‘Black Bag’ Review: The Couple That Spies Together, Rides or Dies Together

March 11, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

What’s in the Black Bag?! (CREDIT: Claudette Barius/Focus Features)

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Pierce Brosnan

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Running Time: 94 Minutes

Rating: R for Adults Talking About Their Adult Affairs, as Well as a Few Bursts of Violence

Release Date: March 14, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: George Woodehouse (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) are a happily married childless couple. But it’s a little complicated because they’re both spies and therefore can’t exactly always be 100% honest with each other. But somehow they’ve managed to make it work! It perhaps helps that they carefully cultivate relationships with some of the younger employees at their agency, even if things do occasionally get a little (or a lot) messy. When Kathryn flies out for her latest covert meeting, it looks like she might be turning treasonous, or perhaps it’s all a setup. So how far will George go to protect his wife, and is anyone foolhardy enough to stand in his way?

What Made an Impression?: Confusing, Until It’s Not: I’ve long since given up on trying to understand the plots of espionage movies, and the beginning of Black Bag didn’t do anything to change my mind. Instead, it felt like an homage to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that had me going, “Did the trailer just straight-up lie about this movie’s plot?” But then after about 40 minutes of finely deliberate setup, screenwriter David Koepp and director Steven Soderbergh finally showed their hands, and they had me going, “Ah, there are the stakes.” I won’t delve too much more into this point because much of the pleasure of Black Bag is that “a-ha” feeling. But let’s just say that Soderbergh has demonstrated once again that it pays to figure out what you want to do ahead of time and then go ahead and execute that plan.
Scenes From a Marriage: Are George and Kathryn #couplegoals? I’d certainly be happy to see that conversation play out in the wake of Black Bag‘s release. They undoubtedly have each other’s backs, and they also consistently give each other the benefit of the doubt. But on the other hand, they leave a bit of a trail of destruction in their wake, although that might say more about their profession than it does about them. And though they don’t have any kids, you can kind of think of the characters played by Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, and Regé-Jean Page as their stand-in children. But that interpretation makes things go a little wibbly-wobbly, as it probably isn’t the best idea for parents to subject their kids to a round of polygraph testing. And yet, that is something that indeed happens in this movie. In conclusion, George and Kathryn’s ultimate suitability as a couple remains uncertain, but their turns as Spy Daddy and Spy Mommy are finely fulfilled.

Black Bag is Recommended If You Like: Leather and wine

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Satellite Feeds

‘Mickey 17’ Mines Quite a Tale Out of a Deadly Existence

March 5, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Oh, Robert, you’re so fine (CREDIT: Warner Bros./Screenshot)

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, Steven Yeun, Anamaria Vartolomei, Holliday Grainger

Director: Bong Joon-ho

Running Time: 137 Minutes

Rating: R for Violent Illnesses, Bloody Accidents, and Fictional Illicit Drug Use

Release Date: March 7, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Things aren’t going so well for Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) on Earth in the middle of the 21st century. So he decides to try his luck on an interstellar mission to colonize the distant planet Niflheim. But here’s the kicker: he’s signed up to be an “expendable,” meaning he carries out the most dangerous mission with the expectation that he is almost certainly going to die. But that’s no big deal, because a new version of him with all of his memories and the same personality is just going to be 3D-printed every time that happens. After a particularly blistering day, the 17th iteration of Mickey returns to his bed, only to find … Mickey 18! And that status quo just cannot stand, as multiples are not supposed to exist side by side.

What Made an Impression?: Pushed to the Limit… and the Limit and the Limit and the Limit: Mickey 17 is just the latest triumphant example of director Bong Joon-ho indulging his speciality of characters hanging on the economic precipice who wind up in absurd scenarios to achieve some semblance of peace and justice in this ridiculous universe. Mickey is in such dire straits because he and his buddy Timo (Steven Yeun) are impossibly indebted to a loan shark. And he ended up an Expendable because he basically didn’t read the dozens and dozens of pages of fine print. Now, he and the rest of the ship finds himself at the mercy of garish politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife Ylfa (Toni Collette), aka Lady Macbeth by way of the Real Housewives of Outer Space. And the slop served on board the ship runs the full spectrum of the dystopian rainbow: from gray to brown to chrome to sepia. Mickey’s situation is not enviable in any way according to any reasonable analysis, but at least he has a droll humor about it all, not to mention a wildly enthusiastic and slightly unhinged girlfriend (Naomi Ackie). If you can see yourself in Mickey, you’re probably doing all right at not doing all right.
Our New Alien Neighbors: Niflheim is not a barren planet, as it’s populated by a species dubbed Creepers that are essentially giant pill bugs. If this were a B-movie from the 50s and 60s, the appropriate response to them would be, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Monsters!!!!!!!!!!!!!” But if they had instead arrived on the scene in the 80s in the wake of E.T., we probably would have said, “Oh, I think they might actually be our friends.” In 2025, it’s a little more complicated, especially in one of director Bong’s signature loony landscapes. They’re kind of like the creatures from Arrival in their attempts to communicate with the humans, but a lot edgier and scrappier. And that’s the key that Bong continues to successfully play in: his influences are clear, but this isn’t quite something that moviegoers have ever quite had the opportunity before to experience or  make sense of.

