Multiplex Madness
Christy
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Drama, Sports
Director: David Michôd
Starring: Sydney Sweeney, Ben Foster, Katy O'Brian
Sydney Sweeney finally stars in a movie that's halfway decent, but she made Americana on her way there, so she still deserves to be given shit. Christy is the second biopic of the year focusing on a groundbreaking women's sports icon, following the Millie Muscles biopic Queen of the Ring from many months ago. This one focuses on women's boxing icon Christy Martin, chronicling the ups and downs of her career as well as the emotional and physical abuse she put up with from her manager/husband, James V. Martin. Christy is a better film than Queen of the Ring, though this has a lot to do with Queen of the Ring's ill-advised tendencies to make shit up if they thought the story was getting boring. Christy doesn't feel too far removed from what Christy Martin's life story actually was, whether it's dramatically engaging or not. This mostly hurts the early portions, where the movie has this weird tendency to not let itself breathe. It will switch to a scene for two lines then jump to the next two-line scene, wanting to cover as much ground as possible very rapidly and abruptly to get to the meat of Martin's story faster. The film feels more balanced after this, though it isn't made with any particular flair. Boxing scenes are brief and not very exciting, while the movie seems willing to coast on performance instead of screenplay. Sweeney and co-star Ben Foster are pretty good, but they aren't given a lot that's interesting to do outside of their big pre-determined moments to shine. Christy is a movie for the sports biopic enthusiast, though it likely won't have much of a lasting legacy because it isn't consistently impactful.
Die My Love
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield, Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek
Most trades are saying Die My Love is an allegory for postpartum depression. If it is, it's a failure, because the movie comes off more as an allegory for monogamous boredom as Jennifer Lawrence moves into a country house with Robert Pattinson and grows more unhinged at her husband's seeming growing indifference to their relationship. None of Lawrence's problems seem to stem from the birth of their child. In fact, the baby almost seems to be collateral damage in the making. Most of Lawrence's sufferings seem to specifically stem from lack of sexual gratification, as her partnership with Pattinson moves from "fucking wildly in every room on a whim" directly into the mundanity of a domestic life. Is postpartum depression related? Possibly. Like most depression, postpartum is about psychology and chemical imbalance, which makes postpartum itself just a triggering circumstance, but the film uses postpartum as something incidental, symbolic of lifestyle trasition and not directly linked to motivation. That's just my read of this film that's more symbolism than story, wanting the viewer to read between the lines rather than follow a narrative. If the movie thinks it's sly, it's shockingly dense because it's not that hard to read. Too much of the movie is obvious. There are a lot of shots of Lawrence on all fours in a feral pose, crawling around like a wild animal in a cage who yearns for freedom. It's one of the movie's stupidest metaphors but it seems obsessed with it. As an experience, the movie just isn't interesting. The film wants to thrill with the intense emotional state of the actors but everything is so heightened that their reactions stop being understandable even if the emotions behind them are relatable. The most frustrating thing about it is that it could easily be something powerful but chooses to be intentionally impenetrable. If only Lawrence got some penetrating, then this entire mess could have been avoided. Am I right? ::raises hand for high five::left hanging::
Grand Prix of Europe
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Comedy, Sports
Director: Waldemar Fast
Starring: (English voice cast) Gemma Arterton, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Hayley Atwell, Lenny Henry, Rob Beckett
Unmemorable but spirited, this family film is a German/UK co-production, telling the story of a young mouse who is desperate to pay off her father's loan and jumps in as a driving double for the world's greatest race car driver when he injures himself. The movie will never be a true contender for finest animated filmmaking, as it's very Saturday Morning in its vibes. What it succeeds in doing is being a showcase of zippy setpieces, silly characters, and bright colors. If your child's favorite Pixar movie is Cars, this could potentially be a movie they stumble upon on streaming and watch twice in an afternoon. Of course, my personal interest piqued based on the sexy voices of British heartstoppers Gemma Arterton and Hayley Atwell. It's not much, but I'll take what I can get.
