Category Archives: Outtakes

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Outtakes

Lost in Tarndanya

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Mockbuster

by Matt Weiner

The disastrous production documentary has become a classic genre of its own. It’s easy to love a great movie, but there’s no highwire act like watching potential disaster unfold in real time, with the hope that artistic brilliance can still win out. And then there are the unfiltered geniuses working to the edge of madness, filmmaking greats like Coppola, Gilliam, Herzog, Coppola somehow again 45 years later … and now we can add to those luminaries the people who brought you Sharknado, Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, and Transmorphers.

Australian director Anthony Frith turns in two features in one with Mockbuster, a documentary that follows his last best chance to direct a real Hollywood feature movie. The studio willing to give him a shot just happens to be the Asylum, the B-movie powerhouse behind the Sharknado series plus hundreds of other films that tend to be either blatant Hollywood ripoffs (“mockbusters”) or public domain material.

Frith enjoys a successful if artistically unfulfilling career in Adelaide directing corporate films.  He still holds out hope for that last big break to create a real feature film, the kind he always dreamed of making as a kid. The Asylum gives him an immediate yes, and why wouldn’t they? The generous behind-the-scenes access portrays them as strict but self-aware schlockmeisters. And their studio process, while hectic, stays mostly on the rails. Frith’s role seems as much about watching the clock on a ludicrous six-day filming schedule as it is actually directing the production. And even then, the Asylum pairs him with in-house producer Brendan Petrizzo to make sure Frith gets his feature out of this. (And, perhaps, so Frith’s documentary also gets a happy ending that makes the studio look good.)

Frith is an affable subject, and he relays the right amount of incredulity at each new Asylum quirk such as not having a script just weeks before the shoot, or approving costumes on the first day of filming. But his ultimate embrace of “the Asylum Way” and the tightly budgeted—and mostly controlled—chaos that comes with it defangs his documentary’s more pointed critiques. The Asylum higher-ups are happy to lean into their roles as anti-Hollywood rogues. Co-founders David Rimawi, David Latt and Paul Bales all feature heavily in Frith’s interviews and know what they’re doing when they toss out soundbites like “We make shitty movies for people with bad taste.”

And these are shitty movies. They get churned out with the same ruthless efficiency as Hallmark, complete with in-house rules about runtime, plot beats and a stable of reliable names who can spout as much exposition as it takes to answer any lingering script questions that a six-day shoot didn’t have time to address.

It’s hard to root against Frith, who is likeable, competent and surprisingly unflappable in the face of near-impossible constraints. But it’s also hard not to see the same studio cynicism lurking beneath the Asylum’s B-movie gloss. Asylum movies are profitable, which is more than can be said for many studio films. But their system locks Frith into the same directorial trappings and lack of agency as any Marvel movie. Just because they’re doing it for a fraction of the cost doesn’t mean the result is anything that could meaningfully qualify as art versus content. Nor does it have anything helpful to say about the future of moviemaking.

Frith must know this as well. Why else do one for the arts and one for the charts with the same movie? Frith’s positive tone doesn’t address whether his experience would’ve been so rewarding if he hadn’t also had the chance to follow his actual dreams with Mockbuster. Yes, he succeeds on his own terms, in that Mockbuster is a far more enjoyable and introspective 90-minute movie than any Asylum film. But the cotton candy confection comes at the expense of the documentary compared to more probing films like Burden of Dreams, Lost in La Mancha or Hearts of Darkness.

Frith sums up the Asylum by declaring that “making a bad movie is better than making no movie at all.” But that’s easy for him to say. If we only had The Land That Time Forgot, his contractual Asylum film, would audiences come to the same conclusion? Would he?

Outtakes

Disclosure Stay

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The Outer Threat

by George Wolf

Even if Spielberg’s latest alien adventure left you a bit frustrated, you might think twice about turning to The Outer Threat to scratch that E.T. itch.

That’s not to say it’s a terrible movie. But while Disclosure Day leaned into the extra-terrestrial question the more it went along, The Outer Threat does the opposite, ultimately becoming more of a family-based race against time and tech.

Scientist couple Daniel (Ready or Not‘s Mark O’Brien) and Michelle (Constance Wu, Hustlers and Crazy Rich Asians) live out in the country with their two teen kids (Calista Crowe, Isaac Smelcer-Zhang). They’re not married, and if Daniel keeps abandoning his family to search for signs of alien life in his underground lab, they won’t be any time soon.

