Week Ending 2/21/25
SNL50
Peacock is funny. In the weeks leading up to NBC’s big SNL50 blowout, they had a designated section on the top menu bar collecting all the content pertaining to the event. Show episodes. The “Beyond Saturday Night” docuseries. Questlove’s Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music. And last weekend’s forthcoming Homecoming Concert and Anniversary Special. Well, now it’s gone.
The only way I can currently see it all packaged together is if you go to one of the titles and scroll down to the “You May Also Like” section below. How do you not keep that main tab alive for at least a week? The streamer loves to feed back into the jokes that no one uses it—something Jimmy Fallon mocked twice on Sunday.
I was a fan of the Homecoming Concert. NBC did a wonderful job paying tribute to old with new while enlisting an inspired roster of talent from the past fifty years. What a fantastic celebration.
I was less a fan of the Anniversary Special. It started promising with what might have proven the best joke of the night right from the get-go as Sabrina Carpenter tells Paul Simon she wasn’t alive in 1976 … and neither were her parents. It was a mixed bag from there with some highs (Lonely Island medley with Lady Gaga, Scarlet Johansson’s Ellen Greene impression, Bill Murray’s Update rankings) and more lows. Maybe “lows” is harsh. Let’s just say forgettable pandering made worse by an audience laughing way too hard (or mic’d way too loud).
It’s still worth watching, though, just to get a sense of the scope of SNL’s reach. I saw someone a week or so ago saying they never understood why people give the show so much pop culture currency and I couldn’t help but laugh. Because regardless of how you feel about SNL the product, no one should ever deny its legitimate impact on comedy, music, television, stardom, etc. SNL was a true trendsetter.
What I Watched:
BRING THEM DOWN
(limited release; streaming on MUBI soon)
“It's a truly grim drama with blood and anger dripping off every frame. The cycle [of violence] might finally be over, but the damage has already been done.”
– Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.
CLEANER
(limited release)
If everything that activists across the world do won't make a dent (and, in some cases, gets hijacked in the public consciousness like when the media colors people throwing red paint on glass-protected artwork as domestic terrorists), logic would presume that someone will inevitably fill the void by escalating those actions into an explosion nobody can ignore.
That's the gist of Martin Campbell's latest actioner Cleaner. The script by Simon Uttley, Paul Andrew Williams, and Matthew Orton starts like a Die Hard retread insofar as positioning an every-woman (Daisy Ridley's military-trained washout Joey Locke) to take down a group of terrorists bottled within a skyscraper before throwing in a twist by presenting the justifiable case that said terrorists (led by Clive Owen) are actually eco-activists seeking accountability. Then the original conceit is quickly put back on track via the introduction of an actual psychopath who infiltrated the ranks of those determined idealists.
The idea is that we're supposed to nod our heads at the message this hostage situation is built upon while also abhorring the lengths taken to expose it. Yes, the Milton Brothers (Rufus Jones and Lee Boardman) are evil, but can we really allow vigilantes the power to become judge, jury, and executioner? Since the answer is almost always a resounding "No."—something society might need to rethink considering the current American regime is proving the system was never actually fortified in a way to benefit lives over profits—you also cannot let Joey fulfill those three roles when confronting the vigilantes.
So, it's a tightrope walk of having your cake and eating it too. The one-percenters get called out by glorifying someone a majority of people would call a terrorist if a full-blown, devoid of redemption, actual terrorist didn't provide a contrast to exonerate him. Joey gets to run wild killing people because the real villains already killed the "fake" villains, so she only has murderers to take down rather than "radicalized heroes." And, just in case, Joey's autistic hacker brother (Matthew Tuck's Michael) guarantees we can tell the difference since his neurodivergent hard line of championing people who speak truth to power (he loves the Avengers and holds Mjolnir close) means anyone he willingly attacks must be a tyrannical despot.
