Week Ending 7/26/24
There have been many films over the past few months that found their way into ten (or more, depending on North Park) local Buffalo theaters, but they’ve all been accompanied by a slew of other new releases because they were only getting one or two screens at each. That’s not the case with Disney Marvel’s first foray into R-rated territory.
Can this also be attributed to TWISTERS doing well enough to not lose any of its screens? Sure. Same with LONGLEGS. We’re at a point where the money-makers are making too much money to pull them for untested quantity. So, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE becomes the sole new tentpole this weekend. (Sorry, THE FABULOUS FOUR, you don’t quite rate.)
And why not? Audiences love Ryan Reynolds and they love Wolverine more. Put them together (with the yellow suit) and the bad critical reaction proves meaningless. Heck, I can’t believe they decided to make a third installment considering the second was such a steep drop-off from the first. But you must introduce mutants somehow (RIP Fox Marvel) and it probably pays to do so with a guy like Reynolds due to his penchant for going absolutely crazy when marketing his own wares.
Will it payoff? Yes. Disney is going to recoup all the loses they’ve made from their very lackluster work post-ENDGAME. Will it be good? Jury is still out. Do I care? Not really. I’ll catch it when it hits Disney+ in a few months.
What I Watched:
THE FALL GUY
(VOD/Digital HD)
Did Universal Pictures bankroll a two-hour advertisement for director David Leitch’s production company 87North? Yes. Is that a bad thing if it’s also a lot of fun? Probably also yes, but at least we had fun? Well, some of us did. Because between THE FALL GUY and BULLET TRAIN before it, people have really come out of the woodwork to talk about how bad of a filmmaker Leitch is. It makes his mammoth success post-JOHN WICK all the more entertaining.
I personally enjoy what the former stuntman brings to his films. Is he as polished as cohort Chad Stahelski? No. But that’s why it’s good to also have Chad Stahelski. Leitch leans into the humor of stunt work. The physical pratfalls and entertainment derived from high stakes situations rather than the punishing drama of formidable fighters risking everything for life and limb. What he and writer Drew Pearce do in updating Glen A. Larson’s old television show (both Lee Majors and Heather Thomas make an appearance during the credits) pretty much epitomizes the style Leitch has brought to all his films.
The result is an amalgamation of action films and romances that you know and love—complete with the meta game of two characters constantly quoting movies for the other to guess. Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) and Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) are smitten on a movie set as below-the-line cogs (she a camera operator and he a stuntman) plugging along to make the project as great as they can without any of the weight of celebrity that the leads and director carry between takes. Unfortunately, he suffers an accident, breaking his back and putting his confidence out of whack. So, he ghosts her, implodes his life, and wallows in self-pity.
Until Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham), the producer hitched to the coattails of the superstar (Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Tom Ryder) he made a career doubling, calls. She needs him to come to Australia and get back on the horse. And she tells him that Jody, who is receiving her big break directing the film, personally requested he come out of retirement despite the two never talking in the year since his mishap. Colt accepts, discovers Jody doesn’t want him there, and learns his recruitment was for something completely different. Gail doesn’t need him in the movie. She needs him to find Tom before anyone realizes he’s missing.
Cue a murder mystery complete with a mercenary squad trying to kill Colt for getting too close and you have all the reason for jamming in as many stunt-heavy sequences as possible for Leitch and company to show just how integral stunt work is in Hollywood. And because it’s Gosling playing the face (alongside Winston Duke as his friend and coordinator Dan), the action gets to be as humorous as possible. That means throwing Gosling’s own stunt double through fire and concrete so the actor can stumble back to his feet and comically shake the cobwebs off … when he’s not high on a spiked drink and seeing unicorns.
Does the truth of what’s happening make sense? Not in any feasible way. But when you’re dealing with self-absorbed millionaires who think they’re smarter than they are, plausibility isn’t really a concern. We simply go with the flow and hope Colt and Jody might patch things up while also uncovering what’s really happening, staying alive, and finishing the movie they’re shooting. It’s a tall task with low-stakes emotions doing what they can to prop up the high-wire theatrics as Gosling steals the show with his natural, self-deprecating casual cool. Colt knows he isn’t a superstar, but he also knows he’s good at what he does. And those skills are much better for surviving a siege than Shakespeare.