Mickey 17 is Recommended If You Like: Any of Bong Joon-ho’s other movies, but you wished they’d been set on another planet

Grade: 4 out of 5 Mickeys

‘On Becoming a Guinea Fowl’ Review: Dead Uncle + Dysfunctional Family = Kinda Surreal

March 4, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , 1 Comment

How fowl. (CREDIT: A24)

Starring: Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela, Henry B.J. Phiri

Director: Rungano Nyoni

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Mature Themes Including References to Abuse

Release Date: March 7, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: A woman named Shula (Susan Chardy) is on her way to see her family, but first, she has a very important phone call to make to her father. She’s just encountered her Uncle Fred on the side of the road, and he’s dead. Shula’s reaction to the situation is a little hard to parse. She’s far from devastated, though she is aware that practical matters like corpse collection must be taken care of. Just who was Uncle Fred to Shula, and for that matter, who is Shula within the scheme of her family? Those questions will be answered – or perhaps ignored – as all the grudges and secrets among her extended Zambian relatives come spilling out in the wake of the funeral.

What Made an Impression?: Death Breaks Reality: Shula’s encounter with dead Uncle Fred is like a dream, but one of those low-stakes dreams where basically nothing happens, and yet somehow everything feels mildly/completely off. Her dad doesn’t seem to register what’s going on, Shula’s dressed like Missy Elliott in “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” music video, and there’s some impenetrable bureaucracy and a drunk person for good measure. It’s like we’ve entered an alternate universe, or a simulation, where almost everything is completely the same.
Human Behavior: On Becoming a Guinea Fowl ultimately leads up to a climactic shouting match between two warring factions within the family, filled with apparently ritualistic attempts to make amends and/or assert dominance. Writer-director Rungano Nyoni was born in Zambia and moved to Wales with her family when she was a child. As a viewer who has basically zero knowledge of the culture of Zambia, I found myself asking: is this typical behavior of British-Zambian families? Or are Shula’s clan members the outcasts? Or did Nyoni create a wholly new, fictional dynamic, but perhaps rooted in her own lived experience? Whatever the case, I was struck by what is to me at least an undeniably original vision.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is Recommended If You: saw I Saw the TV Glow and wanted something with vaguely similar vibes from another continent

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Funerals

‘The Monkey’ Leaves a Record Trail of Death and Destruction in Its Wake

February 20, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Monkey see, monkey do your worst (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy, Oz Perkins, Adam Scott, Elijah Wood

Director: Osgood Perkins

Running Time: 98 Minutes

Rating: R for A Countless Mass of Displaced Limbs and Loose Guts

Release Date: February 21, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburn (both played by Theo James as adults, and by Christian Convery as teenagers) have been haunted by a simple plaything their entire lives. Whenever this toy monkey drummer flashes its chompers and starts banging away, blood and guts are sure to follow. Once you wind it up and let it do its thing, someone nearby will undergo the most disturbingly gruesome death imaginable. Hal and Bill attempt to wield this power against their enemies, but the monkey does not take requests. They also attempt to get rid of it, but it’s clearly indestructible and inescapable. If you survive your encounter with this demonic entity, you might consider yourself lucky, except that the guilt and paranoia it causes will almost certainly lead to alienation.