Michael proves a convenient and borderline exploitative pawn to a puzzle that's desperately trying to grasp hold of meaning beyond its otherwise popcorn-fueled foundation. It's not enough to derail the thrills (Campbell has made a successful career within the genre), but it is enough to stop Cleaner from being more than a rainy-day rental of escapism. Because of this, that relevant message trampled on by Hollywood tropes and but-you-should-still-die-before-going-too-far rhetoric gets rendered moot. The filmmakers might as well have just delivered their Die Hard retread without jumping through hoops they so readily erase whenever finding themselves flirting with taking an actual stand.
Ridley is good, though. She has the physical chops to shoulder the action set-pieces, but also the emotional depth to find the dimensions necessary to care about her motivations and end game. Taz Skylar's Noah and Ruth Gemmell's Superintendent Claire Hume are the other major players on either side of Joey and they do well to take control of their respective troops and demand results. The rest of the cast is expendable to provide comic relief, manipulate drama, and supply fresh bodies when the script needs them. Despite the narrative's desire to always play both sides, though, it is mostly enjoyable. I'm just not sure it's enjoyable enough to hide its hollowness.
- 5/10
MILLERS IN MARRIAGE
(limited release & VOD)
Nick (Campbell Scott) is soldiering through his wife’s (Julianna Margulies’ Maggie) new novel when he tells her it’s good with the caveat that it’s “still rich people and their champagne problems.” She replies with a pointed “I write what I know.” And that fact is inherently the issue considering his remark was itself a pointed response to discovering that the pitiable and despised husband character in the book was obviously based on him.
The whole Miller family suffers from the same woes within Edward Burns’ Millers in Marriage. Maggie resents her husband’s comfortability with monotony and steps out of their marriage to find the spark she no longer sees in him due to a constant desire for Nick to return to the man he was rather than accept the man he’s become. Eve (Gretchen Mol) has finally reached the empty nest stage of her own union and the quiet emptiness has opened her eyes to everything she gave up to support a husband (Patrick Wilson’s Scott) whose numerous flaws no longer have the notion of “stability for the children” to hide behind. And Andy (Burns) is struggling to regain control of his life in the wake of his wife (Morena Baccarin’s Tina) leaving him to start a “new chapter” of her own.
Three couples dealing with different variations on the same theme of artists in ruts with just as many champagne fantasies as problems. Maggie uses infidelity (with Brian d'Arcy James’ serial adulterer Dennis) to ignore everything she’s grown to hate about Nick. Eve’s ex-rocker seeks to use infidelity (with Benjamin Bratt’s charming music critic) to stop from ignoring how Scott will never change. And Andy gets so wrapped up in new happiness (with Minnie Driver’s Renee) that he finds himself caught in the middle of being glad Tina left and intrigued by the prospect that moving on has rekindled her interest. Burns moves between healthy unhealthiness to unhealthy healthiness with each cut forward (and back).
Is the drama compelling? Sure. The dialogue is often verbose and on-the-nose, but the cast is way too good not to give it life anyway. I also enjoyed the use of flashback (sometimes months or years into the past and sometimes mere hours) so we can be left wondering about certain details until the exact facts prove crucial to the current conversation, but I wouldn’t say it’s necessary considering the film is already so talky that the characters could have just explained those moments instead. Burns does enough to keep us engaged through these performances and structure tricks that it doesn’t even matter that he’s not really mining any new territory. It’s just indignation, jealousy, and desire.
The Maggie/Nick dynamic is the least interesting because of how clichéd it unfolds with their two authors using ego and metaphor to cut each other down so blatantly and viciously that they might as well have just spoken their truth without any filter. Eve/Scott is one-dimensional in its implosion, but I loved the effect of that baggage pushing Mol towards Bratt because their scenes are by far the best in terms of chemistry and hope for a happy ending. And, similarly, Andy/Tina is a generic scorner-feeling-scorned fireworks show with the effect of pushing Burns towards Driver—the second-best piece due to their honesty rendering their blossoming romance into a complex and mature exchange of uncompromising self-awareness.