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Director: Mailys Vallade, Liane-Cho Han
Starring: (English voice cast) Lily Gilliam, Victoria Grosbois, Yumi Fujimori, Cathy Cerdà, Marc Arnaud, Laetitia Coryn
This French animated film is an adaptation of the autobiographical novel The Character of Rain by Amélie Nothomb, telling the story of a Belgian toddler living in Japan who experiences everything in life for the first time. She forms a deep bond with her nanny, who doesn't talk down to her about the joys and tragedies of life. The film is a lushly animated depiction of innocence so that the darkest of its themes can feel threatening to the beauty of its joy. Little Amélie is unafraid to be heavy and existential as it tackles things like death, predjudice, and change. Each of these is something Amélie is learning about for the first time as she discovers the world isn't centered on her and there are things outside of her control that will make it more difficult. Whether the film is a quality family option is up to the parents. In addition to the thoughtful thematic material, the movie is a soft drama, so more hyperactive children likely won't sit and watch it. The movie could be watched as a family if one chooses to, though. Adult animation appreciators will likely be the ones to love it the most.
Long Shadows
⭐️
Genre: Western
Director: William Shockley
Starring: Dermot Mulroney, Dominic Monaghan, Jacqueline Bisset, Blaine Maye, Sarah Cortez, Chris Mulkey, Anthony Skordi, Ronnie Gene Blevins
Schlocky western melodrama features an impossibly noble young man who seeks to avenge the deaths of his parents, learns to gunsling, and falls in love with a prostitute. You know, a bunch of shit from the "Do-It-Yourself Western Movie" kit. A cheap movie I can live with. This movie is an underwritten and over-acted relation of a trite plot that hundreds of westerns have already done with the exception of a laughable ending that is admittedly exclusive to it. And it's cheap. A movie like this could save itself with charisma and character development, neither of which the movie feels like it's that interested in. There are a couple of notable performers here, including Dermot Mulroney, Dominic Monaghan, and Jacqueline Bisset, all of which are wasted. The movie's character personality is reduced to generic monologues about trauma and cheesy flashbacks. Meanwhile, the film's third act twists feel like they're the only aspect of the film made with actual imagination, even if they're so stupid that the film crosses into accidental comedy territory. The one virtue I can see in this movie is that it feels like it was made by people who have genuine love for the western genre and just want to do a simple period revenge flick. But with that love comes blindness to its own faults, because the rose-colored glasses are strong with this flick. Long Shadows feels like a modern day version of one of those low budget B-movie westerns that shot on convenient locations and backlot sets that were filmed in a week and flooded the market during the 1950's. It's quickly put together and shoddy, made for an audience that exclusively watches movies exactly like it with little care for quality. It's hard to justify going to the movies to see this when the sensible option for your western revenge fantasy kick is to stay home and replay Red Dead Redemption.
Lost & Found in Cleveland
⭐️1/2
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Director: Marisa Guterman, Keith Gerchak
Starring: Martin Sheen, Dennis Haysbert, June Squibb, Stacy Keach, Yvette Yates Redick, Santino Fontana, Jon Lovitz
Television's biggest antique show, Lost & Found, comes to Cleveland and the various citizens gear up to put their heirlooms and valuables up for appraisal. The people who created Lost & Found in Cleveland certainly love to get lost in their character work. That's a good thing because the intention of the film is to contextualize all the personalities you might see at an event like this. I like the idea of this movie, I'd have rather seen a version of this movie that doesn't feel this empty. If I can state something admirable about the film's production, it's that it is made with consistency in its off-beat vibes. What makes the movie frustrating is that its so busy vibing with itself that it rarely amuses. I couldn't help but get impatient in waiting for it to actually tell a story. Movies this lighthearted shouldn't be this boring. The movie finally gains a pulse once it arrives at the antique show, but it has taken so long to get there and the path was such a lumbering slog that it doesn't hit like it should. It's a shame because the movie can charm if its not meandering around, running with gags and plot beats that aren't working. I'd like to see this production team work on a different movie, something more straightforward with fewer characters, and see if it brings about a better result.