What Made an Impression?: Remember to Believe in The Monkey, or It’ll Kill You: I’ve gotta be honest with y’all. While watching The Monkey, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Isn’t this just a redo of that Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie, Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders?” And in fact, it is! But it’s a little convoluted. Merlin’s Shop is a 1996 fantasy horror flick featuring a subplot revolving around a toy monkey that causes death whenever it bangs its cymbals together. That subplot actually consists of recycled footage from another movie, released in 198,4 called The Devil’s Gift, which appears to be an unofficial ripoff of a Stephen King short story published in 1980 called … “The Monkey”! And that short story is, as you may have guessed, the source material for the new Osgood Perkins-directed film of the same name. This genuine adaptation is certainly more professionally constructed than The Devil’s Gift, but I have a bit of a soft spot for that earlier effort. This rendition is just so unrelentingly brutal, which to be fair is kind of the point.
I Can’t Laugh, Because I’m Dying Too Hard: The Monkey is presenting itself as a horror comedy, but my most frequent reaction to the bloody mayhem was “Egads!” rather than “Hahaha-egads!” There are certainly a few dark streaks in my funny bone, but Perkin’s primary m.o. appears to be expanding the depths of Grand Guignol entertainment rather than being particularly clever about it. Sure, occasionally there’s a well-timed amputation that you can’t help but chuckle at just to verify that you’re still alive. But the overall effect is more grotesque and existential than howlingly ridiculous. Similarly, there’s one scene when teenage Hal is covered in banana goo, and that might sound like the silliest big screen image of the year, but instead it’s a symbol of children’s profound capability for cruelty that’s so typical of Stephen King stories.
Life is Death: The haunting lesson that The Monkey eventually grapples with is the acceptance that everyone around us is going to die soon enough anyway. Sure, most demises aren’t quite as dramatic as those of Hal and Bill’s acquaintances, but this simian forces us to wonder: does that even matter? If you’ve lived through trauma, and are pretty sure that even more trauma is on the way, do you fully retreat, or instead find whatever happiness you can after being dealt a historically terrible hand? I wish this conundrum had been addressed more directly (though it does flow throughout as a subtextual undercurrent), but ultimately this movie is more about being paralyzed by terror instead of seeking answers from it.

The Monkey is Recommended If You Like: Final Destination, Sibling rivalries, Uncannily realistic doll teeth

Grade: 3 out of 5 Drumsticks

2024 Movie Awards Season Catch-Up Quick Hits

February 19, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

CREDIT (Clockwise from Top Left): A24; Janus Films/Screenshot; Sony Pictures Classics/Screenshot; A24)

I did some awards season catch-up at the cinema in the past few weeks, and I’m going to digest all of that right now. Each of the movies in this roundup is nominated for multiple Oscars; a couple of them are even up for Best Picture. So here are some quick-hit reactions in which I answer the question: Am I glad I watched this movie during awards season?

More

On ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin’

February 18, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , 1 Comment

CREDIT: Sony Pictures Classics/Screenshot

Starring: John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Archival Footage of John Bonham

Director: Bernard MacMahon

Running Time: 121 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: February 7, 2024 (Theaters)

True to its title, the documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin did a pretty fine job revealing how Misters Page, Jones, Plant, and Bonham in fact became a four-piece band named Led Zeppelin. So much so that I would like to one day be able to say about myself that I also became Led Zeppelin. But you know, metaphorically. That is to say, I hope that my personal transformation will prove to be sufficiently cinematic. Maybe it already has been! I don’t need there to be an actual movie made about my life story, but if there is, I hope it’s as cool and as edifying as Becoming Led Zeppelin.

In conclusion, Zeppelin is still one of my favorite bands. I could tell by how much I was tapping my toes in rhythm.

Grade: Still a Whole Lotta Love After All These Years

What Treasure Will Be Found with ‘Paddington in Peru’?

February 13, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Guess who! And where! (CREDIT: StudioCanal/Columbia Pictures)

Starring: Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Hughe Bonneville, Madeleine Harris, Samuel Joslin, Julie Walters, Olivia Colman, Antonio Banderas, Jim Broadbent, Carla Tous, Imelda Staunton, Hayley Atwell

Director: Dougal Wilson

Running Time: 106 Minutes

Rating: PG for Lethal Dangers Faced with Politeness and the Occasional Hard Stare

Release Date: February 14, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Paddington (voiced once again by Ben Whishaw) finally has a British passport! And just in time, as there’s something terribly off with his Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton). So our adorable marmalade-loving hero treks off to the Home for Retired Bears in his native Peru along with Mrs. Bird (Julie Waters) and his adopted Brown family (Hugh Bonneville, Emily Mortimer [subbing in for Sally Hawkins], Madeleine Harris, and Samuel Joslin). But when they arrive, it turns out that Aunt Lucy has vanished without a trace, apparently to seek some treasure deep in the jungle, possibly even the golden lost city of El Dorado. That catches the attention of riverboat captain Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas) and his daughter Gina (Carla Tous) – he’s compelled to lead them the way, while she worries about how talk of treasure affects his mental health. Meanwhile, the Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman) at the retired bear home offers several clues to guide the Browns along the way, while also acting a little suspiciously.

