On this week’s Screening Room Podcast, Hope & George review the new releases: The Drama, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Pizza Movie, Blazing Fists, & Two Prosecutors.
Reliving History
Two Prosecutors
by Rachel Willis
For anyone who has forgotten their history of Soviet Russia under Stalin, director Sergey Loznitsa is happy to remind us with his latest, Two Prosecutors.
In a provincial prison, political prisoner Stepniak (Aleksandr Flippenko) is ordered to burn hundreds of letters. We get snippets of these letters, addressed to Stalin, pleading for intervention in Stepniak’s case. He pleads his innocence and claims his confession was a result of torture.
Despite the letter burning, one of these damning letters finds its way into the hands of Kornyev (Alexander Kuznetsov), a young, idealist prosecutor.
What unfolds is a slow, but very intense look into the corruption and chaos that helped to define Stalin’s reign of terror.
And while Loznitsa’s film is set in the past, its themes are applicable to present-day Russia (as well as any other country in which oppression and authoritarianism rule the day). There is an inherent paranoia that underscores all of Kornyev’s interactions. Throughout the entire film, only his one-on-one meeting with Stepniak feels authentic.
One of the most unsettling scenes is carried out in near silence, as several prison guards attempt to intimidate the steely Kornyev. But this is not the last time the film will leave the audience squirming, unsure if the mistrust imbued throughout the film is warranted.
This is not a film that offers a new take on what it means to live under the iron fist of a ruthless dictator, but it is nonetheless effective in what it does give the audience. Kornev’s idealism is hard not to appreciate, even while it feels tremendously futile.
It’s also a stark reminder of what happens when we don’t just forget the past but idealize it.
Truth Bomb
The Drama
by George Wolf
If The Drama is in your date night plans, better put the dinner after the movie.
Hoo-boy. You’re gonna need to make some time for conversation.
Writer/director Kristofer Borgli continues his social provocateur-ing with look inside a couple thrown waaay off course by a shocking confession. The aftermath – affecting not only the couple involved but other couples in their orbit – becomes a darkly funny and intentionally cringe-worthy dissection of intimacy.
Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) are knee deep in wedding plans. As Charlie works on this planned remarks, his remembrances give us an organic – if one sided – primer on the Emma/Charlie relationship.
But one night while sampling food and wine menu options with their fiends Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and Rachel (Alana Haim), everyone starts confessing about “the worst thing they’ve ever done.” It’s all embarrassing fun and games, until Emma takes a a turn.
Over a decade ago, Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure explored how relationships are changed in an instant by one man’s panicked choice. Borgli picks similar scabs, but with a more serrated and much darker edge.
Pattinson is excellent as a man struggling with the notion that his fiancé’s past should not change how he sees her. Zendaya makes the complexities of Emma’s life after the confession seem desperately authentic, and her search for support from those she trusted most achingly real.
Haim gives Rachel some serious teeth, taking instant and very personal umbrage to Emma’s reveal, and Hailey Gates impresses in a smaller role as a co-worker of Charlie’s who gets a little too close to his breakdown.
Because the thought experiment here isn’t just about Emma and Charlie. Borgli, even more-so than he did with 2023’s Dream Scenario, invites you to imagine yourself in several roles (and, of course, to judge the choices of those around you). The script is crisp, the humor is coal black, and the pacing (aided by some nifty editing and visual cues) keeps you invested at every turn.
“You always turn my drama into comedy,” Charlie says early on.
The line ends up feeling like Borgli’s own confession. The Drama is a totally different rom-com animal, one that many may find just too confrontational. But there’s a layer of hope to be found here, too, and a kind of unflinching eye that’s hard not to respect.
Pipe Dreams
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
by Hope Madden
As brightly colored, sugary, and likely to cause hyperactivity as anything in your kids’ Easter baskets, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hits theaters this weekend. Sequel to the 2023 The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the new animated film boasts more characters, more planets, and more animation styles. No Bowser (Jack Black) solo tunage, though, which is a decided bummer.
Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, and Pierre Leduc return to again direct a script from Matthew Fogel. The result is a vibrantly colored, manically paced series of video game levels aimed at those with a short attention span.
Brie Larson is Princess Rosalina. She’s been kidnapped by Bower’s son, Bower Junior (Benny Safdie), in an attempt to impress his father and, naturally, destroy the galaxy.
Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), Mario (Chris Pratt), Luigi (Charlie Day), and Peach’s sidekick Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) set out to save the day. They get separated, make dumb choices, chase a monkey, reunite, crash land, and finally work together to save Rosalina and a galaxy full of adorable little mushroom, star, turtle, and skeleton people. Plus, dinosaurs!
The filmmakers toy with various animation styles. When introducing Han Soloesque rogue pilot Fox McCloud (Glen Powell), TSMGM goes full anime. Nintendo-styled sequences—we watch the action on the screen as if it’s being played out in the old school, 2D, pixilated Nintendo video game animation—is a frequent and fun go-to.
The overall, Illumination style of animation benefits the kid-friendly games, and the filmmakers make no bones about their audience. While the movie will likely entertain longtime fans of the video games, it is aimed squarely at little kids. Nothing too scary, lots of cute, and constant, dizzying action.
We could have used some Donkey Kong, though.
There’s less depth and next to no character development here, and the peril never feels particularly peril-ful. Though Keegan-Michael Key gets off a handful of funny lines, the comic vibe of the film is more blunted than in the franchise’s first effort.
And again, no song.
But, if you have time to kill with kids this week and the weather’s not cooperating, you could do worse.
Half Hallucinogens, Half Pepperoni
Pizza Movie
by George Wolf
First off, pineapple is the all-time greatest pizza topping. And I am not on drugs.
I can’t say the same for Monte and Jack. They are most definitely on drugs, and a pizza is all that might save them from their worst nightmare coming to shove a chainsaw where it most definitely does not belong.
That’s just a tiny sample of the batshit craziness delivered by Hulu’s Pizza Movie, an outrageously R-rated gross out and stoned out comedy that rises above some dry stretches to land several set-pieces of outright hilarity.
Jack (Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things) and Monte (The Goldbergs‘ Sean Giambrone) are college nerds. Jack’s unfortunate mishap as the football team mascot made both of them targets of constant bullying, even from Lizzy (Becky‘s Lulu Wilson), an old friend who’s now trying to run with the cool kids.
After one of their regular dorm room beatdowns jars a tin of ten-year-old drugs loose from the ceiling, the boys partake. And the ride begins.
A YouTube video from the drug’s inventor (Sarah Sherman) tells the guys they’ve got several stages of trippiness coming, including Nothing but the Truth, Bad Words, The Old Switcheroo and more. And if they don’t want to experience that last stage with the chainsaw enema, they better wolf down some ‘za in a hurry.
Oh, and Lizzy thought the drugs were mints and took some, too.
Writers/directors Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney (from the SNL writers room) craft their feature debut as if Edgar Wright took Scott Pilgrim and the Superbad guys to college for a drug-fueled class on practical blood splatter effects.
Leaning on a winning ensemble that perfectly sells the vibe, Kocher and McElhaney move through the six stages of balls tripping like levels in a video game, keeping the intensity up with a succession of quick cuts, camera swipes and rapid fire gags. From psychotic R.A.s out to banish all partiers to the wasteland of Gralk Hall, to tenacious Snackatron food drones to a college band performing only “clown-core vomit opera,” the barriers between Monte, Jack, and their Lord of the Pies delivery two floors down keep piling up.
And I haven’t even mentioned the “Makin’ It” dance sequence and the butterfly named Lysander Featherhemp that’s voiced by Daniel Radcliffe!
Yes, it’s nuts, and sometimes in a can’t-catch-your-breath funny kind of way. Not everything lands, of course, but Pizza Movie doesn’t slow down long enough for any cold spots to linger. Just let them pass, another piping hot slice of WTF will be in your face any second.