Enjoyment will therefore vary. There’s enough going on that everyone watching should see themselves or a relationship they’ve been in depicted on-screen, so it’s up to you whether that mirror is something you’ll embrace or reject insofar as introspection goes. And those who do find resonance will also need to weigh that emotional jolt against the film’s arguably routine delivery. Yes, it’s Burns making yet another Burns film (like Nick’s backhanded compliment to Maggie), but I think the performances excel enough to overcome any fatigue that truth might conjure in those looking for a reason to watch something else.
- 6/10
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3
(VOD/Digital HD)
It was bound to get too full. You can't keep adding characters without removing others and expect the finished result to feel as cohesive and solid as before. This is especially true when your plot hinges upon one of those new characters so much that he becomes the most interesting piece of the puzzle. That's the trouble screenwriters Pat Casey, Josh Miller, and John Whittington put director Jeff Fowler into with Sonic the Hedgehog 3, though. The only way to fully utilize Shadow (Keanu Reeves) is by devoting everything to his quest. As a result, Sonic (Ben Schwartz) becomes secondary. But that can't happen in his film. So, the filmmakers must twist the narrative to re-center Sonic within Shadow's story. It was destined to fail.
That said, I do like how Fowler and company shoehorned in the main peripheral humans. Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter) become motivation and inspiration—sage advice from the fringes that propel Team Sonic (rounded out by Colleen O'Shaughnessey's Tails and Idris Elba's Knuckles) forward. Rachel (Natasha Rothwell) and Randall (Shemar Moore) become a brief but very entertaining punch line within that usage, and we can more or less forget them all until necessary. Even Stone (Lee Majdoub) is handled well in a similar role to Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey)—except that his help is rebuked rather than embraced to position hero and villain's evolutionary trajectories as mirrors to each other despite achieving the same endgame.
Sadly, the same cannot be said about G.U.N. and Robotnik's doppelganger. While both are given expanded roles to prop up Shadow's inclusion, they cannot overcome the fact they are filler. Director Rockwell (Krysten Ritter) is rendered so inert that I can only assume she was brought in because Tom Butler couldn't handle the physical responsibilities of a gravity battle (his Commander Walters gets two scenes, one sitting down and one standing still). While she's a pawn to logistics used as furniture, however, Gerald Robotnik (played by Carrey in older make-up) is a pawn the filmmakers seem to believe is crucial to whole. It's a mistake. One that turns Ivo into Stone for tired jokes and extended comedic nonsense. They use Gerald's superficiality to distract us from Shadow's one-dimensionality. His presence holds Shadow back.
It's too bad because the character is a great next step for Sonic. Here's a space hedgehog who is ostensibly what an emerald-wielding yellow Sonic would become if all that power was augmented by tragedy rather than love. Shadow had everything ripped away. His life is one of subtraction and thus vengeance becomes his sole motivation—like Knuckles in the second film, but from an emotional place instead of a pragmatic sense of duty. I really enjoyed how the film drives that parallel home by pushing Sonic to his own brink of darkness for the climactic battle. How will projecting the circumstances that made Shadow who he is today onto Sonic affect the latter's judgment? Will he rally the troops and lean on Tails and Knuckles to keep balance or will he lose himself to rage?
If only that lesson wasn't stalled from coming out until the third act, I could see why so many people have been calling this installment the best of the franchise. By waiting so long without any reason beyond a desire to stuff in an unnecessary key chase (considering Sonic has zero use for the key and should simply be worried about stopping Robotnik, not beating him to it), the whole feels hollow. Sure, it's a fun journey and Carrey earns laughs even when his foolishness trumps his effectiveness, but it really seems like the filmmakers had a solid forty minutes of content and decided to fill the rest of the runtime with fluff when a more in-depth character study of Shadow would have proven much better. It's too many spinning plates with no way to prevent the inevitable crash.
Because we end up exactly where we started. Robotnik is presumed dead. Shadow is out of everyone's consciousness. Sonic and family are happily enjoying life. Yes, the Blue Devil has learned love is more powerful than hate ... again, but that compass has been reinforced rather than moved. Knuckles conversely discovers a bit of humility, so I guess that's something. Enough to justify a whole movie? No. Maybe if Shadow comes back you could chalk this excursion up to being an expository prologue for his introduction, but even that's weak considering how little we know about him beyond the origin of this specific anger. That the film must also retrofit details (G.U.N. is how old? Walters did know about Shadow's existence? Aliens no longer need disguises?) for that to be possible makes it worse. And if Shadow doesn't come back? Well, then it's all been a waste of time.
- 5/10
Cinematic F-Bombs:
This week saw CROCODILE DUNDEE (1986) and THE LAST EMPEROR (1987) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).
An unknown actor dropping an f-bomb in THE LAST EMPEROR.
New Releases This Week:
(Review links where applicable)
Opening Buffalo-area theaters 2/21/25 -
Bromance at Regal Elmwood
Dragon at Regal Elmwood
Mere Husband Ki Biwi at Regal Elmwood
The Monkey at Dipson Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
Parthenope at North Park Theatre
The Unbreakable Boy at AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Transit & Quaker
Streaming from 2/21/25 -
The Birthday – Shudder on 2/21
Elevation – Max on 2/21
Grand Theft Hamlet – MUBI on 2/21
“The most memorable moments are, of course, those that are completely unplanned. It's fun to get lost in the spontaneity of jumping without a safety net.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
Little Bites – Shudder on 2/21
Nosferatu – Peacock on 2/21
“That leveling up of intention, violence, and horror runs throughout Eggers' adaptation. More than just expanding upon the mythology, he's increasing the brutality with a greater sense of visceral potency than mere dread.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.
Things Will Be Different – Hulu on 2/21
“Felker has created a hermetically sealed puzzle box to force his characters into confronting the choices and mistakes they've made. And once they voluntarily travel inside, that seal guarantees they reckon with those actions.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
The 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards – Netflix on 2/23
Ghostlight – Hulu on 2/25
“The line Dan walks is thin and you can feel that O'Sullivan wrote his trajectory through the character's voice to discover which side he'll fall at the same time he does.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
September 5 – MGM+/Paramount+ on 2/25
“Therein lies the inherent commentary on display despite the film itself running pretty apolitically from start to finish. While mistakes [are made], they did not have the experience necessary to prevent them. [Today's media does, but doesn't care.]” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
Venom: The Last Dance – Netflix on 2/25
A Copenhagen Love Story – Netflix on 2/26
Miss Italia Mustn’t Die – Netflix on 2/26
Demon City – Netflix on 2/27
The Wrong Track – Netflix on 2/27
Now on VOD/Digital HD -
The Brutalist (2/18)
“Above the script's elucidations, Corbet's assured direction, and the impressive production design, though, are too of the year's finest performances courtesy of Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce.” – Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.
Companion (2/18)
Dog Man (2/18)
The Last Showgirl (2/18)
“[Anderson taps] into our preconceptions of her celebrity as well as her own regrets born from its hold on her to deliver a beautifully confident, soul-searching, and cathartic masterclass of authenticity.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
Love Me (2/18)
Mufasa: The Lion King (2/18)
Panda Plan (2/18)
The Room Next Door (2/18)
Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2/18)
Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.
Everyone is Going to Die (2/21)
Millers in Marriage (2/21)
Thoughts are above.
Old Guy (2/21)
The Quiet Ones (2/21)
“I give August's script a ton of credit because a lot needs to be made known during preparations for what occurs to make sense. The fact none of it feels forced is no small feat. It helps that Hviid shoots the heist with urgency.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
Singing in My Sleep (2/21)
UnBroken (2/21)