‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’: Accurate

March 31, 2022

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Everything Everywhere All at Once (CREDIT: Allyson Riggs/A24)

Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr.

Directors: Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

Running Time: 139 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: March 25, 2022 (Theaters)

Everything Everywhere All at Once captures how I feel all the time. I’m not always an outwardly emotional person, but inside I’m perpetually cooking in much the same way that the multiverse is constantly bumping up against itself in the Daniels’ vision. (Damn, Daniels.) Basically, so many of my daily thoughts are something along the lines of, “What do I have to do to make my life a recreation/mashup of The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Rick and Morty, In the Mood for Love, 2001, Kill Bill, Ratatouille, and that SNL sketch about googly eyes with Christopher Walken?” And now some folks actually went ahead and did it!

Grade: Everything out of Everything!

‘Apollo 10½’ Sends a Kid to the Moon But Also Keeps Him Earthbound

March 30, 2022

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Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (CREDIT: Netflix)

Starring: Milo Coy, Jack Black, Josh Wiggins, Lee Eddy, Bill Wise, Natalie L’Amoreaux, Jessica Brynn Cohen, Sam Chipman, Danielle Guilbot, Glen Powell, Zachary Levi

Director: Richard Linklater

Running Time: 98 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Some Mildly Adult Moments

Release Date: April 1, 2022 (Netflix)

Isn’t it cool when kids do something that only adults are supposed to do? Well, maybe not all the time, at least not in the real world. Sure, a toddler dressing up like a doctor is so gosh darn cute, but that same toddler performing surgery is probably not the best idea. But we’re talking about fictional worlds right now! And that means that children can hold down dangerous jobs, and perform them quite admirably to boot. That brings me to the Richard Linklater-directed Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood, a rotoscope-animated adventure in which a boy named Stanley (Milo Coy) is recruited by NASA to participate in the Apollo 11 mission. Now that’s some historical revisionism I can get behind.

In this alterna-vision of the 1960s, finding fresh astronauts is akin to the modern practice of college scouts traversing through middle schools to find the next big football or basketball phenom. A couple of NASA officials (Glen Powell, Zachary Levi) are hanging around a recess kickball game because one of the lunar modules is too small for adults and they’re hoping to find someone here who can fit in it. So they key right in on Stanley, and I’m all ready to go for some astronaut training montages. But not so quick, as that’s not exactly what Linklater has in mind. Instead, this is mostly a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale about growing up in a big family in 1960s Texas, with the Space Race serving mostly as a background event. An important background event that sets the tone, but not the main event no matter how you slice it.

If Apollo 10½ had focused more on the child astronaut conceit, it would’ve been a lot more unique than what we actually ended up with. Instead, it’s a familiar piece of coming-of-age nostalgia from an oft-explored era. A well-made piece of familiar nostalgia, with compelling narration from Linklater vet Jack Black as adult Stanley, but decidedly familiar nonetheless. So just keep your expectations in check about the potential for freshness, and you should be able to find something to enjoy here.

Apollo 10½ is Recommended If You Like: 1960s fashion, 1960s TV shows, 1960 music

Grade: 3 out of 5 Lunar Modules

‘You Won’t Be Alone’ is a Witchy, Bloody Fairy Tale

March 29, 2022

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You Won’t Be Alone (CREDIT: Branko Starcevic/Focus Features)

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Félix Maritaud, Sara Klimoska

Director: Goran Stolevski

Running Time: 108 Minutes

Rating: R for Violence, Blood, and Sexaul Content – All Involving Witches

Release Date: April 1, 2022 (Theaters)

You Won’t Be Alone is the type of movie that will make you feel like your mind has been altered if you look away for just a minute. And honestly, that’s a big part of the gnarly appeal. Time jumps ahead without any hand holding, while major characters shapeshift all over the place. Not to mention it’s in a language I’m unfamiliar with, though I’d be surprised if any native Macedonian speakers find it straightforward. So go ahead and watch You Won’t Be Alone while you’re fighting insomnia or in the middle of a bleary-eyed food coma. Or if you’re a recreational drug user, consider this an ideal opportunity to indulge. But even if you’re fully awake and 100% sober, the odds are still high that your brain will be squeezed into another dimension.

For a description a little more straightforward, here’s the logline from the film’s PR team:

“Set in an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, YOU WON’T BE ALONE follows a young girl who is kidnapped and then transformed into a witch by an ancient spirit. Curious about life as a human, the young witch accidentally kills a peasant in the nearby village and then takes her victim’s shape to live life in her skin. Her curiosity ignited, she continues to wield this horrific power in order to understand what it means to be human.”

