a group of journalists driving to Washington D.C., chronicling a second United States civil war that has broken out. Those hoping for Garland to get elbow deep into political tensions, be it reality-adjacent tensions, parody/satire, or completely made-up shit, will leave Civil War disappointed. The movie is astonishingly unconcerned with the how or the why a national divide could happen, brushing a lot of it off in passing. Garland is more concerned with imagery than he is with politics, wanting his film to be a reflection of foreign warzones portrayed on US soil, hoping the audience will see it as disturbing. The message he's sending out is "All of this happens for no good reason." This is probably true, but because he is so flippant about fleshing out the idea behind this imagery, there is a struggle to attach any sort of meaning behind any of it, leaving the whole project feeling gutless and sterilized. There are positive qualities that make it worth checking out. Kirsten Dunst, for starters, is very good in it. Garland does showcase a lot of striking imagery, even if they aren't as harrowing as I think he hopes for it to be. I don't think it's too much to ask for your movie to have more balls about its subject matter than Red Dawn, but maybe I'm wrong.

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead

⭐️⭐️

Genre: Comedy

Director: Wade Allain-Marcus

Starring: Simone Joy Jones, Nichole Richie, June Squib, Patricia "Ms. Pat" Williams, Jermaine Fowler

Maybe it was just out of my line of sight, but is there a huge following for Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead? I know I've seen the original, but I also remember next to nothing about it other than that sweet title and the fact that Christina Applegate was in it. Is it some beloved cult classic dark comedy or something and I just don't know it? That seems to have happened with Hocus Pocus, where one day people were just hailing it as a forgotten gem and I could only respond with "It was?"

This remake primarily seems updated to make the family at the center a Black family, though keeps the premise of a mother going out of town and leaving her children with a tyrannical babysitter, who happens to pass away while caring for the children. Skimming a wiki synopsis for the original, it feels like the film hews fairly closely to the original's plot layout, though as to which movie does it better, I can't say. What I can say about this movie is that it feels determined to barrel through its story, trying not to stay in place for too long so it doesn't get boring. The scenario is set-up and executed really fast, and the whole "dead babysitter" angle is tossed out of the way earlier than you would think, then pushing a story of kids working to maintain a household by themselves narrative. But even that is swiftly forgotten about, as the lead actress gets swept up in her new job and suddenly the movie is more of an office workplace comedy than a family story. I get why the narrative skews so hard in this direction, but it certainly feels like it's a movie that forgets what it's supposed to be about. But is it funny? Kinda. It has some good laughs, but they aren't consistent enough to make it an easy recommend.

Another strange aspect is that even if the original film is a cult classic, a lot of that probably has to do with kids at the time latching onto a PG-13 comedy about kids thumbing their nose at the adult system they have to live in. That seems like an outcome unlikely for this movie, since it was released with an R rating. And that rating is really weird too, because there is very little in the movie to justify it, which I'm assuming was instead the result of explicit lyrics from its soundtrack and a hefty usage of the N-word. I don't know if they were aiming for a PG-13 and just got heavily scrutinized by the MPAA and were unable to work around it without drastically altering the film, but it's hard for me to picture the film attaining any sort of childhood cult audience because of that.

La Chimera

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Drama

Director: Alice Rohrwacher

Starring: Josh O'Connor, Carol Duarte, Vincenzo Nemolato, Alba Rohrwacher, Isabella Rossellini

Italian import sees a dowsing expert recruited by a group of graverobbers who wish to use his talent to find tombs full of items they can sell on the black market. That sentence probably makes it sound more exciting than it is, as the film derives more tension from drama than their escapades. Particularly a romantic subplot that our lead has with a local mother, who has little knowledge of what he does when he's not around her. Carol Duarte is a charming counter to Josh O'Connor, as the two weave different, yet complicated performances around each other. It's an interesting and compelling movie in its own way, though it tends to run a little long and over-complicate its ending. Admittedly, I'm working at a disadvantage with this movie, because the print I watched cut off 40% of the subtitles. I think I got the gist of it, though I'd probably need to watch it again on streaming to make sure.

