Cinema Playground Journal 2023: Week 8 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Bunker

⭐⭐1/2

Genre:  Horror, War

Director:  Adrian Langley

Starring:  Patrick Moltane, Eddie Ramos, Luke Baines, Julian Feder

This horror movie centers around a group of soldiers in World War I, who try to take over an abandoned German bunker only to be trapped inside with an unknown creature.  Here's the twist:  it takes inspiration from and is intentionally stylized like a Hammer Horror film from the 1960's.  The framing, the script, and the acting are all done like the filmmakers were daydreaming what their pitch to that studio might have been way back in the day.  Because of this, a lot of the movie feels awkward because it's trying to emulate filmmaking of a bygone era that we've long since moved on from.  If there is any fault I can bring up about the movie, I also immediately think to myself "Yeah, but it's doing that intentionally."  I could also ask myself if it could be done better, and the answer is probably.  But I also have to assume they had a finite amount of money to make this movie and this is exactly what it was always going to be.  Because of that, the worst thing I can say about Bunker is that it doesn't star Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee.  But it does have a rather wicked score that sounds like it's trying to emulate Alan Silvestri trying to emulate something era appropriate, so it has that going for it.

Cocaine Bear

⭐⭐⭐

Genre:  Comedy, Horror

Director:  Elizabeth Banks

Starring:  Kari Russell, Ray Liotta, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Christian Convery, Alden Ehrenreich, Brooklynn Prince, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Margo Martindale

That bear was on so much cocaine, bro.

Horror-comedy has director Elizabeth Banks pulling out all the stops and just making a movie as nutty as its title, where a drug dealer loses a large amount of cocaine which is in turn is found by a bear who eats it and goes on a rampage.  One thing I've noted about Banks' directorial efforts is that she has a very animated sense of humor and isn't afraid to go wacky, even if the push hurts the scene (Charlie's Angels sometimes suffered because of this).  With Cocaine Bear she knows she has an extreme concept, so she allows herself to get as extreme as she wants with her comedic violence, which is to the movie's benefit more often than its detriment.  Sometimes I'm left scratching my head by it (there is a punchline where Banks doesn't seem to quite know that a bear's vagina is in the same place a human vagina is), but I think the movie delivers more under-the-breath snickers than full laughs, but it's campy fun to watch.  Banks is also smart enough to know that despite the mayhem its causing, the audience needs to be in love with the bear and wants it to be the hero of the movie by the end.  Banks delivers on that front, which makes Cocaine Bear a success.

Jesus Revolution

⭐⭐1/2

Genre:  Faith, Drama, Comedy

Director:  Jon Erwin, Brent McCorkle

Starring:  Kelsey Grammer, Joel Courtney, Jonathan Roumie, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Anna Grace Barlow

Faith films can have an uphill battle, as they're mostly concerned with preaching to people who already believe their message than making a good movie in itself.  Since getting my Regal Unlimited pass and attending whatever-the-fuck is playing, I've sat through many Christian movies without knowing they're Christian movies going in.  Let me tell you, a lot of them are very, very bad (I'm looking at you, Tulsa!).  I knew what Jesus Revolution was when I went into it because I had seen a trailer for it (even still...it's called Jesus Revolution), but I went anyway because I like Kelsey Grammer (meanwhile I skipped the new Left Behind movie because Kevin Sorbo can go fuck himself).  This is one of the better faith films I've watched.  By quite a wide margin.

Here's the thing, while Jesus Revolution falls down a lot of faith film rabbit holes at various points, what I personally appreciated about this movie is that beneath the preaching, there is a deeper message to it, one of acceptance.  I think this movie pulls that off rather well, as it brings about the idea that if a religion really preaches love, then it should embrace everyone, not just "the right people."  I think the relationship between Christianity and the hippy movement is not explored to its full potential, as both at their core believed in similar morality ideals, and the movie tries a hand at religious philosophy that is stumbles upon.  But in fairness, when the movie stays grounded, it focuses on individual character issues and doesn't always solve them with "Faith will fix you" and lets people fix themselves.  There is a point where the hippie preacher Lonnie Frisbee starts to come off as a grifter, and I was concerned with whether the movie was going to try and portray this behavior positively.  Luckily it calls it out, which made me shine a little more to this movie.  I do want to say there are certain aspects to the true story that this is based on that sound like they have more compelling drama at their core that it tries to cleanse itself from, such as Lonnie Frisbee's homosexuality, which isn't touched upon in this movie (he is portrayed as married to a woman, which was true at the time, and they don't speak of it further).  It seems like a film based upon Frisbee's relationship to the church while hiding that side of him would have been more interesting, but that probably wouldn't jive with the faith audience.  But this movie is so close to getting it.  Maybe if we can teach the people who make these movies that simply mentioning "God" is not a dramatic plot beat, then maybe faith filmmaking can find salvation.

Juniper

⭐⭐1/2

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Matthew J. Saville

Starring:  Charlotte Rampling, George Ferrier, Marton Csokas, Edith Poor

New Zealand drama from several years ago makes its way to the States, and focuses on a dying old woman with a biting personality getting to know her grandson while they duel their abrasive attitudes.  It's one of those movies that hopes to win over its audience with the shock of an elder saying naughty words and being frank with sex talk.  It doesn't do much to get noticed beyond that, but at least the performances are solid.  I wasn't terribly interested in it, as it always felt like I had seen this story before and was likely to see it again, probably done with more flavor and hopefully less stilted melancholy tearjerking.  I almost feel bad, because it feels like the actors in this movie deserve better than a mute reception.  But I also feel they would have worked wonders for a movie less through-the-motions than this.

Art Attack

Emily

⭐⭐⭐1/2

Director:  Frances O'Conner

Starring:  Emma Mackey, Fionn Whitehead, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Alexandra Dowling, Amelia Gething, Adrian Dunbar, Gemma Jones

The Emily Marsh Story!

Actually the Emily Brontë story.

This movie dramatizes that life of poet and writer Emily Brontë and the events that led up to the publishing of her novel Wuthering Heights.  This mostly amounts to her being branded as the oddball of her siblings.  This is a great movie for those who consider themselves outsiders or artists, or maybe are a little bit goth at heart, because it does seem to understand and empathize with a lonely soul who desires to speak their truth.  The movie goes bolder with its blocking, its framing, its editing, its craft, and its drama than one might expect.  Perhaps the movie might have been portraying the hypersensitive awareness of an artist bursting to express herself in its filmmaking.  That's just an assumption on my part, but it helped me appreciate the film and Emily's journey a little more than it would have should the film had been a simple period piece.  What I got was a film that spoke to my creative spirit, and it's one that I'll treasure.

Linoleum

⭐⭐⭐

Genre:  Drama, Comedy

Director:  Colin West

Starring:  Jim Gaffigan, Rhea Seehorn, Katelyn Nacon, Gabriel Rush, Michael Ian Black, Tony Shalhoub

Jim Gaffigan does double duty in this movie about a children's science show host who decides to build a rocket out of a space shuttle that crashed in his backyard (or is that what it's about?).  Gaffigan also plays his neighbor in the film, who acts as a mirror to the more successful version of himself.  Life contemplation is the primary theme in this film, which has some whimsical methods of contrasting dreaming against mundane reality, but the film exists in a bubble that mostly works.  It also has an interesting subplot featuring the children of each Gaffigan character becoming friends, which provides a fun underlining of the film with a story of youthful ideology and working through one's own self-discovery.  The threads tie together in an interesting way toward the end that swipes the rug right out from under the movie and making it something entirely different, providing a generational look at a life lived and promises both fulfilled and left behind.

