Multiplex Madness
1992
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Action, Thriller
Director: Ariel Vromen
Starring: Tyrese Gibson, Scott Eastwood, Ray Liotta
A movie centered on the 1992 L.A. riots could be quite interesting, but that's not exactly what 1992 offers. Instead it's an okay enough heist movie that happens to use them as a backdrop. Tyrese Gibson plays a former gang member who currently is just trying to raise his son after being freed from incarnation. After the fateful verdict in the trial for the beating of Rodney King, the entire city breaks out in a riot, Gibson seeks refuge at his factory workplace, which is currently being robbed by Scott Eastwood and, in his final posthumous film appearance, Ray Liotta. Once the heist plotline starts rolling, the riots are mostly forgotten. Though, the film provides little context for them, skimming the trial and jumping straight to the verdict, shooting up a bunch of talking heads telling us how angry people are. What riot scenes we do get are solid, though not as harrowing as they could be. They're mostly used to set-up the surprising passiveness of Gibson's character and establish a few action hero traits. Gibson's reaction to what is going on is certainly an interesting creative choice. He later explains to his son that the rioters are doing exactly what white society wants them to do. I think that's a sidestepping take. One might argue that the violence only justified what white society thought of the Black community, while it can be said that Gibson's quiet subjection is really what white society wants the Black community to do. But I'm not one to explain race issues to those who are discriminated against, so I'm not going to press the issue on this. The cast is uniformly excelent, with special accolades to the late Ray Liotta. The screenplay can sometimes feel like chaos without end, which is frustrating because you could use that energy to actually depict a riot when we're just stuck in a factory, instead. Not bad, but certainly a missed opportunity.
Across the River and into the Trees
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama
Director: Paula Ortiz
Starring: Liev Schreiber, Matilda De Angelis, Josh Hutcherson, Laura Morante, Massimo Popolizio, Danny Huston
Based on the Ernest Hemingway novel, this film features Liev Schreiber as a dying soldier, who contemplates his traumatic life in the face of his mortality while also entering an unlikely romance with a young Italian woman. I'm not a Hemingway scholar (I'm a movie nerd, not a book nerd), so one might need to take whatever I say about this film with a grain of salt. I have no clue how faithful the movie is to the text, though what context I did find on it, some Hemingway fans find the film's alterations of certain elements deflating to the book's themes (particularly the ending). Speaking as an outsider, it's well shot and acted, with a budding interchange between Liev Schreiber and Matilda De Angelis giving it dramatic heft. Schreiber and De Angelis are both very good in their unlikely chemistry, and their interplay is enough to keep the drama rolling and an audience invested in its outcome. But I've always been a Schreiber fan. I think he's low-key one of the most reliable actors of the last thirty years, so when you give him a meaty role like this, I'll always be here for it. If nothing else, the film is a solid showcase for him and his young co-stars that is quite lovely to look at.
AfrAId
⭐️
Genre: Horror
Director: Chris Weitz
Starring: John Cho, Katherine Waterston, Havana Rose Liu, Lukita Maxwell, David Dastmalchian, Keith Carradine
Blumhouse takes a roll of the dice with another high concept horror movie that may or may not be utter garbage, depending on whether it comes together or not. AfrAId, as you could probably guess, is tossed into the dumpster of misfires. John Cho and Katherine Waterston head a family that welcomes a sentient A.I. system named AIA into their home. At first, AIA makes their life easier, but they become more uncomfortable with her overbearing actions as the A.I. begins to take control of their lives. There are about a hundred things going haywire with this film happening simultaneously. It's a script that feels based in the idea of a killer Alexa that was infused with A.I. concepts because A.I. started gaining mainstream attention and it forced in a weak commentary on it. Even if one were to ignore the movie's weak theme, the screenplay is a witless drone, forcing itself forward with a hollow vision for where this story is supposed to go. Occasionally the movie will catch you off-guard with an effective moody moment amidst jump scare screams and comically bad setpieces. I'm pleased that the movie has some ambition, even if it doesn't cash in on it. The movie has one strength that almost does some heavy lifting to make it rise ever so slightly above junk, and that's the casting of John Cho and Katherine Waterston. Their roles are just terrible, but they're able to pour a little bit of heart into their relationship with AIA, making the movie moderately effective at points. Even as the duo try desperately to salvage what they're working with, AfrAId proves to be self-destructive to any effort to try and save it.