This time he swears it’s different, though. Really. He finally has proof we are not alone. Too bad no one at NORAD is listening to him anymore.

And even when Daniel’s newest findings convince Michelle, she implores him not to..ahem…disclose the news to anyone. But in an impulsive moment, he emails the data to a trusted contact and instantly becomes the target of a mysterious threat.

In his debut behind the camera, writer/director William Woods crafts a competent ride full of paranoia, cautionary tales and family bonds. The cast is trusty and believable (William Fichtner’s second half cameo is an added bonus), but the third act moves the film closer to a softened young adult thriller assembled via well-traveled plot points and surface level messaging.

To say what films The Outer Threat will bring to mind is probably saying too much, but this is one where the trailer teases some closer encounters than those actually delivered.

Still, need a mild, 90-minute diversion with the kids? The Outer Threat will be perfectly fine and pretty forgettable.

Outtakes

Best Horror, First Half of 2026

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2026 is half over? Oh, the horror!

No, really! The horror of the first half of this year has been amazing! Bloody, original, meaningful, fun, terrifying—it has it all! So much, actually, that we’re obligated to run through a quick list of honorable mentions.

If you have not caught these fine films, do so post haste: Heresy, Faces of Death, The Mortuary Assistant, Exit 8, Saccharine, and Passenger.

10. Over Your Dead Body

On Prime

Writers Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, fresh off the hilariously unhinged Pizza Movie, adapt the 2021 Norwegian film The Trip with a healthy scoop of witty cynicism atop one good ol’ American mean streak.

Jason Segel and Samara Weaving make an excellent pair of frassasins (friendly assassins), he of the emasculated man child and she of the exasperated younger wife wondering what she saw in this guy. Neither is blameless in the demise of the marriage, and the two actors make the deadly bobbing and weaving (pun intended) a surprising, squirm-inducing delight. Over Your Dead Body is an entertaining genre blast that’s pretty hard to ignore. And by pretty, I mean pretty funny.

And pretty gross.

9. Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

On Prime Premium

If you enjoyed Ready or Not, I’m hard pressed to believe its sequel won’t also leave you smiling. Weaving is back for the sequel. This time, Grace is paired with her sister and reluctant sidekick Faith (Kathryn Newton), as both are forced to endure Round 2. And what this game teaches us is that the entire world is run by a bunch of billionaires, each of whom is unspeakably, irredeemably evil. Just like real life!

Weaving and Newton share a fun, funny, bickering chemistry. Their backstory becomes the spine of a film that, like the original, delivers series of entertaining, bloody set pieces.

8. They Will Kill You

On Disney+, Hulu, HBOMax, and Prime

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. They Will Kill You definitely bears a resemblance to 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.

7. Crazy Old Lady

On Shudder, Prime

Crazy Old Lady traps us in a home with a dementia sufferer who’s stopped taking medication and has embraced a violent unreality. But Martín Marengui, an Argentinian filmmaker, is less interested in what the future holds as what the past hides. He takes a Death and the Maiden approach to much of the film. The result is a profoundly uncomfortable, breathtakingly performed exhumation of the kind of dark past that refuses to stay buried in the garden.

Mauregui builds tension, delivers unexpected shocks, and lets his exceptional cast compel your attention. Despite its exploitation title, Crazy Old Lady delivers a gripping tale.

6. Leviticus

In theaters

Writer/director Adrian Chiarella’s heartbreaking, aching coming-of-age horror deposits Naim (Joe Bird, wonderful) in an Australian backwater with his widowed mom (Mia Wasikowska). She’d been struggling but has found strength in a small community church. That community is less supportive of Naim and Ryan (Stacy Clausen), the boy he loves.

Leviticus turns into a supernatural horror story, but its themes are as true as they can be. Those who seek to save you are the danger, and that which they would save you from is your only salvation. The film is fearless, tender, aching, frightening, and a must see.