So, if you enjoy Leitch’s work (namely BULLET TRAIN and the quippy HOBBS AND SHAW), you should have a good time here. I probably enjoyed the former more, but THE FALL GUY is probably the most accomplished of the trio (ATOMIC BLONDE is best, but it’s just much more serious a la Stahelski than everything Leitch made since). Gosling and Blunt are fantastic in the leads and Taylor-Johnson and Waddingham add wonderful comedic support. It’s the perfect summer blockbuster, escapist popcorn flick. Late April is summer now, right?
- 7/10
STARVE ACRE
(limited release)
When Richard (Matt Smith) and Jules’ (Morfydd Clark) son dies, it’s as though their world stops. That’s to be expected when losing a child so young. Especially at a time of flux and unanswered questions surrounding a newly formed violent streak implausibly sprung from the past. Because hearing the boy talk of a man named Jack whistling to him isn’t simply a development for the present. Richard knows that name. It’s one his abusive father and their neighbor Gordon (Sean Gilder) used to talk about when he was younger. A product of folklore. Perhaps of the occult. A memory he’d hoped would never return.
Based on the novel by Andrew Michael Hurley, Daniel Kokotajlo’s adaptation of STARVE ACRE is born from the optimistic hope that Richard could give his son the life his father never gave him. It’s partly why they moved to this country estate two years prior. A fresh start, fresh air, and a reclamation of sanity amidst the deranged turmoil of his past. So, of course Richard blames Gordon for telling the boy about Jack. For clouding his mind with nightmarish possibility. He seeks to prove it was always a bedtime story by digging into the land to find the remains of the giant oak tree those tales say was the entrance to the spirit realm.
The result is intriguing in the way it doesn’t simply hinge upon the deteriorating mental state of grieving parents. Yes, they prove to be vessels for the events to come, but their actions spring forth from the legend rather than give it false life inside their minds. We’re watching an awakening through their newfound capacity to see beyond the walls constructed by science and logic. No matter how much Jules’ sister Harrie (Erin Richards) tries to coax her back to the here and now, both she and Richard have allowed something otherworldly in. Maybe because they lost the strength to stop it. Or maybe because fate always knew they would.
So, when a hare’s corpse that Richard digs up during the archeological exploits he engages in to distract his mind starts to grow muscle and skin, we aren’t afforded the luxury of assuming it’s all his imagination. He’s too much of a skeptic. Jules is too desperate to move on. Only through reality could they accept what’s happening and still to come. Not because they will it, but because their acquiescence provides meaning to their loss. It’s not therefore enough to accept their son’s death. They must know that it was in service of something greater. Not because they believe in it or want it. But because it’s what allows everything to make sense.
Smith and Clark are so good because they understand this necessity. The fact they are skeptics with no stake in the game Richard’s father attempted to restart is what makes their actions that much more disturbing. It’s not a matter of want but need. They participate because they have no choice. Those pained looks of conscience are thus real even if they can never be potent enough to prevent them from progressing forward. Because once you join this game, the only thing you can do is keep playing until the end. Anything less wakes you up to a worse result since our brains can only comprehend tragedy and evil in service of something more. They break upon realizing it was truly all for nothing.
- 7/10
FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
ANIMALIA PARADOXA
(North American premiere)
The star of Niles Atallah’s ANIMALIA PARADOXA yearns for the ocean. Despite her humanoid presence (Andrea Gomez), this amphibious creature is caught within a devastated world she cannot survive without a respirator covering her face. Her means towards making it another day is rummaging through the garbage-strewn structure where she resides for lost treasures that can be bartered with a creature we meet as a long-nailed hand exiting a hole in a wall. She passes it a token. It passes back a worm (gummy or real, I’m uncertain). That payment is then given to another—a woman hanging from a ceiling by thick black hair whose watery secretions provide our protagonist her only source of life.
How do we know this? Because we’re transported to the sea the moment she contorts her body into the tiny puddle it creates at the bottom of her bathtub. Is it a memory of which she wishes to return? A dream she aspires to find? All we know for certain is that the water rejuvenates her. Only when she discovers a flowing faucet to fill her plastic jugs do we see the potential laid to waste by this dry and dusty existence. Finally, she can shed her rags and mask to soak in the liquid and let her skin sparkle once more. Rather than seek to help her, however, the other humanoid creatures (land animals) jealously look to destroy.
And that’s the extent of the narrative as we see it on-screen. Atallah’s experimental mixed media piece is a lot more than its surface visuals, though, if you’re willing to dive in and consider the montaged tragedies at the start and how this place became all that was left. The only words come from a tape recorder and megaphone—less descriptive than colorfully engaged in metaphor. Story is thus told through Gomez’s expressive movements. Pretzeled and awkward in the arid atmosphere, fluid and confident in the water. We hope she’ll find her way out. That she’ll survive the sabotage coming her way.
What starts with a mannequin hand ushering us behind a red plastic curtain to wind its film reels and present its weathered images eventually returns from its subsequent live-action surrealism to puppetry in the style of Jan Švankmajer or the Brothers Quay. At a certain point, our protagonist must leave her unsafe surroundings and seek salvation through the kindness and opportunism of others willing to provide as long as they also receive. It leads to a marionette finale of acquiescence and dismemberment. Of uncertainty and release. Are we witnessing the truth of this post-apocalyptic world or a prophetic glimpse for our own future? I guess that’s up to you.
Due to the experimental nature of the work, I’m not providing a rating. Its laborious pace renders its intrigue a bit too esoteric for my tastes, but it is very well-conceived, constructed, and performed. Those who seek out underground cinematic art like it should be well-served.
CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS
(Montreal premiere)
“A lean, melodramatic tale of returning home to discover the people who thought they were better than you are the losers you always knew they were.”
– Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
THE DEAD THING
(world premiere)
Caught in the throes of twenty-first century technology, death is no longer the end for us. We’ve become immortalized online through social media, our footprint vaster than we even think it is unless you’re the type of person who diligently ensures the spread gets curbed. Between those sites we voluntarily place our identity on and those that scrape our data to sell it in the background, it’s not uncommon to find yourself stumbling upon someone who looks well and happy despite their obituary popping up a few links lower on the Google search.
Director Elric Kane and co-writer Webb Wilcoxen play with this digital echo via their film THE DEAD THING. The title itself provides dual meaning insofar as it describes the ghost that’s desperately reaching out to cling to life as a means of staving off oblivion and the living person to which it grabs hold. Because even though Alex (Blu Hunt) isn’t dead, she’s sleepwalking through life. Each day is the same: sleeping beneath a UV light, working the third shift at an office scanning documents, and hooking up with a revolving door of suitors via the dating app Friktion. The only real drama she has is whether she’ll be able to sneak by her roommate’s (Katherine Hughes’ Cara) door when she returns home.
This is why Kyle (Ben Smith-Petersen) feels so different. He doesn’t try to force small talk and yet she could talk to him for days on end. While all the other dates barely keep her awake before finally mustering the courage to take her to bed, he gets her to smile … and smile often. Alex even starts telling him about her malaise and the desire to break free from it. She lets herself be vulnerable with Kyle. She even takes him home instead of the other way around. So, when he ghosts her after an hours-long sleepover, it doesn’t make sense. Their connection seemed real. It felt like it might last.
Suddenly Alex becomes the clinger. Texting multiple times without a response. Even stalking him when she sees him with another woman out at a bar. The need to hear back has her tethered to her phone more than usual both in the hopes he finally replies and the desire to hold onto that night via the songs they listened to and the drawings of each other that they drew. And while the film doesn’t turn into an artificial intelligence tale, you can sense that Alex has formed a relationship with the potential of who Kyle is. The picture on his dating profile. The message log with his phone number. The life approximated by his social media galleries.
