Multiplex Madness
Blue Moon
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama
Director: Richard Linklater
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott
Blue Moon is a single-set performance and monologue drama that centers on Lorenz Hart, the former partner of Richard Rodgers before his teaming up with Oscar Hammerstein II for a very illustrious career, who helped Rodgers write songs like My Funny Valentine, Manhattan, and, of course, Blue Moon. The film sees Hart months before his death, hanging around a hotel bar and discussing life, sex, and his faltering career with the people who come and go, while his partner is celebrating the release of Oklahoma!, the greatest success of his career. The movie is largely an excuse for Ethan Hawke to disappear into his role and try to turn heads during award season. Hawke is really good here, playing Hart with flaming flamboyance, being a petty little bitch with criticism, performativly positive when he needs to be, acting like a desperate dumped girlfriend when he's around his former partner, and fawning over newfound muse Margaret Qualley (can relate). If there is any fault to the production it's that it's fully transparent that it's a one man show and there is little room for anybody else to shine. Occasionally, someone gets an amusing one-liner and Qualley is in full heartbreaker mode (which I feel comes naturally to her), but Hawke kind of bullies everyone else off-screen with his presence. Because of that, the movie has little value outside of admiring Hawke, but it's a good showcase for a quality performance.
Frankenstein
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Horror, Science Fiction
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Oscar Issac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christopher Waltz, Charles Dance
If you were to ask me what my favorite novel was, I'd probably say Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. This might have less to do with the text itself, as the book is little more a lengthy rant from the main character about his inner guilt and turmoil in ways that are more apt in poetry and theatricality. Despite this, the story being told touches me emotionally in ways very few other stories do. Because of that, I hold a lot of endearment for the text and probably will gleefully sit down for any film based upon it that gets made. The most beloved adaptations are James Whale's 1931 film and his nutty 1935 sequel, the latter of which adapted unused portions of the book to almost create a two-part production of the novel, and the 1957 Terrence Fisher film The Curse of Frankenstein, which jumpstarted Hammer Films' reign of horror films for several decades (which included their own takes on Dracula, The Mummy, Phantom of the Opera, and Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde). The most faithful adaptation of the book that I've personally seen is a 2004 Hallmark miniseries with Donald Sutherland, William Hurt, Luke Goss and a young, pre-Downton Abbey Dan Stevens (and, of MST3K note, it was directed by The Land That Time Forgot and At the Earth's Core director Kevin Connor). It's very much a Hallmark production, taking both the positive and negative of that, but if you want something that hits close to every beat of the source material (if embellished, as the book is limited to very few perspectives and they had to fill four hours of airtime), this is the one to watch. The most faithful that was actually a theatrical movie was Kenneth Branagh's 1994 film, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which is a much more grandiose production in Branagh's go-big-or-go-home style. He certainly went for it. I choose not to comment on whether he succeeded, though I confess a soft spot for the large-and-in-charge grotesque Shakespearian tragedy take. Say what you will about this movie, Branagh didn't half-ass a single second of it.
But most people these days probably just watch Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein and call it good. I don't blame them, because that movie is great, though that film is a parody of a very specific Frankenstein movie, 1939's Son of Frankenstein, so you're missing out on half the jokes if you haven't at least seen the Karloff films. And just the tip of the iceberg if we're discussing comedies based on the story, from Abbott and Costello
Meet Frankenstein to Frankenhooker, right up to last year's Lisa Frankenstein. It's a rich film history based on this one little story a woman wrote on a dare two hundred years ago.
And now, Guillermo del Toro is directing one. Hook this movie into my veins right fucking now.
Del Toro is one of the most unique monster movie filmmakers to have ever graced this planet, taking the framing device of a strange, violent creature's personal history of tragedy and taking it to its maximum level of sympathetic light, turning the grotesque and strange into something sad and beautiful. This framing device that he has spent decades mastering is absolutely perfect for the story of Frankenstein, which has always been a story of a monster that was created through the cruelty of the world around him. My one hesitance about letting him go wild with the story is that this seems to be a passion project for him and, from my experience, I should always be weary of that. That last time a monster story I cared about was handed to a big director for a "passion project" was Peter Jackson's King Kong, which was a lot of muchness to the point that, while it's technically good, I actually began to find it somewhat obnoxious while watching it. I don't think there was a movie this year that I was rooting for harder than this movie. I wanted Del Toro and Frankenstein to be an absolute perfect marriage.
I will settle for imperfection, especially if the experience is this exquisite. While flawed, Del Toro's Frankenstein is a rousing, haunting, beautiful success that reinforces how much I love this story.
