Week Ending 3/7/25
Netflix Marvel: Born Again
The first two episodes of “Daredevil: Born Again” dropped on Disney+ this week. I’m still in the midst of my Defenders Universe rewatch, though, so I won’t get to start it for a few more weeks. My hope is to time things with the season finale (a second season for 2026 has already been announced) since I really can’t watch shows week to week anymore. Binge through the rest of the old seasons pivot straight into binging the new one.
I’m getting to the point of the original series where I’m no longer sure if I’ve seen them before. I remember watching “Luke Cage” season two (of which I just finished, and man, how cool would season three have been if Luke really broke bad?) and I think I watched season three of “Jessica Jones” and “Daredevil”, but I couldn’t tell you what happens even with a gun to my head. So, maybe I didn’t?
The same goes for “Iron Fist” season two (I enjoyed my rewatch of the first, but it is still the weakest property of the bunch). I know I never watched “The Punisher” at all when it came out (season one ended up being pretty good), so season two of that will definitely be new.
Doing them altogether in a short period of time has reminded me just how good “Jessica Jones” season one and “Daredevil” season two were. By far the best chapters. “Luke Cage” season one is great too, but can definitely drag at times when Diamondback takes over “big bad” status (same with season two as those middle episodes get drawn out). I wouldn’t shy away from saying they all should have been eight-to-ten episodes rather than twelve to fix this problem, but I also wonder if I just had The Hand fatigue for a while there. Talk about ending that thread with a whimper.
I’ve got one season of “Iron Fist”, “Punisher”, “Daredevil”, and “Jessica Jones” to go before closing the book and moving forward. I should probably squeeze in a “She-Hulk” rewatch too considering Charlie Cox shows up a couple times, but it wasn’t anything to advance the story. I wouldn’t mind throwing “Hawkeye” on again for its Kingpin stuff, though, since that might be my favorite MCU show yet.
What I Watched:
EEPHUS
(limited release & Digital HD)
It's the last game at Soldier Field. No. Not that Soldier Field. We're talking a tiny public baseball diamond amidst forest and soccer fields in suburban Massachusetts—a recreational league destination for kids and beer drinkers alike. The memories and laughter of decades of locals will soon be paved over by a new school that, apparently, won't need a diamond of its own. So, rather than close the shutters early by driving the extra twenty minutes to an inferior location with a bad septic system or simply retire their teams now, Adler's Paint and the Riverdogs decide to give this hallowed place the send-off it deserves.
Written by director Carson Lund, Michael Basta, and Nate Fisher, Eephus documents this final game that seems to never want to end. Part of that is because of the fact we're dealing with aging blue-collar pricks who can barely run the bases when they're not chirping at each other. The other part is their nostalgic desire to not want to actually say goodbye. And if it was up to the umpire, this game would never have even begun considering the Riverdogs only have eight players at first pitch. But as long as Garrett (Chris Goodwin) arrives before he's needed on the field (either batting or catching), they'll be okay.
The result is a low-key affair with small town guys being dudes. Everyone is ragging on Dilberto (David Torres Jr.) because his diet is making him hangry and it's fun to piss him off even more. Ed (Keith William Richards) and his tough-as-nails demeanor is smack talking the other team and guaranteeing he'll pitch all nine innings despite giving up an early lead seconds after puffing out his chest. Neither team (even his own, especially Ray Hryb's Rich) is showing Graham (Stephen Radochia) any love since he's involved in the demolition. And Troy (David Pridemore) is flapping his arms on the mound like wings, downing a beer every inning in the dugout, and striking everyone out.
Bill (Russell J. Gannon) just wants to make his young kids smile (his is the only family who comes to watch if you're not counting Conner Marx's Cooper, who is on his brother Tim's team despite never getting to play). John (John R. Smith Jnr) seeks the burn in his knees that tells him he won't be able to walk for a week while also confirming he's still alive. And the rest of the line-ups consist of young guys having fun, high school players who didn't make the jump, and men like Bob (Brendan Burt) trying to tell jokes only to be told he's just being mean. They're mostly all attempting to tell each other how much they appreciate this time together without actually saying the words.