Netflix & Chill

Nocebo

⭐⭐

Streaming On:  Shudder

Genre:  Horror, Drama

Director:  Lorcan Finnegan

Starring:  Eva Green, Chai Fonacier, Mark Strong, Billie Gadsdon, Cathy Belton, Anthony Falcon

Eva Green stars as a fashion design icon who begins experiencing strange visions and feeling sickly.  A strange woman appears at her doorstep offering voodoo treatment, which she finds herself succumbing to.  This film is not without interest, but it plays so coy with what it's about that for a while it almost doesn't feel as if it's going anywhere.  I can see some loving that, as its lengthy run of ambiguity could leave some viewers at rapt attention, but I could have stood for a little more intrigue and a lot more mood.  It's a very basic looking movie that has little desire in sprucing itself up for a chill or a fright, and when it reaches its final conclusion, it's full of more sorrow than terror.  That might be the fault of misplaced expectations on my part, but I was left wanting.

We Have a Ghost

⭐⭐

Streaming On:  Netflix

Genre:  Comedy

Director:  Christopher Landon

Starring:  David Harbour, Anthony Mackey, Jahi Winston, Isabella Russo, Tig Notaro, Erica Ash, Jennifer Coolidge

Christopher Landon brings his goofball brand of taking a horror premise and running it through a comedic wringer to Netflix in this story of a family who discover their house is haunted and try to publicize it for easy money.  Compared to what Landon normally puts out, We Have a Ghost is a bit on the bland side and is less funny than you would hope.  It doesn't reach the zany heights of either Happy Death Day film, the cute "Vince Vaughn acting like a teenage girl" schtick from Freaky, and it even leaves less impression than his contributions to the Paranormal Activity franchise.  One issue is that it juggles two pretty beefy plots, one involving the family getting famous and the other with the ghost rediscovering his past, and mashing them both together results in a plus-two-hour runtime, which is absurd for a movie like this.  That being said, it's a soft and agreeable watch that isn't too demanding, and the best moments have solid laughs.  It's hard to hate it, but Beetlejuice it is not.  But hey, if you ever wanted to watch a Christopher Landon movie with your kids, this is the one to do it with.

Oscar's Trash Can

Aftersun

⭐⭐⭐1/2

Oscars Nominated:  Best Actor - Paul Mescal

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Charlotte Wells

Starring:  Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celiac Rowison-Hall

This little parenting story plays with a lot of themes that come together in interesting ways.  It's about a child's relationship with her father, how she's becoming more fascinated with new aspects of life as she matures, and it's about the struggles of parenting when you're battling your own demons.  Put these all together and the large theme at play is about how are parents influence the lives of their children in ways they may not mean to while also understanding what our relationship is with our parents is in retrospect, with the possible longing for bonds to be stronger.  It's an interesting approach to a coming-of-age drama that sees the little turning points in our formative years that establish who we are today, for better or worse.  It's a tad restrained, which admittedly could be a strength for some, though I would have appreciated more of a push to drive home its life observations.  But it's exceptionally acted and there is a soft beauty in even its darkest moments.  There is a lot of truth underlining this story of what life was and what it leads to.

All That Breathes

⭐⭐⭐

Oscars Nominated:  Best Documentary

Genre:  Documentary

Director:  Shaunak Sen

Starring:  Mohammad Saud, Nadeem Shehzad

This documentary takes a look at siblings in New Delhi who care for black kites, nursing them to health and providing them sanctuary as the city becomes a harsher environment for them.  It's an interesting look at human empathy for animals, while also waxing poetic and even exploring how to maintains one's work to ensure it continues.  All That Breathes might not appeal to anybody that's not a heavy documentary hound, as its a contemplative and thoughtful film that observes rather than tells.  If it falls down for me, it's because I found it to be a tad overproduced.  The cinematography is almost too good for a documentary, and it looks meticulously crafted to the point where it doesn't feel organic.  Meanwhile, I also found the sound-mixing overbearing, as the film is enriched with foley and it starts feeling artificial.  I'm not going to make any such claim, but it's something that took me right out of the experience.  Sometimes less is more.

Blonde

⭐1/2

Oscars Nominated:  Best Actress - Ana de Armas

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Andrew Dominik

Starring:  Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel, Julianne Nicholson

I don't think I was prepared for just how hard this movie sucked.  I knew it was very unlikely that I would enjoy it given its word of mouth made it clear it wasn't my speed.  What I wasn't prepared for was it's aggressive melodrama that tries to hit the viewer so hard that it becomes comical.  There is obviously very heavy stuff trying to be portrayed in this film, telling the life story of screen icon Marilyn Monroe, but a movie should portray moments like this with a deft hand and not like the director was high on speed the entire time.  The film completely misses the emotional mark it shoots for, not by inches, but rather because it's blindfolded and aiming in the opposite direction of the target.  It's an art film gone spectacularly wrong.

To be fair to the good aspects of the movie, conceptually the movie is less a biopic and more of an experience of being a woman who is marketed as an object of sexual desire, whether she wanted to be or not.  I don't think this movie is so much about who Marilyn Monroe was, but rather what it felt like to be Marilyn Monroe.  The movie's dreamlike presentation has major faults, but its visuals are interesting, even if a few of them take the film in an absurdist direction.  Ana De Armas does everything that's asked of her like a trooper, and she's one of the better aspects of the film.  I understand what the movie wants to be, it just goes completely off the rails in getting there.

Causeway

⭐⭐⭐

Oscars Nominated:  Best Supporting Actor - Brian Tyree Henry

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Lila Neugebauer

Starring:  Jennifer Lawrence, Brian Tyree Henry, Linda Emond, Jayne Houdyshell, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Russell Harvard

Solid drama about emotional codependence in coping with personal trauma, which sees Jennifer Lawrence as a soldier with PTSD befriending local mechanic Brian Tyree Henry.  The movie is mostly a casual film where Lawrence and Henry hang out for an hour and a half.  Not all the details are on the table, as the movie feels its characters have a right to privacy so it hints that there is more to their stories without saying anything outright.  It's a good film to show struggling people how personal connection can help them through their daily lives, even though it does feel a bit basic.  Henry is a standout for his performance, mostly playing the huggable buddy with a bit of a personal darkness he is working through as well.

Oscar Nominated Short Films:  Documentary

The Short Documentaries never play anywhere near me, so I went out and found them wherever I could.  Wasn't too hard.  Two are on YouTube and two on Netflix.  One I went home empty-handed on.  But it's better than nothing.

The Elephant Whisperers

⭐⭐⭐

ELEPHANTS ARE PEOPLE TOO!  This is a look at a couple in South India who raised a pair of elephants from infancy and their life taking care of the large-and-in-charge animals.  Folks who love animals will enjoy this gentle little film, which basically shows you what it would be like to have an elephant as a pet.  It's a lovely little portrait of man and animal living together.