Nuremberg
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama
Director: James Vanderbilt
Starring: Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Leo Woodall, John Slattery, Mark O'Brien, Colin Hanks, Wren Schmidt, Lydia Peckham, Richard E. Grant, Michael Shannon
If Nuremberg was released thirty years ago it probably would have been a heavy award season favorite. Today, it's old fashioned to a fault, though if one looks at it through the lens of those historical "actors doing ACTING" dramas of yesteryear, the movie is above average. The film is a dramatization of the post-World War II Nuremberg trials, concentrating heavily on Hitler's trusted officer Hermann Göring, played by Russell Crowe. The framing device uses Rami Malek as a psychiatrist who analyzes Göring to keep him mentally stable for trial. It's an interesting storytelling device because it has an approach of getting to know the humans behind the atrocity, while also being cautious of a silver tongue, framing their own crimes in the most innocent possible light. I think this was done in a more compelling way in Zone of Interest, though I'll admit Nuremberg is satisfying in a "meat and potatoes" kind of way. It's a movie more likely to satisfy Boomers than the modern cinephile who is used to more nuance. But there is still something that hits about two dudes in a room getting pissy at each other. Maybe it's a bit too long, but Nuremberg has the sauce.
Predator: Badlands
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Science Fiction, Action
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Starring: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi
Two good Predator movies in a row was unprecedented. Three is a miracle. Predator usually works best as a gung ho actioneer of gruff antagonistic protagonists squaring off against something even more antagonistic than they are, which is why I'll always prefer the original Predator and 2010's Predators to 2022's Prey, which is a very adequate "girl defies the patriarchy" movie with an alien in it. It's a good movie, but not as memorable or as rousing as muscles vs. lasers. That being said, Prey director Dan Trachtenberg has also proven he's the shot-in-the-arm that the franchise needed after Shane Black's The Predator strangled it and left it for dead. Trachtenberg takes the franchise in unexpected directions, scaling it back for Prey, animating an anthology in Killer of Killers, and finally focusing on the Predator as the protagonist in Badlands. This is kind of what Adam Wingard was going for in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire last year, where he wanted the movie monsters to be the central plot-moving characters of his story. Trachtenberg has an advantage in that the Predator race is more humanoid than Godzilla or Kong, being much smaller and able to communicate more clearly. This also effectively brings it back to the idea that the protagonist is a badass (ugly) motherfucker being terrorized by something big and nasty, which I appreciated.
Predator: Badlands sees a young "Yautja" (this is the nerd name for the Predator race) named Dek who goes on a dangerous hunt for an "unkillable" apex predator known as the Kalisk, wanting to prove he is worthy of his clan. Along the way, he is aided by a damaged robot by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation (the fist tie-in between Alien and Predator film media that was not specifically in an Alien vs. Predator movie), who was tasked to capture the Kalisk. It's not a complicated narrative, but it successfully lore-expanding without being and exposition dump. If it seems overly familiar, that's because the Predator's rituals have basically evolved into that of the Klingons from Star Trek. And here we basically have a buddy movie between a Klingon and an android. The movie is little more than a lost Next Generation episode focusing on Worf and Data, just modded with Predator skins. It's a solid Next Generation episode, though.
The film is nothing if it's not an action spectacle. The film embraces the sci-fi action of the Predator franchise on a level we have yet to see from it. Dek is an interesting protagonist to the story, one that speaks no English and is absurdly stoic. Levity is brought to the film by Elle Fanning's robot character Thia, who is constantly plucky and pleasant, contrasting Dek's sour mood. The duo make a pretty effective pairing, and it's their interplay that makes the movie a fun watch to counterweight the flashy action. And that's the one word I'd use to describe this movie: fun. The movie is practically a non-stop ride, and even ends on a note showing the ride isn't going to stop any time soon, similar to Predators.