Those expecting a true adaptation of the novel will leave disappointed. Del Toro took the basic synopsis but spun it in his own web. I could list numerous differences from the book, a lot of which I don't think are necessarily improvements but are certainly interesting takes on this oft-told material. To be frank, both James Whale and Terrence Fisher's productions were also loose adaptations and have both gone on to be classics that stand on their own. I'm perfectly willing to accept Del Toro's movie on its own terms because he has his own sensibilities. It's clear very early on that Del Toro wants to tell a story where Victor is the clear-cut villain of the movie, while nearly every vicious decision the Monster does in his rage has been excised. That goes back to Del Toro's tendency to sympathize with the monsters in his movies, wanting to double down on the story being the tragic tale of an abused child who just wanted to be loved. He also romanticizes the Monster. Not to the extent that he does in The Shape of Water, but he has a slight romance with Elizabeth that was not on my Bingo card for this movie. Traditionally, Elizabeth doesn't meet the Monster until her final scene, while in Del Toro's version, she helps care for him while Victor is failing to be patient with him. I found this romantic idea a little off-putting, if I'm being honest, because Elizabeth and the Monster's early scenes seem maternal, as if Elizabeth is evoking the role of Victor's loving mother from the prologue while Victor is becoming cold and harsh like his own father. Underlining a romantic undercurrent between the two seems like it's recontextualizing those scenes in a way that hurts the film.
Bringing up both book divergence and Elizabeth, her role in the story is entirely re-written. I suppose this doesn't matter. Elizabeth is traditionally something of a generic fretting love interest who meets a fate that furthers Victor's guilt and sorrow, and by completely reinventing her they give her more power and control over the story. Additionally, Victor's brother William is entirely re-written alongside her, no longer a child that is murdered by the Monster, becoming Elizabeth's fiancée while Victor is too obsessed with his work to get laid. Victor does become infatuated with Elizabeth, though it proves to be one-sided, making this quite possibly the only adaptation where Elizabeth hates Victor.
Additionally, minor roles like Henry and Justine were eliminated entirely. Since Del Toro has shed most of the Monster's personal guilty deeds in the story, they really had no role left to play, so I suppose this is understandable. Justine, in particular, has practically zero relevance on the remodeled story since William's character has been changed so drastically. One character has been added in their stead, Henrich Harlander, played by Christoph Waltz. I will be honest, while Waltz is good here, he is a bit underutilized. Henrich's character mostly exists to be a benefactor for Victor, explaining his resources for the creation of the Monster. Once his role in story is fulfilled, he is swiftly discarded because there is nothing left for him to do. There have been similar characters that have filled a sort of "Doctor Pretorius" role for Victor across many adaptations. Most find ways to keep them relevant until the end of the story. This version just kind of tosses him in the garbage can. I did find it kind of funny that his ultimate goal was the same as Ygor's goal in 1942's Ghost of Frankenstein, but that's about the most that I took from the role. Between that and the weak romance, those are the biggest knocks I have on the movie.
Del Toro is most in his element when the focus of the movie is on the Monster. When it comes time to tell the creature's tale away from Victor, hidden in the wilderness and befriending a blind man, the movie is touching and breathtaking, with some of the best sequences in any movie this year. Del Toro's tender touch for the shunned outsider is exquisite and heart-wrenching. Victor's side of the story feels like it suffers because Del Toro's take on the character is so reviling and Victor is so singular-minded with little connection to any other character that the film can be frustrating to watch, by design. We're supposed to want to be with the Monster because Victor is the larger evil: a man of reckless ambition who refused responsibility of his endeavors and what spawned from them. Also known as a shit father. Is this movie about daddy issues? Maybe. But maybe all Frankenstein stories are about daddy issues.
Since this is a Del Toro production, there are technical details that should go without saying. The set design is outstanding. The costumes are gorgeous. The cinematography is some of the most breathtaking you'll ever see. Alexandre Desplat's score is a wonderful accompaniment. As a work of art, the movie is a visual stimulus.