Haulout

⭐⭐⭐1/2

I hope you like tusks, because we're going from elephants to walruses.  Haulout is another film about nature, but it's far more harrowing.  This one shows a marine biologist studying a gathering of nearly a hundred thousand walruses, as they group together on the cape as the water becomes too warm, and the shocking aftermath that leaves many walruses dead.  The look at living in the middle of the group is fascinating and oddly chilling, as the cinematography almost shoots the event like a horror film, including a startling reveal of the walruses and the calm life in the shack, listening to the eerie noise surrounding it.  The doc ends of a somber note as we tour the sad sight of dead walruses who were trampled in the event, with the message warning that climate change threatens to make the event more dangerous as the waters get even warmer.  It's full of imagery that will stick with you.

How Do You Measure a Year?

N/A

This is the one entry that I was unable to find.

The Martha Mitchell Effect

⭐⭐⭐1/2

Joe Don Baker IS Martha Mitchell!  Sorry, I had to.  This is a compilation of news footage and archive recordings of Martha Mitchell, the wife of United States Cabinet member John Mitchell, who's notorious candor helped push the Watergate scandal to the resignation of Richard Nixon and the arrest of her husband.  Really excellent compilation that successfully builds a brisk narrative through it, which isn't easy to do.  Probably the one issue I would state is that I feel like they could have gone feature with it, and gone more in-depth.  Talking heads from the Nixon administration are few and far between these days (Ben Stein, Henry Kissinger, and...?), so that might not have been feasible, but more insight into Martha's life would have probably seasoned this documentary well.  One could argue that the title is "The Martha Mitchell Effect," which is a very specific idea that relates to her by which of telling the truth and being branded delusional for it, but I would argue back that the idea of her being called out as being mentally ill is also underserved.  This documentary is very interesting, but it also feels like it's only scratching the surface.

Stranger at the Gate

⭐⭐⭐

This one tells of a former soldier who almost turned terrorist, deciding to bomb a group of Muslims, but finds his xenophobic views changed after getting to know them.  I think Stranger at the Gate has a strong story and moral of acceptance at its core, though I'm a little conflicted about its presentation.  It feels a little too upbeat for some of its themes, because as it talks about potential dark turns, the movie's peppy presentation seems to wave off horrific ideals.  I understand why, as the participants are all on good terms, and whole affair feels like a "safe space" without harsh judgment for past misdeeds.  Freedom from judgment is nigh impossible, considering the severity of the crime almost committed, but the subject is clearly full of remorse and relates the frightening way his mind drove him to almost commit the act.  Because of that, I'll give it a pass, but it feels awkward in delivery.  Still, it's an interesting insight into a racist mind and a successful way to break free of that way of thinking should be celebrated.

Oscar Nominees (bold indicates Best Picture nominee)

Aftersun ⭐⭐⭐1/2

All That Breathes ⭐⭐⭐

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed N/A

All Quiet on the Western Front ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Argentina, 1985 ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Avatar:  The Way of Water ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Babylon ⭐⭐

The Banshees of Inisherin ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths N/A

The Batman ⭐⭐⭐

Black Panther:  Wakanda Forever ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Blonde ⭐1/2

Causeway ⭐⭐⭐

Close N/A

Elvis ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Empire of Light ⭐⭐1/2

EO ⭐⭐⭐

Everything Everywhere All at Once ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Fabelmans ⭐⭐⭐

Fire of Love ⭐⭐⭐

Glass Onion ⭐⭐⭐1/2

A House Made of Splinters N/A

Living ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris ⭐⭐⭐

Navalny N/A

Pinocchio ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Puss in Boots:  The Last Wish ⭐⭐⭐1/2

The Quiet Girl N/A

RRR N/A

The Sea Beast ⭐⭐1/2

Tár ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Tell It Like a Woman N/A

To Leslie ⭐⭐⭐

Top Gun:  Maverick ⭐⭐⭐

Triangle of Sadness ⭐⭐⭐

Turning Red ⭐⭐⭐

The Whale ⭐⭐⭐

Women Talking ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Animated Short Films

Live-Action Short Films

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

80 for Brady ⭐⭐1/2

Ant-Man and the Wasp:  Quantumania ⭐⭐⭐

Avatar:  The Way of Water ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Knock at the Cabin ⭐⭐

Magic Mike's Last Dance ⭐⭐1/2

A Man Called Otto ⭐⭐⭐

Marlowe ⭐⭐

Puss in Boots:  The Last Wish ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Titanic ⭐⭐⭐

New To Streaming

EO ⭐⭐⭐

Knock at the Cabin ⭐⭐

The Whale ⭐⭐⭐

Women Talking ⭐⭐⭐1/2

New To Physical

Empire of Light ⭐⭐1/2

Coming Soon!

Fangs of the Living Dead (RiffTrax)

Film Year:  1969

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Armando de Ossorio

Starring:  Anita Ekberg, John Hamilton, Diana Lorys, Adriana Ambesi

RiffTrax Year:  2013

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

The voluptuous Sylvia has inherited a castle out in the country and travels with her fiancé to see the estate and learn more about her lineage.  There she meets her uncle, Count Walbrooke, who accommodates her in her new home and also happens to be a vampire in his spare time.  Walbrooke tells Sylvia about his wife, Malenka, who looks exactly like Sylvia but in a black wig, and how she was burned at the stake and convinces Sylvia that her family is cursed, resulting in Sylvia turning her back on her fiancé and the outside world.  Little does she know that Walbrooke intends to use her superstition to turn her into a vampire.

There is some fascinating history to this movie.  Originally from Spain, the film was released under the title of Malenka but it was changed to Fangs of the Living Dead for what appears to be a themed marquee of foreign imports, which also included renamed dubs of Mario Bava's Kill Baby Kill (released as Curse of the Living Dead) and another film titled The Murder Clinic (released as Revenge of the Living Dead).  In it's original release the supernatural element was also apparently a Scooby-Doo style hoax, as Walbrooke's plan was actually to drive Sylvia mad and inherit her estate.  The version released in the US was an alternate ending filmed specifically for the market where it turns out there was no hoax and there's a dumb twist right before the "The End" tag.  Also at one point Boris Karloff was meant to play Walbrooke, but had to bow out due to other commitments and passed away before filming was completed anyway.

Researching this movie is more interesting than watching it, which is a fairly static attempt at gothic horror that doesn't have much momentum.  The movie looks nice, and nearly every actress wears low cut tops, so that snaps a viewer to attention.  While the story itself is could be interesting, there isn't much intrigue to it.  Fangs of the Living Dead might be better off if there were slow unveiling of its supernatural elements and twists, but it puts its cards on the table pretty early and the rest of the film is Walbrooke glaring at Sylvia telling her what to do.  Sylvia's internal conflict and pending madness might be more engaging if she didn't seem to drop whatever sanity she has at Walbrooke's insistence at every turn.

I kind of wish we received the original Spanish ending over here so there would be more of an element of Walbrooke's mind games.  But even if that were the case, those mind games seemed to be at the expense of someone who is easily manipulated and because of that Fangs of the Living Dead probably would never be as interesting as it could be.

The Trax

Fangs of the Living Dead is a bit of a dull one, which could make for a tedious RiffTrax experience.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill seem to be resisting the movie's urge to be boring and decide to give it a flavor.  They're pretty solidly goofball throughout this riff, enhancing this dry film by giving the viewing a personality.  Or maybe they're just as thrilled about all the low cut tops in this movie as I am.  There are a lot of cleavage jokes at any rate.