If there were one thing that kind of irks me about this movie, it's that it feels way too animated. The movie uses CGI to enhance Dek's facial expressions, but he's almost "too expressive," in a way that makes a Predator's facial features look silly. The film is filled with crazy setpieces that are pretty cool, but they also feel bloodless and without consequence, and some of them defy reasonable physics. And the cap on this is that they also give Dek a cute little pet as a sidekick. That's not really what I'd call a Predator vibe, if I can speak for myself. Sometimes the movie feels like a cartoon, and that's when it starts to feel exhausting. It's also a testament to its skilled production team that it can win me back when it's at risk of losing me. Because of this, Predator: Badlands most certainly is not the best Predator movie, but it's another win for Trachtenberg and further proof that the keys are in safe hands.
Sarah's Oil
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama
Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh
Starring: Naya Desir-Johnson, Zachary Levi, Sonequa Martin-Green, Garret Dillahunt
There's a scene in Sarah's Oil where Zachary Levi has an urgent discussion with lady supporting player Bridget Regan and a newly introduced Black supporting player. White performers Levi and Regan have all the dialogue in this scene, arguing over the rights of a little Black girl, while the nameless Black man just stands to the side and stays silent. Boy, if I could sum up this movie in one image, it would be that.
The film centers on a young Black girl named Sarah who inherits a piece of land and suspects there might be oil on it. She entrusts prospector Zachary Levi to help her mine it, but he might also need to help her protect it from claim jumpers. The movie is clearly a dumbed-down portrayal of the Black experience designed to ensure a white guy's non-racism is the hero of the story, and the movie's heights of melodrama can be absurdly shameless. On the plus side, it's a mostly harmless, if heartless, depiction of an interesting story. Zachary Levi does fairly well here, playing a generic "I'm one of the good ones" trusted white friend, one that talks fast like a grifter but wears his heart on his sleeve, the type of role he has always played just fine. The problem is that he's wrestling the spotlight away from the person who should be the protagonist, and it feels as if it's done so because the movie needs a minor brand name celeb who also isn't a minority. Add in his comedic personality wrestling with the film's melodrama, the film is just an odd flavor. On the scale of movies about Black people made for white people, Sarah's Oil does it's job in convincing its conservative viewers that they aren't racist because they watched a movie and sympathized with a Black child. It's very clear it has limits of how compelling it's willing to be, taking cheap shots in sentimentality rather than forming anything with gravitas.
Unexpected Christmas
⭐️1/2
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Director: Michael Vaughn Hernandez
Starring: Tabitha Brown, Lil Rel Howrey, Anna Marie Horsford, DomiNque Perry, Reagan Gomez-Preston
Oh snap! Holiday family tension is about to boil! A recently dumped woman returns home for Christmas only to discover the man who broke up with her is dating her sister. She the decides to ramp up the tension by setting up her gay best friend as her own boyfriend. It's a movie that doesn't seek to reinvent the wheel in any shape or form, though it does overcomplicate its simplicity with a subplot about land being purchased something something something big business vs. community. It's largely not important, but generic plot beats might weigh you down with a melodramatic presentation of holiday farce. The film's strangest aspect is how it seems to give up on being a comedy halfway through and becomes a bunch of senseless flailing dramatic outbursts. An undemanding audience might find the film to be cozy. What comedy it does have is played up, rarely doing a well-staged comedic moment, but its humor is lightly amusing while never crossing into unpleasant. It's an unambitious film that just exists to exist. There's not much to gain from watching this movie, but the best thing that can be said about it is that its an inoffensive presentation of almost nothing.
Bugonia ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Good Fortune ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Regretting You ⭐️⭐️1/2
Roofman ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Shelby Oaks ⭐️1/2
Stitch Head ⭐️⭐️1/2
Tron: Ares ⭐️⭐️
Violent Ends ⭐️⭐️1/2
New To Digital
Black Phone 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Frankenstein ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Good Fortune ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
No Other Land ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The Smashing Machine ⭐️⭐️1/2
Waltzing with Brando ⭐️⭐️
New To Physical
CODA ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Coming Soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment