Tag Archives: film reviews

New In Theaters

Tales From the Dark Side

Leave a comment

Thunderbolts*

by George Wolf

In the post-Avengers world, CIA Director Valentina is quick to tell America that there is no one to protect us.

Well, make way for the Thunderbolts* (named for a peewee soccer team!)

Valentina (Julie Louis-Dreyfus, a treasure as always) makes her declaration while testifying at her own impeachment hearing. It seems she’s after unchecked power to alone decide who the criminals are (can you imagine such a thing?), and the details of Valentina’s attempts to develop her own brand of super-soldiers are about to come to light.

She has a plan to stop that, but it only ends up uniting now-Congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Alexei “Red Guardian” Shostakov (David Harbour) “Ghost” Ava Starr (Hanna John-Kamen) JV Captain America John Walker (Wyatt Russell) and a mysterious guy named Bob (Lewis Pullman).

Red Guardian has been biding time operating a limo service (“we protect you from a boring evening!”) so he’s only too happy to get back in game, but the others aren’t so sure. And they have no idea what Bob’s deal is.

It turns out to be pretty dark and interesting, just like this new superteam origin story. Director Jake Shreier (Robot & Frank, Beef) and the writing team do a solid job balancing the required backstory exposition with superhero action and character driven humor (mainly via Harbor’s can’t-miss timing and some delicious deadpans from Louis-Dreyfus.)

And speaking of character driven, Pugh is just so good. As a new, all-powerful villain emerges, she and Yelena carry the film to some dark, psychological places in the third act. Thunderbolts* isn’t just interested in how this team assembles, it wants us to feel comfortable talking about why we all need a good support system, especially in the age of gaslighting, disinformation and power grabs.

A crowd-pleasing glimpse at what’s next comes in the post credits scene, and after the messy misstep of Brave New World, Thunderbolts* puts one back the MCU win column.

New In Theaters

Unwelcome Back

Leave a comment

The Surfer

by George Wolf

Have you seen Wake in Fright, the 1971 Australian nightmare with Donald Pleasence? How about The Swimmer from ’68, where Burt Lancaster’s delusions of greatness are slowly punctured by the reality of his past?

The Surfer will hit harder if you can appreciate how it blends the two for its own deranged tale, as Nicolas Cage takes full advantage of another chance to come unglued before our eyes.

Cage stars as the titular surfer, who has come back to Australia’s Luna Bay in hopes of buying his childhood home. He brings his son along to surprise him with the news, but quickly finds the locals most unwelcoming.

“Don’t live here, don’t surf here!”

The “Bay Boys” rule the beach, and their guru Scally (Julian McMahon) takes the surfer and son aside to give them one polite warning: best move along.

They oblige, but the surfer won’t give up his dream so easily. He returns solo and things quickly escalate with the Bay Boys until the surfer is bloody and barefoot, without money, phone, car, or friends.

The font of the opening credits sets the perfect retro vibe, and director Lorcan Finnegan (Vivarium) leans into it from there. The minimalistic score, wide frames and dramatic punch-ins cast a spell of 70s Ozploitation that makes a fine launching pad for Cage’s slide into lunacy.

Australian accent? You think Cage needs one to sell this quest for survival? He doesn’t, and writer Thomas Martin weaves his lack of dialect into the thread of wry humor that runs throughout the film. Like Wake in Fright, circumstances hold a stranger prisoner in a foreboding Australian town, where – like The Swimmer – the past comes calling.

The Surfer is often smart but can be less than subtle, with some “hey don’t miss this” camerawork – which, to be fair, aligns with the throwback feel – and a lesson about toxic masculinity that’s well-meaning but repetitive.

But there’s much to like here, starting with Cage. The surfer is the kind of role that’s in perfect sync with his legendary eccentricities. He’s a man on the verge for ninety minutes, and nearly all of those are too much fun to look away.

Outtakes

Simply Resistible

Leave a comment

Another Simple Favor

by George Wolf

Five years ago, A Simple Favor delivered a pretty delicious slice of satire for the angsty modern woman/wife/mother. Buoyed by the chemistry of stars Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, it mixed B-movie trappings with in-the-moment irony for a fun, twisty tale of gaslighting, betrayal, murder, and mommy vlogs.

