A lot of new movies opening in Edgame’s aftermath. We talk through the good, the bad, the ugly, the missable and what’s new in home entertainment, including Long Shot, UglyDolls, The Intruder, Her Smell, The River and the Wall and Ask Dr. Ruth.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
by Hope Madden
We open on what is essentially the Island of Misfit Toys. This is the moment when the adults in the UglyDolls audience need to make a choice: accept these notions stolen from far superior toy-related children’s fare as homages, or bristle at inferior product skating by on copy-catting.
It’s your choice, but your kids will mainly see a perfectly sweet, upbeat and unimaginative tale of an ugly duckling. Even better, an ugly duckling who doesn’t need to become a swan to be happy.
That duck, or that blobby pink thing, is Moxy (voiced by Kelly Clarkson). And she lives happily in Uglyville with other merrily misshapen beasties (Wanda Sykes, Blake Shelton, Pitbull, Leehom Wang, Gabriel Iglesias). But Moxie yearns for more.
On a songtastic adventure to fulfill her dream, Moxy and gang run afoul of the pretty dolls, whose leader, Lou (Nick Jonas) intends to keep them from finding the boy or girl who will love them.
Will that stop Moxy? No! She yearns for her very own Andy.
I feel safe in saying that because there’s no question director Kelly Asbury (Shrek 2) and screenwriter Alison Peck (working with characters created by Su-min Kim and David Horvath) have seen Toy Story.
Man, that was a good movie, eh? The whole series, actually. In fact, there’s one scene in Toy Story 3 that made me cry harder than any scene in any film ever. It obviously made an impact on Asbury and Peck as well, because it is lifted shamelessly for the emotional climax of UglyDolls.
When it’s not distracting you with its borderline plagiarism, UglyDolls is sledgehammering its theme. Janelle Monáe voices Mandy, a pretty doll who might be ugly deep down (a good thing). She helps beat the point home that we do not need to conform to be happy. Which is a great theme, and one that a well-made film (like, say, Shrek) can deliver without losing sight of storytelling.
The big screen leap for these critters amounts to a sweetly mediocre marketing strategy for some unattractive (but lovable!) toys.
by Hope Madden
“Kill your idols.”
“Give them enough rope and they will do it themselves.”
Apt lines from Alex Ross Perry’s new rock and roll meltdown, Her Smell.
You may think you’ve seen “Behind the Music” style self-destruction, but you have never seen anything quite like this.
And how great is that title?!
Writer/director Perry has a soft spot for unlikeable people. That is the most common element running through his work—Color Wheel, Listen Up Philip, Queen of Earth. So it’s no huge shock that he hasn’t made a profitable film yet. That’s a tough sell: come spend 90 minutes—or in the case of Her Smell, 144 minutes—with someone you’ll have a tough time tolerating.
Which is not to say Perry makes bad movies. He makes really good movies, they just try your patience. Her Smell has a couple of things going for it, though.
First of all, there’s train wreck appeal. Becky Something (a ferocious Elisabeth Moss) is so outrageously tough to love that you cannot look away from the downward spiral Perry dares you to witness.
The second and most important strength is Moss’s stellar turn as Something, a rocker facing the inevitable consequence of drug abuse, pathological insecurity and the shifting dynamics of the music world.
The film itself is a dizzying, self-indulgent mess, which only seems appropriate. Sean Price Williams’s restless camera captures it all. All of it. All all all. And Moss’s toxic, mascara-smeared maniac is such a loathsome explosion, you almost wish rock bottom would come, already.
Uncharacteristic of the filmmaker, though, regret and redemption color the film’s second half. It’s here that Moss’s rawness and the deeply felt character work from her supporting cast (an especially wonderful Agyness Deyn, in particular) repay you for the abuse you’ve taken for more than an hour.
The music itself—much of it, anyway—is the film’s real weakness. But Moss, who has more than proven her mettle in basically every role she’s ever taken, is more than fearless here. She is bare, ugly authenticity and there is something transcendent about sticking it out with her.
What’s worth watching this week? Most everything, really, even though one is more of a train wreck kind of thing.
Click the film title for the full review.
Hey, is there anything new in theaters this week? Yes! Avengers: Endgame–maybe you’ve heard of it. But there are others you may not have heard of: Family, High Life, Stockholm, JT LeRoy and I Trapped the Devil. We talk through all of them plus give some thoughts on what’s new in home entertainment.
