I Am Become Viewer of ‘Oppenheimer,’ Did It Destroy My World?

July 19, 2023

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Has he become Death yet? (CREDIT: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures)

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Benny Safdie, Dylan Arnold, Gustaf Skarsgård, David Krumholtz, Matthew Modine, David Dastmalchian, Tom Conti, Michael Angarano, Jack Quaid, Josh Peck, Olivia Thirlby, Dane DeHaan, Danny Deferrari, Alden Ehrenreich, Jefferson Hall, Jason Clarke, James D’Arcy, Tony Goldwyn, Devon Bostwick, Alex Wolff, Scott Grimes, Josh Zuckerman, Matthias Schweighöfer, Christopher Denham, David Rysdahl, Guy Burnet, Louis Lombard, Harrison Gilbertson, Emma Dumont, Trond Fausa Aurvåg, Olli Haaskivi, Gary Oldman, John Gowans, Kurt Koehler, Macon Blair, Harry Groener, Jack Cutmore-Scott, James Remar, Gregory Jbara, Tim DeKay, James Urbaniak

Director: Christopher Nolan

Running Time: 180 Minutes

Rating: R for Some Disturbing Images and Deviously Edited Sex Scenes

Release Date: July 21, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: J. Robert Oppenheimer didn’t build the atomic bomb all by himself, but he’s borne the weight of its legacy much more than anybody else. In adapting the biography American Prometheus, Christopher Nolan makes it clear just how sprawling the efforts of the Manhattan Project were in the halls of science, government, and the military, while also underlining how it all revolved around Oppenheimer. This is a three-hour epic with one of the most sprawling casts in recent cinematic history. Despite that deep bench, Cillian Murphy is in nearly every single scene as the father of the atomic bomb. It’s an intimate approach that paradoxically illuminates the massiveness of the moment. As Oppenheimer traces the title character’s journey from homesick PhD student to Los Alamos to Princeton, it makes the case about how much the world irreversibly changed through his efforts.

What Made an Impression?: Again with the Time Manipulation: Christopher Nolan is famous for manipulating temporal perception in his films, and Oppenheimer serves as an ideal subject for that approach. As inheritors of the legacy of relativity from Albert Einstein (memorably played by Tom Conti), paradoxes about the nature of the universe were pretty much a given for Oppenheimer and his colleagues. Nolan is basically the filmmaking equivalent of a relative physicist, with a storytelling approach that is technically out of order but makes perfect sense when you look at it from the right angle. The story of Oppenheimer plays out in a linear fashion in the broad strokes, but there are some key scenes that are teased and revisited with varying degrees of essential information. The past, present, and the future converged at the Manhattan Project, and Oppenheimer apparently saw that more clearly than anybody. This is all to say, if your mind works like both Nolan’s and Oppenheimer’s, then this movie will make perfect sense to you.
Messy Mythmaking: Oppenheimer didn’t just seek to understand the world through particles and waves, but also through storytelling. He famously uttered a quote from the Bhagavad Gita (“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”), and his accomplishments have often been compared to that of Prometheus, the Greek god who stole fire from Olympus and then gave it to humans, thereby granting them the power to destroy themselves. Mythmaking of individuals is often used to mean valorization that elides more complicated truths. But the myths of ancient cultures that have survived to this day are filled with the foibles of mortals and deities. Oppenheimer makes it clear that this modern Prometheus had plenty of shortcomings as well, particularly unfaithfulness and stubbornness. (Although, I must say that his reputation for an disagreeable personality is a little overblown; sure, he always speaks his mind, but he’s generally pleasant to be around.) With its mix of historical accuracy and cinematic embellishment, Oppenheimer earns its place in the mythical tradition.
We Needed Some Bonhomie: Despite the doomsday cloud hanging over the whole proceedings, Oppenheimer also works quite well as a hangout movie. J. Robert was friends or acquaintances with seemingly every other prominent scientist of the mid-20th century, and it’s a delight just seeing them interacting and mentally stimulating each other. That levity is especially welcome with a three-hour running time, which is always a tall order, even for especially receptive moviegoers. We all have bladders, after all! So while I quite enjoyed Oppenheimer, I’m not eager to immediately watch the entire thing all over again, though I would happily check out a supercut of every scene with Albert Einstein as a jolly old wizardly mentor.