Amazon Prime brings the two stars back together for Another Simple Favor, along with director Paul Feig and screenwriter Jessica Sharzer (sharing screenplay credit this time with Laeta Kalogridis). And while the mischievous spark is still there, it struggles for air under narrative excess.

Since putting the conniving Emily (Lively) away, Stephanie (Kendrick) has become a successful author still milking her role in the tabloid-ready murder mystery. So imagine everyone’s surprise when, who comes vamping in to Stephanie’s latest book reading but Emily herself, out on appeal with an appeal of her own.

She’s headed overseas to marry the dashing Dante Versano (Michele Morrone)! And Stephanie simply must come to Capri and be her Maid of Honor!

Why not? They’ll be gorgeous locales, incredible food, beautiful people, and there’s no way Emily could have cooked up some elaborate plan for revenge, right? Right?

It gets elaborate, all right, and not always in a fun way. Emily’s ex (Henry Golding) and Stephanie’s agent (Alex Newell) both come along for some arguably necessary reasons, and the introductions of Aunt Linda (Allison Janney) and Mom Margaret (Elizabeth Perkins) seem overly convoluted.

Much like Golding when his character is drunk, most everything about this sequel just screams “trying too hard.” If some secrets are good, more secrets must be better! And the mafia, yeah, throw some mafia family feuding in there, too! The longer we’re away from Steph and Emily, the more it drags.

But Lively and Kendrick always keep it watchable. They’ve got these roles down cold, and their snappy interplay remains frisky and fabulous. Together, they’re still simply irresistible. It’s the rest of Another Simple Favor that makes it easier to resist.

Outtakes

Ballet of Bullets

Leave a comment

Havoc

by George Wolf

If you’ve seen The Raid or The Raid 2, you’re plenty familiar with the Gareth Evans brand of Gun Fu. With Havoc, he brings the same breakneck blood sport to Netflix. And by the time he’s done, you’ll be amazed none of that splatter got on your sofa.

Expect violence, turned up to eleven.

Tom Hardy takes the lead as Walker, a hardened detective in a seedy, unnamed metropolis. It’s clear Walker has taken part in his share of dirty dealings, and he’s looking for a way to finally get clear of owing local politician Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker) anything at all.

Walker gets his chance when Beaumont’s estranged son Charlie (Justin Cornwell) is part of a drug deal gone way wrong, and quickly earns a death sentence from a vengeful crime lord.

If Walker can get Charlie out of the city alive, all debts to Daddy Beaumont will be settled.

His forthright partner Ellie (Jessie Mei Li) brings the integrity Walker gave up long ago, and together they sort through increasing levels of goons, guns and corruption to complete the mission.

Yes, levels. Yes, like a video game. Writer/director Evans is careful to craft the setting as a familiar but ambiguous cesspool where escape will only be possible via wave upon wave of martial arts homages, frenetic camerawork and relentless bloodletting.

When it doubt, keep shooting.

Does it get ridiculous? Damn right it does, but Hardy keeps it grounded in anti-hero righteousness, a game supporting cast (including the always welcome Timothy Olyphant and Obstacle Corpse standout Gareth Tidball) fleshes out all the edges, and Evans brings the visual calling cards that anchor a savage ballet of bullets.

Is Havoc deep? Not at all. But does it hit the target? Yes it does, and anything else that might be in the vicinity.

New In Theaters

Rock in the Ruins

Leave a comment

Pink Floyd at Pompeii

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

The gorgeous new restoration of 1972’s Pink Floyd at Pompeii delivers a beautifully discordant glimpse of a transitional period for one of music’s most important rock bands. Gorgeously restored image and sound immerse you in Floyd’s music. 

Adrian Maben’s doc focuses primarily on Floyd’s 1971 trip to Italy, with performances recorded live in the ruins of the Pompeii Amphitheatre to an audience of only crew . The setlist (including selections recorded later in Paris) consists of some of Floyd’s more loosely constructed symphonic jams—Careful with that Axe Eugene, Echoes, Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, One of These Days—which frees Maben visually from the need to capture a singer. Rather, he lets Floyd’s trippier melodic concoctions provide a soundscape for various images. Sometimes eerily beautiful landscapes and vistas populate the screen, while elsewhere the filmmaker turns the camera to period artwork.

