Multiplex Madness
Black Bag
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Thriller
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomi Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Pierce Brosnan
Steven Soderbergh's third collaboration with screenwriter David Koepp, and second in only the last two months, Black Bag is a low-to-the-ground spy thriller rather than a genre tinkering like their last film, Presence. It's also not quite as interesting, but it has its moments. Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett star as a married couple who work at an intelligence agency. Fassbender is then hired to keep tabs on his wife when she is suspected of being a mole, though things aren't as clearcut as they seem, as they usually aren't. The movie tries out some slick plotting techniques that it seems to be wryly self-confident in. If the viewer isn't smitten with the film's tone, they're likely to be bored with how stationary that plotting is. I can't blame anyone for being bored, though I can easily picture the type of audience that will nod along to the movie's rhythm as if it were a banger. I don't find that there is much in the film to be genuinely enthusiastic about, as it's pace is so casual that it should make up with characterization, which feels to be only superficial conversations about sex lives and affairs. The film was ultimately a bit too plain for me, lacking seasoning and flavor. The twisty-turny plot could turn this around, but ultimately the film's story is so casually tossed in the backseat in favor of tone that I learned early on that the movie doesn't really care what its about or how it ends and I found little reason to care, too. It's a solid, swift casual watch, but only a select few of cinephiles with certain creative leanings will genuinely love it.
The Day the Earth Blew Up
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Comedy, Science Fiction
Director: Peter Browngardt
Starring: Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol
I don't know what Warner Brothers has against Looney Tunes. It's bad enough that they seemingly committed domestic abuse against it by making Space Jam: A New Legacy, but they went out of their way to create exclusive movies for their Max streaming service only to toss them. Instead of pushing their Looney Tunes movies into theaters with a few other streaming releases they had planned, they sold one off to another studio and outright deleted the other, despite being finished (the now-infamous Coyote vs. Acme). For a studio that is seemingly obsessed with IP, they have shown nothing but negligence and incompetence with the oldest and most iconic IP that they own (Edit: Since writing this, it's now come to light that they have removed all of Looney Tunes from the Max streaming service, furthering my point). But welcome to David Zaslav's Hollywood, who has done more damage to the film media since the days where works were actively destroyed because nobody wanted to bother maintaining it. But who cares about cartoons when you can make whatever the fuck Joker: Folie à Deux was supposed to be.
The lucky one in the whole ordeal was The Day the Earth Blew Up, which was purchased for theatrical distribution by the small-scale company of Ketchep Entertainment. This sounds like a fake name to a phoney ponzi scheme, but I assure you they exist. I've even seen a few of their movies. It doesn't stop me from being surprised every time I see their logo, though. I'm sure getting a Looney Tunes movie is a big deal for them. Interestingly enough, The Day the Earth Blew Up is the very first fully original animated feature film from the Looney Tunes. All previous fully animated movies were shorts compilations, while the films that weren't were live-action hybrids like Space Jam and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (Coyote vs. Acme was one of these). So, this movie kinda breaks new ground for the Looney Tunes. If it were successful (which it's not going to be), it could have ushered in something special for these characters (which it won't). But it's not really a full Looney Tunes roster, as it scales back and only features Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, portrayed as adopted brothers who find themselves in the middle of an alien plot to turn humanity into zombies using chewing gum.
I've never liked chewing gum. This is just one of the reasons why.
There's a full effort on display to make the movie feel like a classic Looney Tunes short blown up into feature length. This is for better or for worse. To an extent, those shorts were very of the time period that made them, and The Day the Earth Blew Up often comes across as a photocopy, with some bizarre modernized jokes involving butts. Daffy can also lay eggs now, despite being a male duck. This is actually a plot point, kind of. Also, how can you do an alien invasion story without Marvin the Martian? That's just wrong. Setting any misgivings aside, this is actually an impressive attempt at replicating the classic style of cartoons of yesteryear. It even takes a step beyond that and feels like it's also harkening back to comedy teams of the Golden Age and the types of films they would produce. The movie feels like the type of movie the Three Stooges made when they transitioned into features. It's a lot of comedic routines that were reliable in small doses trying to plot themselves out into a full comedic adventure. Sometimes it feels like it's crossing the streams into accidentally becoming a parody of its classic comedic duo routines, but it's a fun watch for Looney Tunes enthusiests. It's not very theatrical, and it's more wacky than hilarious, but it's a pleasant ninety minutes of Looney antics.