City of Dreams
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Drama
Director: Mohit Ramchandani
Starring: Ariel Lopez, Renata Vaca, Alfredo Castro, Paulina Gaitán, Jason Patric, Diego Calva
Passionate, if overbearing with its overconfidence, drama tells the story of a mute boy who is smuggled into America, unknowingly through a child trafficking ring that sells him to a slave sweatshop stationed in Los Angeles. Of what you can say about City of Dreams, you can't say it doesn't have its eye on the ball. It purely wants to be a gut-wrenching drama of hope in the darkest of times, and while one can't blame them for cranking up the melodrama, one does wish they wouldn't so overtly indulge in it. Indulge might be an understatement. It bathes in it, it flaunts it, it streaks around in it, wanting you to notice just how harrowing this story is. I'd say it stops short of telling the audience just how impressed they should be with their own movie, though it ends with an interview with star Ariel Lopez telling the audience how important this movie is and trying to rev the audience into a call to action. That's not to undercut the subject matter that City of Dreams tries to shed a light on, but there is a difference between letting a movie resonate with its audience and actively explaining it to the people watching the movie. It's a shame that the movie threw its faith in media literacy to the wind, because there is promise here. The movie tugs at the heartstrings in effective ways at times, and the film's craft is pretty excellent most of the time. There is even a single shot chase scene in the movie that is a bit of a kinetic knock-out. City of Dreams has the potential to be a great movie, but its play is so heavy that it collapses under the weight.
Good One
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama
Director: India Donaldson
Starring: Lily Collias, James Le Gros, Danny McCarthy
This indie has a daughter accompanying her father and his recently divorced friend on a hiking trip. During the hike, she finds herself the reluctant caretaker to two men going through a midlife crisis, as she grows increasingly more frustrated with what's expected of her. Good One is an interesting story of budding feminity being smothered by fragile masculinity. Young Sam is figuring out her place in her own generation while coddling two father figures from a generation that are far removed from her. This includes dated expectations of the female role in their lives to inappropriate impressions of her that frustrate her. It's a movie that feels personal to writer/director India Donaldson, who lets the movie bathe in subtext, trusting the audience to understand the quiet female rage. The movie has a greatness that is almost buried in that, though. The movie's ambition is to come off as naturalistic, though it plays too scripted to fully hit that note. Its drama feels lived-in enough for its presentation to still work despite this. Good One is a film that women will want to check out, because its themes will strongly resonate with them.
Reagan
⭐️
Genre: Drama
Director: Sean McNamara
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Penelope Ann Miller, Robert Davi, Lesley-Anne Down, Jon Voight
There is probably a strong narrative that can be found for a biopic for every American President, even the ones you vehemently disagree with (including the elephant in the room linked with the number 45), and to be honest, I'd like to see them. Regardless of the fact Ronald Reagan's legacy has proved to be polarizing the longer America has marinated with it, he's is arguably one of the most impactful Presidents in recent memory and has earned a movie devoted to his life, because there is certainly a story to be told there. And whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, you have to admit, he deserves a far better one than this.
This Reagan movie is little more than rose-colored glasses jerk-off propaganda for Republicans, filtered through such a romanticized lens that even if Ronald Reagan were the greatest President of all time, the movie would still come off as inauthentic tripe. The movie has no ambition to be an honest portrayal depicting the challenges he faced and policies he pushed, opting instead to be a portrait of a man who deftly rode the Presidency like a bicycle and struck fear into the hearts of those fucking communists. The depiction of the Soviets in this movie is so funny, because Reagan is always depicted in bright and angelic lighting, while the commies are always in dank and dark rooms like cartoon villains, helplessly watching TV in groups going "OH NO, NOT RONALD REAGAN!" Jon Voight tells the story as an unlikely Russian narrator, framing it as the the story of the man who respectfully outfitted his government at every turn. Voight always calls him "The Crusader" like he's the Avenger of capitalism. It would be sad if the movie's hero worshiping slant weren't so goddamn goofy. Dennis Quaid's performance as the man himself is full improv comedy hour in a presentation that is too squeaky clean for the complicated and grimey world of 80's politics. It's a movie so afraid to present Ronald Reagan with any genuine faults that it flakes off and just depicts a man of genuine perfection. I get it if you like Ronald Reagan, but if you think this movie is an honest portrait of him, you might want to ease up on the Kool Aid and drink some water.