5. The Bride!

On Disney+, Hulu, HBOMax

One part Metropolis, one part Bonnie & Clyde, just a touch of Bride of Frankenstein and yet somehow entirely writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s own, The Bride! deserves that exclamation point. Jessie Buckley is a force of nature in a dual role—sort of a triple role, really: an unhappy Chicago gangster’s moll; Mary Shelley, silenced far too soon; and a monster, chaotic, unruly, unburdened by memory and guided by peculiar fury.

The Bride! delights with an anarchic energy, but its underlying plot is tight, its characters clearly drawn and beautifully performed, and its aesthetic wondrous. In just her second feature, after 2021’s sublime The Lost Daughter, Gyllenhaal’s cemented her spot as one of the most exciting filmmakers working.

4. Hokum

On Prime

Damian Mc Carthy is doing something right. The Irish filmmaker writes original stories, invests time and attention to visual storytelling, and produces eerie, memorable horror. There’s an elegance to his movies, but his tales are not meant simply to provoke thought or to elevate the genre. Caveat, Oddity, and now Hokum draw from a long tradition of Irish horror storytelling and love a jump scare as much as anybody.

Scene after scene balances a funhouse vibe with Irish folktale spookiness, and the vintage horror beauty of every frame beguiles you. Caviat offered quietly claustrophobic terror. Oddity delivered clever, melancholy horror. Hokum feels more polished yet more old school. It is perhaps less terrifying than Mc Carthy’s previous features, but it’s a haunting good time.

3. Backrooms

In theaters

Twenty-year-old filmmaker Kane Parsons adapts a series of shorts that made him a YouTube force, all of it based on online Twenty-teens creepypasta dread of being trapped eternally in an endless, yellow, moistly carpeted maze of empty rooms with no hope of escape. The fact that Parsons turned this concept into a compelling feature essentially about our own labyrinthine minds and psychiatry’s impotence is pretty impressive for a teenager!

The endlessly talented Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve play two disillusioned adults lost in the maze. Here are two actors who’ve built careers on understated, natural performances that ground every moment onscreen in something honest. Which makes them a magnificent choice for a film where nothing makes sense, and that’s the whole point.

2. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

On Netflix

There is more visceral horror in the first three scenes of Nia DaCosta’s film than in the entire hour and fifty-five minutes of 2025’s 28 Years Later. She delivered the first great horror film of the year with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, also written by Alex Garland. It picks up the most intriguing threads left untied last time: those of the band of Clockwork Orange-esque marauders who saved young Spike (Alfie Williams) from the infected, and the beautiful soul covered in iodine and living amongst the bones, Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes).

The filmmaker (Little Woods, Candyman, The Marvels, Hedda) returns to horror with aplomb, expertly weaving from the grimmest horrors the sadistic, bewigged Jimmys can muster to the tender bromance blossoming over at the bone temple. And the climactic musical number she stages there is a thing for the ages.

1. Obsession

In theaters

Obsession is a film about consent. Sad by Bear (Michael Johnston) can’t bring himself to confess his feelings for coworker Nikki (Inde Navarrette). He’s so desperate after one cringy missed chance that he breaks open a One Wish Willow he’d purchased as a joke and—without reading any of the warnings printed all over the box—wishes that she would love him more than anyone else on earth. And she does.

The themes writer/director Curry Barker mines are incredibly of-the-moment. Bear wants what he wants, but he wants it to be true. It isn’t, but that’s not good enough. Make it be true. But you can’t make something be true if it isn’t true, no matter how sad the boy is who wants it. Male entitlement masquerading as loneliness leads to violently self-centered behavior. Barker’s story, however jump-scary or genre friendly it becomes, never forgets this central, relevant concept.

Outtakes

Best Films, First Half of 2026

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It’s already been a banner year in film and we’re only halfway through 2026! We’ve seen a blessed rise in true independent and original filmmaking, although there is one pretty big sequel we enjoyed. But there were so many choices for our mid-year Top 10, we need to give a little love to the honorable mentions.  Crime 101, Pizza Movie, Hamlet, The Sheep Detectives, Earth Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World), and Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror were all excellent movies that you should check out if you have not.

But not before you catch these gems:

10. The Bride!

On Disney+, Hulu, HBOMax

One part Metropolis, one part Bonnie & Clyde, just a touch of Bride of Frankenstein and yet somehow entirely writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s own, The Bride! deserves that exclamation point. Jessie Buckley is a force of nature in a dual role—sort of a triple role, really: an unhappy Chicago gangster’s moll; Mary Shelley, silenced far too soon; and a monster, chaotic, unruly, unburdened by memory and guided by peculiar fury.