Maben punctuates the live cuts with bits of interviews and fly-on-the-wall footage as the band shares a meal. David Gilmour seems forever in need of a glass of milk, while drummer Nick Mason’s request for apple pie goes unanswered. These brief snippets, though borderline Spinal Tap, balance the live performance’s grandiosity with a sweet bit of banality.

Yes, both Gilmour and Roger Waters get their screen time, but late keyboardist Richard Wright also finds his time in the spotlight while Mason often draws most of Maben’s interest. His manic drumming and respectful requests for “no crust” are a delight, and the interplay between all the band members is a bittersweet counter to the rancor that erupted in years to come.

Wisely, the restoration includes material that had made its way into an earlier director’s cut. We spend time in Abby Road studios with the band as they work through tracks for their as-yet-unreleased masterwork Dark Side of the Moon album.

It’s the perfect balance. The live, undiluted imagination and experimentation that marked Pink Floyd’s early career gives way to the masterful, controlled artistry of the album that would redefine the band (and music history).  

Even for Floyd fans who have seen much of this before, the new restoration – especially the IMAX version hitting select theaters – is a must. It not only gives some classic early jams due respect, it provides a fascinating glimpse at the days just before a legendary rock band stepped into its future.

New In Theaters

Beauty and the Beatings

2 Comments

The Ugly Stepsister

by George Wolf

Are we done clutching our pearls about the recent Snow White update? They’re about to get plenty gooey.

Really, writer/director Emilie Blichfeldt doesn’t care either way, she’s too busy infusing her feature debut with an impossible-to-ignore blast of sharp wit, subdued rage, and grotesque bodily horrors.

Yes, The Ugly Stepsister (Den stygge stesøsteren) the latest new angle to a classic tale, but don’t expect it follow the trend of humanizing misunderstood villains. Blichfeldt makes sure there are plenty of bad guys and girls throughout this Norwegian Cinderella story, punctuated by grisly violence surprisingly close to what’s in the 17th Century French version of the fairy tale penned by Charles Perrault.

As her mother Rebekka (Ane Del Torp) is set to marry the wealthy Otto (Ralph Carlsson), braces-wearing, teenage gawk Elvira (Lea Myren, amazing) dreams of one day marrying handsome Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth). But not long after Mom, Elvira and sister Alma (Flo Fagerli) move into Otto’s manor, he drops dead and new stepsister Agnes (the awesomely named Thea Sofie Loch Næss) drops a bomb.

Otto was the one trying to marry for money. They’re broke.

You know the plan that’s hatched: Elvira has to marry Prince Julian. If she can prove herself to be the most beautiful and charming of the “noble virgins” assembled at the upcoming ball, Elvira can secure the family’s future. Neither physical imperfection nor that slut Agnes is going to get in Elvira’s way.

As Elvira learns that “beauty is pain,” Blichfeldt’s aesthetic recalls both Cronenberg and Fargeat, with wince-inducing procedures, the oozing of bodily fluids, and a proud, unflinching satirical lens. This is Blichfeldt’s reminder that these impossible beauty standards have a long history, as do slut shaming, compromised nobility and the limited options of desperation.

Plenty of ugliness to go around.

Myren carries the film with a transformational performance that parallels the impressive physical changes. Elvira arrives as a shy, impressionable child, but when she begins to resemble the required standard, the toll to keep it – while not quite as garish as in The Substance – is equally destructive.

The Ugly Stepsister is fierce, funny, gross and subversively defiant. But is one feature film enough to immediately put Blichfeldt on the watch list of cinema’s feminist hell raisers?

Yes. The shoe fits.

New In Theaters

Boys to Men

Leave a comment

Sacramento

by George Wolf

“You would bail. I see it all over your face.”

First their first meeting on opposite sides of a serene California lake, Tallie (Maya Erskine) sizes up Rickey (Michael Anganaro) pretty well.

