A Screenshot from a Documentary Movie About a Tennis Guy (CREDIT: Prime Video/Screenshot)
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Federer: Twelve Final Days (June 20 on Amazon Prime Video) – Documentary about a tennis player.
–Inside Out 2 (Theaters)
TV
-Tony Awards (June 16 on CBS and Paramount+)
Music
-John Cale, Optical Illusion
-The Decemberists, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again
-Moby, Always Centered at Night
Sports
-U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials (June 15-23 on NBC, USA, and Peacock) – The Road to Paris
-Women’s PGA Championship (June 20-23 on NBC, Golf Channel, and Peacock)
This queen is on Fire(brand)? (CREDIT: Larry Horricks)
Starring: Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Eddie Marsan, Ruby Bentall, Bryony Hannah, Sam Riley, Maia Jemmett, Amr Waked, Erin Doherty, Junia Rees, Patsy Ferran, Patrick Buckley, Simon Russell Beale, Mia Threapleton
Director: Karim Aïnouz
Running Time: 120 Minutes
Rating: R for Rowdy Royalty
Release Date: June 14, 2024 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: Henry VIII is one of the most famous and dramatized kings in British history. That makes sense, as there’s plenty of drama to be mined. He had six wives who met a variety of interesting, often deadly, fates, and he reigned at a time when England was in the midst of world-rearranging religious strife. So there are a variety of potential angles to take if you’re going to make a movie set during his reign. Firebrand focuses on his last wife, Katherine Parr, who finds herself holding court in the midst of daily intrigue and sinister gossip. She ends up caught between her attempts to appease the king and her dalliances with a Protestant preacher who’s deemed a heretic, while also trying to serve as a mother as best she can to her fretful princely stepchildren.
What Made an Impression?: Parr for the Course: For this review, I’m basically going to do a performance analysis for the two leads, because that’s what held my attention. My bet is that most people’s exposure to Katherine in terms of pop culture (if they have any exposure at all) is the musical Six. But of course, that stage show is about all of Henry’s wives as opposed to just Katherine in particular. Either way, Alicia Vikander certainly doesn’t play her like a modern pop star. No, instead her Katherine is in a constant state of dilemma and anguish, fundamentally unable to please anyone she cares about, and with no room to maneuver to allow herself any personal satisfaction. She’s just canny enough to survive, but even that is largely attributable to a lucky twist of fate. He’s Henry VIII, He Is?: Jude Law would be far from my first choice to play Henry VIII, as he strikes me as a bit too handsome and suave to play the famously rotund king. And in fact, when he first showed up in Firebrand, I had flashbacks to his time as The Young Pope, which had me thinking, “Is this Henry supposed to be… hot?” The rest of the movie quickly disabused me of that notion, as Law’s Henry is mad, brutish, and beset by ulcers. He’s quickly sliding into the grips of the Grim Reaper, and that’s frankly a relief to everyone around him. Law is appropriately devoid of vanity, but this Henry is simply too sick for there to be enough room to make him truly compelling.
Firebrand is Recommended If You’re: Just a big fan of Henry VIII’s wives
Watching Nature (CREDIT: IFC Films/Screenshot; Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)
In a Violent Nature
Starring: Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love, Reece Presley, Liam Leone, Charlotte Creaghan, Lea Rose Sebastianis, Sam Roulston, Alexander Oliver, Lauren Taylor, Timothy Paul McCarthy
Director: Chris Nash
Running Time: 94 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Release Date: May 31, 2024 (Theaters)
Stomach was knotted (from ice cream)
The Watchers
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Olwen Fouéré, Georgina Campbell, Oliver Finnegan, Alistair Brammer, John Lynch
There are a handful of movies I saw in May that I haven’t shared any extended thoughts about yet, so here’s a Spring Cleaning-themed review roundup. Typically May is considered part of the summer movie season, but that leaves short shrift to the time of year when it actually is spring. If May 1-Labor Day is Summer Movie Season, and October-December is Fall Movie Season, and Thanksgiving-New Year’s is Holiday Movie Season, and January-February is Awards Holdovers/Winter Dumping Ground Season, well then, we really only March and April for Spring Movie Season, and a good chunk of March is spent fretting about the Oscars! So let’s give some love to the month with the best weather of the year (apologies to those of you with vernal allergies) and check in on the May spring movies.
Will Fantasmas be fantasmic? (CREDIT: HBO/Screenshot)
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Bad Boys: Ride or Die (Theaters) – This is the fourth Bad Boys. The third one was called “for Life.”