Oppenheimer is Recommended If You Like: The History Channel, Scientific American, Interstellar

Grade: 4 out of 5 Destroyers of Worlds

‘Cobweb’ Warns You To Keep Your Eyes and Ears Peeled for What Lurks Within the Walls

July 19, 2023

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Listening for cobwebs (CREDIT: Vlad Cioplea/Lionsgate)

Starring: Woody Norman, Lizzy Caplan, Cleopatra Coleman, Antony Starr

Director: Samuel Bodin

Running Time: 88 Minutes

Rating: R for Bodies Torn Apart in Nasty Ways

Release Date: July 21, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: There’s something very creepy hiding within the walls of young Peter’s (Woody Norman) house. His parents Carol (Lizzy Caplan) and Mark (Antony Starr) seem to know about it, but they’d much rather gaslight their son into believing that there’s nothing to worry about. So his home life is filled with suffocating angst, and school isn’t much better, as he’s an easy target for bullying. The only person he can confide in is his new substitute teacher Ms. Devine (Cleopatra Coleman), but Mom and Dad keep getting in the way of her efforts to reach out as well. Peter eventually decides that he’d much rather ally himself with the shadowy figure, but it quickly becomes clear that he may have seriously miscalculated the threat he’s facing.

What Made an Impression?: Time Warp: Cobweb never explicitly announces its temporal setting, which would usually mean that it’s set in the present day, but there are reasons to think otherwise. We never see anyone using any computers, or watching TV, though the clothing styles are close to modern. Peter’s house has a midcentury vibe, but in a sense that much of the domestic architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is inherited from the 1950s. But we do see Ms. Devine using an iPhone at one point, which suggests that Carol and Mark are doing their damnedest to artificially keep their home stuck in the past. They clearly buried something seriously wrong long ago, and looking backward must have seemed more attractive than barreling ahead.
Mystery Monster: For most of Cobweb, the visuals and motivations remain shrouded and obscured. They’re teased out in tantalizing morsels, as Peter believes he may have discovered a long-lost sibling. When the creature fully emerges for a bloody climax, the exact nature of this being becomes clearer, though not entirely so. There are enough concrete details for viewers who demand a straightforward explanation, but also enough ambiguity to satisfy those who are more unnerved by that which can never be fully explained. It might feel a little half-baked, but it’s a unique enough vision of domestic terror to stick in your craw.

Cobweb is Recommended If You Like: Mama, Bully comeuppance, The 1950 short film A Date with Your Family

Grade: 3 out of 5 Whispers

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 7/14/23

July 14, 2023

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Drink from the cup!

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

Movies
–Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (Theaters)
–Theater Camp (Theaters)

TV
–Justified: City Primeval Premiere (July 18 on FX) – Raylan’s Given us more of his time.

Music
-Kool & the Gang, People Just Wanna Have Fun
-Gordon Lightfoot, At Royal Albert Hall

Sports
-Women’s World Cup (July 20-August 20 on FOX and FS1) – Kicking that dang ball around Aus. and NZ.
-The Open Championship (July 20-23 on NBC, Golf Channel, and Peacock) – AKA The Open, aka The British Open.

Are You Ready to Book Your Spot in ‘Theater Camp’?

July 13, 2023

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Which one’s Theater and which one’s Camp? (CREDIT: SearchlightPictures/Screenshot)

Starring: Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, Jimmy Tatro, Nathan Lee Graham, Ayo Edebiri, Owen Thiele, Caroline Aaron, Amy Sedaris

Directors: Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman

Running Time: 93 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Middle Schoolers Dramatizing Adult Themes

