Multiplex Madness
Iron Lung
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Horror, Science Fiction
Director: Mark Fischbach
Starring: Mark Fischbach
YouTube's invasion of movie theaters continues. Following last year's almost depressing total of three movies directed by content creators (where only one of them was any good), now Mark Fischbach AKA Markiplier throws his hat in the ring. To make matters worse, his movie is also a video game adaptation. I just suffered through Return to Silent Hill, somebody kill me now. Iron Lung is an enclosed space indie horror game that apparently Fischbach is very fond of, so he made it his mission in life to bring it to the big screen, even if he had to write, direct, and star in it himself. Which he did.
I try not to throw around the phrase "self-indulgent" lightly, but...goddamn, dude.
Iron Lung takes place in the distant future where irrelevant bad stuff has happened. It's lore so complicated that it takes the Wiki synopsis six full paragraphs to explain it before getting to the actual movie. Long story short, space colonies dying, ocean of blood for some reason, submarine missions into blood ocean. Fischbach plays a convict who has been sent into the ocean for a bone sample of a giant creature. The mission goes sideways, likely because there are giant sea monsters swimming in blood, and now he's trapped on the ocean floor. But, as important as this mission seems to be, Fischbach's actual set-up seems almost intentionally impractical. The idea is that he's a disposable asset just dumped in a death trap but given that a lot seems to hinge on his success, you might want to give him a little more to work with than a fancy x-ray camera and lackluster navigation. That in mind, the movie isn't without its interesting qualities, being that of a slow-burn, enclosed space thriller. The film's biggest problem lies with pacing, where the film circles itself in redundancies until it finally stumbles to a bizarre conclusion. A good half hour of this movie could be cut and all you would lose is dead air and irrelevant psychological mumbling to oneself.
On the positive side, Fischbach does carry the film quite well and he throws himself into the role. Direction is not without promise, though sequences where the little sub is capsizing fail to convince because while Fischbach does commit to flinging himself around, cinematography is so inert that it feels as if nothing is happening. Some of the film's camera pics are suitably creepy, even if the film is not very scary. There is probably something promising here, though Iron Lung feels like the most base version of it. It's full of nonsense and doesn't really support the elements it needs to to succeed bit I can't say the movie is actually a failure.
Shelter
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Action, Thriller
Director: Ric Roman Waugh
Starring: Jason Statham, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Bill Nighy, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays
Jason Statham is back and playing the most Jason Statham character of all time, a former Black Ops agent who is now on the run from the government who used to employ him. His cover is finally blown when an orphan girl stumbles into his life, and the duo go on the run together. Insert gunplay and father figure allegories. Shelter meets pretty much most standards that it sets for itself, exceeding at very few of them. The action is solid, though the plotting is safe, generic, and not very elaborate. We get details to help understand why this is all happening but not enough for it to really be juicy. The flavor of the movie instead lies in Statham's relationship with Bodhi Rae Breathnach, who didn't get the memo that she is in a time-killing action movie and decides to go for a heavily emotional performance. Breathnach steals the movie and makes it more heartfelt than it should be. I never thought I'd be able to say a Jason Statham thriller succeeded in getting me emotionally invested but Shelter proved me wrong. If the rest of the movie lived up to that, this movie could have been quite exceptional.
Tafiti: Across the Desert
⭐️
Genre: Adventure, Comedy
Director: Nina Wels
Starring: Cosima Henman, Bürger Lars Dietrich
It's hard to imagine that Tafiti: Across the Desert's inception was anything other than "store brand Timon and Pumba," as a meerkat and a hog go on a comedic adventure. It's primary selling point is likely to be reminding young children that The Lion King exists and this might be something similar. Tafiti is a meerkat who journeys across a desert to find a blue flower to save his ill grandfather, joined by Bristles, a goofy pig with a good heart that Tafiti has been conditioned by his family to avoid. The moral of the movie is the idea of trusting and making friends outside of one's comfort zone but it chooses to word this through a character who is warned "Don't trust strangers" then finding out strangers are good actually. Y'all really need to reword this message because impressing upon young children the idea that strangers just want to be their friend is very dangerous. On top of that, as children's entertainment, the movie isn't very good. It's comedy is oddball and often just trying to be gross for the sake of being gross while its adventure aspects are pretty barren, meaning the movie fails with both its moral center and it's entertainment value. If a children's film can do neither, it's value is nothing.