Anganaro’s instincts are just as sharp in Sacramento, only his second feature as writer/director after decades of acting gigs. It’s a witty combination of finely-drawn characters, consistently boasting a dry self-awareness that earns the LOLs.

Rickey favors socks with sandals, giving unlicensed psychological counseling, and milking sympathy from the semi-recent death of his father. Dropping in (literally, from a tree) on his buddy Glenn in L.A., Rickey suggests a spur-of-the-moment road trip to Sacramento – for old times sake!

But Glenn is a husband who out kicked his coverage and a neurotic soon-to-be father, trying to assemble cribs and hold on to his job while his pregnant wife Rosie (Kristen Stewart) exhibits the calm, pragmatic demeanor of an actual grownup. She’s patiently understanding of the boys’ self-important tomfoolery, and up the road they go.

Yes, there are some hi-jinx typical of road movies, but Anganaro’s dialog is always crisp and surprising enough to keep you engaged and curious. Both he and Cera delivering affecting performances that ground the characters enough to hilariously elevate what are essentially pretentious bouts of “I know you are but what am I?”

And why would Stewart sign on to just be the understanding wife at home? She wouldn’t, and Rosie is more than that. She and Tallie become nuanced, interesting characters essential to this journey, and the film would crumble without them and the turns from both Stewart and Erskine.

Anganaro also has a good sense of pacing, wisely keeping things moving quickly enough to wrap up before conveniences turn to contrivance.

Sacramento haș plenty of fun with arrested development – Glenn’s desperate phone calls to one of his old buddies are awkwardly hilarious. But the film’s heart comes from those moments when boys (and girls, too) start accepting the responsibilities of adulthood. It’s far from a new story, but these characters make it one worth revisiting.

New In Theaters

Audacity to Burn

Leave a comment

Thank You Very Much

by George Wolf

Watching Thank You Very Much, you can’t help but wonder how this might land for someone who didn’t live through the Andy Kaufman phenomenon. He was such a pop culture anomaly that even the best explanation wouldn’t completely clue in the uninitiated.

That’s a compliment to Kaufman’s fearless approach to comedy. And to director Alex Braverman’s credit, he assumes you’re coming to his film hoping for a better understanding of the maverick you remember.

Braverman, a veteran TV director and cinematographer, is blessed with some great archival footage, and some very personal interviews with Kaufman’s former girlfriend Lynne Marguiles and his partner in performance art hi-jinx, Bob Zmuda.

Kaufman’s greatest hits – from Mighty Mouse to Elvis to ice cream to Taxi to Tony Clifton and wrestling women – are all here, along with an acceptable summation for newbies about Kaufman’s goals as an entertainer.

From his start at the comedy clubs, Kaufman didn’t tell jokes. Instead, he wielded a brazen “audacity to burn stage time,” and gradually turned that into a quest to blur performance lines until his audience had only one reaction.

“Was that for real?”

It’s all a fine reminder of Kaufman’s unique legacy, but the film makes its best mark by deconstructing his motivations with as clear of a lens as we’re likely to get. We see a young boy deeply affected his grandfather’s death, a restless soul embracing transcendental meditation and a wrestling fan influenced by “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers.

Plus, we meet the real life inspiration for Latka Gravas!

Braverman also rolls out a succession of interviews with fellow comics, co-stars and admirers, though many of these are dated by fashion or hairstyle and appear more self-indulgent than essential. What isn’t stale is the sly way Braverman is able to make the obnoxious Clifton and his manufactured outrage seem pretty damn prescient.

Thank You Very Much.

Did you read that with Latka’s voice in you head? Then don’t miss this film.

New In Theaters

Freaks Off the Leash

Leave a comment

Freaky Tales

by George Wolf

Look, I’m not saying I didn’t expect someone to make a Sleepy-Floyd-as-a-ninja-assassin horror comedy. I am saying I didn’t expect it to be Boden and Fleck.

Eric “Sleepy” Floyd played thirteen years in the NBA, making the All Star team in 1987 as a member of the Golden State Warriors. Freaky Tales makes him the heroic centerpiece of a wild anthology that loves the late 80s, Oakland, and Nazis dying some horrible deaths.

