Houston*, We Have a ‘Problemista’ (*Pronounced “HOW-stuhn”)

April 9, 2024

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A Problemistamatic Man (CREDIT: A24)

Starring: Julio Torres, Tilda Swinton, RZA, Isabella Rossellini, Catalina Saavedra, James Scully, Laith Nakli, Spike Einbinder, Greta Lee, Larry Owens, Kelly McCormack, Greta Titelman, Megan Stalter

Director: Julio Torres

Running Time: 98 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: March 1, 2024 (Theaters)

There’s a problem out there, and it’s not Problemista.

So I just wanted to pop in and say that the American visa and immigration system is kind of crazytown bananapants. (Who among us hasn’t had the odd green card in his or her pants, right?) But at least it inspired Julio Torres to make a pretty good film. It’s about seeing a plan through and finding a kindred spirit through all the cacophony and rancor. Now, let’s go be assertive!

Grade: The Promise of Cryogenics is Alive in Brooklyn

‘First Omen,’ Last Om-out

April 6, 2024

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Is The First Omen a Good Omen? (CREDIT: 20th Century Studios/Screenshot)

Starring: Nell Tiger Free, Ralph Ineson, Sônia Braga, Bill Nighy, Tawfeek Barham, Maria Caballero, Nicole Sorace, Ishtar Currie Wilson, Andrea Arcangeli, Charles Dance

Director: Arkasha Stevenson

Running Time: 119 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: April 5, 2024 (Theaters)

The First Omen, the Antichrist did say
Was to certain poor sisters
In cobblestone streets and discos as they lay

Omen, Omen, Omen, Omen
Reborn is the cinema of anti-religion

I have to thank my Uncle Martin for inspiring this review. He’s been penning his own personal parody songs for years (such as “The Girl with Emphysema” instead of “The Girl from Ipanema,” and “Constipation” in the style of “Oklahoma”). Hopefully he’ll go see The First Omen so that we can collaborate to flesh out the rest of the lyrics for the theme song I’ve just concocted. And everybody else should go see The First Omen as well! Great horror!

Grade: 100 Antichrists out of 3 Birth Canals

The ‘Kim’s Video’ Documentary Would Like to Rent Out a Space in Your Heart

April 5, 2024

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Be Kind… (CREDIT: Drafthouse Films/Screenshot)

Starring: Yongman Kim

Directors: Ashley Sabin and David Redmon

Running Time: 85 Minutes

Rating: Unrated

Release Date: April 5, 2024 (Theaters)

If you’re a film buff who spent any time in New York City between 1987 and 2008, then you’re probably familiar with Kim’s Video and Music, the East Village rental store that was famous for its wide selection of obscure (and often bootleg) cinematic offerings. In the documentary Kim’s Video, co-director David Redmon sets out to discover what happened to the joint’s extensive VHS collection. His journey leads him to a town in Sicily and a collaboration with Yongman Kim, aka the “Kim” in “Kim’s Video.” If you’ve visited the Lower Manhattan location of the Alamo Drafthouse movie theater, then chances are you know where this story is ultimately headed

So now, instead of a traditional review, I would like to take this space to reminisce about my own story of growing up at the video store and invite my readers to do so as well in the comments section. I took up residence in NYC too late to become a member of Kim’s, but there were a few rental options for me to check out in suburban southeastern Pennsylvania in the 90s and early 2000s. The nearest and dearest was the local branch of West Coast Video. There was also a Blockbuster in the area, but West Coast was a little bit closer and a little bit cooler. It really only offered new and major releases, so it wasn’t the place where I expanded the depths of my cinematic taste into the bizarre and the unknown, but it certainly served its purpose. It was where I rented Monkeybone, after all. I also have a vague memory of Addams Family Reunion being prominently displayed in the new release shelves for an inordinately long amount of time.

Moving onto my high school and college years, when I would spend a fair amount of time at a friend’s house that was around the block from a Hollywood Video. That chain had what I believe was a loyalty program named “MVP,” which left me flummoxed about why this store was so enamored with a hockey-playing chimp.

Much of Kim’s Video the documentary consists of various movie clips, as Redmon fancies himself the protagonist of all the stories he encountered via his Kim’s Video membership over the years. As someone who tends to live much of my life through a parasocial lens, I could see where he’s coming from, and I reckon I’m not the only one.