What I will say is that while the movie is quite unintentionally funny, it does have one actual real joke that lands. It features Reagan campaigning for Governer for California, knocking on doors, but the lady that answers can't remember his name.
"Do his initials help? R.R?"
"Honey! Roy Rogers is here!"
There. That's the highlight of the movie. You don't have to bother with the rest, now.
Slingshot
⭐️1/2
Genre: Science Fiction, Thriller
Director: Mikael Håfström
Starring: Casey Affleck, Lawrence Fishburne, Emily Beecham, Tomer Capone, David Morrissey, Mark Ebulué
Casey Affleck is a crewmember of a space mission to one of Saturn's moons, but he begins to feel more emotionally unstable as time goes on, hallucinating that the girlfriend he left behind is on board. He doesn't seem to be the only person on board succumbing to the madness, as another tries to convince him to turn on Captain Lawrence Fishburn in an act of...
SPACE MUTINY!
It's easy to see what Slingshot wants to do, as it's yet another film using the isolated environment of astronauts in space to create a claustrophobic psychological thriller. We had one of these earlier this year with I.S.S., which was rich enough in characterization where it felt organic. Slingshot's approach to being psychological is to have the characters sit around in a sleepy daze, only to scream their mental states at you intermittently. It's very bland, underdeveloped, inane, and dull. Affleck does his best to try and carry the movie, but there is just nothing here for him to latch onto. I feel like this is one of those movies that came up with its ending first and then worked it's way backwards, because the final stretch is the only point in the movie where it has any fire in its step. I wish that paid off, because it's only five minutes of content in a ninty minute slog.
You Gotta Believe
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Sports
Director: Ty Roberts
Starring: Luke Wilson, Greg Kinnear, Sarah Gadon, Michael Cash, Etienne Kellici, Molly Parker, McCauly Tucker
This movie is the story of a team of lackluster Little League players who defy the odds and make the cut into the 2002 Little League World Series finals, in a season that was inspired by their assistant coach, who was dying of cancer. It's kind of a cute story, but the movie is void of personality. You Gotta Believe is a traditional misfits sports team narrative that has been scrubbed with bleach to be made as sterile and inoffensive as possible. It's a sports movie targeted at kids who might be old enough to understand how to hit a ball, but not keep score. There is very little of an improvement curve that the players go through in it, they just reach a point where they just suck less. It makes the movie's own evolution stunted, because it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere in particular. Even with that, the movie probably would increase in entertainment value if its comedy was more than a whisper of slight gags and name-calling. Some of the jokes in this movie are even just bizarre, like a running gag about a player's braces blinding the pitcher with the sun glistening off of them. I mean, I guess that's a joke, it's just a really stupid one. The message of the movie is that you can reach any goal if you put the work in. It's really hard to sell that message when it's coming from a movie that is doing the bare minimum.
Movies Still Playing At My Theater
Alien: Romulus ⭐️⭐️1/2
Blink Twice ⭐️⭐️1/2
Borderlands ⭐️⭐️
The Crow ⭐️1/2
Deadpool & Wolverine ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Despicable Me 4 ⭐️⭐️1/2
Inside Out 2 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
It Ends with Us ⭐️⭐️
My Penguin Friend ⭐️⭐️
Strange Darling ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Trap ⭐️⭐️
Twisters ⭐️⭐️
New To Digital
New To Physical
The Garfield Movie ⭐️⭐️1/2
The Watchers ⭐️
Coming Soon!
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