Cinema Playground Journal 2024: Week 21 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Babes

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy

Director:  Pamela Adlon

Starring:  Ilana Glazer, Michelle Buteau, John Carroll Lynch, Oliver Platt, Sandra Bernhard, Stephan James, Hasan Minhaj

Directed by Pamela "Bobby Hill" Adlon in her directorial debut, Babes stars comedian Ilana Glazer as a woman who finds out she is pregnant after a one-night stand with a man who died the very next day.  Now, with the future of being a single mother, she carries the baby to term with the help of her already two-time child-bearing bestie, played by fellow comedian Michelle Buteau, offering her guidance and emotional support.  The film is very much a woman-made comedy that is targeting other women, getting frank about women things, trying to make boyfriends uncomfortable while their girlfriends either nod their heads or laugh themselves silly.  Some parts are pretty funny, but it's also a movie that feels like it's playing itself up to the audience by cramming too much deadpan awkwardness in every given scene.  Its vibe is inconsistent, feeling like Woody Allen to Billy Crystal to even the Farrelly Brothers, all distinct flavors that work in isolation, but tossed in together, become a bizarre puree of mixed tones.  Ilana Glazer is likely keeping to her own tonal style that works for her stand-up, so I can't be mad at her for leaning into her personality (it's often the smartest thing an artist can do), it's just having issues gelling in longform narrative, and when she tries to mix in sentimentality, the movie just feels junky.  I kinda feel the same way about it as I did the audacious queer comedy Bros from a few years ago (lol, Bros and Babes, this is fate), where its forgetting good comedy isn't really just audacity by itself, even if the product still doesn't end up suffering all that much because of it.  Those looking for a girls' night out with a few laughs will probably want to check it out.  I'd absolutely not dissuade that, it just doesn't hit a home run for me.

Furiosa:  A Mad Max Saga

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Action

Director:  George Miller

Starring:  Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Burke, Alyla Browne, Lachly Hulme

It's been a long wait.  Not as long as the wait for Fury Road, but I think most of us assumed Mad Max was out of gas after Beyond Thunderdome, and I'm not sure anyone was really "waiting" for it.  George Miller then took his franchise that most fondly remembered as an 80's relic and just casually threw out one of the most insane action movies ever made and dropped the mic.  In this age of IP, pressure is on to follow that up somehow, though Miller's hopeful Furiosa spin-off was put on the backburner as Miller and Warner Bros. went to court for earnings from the last movie.  Nine years, a settlement, and a genie movie later, Furiosa finally tells her origin story.

Taking over the role from Charlize Theron, Anya Taylor-Joy plays Furiosa, a girl from the post-apocalyptic "Wasteland" who was orphaned at a young age and given up into slavery.  Years later, in the midst of tensions between factions that may lead to war, Furiosa seeks revenge against the gangleader who murdered her mother and stole her from her home.  To be frank, those wishing for more of Fury Road's hyperviolent and stylized escapism will get it in spades.  Like Fury Road, Furiosa is an action extravaganza that continues the Mad Max tradition of being a revved-up, vehicular stunt show.  If there is any difference between the two films, it's that Furiosa is more of a sprawling film than Fury Road.  Fury Road was a chase movie, while Furiosa is a biblical epic, telling of one woman's journey in multiple episodes, spanning decades.  The film furthers the status of the Mad Max series as a sort of apocalyptic Greek demigod mythology, with each film telling of a trial for its characters, who vanish into the night only to appear when the next one comes about.  Taylor-Joy is magnificent in the title role, while Chris Hemsworth is a delightful ham in the antagonistic role of a dangerous idiot.  The movie isn't the taut thrill-ride that Fury Road was because it has too much plot, but because it's such an encompassing character journey that still maintains the high-octane action that the series is known for, it still rises to the occasion.  Depending on one's taste, it's also arguably a better movie.  But you wouldn't be blamed for prefering one over the other.

What?  Review's over.

Okay, fine, I'll say it:  "Can't we just get beyond Thunderdome?"