The game itself becomes secondary to the vibe for everyone but Franny (Cliff Blake). It's everything to this stalwart. He's been coming as long as they've been playing with his card table and scorebook to follow each pitch and out. Franny is my favorite piece of the whole (and surely Lund's too considering an "in memory of" credit at the end makes it seem the character was based on someone he knew) because he epitomizes the love of the sport regardless of who's playing it. These guys aren't good, but they treat the game with respect. They go hard, refuse to quit (even when it's too dark to see), and understand the nuance enough to scream at each other when a teammate playing third base coach screws up.
That flavor is where Eephus succeeds whether Franny's importance to the moment (eventually being recruited to serve as umpire), Howie's (Lou Basta) tradition of sitting on the bleachers alone and hobbling home to sleep despite a seventh inning tie, and Joe Castiglione's pizza truck owner Mr. Mallinari lamenting his career path. There's even an ex-pro leaguer in Bill "The Spaceman" Lee who shows up to give this motley crew "three good outs" when they find themselves in desperate need of a reliever. Pair his earned confidence with Merritt's (Nate Fisher) unearned talk and you really get a taste of every possible personality you can think of in your own amateur sporting life.
Because, in the end, it's about that odd dynamic we all fall victim to eventually. Those days after college where the built-in infrastructure that sustains friendships and camaraderie disappears and you discover you must do the work to stay in touch and cultivate new relationships. Like Graham, however, most of us love the idea of brotherhood when it occurs on a schedule and realize we might not need it when maintaining those connections demands real effort. Through all the jabs, honest appreciation, and truncated conversations that never finish because they've moved to a different base, the line of dialogue that hits hardest is Graham's reply to a teammate suggesting he organize a winter reunion over drinks even if they never play together again: "I'll think on it."
- 7/10
QUEEN OF THE RING
(in theaters)
Widely regarded as the first million-dollar woman athlete in history, pro wrestling star Mildred Burke's (Emily Bett Rickards) story within that sport has all the dramatic, misogynistic earmarks you can imagine. The abusive husband/manager (Josh Lucas' Billy Wolfe) riding her coattails to the bank until he can cut her loose. The bureaucratic boys club refusing to allow women inside by maintaining bans on woman-on-woman wrestling within their states. The athletes she took under her wing being forced to wonder if their only shot at success is keeping Wolfe happy rather than the audiences they sacrifice they bodies for every night. It's wall-to-wall barrier breaking heroics.
And that's the narrative at the center of Ash Avildsen's Queen of the Ring. Yes, it's billed as a biopic with Mildred as star, but don't assume the script delves deep into who she was beyond her influence to wrestling. Avildsen and Alston Ramsay's adaptation of Jeff Leen's book loves to remind us how Burke did it all as a single mother (with help from her own single mother Bertha, played by Cara Buono), but Joe's presence (eventually played by Gavin Casalegno as a teenager and adult) is more to show the passing of time than anything else. He tethers the story to family, but it's her found family with Mae Young (Francesca Eastwood), Elvira Snodgrass (Marie Avgeropoulos), Gladys Gillem (Deborah Ann Woll), and Babs Wingo (Damaris Lewis) that carries the film.
Mildred's life is the backdrop of pioneering change. Her tenacity and showmanship supply fans and media the intrigue to make her a household name alongside the injustice to overcome being a woman in a man's sport paid for by a man's world. Because the unfortunate reality is that Wolfe holds all the cards. Avildsen can't rewrite truth, so the many times Wolfe flies off the handle (his shifts to remorse growing more obnoxiously false as they go) carry zero consequences. Not only does the industry deem his position more important than hers (that hasn't changed with most leagues treating athletes like property), but society does too. This is the 1940s and 50s, after all. Mildred knows any public display of being "the fool" will damage her quest to empower young girls.
So, as Mildred endures physical, emotional, and economic violence, so too must we. Eventually there will need to be a climactic "face" vs. "heel" match that figuratively pits her against Wolfe, but the journey there is ultimately about the evolution of wrestling from carnival sideshow to televised soap opera. Mildred plays her part in that—a very important one considering her advice to Gorgeous George (Adam Demos) before his aesthetic transformation. But her presence as a three-dimensional character suffers as a result of that performance being solely in service of the bigger picture. The real lesson then is seeing her treatment of her peers and understanding the chasm separating Mildred's business acumen from Wolfe's greed.
