Multiplex Madness
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Drama
Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson
Starring: Marisa Abela, Jack O'Connell, Eddie Marsan, Leslie Manville
I know very little about Amy Winehouse. I've heard the name, but I'd be hard-pressed to say I've ever listened to her music. It's not a slight against it, as I barely seek out any music artist, really, so I don't intentionally avoid her. Now there is a biopic and I have to pretend I know what I'm talking about. Well, I don't and you're stuck with me.
Back to Black, named after her popular single, is primarily about her relationship with her husband Blake Fielder-Civil, and her turbulent life with him that led to substance abuse. Back to Black never rises above a rather simple dramatization, but as far as dramatizations go, it's not bad. It's not compelling, but it's strongly performed. It's a similar problem I had with Bob Marly: One Love, though I'd dare say Back to Black has a stronger flow to it's plot. It does, however, sometimes fight against its flow, seemingly to its own annoyance, somehow. There are times where the film feels fragmented, likely trying to portray Winehouse's life feeling fractured and chaotic. It just can't work the drama enough to patch together shattered pieces of it narrative. The movie even ends pretty abruptly, as if it's story hasn't concluded, which feels like a metaphor for Winehouse dying so young, as if she never had the opportunity to tell the rest of her own story. There is a poetry to that, but it leaves you with too much longing for more to relate.
I Saw the TV Glow
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Starring: Justice Smith, Bridget Lundy-Paine, Ian Foreman, Helena Howard, Fred Durst, Danielle Deadwyler
I Saw the TV Glow is a very specific type of movie aimed at a very specific type of filmgoer, working as an analysis of the socially awkward escape from realism into fantasy and how dead reality can feel without it. The film centers on a pair of recluse teenagers who are obsessed with a TV show called The Pink Opaque, who use it as a surrogate to their daily lives. As time goes on, one of them disappears after the show is cancelled, only to return a decade later claiming a blur between fantasy and reality. Jane Schoenbran uses The Pink Opaque as a stand-in for what I'm sure most Gen-Xers and Millenials might recognize from their adolescence. Specifically, she is referencing Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Amber Benson, who played Tara on that series, has a brief cameo), but The Pink Opaque itself seems to lie in a combination of a lot of shows. It could be substituted for whatever your favorite genre show was, from Buffy to Smallville to The X-Files, or even something more childish, such as Power Rangers or Goosebumps. It's more Specifically about the distancing from life and social issues one might gain from becoming obsessed with such a show, coming home every week and living in another world for an hour. The film starts out as a story of friendship between two isolated teenagers, depicting a socially awkward closeness formed through a mutual love of TV, but ventures out into surrealism as the escapism collapses around them. It's a fascinating construction, though those who won't relate to their worldview probably won't relate too heftily to it, especially as it gets stranger as it goes. The ending is fascinating. Some might call it abrupt and unsatisfying, but there are intriguing metaphors at play that can be interpreted a number of ways, from the importance of putting childish things away to what we suffer when we lose our imagination. Hell, it also almost feels like the frustration of one's favorite show ending on a cliffhanger, yearning for closure that never comes. This movie is fun to disect for those looking for subtext.
IF
⭐️1/2
Genre: Fantasy, Comedy
Director: John Krasinski
Starring: Cailey Fleming, Ryan Reynolds, John Krasinski, Fiona Shaw, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Steve Carrell, Louis Gosset Jr.
The poster to IF asks the question "What if imaginary friends were real?" The answer to that is that they wouldn't be imaginary. This isn't rocket science.
John Krasinski leaves A Quiet Place behind to make another movie about families, just with less monsters trying to eat people. This written/directorial effort instead comes off as if Bing Bong made him cry in Inside Out and he's been carrying that trauma with him for ten years and needs therapy. The Walking Dead's Cailey Fleming playing yet another girl with a dead mother and MIA father. However, she soon finds that she has the gift to see "Imaginary Friends," and decides to help them connect with new children after their old ones have forgotten them. That last bit seems out there to me, as the point of an imaginary friend is that the attributes are unique to the imagination of a child who created it, and just giving friends second-hand imaginary friends really defeats the purpose of imaginary friends in a way. Krasinski tries his best to create a Monsters Inc. out of this concept, but he can't figure out just what in the hell he's supposed to do with it. It's almost impressive just how aggressively this movie fails to be about anything. It's whimsy in search of a premise. Every time the movie promises to have a story, it cowers and just throws more whimsy in your face. It's tiresome with how meaninglessly cute it's trying to be. I really wish there was something of substance for the performers to grab ahold of. Ryan Reynolds seems almost shafted in his role, as he contributes almost nothing to the movie except to be present. Something needs to be said for Cailey Fleming, though. She dives straight in and embraces the tone of the movie and vibes with it. Fleming helps make this movie an easy watch, but she's just trying to make us forgive a film that never fleshed itself out beyond being a concept. Children will likely be more forgiving of that than adults, so I suppose it will still hit with its target audience.
