MST3K, RiffTrax, and My Cinema Playground: Cinema Playground Journal 2026: Week 41 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Angel and the Badman

⭐️1/2

Genre: Western

Director: Julio Quintana

Starring: Zachary Levi, Meg Fraser, Neil McDonough, Tommy Lee Jones

Zachary Levi plays a feared outlaw and I can't stop laughing while typing this sentence. He takes a bullet in the gut and is nursed back to health on the farm of Meg Fraser, and he helps her out, in turn. The film is a remake of a 1940's western, with Levi taking over for a role originally played by John Wayne. While I'm not the world's greatest Wayne scholar (that would have been my father), I can only imagine that this of this as a significant downgrade, like replacing a Great Dane with a Poodle. But I can easily understand the appeal of this story, which is a basic hard man who softens around kind folk tale. The delivery is very Hallmark Channel, which is weird when you consider Hallmark already made their own remake of this movie about twenty years ago. I haven't seen that version, but it's hard to imagine it being much more saccharine than this. But I also know to never underestimate Hallmark schmaltz. This movie makes the curious choice to have a clean and cutesy tone, which makes the moments where it wants to be grim and dirty feel incorrect. The outlaw aspect is very one-dimensional, generating a form of conflict that seems alien to the Little House on the Prairie persona that the film has adopted but only in a way that seems like a Sunday School Play performance of debauchery. A smarter production would have utilized this as an invasion of the film's purity. Instead, the movie softens it up, trying to portray acts of violence in a very clean and unnatural way. It's easy to picture the movie picking up an audience who thrive off of reruns of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, but it probably won't grow past that.

The Beast

⭐️

Genre: Action

Director: Renny Harlin

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Joel Kinnaman, Colin Morgan, Guy Burnet

This is the third Renny Harlin movie of the year. You've been warned.

This one has Samuel L. Jackson playing the President of the United States. After a vague global uprising that the movie never embellishes upon, the majority of his security detail is killed, leaving him to try and evacuate by driving his Secret Service car, known as "the Beast." It's all decked out with big guns and gizmos, like the Batmobile, setting up an action movie that takes place almost entirely within its interior. It's like somebody saw Jackson's car sequence in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and decided to turn it into an entire movie.

I like the idea of this movie. I would have liked it better if it had any thought put into it. There is just not enough here. The conflict is a plot device, and the details of it probably has no relevance on Jackson's story but the fact that we don't know why it's happening means that we don't know what's at stake, we don't know what they're trying to accomplish, and we don't know what Jackson can accomplish by simply surviving it. The only thing we know is that he is a world leader and they want all world leaders dead (and it sounds like they were surprisingly effective at this wide-ranging master plan). I know what Jackson wants and I know what they want. I don't know why any of this is happening.

The movie obviously has a very limited budget which means a lot of the action is done through implication rather than visualization. This sparks some creativity in framing, but sometimes the action is too flashy and quick to actually make sense of what just happened. The movie's sole virtue is Jackson himself, who plays an anemic sceenplay with determination. The filmmakers probably know this. They even throw in a self-aware reference to his casting, as Joel Kinnaman tells him "I love it when you say 'motherfucker,' sir. It sounds so good when you say it." It's gives the impression the people making it are having fun. It's unfortunate the final product isn't.

Double Trouble

⭐️1/2

Genre: Comedy, Heist, Action

Director: Shaun Piccinino

Starring: Violet McGraw, Madeleine McGraw, Andrew Koji, Struggle Jennings, Azazi Donnelly

This movie appears to be a vehicle for real life sisters Madeleine and Violet McGraw, who are best known for the Black Phone and M3GAN franchises, respectively. I don't know if they're popular enough for any sort of film union to mean anything for a tween audience but I also don't know what kids are into these days beyond Paw Patrol and KPop Demon Hunters. The title brings to mind all those Olsen twin movies that would go direct to video back in the late 90's. I'm pretty sure one of them was called "Double Trouble." There had to be one. Right? I'm not going to check, so you're on your own.