This film, in what they refer to as "How I Met Your Mother:  The Despair Version," has a lot of miserable turns to it.  Not just in making the characters miserable but just things like poor comic relief and nonsense plot turns to it, each of which are ragged on with ease.  The death of Walbrooke is a kick, as he turns into a burning corpse rather easily and Kevin notes he wasn't likely to survive with a paper mache skeleton anyway.  The acts of vampirism are fun, mostly because the closest the movie gets to springing to life are when vampires threaten to suck necks.  The vampire cat fight at the end gave me giggles, with trash talk like "Vampire, huh?  As loose as you are they ought to call you TRAMP-pire!"

It's not a fully smooth experience.  Sometimes the film becomes a blank wall and it's hard for them to do anything with it.  Bill has a period toward the beginning of the third act where he acts as a disembodied voice in a hall that just goes on and on to the point where even he gets tired of it, and then continues even after he acknowledges the bit is dying.  There is also a section where the guys perform as "the ignorant mob," which isn't very funny to start and just...keeps...going.  But even with the slow spots, they boys make Fangs of the Living Dead funny enough to sit through its tediousness at least once.

And dammit Mike, if Bill wants to be Anita Ekberg who are we to stand in his way?

Good

A Badger's Bad Day (RiffTrax Shorts)e

RiffTrax Year:  2011

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

A badger gets sprayed by a skunk.  There.  That's the plot.  Now he can't smell other animals and he's hungry.

A Badger's Bad Day is supposed to be a cute little nature film for kids, but personally I never liked films like these when I was a kid.  Seeing the cute little animals get hunted set my nerves on fire yet I would have felt guilty about the badger not getting any food because I didn't want him to starve to death either.  As the short ends, all the cute animals are alive and we still have a smelly, hungry badger and I would have been absolutely miserable.  But he has skunk juice in his nose so...funny?

There seems to be some attempt to make A Badger's Bad Day a quasi-sequel to Little Lost Scent.  Not only is a skunk a plot point, Bill uses it as an excuse to dust off his angry persona of Gregory the Skunk.  Mike even offers a bit of an asterisk to that joke informing the viewer that they'd be best to check out that short to fully enjoy the joke.  That's a good way to sell two shorts for the price of one.

Is there funny unique material to this short that doesn't hinge on the knowledge of a skunk short that came out a year prior?  Luckily yes.  A Badger's Bad Day is solidly amusing stuff with lots of cute animals trying to eat each other and Mike, Kevin, and Bill giving them all little voices and making light of how cobbled together this short is in general.  They also tend to get confused at the narrators inconsistent descriptions of the badger's predicament, as the badger can seemingly smell at some points or is completely hopeless in others, causing Mike to wonder why his senses other than smell are seemingly completely useless.

The animals are the stars and there are plenty of animal related gags in the air, especially in reference to pop culture counterparts.  A coyote is discussed by the narrator, resulting in Mike quipping "This was filmed before the Acme company made the coyote's life way easier."  We see baby bunnies make a getaway from the title badger, but Kevin notes grimly "The bunnies would go on to die in Warship Down."  It's funny stuff, and while the badger is having a bad day, that doesn't mean we will by watching this.

Thumbs Up

👍

Cinema Playground Journal 2023: Week 7 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Ant-Man and the Wasp:  Quantumania

⭐⭐⭐

Genre:  Superhero, Science-Fiction, Action, Fantasy

Director:  Payton Reed

Starring:  Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lily, Jonathan majors, Kathryn Newton, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Bill Murray, Corey Stoll

What's interesting about the Ant-Man movies is that each film is different from each other.  Watching an Iron Man movie or a Thor movie or a Guardians of the Galaxy movie, each series has a thing that it sticks to, while Ant-Man switches its gears a lot.  From the first heist movie formula to the second's beginning to end road chase and now with Quantumania's hard sci-fi fantasy, Ant-Man has established itself as a series that's not comfortable playing inside a box.  In Quantumania's case, whether you're on board largely lies on how far outside the box you're willing to go.  A heist movie and a chase movie have different structures, but they aren't too different from each other in spirit.  Quantumania tries to keep that spirit by handing the screenplay to Rick and Morty veteran Jeff Loveness (and it does feel like a Rick and Morty script at times), hoping to keep itself weird and inventive while also fun and spirited.  Sometimes it gets more serious than you'd expect from an Ant-Man movie (Scott's ex-con friends are sorely missed from this film), but there is a balance that works quite well because heist and chase narratives can be fun, but they're limited, while sci-fi narratives are freeing. Quantumania's sci-fi landscapes may seem quaint mere months after an Avatar movie, and it's certainly derivative of other franchises like Star Wars, but it makes up for it by keeping its pace moving with a spirited playfulness.  It also wins points for its villains, and Jonathan Majors is an intimidating presence who looms large over the movie, and every scene with M.O.D.O.K. made me smile.  I actually like the best of the three Ant-Man movies, but I like Spider-Man 3, so what do I know?

Marlowe

⭐⭐

Genre:  Noir, Drama

Director:  Neil Jordan

Starring:  Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange, Danny Huston, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Alan Cumming, Colm Meaney

Marlowe seems like such a good idea, bringing back a classic literary detective character with a film legacy that includes Humphrey Bogart and Robert Montgomery and turn it into a slick and smooth Liam Neeson vehicle.  I mean, yes please!  Why does this movie suck so much?  Well, for starters adapting a legacy novel from outside the original pulp series is like doing a film adaptation of The Girl in the Spider's Web instead of The Girl Who Played with Fire (I still can't believe Sony did that).  Nobody wants The Black-Eyed Blonde, they want The Big Sleep.  But that's not saying something good can't be made, especially with this style and this cast.  Marlowe should be a very good movie, but it has a vibe of everyone gaving up on it at some point.  It feels like a play that everyone in the production looks bored with.  All the dialogue is stiff and rehearsed, and those speaking it spit it out as if they're working past it rather than playing a character.  It feels like the facsimile of a noir film that got lost on its way to be one.  Or maybe it's trying too hard to feel like a 40's thriller, blissfully unaware that some presentations work in their era, but evolve as they age for good reason.  It's rough to say that, because a vision is clearly here, but the film itself is failing to live up to it.

Oscar Nominated Short Films:  Animated

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

⭐⭐⭐

Based on the popular children's book, this was a film co-produced by the BBC, Apple, and J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot, which means out of the five shorts featured here, it was hands down the most expensive to produce by far.  Hell, just paying the cast probably cost more money than the others listed here, as it includes celebs like Idris Elba, Gabriel Byrne, and Tom Hollander.  The film is meant for very young children (unlike several others here...one in particular), which sees an orphan boy looking for a home and befriending several animals along the way.  There's a quaint charm to the production, like a Winnie the Pooh cartoon.  It's very calm, peaceful, and relays a strong moral message (though don't tell children to make a home in the snow with animals, that would not turn out well).  The animation evokes the illustrations of the book and is beautiful to look at.

The Flying Sailor

⭐⭐1/2

Inspired by an account of a sailor in 1917 who survived an explosion.  This short imagines it as a sort of existential look at how precious life is.  While I admire the imagination and work that went into it (some of the animation is quite lovely), ultimately it doesn't really stand apart from other dreamlike artworks I've seen.  I've felt like I've seen a little too many stories like this before and I didn't find it very interesting.  And it had a little too much animated wang.  Not even My Year of Dicks had this much wang.