Release Date: July 14, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: If you’ve ever ventured to a certain mountain range in northern New York and thought that there should be an organization called “AdirondACTS,” then Theater Camp is the movie for you! It’s a mockumentary whose production goes off the rails immediately. While watching a middle school performance of Bye Bye Birdie, AdirondACTS founder Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris) has a seizure that puts her in a coma, which leaves the camp in the not-so-capable hands of her vlogger bro son Troy (Jimmy Tatro). The counselors and campers pretty much ignore him, as they’ve got plenty of drama of their own to deal with, both in terms of the shows they’re staging and the interpersonal powder kegs they’re sitting on. In particular, there are co-dependent besties Amos Klobuchar (Ben Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon), who have spent just about every summer of their lives here as either students or teachers. And the question looming everything is: can this motley band of thespians find the gumption to keep everything afloat before the evil rich neighbor camp buys them out?

What Made an Impression?: Everything Is Acting: If you believe that the stage is more essential to life than breathing, then you really ought to watch Theater Camp as soon as possible. Or actually on second thought, maybe you should avoid it like the plague, unless, that is, you can bear some light ribbing about your greatest passion. If you do indeed take acting deathly seriously, you’ll probably recognize yourself in nearly every character in this movie. Hopefully, you can keep the lampooning in perspective and lap up the teasing. If you somehow don’t recognize the humor, well, you might want to head to a psychologist for a diagnosis.
A Stranger Lurks: For any potential viewers who aren’t exactly theater obsessives, Troy can serve as a potential surrogate character into the action. Anyone familiar with Jimmy Tatro (via Netflix’s American Vandal, ABC’s Home Economics, or his own YouTube channel) already knows that he’s perfected a certain incorrigible type: the 21st Century Slacker Bro Entrepreneur. If we’re talking generations, he’s a millennial with a Gen Z soul. Troy genuinely tries to live up to his mom’s legacy and connect with the kids, but they’re essentially living on different planets. But even though he’s a screwup who’s way out of his depth, he’s a straight shooter who just can’t give up on his optimism.
Authenticity in Their Bones: If you recruited all of the most intense kids at every middle school drama club in the Northeast for some sort of real life AdirondACTS and then made a documentary about it, I worry that it would quickly turn into a neurotic disaster. But I suspect that co-directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman recreated the camp experience as much as they possibly could for their cast and crew, and the results speak for themselves. Every single role is so fully realized. There’s no question that each and every actor thought deeply about their characters’ allergies, tax returns, and dream journals. Sometimes, a movie just had to exist to capture a certain group of people, and Theater Camp is one of those movies.

Theater Camp is Recommended If You Like: Waiting for Guffman, Wet Hot American Summer

Grade: 4 out of 5 Spotlights

Winter is Coming, with ‘The YouTube Effect’

July 10, 2023

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Now Playing (CREDIT: Drafthouse Films/Kanopy)

Starring: YouTube

Director: Alex Winter

Running Time: 99 Minutes

Rating: Not Rated

Release Date: July 7, 2023 (Theaters)

The YouTube Effect, the latest documentary from Alex Winter, is here to let us know that our most popular video-sharing website has had quite the devastating effect on humanity. Just how massive has that effect been? To quote Carl Sagan (who does not factor into this documentary at all), “Billions and billions.” While this is no great revelation, this state of affairs remains unnerving nonetheless. So what should we do? I for one will take inspiration from Winter’s most famous creation and suggest simply increasing the Iron Maiden-to-everything else ratio.

Grade: I Like Watching YouTube on the Big Screen (3 out of 5 Upvotes)

‘Insidious: The Red Door*’ Review (*Should We Say ‘Red Door’ the Way That Danny Torrance Says ‘Red Rum’?)

July 7, 2023

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What to Expect When You’re Insidious (CREDIT: Screen Gems)

Starring: Ty Simpkins, Patrick Wilson, Sinclair Daniel, Rose Byrne, Andrew Astor, Hiam Abbass, Lin Shaye

Director: Patrick Wilson

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: July 7, 2023 (Theaters)

As someone whose favorite color is red, I resent what the latest Insidious has to say about bloody-looking entryways. It literally demonizes red doors! (Or at least one red door in particular.) And then it blots it out with black, which was my favorite color when I was a youngster, but now I’m wary of it because it catches the sun’s rays thoroughly.