–I Used to Be Funny (Theaters) – Rachel Sennott is in this.
–Tuesday (Theaters)
–The Watchers (Theaters)
TV
–Fantasmas Series Premiere (June 7 on HBO) – Starring Julio Torres.
Music
-Aurora, What Happened to the Heart?
-Bon Jovi, Forever
-Charli XCX, Brat
Sports
-Belmont Stakes (June 8 on FOX)
-2024 US Open (June 13-16 on NBC, USA, and Peacock) – Golfing in Pinehurst Resort.
Bad Boys, Bad Boys, what you gonna ride? What you gonna ride, when you ride or die? (CREDIT: Frank Masi/Columbia Pictures)
Starring: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Núñez, Eric Dane, Ioan Gruffudd, Jacob Scipio, Melanie Liburd, Tasha Smith, Rhea Seehorn, Joe Pantoliano, Tiffany Haddish, John Salley, DJ Khaled, Dennis Greene, Quinn Hemphill
Directors: Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah
Running Time: 115 Minutes
Rating: R for Heavy Artillery and the Dirty Cops That Fire Them
Release Date: June 7, 2024 (Theaters)
What’s It About?: Don’t speak ill of the dead, or a couple of flashy Miami police detectives might just start investigating your ass. When the late Captain Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano) is posthumously accused of collaborating with a drug cartel, Detectives Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) set out to clear their mentor’s good name. It seems stunningly obvious that Howard is innocent, but the cartel’s tendrils of influence are inescapable, and their arsenal is bottomless. Plus, it doesn’t help that the best course of action involves transferring Mike’s incarcerated son Armando (Jacob Scipio) so that he can ID the real perp. Adding to the hurricane is the fact that Captain Howard’s US Marshal daughter Judy (Rhea Seehorn) has her own plan to clear her dad’s name that doesn’t involve trusting Mike or Marcus.
What Made an Impression?: They’re Really Getting Too Old For This S-:The last Bad Boys flick came out four years ago, and it was already the sort of legacy action sequel that was majorly about how its main characters are aging out of their high-octane lifestyles. Ride or Die ramps that angle up right from the get-go, with Marcus suffering a widow maker heart attack after indulging in a few too many Skittles and gas station hot dogs. Meanwhile, Mike is having a series of inexplicable panic attacks. As it plays out, though, this is really more about the odd couple dynamic, as Lawrence was never exactly the action star specimen that Smith has been for most of his career. While this thread could have been more meditative, I appreciate that it’s at least occasionally psychedelic, with Marcus going on a rather visually inventive spiritual journey following his heart attack. The rest of the movie is typical gunfire-filled mayhem, but at least there’s room for the leads to occasionally riff about mystical mumbo-jumbo. Fancy Bad Boys: Sometimes I just want to spotlight one weird specific moment from a movie without covering too many of the most important details. Ride or Die is pretty much a retread of Bad Boys for Life, after all (at least in terms of vibes, if not necessarily plot). But what For Life didn’t have is Mike and Marcus pretending to be Reba McEntire superfans to get themselves out of a pickle. If you’ve seen the trailer, you already know that they’re forced at gunpoint to sing their favorite song by the country superstar to prove their bona fides. And if that moment had you wondering if we get a Reba rendition of the Inner Circle song that serves as this franchise’s namesake, well, then I must say that you are thinking clearly. And that’s what I’m going to choose to focus on whenever I think about this movie.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die is Recommended If You Like: Martin Lawrence being really silly, Will Smith being really annoyed, Rhea Seehorn being really serious
Who’s watching The Watchers? (CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)
They keep making new movies, and some of them are even worth watching. Here’s what’s at the top of the slate for June 2024:
The Watchers: Perhaps the greatest twist of all … is our ability to reproduce? We’ll find out soon enough when Ishana Night Shyamalan (daughter of M. Night) releases her feature directorial debut about a group of entrapped people coming to grips with their mysterious voyeurs.
The Watchers will be watched in movie theaters beginning June 7.
Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.
Movies
–Ezra (Theaters) – Some notable names in the cast, so it might be worth checking out.
–Handling the Undead (Theaters)
–In a Violent Nature (Theaters)
–Robot Dreams (Theaters)
TV
–Name That Tune Season Premiere (June 3 on FOX)
–The 1% Club Series Premiere (June 3 on FOX) – New game show hosted by Patton Oswalt.