As such, the character driven bits can feel very rushed—even with a 140-minute runtime. We're pushing through decades of history from Mildred challenging yokels on the carnival circuit to booking major venues wrestling women they pick up along the way after she inspires them. The potential romance with Wolfe's son G. Bill (Tyler Posey) can never therefore pop as more than another necessary plot point further driving a wedge between Mildred and Billy. The desire to position Joe as a storyteller also falls flat since the scene before he receives his first major kudos from Jack Pfefer (Walton Goggins) ends with Mae Young telling him she has an idea. I wouldn't be surprised to learn the third act fell victim to massive streamlining edits.
That said, Queen of the Ring plays well to its audience. It's obviously a little fish in a big pond despite its wide national rollout, but whatever it lacks in production quality is surely gained in heart. Rickards is great in the lead role, carrying this thing with the perfect blend of swagger and strength to do Mildred proud. Eastwood and Posey are memorable too as the allies in her corner opposite Wolfe—albeit with varying success. And it's nice to see Lucas get a meaty role, even if it proves a bit one-note upon us realizing the actor's genuine looks of horror after each cruel act aren't to be trusted. He may actually give Wolfe too much empathy, leading us to believe an evolutionary metamorphosis is coming when its the full force of his evil that proves most captivating.
Thankfully, while we realize the drama between Mildred and Wolfe is nothing but the superficial repetition of cliché spousal abuse, the drama behind the sport never stalls. The return of June Byers (Kailey Farmer). An inevitably tragic end to one of the athlete's lives. The ability to provide an outlet for women of all colors against the patriarchy showing the importance of sports to political and social change. The Mildred Burke story truly has it all. You would be forgiven then for forgetting that the action is pretty well-orchestrated too. It's not all quick cuts and stunt doubles. These women are going to war and flipping each other around the ring to remind people that the result of these matches being scripted doesn't stop the physicality from being real.
- 6/10
SEVEN VEILS
(in theaters)
It's a Biblical dance at the Feast of Herod given name by Oscar Wilde. King Herod Antipas offers his niece/stepdaughter anything she desires if she'll dance for his guests on his birthday. She agrees as long as her prize is the head of John the Baptist. The notion of lust is projected upon the tale by Gustave Flaubert's "gypsy" acrobatics, Aubrey Beardsley's "belly dance" illustration, and Wilde's "striptease." What had been a public performance becomes a private performance for the king alone. From exploitation to objectification to incest. The so-called Seven Veils looms large above the tale's many incarnations: including Richard Strauss' 1905 opera Salome.
This is true for Jeanine's (Amanda Seyfried) remount within Atom Egoyan's film too. Both because of the character's history with the legend and the director's own history with the opera. His staging of Strauss' work in 1996 put the filmmaker on the opera map and, when asked to lead the latest remount, he decided to make a fictionalized film (with his opera singers, including Ambur Braid and Michael Kupfer-Radecky, playing versions of themselves) about the experience and the politics that surround a controversial piece's parallel evolution to the eras in which it's produced. Egoyan knew he couldn't do the same things he did thirty years prior because the world was too different. He would need to interpret the themes through a new filter and consider how his choices could better suit the material to its audience.
Jeanine must do the same. Wherein Egoyan is thinking abstractly, however, he's able to channel his thinking through her as a literal vessel. Not only because she's a woman staging this sexually-charged story, but also because she's a survivor of the same abuses that story holds at its core. So, despite Jeanine's selection to head-up this remount being the last wish of her former teacher (who led the original production while she was his student and intern), she did not accept simply to be his dancing puppet after death. While that's surely what the theater and his wife/artistic director (Lanette Ware's Beatrice) hoped by reaching out, Jeanine accepted as a means to take back control. To flip the script and behead the misogynistic men who told her to toe their line.
There are many layers to the show as a result. There's Jeanine's rendition of the "seven veils" for her father (Ryan McDonald's Harold) as a child. The theft and grotesquely exaggerated version of that personal history taken by her former mentor to serve as the linchpin of his seminal production. And now her present choice to re-stage the blurred lines between them through her own hindsight and position as their victim. Because it's always been the director leading the charge from the place of Herod that centers Salome's beauty and desire as something to be owned. Now, as the person who watched her father and teacher use her in that same way, she can finally center Salome's pain instead.