The Garfield Movie

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy

Director:  Mark Dindal

Starring:  Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames, Nicholas Hoult, Cecily Strong, Harvey Guillen, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang, Snoop Dogg

Based on the long-running comic strip/media empire, The Garfield Movie attempts at an origin story for the tubby tabby, who is adopted off the street by his owner, Jon.  Years later, Garfield and his canine best friend, Odie, are kidnapped by a feisty feline to attract the attention of Garfield's estranged father, and subsequently get sucked into a milk heist at a local dairy farm.  Garfield is a tricky character to adapt to film, because it's difficult to relate an actual story without betraying Garfield's lazy spirit.  Garfield has lasted as long as he has because he's a character that is ideal for short form, be it three-panel comics or ten-minute Saturday morning cartoon segments.  One of the reasons Garfield & Friends is one of the most beloved children's cartoons in history, and honestly still kinda holds up today, is because it understood that hit and run comedy was what worked for this franchise.  But when you get Bill Murray to play Garfield for eighty minutes in a movie, it feels strained, because it wants to be a movie more than it wants to be...well, Garfield.

Flash forward to this animated reboot of the Garfield film franchise (it's Garfield's third film, or sixth if you include direct to video ventures), which sees Chris Pratt playing the icon, and it seems like only partial lessions were learned.  One of the things the movie does well is that it litters itself with brief jokes, like you'd see in a comic panel, which is where the character is always at its brightest.  The cartoon world is more animated and flavorful than in the live-action films.  And, quite frankly, Odie is an absolute scene stealer in this movie.  Most of the most amusing gags in this movie belong to the dim-witted fido.  The problem with The Garfield Movie is the same problem with the original Garfield movies...it's trying to make a movie out of Garfield.  It feels like it needs to justify its existence with something more intricate than you'd normally see Garfield do, and while it's humor is in-character, the story really isn't.  The movie has enough of Garfield's spirit, though its plot tends to get too complicated for the character.  Garfield doesn't do complicated.  He works with extravagant, which is why the climax is a highlight, but complicated exhausts him.  Working in Garfield's father is an interesting touch, because we've met Garfield's mother over the years (notably in the excellent TV special Garfield on the Town), but never his dad, but giving Garfield daddy issues is something that isn't really suited to his personality.  Sentimentality also has rarely suited the character, unless it's done in a very specific way (Garfield on the Town is still a frame of reference), and The Garfield Movie juggles that with more plot than the franchise can handle, while also maintaining the comic-strip nature of the character, and strains itself in doing so.  It's a cute diversion movie for families with young children, but it feels like they had thought too hard in the wrong places and not hard enough in areas where this movie could shine.

Sight

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Andrew Hyatt

Starring:  Terry Chen, Greg Kinnear

Nobody can make a true story feel fake quite like Angel Studios.  Their one-dimensional approach to dramatization is very much a vibe that they intentionally achieve, but to be fair, that's because bigger studios don't make movies like this often, so they have to fill the niche, and studios certainly don't put them to a higher standard when they do.  Sight is a movie that understands the theory of drama but doesn't understand the presentation.  It will show events, but never with detail or interest.  It's a movie that firmly believes compelling storytelling lies in zooming in on actors delivering feel-good smiles while nodding, while conflict is always in lack of immediate success despite progress or in traumatic backstories caused by non-characters who inflict pain for no reason and vanish from the movie.  The film itself tells the story of Dr. Ming Wang, telling of his challenging upbringing in China to developing groundbreaking procedures in medicine that let the blind see again.  It sounds like an amazing story.  It deserves an amazing movie.  Sight is not it.  Sight is a bland generic chore that has absolutely nothing to keep a viewer from playing with their phone throughout its duration.  Greg Kinnear does his best to inject some personality into the proceedings, but he's the only one that doesn't come across as if he's sleepwalking through this whole ordeal.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Back to Black ⭐️⭐️1/2

Challengers ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dune:  Part Two ⭐⭐1/2

The Fall Guy ⭐️⭐️⭐️

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

I Saw the TV Glow ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

IF ⭐️1/2

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ⭐️⭐️1/2

The Strangers:  Chapter 1 ⭐️1/2

New To Digital

Civil War ⭐️⭐️1/2

The Fall Guy ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Cinema Playground Journal 2024: Week 20 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Back to Black

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Sam Taylor-Johnson

Starring:  Marisa Abela, Jack O'Connell, Eddie Marsan, Leslie Manville

I know very little about Amy Winehouse.  I've heard the name, but I'd be hard-pressed to say I've ever listened to her music.  It's not a slight against it, as I barely seek out any music artist, really, so I don't intentionally avoid her.  Now there is a biopic and I have to pretend I know what I'm talking about.  Well, I don't and you're stuck with me.