Hits and Misses
Blazing Fists
by Hope Madden
Just when you think you’ve figured filmmaker Takashi Miike out, he does something to remind you that, with more than 100 films to his credit, crossing every conceivable genre and several languages, you probably have not.
This week’s feature, Blazing Fists (also known as Blue Fight: The Breaking Down of Young Blue Warriors) delivers a weird mix of the ponderously earnest, the slyly comical, and—at long last—smashingly choreographed violence.
The film is loosely based on the autibiography of Mikuru Asakura, who serves as producer. We follow Ikito (Danhi Kinoshita) and Ryoma (Kaname Yoshizawa), who meet in juvenile detention. Things are terribly tidy and motivational speakers come by. One guard is rude.
Onward! Ikito’s father is in prison awaiting trial but never mind that because it goes essentially nowhere. The point is, the young men’s motivational speaker has convinced them that if they are undeterred in their preparation, they can do anything. So, they’ve decided to make it to the speaker’s MMA show, Breaking Down.
Cue the training montage (the first of several). On release, Ikito and Ryoma take jobs close to a gym. Job skill and training montage! But a colorfully dressed gang of bullies wants them gone. And there are love interests, but only for the bullies. Plus some kind of insane, leather clad Yakuza style gang, and a snotty rich kid who kickboxes for college. Everyone wants to fight!
There is too much Karate Kid style “boys learning something today,” too much bruised masculinity, and enough dialog heavy/reaction heavy scenes to bring every hint of momentum to a screeching halt.
Blazing Fists does boast a handful of Miike’s playfully weird scenes with random characters—usually oddly dressed old men—to inject a bit of fun into the film.
Miike can do just about anything: horror, samurai action, kid-friendly action, police procedurals, yakuza, fisticuffs action, historical drama, supernatural, grindhouse, surreal. He’s even done a musical! But the straight up sports drama does not seem a good fit for the genre maestro.
Miike avoids the obvious rags to riches climb to the top story arc that serves so many sports films. Instead, he squeezes in every possible beat and cliché into his 2-hour running time. Each trope is placed willy nilly. They certainly feel less predictable, strung together with no discernible rhyme or reason. They also never serve their generally accepted purpose of building tension.
Blazing Fists feels either like a long-form episodic program smashed into 2 hours, or like every sports film ever made, also smashed into 2 hours. Neither option makes the film any easier to watch.
Screening Room: They Will Kill You, Forbidden Fruits, Alpha & More
This week Hope & George review They Will Kill You, Forbidden Fruits, Alpha, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, A Magnificent Life, Refuge, and The Serpent’s Skin. Plus News & Notes from The Schlocketeer, Daniel Baldwin!
Girl Power Activate
The Serpent’s Skin
by Rachel Willis
Channeling films such as Carrie and The Craft, director Alice Maio Mackay brings a new take on women with power in her film, The Serpent’s Skin.
Fleeing from her transphobic home life, Anna (Alexandra McVicker) moves to the city to live with her sister (Charlotte Chimes). An intense opening scene lets us know how bad things are for Anna at home, so as she settles into her new life, you can’t help but hope she’ll find acceptance.
Anna finds more than acceptance as she reckons with newfound powers that allow her to defend herself in unexpected ways. When she meets Gen (Avalon Fast), a woman with similar powers, the two form an instant bond.
The film treads familiar ground as Anna and Gen learn both the depth of their power and the ability to harness it.
Mackay is fond of montages. Several occur in the film’s quick runtime. Some of those feel more relevant than others. Anna learning the ropes of her new job is a montage we could have done without. The time would have been better spent deepening her relationship with Gen or fleshing out ancillary characters.
Mackay writes with Benjamin Pahl Robinson. Their dialogue is clunky and repetitive, and it’s not always delivered with the right tone or emotion. While there are a few decent actors among the cast, the two leads are often the weakest of the bunch.