Double Trouble is practically two types of child entertainers rolled into one. The first is the two teen stars in a "clever kids outsmart the dummy adult criminals" scenario. The second is one of those family friendly action movies Jackie Chan used to make because his popularity with youngsters skyrocketed. Just replace Jackie Chan with Andrew Koji. The basic premise has the McGraw sisters bored while their parents do adult things in Las Vegas, so they break into the back offices of their casino hotel and get busted by security officer/former criminal Andrew Koji. All of this happens at the same time a heist is going down, masterminded by Koji's former partner. Koji does some kicks and the girls do some Home Alone shenanigans.

This is one of those movies that I would watch on the Disney Channel when I was ten, not think about while I was watching it, and then completely forget existed. I'd cite examples but none come to mind. Fundamentally, it's a product targeting a very simple mindset. There are a lot of jokes, but it's not particularly funny. There are action scenes, but they don't excite. There is holiday cheer, but it's just dressing. It's not particularly good at anything, it's just an empty calorie watch. There are also some tonal oddities in the movie. Koji and the McGraw sisters sometimes feel like they're in two separate movies. Main villain Azizi Donnelly is playing her role far sexier than you'd expect for a kids movie, with dirty talk and innuendo. Even the Las Vegas setting seems inappropriate for the movie's tone, though it works for the setpieces they've concocted. This movie is not particularly great but it doesn't matter because I won't remember it in an hour.

Falling.

⭐️⭐️

Genre: Drama, Romance

Director: Colin Krisel, James Krisel

Starring: K.J. Apa, Isabel May, Archie Rinaux, Emma Laird, Alex Jarrett

The spirit of late 90's bittersweet Miramax romance lives on in Falling, which chronicles womanizer K.J. Apa reluctantly finding a woman he's willing to settle down with in Isabel May. His newfound monogamous relationship finds itself in jeopardy when his best friend, Archie Rinaux, falls in love with May. To make matters worse, she might just love him back, as the two begin an affair behind Apa's back. What's most concerning about this is that the movie almost seems to be romanticizing cheating at first. This actually isn't the case because it has a specific destination in mind that examines the lives of two different men, one that is put-together and confident and another that is self-doubting and stuck in a rut, and comparing what each can achieve and how they affect one-another. I found the ending to this movie very interesting because it says a lot with very few words. The question becomes whether the journey to get there is worth the time it takes because this flick can be a chore when it's hiding its cards. Falling is very tropey. It wants to have a rebellious indie charisma but a lot of the build-up to it's interesting finale is too genre-pandering. That doesn't necessarily make it bad but it does chip away at the personality that it wants to project. This movie is such a banal love triangle romance until it finally reveals that it isn't really a romance that the latter element cannot effectively eliminate the former. I wish it did. The point it was making had was worth a genuine discussion. It just came in too late.

Never After Dark

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Horror

Director: Dave Boyle

Starring: Moeka Hoshi, Kento Kaku, Kurumi Inagaki, Matsuo Yoshioka, Tae Kimura

In case you need something Japanese before Godzilla Minus Zero storms into our lives next month, it's time for some J-horror spookums. This movie has a psychic called upon to investigate a secluded house where the owner claims that there is a ghost wandering around the halls. Using her link to the other side, she discovers the dark secrets that this spectre carries. Never After Dark plays with a very basic premise that has been done before but does so with flavor and atmosphere. Our psychic lead is interesting and her methods are creative, while the mystery has some neat turns. The film sometimes drifts into putting its story on the backseat in hopes of creating some memorable visuals, which occasionally causes slowdown in the plot. It adds the the film's casual creep factor though, making it a ghost story that'll haunt in the moment, if not after it's over.