Back to Black, named after her popular single, is primarily about her relationship with her husband Blake Fielder-Civil, and her turbulent life with him that led to substance abuse.  Back to Black never rises above a rather simple dramatization, but as far as dramatizations go, it's not bad.  It's not compelling, but it's strongly performed.  It's a similar problem I had with Bob Marly:  One Love, though I'd dare say Back to Black has a stronger flow to it's plot.  It does, however, sometimes fight against its flow, seemingly to its own annoyance, somehow.  There are times where the film feels fragmented, likely trying to portray Winehouse's life feeling fractured and chaotic.  It just can't work the drama enough to patch together shattered pieces of it narrative.  The movie even ends pretty abruptly, as if it's story hasn't concluded, which feels like a metaphor for Winehouse dying so young, as if she never had the opportunity to tell the rest of her own story.  There is a poetry to that, but it leaves you with too much longing for more to relate.

I Saw the TV Glow

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Drama, Fantasy, Mystery

Director:  Jane Schoenbrun

Starring:  Justice Smith, Bridget Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman, Helena Howard, Fred Durst, Danielle Deadwyler

I Saw the TV Glow is a very specific type of movie aimed at a very specific type of filmgoer, working as an analysis of the socially awkward escape from realism into fantasy and how dead reality can feel without it.  The film centers on a pair of recluse teenagers who are obsessed with a TV show called The Pink Opaque, who use it as a surrogate to their daily lives.  As time goes on, one of them disappears after the show is cancelled, only to return a decade later claiming a blur between fantasy and reality.  Jane Schoenbran uses The Pink Opaque as a stand-in for what I'm sure most Gen-Xers and Millenials might recognize from their adolescence.  Specifically, she is referencing Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Amber Benson, who played Tara on that series, has a brief cameo), but The Pink Opaque itself seems to lie in a combination of a lot of shows.  It could be substituted for whatever your favorite genre show was, from Buffy to Smallville to The X-Files, or even something more childish, such as Power Rangers or Goosebumps.  It's more Specifically about the distancing from life and social issues one might gain from becoming obsessed with such a show, coming home every week and living in another world for an hour.  The film starts out as a story of friendship between two isolated teenagers, depicting a socially awkward closeness formed through a mutual love of TV, but ventures out into surrealism as the escapism collapses around them.  It's a fascinating construction, though those who won't relate to their worldview probably won't relate too heftily to it, especially as it gets stranger as it goes.  The ending is fascinating.  Some might call it abrupt and unsatisfying, but there are intriguing metaphors at play that can be interpreted a number of ways, from the importance of putting childish things away to what we suffer when we lose our imagination.  Hell, it also almost feels like the frustration of one's favorite show ending on a cliffhanger, yearning for closure that never comes.  This movie is fun to disect for those looking for subtext.

IF

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Fantasy, Comedy

Director:  John Krasinski

Starring:  Cailey Fleming, Ryan Reynolds, John Krasinski, Fiona Shaw, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Steve Carrell, Louis Gosset Jr.

The poster to IF asks the question "What if imaginary friends were real?"  The answer to that is that they wouldn't be imaginary.  This isn't rocket science.

John Krasinski leaves A Quiet Place behind to make another movie about families, just with less monsters trying to eat people.  This written/directorial effort instead comes off as if Bing Bong made him cry in Inside Out and he's been carrying that trauma with him for ten years and needs therapy.  The Walking Dead's Cailey Fleming playing yet another girl with a dead mother and MIA father.  However, she soon finds that she has the gift to see "Imaginary Friends," and decides to help them connect with new children after their old ones have forgotten them.  That last bit seems out there to me, as the point of an imaginary friend is that the attributes are unique to the imagination of a child who created it, and just giving friends second-hand imaginary friends really defeats the purpose of imaginary friends in a way.  Krasinski tries his best to create a Monsters Inc. out of this concept, but he can't figure out just what in the hell he's supposed to do with it.  It's almost impressive just how aggressively this movie fails to be about anything.  It's whimsy in search of a premise.  Every time the movie promises to have a story, it cowers and just throws more whimsy in your face.  It's tiresome with how meaninglessly cute it's trying to be.  I really wish there was something of substance for the performers to grab ahold of.  Ryan Reynolds seems almost shafted in his role, as he contributes almost nothing to the movie except to be present.  Something needs to be said for Cailey Fleming, though.  She dives straight in and embraces the tone of the movie and vibes with it.  Fleming helps make this movie an easy watch, but she's just trying to make us forgive a film that never fleshed itself out beyond being a concept.  Children will likely be more forgiving of that than adults, so I suppose it will still hit with its target audience.