What Made an Impression?: Always Room for Growth: If you can’t get enough of cave- and jungle-filled adventures like Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Goonies, then you’ve probably been hoping for Paddington to finally head in this direction since the very beginning of this franchise. There’s plenty of death-defying action to satiate that desire, but I found myself most pleased by the consistent pleasures we’ve come to expect from the Browns. The pattern is well-established: Paddington’s narration zeroes right in on the opportunities for growth that each of his family members faces at the beginning of this latest adventure. If you’ve seen the previous films, then there aren’t really any surprises this time about each of the Browns’ journeys. But one of this series’ great insights is that the development into richer, fuller versions of ourselves never ends, and it’s lovely to see these folks recognize exactly how they’re supposed to answer that calling. And to get specific about one particular detail, Brown patriarch Henry triple laminates his latest risk manual, and that makes all the difference.
Dress-Up Time: The Cult of Marmalade is real and wide-ranging. When Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal bonded over their love of Paddington 2 in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, it was a strikingly accurate microcosm that captured how the wider cinephile world feels about this very special bear. With talent like Banderas and Colman populating the latest supporting cast, it’s abundantly clear just how inviting it is to play in this sandbox. Hugh Grant’s turn in #2 as actor-turned-thief Phoenix Buchanan was a career-capping performance, and I bet that approximately 99% of his peers hope to one day don a similarly silly series of costumes and make a just-as-indelible impression on the Paddington-going public. Hunter Cabot and the Reverend Mother don’t quite manage to be as iconic as Phoenix, but their gameness still goes a long way in maintaining such a pleasant little corner of the multiplex.

Paddington in Peru is Recommended If You Like: Movies Where It Feels Like Someone Really Could Die Even Though You Know Nobody Will Since It’s Just Rated PG

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Llamas

‘Love Me’ Keeps Things Sociable

February 7, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , Leave a comment

CREDIT: Bleecker Street/Screenshot

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Steven Yeun

Directors: Sam and Andy Zuchero

Running Time: 92 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: January 31, 2025 (Theaters)

Love Me convinced me that maybe I should only follow Instagram accounts run by smart tech devices. There’s a scene early on where the weather buoy voiced by Kristen Stewart and the satellite voiced by Steven Yeun fill up their pages, and their posts offer the sort of hallucinatory wisdom that only machines-that-are-kinda-like humans can provide.

The second half of the movie isn’t quite as delightful, though I did come out of the theater loving myself, so I guess it did its job. Although I guess it’s worth noting I already had a positive relationship with myself before the movie began, so maybe on second thought, it doesn’t really earn that praise. Also, the buoy calls itself “Me,” so maybe the “Me” in the title doesn’t refer to a pronoun.

Grade: 50.77778194 Iams out of 78.50178 Mes

Maybe ‘Love Hurts’ Should Have Just Been Entirely About the Real Estate?

February 6, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Which one of these people makes love hurt more? (CREDIT: Allen Fraser/Universal Pictures)

Starring: Ke Huy Quan, Ariana DeBose, Daniel Wu, Marshawn Lynch, Mustafa Shakir, Lio Tipton, Rhys Darby, André Eriksen, Sean Astin, Cam Gigandet

Director: Jonathan Eusebio

Running Time: 83 Minutes

Rating: R for Blood Shooting Out From Every Nook and Cranny of the Human Body

Release Date: February 7, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) is a pillar of his community, a successful realtor entrusted with making people’s dreams come true. But he also has a very dark past, don’t you know. And it’s starting to catch up with him just in time for Valentine’s Day! Years ago, he ducked out of the criminal operation run by his brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu), who isn’t exactly willing to let go of what was. So some goons start showing up at Marv’s office and his houses, as does his old partner Rose (Ariana DeBose), who also believes that Marv still owes her plenty after the way he left things between the two of them.

