Doctor Movie Critic in the Review of Madness

May 12, 2022

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CREDIT: Marvel Entertaiment/Screenshot

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Xochitl Gomez, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Stuhlbarg

Director: Sam Raimi

Running Time: 126 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: May 6, 2022 (Theaters)

So exactly how much multiverse and how much madness is there in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness? Honestly, there are other movies out there that are more multiversal, or madder, or both more multiversal and madder! But that’s okay, because this movie features a scene in which two Doctor Stranges fight each other with musical notes. And also Bruce Campbell punches himself a bunch of times. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Grade: Medium Rare Sami Raimi Energy

‘Pleasure’ Asks: What Happens When an Ambitious Swedish Girl Moves to L.A. to Take Her Clothes Off in Front of Cameras? Let’s Find Out!

May 10, 2022

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Pleasure (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Sofia Kappel, Revika Anne Reustle, Evelyn Claire, Chris Cock, Dana DeArmond, Kendra Spade, Jason Toler

Director: Ninja Thyberg

Running Time: 105 Minutes

Rating: Unrated (Because There’s No Way It Would’ve Gotten an R)

Release Date: May 13, 2022 (Theaters)

The most striking thing about the first half of Pleasure (besides all the full-frontal nudity) is the underlying message that work is work, no matter how much you love it. There are certain quotidian tasks on everyone’s to-do lists: keeping your books, texting your co-workers, getting the word out on social media, etc. Even if you have the most luxuriously hedonistic career in the world, you still have to take care of business. That’s what 20-year-old Linnéa (Sofia Kappel) discovers when she jets off from Sweden to Los Angeles and adopts the moniker “Bella Cherry” to become the biggest porn star in the world but then soon realizes that accomplishing that will involve hours spent scrolling through Instagram to increase her follower count. If that’s as bad as it goes for such a vulnerable pursuit, then that’s a pretty good deal. But then things get worse. But there’s also some hope that it might get better! It’s complicated.

If you’re wondering what drives Bella at a fundamental level … I wish I could tell you! It’s never clarified if she wants to be famous, or rich, or if she just likes having sex with as many as people as possible. Don’t get it twisted, though, as I’m not doubting her explanation. Her entire aura screams “Conviction!” But maybe she should take a closer look at herself, because when we first meet her as she’s shooting her first hardcore scene, she has a bit of a breakdown and almost doesn’t go through with it. Perhaps those were just Opening Day jitters, but it does ultimately prove to be a bit of a suffocating omen. Socrates is credited as saying, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and Bella should’ve taken that advice to heart. It could’ve saved her a lot of strife.

When mainstream movies like this one come along to offer an unflinching portrayal of a taboo subject, they often get praised for their so-called “honesty.” To which I say: perhaps Pleasure is honest, to a certain extent. The cast is filled with plenty of veterans of the porn industry, after all. But even if it is truthful, I doubt that it’s also comprehensive. There are probably some folks who have had similar experiences as Bella’s, while others have surely had better ones, and still others had it much worse. Pleasure is the story of Bella Rose and nobody else. We’re all left to make of that what we will.

Pleasure is Recommended If You Like: Making private matters public

Grade: 3 out of 5 Climaxes

‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’ … But Should We?

May 5, 2022

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We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (CREDIT: Utopia/Screenshot)

Starring: Anna Cobb, Michael J. Rogers

Director: Jane Schoenbrun

Running Time: 86 Minutes

Rating: Unrated

Release Date: April 15, 2022 (Theaters)

When writing movie reviews, I often ask myself, “Would I like to do what the title is telling us to do?” And what do you know, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is basically tailor-made for that. The “world’s fair” that the characters are “going to” is really some sort of viral online challenge that supposedly results in a mysterious illness after you make a video declaring your intentions. It’s all vague enough to dismiss as hogwash, some hauntingly off-putting images notwithstanding. So if I do attempt to go to this here World’s Fair, I probably have nothing to worry about. But as with similar legends like Bloody Mary or Candyman, why risk it? Although, there’s also a segment that features an 8-bit video game version of the World’s Fair Challenge, and I’d kinda like that to be real.