Worldbreaker
⭐️
Genre: Science Fiction, Horror
Director: Brad Anderson
Starring: Luke Evans, Milla Jovovich, Billie Boullet
A Quiet Place meets The Last of Us in this personality-lacking misfire where Luke Evans survives the apocalypse with his teenage daughter on an island while wife Milla Jovavich leads a girl-power army against giant bug critters that can turn men and sometimes women (but not always) into mutant monsters. The movie is really weird about this tidbit of worldbuilding because one would assume this would be setting up some sort of storyline about procreation and species survival but the movie has little value in it. The only reason it's brought up is so it can have the image of an all-women army at the beginning of the movie. Otherwise, it plays very loosely with this "sometimes" rule that doesn't have any bearing on what is actually happening. Most of the movie is Evans training his daughter and telling her tall tales, which doesn't amount to much. Nothing in this movie does, to be honest. The movie feels like it doesn't have a story to tell. It mumbles out lore and hopes people find it cool enough to not notice that nothing is happening. It doesn't really start to come alive until the last ten minutes when the movie finally makes it understood what it thinks it's doing, being a tale of parentage and how they influence the person we become and the great things we might accomplish. It's a shame it's not in a better movie because young actress Billie Boullet is really throwing herself into this role and occasionally the movie throws in some horror framing that is inspired. The movie is eighty minutes of dud and about five minutes of "Yeah, I guess."
Oscar's Trash Can
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Oscars Nominated: Best Actress in a Leading Role - Rose Byrne
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Director: Mary Bronstein
Starring: Rose Byrne, Conan O'Brien, Danielle Macdonald, Christian Slater, A$AP Rocky
Adulting is hard. Rose Byrne gets it. This movie sees her as a mom on the edge, dealing with a flooded apartment, an ill child, an absent husband, a disengaged therapist, and her own therapy clients who are piling their own problems on her when she can't even figure out her own shit. That dam is about to burst, and we witness the catastrophic act happen as Byrne is constantly screaming for help at those who could listen yet nobody will answer. The movie also takes into account self-responsibility, as a good chunk of Byrne's spiraling is within her control but she indulges herself for the sake of taking the edge off (a little wine, a little weed, a little black market substance abuse). The film is very visceral in its depiction of life becoming too much for one person to handle, at times probably so much so that it can be difficult to take in. It's a movie that every mom should probably watch. It will induce one of two reactions. The first is a traumatic response, where it physically hurts them to watch it because they don't want to think about this crap. Or they'll just look at it and go "Oh my god, I feel seen."
It Was Just an Accident
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Oscars Nominated: Best Writing (Original Screenplay, Best International Feature Film
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Director: Jafar Panahi
Starring: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ibrahim Azizi, Madison Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr, Delnaz Najafi, Afssaneh Najmabadi, Georges Hashemzadeh
It Was Just an Accident begins with a mother calming her child after her husband accidentally hits a dog with their car, claiming that somehow that was a part of God's plan and they just need to see how it unfolds. God's plan, as it happens, is kinda weird, because that accident starts a domino effect that results in the man being kidnapped by Iranian prison camp survivors who accuse him of being an ranking official who tortured them.
I gotta admit, when I looked at the poster, this is not what I assumed this movie would be about. Consider my expectations thoroughly subverted.
This is the latest film from renegade Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, claimed by France for International Oscar contention because, like most of Panahi's works, the Iranian government would rather see it burn than be an awards contender. As per usual, the film is a scathing commentary of the regime of Panahi's home country while also being a story about trauma, what we are able to move past and what stays with us. There comes a point in the film whether it doesn't seem to matter whether the man is who these people suspect him to be because he is representing a conduit for past horrors that haunt them. The movie is very unpredictable and emotionally engaging, with the only sour mark being that it stalls as the second act is booting up, going through one too many variations of "Is it him?"/"I don't know." It's a hurdle that's well worth getting past because the whole package is pretty fabulous.