The Bride! delights with an anarchic energy, but its underlying plot is tight, its characters clearly drawn and beautifully performed, and its aesthetic wondrous. In just her second feature, after 2021’s sublime The Lost Daughter, Gyllenhaal’s cemented her spot as one of the most exciting filmmakers working.

9. The Drama

On Prime

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.

The thought experiment here isn’t just about Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson). 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.

8. Tuner

In theaters

His first narrative feature may focus on busting into safes, but Oscar-winning documentation Daniel Roher shows some fine natural instincts for cracking the code that makes “romantic thriller” a crowd-pleasing genre ride.

The slightly contrived, crowd-serviced turns that come in Act Three would elicit a few eyes rolls in lesser films. But by then, Tuner has carved out its own safe space, as a pitch-perfect example of how to make an audience want exactly what you’re going to deliver.

7. Hokum

On Prime

Damian Mc Carthy is doing something right. The Irish filmmaker writes original stories, invests time and attention to visual storytelling, and produces eerie, memorable horror. There’s an elegance to his movies, but his tales are not meant simply to provoke thought or to elevate the genre. Caveat, Oddity, and now Hokum draw from a long tradition of Irish horror storytelling and love a jump scare as much as anybody.

In HokumI, scene after scene balances a funhouse vibe with Irish folktale spookiness, and the vintage horror beauty of every frame beguiles you. Caviat offered quietly claustrophobic terror. Oddity delivered clever, melancholy horror. Hokum feels more polished yet more old school. It is perhaps less terrifying than Mc Carthy’s previous features, but it’s a haunting good time.

6. Backrooms

In theaters

Twenty-year-old filmmaker Kane Parsons adapts a series of shorts that made him a YouTube force, all of it based on online Twenty-teens creepypasta dread of being trapped eternally in an endless, yellow, moistly carpeted maze of empty rooms with no hope of escape. The fact that Parsons turned this concept into a compelling feature essentially about our own labyrinthine minds and psychiatry’s impotence is pretty impressive for a teenager!

The endlessly talented Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve play two disillusioned adults lost in the maze. Here are two actors who’ve built careers on understated, natural performances that ground every moment onscreen in something honest. Which makes them a magnificent choice for a film where nothing makes sense, and that’s the whole point.

5. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

On Netflix

There is more visceral horror in the first three scenes of Nia DaCosta’s film than in the entire hour and fifty-five minutes of 2025’s 28 Years Later. She delivered the first great horror film of the year with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, also written by Alex Garland. It picks up the most intriguing threads left untied last time: those of the band of Clockwork Orange-esque marauders who saved young Spike (Alfie Williams) from the infected, and the beautiful soul covered in iodine and living amongst the bones, Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes).

The filmmaker (Little Woods, Candyman, The Marvels, Hedda) returns to horror with aplomb, expertly weaving from the grimmest horrors the sadistic, bewigged Jimmys can muster to the tender bromance blossoming over at the bone temple. And the climactic musical number she stages there is a thing for the ages.

4. Toy Story 5

In theaters

Do we need another Toy Story? Actually, it appears we do. The miraculous thing about this franchise is that it’s never just about the toys or about the kids they love. It’s about a recognizable phase in a life. Which episode is your favorite depends entirely on how old you were when you started watching.

Episode 5 delivers an honest assessment of the way screens have invaded childhood and looks with clear eyes at the impact on children. Simultaneously, as Jessie (the genius Joan Cusack) chases down destiny, the film recognizes that, eventually, we all need to let go. Plus Woody has a poncho!

3. I Love Boosters!

In theaters

Boots Riley and a remarkable cast tell a wild, boldly colorful, sometimes Claymation, often surreal, occasionally demonic, fantastical, consistently smart, regularly hilarious, and shockingly personal tale about the individual’s need for community. And, of course, the inescapable evils of capitalism.

Underneath the metaphysical science fiction banter, beneath the scathingly comical evisceration of fast fashion, at the heart of the wacky heist flick, is a lonesome story that resonates. It’s all one struggle.