It’s not always clear why some of the events occur as they do. Mackay’s metaphor gets muddy as Anna and Gen deal with the consequences of their power. The filmmaker’s quest to mine new ground seems to obscure the larger theme.
It’s disappointing that The Serpent’s Skin isn’t as strong as it could be, because its allegory is both important and timely.
The Only Dangerous Minority
They Will Kill You
by Hope Madden
“When the poor give to the rich, the devil laughs.”
This quote from Renaissance artist Benvenuto Cellini opens Kirill Sokolov’s new blood drenched action horror, They Will Kill You.
No one is more pleased than I am at the popularity in contemporary cinema of the theme that rich people are evil. Better still is the more recent trend (a resurgence of a topic popular in the late Sixties and Seventies) that the rich are not just evil, they are literally diabolical.
Zazie Beetz is Asia. She takes a gig as a maid in old school, elite Manhattan high rise, The Virgil. Asia has ulterior motives. The Virgil has ulterior motives. It’s a home for Satanists and she is to be their sacrifice. But Asia has mad skills and the best hair in action hero history, so The Virgil’s residents don’t have such an easy time of it.
What follows is room after crawlspace after room of absolute carnage.
Sokolov proved his immense talent for confined, blood drenched action choreography with 2018’s Why Don’t You Just Die? If you enjoy They Will Kill You, I implore you to find the filmmaker’s previous gem. It is amazing.
His instinct for confined, bloody action is almost unmatched. (I’m not saying he’s better than Gareth Evans, but he’s in the conversation.) Sokolov’s frenetic pacing and arterial spray-soaked humor, though, is entirely his own.
Beetz carries the action effortlessly and Sokolov surrounds her with an outstanding array of pasty creeps. Patricia Arquette is almost heartbreakingly convincing as the help who believes she’s family. Sokolov, working from a script he co-wrote with Alex Litvak, points to the racism that keeps the elite breathing rarified air. But almost all his jabs at our social woes are made visually.
They Will Kill You definitely bears a resemblance to last week’s Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. But this film is more hard-core, the stakes are higher, and the confined, goretastic action is superior.
What a time to be a horror fan!
Paint By Numbers
A Magnificent Life
by Hope Madden
Sylvain Chomet is a filmmaker of eccentric, soulful films inspired by awkward, honest relationships, like The Triplets of Belleville. His films sparkle with love of vintage showmanship, the arts, and France. For those reasons, Chomet seems the ideal filmmaker to tackle a biopic about France’s prolific playwright and filmmaker, Marcel Pagnol.
Chomet’s animated feature A Magnificent Life opens in France of 1956. Pagnol is taking a bow, his early-career play having been successfully relaunched. But in a small party after the performance, he is listless. It seems the world has moved on, and he has nothing left to offer.
That emptiness, as we’ll see, is a post-success theme for the artist. Chomet positions these slumps as the points at which Pagnol would seek out a new challenge—from theater to film to literature.
The hand-drawn animation is an elegant wonder. The style for A Magnificent Life bears little resemblance to Chomet’s delightfully caricatured approach to Triplets or the endearingly wobbly look of The Illusionist. That’s not the only way the filmmaker’s latest animated feature changes pace.
A Magnificent Life follows a traditional biographical story arc, and that kind of reliance on familiar beats is out of character for Chomet. The film is also dialog heavy, which is wildly unusual for this filmmaker. In Chomet’s previous animated features, both Oscar nominees, any dialog became simply a blip or burble in a meticulously crafted sound design.
Pagnol’s life and career do seem fascinating. He rejected easy money, stood up to political and artistic pressures, and continually produced groundbreaking work. But A Magnificent Life gets mired in the detail and loses the larger themes. Since so many of those details deal with Paris’s difficulty with the Marseille accent so common in the writer’s work, the points are embarrassingly lost in the English language dub.
A Magnificent Life offers a perfectly lovely history lesson on one of France’s greatest playwrights and pioneers of cinema. But Chomet’s lost the off-center wonder of his earlier animated work, and a documentary might have been a better choice for a straightforward biopic.