Grade: All’s Fair in the Endless Stream of Internet Videos

In ‘The Twin,’ an Idyllic Life in Finland is Hard to Do When You’ve Got a Creepy Kid

May 4, 2022

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CREDIT: Shudder/Screenshot

Starring: Teresa Palmer, Steven Cree, Tristan Ruggeri, Barbara Marten

Director: Taneli Mustonen

Running Time: 108 Minutes

Rating: Unrated (PG-13 Level for General Creepiness)

Release Date: May 6, 2022 (Theaters, On Demand, and Streaming on Shudder)

The Twin is an English-language horror flick with a Finnish director and what appears to be a mostly Finnish crew. Which is to say, I was all prepared for a convoluted-in-translation affair in which the actors do their best to turn an oddly phrased screenplay into natural-sounding dialogue. But for the most part, this tale of a grieving husband and wife who move to Finland with their young son after his twin brother dies in an accident is fairly straightforward. Perhaps a bit too straightforward, insofar as it comes off as a pastiche of earlier trailblazing horror flicks. Spoilers are unavoidable if I want to mention what those movies are, so I’ll add a SPOILER ALERT!!! Here and note that what at first seems like a Rosemary’s Baby-style cabal turns out instead to be a sloppier version of the Shutter Island gambit. (SPOILER ALERT OVER)

So The Twin is hardly reinventing the wheel, but at least Teresa Palmer (who plays mom Rachel) is always compelling, no matter how much the material does or doesn’t rise up to her level. Outside of her acting career, Palmer is a mother herself who also co-runs a lifestyle brand called “Your Zen Mama.” Which is to say, she’s philosophically committed herself to a theoretical and practical investigation of what motherhood is all about, and that absolutely comes across in her performance.

While The Twin probably won’t keep you up at night, I would recommend that any horror devotee check it out to keep a pulse on the genre beyond the most high-profile releases. If you’re like me, you know that we fright flick folks like to keep a taxonomy of how filmmakers are spooking us nowadays, and The Twin‘s efforts are instructive in its attempts to pull from various inspirations. It’s available on Shudder, and if you’re a Shudder subscriber, you’re probably the type of person who will gladly take a chance on something off the beaten path like this anyway.

The Twin is Recommended If You Like: Old lady neighbors who might be friend or foe, Slo-mo silent shots of devastated screaming, Confusing possessions

Grade: 2 out of 5 Cloudy Days

Just Try to Resist ‘Anaïs in Love’ – I Dare Ya!

April 28, 2022

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Anaïs in Love (CREDIT: Magnolia Pictures)

Starring: Anaïs Demoustier, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Denis Podalydès, Jean-Charles Clichet

Director: Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet

Running Time: 98 Minutes

Rating: Unrated (R-Level for getting Pretty Hot and Heavy)

Release Date: April 29, 2022 (Theaters)/May 6, 2022 (On Demand)

Early on in Anaïs in Love, a soon-to-be ex-boyfriend tells the title character, “You don’t know what human interaction is.” But hey, dude, there are different types of humans and therefore different types of interaction that are recognizably human. Although I do understand his frustration. Anaïs (Anaïs Demoustier) is the type of person who will skip one academic symposium that she’s supposed to be working at to attend another one that she just found out about. She’s also the type of person who will suddenly start having an affair with an older married man, and then just as suddenly end things with him and track down his wife to have an affair with her. We’re not catching Anaïs at the one moment that she happens to be in love, because there isn’t just one moment. Instead, that title refers to an eternal state of being.

Is this just how the French are, and perhaps always will be? There’s a long tradition of the country’s cinema and literature that indicates that this is a mercurial people when it comes to affairs of the heart, after all. But in this case, there are some clear signs that Anaïs isn’t representative of everyone. In fact, she is the outlier in her orbit, and if everyone else seems just as passionate as her, that’s mainly thanks to how infectious she is. It’s as if Cupid or Venus took on the form of a mortal but could never be fully satisfied in such an arrangement.

There’s also a scene in which Anaïs accompanies her brother as they take a monkey to the vet. I don’t know why that little detour exists, but I’m glad it does. Life can’t be all about following the whims of your spirit and loins. Sometimes you find a furry little critter writhing around on the carpet. If Anaïs had just run away from that obligation, or if she had ignored her mom’s cancer diagnosis, I probably would have been a lot less patient with her. Or maybe not! Her charms are pretty irresistible, I must say, and they make for a compelling sexual journey I can’t help but witness without judgment.

Anaïs in Love is Recommended If You Like: Jules et Jim, Madame Bovary, Tips for leg stretches

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Love Letters

Finnish Body Horor ‘Hatching’ is for the Bird in All of Us!