Listen to the full podcast HERE.
by Hope Madden
Jordan Peele is not the only one preoccupied with The Twilight Zone. First time filmmaker Josh Lobo obviously has a soft spot for one of their episodes.
Don’t look into which one, though. In fact, don’t even watch the trailer for Lobo’s indie horror I Trapped the Devil, because not knowing the outcome is half the fun.
Lobo takes us along on a Christmas visit with family. You know, those awkward gatherings where maybe your brother is a paranoid schizophrenic who keeps a man captive in his basement.
Or, maybe your brother’s right and that man is really Satan.
But let’s be honest. It’s probably the former.
As Steve (Scott Poythress) tries to convince brother Matt (AJ Bowen) and sister-in-law Karen (Susan Burke) that it’s really the latter, Lobo hovers over issues of family dysfunction, grief, and the evil in the world. He pulls none of those strings in a way that is particularly satisfying, but he is onto something.
The film’s narrative offers a nice subversion of horror’s standard “is she crazy or is there evil in the house” trope. Historically, the genre relies on some kind of common assumption about feminine hysteria to drive a tension that asks the audience to wonder whether we are witnessing a mental breakdown or whether the protagonist’s feminine intuition has led her to pick up on something malevolent.
I Trapped the Devil overturns those gender assumptions and grounds the tension in something more scientifically intriguing. Is Steve a violently disturbed man with a captive in his basement, or has he, indeed, trapped Satan?
We the audience are supposed to be weighing our options. How realistic is it that his family is kicking around the options? Not very.
Committed performances from the trio help develop a sympathetic mood. Still, Lobo struggles—as does his cast—to get reasonably from Point: There’s a Guy Locked in a Closet Downstairs to Point: No, Let’s Not Phone the Authorities Just Yet.
He also leaves too many unexplored ideas on the table: the maddening grief, the weird images on the staticky TV, how Steve got the guy down his basement in the first place.
A little ambiguity can lend to atmosphere. This much tends to feel more like lazy screenwriting.
There are flashes of real terror now and again, though, and the mystery of the man in the closet remains a tense one to the seriously creepy closing image. Lobo’s horror instincts are sound, and even though his knack for fleshing out details is lacking, his movie’s a pretty solid scare.
by Hope Madden
On occasion, film reps send us links to preview their film for review. Often, these links are password protected. Once, the password was bouncehouse.
Yes, please.
The film in question is called Family, writer Laura Steinel’s directorial debut, and it plays like a fun update of Uncle Buck with Juggalos.
That’s right!
We open on an uptight executive sprinting, face painted, through an Insane Clown Posse gathering and reflecting, “It’s kind of like a fun county fair where you could also, potentially, be stabbed.”
That reflective exec is Kate, and Kate is maybe Taylor Schilling’s best cinematic character. She takes to Steinel’s dialog with a flat affect that’s entirely, awkwardly enjoyable.
Kate is Uncle Buck, basically. Only she’s not. She’s a driven businessperson who actually got where she is because she has literally nothing else in her life to draw her attention or energy. And then she has to babysit her 11-year-old niece Maddie (Bryn Vale, spot on) and next thing you know—right, life lessons. We’re all familiar with the John Hughes handbook, but Steinel updates it with less schmaltz and more belief in nonconformity. And juggalos.
When Maddie says, “Magic is my passion,” I had to hit pause because I was afraid my snorting would drown out the next piece of comedy gold.
There are problems with Family (besides that inanely generic title). It is funny, and its comical scenes are delivered by an entirely winning cast (which includes the unreasonably hilarious Kate McKinnon and the unreasonably talented Brian Tyree Henry). That’s not the problem.
Steinel also inverts and subverts the tropes of the genre. There are two upended “makeover” scenes that are both funny and insightful. It’s also just a savvy look at being socially awkward.
No, the problem here is that the many colorful and fun scenes are strung together more than they are foundational to a whole. And the keen insight Steinel uses to sharpen individual jokes softens when the time comes to finish the story.
She John Hugheses it.
But a well-placed “sorry for your loss” is surprisingly funny and there are at least a dozen scenes here that I kind of love. Family is smart, R-rated comedy that ultimately caves to the pressure to conform, but its struggle to be itself is laudable.
Plus, those juggalos. They have hearts of gold.
PS, this is what all my sisters thought I would be like as a parent. And I wasn’t. Entirely.
by Hope Madden
It’s amazing to think that a film has never been made of the heist that created the term “Stockholm Syndrome.”
