Jason Statham is ‘A Working Man,’ and I Bet You Can Guess What That Means

March 26, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I guess that’s what he is (Credit: Dan Smith/© 2025 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved.)

Starring: Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Arianna Rivas, Michael Peña, David Harbour, Noemi Gonzalez, Emmett J. Scanlan, Eve Mauro, Maximilian Osinski, Max Croes, Kristina Poli, Andrej Kaminsky, Isla Gie, Alana Boden

Director: David Ayer

Running Time: 116 Minutes

Rating: R for Big Guns, Small Guns, and Even a Few Medium Guns

Release Date: March 28, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Levon Cade is just trying to live a peaceful life as a construction worker in Chicago. But when his boss Joe’s (Michael Peña) daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) is kidnapped, he’s forced to revisit a side of himself he swore that he’d abandoned for good. There’s one actor who’s been specializing in characters like this more than anybody else the past 20 years or so, and once again Jason Statham is indeed in his sweet spot. (If you guessed Liam Neeson instead, I would argue that his ass-kicking characters are generally less ambivalent about getting violent than Statham’s.) Anyway, Jenny is now in the hands of human traffickers within the Russian mafia, who are certainly a formidable adversary. But to reiterate: Cade is a one-man wrecking crew played by Jason Statham.

What Made an Impression?: Destruction/Efficiency Dilemma: Lately, I find myself bemoaning the extreme measures of ultra-violent action flicks more and more, and I have to ask, “Did I change, or did the movies?” Then I remember that I never used to watch this genre all that much when I was younger. So the most likely answer is that neither of us changed, we just got to know each other. Anyway, I’m not trying to say that A Working Man and its ilk cause real-life violence, because I genuinely don’t believe that that’s the case (at least not in a direct one-to-one correlation). But after having my eyeballs treated to a series of gaping gunshot wounds, I can \ repeat to myself “It’s just a movie” only so often before it becomes too exhausting to handle. At least David Ayer and Sylvester Stallone’s script is a little quippier than the typical Statham actioner. It’s still a blunt force instrument, but it’s got enough self-awareness for me to appreciate it.
The Shakedown: Cade has a couple of vulnerabilities in the form of a tween daughter named Merry (Isla Gie) and a father-in-law who hates him because he blames him for the death of Merry’s mom. You might expect that the Russians would target Cade’s family to try to make him desperate, and they certainly do, but it thankfully doesn’t get as traumatic as it could. But anyway, I don’t really want to focus on all that right now. Instead, I want to mention how great a relationship Merry and her dad have, and how nice it is that he’s able to keep his PTSD in check whenever he’s around her, and also there’s an early scene where they go out for a lunch of burgers and milkshakes. We don’t see them actually downing any of that greasy grub, but it nonetheless looked delicious to the point that it had me eagerly anticipating my own first milkshake of 2025 once the weather gets warm enough. And I’m grateful for that! Most bloody action flicks don’t bother to include shots of delicious sweet treats, nor do they shoot them so lovingly as they are here. But A Working Man went above and beyond.

A Working Man is Recommended If You Like: All the other Jason Stathams. This one’s a lot like those.

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Shotgun Blasts

‘Death of a Unicorn’ Hooks Its Horn Into an Eat the Rich Adventure

March 25, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

This is what looks like when a unicorn dies (CREDIT: Balazs Goldi/A24)

Starring: Jenna Ortega, Paul Rudd, Richard E. Grant, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, Anthony Carrigan, Sunita Mani, Steve Park, Jessica Hynes

Director: Alex Scharfman

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: R for Supernatural Creature Violence and Some Drug Use

Release Date: March 28, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Widower Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) are on their way to sort out some legal business at the mansion of Elliot’s boss, Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant). The occasion is that Odell has terminal cancer, and he’s put Elliot in charge of sorting out his estate. But thanks to an unexpected visitor, they may not have to worry about that, as Elliot and Ridley crash into a one-horned mythical quadruped right before arriving. The unicorn looks like a goner, but before it perishes, its blood appears to magically cure Elliot’s eyesight and Ridley’s acne. And do those healing properties extend to cancer? Why yes, they seem to be limitless. The Leopolds quickly become greedy with the possibilities of curing every physical ailment everywhere, while Ridley tries to warn everyone that they might want to be careful about slaughtering these majestic creatures.