My response to reading that after watching the movie is, “Oh. I guess that’s what happened.” If I were pitching it, I would personally probably keep it a little simpler and say something like: the hallucinogenic cultural subconscious of fairy tales spills out phantasmagorically across the European woodlands. The bottom line is, Macedonian-Australian writer-director Goran Stolevski is throwing together a wide array of influences here that are bound to satisfy widescreen-loving cineastes, as well as English majors who tend toward the sylvan supernatural.

If it sounds like I’m being vague about what actually happens in this movie, well, that’s because I’m a little wary of describing anything concretely for fear of totally misinterpreting everything. But don’t let that scare you away! Sometimes it’s okay to let a film confound you, and it’s also totally okay to ask someone else what happened. And if your buddies don’t know either, you can try to figure it out together! After all, you shouldn’t have to feel alone while watching You Won’t Be Alone.

You Won’t Be Alone is Recommended If You Like: Midsommar, The Witch, Grimm fairy tales, Terrence Malick

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Witches

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 3/25/22

March 25, 2022

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Moon Knight (CREDIT: Csaba Aknay/©Marvel Studios 2022)

Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.

Movies
–Everything Everywhere All at Once (Theaters)
–Mothering Sunday (Theaters)

TV
-94th Academy Awards (March 27 on ABC) – Da moviesh.
–Name That Tune Season Premiere (March 29 on FOX) – Celebrity contestants this time around.
–Moon Knight Series Premiere (March 30 on Disney+) – Oscar Isaac joins the MCU.
–How We Roll Series Premiere (March 31 on CBS) – Pete Holmes goes bowling.

And You May Ask Yourself: What Awaits Us in ‘The Lost City’?

March 22, 2022

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The Lost City (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures)

Starring: Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Patti Harrison, Oscar Nuñez, Brad Pitt, Raymond Lee, Bowen Yang

Directors: Aaron and Adam Nee

Running Time: 112 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for A Few Bursts of Violence and Strategically Shot Nudity

Release Date: March 25, 2022 (Limited)

Should The Lost City be discovered, or should it remain lost? That is the question. Or maybe it’s not really the question, but I’ll nevertheless go ahead and ask it because I’d like to have something to focus this review around. And by bringing up the topic of focus, I don’t mean to imply that this film lacks focus. Far from it, in fact! You heard it here first, folks: this is a movie with a straightforward plot that’s easy to follow. Sandra Bullock plays Loretta Sage, a novelist who gets kidnapped and taken to a legendary location from her latest book, while Channing Tatum plays the ditzy cover model who attempts to rescue her, and eventually they make their way out the other end. It’s globe-trotting, high-stakes fun that’s designed to be oohed, ahhed, and laughed at. And I imagine that pretty dang close to 100% of audiences will know exactly when to provide those gasps and chuckles.

So if I have one big criticism about The Lost City, it’s that it’s perhaps a little too straightforward. I hoped for some charming repartee between Bullock and Tatum, as well as a full course of comic relief supporting performances from the likes of Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Patti Harrison, and Bowen Yang. And that’s exactly what I got! But not much more. There’s one surprising development early on involving one of the biggest stars, but afterwards I was left with a sense of, “Yes, that was an adventure.” Here’s the deal: if you’re going to cast Daniel Radcliffe as an eccentric billionaire villain, things should probably get unabashedly weird. Instead, they only get kind of weird. Who knows, maybe I was just infected by the malaise that Loretta was giving off by resenting her career and audience.

But here’s what stuck with me in a welcome way, and why The Lost City might just be worth tracking down. A showcase scene involves Bullock peeling leeches off Tatum after a jungle river swim, which necessitates him dropping trou to make sure she checks every crack and crevice. They keep it PG-13, but this is a classic case of survival-minded lack of modesty that keeps things rolling along. And then there’s an unforgettable performance from Oscar Nuñez (aka Oscar from The Office) as a guy who has a plane and a goat. It makes sense in context, or at least part of it does. And the rest that remained nonsensical is where I derived most of my joy from. So I guess my answer is: I’d like to find this titular city while still feeling like I’m at a loss.

The Lost City is Recommended If You Like: Sandra Bullock unexpectedly witnessing her male co-stars in the buff

Grade: 3 out of 5 Cover Models

‘X’ and ‘Umma’: Short Titles, Ambitious Scares

March 17, 2022

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Umma (CREDIT: Saeed Adyani/Sony Pictures); X (CREDIT: Christopher Moss/A24)

Umma:

Starring: Sandra Oh, Fivel Stewart, Dermot Mulroney, Odeya Rush, MeeWha Alana Lee, Tom Yi

Director: Iris K. Shim

Running Time: 83 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Terrifying Memories and a Terrifying Present

Release Date: March 18, 2022 (Theaters)

X:

Starring: Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson, Brittany Snow, Scott Mescudi, Owen Campbell, Stephen Ure, James Gaylyn

Director: Ti West

Running Time: 105 Minutes

Rating: R for Plenty of Sex and Violence

Release Date: March 18, 2022 (Theaters)

This week, we’ve got a couple of new horror releases arriving with pithy, vague titles. They pair well as a potential double feature, so I decided to go ahead and review them together. They’re also both operating in familiar subgenres with their own unique flourishes that you may or may not see coming. Let’s dig in.