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Rentals

‘Monkey Man’ Review: It’s Dev Patel Vs. India Basically

April 4, 2024

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To monkey, or not to monkey? (CREDIT: Universal Studios)

Starring: Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, Vipin Sharma, Sikander Kher, Sobhita Dhulipala, Ashwini Kalsekar, Adithi Kalkunte, Makharand Deshpande

Director: Dev Patel

Running Time: 121 Minutes

Rating: R for Brutal Boxing, Gunfire, and Knife Fights and Love and Drugs in the Club

Release Date: April 5, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Revenge. It’s not a healthy motivation in life, but it is a surefire cinematic formula. Has Dev Patel struck gold with this evergreen plot in his directorial debut Monkey Man? He’s certainly got the lean and mean torso and a similarly stripped-down screenplay to make his vengeance hum. He stars as Kid, who’s basically an avatar for the entire underclass of India. After his mother is killed when he’s a child, he dedicates the rest of his life to exacting justice against the businessmen and politicians who are responsible. And when he’s not on this warpath, he stays in fighting shape by competing in underground boxing matches while wearing a monkey mask.

What Made an Impression? The Gods Must Be Angry: Monkey Man opens with Kid’s mother telling him the story of Hanuman, a Hindu deity who mistakes the sun for a giant mango and is then punished by the gods when he attempts to snatch it out of the sky. (Interestingly enough, Hanuman kind of looks like Curious George in the picture book that Kid’s mom reads from.) I’m not terribly familiar with Hindu theology, but I tend to enjoy it when a modern tale is undergirded by the rich storytelling tradition of religion and mythology. The powerful of India have been justifying their control of the country in the name of Hinduism for far too long, and it’s time for the Hanumans of the world like Kid to stand up and say enough is enough.
God, It’s Brutal Out There: Dev Patel absolutely takes a beating in Monkey Man, and he makes sure that we feel his pain as well. If I had to define his auteur style after one attempt, it would be “slick and visceral.” Of course, we’ll see if his career becomes more varied if he continues to work behind the camera. But for now, he certainly comes out firing in the first act. When a messy assassination attempt in a fancy bathroom leads to a bloody street chase in the first 20 minutes or so, I thought, “There’s no way they can keep up this pace for the entire two hours.” And well, they don’t, as Patel struggles to keep things compelling in the movie’s quieter moments. That’s hardly surprising, as a story this elemental and pared-down probably would have hit harder in a tight 90 minutes. Still, Patel’s hungriest instincts and loyalty to the little guy make for a mostly rousing accomplishment.

Monkey Man is Recommended If You Like: Kill Bill, John Wick, Kung Fu, The Ramayana

Grade: 3 out of 5 Mangoes

‘Housekeeping for Beginners’ Review: It’s a Queer Old Family Time in Macedonia

April 2, 2024

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A couple of beginners (CREDIT: Viktor Irvin Ivanov/© 2023 Focus Features LLC)

Starring: Anamaria Marinca, Alina Șerban, Samson Selim, Vladimir Tintor, Mia Mustafa, Džada Selim, Sara Klimoska, Rozafë Çelaj, Ajse Useini

Director: Goran Stolevski

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Rating: R for Slurs and Awkward/Raucous Sexuality

Release Date: April 5, 2024

What’s It About?: Queer people often end up in misfit, makeshift families, and it doesn’t get much more makeshift than the one in Housekeeping for Beginners. In this Skopje-set feature from Macedonian-Australian director Goran Stolevski, Suada (Alina Șerban) shares a motley house with her girlfriend Dita (Anamaria Marinca); her two daughters from previous relationships, teenage Vanesa (Mia Mustafa) and kindergartener Mia (Džada Selim); and Dita’s gay friend Toni (Vladimir Tintor). Then there’s Toni’s much younger boyfriend Ali (Samson Selim), who gets to stay in the house after his and Toni’s first hookup. There are also a couple of other young women hanging around, but I’ve got to be honest, I’m not entirely sure who they were. Stolevski just drops us right in the thick of the chaos and leaves us to figure it out on our own! Anyway, the crux of the plot is Suada dying from cancer and leaving Vanesa and Mia in Dita’s care. But Macedonia doesn’t exactly have the most progressive LGBTQ rights, so Dita decides that she and Toni should get married for this to actually work. Alas, this isn’t exactly the steadiest arrangement for everyone involved.