Novocaine
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Comedy, Action
Director: Dan Berk, Robert Olsen
Starring: Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Sam Nicholson, Betty Gabriel, Jacob Batalon
Jack Quaid has a medical condition where he doesn't feel pain. Naturally, that makes him an action hero. When maybe-girlfriend Amber Midthunder is taken hostage by bank robber Sam Nicholson, he quests to chase the bad guys and save the girl, where he finds his tolerance to pain comes in super handy. I mean, it's a real condition. I don't encourage anybody who has it to actively try anything from this movie. Except maybe getting Amber Midthunder as a girlfriend. That seems safe enough. But it's a high-concept comedic premise, where Jack Quaid is doing his tweedy Jack Quaid thing when suddenly he's in an unlikely action hero scenario with an abnormality that just might work to his benefit. The test of an action-comedy lies, not so surprisingly, in its action and its comedy. How's the action? Solid. How's the comedy? Hearty chuckles. Novocaine has the makings of gathering a cult fanbase based on those alone, though I'd say its construction is a bit flimsy. I found that the film's pacing sometimes stuttered at times as it was trying to juggle the two genres. The film has a tendency to forget itself as it's switching gears, sometimes even forgetting the gimmick it's trying to sell itself on. Even outside of it, certain areas outside of Jack Quaid's point-of-view start lacking, as certain characters are given small glimpses of traits that the movie denies them from exploring because it doesn't want to distract itself from its central story. Even Sam Nicholson's villain feels like he needs just a little more, as all he provides is a charming smile masking a cackling madman. But if you ever wanted a movie where Dennis Quaid and Jack Nicholson's sons beat the ever-loving shit out of each other, you've come to the right place.
Opus
⭐️
Genre: Thriller
Director: Mark Anthony Green
Starring: Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, Juliette Lewis, Murray Bartlett, Amber Midthunder, Stephanie Suganami, Young Mazino, Tatanka Means
Well, holy shit. There were two movies this week that starred Amber Midthunder and I didn't even realize she was in either one. It's good to see her career launching after her starmaking turn in Prey. Opus is going to do nothing for that, but at least she has a potential cult classic in Novocaine to make up for it.
Opus is one of those thrillers where people go on a relaxing experience/vacation of some sort, and things gradually go from pleasant to uncomfortable to disturbing over its duration as their host is clearly evil for some reason. It's one of the most go-to templates for filmmakers cutting their teeth on genre work, like last year's Blink Twice or Speak No Evil. Opus features John Malkovich as an eccentric pop artist who invites a group of guests from the media to his home to sample his new album. Then bad things happen. Oh no. To be frank, the movie is not good. Oddly, it's not based on anything it does poorly; it's more that it's flamboyant attempt at a thriller never connects. It's a movie that thinks it's taking a swing at a new flavor of thriller, but it comes off as a bitchier carbon copy of The Menu, where an artist mentally tortures those who leech off his profession. And that's the thing. I've seen The Menu. I love The Menu. I wish more movies took inspiration from The Menu's creativity. I'd rather that inspiration was to make something original that is distinctly their own, instead of just trying to make a more obnoxious version of something The Menu did. The only thing I'll give Opus is that it's distinctly within its own headspace rhythm, but it's so off in its own world that it's not noticing that it doesn't thrill, it doesn't shock, it doesn't engage, nor does it even entertain. The movie is a flat tire on the way to nowheresville.