I think the stories of both Dracula and Frankenstein have both achieved this status where every generation deserves their own definitive film adaptations, like a Gothic A Star Is Born. Ideally, they come in pairs, like in the 1930's, 50's, and 90's, though there doesn't seem like there's a Dracula movie on the horizon anytime soon. However, we did have Nosferatu last year, which is pretty much just Dracula with all the names scratched out, so we can just count that as this generation's Dracula adaptation to pair with Del Toro's Frankenstein. This won't be the last Frankenstein movie, and Nosferatu won't be the last Dracula movie. I look forward to seeing what filmmakers in thirty years time will bring to both these stories. In the meantime, I'm happy to see my favorite novel brought to life by one of my favorite filmmakers. But I am fortuitous in that this book has has so many talents that took such an interest in it, from Whale to Fisher and, yes, even Branagh. Hell, even Ishiro Honda made a Frankenstein movie. In that one, the Monster fought a giant firebreathing dinosaur. There's nothing in Del Toro's movie that is as awesome as that, but it's pretty good, I guess.
Last Days
⭐️
Genre: Drama
Director: Justin Lin
Starring: Sky Yang, Radhika Apte, Ken Leung, Toby Wallace, Naveen Andrews
Justin Lin wasn't always an action movie director. He initially made a name for himself with a critically acclaimed crime drama called Better Luck Tomorrow, and he just kinda got cornered by the Fast & Furious franchise for most of his remaining career. Now he tries to return to his roots with a drama called Last Days, chronicling the true story of John Allen Chau, a mercenary who died trying to bring Christianity to the isolated tribe of North Sentinel islanders. I have a soft spot for Justin Lin, if for no other reason than I think both Fast & Furious 6 and Star Trek Beyond are ridiculously entertaining. Watching him drown in melodrama with Last Days is really testing that. Ultimately, Lin is telling an subjective story that's trying to humanize someone who made a series of rash, delusional decisions that cost him his own life. The story being told is hard to sympathize with, as much as Lin tries to empathize Chau. The more the movie tries to rationalize him, the worse his choices seem. Furthermore, ignoring the questionable story, Last Days isn't a very compellingly told drama. It's dreary and melancholy, also weirdly sentimental at times, as if Lin finds this story inspirational, somehow. The mishmash tone is odd and off-putting. But then again, the story is odd and off-putting. Comparatively, last week we had the movie Urchin, which was a story of someone who was in a self-induced spiral being portrayed through a neutral observer lens. That was more compelling because the main character was a subject of study that we were to try to understand, not get emotionally connected to. It's not easy to make a movie based on someone who made terrible life decisions and treat it with full reverence. Unfortunately, Lin proves that you probably shouldn't.
Regretting You
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Drama, Romance
Director: Josh Boone
Starring: Allison Williams, Mckenna Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Thames, Scott Eastwood, Willa Fitzgerald, Clancy Brown
Fuck yeah! It's a Colleen Hoover novel adaptation! The last time this happened, everyone involved wound up suing each other and we ended up with hot tabloid goss for an entire year! By all means, let's do another one!
Thoroughly for Hoover fans and romcom enthusiasts (of which I am neither, but will try to stay as neutral as possible), Regretting You centers on Allison Williams, who finds out her sister and husband were having an affair after they have both been killed in a car accident. She tries to keep the newfound information from spoiling daughter Mckenna Grace's perfect image of her aunt, who wrestles with the aftermath while finding a relationship blossoming with classmate Mason Thames, who may or may not be with his on-and-off girlfriend (who is never present in the movie, for some weird reason). Meanwhile, Williams' emotions become even more complicated as she confronts her feelings for her sister's husband, Dave Franco, who is the romantic partner she felt she missed out on. That's a lot of love triangles for one movie. I'm sure its core audience is more than satisfied by that. The very base ambition that the movie shoots for is to turn summer beach reading soap operatics into something housewives cuddle up in a blanket and watch when their husband is working late. It's not much, but to say it doesn't succeed at that is a filthy lie. If I can say anything about this movie, it would be that it's a more even production than last year's It Ends with Us. Regretting You has (mostly) better acting and some of its levity is more than welcome. Williams and Grace by themselves have more charisma than anybody in It Ends with Us, if I'm laying all cards on the table. I watched the movie just fine and didn't hate it, even if I'll be more than okay with never watching it again. There are certainly things in the movie that don't work. The CGI de-aging is horrifically smooth in the flashbacks and everyone looks like a doll. Mason Thames' character often reacts to situations that don't seem like default human reactions. Dave Franco struggles hard to deliver his melodrama with any believability. Hell, there's even a running joke with a "city limits" sign that is just dumb. It's certainly a jumbled movie of ups and downs. It was made for very specific people and the question is whether or not it's a quality option for them. The answer is that quality was likely never on the menu, but that doesn't mean it won't get the job done.