Let’s party!

Ryan Fleck may be an Oakland native, but his films with partner Anna Boden haven’t primed us for this campy, Grindhouse detour. Breaking in with the standout indie dramas Half Nelson and Sugar, they moved closer to the mainstream with the road tripping gamblers of Mississippi Grind before giving Captain Marvel a satisfying MCU debut in 2019.

Freaky Tales feels like a return to a low budget indie mindset, where ambitious and energetic newcomers want to showcase their favorite movies, music, and neighborhoods while they splatter blood and blow shit up.

The tone is set in the first of four chapters, when local skinheads make a habit of busting up a punk club. Pushed too far, the young, pierced pacifists decide to take bloody revenge with the help of a Scott Pilgrim aesthetic and a glowing green substance seemingly from another world.

Episodes two and three back off on the bloodletting, but begin interconnecting the tales with shared characters. A racist cop (Ben Mendelsohn) harasses two ice cream shop clerks (Normani, Dominique Thorne) before they get the chance to battle rap star Too $hort (DeMario Symba Driver, although the real rapper is also in the cast) onstage at a local hip hop club.

Meanwhile, an organized crime enforcer on the way to losing all he cares about (Pedro Pascal) disappoints a snobbish video rental guy (Tom Hanks in a fun cameo) while references to Sleepy Floyd (Insecure‘s Jay Ellis) get more and more frequent.

Part four brings everything together in an explosion of Metallica metal and Tarrantino-esque alternative history, with Floyd slicing up enough bad guys to impress Uma Thurman before breaking out the break dancing that runs beside the closing credits.

If you haven’t guessed, this is a crazy ride that has plenty to offer fans of bloody fun and WTF plot turns. And while the middle chapters sometimes tread water compared with the action splatter of parts one and four, give Boden and Fleck credit for throwing us one we didn’t see coming.

Buried under all this blood and camp, the film displays a genuine love of time, place and genre that you cannot ignore. These Freaky Tales are truly off the leash, usually in the best possible way.

New In Theaters

Me So Horny

Leave a comment

Death of a Unicorn

by George Wolf

Man, what’s with all these “eat the rich” movies lately?

Cough, cough..it’s a mystery. But Death of a Unicorn treats the idea more literally than most. And though it ultimately pulls up too safely, the film does have some fun unleashing mythical mayhem and the bloodiest of comeuppances.

Elliot (Paul Rudd) and his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) are driving through the mountains to the Leopold Wilderness Preserve, a sprawling compound named for the family that runs the big Pharma firm where Elliot is legal counsel.

Elliot and Ridley’s relationship is still fractured from the recent death of their respective wife and mother, and their front seat bickering takes Eliot’s eyes off the road long enough to strike what really looks like a unicorn.

Misplaced priorities leave Elliot too worried about blowing his big promotion, so they load the beast in the rental car (“I got the damage waiver!”) and head on up the road where cancer-stricken CEO Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), his wife Belinda (Téa Leoni) and their designer shorts-loving son Shepard (Will Poulter) are waiting.

But Unicorns are too magical to stay dead, and they have healing powers that can cure things like acne and cancer. Big Pharma families find those cures very attractive, while Big Uni is out to punish the greedy.

This is the feature debut for writer/director Alex Sharfman, and his high concept is always kept afloat by the underplayed commitment of this cast. Characters fall somewhere between the big eyebrows of Mickey 17 and the dark button pushing of Companion, with Leoni’s dry asides (“Not to be a size queen, but that horn was rather girthy”) and Poulter’s daft Dunning-Krugering scoring the most laughs.

Though the unicorns themselves could use more pixie dust in their CGI, Ortega sells her spiritual connection to them, and to the legend she uncovers that traces the “final girl” back much further than we knew. It’s a shame Sharfman doesn’t follow that thread long enough for a killer connection between peasants.

Instead, we get warm fuzzies, and the point of all this carnage ends up feeling muted. Even with literal rich-eating, Death of a Unicorn just won’t commit to the bit as giddily as something like Ready or Not, and a true lasting impression remains an elusive beast.