What Made an Impression?: Who Did What Where When to Whom?: Action flicks about hidden backstories tend to be as convoluted as a labyrinth, and Love Hurts is no exception. There’s usually no point in trying to decipher them, but these flicks can still be enjoyed to perfection if the charm is there. And with Ke Huy Quan in the lead role, you might think that charm would in fact be there. After he re-emerged a few years ago in Everything Everywhere All at Once, I realized that he might just be one of my favorite entertainers of all time. And he’s still likable here, just not enough to get me to care about whatever the hell happens in this movie. The same is true to varying degrees about the supporting cast, especially Lio Tipton as Marv’s secretary Ashley. I haven’t seen Tipton very much since their early-2010s breakout in the likes of Crazy, Stupid, Love. and Warm Bodies, and that’s a darn shame, because Ashley’s romantic subplot with one of the goons is a satisfying enough side quest.
Bloody Disgusting: Maybe Love Hurts never really wanted to be charming. At least that’s what I started to suspect when the decent fellow played by Sean Astin gets fatally stabbed in the eye. This is an astoundingly gory movie, not in an over-the-top way that could generate guffaws, though I wouldn’t exactly call it realistic either. Although maybe sometimes blood does gush and squirt all over the place and I’ve just never been in the situations where I would have experienced that. It’s impressively rendered, but not exactly pleasant in any conceivable way.
I Ain’t Mad, Bro: I didn’t expect to be writing this sentence in 2025 (or any year, for that matter), but: thank god for Drew Scott! Yes indeed, one of the Property Brothers has a small part in Love Hurts as Marv’s real estate rival (although his twin is nowhere to be seen). And even weirder: I actually enjoyed his presence! I’ve never particularly cared for real estate reality shows, often instead finding them surreally soulless. But maybe that explains how Scott is so delightfully out of place in this blood-splattered world. Anyway, the rest of the movie sure could have used more of that “How the hell is this working?” energy.

If You’re Anything Like Me, Love Hurts is Recommended If You Like: Argylle, because it’s another recent action comedy featuring Ariana DeBose that had me feeling exactly the same way

Grade: 2 out of 5 Closing Sales

With ‘Parthenope,’ Paolo Sorrentino Tells the Story of a Woman Named Parthenope

February 6, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Parthenope being Parthenope (CREDIT: Gianni Fiorito/A24)

Starring: Celeste Della Porta, Stefania Sandrelli, Silvio Orlando, Gary Oldman, Luisa Ranieri, Peppe Lanzetta, Isabella Ferrari, Lorenzo Gleijeses, Daniele Rienzo, Dario Aita, Marlon Joubert, Alfonso Santagata, Biagio Izzo, Paola Calliari, Nello Mascia, Silvia Degrandi, Cristiano Scotto di Galletta

Director: Paolo Sorrentino

Running Time: 136 Minutes

Rating: R for Some Awkward But Intense Sex and a Little Bit of Saucy Language

Release Date: February 7, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: A baby girl is born in the waters outside a huge villa in 1950s Naples,. An old friend of the family declares that she shall be named Parthenope. You almost get the sense that a new religion is about to form with all the fanfare her arrival attracts. It doesn’t quite work out that way, though her life story does prove to be a bit of a spiritual odyssey. In her young adulthood, everyone is knocked out by her sun-dappled beauty, as she hangs out a bit with a famous drunken American novelist and kind of stumbles into an academic career track in anthropology. That leads her to a beguiling bishop as she investigates the nature of miracles, among other grand adventures in 20th century Italy. As the decades roll along, will the people ever be able to stop talking about Parthenope?

What Made an Impression?: A Life Lived Lavishly: If you’re in the world of Paolo Sorrentino, you can at least expect everything to be beautiful. I was spellbound by his Silvio Berlusconi-inspired film Loro, as well as his transgressive TV work on The Young Pope and The New Pope. He reunites with his Hand of God cinematographer Daria D’Antonio for Parthenope, which is just as much of a visual feast as the rest of the Sorrentino-verse. And I kind of think that this latest release should have been a silent film. The dialogue isn’t terrible or anything like that. On the contrary, it’s occasionally quite witty. But the primary appeal is all those looks that Celeste Della Porta serves (in every sense of that phrase) as the title character. What I’m trying to say is: I wish this movie had been a little more abstract, and a little less literal.
What is Anthropology?: If this movie inspires scores of viewers to become anthropologists themselves, I’ll be a little more than surprised, honestly. Now, I’m no anthropologist, so maybe an expert in the field will have a different take. I did, however, take an introductory anthropology course my freshman year of college, and it didn’t seem anything like what’s on display in Parthenope. Perhaps the field changed significantly in the decades in between, or maybe Europeans (or just Italians) have their own unique methods. Anyway, this is just a preamble to my conclusion that I’m pretty sure that this is supposed to be Paolo Sorrentino’s Anthropology Film. Whatever that means. Because after watching Parthenope, I don’t know what that means.

Parthenope is Recommended If You Like: Italian Anthropology?

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Anthropology Grades

Older Entries Newer Entries