First off, we’ll take a look at Umma, which to English speakers might sound like baby-talk. In a way it kind of is, but anyone who knows Korean will surely clock what’s in store. Starring Sandra Oh as a single mother named Amanda who lives alone with her daughter (Fivel Stewart) in an electricity-free home, this is one of those supernatural tales in which a ghost attaches to a person’s soul and just won’t let go. The East Asian pedigree suggests a throwback to the early 2000s when The Ring and The Grudge inaugurated a wave of J- and K-horror. But while those influences are certainly noticeable, a story of what we owe and inherit from our mothers resonates across cultures.

More

‘The Outfit’ is the Latest Evidence That Mark Rylance is Always a Cut Above

March 15, 2022

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The Outfit (CREDIT: Nick Wall/Focus Features)

Starring: Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Dylan O’Brien, Johnny Flynn, Simon Russell Beale, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Alan Mehdizadeh

Director: Graham Moore

Running Time: 106 Minutes

Rating: R for Turf Warfare and Mid-Century Profanity

Release Date: March 18, 2022 (Theaters)

Before watching The Outfit, I had no idea what the difference between a tailor and a cutter was. Actually, scratch that: before watching The Outfit, I had no idea that “cutter” was even the name of a profession. But now that a character played by Mark Rylance has told me what’s what, I won’t soon forget it. Basically, the gist is that whereas a tailor typically focuses on one particular article of clothing, a cutter can make adjustments to the entire ensemble. So that’s my biggest takeaway from this movie, and for that I’m quite grateful!

Rylance takes on the role of Leonard, a post-World War II transplant from London’s Savile Row who’s running a steady business in Chicago when we meet him. He left his bombed-out hometown to escape violence, but now he finds himself smack dab in the epicenter of gangster warfare. That’s right, the title of this flick refers to “outfit” in both senses of the term!

With that setup, this is more or less a how-to guide for how to survive amidst violence when you don’t have any interest in being loyal to either side. Leonard and his trusty assistant Mable (Zoey Deutch) both have the requisite amount of craftiness and self-reliance to keep themselves out of harm’s way just enough. By the time the credits are about to roll, there’s a very high probability that you’ll find yourself shouting, “That son of a gun was in control the whole time!” And hey, if you want somebody acting as a smooth operator in the middle of chaos, Mark Rylance is your guy!

Director Graham Moore (who also co-wrote the script with Johnathan McClain) keeps the action confined entirely to Leonard’s shop. You might call that a stagey decision (and honestly I’m surprised that this wasn’t based on a play), but the claustrophobia it conveys sure feels right. Besides, cinematographer Dick Pope always knows exactly where to direct our attention. And that tight confinement also makes it feel like we’re getting to know everyone better than we would have otherwise, which is especially appreciated when the cast includes the likes of Johnny Flynn and Teen Wolf vet Dylan O’Brien as the gangsters, which leads me to ponder, “Damn, these guys are now old enough to play career criminals?” Overall, it’s a nifty little construction, with every cut exactly where it’s meant to be.

The Outfit is Recommended If You Like: Crisp diction, secret pockets, acting showcases

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Cutters

‘The Batman’ for The Birthday

March 10, 2022

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The Batman (CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell

Director: Matt Reeves

Running Time: 176 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: March 4, 2022 (Theaters)

The Batman was my Cinematic Birthday Viewing of 2022. So I got a little festive and chowed down a little more than usual. The star of the lineup was a matcha chocolate milkshake garnished with a sesame seed cookie and boozed up with some ginger liqueur (though I hardly noticed the booze), while I also dabbled in some popcorn, loaded fries, and even pizza. (Not to mention I had an Impossible burger for dinner beforehand.) So now you know what state of mind (and state of stomach) I was in.

Anyway, as plenty of moviegoers have already noticed, this is a version of the Dark Knight that really emphasized the detective aspect. That made for a lot of Pattinson-Batman and Geoffrey Wright-Commissioner Gordon looking all confused at all those dang riddles! And when they realized that they might have made a major mistake with their deciphering, you could really tell how much they felt like chumps. I appreciated that vulnerability!

I also appreciated that Colin Farrell was both unrecognizable and indelible, and that Peter Sarsgaard was very recognizable (even though I spent the whole time thinking he was Corey Stoll).

In conclusion, would I ever like to be The Batman myself? Hardly! But I’m pretty sure I’ve now fully realized the value of having new versions always waiting for me as the world turns.

Grade: Gimme All Your Cyphers

Movie Review: What ‘Fresh’ Hell is This?!