What Made an Impression?: Predictably Vicious: If you find yourself sympathizing with Ridley throughout Death of a Unicorn, then you are watching this movie in the way that the universe intended. If however you find her annoying, then you might be a rich a-hole. Or perhaps more generously*, you agree with her but you wish that there were more depth to these characters. (*-More generous to you, not to the movie.) Basically, everyone behaves exactly as you would expect them to considering this situation. Ridley is befuddled and indignant, Elliot is ineffectual, the Leopolds are outrageously arrogant, and the unicorns are magnificent and prideful. That predictability is more of a feature than a bug, as you’re supposed to be eternally frustrated at all the would-be modern-day Prometheuses.
Something Mystical: Here are a couple of things that happen in Death of a Unicorn that you might not be able to predict from the trailer: Ridley develops a psychic connection with the unicorns, and she remembers when she was on vacation with her parents and they saw tapestries at a museum depicting people being slaughtered by unicorns. That woo-woo and that alternate history certainly make sense when supernatural animals play a big part in the story. Although for the most part the action all remains grounded in the real world, at least as much as it can. Perhaps some viewers would prefer going further off the deep end. As for me, I was mostly satisfied with the pleasant mix of a fantastical flight of fancy, sarcastic humor, and bursts of grievous horror.

Death of a Unicorn is Recommended If You Like: Body horror crossed with Amblin wonderment

Grade: 3 out of 5 Horns

Catching Up on Movies I Happened to See in March 2025

March 22, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

CREDIT: (Clockwise from Top Left): Marvel Entertainment; Ketchup Entertainment; Stan Alley/IFC Films; Cinetic

Oh wow, look at the time! I guess I’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks. (For a variety of reasons!) That means I’ve got more than one movie to catch up with my thoughts about. It’s quite a mix that we’ve got on the agenda: some blockbusters or would-be blockbusters, a heartbreaking award winner, and an indie from the depths of the muck.

First up, we checked back into the MCU, and I found myself in rare agreement with SNL‘s Drunk Uncle, which is to say: “Not my Captain America!” Nah, actually, Sam Wilson, you’re cool, dude. But Brave New World was neither brave, nor new, nor a world. Discuss.

More

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 3/21/25

March 21, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Entertainment To-Do List, Music, Television , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

That depends on what the definition of the album “Is” is

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

Movies
–Ash (Theaters) – Trippy-looking space movie directed by Flying Lotus.
–Misericordia (Theaters)
–Snow White (Theaters) – Starring Rachel Zegler as Snow.

TV
–The Conners Season 7 Premiere (March 26 on ABC) – Final Season Alert!

Music
-Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco, I Said I Love You First
-Japanese Breakfast, For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women)
-Lola Kirke, Trailblazer
-My Morning Jacket, Is

‘Misericordia’ Answers the Question: What if Hitchcock Were Queer and French?

March 20, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

TFW you have Misericordia (CREDIT: Janus Films/Screenshot)

Starring: Félix Kysyl, Catherine Frot, Jean-Baptiste Durand, Jacques Develay, David Ayala, Sébastien Faglain, Tatiana Spivakova, Salomé Lopes

Director: Alain Guiradie

Running Time: 102 Minutes

Rating: Unrated, But Featuring Graphic Nudity and A Few Bursts of Violence

Release Date: March 21, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: It only takes one person to rock an entire community to its core. Especially when that community is a small enclave in rural France, and that person is the enigmatic Jérémie (Félix Kysyl). He’s back in his hometown to attend a funeral, and he ends up staying in an empty bedroom at the house of the widowed Martine (Catherine Frot), mother of his childhood friend, the hot-tempered Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand). Vincent suspects that Jérémie is trying to sleep with his mother, which he almost definitely isn’t, but Jérémie isn’t exactly the sort to just let a little offense roll off him easily. Eventually, the conflict boils over to the point that everything changes irrevocably.

What Made an Impression?: There Was Never Any Turning Back: Misericordia is one of those movies where something shocking happens about a third of the way through, so it would be fair to call that part of the premise. And indeed, it’s in the synopsis and the trailer, though it plays more like a twist that you don’t see coming. Considering this film’s powerful Hitchcockian vibes, I must say that this situation is like the conundrum of describing Psycho: is Norman Bates killing Marion Crane part of the premise, or a surprise dagger? (Spoiler alert.) If you were watching it in 1960, perhaps it was the former, but ever since then, it’s been the latter. And I imagine our conceptualization of Jérémie as a moviegoing society will turn out to be quite similar. If you’re fated to see Misericordia with no preconceived notions, you’ll be wondering how he could do such a thing. But eventually you’ll surely come to understand that that was the only way he ever was.
Identity Crises: And yet, despite that firm conclusion I just made about Jérémie, much of Misericordia is about his struggle to reconcile his own behavior with his sense of self. He can’t explain why he did what he did in that moment, but you get the sense that he would struggle to define himself even without a guilty conscience. He’s just a lost soul awkwardly wearing a human costume as he wanders along this unforgiving plane. Just about every other character wears their ostensible roles awkwardly as well. There’s the local priest (Jacques Develay), who’s more interested in seducing the mysterious protagonist while also offering a warped version of spiritual guidance that’s useful in some ways, morally dubious in others. A neighbor named Walter (David Ayala) becomes Jérémie’s loyal drinking buddy, while also becoming baffled by everything that’s going on around him. Meanwhile, Martine is too stuck in grief to act rationally, while the lead detective (Sébastien Faglain) has no idea how much of a fool he is. It’s a relentlessly topsy-turvy world when we bumble our way through moral dilemmas.