2. Is God Is

On Prime

Writer/director Aleshea Harris may be pulling from folklore and road movies, revenge flicks and historical dramas, noir and arthouse, exploitation and even horror. But the result of those inspirations is one of the most boldly original films of 2025. The filmmaker shows great affection for so many types of movies, and the way she bends these tropes and styles to the will of this narrative is fresh, unpredictable, and fascinating.

Violence and destiny, family trauma, classism and misogyny, and rage—Is God Is finds poetry and honesty and blood in all of it. Her cast, including Kara Young, Mallorie Johnson, Vivica A. Fox, and Sterling K. Brown, impress in every frame. But the star of Is God Is has to be the storyteller herself. Harris’s command of the audience and of cinema deliver the summer’s most daring and satisfying adventure.

1. Obsession

In theaters

Obsession is a film about consent. Sad boy Bear (Michael Johnston) can’t bring himself to confess his feelings for coworker Nikki (Inde Navarrette). He’s so desperate after one cringy missed chance that he breaks open a One Wish Willow he’d purchased as a joke and—without reading any of the warnings printed all over the box—wishes that she would love him more than anyone else on earth. And she does.

The themes writer/director Curry Barker mines are incredibly of-the-moment. Bear wants what he wants, but he wants it to be true. It isn’t, but that’s not good enough. Make it be true. But you can’t make something be true if it isn’t true, no matter how sad the boy is who wants it. Male entitlement masquerading as loneliness leads to violently self-centered behavior. Barker’s story, however jump-scary or genre friendly it becomes, never forgets this central, relevant concept.

Outtakes

Shotgun Wedding

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Enola Holmes 3

by George Wolf

The air of Enola Holmes has only gotten fresher since the franchise debut in 2020. While more and more star-studded streamers carry the obvious stench of algorithm engineering, the formula at work in these Netflix installments seems perfectly suited to keeping the attention of home viewers.

First off, EH3 presents a headline-grabbing mystery: Enola’s legendary brother Sherlock (Henry Cavill) has been kidnapped! And the timing couldn’t be worse, as Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) is trying to fight off serious doubts about her upcoming marriage to Lord Earnest Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge).

“Yes, he has a first name,” Enola tells us. “I was surprised, too!”

Brown’s ease with the fourth wall is just one part of her irresistible embodiment of this role. The personal invitation into Enola’s life and adventures is welcome, and Brown gives us a heroine that is endlessly fun to root for as we follow along.

Sherlock’s kidnapping means the dashing-as-always Cavill is more out of sight than last time, allowing Brown the focus she more than deserves. Her Enola wants to get married, yes, but she also wants to keep the name and standing she’s worked hard to attain. Enola is smart, heroic, flirty and romantic, a pretty super girl in her own right.

Director Phillip Baratini and writer Jack Thorne (both from Netflix’s Adolescence) make sure Brown gets the chance to show all those sides of Enola. And while the mystery may play out a tad too conveniently, the visual aesthetic bursts with interactive sleuthing and multimedia pop-ups that are consistently engaging.

The returning support cast (including Helena Bonham Carter, Himesh Patel, and Hattie Morahan) adds to the wonderfully frisky chemistry of the entire ensemble. Part three also allows some nostalgia for how these characters (especially our engaged couple) have grown, giving the film some sweet moments of emotion.

Forget about Sherlock’s kidnapping, Enola Holmes may be solving the mystery of holding a streaming audience without condescension or spoon-feeding. And once again, that’s a formula worth repeating.

Outtakes

Mighty Mighty Joy

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Earth, Wind & Fire: To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World

by George Wolf

Don’t worry, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson doesn’t let the surviving members of Earth, Wind & Fire sidestep the tough questions.

What is the meaning of “ba-dee-ya,” anyway?

But well before Thompson gets to that, his HBO streamer Earth, Wind & Fire: To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World becomes an exhilarating celebration of a band making music so joyful it’s described as “Jesus-less gospel.”

Through archival footage, performance clips, family mementos and interviews new and old, we see the band’s visionary founder Maurice White persevere through early struggles to embrace a unique sound that propelled EWF’s journey as 70s superstars, 80s has-beens and eventual worldwide icons.