Netflix & Chill
The Electric State
⭐️1/2
Streaming On: Netflix
Genre: Science Fiction
Director: Joe Russo, Anthony Russo
Starring: Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, Ke Huy Quan, Jason Alexander, Woody Harrelson, Anthony Mackie, Brian Cox, Jenny Slate, Giancarlo Esposito, Stanley Tucci
Truth be told, I have very little context for what the Russo Brothers' career exactly is other than watching their contributions to Marvel Studios and bingewatching Community for the first time last year. Both notches in their belts were rock solid, but it's always seemed that my only point of reference for them were the only good things they've done. Hands on, that is, because they were producers of Everything Everywhere All at Once, which is better than anything I've ever seen from them. I haven't seen that movie about Owen Wilson in a threesome probably. I haven't seen the AppleTV Tom Holland movie about cherries or something. I haven't even seen their last movie with Netflix, which I think was supposed to start a "cinematic universe" maybe, but we're three years later and there is still nothing on the horizon on that. The Russos made The Electric State instead, then signed up for more Marvel movies, so whatever they were doing with The Gray Man looks dead-in-the-water. ALSO, and this is my rant for the week so bear with me, Netflix has always teased exclusive blockbuster challengers to theatrical franchises and failed to deliver. Need I remind everyone of Bright, Army of the Dead, and Rebel Moon? All starts of franchises that never happened, a lot of people probably watched, yet nobody remembers. Netflix might as well just come out and say that their defining franchise is the Kissing Booth trilogy.
Electric State is their latest try, another collaboration with the Russos, while starring Millie Bobby Brown, one of the few stars that Netflix can safely say that they introduced to the world, through their Stranger Things TV series. In this movie Brown plays a girl living in the aftermath of a human/robot war, which was probably less awesome than it normally is in movies. She then befriends a big-headed robot man that she believes is controlled by her thought-deceased brother, who she follows into a landscape of robot wreckage with Chris Pratt to find him. It's a lot of stale, nobody-cares plot-false-starters. If I were to bitch this movie out, I'd say nothing in this movie really matters to it except how cute and quirky it can make its cybernetic creations look. The movie spends its first ten minutes trying really hard to justify its aesthetic. Its excuses are so vanilla that it stops being worth the effort, feeling like it would have been more interesting without any context. I'm not sure I can blame them for trying to earn it, because the cutesy mascot look does have a visual appeal, though finding a story within it is a tall task. Watching it put forth the effort is exhausting. The Electric State is one of those movies where the people who made it obviously thought it was going to be really cool, but once it's assembled in front of you, it just sucks and there is no discernable reason why except that it was probably something that was neater in concept art without a plot tying it together. The movie is a lot of effort to bring about so little.
If you weren't paying attention to the movie, you might think it was pretty good. I'm almost convinced that's what Netflix shoots for when they make movies like this, something to put on while you're doing something else, occasionally glancing at and thinking "Oh yeah, I think I'm following this." There are aspects to it that are charming in those small glances. Millie Bobby Brown is usually a plus, because she always gives a movie heart even when it doesn't seem to have one of its own. Chris Pratt does the Chris Pratt routine. I don't think he's evolved it in over a decade, but it might be time. The further from Starlord he gets, the less it works. Arguably there is not much wrong with this movie when you boil down its fundamentals. It's functional in a very base way, it just doesn't achieve anything beyond functional. If there is a point where you acknowledge that there is a film playing in front of you but it barely registers as it's doing so, that is a form of failure. I'll give it slight kudos for not being unpleasant to watch. I'd have given them more if I could guarantee I'd remember watching it in two hours.
Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Streaming On: Hulu
Genre: Documentary
Director: Rachel Mason
Starring: Halyna Hutchins, Alec Baldwin, Joel Souza, Hannah Guiterrez-Reed
Anybody who follows film closely is undoubtedly familiar with the accidental death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of a western called Rust in 2021, where actor Alec Baldwin pulled the trigger of his gun that was supposed to be carrying blanks, but a live round went straight through Hutchins and also striking director Joel Souza, killing Hutchins and leaving Souza critically injured. The impact of this incident in the film community was seismic. People who worked in film or were even in film-watching communities were shook, angry, and confused about the whole incident, myself included. It wasn't the first gun misfire on a set, but it's a contender for the one that has had the most impact, next to the death of Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow in 1993. Hulu has just dropped a documentary chronicling the ordeal, which I actually wasn't aware of until they put it up and I just happened to be paying for a month of Hulu at the moment. My curiosity was never satisfied on what actually happened that day, and I clicked on it, hoping to be enlightened.
Director Rachel Mason starts the film by saying that she was asked to make a film about Hutchins life but says she wasn't able to, because she didn't understand her death. And indeed, there isn't a lot that is actually about Hutchins in this movie. I guess everything in it is about Hutchins, in a sense, but detail on the woman whose death shattered so many people is very light. I would have appreciated more, but I also did appreciate that the movie was very laser-focused on the production of the movie, everything leading up to the incident, and the aftermath. The film is a very easy-to-follow account of a tragedy, and it doesn't do what a lot of true crime documentary narratives do by pointing fingers in certain directions while looking for a single person to blame. What's refreshing is that Last Take treats everyone with humanity, showing everyone involved through a calm and open lens. The film shows the many things that led to the incident, pointing out the neglect and carelessness, but it also is resigned to the idea that no matter who takes the blame for what happened that day, a woman is dead and everyone is devastated by it. The film even treats the eventual conviction of armorer Hannah Guiterrez-Reed as bittersweet, because even as her negligence led to the accident, Hutchins is still no longer with us and Guiterrez-Reed was as shocked by what happened as anybody else, claiming this is an instance where true justice cannot be served. The film seems to have a harsher tone for the news outlets, media organizations, and social media influencers who farmed off the incident, taking the death of Hutchins and turning it into "content." It was a sickening display that made the ordeal even worse, and the film was right to call it out.
This documentary is also imperfect in little ways, some of which are nitpicks while others are down to constraints about what we do and don't know. I'd argue that the presentation of interviewees is a little wonky, as it always captions them with only their first name and not a lot of information on their relevance. But that might just be me thinking it's weird to caption Alec Baldwin as just "Alec." The film also frustrates with how open a lot of the questions still are, but I suppose that's to be expected. We still don't know where the live ammunition on that set came from. Nobody had the answer then, and this documentary doesn't have the answer now. Because of this, there is a sense of being incomplete, but it's hard to imagine more details coming to light about this.
Now that I have all the information the film was able to give me, I'm not sure what to do with it. I got to see the on-set response to everything that happened. I got to see Alec Baldwin's filmed reaction to the news that he had killed a woman. I got to see Guiterrez-Reed's guilt and devastation in the moment. I got to see O.S.H.A. bringing to light some hard questions that stemmed in many directions, not just at Baldwin and Guiterrez-Reed. It's a lot of answers to a question that still isn't answered, because no matter what answer is given, there is no reason that is good enough. The only real thing both I and the filmmakers know for certain is that Halyna Hutchins should still be here today, in the middle of what should have been a long career. Hutchins, sadly, didn't have a large body of work to celebrate, working mostly on indies and shorts (her biggest production was the Netflix slasher movie Time Cut, which she was uncredited on). Probably the best thing this film offers is a montage of some of her work that it is unlikely that a lot of people have seen, including the shots she had completed on Rust. Almost all of it looked really good. The fact that she was talented makes it hurt just that much more.
Movies Still Playing At My Theater
Anora ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Dog Man ⭐️⭐️⭐️
In the Lost Lands ⭐️⭐️
Last Breath ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Mickey 17 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Monkey ⭐️⭐️1/2
Mufasa: The Lion King ⭐️⭐️1/2
Paddington in Peru ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Queen of the Ring ⭐️⭐️
Rule Breakers ⭐️1/2
New To Digital
I'm Still Here ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
New To Physical
Wildcat ⭐️⭐️
Coming Soon!
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