Misericordia is Recommended If You Like: Psycho, Match Point, Mushroom Foraging

Grade: 4 out of 5 Houseguests

Bill Skarsgård Ends Up ‘Locked’ in a Car by Anthony Hopkins, and That Goes About as Well as You’d Expect

March 19, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , Leave a comment

The Locked guy before he gets Locked (CREDIT: The Avenue)

Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Anthony Hopkins

Director: David Yarovesky

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R for Road Rage in a Parked Cars

Release Date: March 21, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Eddie Barrish (Bill Skarsgård) is desperate. Desperate, I say! And I’m pretty sure you’ll be inclined to agree with me if you go see Locked. He’s been trying to get his life back on track for the sake of his young daughter, but that’s a little hard to do when he doesn’t have the cash he needs to pay for his car repairs so that he can go pick her up from school. So he turns to carjacking for a quick score, which turns out so much worse than he ever could have possibly imagined. That’s because the vehicle he targets happens to be owned by a fellow named William (Anthony Hopkins), who’s been a victim of one of too many carjackings himself. So Eddie ends up trapped in the car, with William having rigged it up so that everything is controlled remotely. A simple apology is hardly enough to end this nightmare, and thus a deadly game of very targeted vigilantism commences.

What Made an Impression?: Sociopathic Overload: William is basically the answer to the question, “What if instead of bats, Bruce Wayne was inspired by felines, specifically the way that they mercilessly toy with mice before eating them?” The police were useless to him when he needed them, so now he’s enforcing his own brand of justice. But you get the sense that he’s just been looking for an excuse to behave this way for a very long time. Whenever Eddie pleads with him about how the deck is stacked against guys like him, William just automatically shuts him down and ups the torture. Hopkins is certainly talented enough to make William’s sociopathy entertaining, but it’s more than a little overwhelming when it’s this relentless.
Efficient Mileage: About 75% of Locked takes place in one location, and its cast consists almost entirely of just two guys, one of whom primarily phones in his performance. With a movie like this, you will likely end up with one of two reactions: either “Wow, this is cheap, and it shows,” or “Wow, this is cheap, but they worked around their limitations.” In this case, it’s mostly the latter. The subject matter may be torturous, and the villain may be overcooked, but director David Yarovesky keeps everything locked in gear. All the tightly contained torture may turn a lot of viewers claustrophobic, but it’s possible to appreciate the technical chops even while you’re wincing.

Locked is Recommended If You: Wish That One of the Saw Movies Had Taken Place in a Car

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Vigilantes

Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 3/14/25

March 14, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Entertainment To-Do List, Music, Podcasts, Sports , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

worth a listen (CREDIT: Headgum)

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

Movies
–Black Bag (Theaters)
–The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (Theaters)
–Novocaine (Theaters)
–Opus (Theaters) – Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich are in this.

Sports
-Men’s March Madness (March 18-April 7 on CBS, TBS, TNT, and truTV) – And Selection Sunday is on Sunday the 16th on CBS.
-Women’s March Madness (March 19-April 6 on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and ESPNEWS) – And Selection Sunday is on Sunday the 16th on ESPN.

Music
-Coheed and Cambria, Vaxis – Act III: The Father of Make Believe

Podcasts
–Wayne Brady’s What If?! with Jonathan Mangum – The improvisational spirit is strong with this one.

‘Novocaine’ is About a Guy Who Can’t Feel Pain, But You’ll Probably Feel Plenty of Pleasure While Watching It

March 12, 2025

jmunney Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Jack Quaid as Mr. Novocaine (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures)

Starring: Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, Jacob Batalon, Betty Gabriel, Matt Walsh

Directors: Dan Berk and Robert Olsen

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: R for Grave Bodily Injuries

Release Date: March 14, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: San Diego resident Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) spends his days working his sensible job as a bank executive and his evenings at home playing video games. He’s never really allowed himself to aspire to much more than that, which makes sense when you consider that he has congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP). After all, if he eats solid food, he might accidentally bite his tongue off and not even realize it. So better to opt for the most vanilla life possible and not risk any danger that his body won’t be able to warn him about. But then one day, he goes on a date with his new co-worker Sherry (Amber Midthunder), and she scrambles his brain so much that he starts to think it might actually be worth taking a risk here and there. So much so that when she’s taken hostage by bank robbers the very next day, Nathan decides to turn into an avenging superhero to set her free.