Director Thompson, already an Oscar winner for the triumphant Summer of Soul, again shows impeccable instincts for presenting a music doc that transcends any Behind the Music formula. Of course, being an accomplished music himself can’t hurt, and Thompson’s effervescent approach lets the stories and songs find a seamless blend of style and meaning.

And somehow, the film manages to smooth over the massive absence of White, who passed away in 2016 from Parkinson’s disease. Heartfelt remembrances from band members, family, partners, friends and admirers (including Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, and Barack and Michelle Obama) paint an effective portrait of a gifted but complex artist who rose above childhood trauma for professional success full of singalong affirmations that often masked a personal struggle.

Those who may not know much about White will get schooled plenty, and even longtime fans like myself (hey, my birthday just happens to be the 21st night of September) may find a few surprises here (like why Philip Bailey would apologize for his classic slow jam “Reasons”). What everyone will find with Earth, Wind & Fire is two solid hours of EWF magic, and an inescapable joy both celestial and weighty.

Outtakes

Rifles and Roos

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Seven Snipers

by Rachel Willis

Director Sandra Sciberras and writer Andrew O’Keefe drop us into the outback of Australia for her intense thriller, Seven Snipers.

The movie doesn’t take its time before jumping into the action. The intensity throughout the first half of the film is top notch. We’re not given much information as we’re introduced to a reclusive mom (Radha Mitchell) and her stubborn daughter, Anja (Annabel Wolfe). After Anja leaves for school with her boyfriend, a realtor drives onto the scene to offer to buy the farm from Mom.

From here, we’re thrown right into an intense battle that leaves you wondering just what the hell is happening. When the realtor addresses our main character as Voodoo Child and references The Dragon, Mom’s shocked and fearful reaction lets us know something bad is on its way.

Seven Snipers works best during its first half. The lack of information only makes the situation more interesting as the tension ratchets up with the arrival of six battle-hardened men and women who offer to help protect Voodoo Child and her daughter.

It’s when the action slows and backstory creeps in that the movie starts to feel bogged down. While Seven Snipers never spends too much time on the why of things, it’s still a disappointing comedown from the preceding action. Especially since the reason behind it all is not very interesting.

Despite the dissatisfaction that colors the backstory, the acting is stellar. We spend very little time with each character in service of the action, but the actors still carve out independent personalities (well, most of them).  O’Keefe tends to rely on oft-used character tropes, but Sciberras makes it work. You’re not going to find the most lively cast of characters, but the acting does a lot of the heavy lifting to make the audience at least feel something as everyone is put through the wringer.

Flaws and all, Seven Snipers is an entertaining hell of a ride.

Outtakes

Give Yourself Over

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Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror

by Hope Madden

I would like…if I may…to take you on a Strange Journey.

Linus O’Brien—son of Rocky Horror creator Richard O’Brien—directs a mash note by way of documentary about his dad’s other baby. For fans of the show and film, the documentary is a delightful accounting of the phenomenon that is Rocky Horror.

Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror chronicles Richard O’Brien’s early plans for the stage show, his collaborators, its humble beginnings and its immediate success. And though the spine of the film is a sequential history from stage to screen, box office bomb to midnight monster, the flesh on those bones is tender and tasty.

O’Brien the elder is raw and emotional, but like everyone else in the film, brimming with joy over the film’s lasting impact. He strums out some greatest hits, in fine voice for 83! O’Brien the director flanks the homey footage of his father with interview pieces from everyone you hope to see.

Tim Curry (a scientist), Susan Sarandon (slut), Barry Bostwick (asshole), Patricia Quinn (a domestic), Nell Campbell (a groupie), and Peter Hinwood (a creation) all have fun and funny tales to tell. It is especially dear to hear how in awe everyone was of Curry, undeniably iconic in the lead role. And listening to both Quinn and Campbell note their shock at Meatloaf’s voice is a kick.

Film producer Lou Adler and director Jim Sharman shed some light on the maneuvering that went on to keep O’Brien’s vision pure. As the doc kicks into its third act, both O’Briens are keen to shift focus to fans.

Richard O’Brien created, for himself firstly and luckily for the rest of us, a film that celebrates the weirdo, that revels in gender and sexual fluidity, that disdains the status quo. He created a raucous, glittery space where people could stop pretending to be ordinary and could indulge in their own beautiful uniqueness.