Well, writer/director Robert Budreau has rectified this situation with his Ethan Hawke-led semi comedy, Stockholm.
Hawke, who starred in Budreau’s 2015 Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Blue, plays Lars Nystrom. A bewigged bandit, Nystrom concocts a 1973 bank heist with different goals than your traditional smash and grab.
By taking a couple of hostages, Lars hopes to win the freedom of his best friend, imprisoned bank robber Gunnar Sorensson (Mark Strong).
The always-welcome Strong creates a tender and level-headed counterpoint to Hawke’s endearing, idealistic dumbass. The lead wheel to the film’s cinematic tricycle comes from the quietly powerful work of Noomi Rapace (the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).
Playing Bianca Lind, one of Nystrom’s hostages, Rapace’s plaintive performance suggests a character who relies on observation and personal judgment. Never showy, Rapace becomes the gravitational force that tethers flighty characters and wild antics to a realistic foundation.
Budreau seems to be asking himself how it’s possible for captives to choose to side with their captors. Credit the filmmaker for avoiding the pitfall of casting the authorities as one-dimensional bullies or buffoons. Christopher Heyerdahl is particularly effective as Chief Mattsson, a good man who’s n a bit over his head.
Stockholm’s greatest strength, besides the understated playfulness of its cast, is the light touch Budreau brings to presenting the two sides of the standoff. And yet, in the end, he ensures that we the audience do, indeed, feel more compelled by the outlaws.
It’s a subtle act of manipulation perpetrated by Budreau, but not so terrible as to sink the film. The filmmaker’s real miss is in his superficial look at the environment within the vault that brought the captives and captors together.
Thanks to a fine cast that’s able to toe Budreau’s unusual line between comedy and drama, though, you’ll find yourself strangely fond of everyone involved.
by MaddWolf
“How many of you have never been to space before?”
There is a lot to resolve in Avengers: Endgame, but it’s the film’s commitment to character and character relationships as articulated by fun, throwaway lines like that, that continue to elevate this series above its single-hero franchisees.
The Avengers who haven’t yet done space travel put up their hands, and it instantly rings true, underscoring a pillar of the MCU.
In every group setting, the different heroes don’t fight for opportunities to remind viewers who they are—the angry one, the sarcastic one, the winsome one. Instead, each reacts to another character; duos and trios bicker or riff, and true character dynamics emerge.
Directors Anthony and Joe Russo, and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, Marvel vets all, return to reap what they’ve been sowing for years. With that veteran cast bringing instant investment to their respective roles, the filmmakers cultivate relationships Joss Whedon sparked back in 2012 when he first put Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner and Thor at the same table.
You may have heard, Endgame goes to new lengths in the MCU: three hours and one minute, to be precise. While you might skip the jumbo soda to avoid restrooms trips, you won’t begrudge this film its time. In fact, give Marvel props for not splitting it into two separate blockbusters that would have diluted the impact of such an apt, respectful and yes, emotional capper to the saga.
There’s plenty of humor here, as well, but never at the expense of the drama or action developing. Rather, it’s the natural ribbing born of well worn, familial relationships. (One Lebowski comment and another about “America’s ass” both land really well.)
On the other hand, we still cannot get behind where this series has taken the Hulk. These developments may have comic-book roots, we won’t pretend to know, but outside of a memorable scene with The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) this Hulk is no smash.
Thematically, the film thinks big: time, love, loss, sacrifice. It moves impressively from ruminating on a post-9/11 reality to the importance of cherishing your own time and place, even while you accept the challenge of fighting for a better world.
There is plenty of fighting. The action is well-placed and well-presented, delivering fireworks without the dizzying, rapid-fire editing which can often reduce battles royale to battles of patience.
And we need to clearly see who is doing what when these Avengers assemble, because, let’s be honest, Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his Infinity Stones are a tough out, and it’s going to take all hands on deck to take him down.
For any upset fanboys who might still be wondering, that does include female heroes, a fact the film makes inescapably clear with a sequence that’s well-intentioned but maybe a tad pointed (or tardy?) in its parting defiance.
In the months since Infinity War, there have been plenty of theories about how Marvel will address that mountain of a cliffhanger they dumped on us.
Maybe you’ll guess some of it, maybe you won’t (you probably won’t), but wherever the MCU goes from here, Endgame is character capital well-spent,
As long goodbyes go, this one is satisfying and …pretty marvelous.
A couple of great choices for home entertainment this week, and one near miss. Happy to help as you sort through it.
Click the film title to link to the full review.