Other Mommy

⭐️1/2

Genre: Horror

Director: Rob Savage

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Jay Duplass, Arabella Olivia Clark, Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed, Karen Allen

A young girl has a "special friend" who lives in her closet and happens to look like her mother, Jessica Chastain. But his entity that she calls "Other Mommy" has more nefarious needs than just being a friend. Other Mommy is the premise and structure of a Goosebumps book trying to be dressed up as a more adult level of horror. Sometimes it's effective at it, but often it can seem too childish to jolt the way it wants to. There are things in this movie that are objectively pretty great, and I was enjoying this movie for good long while. There is some fun popcorn horror craziness and the film has one particular gore scene that is actually one of the most spectacular things I've seen all year. That's not to last, because the movie almost seems to sabotage itself as it transitions into its climax.

The movie starts to lose some gas once it introduces paranormal investigators and the entire vibe of the movie shifts to being some sort of needless Insidious knock-off. Visually, this sequence is a treat, and I like seeing Dichen Lachman show up in things because...well, frankly there is no way I can finish this sentence without incriminating myself, so I'll just say "because reasons." Unfortunately, the entire sequence just seems lifted from a different movie entirely and it feels like we've briefly been thrust into an obtuse camp horror for five minutes. The energy the film loses drifts into the climax, where the movie starts swinging with some big ideas that never land. The film's third act is a trainwreck. I think it's trying to be unconventional, but every aspect of its delivery is miscalculated. It ends the movie on what feels like an unearned note, where it knows it's time to end but does so by just saying "Here's your metaphor. Have at it."

It's a shame. Chastain is really good in this. She is lathered in digital enhancement for most of her horror scenes, which makes her less effective than she probably could have been otherwise, but this is an excellent performance. She's a centerpiece to things in this movie that could have worked but never get to shine.

The Social Reckoning

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre: Drama

Director: Aaron Sorkin

Starring: Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Bill Burr, Wunmi Mosaku, Billy Magnussen, Betty Gilpin

The Social Network was a movie about some assholes that accidentally changed human interaction. The Social Reckoning is about whether or not they changed it for the better. Spoiler: the answer is no. The movie covers the events between 2019 and 2021 where Facebook employee Frances Haugen (played by Mikey Madison, in her first post-Oscar role) exposes Facebook's skewed algorithms and lacking fact-checking systems to journalist Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White). This lead to the publishing of "The Facebook Files" in the Wall Street Journal.

And I just want to say that all of this is why I rarely use social media anymore.

The difference between The Social Network and The Social Reckoning is the difference between internal politics and public perception politics. It's also the difference between a David Fincher political drama and an Aaron Sorkin political drama. That might read as a backhanded compliment but I don't want to take anything away from Sorkin. The man has been doing his thing for decades. He has won many awards for it. Some of which were for writing The Social Network. But Reckoning is less rhythmic and playful than Network was, feeling more in the vibe of Sorkin's TV dramas. The movie doesn't come alive like the previous film did, as it just wants to deliver a clear and concise message. And the message is received. The movie is not subtle about it. It doesn't use a hammer to make its point, it uses a bulldozer. But when going up against tech oligarchs, maybe subtlety is best left to the wind.

There is one big flaw in this movie; one that is an intentional choice and I understand why it was made. The movie talks a lot about consequences and while it discusses social media being an indirect cause of them because of algorithms, it always avoids the direct cause of certain incidents by name because that is a much bigger can of worms. But it also comes off as if it's avoiding them out of cowardice, creating the image of a political drama that is afraid to get political. Because of that, the movie's message can't hit as hard, but it's still a message worth sharing.

Netflix & Chill

Animals

⭐️⭐️

Streaming On: Netflix

Genre: Thriller

Director: Ben Affleck

Starring: Ben Affleck, Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, Adriana Paz, Luis Gerardo Méndez, Steven Yeun