April 27, 2022

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Hatching (CREDIT: Andrejs Strokins/IFC Midnight)

Starring: Siiri Solalinna, Sophia Heikkilä, Jani Volanen, Oiva Ollila, Reino Nordin

Director: Hanna Bergholm

Running Time: 87 Minutes

Rating: Unrated (But Gnarly Enough for an R)

Release Date: April 29, 2022 (Theaters)/May 17, 2022 (Digital/VOD)

I am excited to spread the word about Hatching, the debut feature from Finnish director Hanna Bergholm. If memory serves me correctly, it’s the first Finnish film I’ve ever seen, and appropriately enough, it’s an auteurist vision that I’ve never quite experienced before. If you’re a horror hound who’s wondering how the Finns spook each other, this would make for a fine introduction. It’s about a 12-year-old girl who forms a unique bond with a ravenous bird-like creature, so if you find that premise eminently relatable, you’re in the right place.

Right from Hatching‘s start (or hatching, as it were), it’s clear that the worst impulses of the YouTube era have made their way to the northernmost reaches of Europe, as the vlogger mom (Sophia Heikkilä) introduces us to her “Lovely and Ordinary Finnish Family.” But that picture-perfect image is quickly punctured when a crow flies into the house from out of nowhere. Young Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) is curious about the bird, but her mom breaks its neck and tells Tinja to throw it in the trash. But that was just a harbinger of what’s to come, as Tinja discovers a giant egg that she brings into her bedroom, only to quickly realize that’s she invited much more than she bargained for.

There aren’t a whole lot of cinematic avian monsters out there, and this one’s a doozy. Tinja is hoping that she’s made a friend, as she names the creature “Alli.” But really it’s more of a hellspawn and avenging angel, as it decapitates the neighbor’s dog and then starts taking aim at everyone else who’s ever wronged Tinja. And it’s not like her day-to-day isn’t already stressful enough, what with Mom pressuring her to be the absolute best at gymnastics and the revelation that she’s also starting a new family on the side with her hunky boyfriend (Reino Nordin). Meanwhile, straitlaced khaki-wearing Dad (Jani Volanen) remains blissfully unaware of pretty much everything going on around him until it’s too late.

Hatching easily works as a metaphor about adolescence, with Alli representing a body transforming into something shockingly unfamiliar. Not to mention, the mother-daughter strife that can be so typical of this period is in full force. But I couldn’t help but also make the connection to another recent horror flick that has very little to do with puberty, as Tinja’s visions of Alli stalking her prey are reminiscent of the shared death visions in Malignant. With that in mind, Hatching is really about the terror of being a human with a body who has familial connections, particularly when Alli starts to become Tinja’s doppelgӓnger and threatens to take over her life. Sometimes our own impulses or the ones of those closest to us are the most terrifying of all.

Hatching is Recommended If You Like: Turning Red, Malignant, Single White Female

Grade: 4 out of 5 Giant Eggs

‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ is Kinda Heavy, Man

April 21, 2022

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The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent (CREDIT: Karen Ballard/Lionsgate)

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Tiffany Haddish, Sharon Horgan, Ike Barinholtz, Alessandra Mastronardi, Lily Sheen, Jacob Scipio, Neil Patrick Harris

Director: Tom Gormican

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Rating: R for Mainly Salty Language and a Few Shootouts

Release Date: April 22, 2022 (Theaters)

How self-aware is too self-aware? That’s a question inherent to the life of any movie star, but it’s especially salient in the case of Nicolas Cage. He’s equally beloved, mocked, or lovingly mocked for his over-the-top performances in the likes of Ghost Rider, Face/Off, The Wicker Man, and countless others. Word eventually got around to him that he was more meme than man in some corners, but instead of winking at repudiating this reputation, he’s mostly continued to follow his own particular muse in the form of his self-professed “Nouveau Shamanic” acting style. But now he’s forced to confront his career as thoroughly as possible as he plays a lightly fictionalized version of himself in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. I’m one of the biggest Nic Cage fans in the world, so my feeling coming into this flick was that it would either be my new favorite movie ever, or it would be a little too on the nose. The truth is somewhere in the middle, as Cage is of course up for whatever, but there are some Uncanny Valley-esque vibes.