Ice Merchants

⭐⭐⭐1/2

This pantomime short sees a father and son living lives on the side of a mountain, harvesting ice to sell to villagers down below.  This short feels contemplative in a way, while not exactly telling the audience to much about what it's contemplative about.  The characters evoke a strong sense of history, living a life that is perilous with little notice, but not without care.  The climax is tense and heartfelt, though I'll admit a little bit of disappointment in its final scene in how much of a wave off it can be.  But I did get the feels during this short, which is what it wants.

My Year of Dicks

⭐⭐⭐

Animated chronicle of a memoire of a girl who spent her teenage year in 1991 with various boys trying to lose her virginity, failing for one reason or another.  Sexual, but not explicit, this short is very frank about lovemaking, and is very funny along the way.  I found myself paralelling My Year of Dicks with Best Animated Feature nominee Turning Red, which was a far more family friendly movie, but their approach to their topics are similar.  Both are very quirky and animated portrayals of the maturing of women's bodies that are exagerated for comedic effect, but always honest about what it's portraying.  If one wasn't aimed at children and the other for adults, I'd almost claim it as a perfect double feature.  This short also gets points for mentioning RiffTrax favorite Cool as Ice, so bonus points for that.

An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It

⭐⭐⭐1/2

This student film from Austrailia is almost too clever for its own good.  It features a stop motion puppet who begins to suspect his life is a lie as he breaks out of the little stop-motion stage and tries to explore the studio where he is being filmed.  Meta comedy, fourth-wall breaking, and just a hint of hilarious body-horror, I enjoyed this sort of Wallace & Gromit meets The Matrix story quite a bit.  It's odd, it's smart, it's funny, and it's even unpredictable.

Oscar Nominated Short Films:  Live Action

An Irish Goodbye

⭐⭐⭐

It's My Name is Earl meets The Peanut Butter Falcon in this movie which sees two brothers (one with down syndrome) mourning the loss of their mother, while one insinst that they finish a bucket list their mother had with her ashes.  Pretty funny, and oddly sweet in a weird way, An Irish Goodbye is a bunch of dark humor clashing with Irish tempers, with a contemplative message about life and family.  If The Banshees of Inisherin wins Best Picture this year, I almost hope An Irish Goodbye wins Live Action Short Film, just to compliment it.

Ivalu

⭐⭐⭐

Very arty short has a young girl searching across the landscape for her missing sister, unraveling, and even coming to terms with, why she would run away.  To be frank, this short is very heavy.  It's actually a bit of a sore thumb among the other nominees because of how heavily comedic many of the other entries are (The Red Suitcase being the exception).  It handles its heaviness with a bit of a heavy hand, which I felt was a bit of a detriment, to be honest.  I like discovering a little more about Ivalu as it went, but I always felt a bit at arm's length from the short emotionally because it felt more interested in being decorative than emotional.  It looks really good, but I wish I felt something while watching it because I felt like I was supposed to.

Le Pupille

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Disney produced short with involvement by Alfonso Cuaron can actually be found on Disney+, if you want to check it out.  And I do recommend you do, because Le Pupille is an absolute delight.  This features a group of girls living at a boarding school with a group of strict nuns, who restrian the girls' childlike instinct almost too strictly.  Funny, adorable, and even a tad heartbreaking in a yearning let children be children sort of way, this movie hits all the right spots.  It's a wonderful production and it charmed me more than anything else I watched at the theater this week.

Night Ride

⭐⭐⭐

A woman accidentally steals a tram and finds herself having to pose as the driver for passengers along the way.  This short is more simplistic than the others that were screened, as it simply just wants to be an amusing few minutes for the folks who watch it.  It's fun and silly, with a dash of a tolerance message for folks who take the journey with it.

The Red Suitcase

⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Muslum girl is flown out to meet the husband she's been arranged to be married to, but she finds herself terrified to go through with it and tries to sneak through customs without being noticed.  This anxiety inducing short plays suspense in the simplest ways, as it's clear the girl is terrified and feels that this is something that she needs to escape from.  We have very little context for her relationship to her father or her husband-to-be, but it's clear from her reactions that if she is caught, she might rather be dead.  The viewer's heart is with her as she ventures from spot to spot, just wishing to be away, no matter the cost.  And cost does come, because while the final conclusion might not be the worst possible one, something very important is sacrificed, and one can't help but feel that no matter what, she is in great pain as the short concludes.  Beautiful, artistic, and heartbreaking.

Art Attack

Of an Age

⭐⭐⭐1/2

Genre:  Drama, Romance

Director:  Groan Stolevski

Starring:  Elias Antonio, Thom Green, Hattie Hook

Australian romance sees two men bond while taking care of one's trainwreck sister, only to have a brief romance before being separated for ten years.  Of an Age has a really strong plot structure, at first telling of a sudden emotional connection that leads to desire and even sexual awakening. Then it's third act is about the aftershock of leaving that moment behind, as some things change and others can't move on.  In some ways it's a perfect story about first love, right down to the near-absolute that it often isn't to be.  If it stumbles anywhere it's that while the handheld cinematography is striking, it's often focused way to tightly.  This might be because the director wants the audience to study the actors' faces for their emotional response, but at times it feels like the blocking is getting lost because it's off-frame.  At any rate, the performances are golden and keep the film feeling like a real moment in someone's life.

Netflix & Chill

Sharper

⭐⭐⭐

Streaming On:  AppleTV

Genre:  Thriller, Crime

Director:  Benjamin Caron

Starring:  Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, Briana Middleton, John Lithgow

This little pile of plot twists is about a group of con artists who work their marks and each other.  The movie almost works itself backwards in a Memento style, showing who is screwing over who, as layers are peeled off the narrative.  The issue with this movie is that as the film's "trust no one" motif becomes clear, it's not hard to keep two steps ahead of it, even as it tries to pull the wool over your eyes.  I found myself always assuming someone was conning someone in each segment of the film, and it wasn't really hard to figure out who was playing the game.  It leaves you with the impression that if these characters were really as smart as they're presented to be, they wouldn't be falling for it.  So at the end of the movie, these hard aces come off as big dummies, which is a bit of a kick to the gonads.  That being said, the movie is slick and fun to play along with.  Even if you can guess what's going to happen, it's actually fun to make the guess itself.  I'll give the movie props for that.

Unlocked

⭐⭐1/2

Streaming On:  Netflix

Genre:  Thriller

Director:  Jim Tae-joon

Starring:  Chun Woo-hee, Im Si-wan, Kim Hee-won

Very contemporary thriller from South Korea sees a woman's smartphone hacked, and is soon stalked by the culprit, who uses her private information against her.  Part of me wants to go to bat for this movie and say I dug it, because when it's working it's quite cracking.  But I also feel like there are patches where it pushes itself too hard and others where it doesn't push itself hard enough.  It's a movie that comments on how modern technology means none of us truly have privacy anymore, and it does so in some smart ways.  Ultimately it's let down by some of the creative choices in its protagonist and antagonist.  With the former, the movie never seems to decide whether she's a fighter or a victim, so it tries to compromise with a middle ground but doesn't quite succeed.  The latter is under-characterized by the choice to keep him as cold and mysterious as possible, but it mostly just feels like a non-character who is ten steps ahead because the plot needs him to be.  But it wouldn't be truthful to say the film is void of interest value, and can investing in the heat of the moment.  There's a chance that the movie will be obsolete ten years from now as technology evolves, so I say watch it now while it's as relevant as possible.  You may get a kick out of it.

