Multiplex Madness
Afterburn
⭐️⭐️1/2
🏆"Hurts So Good" Must-See Bad Movie Award🏆
Genre: Action
Director: J.J. Perry
Starring: Dave Bautista, Samuel L. Jackson, Olga Kurylenko, Kristofer Hivju, Daniel Bernhardt
Even though we already had a genuine Paul W.S. Anderson movie starring Dave Bautista this year, somehow Afterburn is the most Paul W.S. Anderson movie starring Dave Bautista of the year. A solar flare has sent the world into a post-apocalypse, and Bautista is a dude who collects fine valuables of the previous civilization for head honcho Samuel L. Jackson. His next target is finding the Mona Lisa and delivering it to Jackson's collection. This story is kind of doubly ironic when you consider the Mona Lisa's history because it wasn't considered a great work of art until it was stolen (twice), so stealing it because it is a "great work of art from the old world" is kind of funny. Afterburn is a goofy and stupid low-budget actioner made for an audience who knows what they like the moment they see it. They don't necessarily want realism, common sense, or even good filmmaking. They just want to see shit getting wrecked. Afterburn wrecks stuff up real good, serving up preposterous like it was gas station hot food. There's little reason to judge it because it's just something made to fill a low expectation demand. It's the perfect type of action movie for someone who watches every cheesy Italian knock-off of Escape from New York and Mad Max, owns every Deathstalker movie on VHS, thinks Death Race 2000 was robbed at the Oscars, and loves Conan the Destroyer more than Conan the Barbarian.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Comedy
Director: Kogonada
Starring: Colin Farrell, Margot Robbie, Kevin Kline, Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Romcom enthusiests who don't want to be challenged the the nuanced analysis of love from a movie like Materialists and just want sappy sweetness of two people who are absolutely going to be together by the end might want to consider taking a big, bold, beautiful journey this weekend. Colin Farell plays a lonely middle-aged man who seeks out a car rental service. The car eventually starts talking to him (it took every fiber of my being to not scream "KNIGHT RIDER!" in the middle of the theater) and the self-aware GPS leads him to fellow rent-a-car traveler Margot Robbie. Together, the pair are lead to magic doors that lead to their past lives, where they get to know each other and the mistakes that led them to being alone for all these years. It's a story that is traditionalist while also going for a bold wit about it, playing into the whimsy of the piece with a dry sense of humor. The movie is very into it's own humorous surrealist quirkiness, and I'm not sure it realizes that it's so lost in it that it doesn't read the room when it's not hitting.
It's difficult to really get into what goes wrong with this movie. Technically, it's exactly what it wants to be, and that includes the flaws it puts on display. Both Farrell and Robbie's characters have large mounds of dialogue describing their life choices that come out as phony and rehearsed. At the same time, at the core of each of these speeches is a tender humanist tale of broken people, wanting to be relatable but verbalizing it in a way that's hard to relate to. The movie uses its lighthearted cuteness to counteract that, trying to display itself as off-the-cuff and unpredictable even when it's anything but. What's weird about this movie is that it's very clear that it doesn't work but it's so tender-hearted that it's difficult to dislike based on how committed it is to its own whimsical romanticism. I can absolutely picture someone hammering out this script while bingewatching their favorite romance films from the 40's through the 60's and rereading Charles Dickins' A Christmas Carol. And the message of the movie seems to be that lonely people who perceive themselves as bad people are really just good people who can't forgive themselves for their own worst mistakes and should stop being so hard on themselves and lighten the load by sharing it with someone else. There's something charming about that even if the result is a whiff of the ball.