Shelby Oaks
⭐️1/2
Genre: Horror
Director: Chris Stuckmann
Starring: Camille Sullivan
Shelby Oaks is the long-awaited film debut of popular YouTube film critic Chris Stuckmann. Unfortunately for Stuckmann, it's not the first horror movie by a YouTuber we've seen this year. Hell, it's not even the second. Not only did KallMeKris make her directorial debut with House on Eden a few months ago, we also saw the guys from RackaRacka continue their dynamite horror career with their second movie, Bring Her Back. Consider Stuckmann's thunder officially stolen. But Stuckmann is actually one of the least toxic, most digestable voices in the compost heap that is YouTube film discussion, and he is a noted horror film buff with some wordy, specific, and sometimes stubbornly biased and opinionated ideas of what makes a quality horror movie that he has repeated over the years. Shelby Oaks is his chance to prove he knows what he's talking about. After all, House on Eden was a horror movie made by a couple of people who were fucking around and just made a goofy homage movie. Stuckmann wants Shelby Oaks to be the first step of a long-term career shift. All I'll say is that anyone who loves M. Night Shyamalan as much as he does is someone I probably will never see eye-to-eye with on what constitutes "good horror filmmaking," but I'll hear him out. All I need to do is enter the theater and "Get Stuckmann-ized," whatever the fuck that means.
Maybe getting "Stuckmann-ized" is being befuddled and a little bored. If it is, I am thoroughly Stuckmann-ized right now.
Shelby Oaks starts out similarly to another horror film from a few months ago called Strange Harvest, where it seems to be setting up a documentary format of collected found footage, chronicling a group of paranormal investigator YouTubers who went missing. This is a mislead, because it eventually cuts off as new footage is uncovered that sends the sister of one of them trying to follow the trail and find out what happened. If I were to be frank, the premise of this movie feels like Stuckmann trying to do the sequel to The Blair Witch Project that Adam Wingard thought he was making in 2016, with family members following the lead of the infamous found footage and entering into the horror themselves. This is also kinda what happens in Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 where it's a bunch of kids who saw the movie and go where it took place where spooky shit happens. Stuckmann takes this idea that Blair Witch has been struggling with and strips it down and tries to personalize it with a single main protagonist, which is very efficient of him. Everything else he does doesn't live up to the same efficiency.
Stuckmann has a very clear idea in his head of what he wants certain visuals to look like, so much so that it feels like he cares little for what strings them together. Occasionally, he'll offer a shot that feels striking in a vacuum but, within the context of the movie, there is so much mundanity about how we got to this visual that it loses all effectiveness. Writing seems a very low secondary to directing here, which is a problem if you're both the writer and the director. So much of this movie rides on star Camille Sullivan's shoulders because we're solely focused on her but when it comes to actually giving her a character, all we really have to go on is a motive. Otherwise, the only thing Stuckmann asks Sullivan to do is look into darkness and do shuddered breathing noises. Stuckmann really loves shots of her looking at the camera and doing shuddered breathing noises. It starts to feel like a fetish at some point. And she's the most fleshed-out character. Everyone else, and I mean everyone, is just a person for her to have a slight, melancholy exchange with for some exposition. Her husband comes off the worst because he doesn't do anything in this movie except to sit in place with a grimace that makes him look like he has soiled himself. He's a fucking NPC in a goddamn movie and, I gotta be honest, that's kind of unforgivable. If your writing is so barren that you're including non-characters like this that are supposed to be an important part of your protagonist's life, you need a new draft.
This isn't even getting to the mystery that unfolds, which is just not anything worth watching. Sullivan finds locations on her tape and she travels to them, where she stands in place and stares into darkness. This isn't a properly functioning narrative. Sullivan just stumbles into new settings and, instead of finding anything new, it feels like she encounters the same shit: a void of darkness for her to shudder into, a pair of sparkly demon eyes, and sometimes a CGI wolf, for some reason. The experience of the story of this movie is that of a free demo horror game on Steam where it's just the player wandering around in the woods with a flashlight waiting for Slender Man to pop out and stare at them.
Then there is the finale, which Stuckmann seems to be getting the most flack for. Honestly, I think the movie has bigger problems than this but it is a bit underwhelming. Shelby Oaks seemingly wants to end both ambiguously and with finality at the same time. If nothing else, I admire that the movie wants to bring about closure to its narrative with a dreadful openness to the bigger picture, not unlike The Omen. I think the problem is that there is such a vagueness still hanging over to what is actually happening that certain plot threads don't feel paid off and the movie almost seems in a panic as to what to conclude and what to leave up in the air. It feels clunky and you almost wish the movie would just stop for a second, take a breath, and regroup, think this shit out. Instead, it just jumps out of a window and screams on the way down. Both figuratively and literally.