What Made an Impression?: Taking Care of Our Own: Call it a parenting instinct, call it an internal feeling of responsibility, or just call it a fundamental sense of decency. But as soon as Suada passes away, Dita goes into Protective Mom mode, and there is nothing standing in her way. And that’s not because she was looking forward to this! She would have much rather that Suada had fought just a little bit harder to stay alive. And Toni’s even more resistant to playing the part of Dad, but he can’t escape that duty when one of the girls gets into trouble. Meanwhile, Ali immediately bonds with Vanessa and Mia, and while I have no idea how they would or should explain what their relationship to him is, he is also now inexplicably connected to the whole brood. When you live in this house, you’re bound at the core to everyone else, even when (perhaps especially when) they’re being huge pains in the ass.
How to Talk to Your Family: Housekeeping for Beginners isn’t just a quietly urgent plea for queer rights, it’s also standing up for the Romani people, the traditionally nomadic ethnic group that have significant modern populations in much of Europe. Several of the characters are Roma, and everyday discrimination is just a fact of life for them. But there’s plenty of energy – sometimes aggressive, sometimes steely and patient – making it clear that it shouldn’t be that way. There’s also plenty of use of a certain word that is generally considered an ethnic slur for the Roma, as well as plenty of use of an f-word slur for gay people. I don’t feel like it’s appropriate for me to use either of those words, but they are uttered in this movie by people who are close to the characters who fit those categories, as well as those characters themselves. Perhaps an in-group member can get away with that kind of language, although it’s not exactly used in the friendliest way. Although I suppose families don’t always like each other even when they defiantly love each other. And I suspect plenty of viewers will recognize their own families in the one in Housekeeping for Beginners.

Housekeeping for Beginners is Recommended If You Like: Marriage Story, Making one of your friends, Macedonian rock music

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Marriages

‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ Has Some Monsters, Some Monster Battles, and Even Some Humans. Does It Amount to Much of Anything?

March 28, 2024

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Godzilla, King Kong [Not Pictured: The New Empire] (CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)

Starring: Rebecca Hall, Kaylee Hottle, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, Alex Ferns, Fala Chen, Rachel House

Director: Adam Wingard

Running Time: 115 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Monster Fights and Giant Ape Dentistry

Release Date: March 29, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: A massive ape, a giant lizard, and various other monsters aren’t just myths anymore. They’re full-blown citizens of Earth. So what do human beings think about that? For the most part, they don’t seem to really care. Sure, there are a few stuffy government types who are concerned about the possibility of apocalyptic destruction, but generally in the world of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, people are just going about their days. And so are Godzilla and King Kong, in fact, as the most they’re worried about is an infected tooth. But there are other monsters out there who aren’t so satisfied with this relative peace.

What Made an Impression?: The Humans Are (Metaphorically) Dead: The MonsterVerse kicked off with 2014’s Godzilla, which I (and a lot of other viewers) dinged for featuring too little of its titular kaiju and mostly boring human characters. Then years later, this franchise actually does care enough about its homo sapiens to give them motivations and interior lives and even have a few of them return from 2019’s Godzilla Vs. Kong. But the necessity of their presence in The New Empire is rather tenuous. Their storylines are ostensibly connected to each other, but they register as if they’re taking place on completely different planes of reality.
Destroy All Cities: Subpar human storylines need not be a death knell for Godzilla x Kong, as the monster battle royale is the main attraction after all. And on that front, the climactic scrapes reminded me of the most laborious sections of the Transformers movies. Which is to say: they’re an exhausting medley of cacophony. Instead of being thrilled by this orgy, I was mostly left wondering who was going to clean up all the urban destruction. Godzilla, Kong, and their cohorts naturally don’t really care much about that, but it feels like there should be at least a joking acknowledgement of that disinterest, instead of just plodding along to knock over whatever buildings lie in their way. In general, the moments of visual wit are few and far between. There are a few clever needle drops and some psychedelic editing experiments here and there, but that’s all just window dressing on a spectacle that’s pretty impenetrable unless you’re an expert in MonsterVerse lore.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is Recommended If You: always wanted to see Brazilian beachgoers have their days ruined by giant monsters

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Portals

Book Me a Permanent Seat at the ‘Late Night with the Devil’!

March 26, 2024

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Welcome back! (CREDIT: IFC Films and Shudder)

Starring: David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ingrid Torelli, Rhys Auteri, Ian Bliss, Fayssal Bazzi, Josh Quong Tart, Georgina Haig, Michael Ironside

Directors: Colin and Cameron Cairnes

Running Time: 93 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: March 22, 2024 (Theaters)

Here’s the deal: in the weeks leading up to Late Night with the Devil‘s release, I kept saying the title to the tune of Mötley Crüe’s “Shout at the Devil” in my head. But as that release date crept closer, I switched that rhythm to Van Halen’s “Runnin’ with the Devil.” And it’s remained that way since I’ve seen it. That’s a good sign!

So does that mean I would like to spend my own late night with Mr. Devil? Well, not literally. I try to go to bed by 10:00 PM these days! But if we could make it An Early Evening with the Devil, or even DVR the conversation and save it for The Morning After with the Devil, then let’s pull up a seat and say what we’ve got to say!