–The Acolyte Series Premiere (June 4 on Disney+) – Another new Star Wars show.
–Clipped Miniseries Premiere (June 4 on Hulu) – The Downfall of Donald Sterling
Music
-Bat for Lashes, The Dream of Delphi
-Maya Hawke, Chaos Angel
-Crowded House, Gravity Stairs
Release Date: May 31, 2024 (IFC Center in New York City)/June 7, 2024 (Select Cities)
What’s It About?: A woman finds her catatonic elderly mother in her kitchen. A man is informed that his wife is inexplicably alive after a car accident despite an ostensibly insufficient amount of oxygen. An older man digs up his dead grandson, much to the horror of his daughter who’s also the boy’s mother. In case you haven’t figured it out already, the dead have risen in Oslo. But they’re not the lumbering, ravenous zombies that we’re used to. Instead, they’re enigmas for their loved ones, is there hope that they could be fully resurrected, or is this just a never-ending tragedy?
What Made an Impression?: When to Let Go: For the most part, the undead in Handling the Undead don’t seem to be putting their family in any immediate danger (although that eventually changes). But the emotional stress they inflict is profound and inescapable. When they eventually become bitey, it literalizes the lesson they’re imparting: clinging too tightly to the departed can be lethal. Once you notice your own health withering away in this situation, it’s probably time to let go. We Need a Prescription: When a zombie film opts for an atypical approach, it often does so from a postmodern lens, with the characters within the movie familiar with the lessons of previous zombie narratives. But in the case of Handling the Undead, it’s not clear if these people have any of that genre savvy. Even if they do, they don’t really realize that they’re dealing with zombies until it’s too late. Doctors are too puzzled to offer anything resembling a diagnosis. Indeed, no experts are available to suggest any helpful course of action. This complicates the lesson of letting go; sometimes it’s not clear when the end has arrived, and in the meantime, we must sit with the existential ambiguity and simmering threat of danger.
Handling the Undead is Recommended If You Like: Let the Right One In, Let Me In, Going heavy on the subwoofer
A Robot and a Dog Displaying Water Safety Practices (CREDIT: NEON)
Starring: A Dog and a Robot
Director: Pablo Berger
Running Time: 102 Minutes
Rating: Unrated (G-Level with Maybe a Hint of Danger)
Release Date: May 31, 2024 (New York Theaters)/June 7, 2024 (Los Angeles)
What’s It About?: Have you ever seen a movie about a human befriending a machine? Or what about a human befriending a furry fellow? Surely you already know that there’s plenty of both of those! But what Robot Dreams presupposes is: instead of a human, what if an animal and a robot become friends with … each other? And so it goes, as a dog named Dog assembles himself a robot friend, and they quickly become inseparable. They head down to Coney Island one day for a beach outing, but Robot gets stuck in the sand and becomes too heavy for Dog to move him. He tries to come back to retrieve him the next day, but alas, the beach is now closed until next summer, so Dog is forced to be extraordinarily patient if he wants to reunite with his best friend. Will they be able to survive the wait, or does fate have something even more whimsical in store for them? In the meantime, Robot will have to settle for having vivid dreams about their reunion.
What Made an Impression?: Ba-dee-ah: Do you dream in music? Well, Dog and Robot dream in earth, wind, and fire. Specifically, they dream in “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire. It’s also a big part of their waking life as well. It’s the signature song to the soundtrack of their lives, and the potential calling card should they ever be reunited. This is transcendentally joyful funk R&B that strikes right at the connection-forming core of my psyche. I imagine that even viewers who have somehow never heard this song before will have a similar reaction. No Chance for Reassurance: In between seeing Robot Dreams and writing this review, I read about the efforts to reunite migrant families separated at the border during President Trump’s zero tolerance policy. Some reunions have been successful but also profoundly unsatisfying, as the children were too young to understand that their parents were constantly trying to find them. I couldn’t help but draw parallels to the predicament of Robot, who remains similarly unaware of Dog’s efforts to track him down. To be clear, Robot Dreams is not at all as depressing as that real-world tragedy. Quite frankly, I can only hope that those children can be soothed by an imagination as vibrant as the one that Robot displays. This movie isn’t a matter of life and death, but it does offer a portrait of inspiring resilience, which quite frankly we can never have enough of. So if you have the good fortune of free time, do yourself a favor and allow Robot Dreams to place a balm on your soul.
Robot Dreams is Recommended If You Like: Bittersweet memories of happy days
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