Him
⭐️
Genre: Horror, Sports
Director: Justin Tipping
Starring: Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers, Julia Fox, Tim Heidecker, Jim Jefferies
Psychological horror hits the gridiron as an injured Tyriq Withers looks to rehabilitate himself and become the greatest football player ever under the mentorship of former legendary player Marlon Wayans, who trains him mercilessly through what appears to be a satanic cult. Him is a movie that feels like it has all the elements it needs to succeed. You can tell the movie is made with vision, with its commentary on the unhealthy pressure on athletes to push their limits and the cult-like nature of sports fans. The fact that the movie knows what it's saying makes the parallel fact that it's boring, junky, and shitty disheartening. It's one of those movies that really bums you out while watching it because you want to love it and it's just not vibing. The actors are fully in command of their roles, especially Marlon Wayans, but they're also at the mercy of film itself falling into place and being the experience that it wants to be. Instead of being an experience, it's like a bad bag of weed. Maybe there's momentary kick, but you just sit in place and it kind of bums you out. It fully let's the viewer down when it hits you with the climax, wanting to go-for-broke and instead just underwhelms with numbing violence that just leaves you feeling "That's it? I guess. Whatever."
Him is a movie that intentionally tries to initiate discomfort in the audience. The risk of this is always the tradeoff of that leaking into what the viewers thinks of the movie's quality because regardless of how well made it is, the reaction of a viewer can easily be "But I didn't enjoy it." Vertigo, for example, is one of the best movies ever made but it's a startlingly uncomfortable movie to watch, which might offset the movie's stunning qualities for someone who isn't prepared for that. Reading in between the discomfort can be challenging, figuring out if it's genuinely a bad movie or if one just disliked the experience of watching it. While Him has stylish flourishes that make feel like it's well made, after a while it really settles in that it just isn't very good and it has little to do with the discomfort it's inducing. The movie's themes are resonating and powerful but the film itself is not.
The History of Sound
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Drama
Director: Oliver Hermanus
Starring: Paul Mescal, Josh O'Connor, Chris Cooper
Mark another gay romance into Paul Mescal's filmography, following 2023's All of Us Strangers. I don't know if this is a niche he's building or if he's just taking the scripts as they come. All I know is that The History of Sound isn't as good as All of Us Strangers. This one sees Mescal as a young man in early-twentieth century America who falls in love with Josh O'Connor through their mutual love of folk music. The years go by and their lives separate, though Mescal longs to reconnect with his former lover. The movie has a tender sweetness to its core, it's mostly rhythmless and unnoteworthy. It's mostly a two-hour generator of pining looks from Paul Mascal with little nuance to the drama. I suppose one could defend the movie citing internal conflict, but the internal conflict never seems to shift. It just sits still like in a staring contest. And this is going to sound like the crappiest nitpick but this is a movie about two men who make a connection through song, so fuck it, I'm saying it anyway: Paul Mescal's singing voice sucks.
Interestingly enough, the movie's sound-mix seems to supersede the need for any sort of musical scoring, making any sort of sound pop. It's certainly a well-made movie, and I feel the people who made it fully put their heart in it. It's going to depend on whether being crafted well is just as important as narrative flow. If you just want a well-made LGBTQ love story, The History of Sound is one. It's not one of the best, but it's a movie that was made. Considering queer love stories are historically underrepresented in the history of film, just being made is an achievement itself.
The Senior
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama, Sports
Director: Rod Lurie
Starring: Michael Chiklis, Mary Stuart Masterson, Brandon Flynn, James Badge Dale, Rob Corddry
Angel Studios is back to prove that Sketch was just a fluke by doing one of their patented "movie based on a true story that looks and feels fake" formula films that they've perfected. This time they're playin' some football, baby! Woo! It can't be a worse football movie than Him, right? Well, it's Angel Studios. Don't underestimate how shitty they can get. Michael Chiklis plays a man who was expelled from his senior year of college and kicked off the football team. At the age of 59, he utilizes a loophole and decides to head back to college...to play some football.
I swear to god, there's an episode of King of the Hill that's exactly like this, and, somehow, that was more heartfelt and endearing.
To be perfectly fair, the movie's themes are primarily about unfulfilled potential and life regrets and it kind of works. Most of that is because Chiklis is charismatic and likeable in the lead role. When he's not on-screen, the movie tanks itself because nobody else has screen presence and everyone is saying generic faith film dialogue in a sappy tone. Chiklis and the actor playing his younger self also seem to be in a competition to see who looks more like Curly Howard. It's an unfair fight because Chiklis actually played Curly in a Three Stooges biopic, but they did find a decent challenger for him.