Grade: 83 out of 101 Christous

‘Love Lies Bleeding,’ and Don’t I Know It

March 25, 2024

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Bloody good. (CREDIT: Anna Kooris/A24)

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Ed Harris, Anna Baryshnikov, Jena Malone, Dave Franco

Director: Rose Glass

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: March 8, 2024 (Theaters)

I was already on board for Love Lies Bleeding when it was introduced to me as the erotic Kristen Stewart bodybuilder crime thriller. (The supporting cast members were just the icing on top!) But it could also be summed up as:

On her way to Las Vegas, a woman sleeps with a married man, who then helps her get a job with his father-in-law. Then she coincidentally meets and falls for the married man’s sister-in-law.

If I had heard that synopsis, I wouldn’t need to know anymore. What a compelling knot! Anyway, the actual movie did indeed live up to that setup.

Grade: A Bunch of Muscles Out of a Big Crater

‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ is Maybe a Little Too Chill

March 21, 2024

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Ghostbust a Move (CREDIT: Sony Pictures)

Starring: Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Dan Aykroyd, Kumail Nanjiani, Emily Alyn Lind, Celeste O’Connor, Patton Oswalt, Logan Kim, Ernie Hudson, William Atherton, James Acaster, Annie Potts, Bill Murray

Director: Gil Kenan

Running Time: 115 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Paranormal Freakiness

Release Date: March 22, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Ghostbusting generations old and new are back in business again. And not a moment too soon, because New York City is about to be targeted with some apocalyptic shenanigans. When an opportunistic slacker (Kumail Nanjiani) sells a suspicious orb to Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), the captive spirits in the Busters’ firehouse start acting rather fishy. Well, fishier than usual. It turns out that a millennia-old supernatural being named Garraka might just be trying to make a comeback. And if he has to freeze the Big Apple in the middle of summer to pull it off, well, then that’s just what he’s going to do. Meanwhile, Phoebe Spengler (McKenna Grace) is feeling adrift, because she’s still a minor and can’t fully participate in the family business. So she starts hanging out with a seemingly friendly ghost named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), although Melody may just have her own machinations in mind.

What Made an Impression?: What’s Cooler Than Being Cool?: Frozen Empire is in no rush to deliver on its core premise. The icy villain doesn’t show up in full until the final act, so his ultimate defeat isn’t exactly filled with tension. I couldn’t help but wonder if it would have made more sense to invert this approach. That is to say, let New York freezing over be the inciting incident, and then figure out from there how to thaw it out. Instead, director Gil Kenan and co-screenwriter Jason Reitman (who inherited the franchise from his father while directing 2021’s Afterlife) mostly aim for a hangout vibe, with a bunch of random ghosts creating mild chaos while the human characters chit-chat about their favorite paranormal topics.
The Gang’s All Here: One of the major promises of Afterlife was the return of the original Ghostbusters, but that basically just amounted to a glorified cameo. This time around, Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts are all actually fully fledged members of the cast, which somewhat downplays the need to just play the greatest hits. So while Frozen Empire isn’t overly burdened by fanservice (give or take a scene of Paul Rudd earnestly admitting that busting makes him feel good), it’s never fully clear what the context of this world is, vis-a-vis the wider public’s recognition or lack thereof that ghosts exist. They sure seem rather ubiquitous, but there are still authority figures (like William Atherton reprising his role from the original) trying to shut down any busting operation, when it feels like the citizenry ought to be demanding that the Ghostbusters be added to the list of government-provided emergency services.
Who Believes in Ghosts?: If there are more Ghostbusters adventures to come, and I think there just might be, why not take an approach similar to that of the Fast and the Furious series and invite back into the fold everyone who’s ever been in a Ghostbusters movie? Frozen Empire kind of utilizes this approach, but the next chapter could take it even further by re-enlisting the likes of the Lady Ghostbusters. Then just focus on crafting a sufficient new big bad and ignore the fight to win over the hearts and minds of the public. That battle’s surely already been won! Frozen Empire hints towards this maximalist approach, but it’s a little too attached to its underdog roots to really run with it.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is Recommended If You Like: Talking to ghosts, but pretending that you’re too cool to talk to ghosts

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Proton Packs

‘Arthur the King’ is Testing My Mettle!

March 20, 2024

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Arthur? Arthur! (CREDIT: Carlos Rodriguez/Lionsgate)

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Simu Liu, Juliet Rylance, Nathalie Emmanuel, Ali Suliman, Ukai the Dog

Director: Simon Cellan Jones

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: March 15, 2024 (Theaters)

Did Arthur the Dog make me want to be a king, or at least feel like a king? If Arthur the King is to be believed, then a regal disposition is achieved by tenacity, endurance, and patience. So maybe I’m already a king! Anyone, I don’t want to talk about this movie too much anymore, at least not right now. That dog went through so much, and it’s making me so emotional!

Grade: 30 Meatball out of 50 Scruffs

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