Oscar's Trash Can

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

⭐⭐⭐1/2

Oscars Nominated:  Best Animated Feature

Genre:  Mockumentary, Comedy, Drama

Director:  Dean Fleischer Camp

Starring:  Jenny Slate, Dean Fleischer Camp, Isabella Rossellini, Rosa Salazar, Thomas Mann

To put it bluntly, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is cuteness overload.  Every little movement this movie makes is a contender for most adorable thing I've ever seen.  Based on the YouTube shorts, this film is a fictionalized documentary about the "discovery" of the tiny talking seashell Marcel, who uses his internet fame to search for his missing family.  It's a film that spends copious amounts of time watching a little animated shell talk softly, giving off a unique outlook from such a small point of view.  It's not a film for those who wish for plot momentum in their films, however Marcel is such a wonderful presence that one can't help but treasure the time we spend with him.  Its a soft but funny film for those who take comfort in just seeing him do what he does, and the movie is even oddly existential in its own unique and quirky way.

Will it win Best Animated this year?  It's tough to call.  This is the first year in a good long while where neither Disney nor Pixar have a strong contender in the game (Turning Red was nominated, but let's face facts, the only advantage it has over its competition is Pixar's dominant track record).  And Puss in Boots and Pinocchio are just as good as Marcel in different ways, which could give either Dreamworks its first victory since 2005 or Netflix its first ever.  But Marcel humbly stands next to them, hoping to be noticed, but happy to be there.

Oscar Nominees (bold indicates Best Picture nominee)

Aftersun N/A

All That Breathes N/A

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed N/A

All Quiet on the Western Front ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Argentina, 1985 ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Avatar:  The Way of Water ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Babylon ⭐⭐

The Banshees of Inisherin ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths N/A

The Batman ⭐⭐⭐

Black Panther:  Wakanda Forever ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Blonde N/A

Causeway N/A

Close N/A

Elvis ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Empire of Light ⭐⭐1/2

EO ⭐⭐⭐

Everything Everywhere All at Once ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Fabelmans ⭐⭐⭐

Fire of Love ⭐⭐⭐

Glass Onion ⭐⭐⭐1/2

A House Made of Splinters N/A

Living ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris ⭐⭐⭐

Navalny N/A

Pinocchio ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Puss in Boots:  The Last Wish ⭐⭐⭐1/2

The Quiet Girl N/A

RRR N/A

The Sea Beast ⭐⭐1/2

Tár ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Tell It Like a Woman N/A

To Leslie ⭐⭐⭐

Top Gun:  Maverick ⭐⭐⭐

Triangle of Sadness ⭐⭐⭐

Turning Red ⭐⭐⭐

The Whale ⭐⭐⭐

Women Talking ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

80 for Brady ⭐⭐1/2

Avatar:  The Way of Water ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Knock at the Cabin ⭐⭐

M3GAN ⭐⭐⭐

Magic Mike's Last Dance ⭐⭐1/2

A Man Called Otto ⭐⭐⭐

Puss in Boots:  The Last Wish ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Titanic ⭐⭐⭐

New To Streaming

Infinity Pool ⭐⭐1/2

Maybe I Do ⭐

Plane ⭐⭐1/2

Strange World ⭐⭐1/2

New To Physical

The Fabelmans ⭐⭐⭐

Strange World ⭐⭐1/2

Coming Soon!

Color It Clean (RiffTrax Shorts)

RiffTrax Year:  2014

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

You dirty, dirty people.  Think of the janitors!  They work so hard to clean up after you and you can't even make sure you're aiming correctly when your swinging your you-know-what around when you make tinkle.  With this short we watch a janitor do his nightly routine in a bathroom while narrative voices explain that janitorial work is no easy job and how only certain people have the skills required to be one.  They also say this from their cushy offices where they make ten times the salary that a janitor makes.

I'm under the assumption that this is a janitorial training film, or something similar.  It might be a sort of propaganda piece that employers might show janitors to let them know how much they "appreciate" them before continue life ignoring everything they do.  Whatever Color It Clean is, it's boring.  It's twenty minutes of watching a guy wipe stalls while bored people drone on and on about what janitors do.  I even have doubts that this bathroom needed cleaning at all since it looks all nice and sparkly when the janitor first walks in and looks exactly the same when he leaves.

Look, all I know for sure is that it's called "Color It Clean" but for some reason the print seen is very brown and dirty.

It's a pretty dull short and while the riffing is somewhat enthused as a counterbalance, it isn't enough.  Color It Clean is slow and tedious, and while several of the jokes hit the target (unlike most of us when we hit the urinal) it's not enough to rouse interest in this short.  Some of the more successful jokes involve Kevin wondering why the camera operator would leave the camera on a bathroom floor, Mike's shock at hearing about janitors "swing," and the line "Hey!  Where's the dirty rhyming graffiti?  What kind of bathroom is this?"  These all get laughs, but they aren't enough to clean house.  I guess we'll have to call a janitor for that.

Thumbs Down

👎

T-Bird Gang (The Mads)

Film Year:  1959

Genre:  Drama, Crime

Director:  Richard Harbinger

Starring:  John Brinkley, Edwin Nelson, Tony Miller, Coleman Francis

The Movie

The story of T-Bird Gang is a simple revenge "thriller" (without the thrills) as a robbery gone wrong results in the death of a watchman.  The watchman's son Frank is with him as he dies, as his last act in this mortal coil is to tell him that the suspects were driving a white Thunderbird.  Frank goes on the prowl to find the gang that killed his father but are convinced by the police to go undercover in the gang and help gather enough evidence to put them away for good.

We're introduced to this film as the movie so bad that Roger Corman had his name taken off of it.  I'm not sure that's entirely true.  He did make it and his name isn't in the credits, but it was produced under Filmgroup, which was a studio he started up with his brother and they ran together.  T-Bird Gang was one of the first movies produced by Filmgroup, along with MSTed film High School Big Shot, which also doesn't have Corman's name in the credits (neither does Girl in Lovers Lane, which was also a Filmgroup production).  Corman's stamp is pretty much the Filmgroup name.

The film itself is more or less just a lame cheapie targeted at teens who want a dour drama about rebellious youth that may not end well, but dammit they were against the system, baby.  Acting is stiff and wooden with little to nobody sounding like they're seasoned professionals.  Case in point, a supporting role of a police captain is given to Mystery Science Theater's legendary auteur Coleman Francis, who gives this role the same amount of strength and gusto as we saw in his performance in Red Zone Cuba...none at all.

There's something endearingly silly about T-Bird Gang though.  It's fun to watch in its incompetence, not unlike an Ed Wood movie.  The drama is a failure and most of the time it doesn't really try all that hard anyway, and it feels like it's just stretching for time until they've reached an hour so they can finally end it.  It's amusing to see them push those scenes and pad as hard as they are because there is more effort in that than in giving the movie an actual plot.  Oddly, with as static and as inert as it is, it's never boring because the filmmaking is so fascinatingly uninvolved that I just want to study what makes it tick.  If that's the low bar for success that T-Bird Gang wants to step over then I'm sure it's pleased with itself.