The movie is more entertaining on the football field than off, utilizing Chiklis with some fun setpieces and enjoyable team dynamics. There is a minor issue when the movie seems more interested in being a presentation of good sportsmanship rather than compelling dramatics, but Angel Studios is going to be Angel Studios so we might as well accept that this movie has a ceiling to how good its interested in being. I mean, this is a movie where the main character hurts his arm and struggles to mend it but picks up a Bible and is suddenly healed. This movie is not interested in being a genuine drama. Because of that, its inspirational story isn't inspiring because it really feels like barely anything of note happened. Still better than Him, though.
Xeno
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Science Fiction
Director: Matthew Loren Oates
Starring: Lulu Wilson, Omari Hardwick, Paul Schneider, Wrenn Schmidt, Trae Romano
Goddammit, Elliot, not again. We have a brand new "child befriends alien" movie because every decade needs at least thirty of them. Xeno's take on it centers on Lulu Wilson as a girl with an affinity for predatory animals who happens upon an alien in the desert. She keeps in in her basement and tries to hide it from her mom, her alcoholic step dad, and federal agents. The film is nothing if not earnest, wanting to genuinely ask the question of what if E.T. were gooey, scary, and flesh-eating, like the alien from Alien. The movie has very few ideas outside of this, coasting on Lulu Wilson's youthful energy. The bond between the two beings is undernourished, as Wilson just chatters away and the alien, whom she names Croak, just hangs around her. It's unclear how much Croak actually understands, though the movie at times implies a telepathic bond but not always. The movie just doesn't offer a lot, walking down certain paths but never fully committing, even leaving certain plot elements unfulfilled. The low budget methods of bringing Croak to life are pretty fun, because they don't shy away from the idea that he might be able to bite your head off. I'm not sure why he didn't try to eat Lulu Wilson in the first place if he really was willinh to go there, but then we wouldn't have a movie. Most of the effects seem to be a man in a suit, with selective points where more enhanced effects are needed. Some of the ways the cinematography hides the limited mobility of Croak without looking misframed are actually pretty clever, including hiding most of his body behind Wilson and keeping him out of focus and in the background. The movie is competently made, it just never completes any of its goals.
Waltzing with Brando
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Comedy
Director: Bill Fishman
Starrijg: Billy Zane, Jon Heder, Richard Dreyfuss, Camille Razat, Alaina Huffman, Tia Carrere, James Jagger
This week's film-going experience was brought to you by the two great Marlons in film history: Marlon Wayans and Marlon Brando. Walzing with Brando features no walzing and also no Brando, utilizing Billy Zane to play the famed actor. Taking place in the early 70's, the film sees Brando around the same time he played a role in "some mobster movie," where he is living in Tahiti and befriends architect Bernard Judge (played by Jon Heder). Together, the duo plan to develop the land into a eco-friendly tropical spot. With themes of environmentalism and personal freedom, one would hope this movie is something. Is this movie anything? Well, no, not really. The movie feels like it's just an excuse for Billy Zane to do a Marlon Brando impression surrounded by naked women. To the movie's credit, it's a pretty decent impression and the naked women are exquisitely naked. Outside of that, the rest of the movie is Jon Heder adapting to Brando's personality, occasionally explaining the plot to the audience ala Clarissa Explains It All or Malcolm in the Middle. The movie stays put as this sort of casual thing that is just happening and the what dramatic plot beats it takes advantage of are too farcical to take seriously. It feels like a pitch for what a Marlon Brando led HBO comedy series would look like. It's mildly amusing but it's not interesting.
Toy Story ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
New To Digital
Americana ⭐️⭐️
Eden ⭐️⭐️
Ne Zha II ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Relay ⭐️⭐️1/2
Witchboard ⭐️⭐️1/2
New To Physical
My Dead Friend Zoe ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Coming Soon!
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