The Long Game

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre: Drama, Sports

Director: Julio Quintana

Starring: Jay Hernandez, Dennis Quaid, Julian Works, Jaina Lee Ortiz, Brett Cullen, Oscar Nunez, Paulina Chavez, Gregory Diaz IV, Jose Julian, Cheech Marin

Dennis Quaid picks up a sack of golf clubs for his latest inspirational sports movie, which sees him as an assistant coach opposite Jay Hernandez, and the duo lead a group of promising Mexican-American students to win a golf tournament in the face of discrimination. It's a movie with heart, but it's traditionalist to a fault. Despite being made by a predominantly Hispanic production crew, the movie feels like it's geared toward old, white folks who don't care about the racial stuff and just like a good sports movie. This tone feels slightly problematic, because for a good long while in the movie, the young players are being taught to "conform, and make white people feel comfortable." The final lession is that you shouldn't have to, but it's also a movie made that feels like it's being made specifically to make white people feel comfortable. It's not enough for me to call the movie bad, but it seems like a safe swing instead of a full experience.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy

Director: Guy Ritchie

Starring: Henry Cavill, Eiza Gonzalez, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Babs Olusanmokun, Henrique Zaga, Til Schweiger, Henry Golding, Cary Elwes

Pre-release review of Guy Ritchie's latest! But enthusiasm may vary depending on how much one can sit still for Guy Ritchie. Personally, I think Ritchie has been putting out some under-the-radar bangers lately that he hasn't been getting a lot of credit for, from The Gentlemen to Operation Fortune, movies dismissed by critics but are perfect entertainment for the audiences they were made for. (He also made Wrath of Man, but nobody is perfect.) The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is exclusively in that demographic area that outsiders likely won't be into it, but those who watch the trailer and say "Yes, that's for me" will love it. Loosely based on a covert British team during World War II, this film sees Henry Cavill lead a group into Europe on a secret mission to destroy a ship full of weapons. But let's just call it what it is, an excuse for a pulpy adventure where an unstoppable killing force mows down Nazis. It's for from the first, and won't be the last. Depth and nuance are of no interest to the film, which solely focuses on making its protagonists charismatic mad men who face little repercussions for their actions. For bullets and laughs, you're probably not going to find a higher quota. If you think you're going to love it, you probably are. If you think you're going to hate it, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Sting

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre: Horror

Director: Kiah Roache-Turner

Starring: Alyla Browne, Penelope Mitchell, Ryan Corr, Jermaine Fowler

This creature feature sees a little girl finding an alien spider, who she keeps as a pet, which in turn grows to massive size and attacks people in her apartment building. The biggest thing holding this movie back is that it starts off with a level of flamboyance that it loses over the course of the movie. The movie at the end has a much more serious face on than when it starts and dilutes the expectations of a playful monster flick. However, the solid qualities make the film a worthwhile investment for genre fans. It a smartly laid-out flick that is obviously on a limited budget. The sole-confinement setting is luckily shot in a location with a lot of character, ensuring that we never feel as trapped as the characters are. The CGI spider shots, while sparse, are used wisely and the moments they break them out make them count. The screenplay stumbles with pacing and tone, as the film struggles to really rev up its engine and take its audience for a ride. But there are a few instances of creature mayhem that will keep its target audience's attention.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Arthur the King ⭐️⭐️

Cabrini ⭐⭐

Dune: Part Two ⭐⭐1/2

The First Omen ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire ⭐️⭐️

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ⭐️⭐️1/2

Immaculate ⭐️⭐️

Kung Fu Panda 4 ⭐⭐1/2

Late Night with the Devil ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Monkey Man ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Wicked Little Letters ⭐️⭐️1/2