March 2, 2022

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Fresh (CREDIT: Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved)

Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan, Jonica T. Gibbs, Charlotte Le Bon, Dayo Okeniyi, Andrea Bang, Brett Dier

Director: Mimi Cave

Running Time: 114 Minutes

Rating: R for Plenty of Blood and a Decent Amount of Flesh

Release Date: March 4, 2022 (Hulu)

Where do monsters exist in today’s society? If you look to Fresh for the answer to that question, you’ll be met with some terrifying, exhilarating results. To wit: modern dating sucks, but also: what’s in our food? It’s a lot to keep track of for someone who wants to live both deliciously and ethically!

For Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones), she’s endured enough epically bad dates that you could easily imagine a Netflix exec hitting her up out of the blue and giving her carte blanche to produce whatever she wants out of all that raw material. Somehow, though, she’s actually in a headspace to accept a proposition in the grocery produce aisle. That’s where she meets a charming fellow by the name of Steve (Sebastian Stan), and next thing you know, they’re heading off for a weekend away together. This is the exact sort of meet-cute that tends to only happen in the movies, and everyone involved in making Fresh is trying to convince us that it should stay that way.

This is the point in my review in which I tell my readers that I am going to do my best to avoid specifics from here on out, as this is the sort of movie that works hard to keep its premise under wraps. The opening credits don’t even arrive until about a half hour in. (Perhaps starting a bit of a trendlet in that regard alongside Drive My Car.) I knew that the scares were coming, but if you go in completely cold, you might think that this is just a cynical comedy about the Tinder era. But everything is just edgy enough, and the colors are rendered in such vivid, bloody detail, that you can probably sense the horror lurking. But is it Noa or Steve pulling the strings as the puppetmaster behind it all?

Like so much great horror, Fresh zeroes in on an  examination of people who live beyond the morals of civilized society. It’s despicable, but also intoxicating to those who lap up these visions of monstrousness. I almost found myself rooting for Noa and Steve to end up together despite the massive degree of exploitation at the core of their connection, even as I was also rooting for the captive to escape in a cathartic turning of the tables. Rest assured, that comeuppance will come, and it will be glorious. In the meantime, we can revel in the bloody beauty from the safety of our viewing devices and maybe learn a thing or two about keeping that darkness cooped up where it belongs.

Fresh is Recommended If You Like: Raw, Promising Young Woman, American Psycho, Get Out, NBC’s Hannibal

Grade: 4 out of 5 Slices

If You Were Promised Robots and Got ‘After Yang,’ What Would You Think?

March 1, 2022

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After Yang (CREDIT: A24)

Starring: Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, Haley Lu Richardson, Sarita Choudhury, Clifton Collins Jr., Ava DeMary, Brett Dier

Director: Kogonada

Running Time: 96 Minutes

Rating: PG for A Mortality-Tinged Milieu

Release Date: March 4, 2022 (Theaters and Showtime)

After Yang opens with a really rousing dance number that establishes an initial joyous note, although the rest of the film quickly settles into a much more reflective and melancholy mood. This is a near-future vision in which “techno-sapiens”serve as live-in babysitters, although the particular techno-sapien we get to know is really more of a big brother. For those of you who are so excited by the potential of robotics that you just can’t keep still, After Yang‘s opening choreography is for you. This dance session is an opportunity for the whole family – dad Jake (Colin Farrell), mom Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), young daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), and android Yang (Justin H. Min) – to get up and really get moving. It also appears to be some sort of worldwide tradition that other families of four are participating in. It’s a delightfully colorful good time, and quite frankly, I wanted it to last forever.

I like to think that Yang’s family is also chasing that dancing high for the rest of the film, if only metaphorically. (Or perhaps literally as well.) The trouble is, Yang starts to break down, and he’s an older model, so it’s difficult to find a place that will get him back to his old self. That sends Mika into a funk, as she can’t find the strength to go to school without Yang to rely on. I know how she’s feeling. It’s like trying to shake your sillies out the way you’ve always done, but then you discover that your shins have suddenly become massively inflamed. Indeed, the entire family starts behaving like they’ve lost a limb.

But maybe they can grow a new one back? In Jake’s efforts to figure out what to do with Yang, he ends up on a sort of spiritual quest, as he examines Yang’s memories and seems to be traversing new planes of existence. He discovers that Yang may have somehow developed a fully human romantic relationship, but the real kicker is the alternate perspective it provides to his family history. After Yang is pondering the big questions that science fiction has been pondering for decades, centuries even. That examination can be sublime, but it can also be frustrating, because definitive answers never really come. Sometimes it’s best to just devote your energy to dancing it all off, but the journey you take when you can’t do that is likely to stick in your craw.

After Yang is Recommended If You Like: Just Dance, Home movies, Contemplation

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Memories

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