The Strangers: Chapter 1
⭐️1/2
Genre: Horror
Director: Renny Harlin
Starring: Madeline Petsch, Foy Gutierrez
Someone in Hollywood must be very determined to make a Strangers franchise a thing, even though the time for it probably passed over a decade ago. The Strangers works as a story of a hit-and-run case of senseless, unprovoked violence from a group of people who disappeared into the night. The second Strangers film, Prey at Night, worked on a somewhat ironic level, as if the original were some sort of horror classic from the 70's and the second was the punk rock 80's cash-in sequel to it that arguably missed the point, like a slasher franchise would do if the first movie made a lot of money and the producers wanted more (if The Strangers were Halloween, Prey at Night would be Halloween 4). But the more they try to expand this franchise, the more it feels like Texas Chainsaw Massacre all over again, where every studio is making a bid to turn it into their go-to horror franchise, but none of them pan out, leaving it as an effective chiller that turned into an oddball, schizophrenic string of reboots, where some suck harder than others.
The thing is, I don't even like The Strangers that much. It's a movie I've always wished I loved, but it just never hit me the way it's supposed to. I think it's a very well made movie that has great moments, but it always felt like a thirty minute short film that was padded out to eighty. But if I ever think of it fondly, I think of little moments where it wanted you to read in between the lines. There are points in the film where the killers show a humanity that they're trying hard to mask, which helps make that film feel as real as it does. Every other Strangers film seems to completely miss that, trying to portray them as soulless and psychotic as possible, while reutilizing lines like "Is Tamara here?" or "Why are you doing this?"/"Because you were home." as catchphrases. It feels like the antithesis to the first movie, which sent out the undertones that the Strangers were just a normal group of people who did what they did simply just to experience taking a human life.
Evidentally, The Strangers: Chapter 1 was rooted in a pitch for a revamp of the series that told one big, sprawling narrative that was too ambitious for one movie, so they decided to film it and split it into three. Whoever thought this was a good idea should probably be fired, but the damage is done, and we're getting a three-part Strangers movie whether we want it or not. Chapter 2 is due out in the fall, and Chapter 3 probably in the winter. That is, assuming Chapter 1 doesn't flop hard enough to dump them all directly onto streaming. Horror movies tend to keep their budgets tight, though, so that's probably unlikely. Chapter 1, more-or-less, is just the first Strangers movie again, with minor detours. The main couple is stranded in a nowhere town and staying at a Bed & Breakfast, and have some interaction with citizens in the first act. Other than that, there are little-to-no plot beats that aren't repeated from the first film, as a trio of masked individuals terrorize them throughout the night.
Here's the thing that I can't get out of my head: I'm curious why you would make this movie at all when it's so painstakingly similar to a movie that already exists. You could have just made your part 2 and 3 and made them direct sequels to the first movie with seemingly little alterations. I don't even know if I could spoil this movie, because the end result is practically the same as the first film, right down to who lives and who dies. I just don't see the value in selling us on an already shot trilogy by introducing us to it with a movie we've already seen before, but duller. The movie doesn't even pay off the trailer tagline of "Witness how the Strangers became the Strangers," which implies this is some sort of origin story that will reveal who these masked people are and what drives them to do this. Not only is it not that, it struggles to be anything. It's a boring remake of the first film that slapped "To Be Continued" at the end without giving us any sort of hook to be excited for more. Why the fuck would I come back for another one? The small hope that now this one is out of the way, it might actually become interesting? Fuck you, movie.
The best thing I can say about this movie is I expected it to be worse, but that's more of a statement how low my expectations were than any praise for the film itself. I almost wish it were worse. A bad movie can handle. Something odd and stupid can generate enthusiasm for me. Madame Web, while arguably a worse movie, is still the most rewatchable movie of the year. The Strangers: Chapter 1 is probably the frontrunner for most regrettable ticket purchase. It's IP repetition at its most uncreative. That's something I had hoped it wasn't, but nobody was willing to rise above that standard.
Wildcat
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama
Director: Ethan Hawke
Starring: Maya Hawke, Laura Linney, Rafael Casal, Philip Ettinger, Cooper Hoffman, Steve Zahn
Ethan Hawke directs his daughter Maya in this semi-biography of writer Flannery O'Connor, portraying her creative struggles while those around her fail to understand her work. Intercut throughout are adaptations of O'Connor's short stories, with Maya Hawke playing the lead in each. The best moments of Wildcat are absolutely worth watching. I just wish it were a better movie to house the inspiration. The idea of being both an biopic and work adaptation is pretty clever, as it helps us understand both the woman and her imagination at the same time. The film is made with a pure and focused ideas and vision, but it frustrates as it struggles to make it feel whole. It's almost as if the film was written by its main character, letting her stories out only to flummox the audience who probably isn't ready for them. This might be intentional, though while the film is great at at portraying O'Connor's polarizing nature, it fails to find a throughline that comes off as anything but a chaotic and grim mess. The question becomes whether or not that's the point. If it is, the movie fails to elevate it to any level of importance. It does emphasize the conflict between artistic expression against audience understanding quite well, though. It just also feels like it's an allegory for the finished film.
Movies Still Playing At My Theater
Challengers ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Dune: Part Two ⭐⭐1/2
The Fall Guy ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ⭐️⭐️1/2
Kung Fu Panda 4 ⭐⭐1/2
Tarot ⭐️⭐️
Unsung Hero ⭐️1/2
New To Digital
Challengers ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ⭐️⭐️1/2
Sting ⭐️⭐️1/2
New To Physical
Dune: Part Two ⭐⭐1/2
Imaginary ⭐️1/2
One Life ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Coming Soon!
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