At the film’s end, Richard O’Brien tells us that Rocky Horror isn’t his at all. It belongs to all of us. Strange Journey is essential viewing for all of us too.

Outtakes

The Speed of Joy

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Marty, Life Is Short

by George Wolf

Remember when someone on social media tried to come at Martin Short, and it seemed like the entire internet rose up in protest?

That was awesome, because even if you don’t think Short is funny for some odd reason, he just seems like a peach of a human being.

The Netflix doc Marty, Life Is Short confirms that peachiness, for just about every one of its 99 minutes. Full of home movies, TV and movie clips, interviews with family, famous friends, and a few new thoughts from Short himself, the film reveals him as a kind soul committed to fighting pain by spreading laughter.

And while Short insists that, as opposed to the well worn comic stereotype, his humor was not born from pain, he has endured plenty of it.

“It came from my whole life,” he says.

Short lost his brother at age 12, his mother at 18, his father at 20, his beloved wife of thirty years, Nancy Dolman, in 2010, and his daughter Katherine just three months ago. And still, as Steve Martin tell us, if Marty says he’ll be at your dinner party and then he can’t come, “you cancel the party.”

Martin is just one of the many longtime friends and colleagues that director Lawrence Kasdan assembles to sing Short’s praises. From Speilberg to Hanks, from former SCTV co-stars Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, and the late Catherine O’Hara to Short’s own siblings and beyond, all of the love feels warm and one hundred percent authentic. It’s often touching.

Clearly, Kasdan is also a longtime friend, which brings both pluses and minuses. He’s an Oscar-nominated director with no shortage of inside access to his subject, yes, but his closeness to Short also fuels the feeling that all the film’s edges have been safely dulled. Kasdan also asks some onscreen questions without being mic-ed up, which can be frustrating to follow.

Recent docs such as Steve! (Martin) and Pee-wee as Himself have shown how these types of biographies can transcend the standard playbook for a deeper, more resonant type of engagement. Marty, Life Is Short keeps the ranks more closed, leaning into a greatest hits presentation, a box set with extended liner notes.

It’s an entertaining, funny, and star-studded salute to a guy who’s pretty easy to like and who, in the words of Tom Hanks, “moves at the speed of joy.”

And, man wait ’til you see the footage of his A-list Christmas parties from back in the day. Epic!

Outtakes

Octopus’s Garden

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Remarkably Bright Creatures

by Hope Madden

It’s never not a joy to see Sally Field’s irrepressible smile onscreen
(2023’s 80 for Brady notwithstanding). The two-time Oscar winner is effortlessly likeable (as she clarified in one of those two acceptance speeches), and the older she gets, the easier she is to root for.

This week, the 80-year-old delightfully curmudgeons her way through Netflix’s smalltown dramedy Remarkably Bright Creatures. Field is Tova, who lives alone in a big, gorgeous old home in the Pacific Northwest and works nights cleaning the town’s aquarium. She doesn’t exactly need the work. But she likes her work buddies.

These include Marcellus, an aging octopus voiced by Alfred Molina. This is where director Olivia Newman’s take on Shelby Van Pelt’s novel can’t help but be a little syrupy. Marcellus narrates much of the film, explaining what he—with his superior intellect—sees in the one human he doesn’t disdain, the cleaning lady.

And then, “the juvenile” (Lewis Pullman) starts cleaning, and Marcellus doesn’t care for that one.

Newman (Where the Crawdads Sing), who co-writes the adaptation with John Whittington (Swapped), isn’t out to change cinema. Just charm you. The beautiful coastal backdrop, gaggle of well-meaning if quaintly unrealistic townies, and admirable performances ensure she does just that.

The film folds in enough side and sub-plots to keep it from ever being entirely predictable, but Newman’s direction is assured enough that it’s not overstuffed, either. Most of the minor characters feel underdrawn, certainly, but it’s the main trio—Tova, the Juvenile, Marcellus—who interest you, anyway.

Remarkably Bright Creatures understands the peace of an aquarium. I’m not sure it convinces that life outside the aquarium is that hectic. But Sally Field reminds you that sometimes people choose loneliness, and sometimes that choice suits them until it doesn’t.

Remarkably Bright Creatures is no masterpiece, but it’s a really good-looking film brimming with heart and elevated by the time and care of one of the industry’s all-time greatest.