Anyway, I’m glad to see Patrick Wilson make his directorial debut, and I’m also happy that death couldn’t keep a certain someone from making a return appearance.

Grade: 2.5 Lams out of 5 Berts

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 7/7/23

July 7, 2023

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Working that last miracle (CREDIT: TBS/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
–Insidious: The Red Door (Theaters)
–The YouTube Effect (Theaters)

TV
–Celebrity Family Feud Season Premiere (July 9 on ABC)
–The $100,000 Pyramid Season Premiere (July 9 on ABC)
–Miracle Workers: End Times Season Premiere (July 10 on TBS) – Mad Max vibes this time around.
–The Afterparty Season 2 Premiere (July 12 on Apple TV+)
-The ESPYs (July 12 on ABC)
–What We Do in the Shadows Season 5 Premiere (July 13 on FX)

Music
-PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying

Sports
-U.S. Women’s Open (July 6-9 on USA and NBC) – The ladies are golfing at Pebble Beach.

‘Joy Ride’ Puts the Pedal to the Metal, But Does It Also Deliver the Laughs?

July 6, 2023

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They love to ride. (CREDIT: Ed Araquel/Lionsgate)

Starring: Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, Sabrina Wu

Director: Adele Lim

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R for Some Quick Outrageous Nudity and Non-Stop Outrageous Dialogue

Release Date: July 7, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Audrey (Ashley Park) and Lolo (Sherry Cola) have been inseparable besties since they met on the playground as kiddos. But now that they’re young adults, their lives have turned out a little differently. Audrey is a high-powered attorney, while Lolo is a struggling artist, and proud of it. When Audrey’s job sends her off to China to land a big new client (Ronny Chieng), it’s also an opportunity for her and Lolo to get in touch with their roots. Audrey was born in China and adopted by white American parents, while Lolo is a second-generation Asian American. The dynamics get a little bumpy along the way when they’re joined by Lolo’s awkward cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu) and rather snippy when they’re accompanied by Audrey’s college friend Kat (Stephanie Hsu). But these ladies are so horny and outrageous that shenanigans were always going to be part of the agenda. Amidst this whirlwind, will they somehow also have time to meet Audrey’s birth mother?

What Made an Impression?: Asians Represent: Joy Ride is at its strongest when interrogating what it means to these characters to be Asian American and exist within the wider Asian cultural world in general. The endearing opening scene features Audrey’s parents (David Denman, Annie Mumolo) asking Lolo’s mom and dad if their little girl is Chinese. It’s obviously an uncomfortable question to field from random white people, until they see the little Asian girl hiding behind them. Similar fun is had when the girls land in China, and Lolo runs through a taxonomy of various Asian people, along with a harried warning not to confuse the visiting Koreans with the home citizens.
Coming in Hot: The Joy Ride crew aims for a “girls can just be as gross as the guys!” ethos, which is a valiant enough goal. But I fear that the outrageous-to-funny ratio might have been zapped up way too far in one direction. Your mileage may vary, but I found myself exhausted much more often than I was laughing. Maybe it was just a weird day for me, and perhaps the chuckles could come on a more receptive moment. Nevertheless, I appreciate the effort, and the uniqueness therein. After all, what other movie in this genre would have retired NBA All-Star Baron Davis show up as himself to save the day?
Tattoo You: While the outrageousness wasn’t always working for me in the humor department, I couldn’t help but be struck by a recurring gag about a tattoo on a very sensitive area of Kat’s anatomy. There’s constant speculation from the others about the ink’s design, and the eventual reveal certainly doesn’t flinch. How much it makes you laugh will depend on your sensibilities, but no matter what, it delivers plenty of cosmic energy.
A Sight for Sore Eyes: Joy Ride and I are on the same wavelength when it settles down and lets its character truly take stock of their situations. And in one of those moments, a familiar actor shows up in a surprise role and really brings the emotion home. I won’t spoil who exactly that is (though you can certainly look it up online if you’re happy to be teased), though I will say that this person delivers exactly what is needed with wisdom and grace.