What Made an Impression?: The Sensitive Man’s Unlikely Action Hero: Jack Quaid is having quite the starmaking moment. He’s been banging around in big ensembles like Oppenheimer and Scream, while also letting loose with frequent guest appearances on the podcast Comedy Bang! Bang! He nailed it as the lead earlier this year in the robots-gone-wrong thriller Companion, and now he’s an even bigger casting coup in Novocaine. If he’s going to play a badass, of course it’s going to be the type of badass who can’t feel anything physically while feeling plenty emotionally. This movie is knowingly over-the-top, capturing the feeling of life-changing love making you do things that you never thought were possible. Nathan is profoundly in over his head, but for a guy who’s been living out under his head his entire life, it’s basically impossible not to cheer on his foolhardiness.
Loyal and Goofy Support: I simply mustn’t ignore the clutch supporting cast surrounding Quaid. First of all, Midthunder nails the hook of adorability (while harboring a secret that prevents her from drifting into manic pixie dream girl territory). Then we’ve got Jacob Batalan as Nathan’s video game buddy Roscoe, the latest in his specialty of preternaturally reliable friends. And finally, there are a couple of detectives on Nathan’s trail in the form of Betty Gabriel and, wait for it … Upright Citizens Brigade co-founder Matt Walsh. It should be a law (if it’s not already) that serious action movies like this must have a comedy legend like Walsh in an essential supporting role. Does this all add up to a movie that’s effective enough to cure CIP among any of its viewers? Not literally. But metaphorically? Definitely.

Novocaine is Recommended If You Like: Die Hard, John Wick, First dates

Grade: 4 out of 5 Gunshot Wounds

‘Black Bag’ Review: The Couple That Spies Together, Rides or Dies Together

March 11, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

What’s in the Black Bag?! (CREDIT: Claudette Barius/Focus Features)

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Pierce Brosnan

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Running Time: 94 Minutes

Rating: R for Adults Talking About Their Adult Affairs, as Well as a Few Bursts of Violence

Release Date: March 14, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: George Woodehouse (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) are a happily married childless couple. But it’s a little complicated because they’re both spies and therefore can’t exactly always be 100% honest with each other. But somehow they’ve managed to make it work! It perhaps helps that they carefully cultivate relationships with some of the younger employees at their agency, even if things do occasionally get a little (or a lot) messy. When Kathryn flies out for her latest covert meeting, it looks like she might be turning treasonous, or perhaps it’s all a setup. So how far will George go to protect his wife, and is anyone foolhardy enough to stand in his way?

What Made an Impression?: Confusing, Until It’s Not: I’ve long since given up on trying to understand the plots of espionage movies, and the beginning of Black Bag didn’t do anything to change my mind. Instead, it felt like an homage to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that had me going, “Did the trailer just straight-up lie about this movie’s plot?” But then after about 40 minutes of finely deliberate setup, screenwriter David Koepp and director Steven Soderbergh finally showed their hands, and they had me going, “Ah, there are the stakes.” I won’t delve too much more into this point because much of the pleasure of Black Bag is that “a-ha” feeling. But let’s just say that Soderbergh has demonstrated once again that it pays to figure out what you want to do ahead of time and then go ahead and execute that plan.
Scenes From a Marriage: Are George and Kathryn #couplegoals? I’d certainly be happy to see that conversation play out in the wake of Black Bag‘s release. They undoubtedly have each other’s backs, and they also consistently give each other the benefit of the doubt. But on the other hand, they leave a bit of a trail of destruction in their wake, although that might say more about their profession than it does about them. And though they don’t have any kids, you can kind of think of the characters played by Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, and Regé-Jean Page as their stand-in children. But that interpretation makes things go a little wibbly-wobbly, as it probably isn’t the best idea for parents to subject their kids to a round of polygraph testing. And yet, that is something that indeed happens in this movie. In conclusion, George and Kathryn’s ultimate suitability as a couple remains uncertain, but their turns as Spy Daddy and Spy Mommy are finely fulfilled.

Black Bag is Recommended If You Like: Leather and wine

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Satellite Feeds

Jeff’s Wacky SNL Review: Lady Gaga/Lady Gaga (2025)

March 9, 2025

jmunney Saturday Night Live, SNL Weekly Recaps, Television , , , , 1 Comment

Talkin’ ’bout the goo-goo, talkin’ ’bout the Gaga (CREDIT: NBC/Screenshot)

Jeff “jmunney” Malone watches every new episode of Saturday Night Live and then reviews all the sketches and segments according to a “wacky” theme.

Here’s the deal: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (better known by her stage name Lady Gaga) has memorably appeared multiple times on the sketch and variety show Saturday Night Live. And she did it again on the episode that began airing on March 8, 2025. Indeed, she served as both the host and the musical guest. She can’t help but keep herself busy, I reckon.

Because this episode aired on the eve of my birthday, and I’m writing the review on my birthday, I will be reviewing it by determining what was the most *festive* part of each segment.

More

Older Entries Newer Entries