From that perspective, Seven Veils is very good. Jeanine is exorcising her demons by confronting her past through her art—wielding this opportunity (rendered crazy by the open secret that her relationship with her teacher was more than professional) as a weapon to ensure some culpability on his part is added to the myth surrounding his acclaim with this specific opera. She's dealing with these themes on-stage as well as off it considering her video calls home are colored by the injustices of men via the looming specter of her father, the continued gaslighting by her mother (Lynne Griffin), and the blatant infidelity of her husband (Mark O'Brien). Add Jeanine's own flirtations with the corruptibility of power courtesy of her former classmate (Douglas Smith) being an understudy on this project, and the slope gets slippery.
I only wish Egoyan stuck to his lead and the internal and external impact she possesses because the inclusion of more drama outside her sight line proves a bit much. Yes, there's a lot of good stuff being mined from the experiences of the show's prop master Clea (Rebecca Liddiard), but it really feels like a completely different movie considering the only overlap is Jeanine asking her to do something over and thus allowing the crucial piece of this subplot to unfold. It's more exploitation and misplaced ideas of believing you can capitulate to misogyny as long as you get something out of the bargain. Because the examples are more overt on Clea's trajectory, though, they can't help suffering when compared against Jeanine's more nuanced grappling.
Where Clea's path does impact the overall story is the end result of what she ultimately decides. Because, while Egoyan is fighting the past as far as how his staging reads to the audience, the present isn't that much different. Even though both Jeanine (Seyfried is very good in this role) and Clea reject the system and this notion that you must compromise, neither they nor other women benefit. Clea tries to spin what happens to her into a win for her girlfriend, but it's another man who gets his chance in the spotlight instead. Jeanine seeks to leave her mark while moving past her trauma, but knows her late teacher will get all the praise anyway. It's two steps forward, one step back since, in the end, Salome's victory still ends in death.
- 7/10
Cinematic F-Bombs:
This week saw Blade Runner (1982), Free Solo (2018), Holmes & Watson (2018), The Jewel of the Nile (1985), Nickel Boys (2024), Superstar (1999), and White Squall (1996) added to the archive (cinematicfbombs.com).
Glynis Johns dropping an f-bomb in Superstar.
New Releases This Week:
(Review links where applicable)
Opening Buffalo-area theaters 3/7/25 -
The Accidental Getaway Driver at Regal Transit
In The Lost Lands at Dipson Capitol; AMC Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
Mickey 17 at Dipson Amherst, Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
Night of the Zoopocalypse at Dipson Flix & Capitol; Regal Transit, Galleria & Quaker
Queen of the Ring at AMC Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
Thoughts are above.
Rule Breakers at Dipson Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge & Market Arcade; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
The Rule of Jenny Pen at Dipson Capitol; Regal Elmwood, Transit, Galleria & Quaker
Seven Veils at Regal Elmwood
Thoughts are above.
There's Still Tomorrow at North Park Theatre (select times)
Streaming from 3/7/25 -
Chaos: The Manson Murders – Netflix on 3/7
Delicious – Netflix on 3/7
Hellboy: The Crooked Man – Hulu on 3/7
Heretic – Max on 3/7
“Credit the strength of Grant's performance too—a fork-tongued vaudeville act meant to distract us as much as his victims. HERETIC might not be as smart as it thinks, but boy is it fun.” – Full thoughts at The Film Stage.
Hitpig! – Peacock on 3/7
Nadaaniyan – Netflix on 3/7
Plankton: The Movie – Netflix on 3/7
Starve Acre – Shudder on 3/7
“Smith and Clark are so good because they understand this necessity [wherein their characters act not] because they believe in [what's happening] or want it. But because it's what allows everything to make sense.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna – Hulu on 3/11
Moana 2 – Disney+ on 3/12
Control Freak – Hulu on 3/13
The Parenting – Max on 3/13
Now on VOD/Digital HD -
Heart Eyes (3/4)
Vermiglio (3/4)
Quick thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.
Bloat (3/7)
Eephus (3/7)
Thoughts are above.
F Marry Kill (3/7)