Joy Ride is Recommended If You Like: Mining quarter-life crises for comedy, K-pop, Getting sloppy 24/7

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Tattoos

It’s the End of the World as We Know It, and ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One’ Feels Fine

July 5, 2023

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Which one’s Dead and which one’s Reckoning? (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures and Skydance)

Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Henry Czerny, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis

Director: Christopher McQuarrie

Running Time: 163 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for A Reckless Relationship with Gravity

Release Date: July 12, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: This might just be the most impossible mission yet! That may sound like hyperbole for a series that’s famously death-defying, but honestly it lives up to the hype. Ethan Hunt (the freakishly indefatigable Tom Cruise) and his pared-down IMF team must somehow figure out how to dispatch a new enemy that threatens to wipe out humanity as we know it by reverting society to an analog dystopia. Of course, that premise is just a setup for the shameless stunts and sizzling globetrotting. In addition to this all-encompassing terror, Ethan is also being chased down by some law enforcement types who aren’t so sure he should be able to operate without impunity anymore.

What Made an Impression?: What’s All This Now?: The Mission: Impossible series combines elements of espionage, big budgets extravaganza, and practical stunt work, all genres that are notorious for being accompanied by nonsensical plots. And Dead Reckoning Part One might just be the nonsensical one yet! As far as I could tell, the enemy wasn’t exactly human, but it could take human form. Or maybe I misunderstood that. But I don’t think I did! The opening scene provided a very thorough explanation, after all. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that Esai Morales plays the villain in question, but confusion still lingered with me by the end. If you find yourself just as confused as I was, you can still enjoy the movie, though you’ll also probably find yourself mulling it over more than you need to.
New and Old, Which One’s New?: In terms of character carryover, Mission: Impossible is kind of like the hall-of-mirrors version of Fast & Furious, if some of those mirrors were covered by blackout blinds. In addition to Cruise as Hunt, you can rely on Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg to be there as his regular IMF buddies. But on the flip side, you could have a love interest like M:I 3‘s Michelle Monagahn just unceremoniously disappear. There’s also a little bit of room for new favorites like Rebecca Ferguson and Vanessa Kirby to remain after their initial appearances, and for new recruits like Hayley Atwell to seamlessly find their place. And we can even reach way back for originals like Henry Czerny who were there in the beginning but have taken most of the sequels off, and you can be tricked into thinking that they’ve been there all along. Basically, the casting in this franchise is a magic act.
So Much Delivered, So Much More to Come: But let’s finally get down to the bread and butter. The best setpieces all involve a climactic train ride. There’s a cliffside jump to arrive on the train, fights within and outside the train, and a desperate scramble to stay alive and not fall off the train. Before that choo-choo checks in, you might actually wonder what’s taking so long for Dead Reckoning to go for broke as much as usual. But once it does, the massively wound ball of tension lets loose and doesn’t give you any time to catch your breath. And this is just Part One! A nearly three-hour opening chapter, after that. (Or the first half of the seventh chapter, from another point of view.) This is just the latest 2023 blockbuster that forces you to wait another year for the end of the story, but you won’t feel deprived. Dead Reckoning Part One can stand fully on its own, and quite frankly, you’ll need all those extra months to recover.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is Recommended If You Like: Saying “Huh?” and “Woo-hoo!” at the same time

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Trains

‘Indiana Jones’ and Some Thoughts About Destiny

July 3, 2023

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Destiny. Why did it have to be destiny? (CREDIT: Lucasfilm/Screenshot)

Starring: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Boyd Holbrook, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, Ethann Isidore, Jonathan Rhys Davies, Thomas Kretschmann

Director: James Mangold

Running Time: 154 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: June 30, 2023 (Theaters)

I genuinely believe that it was my destiny to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. But what exactly did that destiny look like? Not all that much like the late 60s in particular, except for when “Magical Mystery Tour” blared out of the speakers. I think there should have been more Space Race vibes, probably. Anyway, everybody seemed to be having fun running around. They certainly had some adventures I bet they’ll never forget! I also would have recommended drawing out the scorpion scene.

Grade: Adjust the Coordinates a Little Bit

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