The Strangers:  Chapter 1

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Renny Harlin

Starring:  Madeline Petsch, Foy Gutierrez

Someone in Hollywood must be very determined to make a Strangers franchise a thing, even though the time for it probably passed over a decade ago.  The Strangers works as a story of a hit-and-run case of senseless, unprovoked violence from a group of people who disappeared into the night.  The second Strangers film, Prey at Night, worked on a somewhat ironic level, as if the original were some sort of horror classic from the 70's and the second was the punk rock 80's cash-in sequel to it that arguably missed the point, like a slasher franchise would do if the first movie made a lot of money and the producers wanted more (if The Strangers were Halloween, Prey at Night would be Halloween 4).  But the more they try to expand this franchise, the more it feels like Texas Chainsaw Massacre all over again, where every studio is making a bid to turn it into their go-to horror franchise, but none of them pan out, leaving it as an effective chiller that turned into an oddball, schizophrenic string of reboots, where some suck harder than others.

The thing is, I don't even like The Strangers that much.  It's a movie I've always wished I loved, but it just never hit me the way it's supposed to.  I think it's a very well made movie that has great moments, but it always felt like a thirty minute short film that was padded out to eighty.  But if I ever think of it fondly, I think of little moments where it wanted you to read in between the lines.  There are points in the film where the killers show a humanity that they're trying hard to mask, which helps make that film feel as real as it does.  Every other Strangers film seems to completely miss that, trying to portray them as soulless and psychotic as possible, while reutilizing lines like "Is Tamara here?" or "Why are you doing this?"/"Because you were home." as catchphrases.  It feels like the antithesis to the first movie, which sent out the undertones that the Strangers were just a normal group of people who did what they did simply just to experience taking a human life.

Evidentally, The Strangers:  Chapter 1 was rooted in a pitch for a revamp of the series that told one big, sprawling narrative that was too ambitious for one movie, so they decided to film it and split it into three.  Whoever thought this was a good idea should probably be fired, but the damage is done, and we're getting a three-part Strangers movie whether we want it or not.  Chapter 2 is due out in the fall, and Chapter 3 probably in the winter.  That is, assuming Chapter 1 doesn't flop hard enough to dump them all directly onto streaming.  Horror movies tend to keep their budgets tight, though, so that's probably unlikely.  Chapter 1, more-or-less, is just the first Strangers movie again, with minor detours.  The main couple is stranded in a nowhere town and staying at a Bed & Breakfast, and have some interaction with citizens in the first act.  Other than that, there are little-to-no plot beats that aren't repeated from the first film, as a trio of masked individuals terrorize them throughout the night.

Here's the thing that I can't get out of my head:  I'm curious why you would make this movie at all when it's so painstakingly similar to a movie that already exists.  You could have just made your part 2 and 3 and made them direct sequels to the first movie with seemingly little alterations.  I don't even know if I could spoil this movie, because the end result is practically the same as the first film, right down to who lives and who dies.  I just don't see the value in selling us on an already shot trilogy by introducing us to it with a movie we've already seen before, but duller.  The movie doesn't even pay off the trailer tagline of "Witness how the Strangers became the Strangers," which implies this is some sort of origin story that will reveal who these masked people are and what drives them to do this.  Not only is it not that, it struggles to be anything.  It's a boring remake of the first film that slapped "To Be Continued" at the end without giving us any sort of hook to be excited for more.  Why the fuck would I come back for another one?  The small hope that now this one is out of the way, it might actually become interesting?  Fuck you, movie.

The best thing I can say about this movie is I expected it to be worse, but that's more of a statement how low my expectations were than any praise for the film itself.  I almost wish it were worse.  A bad movie can handle.  Something odd and stupid can generate enthusiasm for me.  Madame Web, while arguably a worse movie, is still the most rewatchable movie of the year.  The Strangers:  Chapter 1 is probably the frontrunner for most regrettable ticket purchase.  It's IP repetition at its most uncreative.  That's something I had hoped it wasn't, but nobody was willing to rise above that standard.

