MST3K, RiffTrax, and Beyond: Cinema Playground Journal 2024: Week 22 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

The Dead Don't Hurt

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Western, Romance

Director: Viggo Mortensen

Starring: Vicky Krieps, Viggo Mortensen, Solly McLeod, Garrett Dillahunt, Colin Morgan, Ray McKinnon, Luke Reilly, Atlas Green, Danny Huston

Viggo Mortensen writes, directs, and stars in this western where he falls in love with a French woman, who is left behind to fend for herself as he enlists in the Civil War. The Dead Don't Hurt is more Vicky Krieps' movie than Mortensen's, as the lengthiest portion of the movie has her living by herself in a desert landscape and dealing with complications that arise from being around lawless characters in an isolated area. Mortensen takes control of the film during intermittent epilogue portions, where he puts the spotlight on himself to deal with conflicts in the aftermath. There are elements to this movie that are very lovely, though I tend to hold myself at bay from overly praising it as Mortensen falls back on tropey conflicts of a woman dealing with animalistic masculinity. He could keep the story the same but flesh it out more and the film would be richer for it. As is, it's a story of a woman living within her own feminine victimhood and while inspiring a tale of her man's rage. The movie isn't entirely void of Krieps' emotional state, though it cries for more complexity when she just quietly subjugates to it. It's a neat idea for a western, there are just little ways it could reach its potential that it chooses not to reach for.

Ezra

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre: Drama, Comedy

Director: Tony Goldwyn

Starring: Bobby Cannavale, William Fitzgerald, Rose Byrne, Robert DeNiro, Whoopi Goldberg, Rainn Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Tony Goldwyn

The Ezra Miller Story?!?! NOOOOOOOOO!

Oh good, it's just about an autistic child. That I can handle.

This movie has Bobby Cannavale playing a stand-up comic with an autistic son, who he kidnaps after being put on questionable medication, and they go on a road trip across the country to film a stand-up spot on Jimmy Kimmel. I'm curious about how he stayed booked on Kimmel if he was constantly on the news for kidnapping his son, but movie magic, I suppose. Ezra has good intentions, as Cannavale wrote the film basing it on his relationship with his own son. There are genuinely endearing moments in it, though it tends to struggle with its schmaltzy side, suddenly shifting its tone to less subtle melodrama. But the movie handles Ezra's own extra needs in an exceptional way, showing the ways in which his autism commands his life but also journeying into growing past it in his own way, beyond what his parents can offer them. It's a solid feel-good movie.

In a Violent Nature

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Horror

Director: Chris Nash

Starring: Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love, Reece Presley, Liam Leone, Charlotte Creaghan, Léa Rose Sebastianis, Sam Roulston, Alexander Oliver

It's not often that slasher movies go arthouse. One can argue for the artistic merits of Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, or Scream (though, more successfully, you could put up Psycho), but when one comes up that really deconstructs and reassembles the genre, it's time to sit down and pay attention. In a Violent Nature is a movie that takes a slasher movie premise but sets its camera with the killer instead of the victims. With that, the movie doesn't have much of a plot. It's just a slasher movie. A very bad slasher movie, judging by the context clues we're given. A group of partying friends accidentally disturb the grave of a campfire story serial killer, who hunts them down one by one. For a while, the film's experimental artistic gimmick works beautifully, creating a rather base scenario seen through an uneasy new lens. When it comes to maintaining it, the movie struggles more than I was comfortable with. Halfway through the film is one of the film's most elaborate and showstopping death scenes, but it also marks a downturn in quality. It's likely one made to get horror fans buzzing, but it's set up too poorly for it to hit as hard as it wants to, primarily because the victim just freezes in place and lets it happen, with no actual reaction or survival instinct. After this point the movie never regains its footing, because it seems to be sliding further into being its meta-sidestory of a bad horror movie with hollow characters rather than the fresh outlook on the genre that it wants to be. However, rather than ending with an action set piece, it chooses to halt all proceedings and climax with a cameo that slasher fans might recognize, who gives a monologue about the animalistic nature of violence. It's not an uninteresting gesture, but it's longwinded and on-the-nose to the point that it is just exhausting. I don't think the second half kills the movie necessarily, but it does hinder it from delivering something fantastic.

Summer Camp

⭐️

Genre: Comedy

Director: Castille Landon

Starring: Diane Keaton, Kathy Bates, Alfre Woodard, Eugene Levy, Dennis Haysbert, Beverly D'Angelo, Nicole Richie, Josh Peck, Betsy Sodaro

Diane Keaton, Kathy Bates, and Alfre Woodard play three childhood friends who attend a summer camp reunion and try to relive their past in this strained comedy. I feel like I've watched more Diane Keaton nostalgia comedies over the last few years than I've seen actual Diane Keaton movies from her prime. This is probably some sort of penance for something, but I also can't help but notice that this is the second movie in a month that've seen that has had Nicole Richie in it and I'm starting to get concerned that I am legitimately being punished. Summer Camp is like a Nickelodeon TV movie directed at middle-aged women. The movie does try to be poignant for its audience, but its juvenile nature undercuts everything it tries to do. I get that it's about women trying to relive their youth, but it seems extreme to crossbreed child-friendly slapstick comedy in search of a laughtrack with jokes about vibrators and vaginas. The movie is mostly an excuse to set jukebox tunes to pratfalling, and it even does that poorly, as the music in the movie lacks a consistent era for its pandering, mixing golden oldies like Bad Moon Rising with more modern jams like Handclap, which makes the movie feel even more tonally confused. This is such a bizarre movie that seems to be exactly what it wants to be, but what it wants to be is just a confused mess.

Young Woman and the Sea

⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Drama, Sports

Director: Joachim Rønning

Starring: Daisy Ridley, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Stephen Graham, Kim Bodnia, Christopher Eccleston, Glenn Fleshler

Based on the true story of Gertrude Ederle, this film tells the story of how she aspired to become a championship swimmer and became the first woman to swim the English Channel in 1926. Ederle is played with endearment by Daisy Ridley, who puts on that million-dollar smile of hers and wins over the audience's graces. I've always liked Daisy Ridley. I felt like, even as a newcomer, she brought more charisma to Star Wars than you'd expect from a non-Harrison Ford performer in that series (until Rise of Skywalker seemed to wear her down, that is). Young Woman and the Sea is a film that is more dependent on that charisma than a film about space lasers. In lesser hands, this is a movie that could run into the same pitfalls as last week's Sight, because it's reliant on schmaltz for its ambitions to inspire the audience. Young Woman and the Sea benefits from finding an inspiring narrative, which is something Sight didn't do. But it's still schmaltzy, no question about that. The movie is so earnestly sincere, wanting to be viewed without cynicism nor irony. Not everyone will abide by its wishes, but it's likely to be a movie that will mean a lot to young girls who might view it. The theme of the movie is female empowerment, underlining the unfair treatment of women in its time period and telling the story of a woman who set out to prove that anything a man could do was something she could do just as well, if not better. It most certainly is that, and it has no intention of being subtle about it, but it also want to be literate to children, so that's passible. I think it will inspire, and those who it does inspire will hold it in high regard.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Babes ⭐️⭐️1/2

Dune: Part Two ⭐⭐1/2

The Fall Guy ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Garfield Movie ⭐️⭐️1/2

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

Sight ⭐️1/2

The Strangers: Chapter 1 ⭐️1/2