Then that illusion goes one step further into the supernatural once she and Kyle come together again. The ghost in the machine who’s actually outside the machine. The ghost who can only commune with the living through the still active channels of his digital avatar. And taking that step means providing him a lifeline too. He uses that echo to remain. He uses Alex’s longing to reflect who he wants to be rather than what he’s become. Her desperation to cling to his warmth is thus also reciprocated. But rather than just his touch, Kyle needs her devotion. That means everyone else—Cara and her co-worker Chris (John Karna)—is an obstacle he cannot afford to take her attention away.
I wasn’t exactly sure where Kane and company were taking THE DEAD THING. The romance is sweet at first. Like a rebirth for Alex that ultimately gives others the wrong idea considering she goes from morose to electric overnight. And when she loses that in his absence, you wonder if their reunion will simply be like a drug addiction of lost time and shirked responsibilities. Even when the notion of violence enters, it does so through fear and therefore seems like an outlier instead of a sign of things to come. But it is a tease for more. The notions of codependency and parasocial relationships come into focus to turn this tale of love at first sight into a tragic nightmare of urban legend and IRL catfishing.
It’s an effective thriller that lets its themes exist beneath the surface so that those uninterested in delving deeper can simply enjoy the ghost story turned quasi-slasher on its own merits. The latter works thanks to Kyle’s fear-driven survival instincts, but the former is what sticks with you courtesy of Hunt’s performance. And for those who love to keep saying sex scenes are unnecessary in cinema, it’s her work during them that really shines. Because these moments aren’t merely about pleasure. They’re also about power. You can see it in her face as it moves from ecstasy to distress. The shift is quick too. That realization that love has become obsession and how it might already be too late to stop.
- 8/10
MEANWHILE ON EARTH
[Pendant ce temps sur Terre]
(North American premiere)
“Meanwhile on Earth is, in many ways, very similar to Clapin's previous work I Lost My Body. Elsa is the dismembered hand trying to reclaim the past when it's the future that she should be focusing on.”
– Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
Cinematic F-Bombs:
This week saw BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE (2024), MY SPY: THE ETERNAL CITY (2024), and REBEL MOON – PART TWO: THE SCARGIVER (2024) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).
Ken Jeong delivers an f-bomb in MY SPY: THE ETERNAL CITY.
New Releases This Week:
(Review links where applicable)
Opening Buffalo-area theaters 7/26/24 -
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE at Dipson Amherst, McKinley, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
THE FABULOUS FOUR at North Park Theatre; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
RAAYAN at Regal Elmwood
Streaming from 7/26/24 -
HUMANE – Shudder on 7/26
MOUNTAIN QUEEN: THE SUMMITS OF LHAKPA SHERPA – Netflix on 7/31
MON LAFERTE, TE AMO – Netflix on 8/1
Now on VOD/Digital HD -
BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE (7/23)
KILL (7/23)
“Just let the rage unleash in whatever convenient way is necessary to get the blood flowing faster. What's good enough for John Wick should be good enough for Kill, so wake the boogeyman up and let him loose.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
THE PRACTICE (7/23)
WITH LOVE AND A MAJOR ORGAN (7/23)
“It's a gruesome yet beautiful concept that Albright and Lederer manifest through unforgettable visual metaphor [along this] humorously poignant journey towards understanding our love can inflict pain onto others just as easily as it can onto ourselves.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
DEAD SEA (7/26)
THE GIRL IN THE POOL (7/26)
SONGS OF EARTH (7/26)
“In the end, regardless of its message for the future or its personal ode to Olin's heritage, you cannot deny the breathtaking imagery, effective score, and soulful delivery. If nothing else, its aesthetics will astound.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
STARVE ACRE (7/26)
Thoughts are above.
STAY WITH US (7/26)
SWAN SONG (7/26)