Wildcat

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Ethan Hawke

Starring:  Maya Hawke, Laura Linney, Rafael Casal, Philip Ettinger, Cooper Hoffman, Steve Zahn

Ethan Hawke directs his daughter Maya in this semi-biography of writer Flannery O'Connor, portraying her creative struggles while those around her fail to understand her work.  Intercut throughout are adaptations of O'Connor's short stories, with Maya Hawke playing the lead in each.  The best moments of Wildcat are absolutely worth watching.  I just wish it were a better movie to house the inspiration.  The idea of being both an biopic and work adaptation is pretty clever, as it helps us understand both the woman and her imagination at the same time.  The film is made with a pure and focused ideas and vision, but it frustrates as it struggles to make it feel whole.  It's almost as if the film was written by its main character, letting her stories out only to flummox the audience who probably isn't ready for them.  This might be intentional, though while the film is great at at portraying O'Connor's polarizing nature, it fails to find a throughline that comes off as anything but a chaotic and grim mess.  The question becomes whether or not that's the point.  If it is, the movie fails to elevate it to any level of importance.  It does emphasize the conflict between artistic expression against audience understanding quite well, though.  It just also feels like it's an allegory for the finished film.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Challengers ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dune:  Part Two ⭐⭐1/2

The Fall Guy ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ghostbusters:  Frozen Empire ⭐️⭐️

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

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ⭐️⭐️1/2

Kung Fu Panda 4 ⭐⭐1/2

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tarot ⭐️⭐️

Unsung Hero ⭐️1/2

New To Digital

Challengers ⭐️⭐️⭐️

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

Sting ⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Physical

The American Society of Magical Negroes ⭐️⭐️1/2

Dune:  Part Two ⭐⭐1/2

Imaginary ⭐️1/2

One Life ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Coming Soon!

Cinema Playground Journal 2024: Week 19 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Science Fiction, Adventure

Director:  Wes Ball

Starring:  Owen Teague, Freya Allen, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon, Willam H. Macy

A lot of people my age grew up with franchises like Star Wars or Indiana Jones.  I grew up with Godzilla and Planet of the Apes, so I tend to have stronger opinions on those movies than either of the former, though it always comes from a place of endearment.  I've admittedly been spoiled for the last decade on both, being handed the blockbuster MonsterVerse and Ceasar trilogy.  Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes follows up the latter, getting elbow deep into what you could call Planet of the Apes proper, showing an up-and-running Apes society while humans live in the wild.  That excited me, because it's amazing how few of the Apes movies really use that premise set up in the first movie (and none of them go full Pierre Boule novel and depict an advanced Ape culture).

Set centuries after Ceasar's death, Kingdom tells the story of an ape named Noa, who belongs to a tribe of apes who train eagles as companions.  His clan is then taken captive by an army of colonialist apes who are hunting a human woman who has been hiding on the outskirts of their village.  The film was directed by Wes Ball, whose filmography is practically limited to the Maze Runner movies and not much else.  Ball sticks to what he knows and structures Kingdom like a young adult adventure novel.  I imagine he might think he's playing to his strengths, but he is also inheriting their weaknesses in doing so.  The movie can sometimes feel labored in establishing its worldbulding, which hits the opening half hour harder than the rest of the movie.  The story of Noa and his little eagle egg is one great big giant "Who gives a shit?" piece trying to ease us into the movie.  Ball feels more in-the-zone with the action, though when he slows down for drama, he is weighed down with heavy-handedness, pushing conflict that lacks power and twists that lack impact.  And it's all littered with ambiguity, where elements of the story of left vague as threads for a sequel to cover when this film could really use an exploration of them to spice up its interest value.  Because of that, Kingdom is a frustrating watch, though not a particularly terrible one.  If anything, it falls in the middle of the pack of the ten-film Apes saga.  It's a movie that wants to be a hint of more excitement to come, making sure we check out the next story, though more excitement is probably demanded in the moment.