The Perfect Neighbor
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Oscars Nominated: Best Documentary Feature Film
Genre: Documentary
Director: Geeta Gandbhir
Starring: Ajike Shantrell Owens, Susan Lorincz
The Perfect Neighbour starts out like the worst episode of Cops you've ever seen. It's a lot of frivolous calls to the police from Susan Lorincz, a woman who doesn't seem to know how the suburbs work. Told mostly through bodycam footage, we come out to her house time and time again to hear her complain about her neighbors, while her neighbors offer up more reasonable stories along with frustration over her attitude. Did I mention she's white and they're African American? Stick a pin in that because that might be important. Anyway, we see these mundane complaints over and over until it's not a mundane complaint anymore. One night, the cops come because shots are fired and Ajike Shantrell Owens has been killed. Susan Lorincz is now detained for manslaughter, claiming self-defense. The Perfect Neighbour is an analysis of the escalating situation, from the minor complaints to her eventual trial. The film is primarily a criticism of Florida's Stand Your Ground laws which open up the question of whether or not she was within her rights to just open fire because she felt threatened. She says she was. Following the psychology of Lorincz is an interesting avenue because my impression of her is that she is prone to lashing out through traumatic stress responses, and when addressing people of authority, she tends to scale-down of her own actions while hyperbolizing other people into being the aggressors. This is pretty much confirmed when she is informed of her arrest and she just freezes in place, telling the officers that she won't comply, turning the tragedy on its head and trying to recontextualize it in her own perceived victimhood. Then there is the underlining racism of what is going on, which remains subtextual until the question of the "n-word" being used in the confrontations with her neighbors is raised. She claims that she never used it but if she did, she used it in the proper context that her upbringing defined, which is the most telling statement she makes.
The film's motions of viewing the process of such a situation proves to be very timely, considering the recent violence in Minnesota that is also not seeing proper justice being served. The Perfect Neighbour is frustrating in how gently the authorities treat this woman, which could be because of her age but could also easily be because she's white. The fact that justice seems to be weening her is angering. This movie is at times fascinating, perplexing, and ultimately just downright upsetting. It's a tough watch if you have any sort of empathy.
Oscar Nominations
The Alabama Solution (N/A)
All the Empty Rooms (N/A)
Arco (N/A)
Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud (N/A)
Avatar: Fire and Ash ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Blue Moon ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Bugonia ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Butcher's Stain (N/A)
Cardboard (N/A)
Children No More: "We and Are Gone" (N/A)
Come See Me in the Good Light (N/A)
Cutting Through Rocks (N/A)
The Devil Is Busy (N/A)
Diane Warren: Relentless (N/A)
Elio ⭐️⭐️1/2
F1 ⭐️⭐️
Forevergreen (N/A)
Frankenstein ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
A Friend of Dorothy (N/A)
The Girl Who Cried Pearls (N/A)
Hamnet ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You ⭐️⭐️⭐️
It Was Just an Accident ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Jane Austen's Period Drama (N/A)
Jurassic World: Rebirth ⭐️1/2
Kokuho (N/A)
KPop Demon Hunters ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The Lost Bus ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Marty Supreme ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Mr. Nobody Against Putin (N/A)
One Battle After Another ⭐️⭐️1/2
The Perfect Neighbor ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Perfectly a Strangeness (N/A)
Retirement Plan (N/A)
The Secret Agent (N/A)
Sentimental Value ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Singers (N/A)
Sinners ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Sirāt (N/A)
The Smashing Machine ⭐️⭐️1/2
Song Sung Blue ⭐️⭐️1/2
The Three Sisters (N/A)
Train Dreams ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Two People Exchanging Saliva (N/A)
The Ugly Stepsister ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The Voice of Hind Rajab (N/A)
Weapons ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Zootopia 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Movies Still Playing At My Theater
28 Years Later...: The Bone Temple ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Anaconda ⭐️⭐️
Avatar: Fire and Ash ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Clika ⭐️
The Housemaid ⭐️⭐️1/2
Marty Supreme ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Mercy ⭐️1/2
Send Help ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The Testament of Ann Lee ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Zootopia 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
New To Digital
Anaconda ⭐️⭐️
Ella McCay ⭐️⭐️
Greenland: Migration ⭐️⭐️
Silent Night, Deadly Night ⭐️⭐️1/2
Zootopia 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
New To Physical
Coming Soon!