The setup is basically National Treasure meets Bowfinger: in the midst of an existential crisis that has him contemplating retirement, Cage is surreptitiously hired by the CIA to aid in some geopolitical subterfuge. It all goes down in the sun-dappled vistas of Mallorca, where he’s fulfilling a million-dollar gig to attend the birthday party of Javi (Pedro Pascal), a budding screenwriter who’s also the suspected head of a cartel and supposed mastermind behind a recent kidnapping. But mostly, he’s an audience surrogate, with the obsessive collection of Nic Cage memorabilia to prove it. If you’re thinking that somebody who loves Nicolas Cage this much couldn’t possibly be that bad, then you should know that one of this movie’s core messages is to trust your instincts.

And what do my instincts tell me as I’m writing this review? Mostly, they say that I was kind of weirded out by how similar this Nic Cage is to the real thing without being exactly the same. Offscreen, he has a few ex-wives and two sons, while the Massively Talent-ed version has at least one ex (Sharon Horgan) that’s still a part of his daily life and a daughter named Addy (Lily Sheen). I don’t know what his relationships with his sons are like, but I hope that he’s not forcing them to watch The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to the point that they need to hash it out in therapy. This is all to say, Unbearable Weight gets the broad-stroke details of Cage’s unique story correct, but it renders his mystique a bit too quotidian. It’s respectful, but not transcendent. It pulls off the requisite action-adventure thrills just fine, but if you really want to know what makes this man tick, just check out any of his interviews.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is Recommended If You Like: Nonstop introspection, Geeking out about German expressionism and Paddington, Emotional straight male bonding

Grade: 3 out of 5 Nouveau Shamans

‘The Northman’: Vikings, Revenge, Blood, and Guts at the Gates of Hel

April 20, 2022

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The Northman (CREDIT: Aidan Monaghan/Focus Features)

Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Claes Bang, Ethan Hawke, Bjӧrk, Willem Dafoe, Oscar Novak

Director: Robert Eggers

Running Time: 137 Minutes

Rating: R for Lots of Blood and a Fair Amount of Skin

Release Date: April 22, 2022 (Theaters)

If nothing else, Robert Eggers movies are experiences. Sometimes, in the case of The Witch, it’s an experience I very much want to be a part of. Other times, in the case of The Lighthouse, it’s like: hoo boy, this might be a little too much for me. His third feature, The Northman, lands somewhere in the middle. It’s his longest but also perhaps his most straightforward. That might have something to do with the fact that the main character is a legendary Scandinavian figure who served as the direct inspiration for Hamlet. I encountered that factoid after watching the movie, but it makes sense in retrospect, as the story beats are plenty familiar. Despite the hallucinogenic flourishes, this is your classic tale of revenge and bloody familial entanglements.

It’s Viking Times! 895 AD, specifically. Young Prince Amleth (Oscar Novak) doesn’t have a care in the world, but then his uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang) kills his father (Ethan Hawke) and takes Amleth’s mother Gudrún (Nicole Kidman) as his own queen. If you’ve ever seen The Lion King, you know what’s coming, as we leap ahead several years, with our hero (now played by Alexander Skarsgård) returning with a girlfriend in tow (Anya Taylor-Joy as the witchy Olga of the Birch Forest) and ready to take back what’s his. Now, at this point, you may find yourself thinking, “Hey, didn’t Skarsgård and Kidman play husband and wife a few years ago?” To which I must let you know, The Northman does not flinch at the ickiest of its implications.

Basically, if you’ve ever been watching a Shakespeare production and wished that it was even bloodier, and a whole lot muddier, and also featured plenty of psychedelic freakouts, then The Northman is here for you! And if you also wanted a deadly mashup of lacrosse, handball, and rugby thrown in for good measure, then you can rest easy. I don’t want any beheadings in my own personal day-to-day, but I can approve of a few fictional decapitations serving as the cherries on top of a Robert Eggers sundae. It’s a healthy way to get the violent urges out of our systems.

The Northman is Recommended If You Like: Revenge served as cold as historically possible

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Fratricides/Avunculucides/Matricides/Nepoticides

That’s Okay, Dumbledore, I Don’t Really Need to Know Your Secrets

April 13, 2022

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Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (CREDIT:
Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)

Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Mads Mikkelsen, Ezra Miller, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Callum Turner, Jessica Williams, Katherine Waterston

Director: David Yates

Running Time: 142 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Wand Thrusts Knocking People Down

Release Date: April 15, 2022 (Theaters)

There’s one moment in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore that left me responding with a resounding blank stare. Well, actually, there was more than one moment like that. But there was one particular instance where I’m pretty sure that the hoped-for reaction was instead a pumped fist and a round of hoots and hollers. If you’ve seen the trailer, you know what I’m talking about. One of our heroes informs us that their ragtag crew consists of a magizoologist, his assistant, “a wizard descended from a very old family,” a teacher, and a muggle. I guess the idea is that this isn’t exactly the A-team, but they all sound pretty capable to me! I can understand doubting the non-magical fellow, except that the previous two entries in this franchise have already established his bona fides. This all leads me to suspect that Dumbledore’s secrets aren’t as mind-blowing as advertised.