Ben Affleck's latest self-starring directorial film has him playing a mayoral candidate who finds himself in the middle of a hostage scenario. With most of his money spent on his campaign, he seeks desperate measures solve the problem. There is little about Animals that has bite. It's a very basic kidnapping plot, very basic plot turns, very long-winded and repetitious dialogue scenes that tell us stuff that we already know, and the most interesting aspects are things it never leans into. I don't know if this would have improved the movie but the thing that caught my attention the most was that Affleck's son is the intended target but they accidentally mistake him for the son of an undocumented immigrant instead. I wish there was more of that dynamic in this movie, showing us politicians relating with illegal citizens as they were both caught up in political violence gone wrong. The movie never does this, choosing to instead play its cards with Gillian Anderson as a mysterious "helper" agent that does dirty deeds. Like all 90's kids, I'm fond of Anderson, but this amounts to very little. In fact, there were portions where I forgot she was even in the movie. Her competence is called into question when the finale is said and done, which makes one wonder why we were supposed to consider her a towering presence in the first place. That one of several problems in a messy finale, which makes Animals just kind of a dull version of a thriller we've already seen before.

V/H/S/Mixtape

⭐️1/2

Streaming On: Shudder

Genre: Horror, Anthology

Director: Flying Lotus, Renee Zhan, David Moreau, Ernest Dickerson, Tobias Forge, RZA

Starring: Josh Willis, Barbara Crampton, Julie Clergerie, Elie Kaempfen, Jihad Brent, Alex Hsu, Neela Jolene, Understanding Diggs

Ya'know, I've gotten to the point where I'm looking forward to V/H/S every year. It's not because it's always a winner but rather because because it's nice to have some off-beat horror thingy that comes out every October that you can hold your watch to. They used to do this with Saw and Paranormal Activity back in the day, and I never missed a single one. It might be a "Tis the season" thing. I dunno. All I know is that this year's October franchise entry was a letdown.

This year's installment of the found footage anthology series has adopted the theme of "sound and music," crafting a group of spooky tales that revolve around some sort of rhythm or beat. They also utilize a director's list that mostly hails from the music industry, including RZA, Tobias Forge, and V/H/S veteran Flying Lotus. I kinda wish they had taken this music idea to another level and made this a full-blown musical or something showstopping but I think they pump these out too fast to coordinate something like that. Most of the stories here feel rushed with a very base idea. You can see creativity starting to germ but there is not a lot to hold onto and most of the segments are just vague horrific images. It's like watching a fourteen-year-old horror fan's experimental home movies. The one that is probably hurt the most is the one that I really wanted to like, which features a group of puppets coming to life and murdering people. This segment has puppets from Jim Henson's company and everything, but it drops the ball because it's not really anything but "puppets do murder." The rampage is kinda fun but the rest is mostly a snooze. I also think that this segment was hurt by the release of the film Buddy this year, which did the children's show backdrop as a horror scenario in a superior way.

Another segment has a couple trapped in a chamber that enhances sound. I don't think this idea comes across the way they had hoped and it just feels like a generic "going mad in an enclosed area" montage. Following that has a mysterious apartment neighbor who plays music upstairs for a mysterious purpose, which is creative but lacking a lot of context. The most ambitious segment is the final one, which has a woman murdering people to utilize the sounds they make as demo tracks. This is also one that feels like it's lacking something but it also feels like the most complete idea of the bunch. If nothing else, it has a vibe. None of the other segments do. Case in point being the wraparounds that feel like parodies of MTV, but while there is some creativity in an animated segment and a heavy metal music video full of violence, most of them feel aimless and obnoxious.

The V/H/S series has long lived with its nadir being the third film, V/H/S: Viral, which left the franchise for dead before Shudder resurrected it's corpse. It's probably a stretch to say Mixtape is as bad as Viral, which was unispired from beginning to end. Mixtape, by comparison, has ideas. They're not as developed as they should be, which makes this outing come off as jibberish. V/H/S has already announced its tenth film, so another bad movie in its filmography isn't going to hurt it. I just hope they have more to work with next time.

MST3K Note: Growler puppeteer Russ Walko worked on the puppets during the Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance segment.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Coyote vs. Acme ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Digger ⭐️

Forgotten Island ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Heart of the Beast ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Odyssey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Practical Magic 2 ⭐️⭐️

Primetime ⭐️⭐️1/2

Resident Evil ⭐️⭐️

Spider-Man: Brand New Day ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Verity ⭐️