Not Another Church Movie

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy

Director:  Johnny Mack

Starring:  Kevin Daniels, Jamie Foxx, Vivica A. Fox, Lamorne Morris, Tisha Campbell, Jasmine Guy, Lydia Styslinger, James Michael Cummings, Kyla Pratt, Mickey Rourke

Not Another Church Movie is a spoof of Tyler Perry's niche genre of faith dramedies targeted at Black audiences (particularly those that star his Madea character), of which I will admit to having limited-to-no experience with.  I have, however, grown up with Airplane, The Naked Gun, Top Secret, and Hot Shots, so I'm intimately familiar with this brand of parody in top form, which is probably enough to know Not Another Church Movie isn't very good.  The film has Jamie Foxx portraying God, who appears to "Tyler Pherry" and sets him on a mission to make a movie based on his family.  But, really, the premise evades that whenever it feels like it and jumps all over the map.  I'm pretty certain a lot of its vignettes take influence from Perry's filmography, but I'm probably the worst person to ask about how effectively it lampoons them, given my lack of familiarity.  What does occur to me is that this movie seems to have missed the boat on mocking the tropes that created Perry's empire.  I don't know the last time Tyler Perry's work really hit mainstream hard enough to warrant a parody like this.  It doesn't look like he's ever stopped or paused (evidently, he's churning movies out at the Netflix factory now), so it's probably ignorant to say he's irrelevant today.  At the same time, this movie feels about a decade too late to effectively tear into them.  But Top Secret is a great parody, even though Elvis Presley's movie career had ended over a decade prior, so funny can transcend trendy when it's done well.  Not Another Church Movie has a few gags that work by themselves and generate a chuckle, but the whole movie is an exorcise in throwing a lot of humor at a wall and hoping something lands.  It pushes itself to cram as many jokes into itself as possible, but when it tends to go down the wrong path, it just belabors it, in hopes that maybe something can be mined from it.  Mickey Rourke as the Devil, for example, contributes nothing to the movie except to be present.  The joke is just that Mickey Rourke is the Devil.  It's a joke that is made to just exist.  I suppose most spoof movies are like that, but the good ones utilize their fun, offbeat tone to overcome their weaker gags.  Not Another Church Movie feels more desperate than offbeat, which makes the lesser laughs sting more.

Poolman

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Comedy, Mystery

Director:  Chris Pine

Starring:  Chris Pine, Annette Bening, Danny DileVito, Jennifer Jason Leigh, DeWanda Wise, Stephen Tobolowsky, Clancy Brown, John Ortiz, Ray Wise, Juliet Mills, Ariana DeBose

I've been hearing lackluster things about Poolman for about a year now, when it was screened at TIFF and left the wrong type of impression on distributors.  I knew very little about it except that it looked as if Chris Pine really wanted to play the Dude from The Big Lebowski.  To be honest, that kind of sums up the entire movie, because it aspires real hard to be small-scale, quirky crime comedy of a ne'er-do-well stuck in a caper beyond his comprehension.  I'm probably the wrong person to ask if he succeeded, though considering how scathing the response has been, he didn't.  The movie sees Pine play a poolman who uncovers a town conspiracy and fumbles his way into discovering more.  Pine is suitably goofy and hapless, but he's not really that funny.  His antics feel more like something that makes Pine snicker to himself rather than something that actually is a large-scale laugh-getter.  There are some character choices that are just odd, like his weird obsession with Erin Brockovich, to the point that he sends her constant fan mail.  I'm not entirely sure what that adds to the movie, but clearly Pine thought it was really funny.  It's not unfunny, I guess, but the movie is littered with things that more random than comedy, and it's done with such earnestness that I feel Pine is trying wrap it around into something hilarious.  His effort grows tiresome the more it goes on.  But I don't feel good for kicking this movie.  I don't even think it's that the movie is that bad.  If nothing else, it's confident and tenacious.  It just never snaps into place.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Abigail ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Challengers ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Civil War ⭐️⭐️1/2

Dune:  Part Two ⭐⭐1/2

The Fall Guy ⭐️⭐️

Ghostbusters:  Frozen Empire ⭐️⭐️

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

Kung Fu Panda 4 ⭐⭐1/2

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Star Wars:  Episode I - The Phantom Menace ⭐️⭐️1/2

Tarot ⭐️⭐️

Unsung Hero ⭐️1/2

Wicked Little Letters ⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Digital

Abigail ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Ghostbusters:  Frozen Empire ⭐️⭐️

Housekeeping for Beginners ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wicked Little Letters ⭐️⭐️1/2

Coming Soon!