And that impenetrability doesn’t exactly pair well with the complications of watching something written by J.K. Rowling in 2022. If you’ve been fortunate enough to avoid her public persona the past several years, then I regret to inform you that she’s now just as famous for her highly public transphobic views about gender as she is for conjuring magical fantasy worlds. But hey, the Harry Potter saga preached a message of tolerance that seemed to stand in stark contrast to those opinions, so maybe Secrets of Dumbledore might as well, or at the very least be inoffensive.

But even beyond any moral reckonings, there is a mighty struggle at the core of watching this film. It has the vibe of a central creative voice given free rein to the point of absurdity. Rowling is credited as a co-screenwriter and one of five producers, but this is her brainchild set loose, unchecked and unbound. I’m not saying that someone needed to say no to her, but a little interpretation for those of us who don’t live in her brain would have been nice. The climactic battle is one of those scenes that’s so typical of modern blockbusters where the fate of the world hangs in the balance, and I just found myself profoundly confused. What are the stakes here? Why is Grindelwald such a bad wizard anyway? Maybe I missed an obvious explanation, and I’ll gladly welcome anyone who can point that out to me. But I can’t help but feel that I was watching someone tell us a story that was supposed to have self-evident importance, and that just wasn’t coming across.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is Recommended If You Are: J.K. Rowling

Grade: 1.5 out of 5 Blood Pacts

‘Father Stu’ Goes All In on Redemption

April 12, 2022

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Father Stu (CREDIT: Karen Ballard/Columbia Pictures)

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson, Jacki Weaver, Teresa Ruiz, Aaron Moten, Cody Fern, Malcolm McDowell

Director: Rosalind Ross

Running Time: 126 Minutes

Rating: R for Not-Very-Priestly Language

Release Date: April 13, 2022 (Theaters)

Religion and certainty are a dangerous combination. That’s why my skepticism alarms go off whenever stereotypical “faith-based” films saunter in, what with their tendency to be so sure about themselves when it comes to metaphysical mysteries. But a more difficult struggle with Christianity is rife for compelling drama, which brings us to Father Stu. Based on the true story of a boxer who hangs up his gloves and heads to the seminary, it presents a complicated crossroads between these two extremes. The title character doesn’t do half-measures, so when he hears God calling, nobody can stand in his way. But within the certainty of his vocation, he recognizes and embodies the doubts that the faithful wrestle with every day.

Stuart Long (Mark Wahlberg) has plenty of reasons to reject the notion of a merciful deity. His brother died when they were kids, his dad (Mel Gibson) is an alcoholic deadbeat, and he’s getting a little too old for his boxing career to go anywhere promising. And when he first joins the Church, it’s not like his intentions are exactly pure, as he’s just trying to win over the woman he has a crush on (Teresa Ruiz). It’s actually tragedy that leads him to the collar, as a horrific motorcycle accident leaves him in a coma during which visions of the Virgin Mary suddenly steer him to a life of shepherding his flock. After he hustles his way into a seminary despite the skepticism of an image-conscious monsignor (Malcolm McDowell), he is felled once again, this time by a diagnosis of inclusion body myositis, a degenerative disease that will shut down his muscles just when he’s figured out what he wants to do with them.

What struck me most powerfully about Father Stu was its honesty about the contradictions inherent to a priestly life. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church has certain rules and regulations, but they can easily get in the way of the message of redemption at the heart of the religion. And while priests are expected to take a vow of celibacy, that doesn’t take away their capacity for romance. They can choose not to act on these feelings, of course, but that doesn’t relieve them of the emotional fallout that remains in their past, and current, relationships. This is a thoroughly Catholic tale that will probably resonate most strongly with the already converted. Nevertheless, its plea for redemption is fully inclusive: it acknowledges the doubts worth having about religion, while remaining certain that its story needs to be told.

Father Stu is Recommended If You Like: A rousing homily

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Baptisms

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