The Riff

Trace, Frank, and Chris compare the film a bit to Walk the Dark Street, which I totally see as it's a dour, depressing, and incompetent crime drama.  On the other hand, I think that's harsh because T-Bird Gang is much more amusing than Walk the Dark Street is.  Trace and Chris even state at the end that they enjoy the movie, while Frank grunts "Me too!" half-heartedly as he runs to the bathroom (which is a Frank trademark at this point).

Whatever the case, one thing that this movie has going for it is that it has very little dialogue.  When things get quiet then Trace and Frank have a tendency to fill that silence with wall-to-wall jokes.  They're pretty rapid fire throughout the movie and their hit ratio is impressively high.  This is all the more impressive considering Trace flubs right out the gate by making an Avengers riff that accidentally gets twisted into an MST fan pandering riff, as a gang member snaps his fingers and Trace exclaims "Manos PI...I meant Thanos!  Already..."  While this could be a set-up for disastrous things to come, they rebound fairly quickly and just start shooting off some killer material.  And with the self-serious noir combined with trademark Corman cheapness, there is certainly a lot to comment on.

"That's real blood, they couldn't afford the fake stuff!"

Today's guest is none other than former Mystery Science Theater 3000 host and RiffTrax creator Michael J. Nelson, one of the finest riffers who has ever lived.  There's nostalgia in the air for the old writers room, as Mike, Trace, and Frank discuss writing old episodes of the series, including drinking tequila during the writing of Untamed Youth (Mike misremembers the episode as Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy but J. Elvis Weinstein has always clarified what episode it was) and they talk about their enthusiasm and struggles with Radar Secret Service, while also delighting in remembering jokes and bits from the series and the origins of MST's most memorable moments.  Mike also discusses how he hadn't kept anything from the series and how he almost accidentally got his coat auctioned off with all the other props.  There is discussion of the various featured MSTed actors they've met over the years, including Lloyd Bridges, Richard Keil, and Reb Brown.  Maybe it's because the constantly delayed No Time to Die was about to be released (finally), but they discuss their favorite James Bond movies, while Frank relates he loves Goldfinger and Skyfall, Trace says "Octopussy...I mean, NOT Octopussy" (before correcting himself I was about to say that was a very bold statement), Mike abstains from a favorite but says he grew up with Roger Moore, and Chris talks a little about growing up with Pierce Brosnon but stating the only one that was good was GoldenEye (I like The World is Not Enough myself, but I'm pretty much the only one that does).  Mike ends it with a small (but not unearned) dig at poor Timothy Dalton.

Maybe I'm just old school, but I like Dr. No the best.  Other nonspecific Connery films are up there too, along with the exceptional better-than-Casino-Royale-fight-me-bitch Skyfall, and I enjoyed No Time to Die a goddamn lot more than I thought I was going to.

I was laughing and smiling all throughout T-Bird Gang, and I even found the movie to be an oddball hoot.  With a fun commentary over a daffy movie with a strong guest in the wings, T-Bird Gang is one of the Mads finest offerings, methinks.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Classic

Cinema Playground Journal 2023: Week 6 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Consecration

⭐⭐

Genre:  Horror, Mystery

Director:  Christopher Smith

Starring:  Jena Malone, Danny Huston, Janet Suzman

Jena Malone stars as a woman investigating the death of her brother at the convent he served.  The nuns insist he was killed by a demon, but she tries to find a more grounded explanation when there might not be one.  Malone is a excellent lead, and the set design and cinematography are wonderful.  The mystery leaves a bit to be desired, as they way it unfolds is a bit chaotic, purposefully so to leave the audience confused and second-guessing as most of the revelations come through "visions" rather than evidence.  It makes the mystery element less interesting as it feels like the audience is meant to just put up with the noise until the finale explains everything.  The final solution is interesting, but one wishes the way it were told were more compelling.

Magic Mike's Last Dance

⭐⭐1/2

Genre:  Comedy

Director:  Steven Soderbergh

Starring:  Channing Tatum, Salma Hayek Pinault

I went into this as a Magic Mike virgin and this movie did unspeakable things to me.  I'd largely say I had a good time, because the film is very funny and the dance choreography lives up to the hype that the Magic Mike series has generated.  For two acts I was genuinely into this third installment, which sees the beloved male stripper ported to England by a wealthy divorcee to put on a stage show.  The idea had echos of doing a sequel to Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta as a Broadway dancer, just not done incompetently.  But as fun as this movie can be, where it falls down is it's third act showcase of the performance, because the film feels like it's setting up something more special than we receive.  I understand the idea of the "This play's theme is bullshit" facade, but just following it up with "So here's hot dudes dancing without shirts" is basic and anticlimatic.  The climax doesn't really spring to life until Mike himself joins it for an erotic and unique dance with a ballerina, but everything around it is just great choreography without much purpose.  The audience I saw it with was largely filled with rowdy women, and if that's any indication, I'd say Magic Mike fans won't care about its shortcomings and just want Mike's magic.  They'd be throwing dollar bills at the screen if they could, and if the movie stuck the landing, I probably would have been right there with them.

The Outwaters

⭐⭐

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Robbie Banfitch

Starring:  Robbit Banfitch, Michelle May, Angela Basolis, Scott Schamell

Because Skinamarink needed a challenger for most abstract horror movie of the year so far, here is The Outwaters, a found footage flick about a group of friends who hike into the desert to shoot a music video.  Shit happens, people die, and that's pretty much all you can say about the story.  I'm not avoiding spoilers, because that's pretty much what the entirety of the second half of the movie is.  I'll give The Outwaters this, it's one of the more well executed found footage movies I've ever seen, as there are a number of handsome and creepy shots littered throughout that use the format effectively without feeling artificial.  But while the found footage format is used effectively and is important to the film's aesthetic, there comes a point where it becomes unreasonable.  The movie can't abandon it because it's too committed to it, but after a while it doesn't work narratively anymore and the movie ignores that.  And I understand why it does, because the vision to this movie seems to be simulating a first person experience through something chaotic, confusing, and unsettling that you don't fully understand.  That's all well and good and really this just means I'm trying to apply logic to a movie that doesn't wish to be held to logic, which is more of a me problem.  I guess, in that sense, the movie is a success.  I'd probably be more likely to be on board if the constant barrage of horrific acts without context weren't more numbing than scary.  I have no problem with a movie being ambiguous, I just wish it weren't dull while doing it.

Art Attack

Triangle of Sadness

⭐⭐⭐

Oscars Nominated:  Best Picture, Best Director - Ruben Östlund, Best Original Screenplay - Ruben Östlund

Genre:  Comedy

Director:  Ruben Östlund

Starring:  Woody Harrelson, Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Dolly de Leon, Zlatko Buric, Iris Bergen, Vicky Berlin, Henrik Dorsin, Jean-Christophe Folly, Amanda Walker, Oliver Ford Davies, Sunnyi Melles

The last Best Picture nominee I had to see before I had seen all ten, Triangle of Sadness was kindly given a reissue at my arthouse theater.  This ensemble comedy featuring Woody Harrelson and the late Charlbi Dean, who tragically passed away shortly before release at the young age of 32, Triangle of Sadness is a comedy of class inequality, showcasing various forms throughout.  It covers a wide rage between sexist (and not the sexist type you'd expect), relationship, servitude, and even class shift through circumstance.  The portrayals are always interesting, investing, and colorful, though the movie's tendency to wander and wallow in its own madness tends to get in the way as it continues on long past when its point is made.  The movie also ends ambiguously, in a way that's thematically satisfying, but for those wishing for a full blown story might find unsatisfactory, because not every piece of the movie's puzzle falls into place.  But it's successfully funny and engaging, which makes it forgivable for myself.