Cinema Playground Journal 2024: Week 18 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

The Fall Guy

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Action, Comedy, Mystery

Director:  David Leitch

Starring:  Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham, Winston Duke, Teresa Palmer, Stephanie Hsu

Loosely based on a television series starring Six Million Dollar Man star Lee Majors, The Fall Guy sees Ryan Gosling as a stunt performer who is sent to check on the missing star of his latest action movie, but winds up getting sucked into a bizarre mystery surrounding his disappearance.  It's a movie that is constantly bouncing off its own walls, trying to barrel through a hopelessly convoluted plot.  The movie's charisma gives it value at its most chaotic, as Gosling is constantly hilarious and charming, showcasing wonderful chemistry with costar Emily Blunt.  It can even turn its chaos into a virtue, by showcasing wonderful stuntwork in what becomes a feature length salute to stunt performers in general.  The movie is spectacularly entertaining, though it can leave its audience in the wind as it runs for the horizon.

Mars Express

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Science Fiction, Noir, Mystery

Director:  Jérémie Périn

Starring:  Morla Gorrandona, Josh Keaton (English dub)

It may look and act like an anime, but Mars Express actually hails from France, though anime nerds are probably the primary audience.  It's a visually stimulating science fiction noir sees a cybernetically enhanced detective investigating a missing hacker but soon gets sucked up in a conspiracy.  It's imaginative with its world construction and characterization, and it's plot is interesting enough to inhabit it's sumptuous surroundings.  It plays into noir tropes pretty effectively, both with intriguing drama and sly humor.  The movie does struggle with its ending, going for a reveal and tossing away satisfying plot payoff for a hopelessly bleak scenario to emphasize the noir influence, but it's certainly a movie to chew on until that point.  Animated or not, Mars Express is a solid sci-fi thriller for genre enthusiests, which makes it an easy recommend for anybody who's looking for a engaging premise set against a futuristic setting.

Tarot

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Spencer Cohen, Anna Halberg

Starring:  Harriet Slater, Adain Bradley, Avantika Vandanapu, Wolfgang Novogratz, Humberly González, Larsen Thompson, Jacob Batalon

A group of teenagers find a deck of tarot cards in a musky basement and read each other's horrorscope, only to find that each reading comes true in twisted ways, resulting in their deaths.  Pleasantries are quick in this strange ghost story that is seemingly wanting to be a PG-13 Final Destination, as it introduces the characters quickly, gets to the title tarot soon after, and leaves the rest of the movie seeing them run away from ghouls.  It's not very ambitious, and it certainly isn't scary, as its horror is just ghosties popping out and screaming at the viewer.  It earns some charisma points for its campy sense of humor, though it can't keep it up consistently, as it tends to lose it the more it mixes in the melodrama.  One might yearn for it to be more creative, and in a rare moment it provides a glimpse at what a better version of this movie could be.  The flashback scene that explains the origin of the terror tarot deck, for example, is the most stylish and interesting sequence in the movie, but it only amounts to a fraction of the runtime.  The rest of the movie makes no qualms about maintaining itself as being dumb and simple, but it's has a silly tone to it that makes it more amusing than it probably should be.  Some will probably walk out of this movie because of that.  I'd argue that a certain type of viewer will just slap their knee and have a good laugh.

Art Attack

Limbo

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama, Noir, Mystery

Director:  Ivan Sen

Starring:  Simon Baker, Rob Collins, Natasha Wanganeen

Australian noir film sees a detective sent to a small town to investigate a dormant murder case in hopes of finding new evidence to reopen it.  It's rare that he finds anything new, but he does hear details straight from the words of the Aboriginal citizens, whose tales highlight how the justice system failed them.  There is a theme of systematic racism, particularly through apathy, in the film, as the residents are people of color who are left with an unanswered question in their lives that they were forced to move on from.  The movie is playing with powerful concepts, though it does so in a meandering way.  It seeks to frustrate the viewer with its lack of progression, and it most certainly does, though I'd have been more interested in it taking a path that felt less monotonous.  The noir melodrama is laid on thick, as each character is given a distinct scowl that they maintain throughout the movie so the viewer can bask in their misery.  It's an interesting idea.  It probably could have been done better.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Abigail ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Boy Kills World ⭐️⭐️1/

Challengers ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Civil War ⭐️⭐️1/2

Dune:  Part Two ⭐⭐1/2

Ghostbusters:  Frozen Empire ⭐️⭐️

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

Kung Fu Panda 4 ⭐⭐1/2

The Mummy ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Unsung Hero ⭐️1/2

New To Digital

Dune:  Part Two ⭐⭐1/2

The Long Game ⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Physical

Ordinary Angels ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Promised Land ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Madame Web ⭐️

Mean Girls ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Coming Soon!