These are all the functional flaws that were bothering me about this movie. I could do a deep dive on nit-picks of certain little touches that make the movie feel artificial and lifeless. To be honest, I already feel like I've spent way too much time thinking about this movie and I could be talking about Frankenstein some more instead. I'm just going to throw my hands up and say "Didn't like it." The sad truth is that of all the horror movies made by YouTubers this year, even though we can all agree that Bring Her Back was easily the best (even Stuckmann is probably nodding his head), I might have actually enjoyed House on Eden more than Shelby Oaks. Shelby Oaks takes more swings but, as little ambition as House on Eden had, it barely met its low goals. Shelby Oaks is a lot of high hopes for shooting in the dark.
Stuckmann has a loyal following that has already generated a decent amount of homebrew hype around the movie, to the point that even the lukewarm reviews seem to be trying to declare him an "exciting new voice in horror" even if they didn't care for the movie. I have a hard time believing this would be the case if he weren't already an internet petsonality. I have nothing against Stuckmann but it's more productive to not kiss his ass and tell him my genuine thoughts about the movie he made. And, frankly, Shelby Oaks is the same type of horror film I've seen from many directors who cut their teeth on the genre and disappear into the night without making an impact. And I don't want to say this because I was genuinely hoping this movie would work out for him. It seemed like it would have been a nice, inspiring end to his unique personal journey. But I've seen Stuckmann videos where he has savaged movies for making less than half the mistakes he makes here, and I want to chalk this up to amateur status but that makes it sound like has learned nothing from the film criticism he has performed for over a decade. I am honestly shocked that this specific journey resulted in this specific movie. The more I think about Stuckmann's journey to this point, the more it seems like the lesson to be taken from it is that it's easy to criticize art but it's hard to make it. That's not me being a shit, that's just me trying to wrap my head around how this movie exists as it is coming from this specific artist. If anything, I sympathize with it as someone who dabs in writing and also puts my thoughts of films onto the internet.
Here's the thing, though: as belittling as all of this might sound, Stuckmann did take the leap, got his movie funded, and made it. He is now a director, and a negative response to his first movie isn't going to change that. What I want right now is to see him make another one and change my mind. I hope he does.
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Drama
Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young
Oh boy. It's time for the annual award season biopic based on a musician. Couldn't we just pretend Blue Moon was it? But I guess we need this year's Oscar nominee for cowards, where someone like Timothée Chalamet straps a guitar to his back and puts on a forced voice so assholes in their seventies stand up and cheer "BRILLIANT!"
Yes, I have a chip on my shoulder about nothing performances like that pushing out actual resonating performers every year. I will die on this hill.
I'm going to do the same song and dance I do every time a biopic like this comes out. I don't know music. I've heard the name Bruce Springsteen, but I don't know nor care what songs I've heard that he has written and/or performed, so I'm not familiar with any of this. The chosen one for this biopic that is hoping for Oscar contention is Jeremy Allen White, who most everybody knows from The Bear. I love The Bear and quite like Allen White. While he plays Springsteen with intensity, I don't think there is enough here for anybody to take notice of him. He commits to the film but he very much just looks like Carmy from The Bear in Springsteen cosplay. But overall, the acting is good, but the story feels fragmented. I never felt like I was witnessing a whole movie, just flash cards with pictures on them being drawn and set on a table. The movie will depict one thing, then forget about it for a while with no clear fluidity of how its relevant, then switch to something entirely different and do the same thing. The connective tissue is Springsteen struggling through a creative process, which is an okay throughline but also creatively frustrating itself. The major theme is Springsteen sinking into depression, letting it affect his work and relationships, intermixed with slight flashbacks of a drunk father which feel like they could have come from any movie. The film's final message is "Men need therapy." I don't disagree. Maybe some Springsteen fans need therapy. I hope this movie helps them with that.
Corpse Bride ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Good Boy ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Good Fortune ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
The Long Walk ⭐️⭐️⭐️
One Battle After Another ⭐️⭐️1/2
Pets on a Train ⭐️⭐️
Roofman ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Truth & Treason ⭐️⭐️1/2
Tron: Ares ⭐️⭐️
New To Digital
Afterburn ⭐️⭐️1/2
Dead of Winter ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Good Boy ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Long Walk ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Roses ⭐️⭐️⭐️
New To Physical
Eddington ⭐️⭐️
Coming Soon!
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