Netflix & Chill

In case you can't tell, Valentine's Day is this week and everyone has gotta have a romance movie.

At Midnight

⭐⭐

Streaming On:  Paramount+

Genre:  Comedy, Romance

Director:  Jonah Feingold

Starring:  Diego Boneta, Monica Barbaro, Whitney Cummings, Anders Holm

At Midnight sees an actress famous for dating her co-star in their epic superhero franchise filming the latest installment in Mexico, where she meets and falls in love with a hotel manager.  This tonally confused romcom feels like it takes after late-90's romances targeting teens nervously wondering if they can sneak in a kiss, stylized like it's a Disney Channel movie made for tweens who barely know what love is, while written a bit hornier like it's meant for college students who will turn it on and start fucking after twenty minutes.  It's not unpleasant (depending on your tolerance for cheese), but it's difficult to fully embrace what it's trying to accomplish when the movie itself doesn't seem quite sure what it's trying to accomplish.  The funniest parts of the movie are when it parodies blockbuster filmmaking, because while it's not subtle, it's over-the-top delivery is good for a chuckle.  It's hard to recommend this movie to those who don't watch Hallmark romances, but at the very least it works well as a showcase for Monica Barbaro, who proves she has it in her to be a solid leading lady.  She just needs a better project to fall in her lap.

Attachment

⭐⭐1/2

Streaming On:  Shudder

Genre:  Horror, Drama

Director:  Gabriel Bier Gislason

Starring:  Josephine Park, Ellie Kendrick, Sophie Gråbøl, David Dencik

Shudder's latest acquisition hails from Denmark, though a good portion of it is actually in English (but the whole thing is subtitled anyway).  This little spookums movie sees a Danish woman escorting her girlfriend back home to her mother in England after she injures herself.  Once there she finds her mother to be strange and cold, while odd incidents happen in the house.  While not exactly an original story, Attachment's strengths lie in how hard it works to keep us invested in the main character's relationship.  The central couple feels real and their love is a strong backbone for the movie.  This is good because subtlety is not one of the movie's strong points.  The movie features heavy-handed foreshadowing and telegraphed plot points that ruin the surprise of most twists.  Select horror fans might be disappointed to find that the movie isn't a full-blown scary experience, as most of its horror is regulated to creaks in the house every ten minutes or so until the third act answers come rolling in.  And even then, it's still not a full scare-tactic movie, but rather a dramatic conflict with its problem rooted in horror.  The film has some issues with the climax, as some of the editing techniques used to imply certain events are confusing, but for the most part it's a reasonably satisfying ending that doesn't get bombastic to overshadow the movie's intimacy.

Somebody I Used to Know

⭐⭐⭐

Streaming On:  Prime

Genre:  Comedy, Drama, Romance

Director:  Dave Franco

Starring:  Alison Brie, Jay Ellis, Kiersey Clemons, Danny Pudi, Haley Joel Osment

This Alison Brie vehicle has her playing a TV producer who returns home after her series is cancelled to find that she might still have feelings for her ex-boyfriend, who is getting married that weekend.  It takes a while for the movie to settle into a groove, but what I appreciate about this movie is that the actors have a naturalistic chemistry that makes it easy to believe they all have history together.  While the movie probably could be better than it is, that chemistry charmed its way into my good will.  Digging deeper into the movie, it has interesting themes about love, dreams, passion, and how they must coexist to temper regret.  It's a pretty interesting plot told through a well-worn story, and while it sometimes gets sidetracked with humor a little too wacky for its tone, I came out feeling positive about it.

Your Place or Mine

⭐⭐1/2

Genre:  Comedy, Romance

Director:  Aline Brosh McKenna

Starring:  Reese Witherspoon, Ashton Kutcher, Jesse Williams, Zöe Chaos, Wesley Kimmel, Tig Notaro, Steve Zahn, Shiri Appleby

Predictable, but serviceable romcom sees Millennial favorites Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher as best friends with a touch of "Do they?/Will they?" who housesit for each other at different ends of the country so she can study for her degree and he can babysit her son.  They both interfere in each others life, shenanigans ensue, yadda yadda yadda, they kiss at the end because that's what happens.  Your Place or Mine isn't likely to win over anybody who isn't in the market for exactly what it's selling, which is a very specific brand of cuddle movie underlined with quirky humor.  For those who are buying that, it will kill an evening at home with relative ease.  There are elements of its plot that are underdeveloped, it's finale is undercooked, and I don't understand why Steve Zahn is even in this movie, but those who are in the bag for this movie already know who they are.  Reese Witherspoon is at her bubbly best, and Ashton Kutcher is...Ashton Kutcher.  If that combo sounds appealing, give it a spin.

Oscar Nominees (bold indicates Best Picture nominee)

Aftersun N/A

All That Breathes N/A

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed N/A

All Quiet on the Western Front ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Argentina, 1985 ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Avatar:  The Way of Water ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Babylon ⭐⭐

The Banshees of Inisherin ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths N/A

The Batman ⭐⭐⭐

Black Panther:  Wakanda Forever ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Blonde N/A

Causeway N/A

Close N/A

Elvis ⭐⭐⭐1/2

EO ⭐⭐⭐

Everything Everywhere All at Once ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Fabelmans ⭐⭐⭐

Fire of Love ⭐⭐⭐

Glass Onion ⭐⭐⭐1/2

A House Made of Splinters N/A

Living ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On N/A

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris ⭐⭐⭐

Navalny N/A

Pinocchio ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Puss in Boots:  The Last Wish ⭐⭐⭐1/2

The Quiet Girl N/A

RRR N/A

The Sea Beast ⭐⭐1/2

Tár ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Tell It Like a Woman N/A

To Leslie ⭐⭐⭐

Top Gun:  Maverick ⭐⭐⭐

Triangle of Sadness ⭐⭐⭐

Turning Red ⭐⭐⭐

The Whale ⭐⭐⭐

Women Talking ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

80 for Brady ⭐⭐1/2

The Amazing Maurice ⭐⭐⭐

Avatar:  The Way of Water ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Freedom's Path ⭐⭐

Infinity Pool ⭐⭐1/2

Knock at the Cabin ⭐⭐

M3GAN ⭐⭐⭐

A Man Called Otto ⭐⭐⭐

Maybe I Do ⭐

Plane ⭐⭐1/2
Puss in Boots:  The Last Wish ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Titanic ⭐⭐⭐

The Whale ⭐⭐⭐

New To Streaming

Empire of Light ⭐⭐1/2

I Wanna Dance with Somebody ⭐⭐1/2

Plane ⭐⭐1/2

Spoiler Alert ⭐⭐⭐

New To Physical

Black Panther:  Wakanda Forever ⭐⭐⭐1/2

Spoiler Alert ⭐⭐⭐

Coming Soon!