Inject ‘The Substance’ Straight Into Everyone! (Not Literally, Though)

September 24, 2024

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The Substance is full of substance. (CREDIT: MUBI/Screenshot)

Starring: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid

Director: Coralie Fargeat

Running Time: 141 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: September 20, 2024 (Theaters)

Not long ago, I discovered that Will & Harper was the perfect movie for my habit of reviewing cinema by asking, “Would I like to be a part of what this movie is all about?” But now I’m confronted with the totally opposite situation in the form of The Substance, as I would most definitely decline to inject myself with the titular substance. I prefer when things are in balance!

Although, I suppose I could learn from Elisabeth/Sue’s example and just not make the same mistakes. But ultimately, I’d still have to say “Nah.” Working out our most grotesque desires/insecurities without actually going into the danger zone is one of the most useful purposes of art, so just watching The Substance is enough for me. I imagine Coralie Fargeat and her cast and crew felt similarly by making it happen.

Grade: 77 Activators out of 101 Stabilizers

‘American Underdog’ is an Okay Football Movie and a Down-the-Middle Christian Movie

December 17, 2021

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American Underdog (CREDIT: Michael Kubeisy/Lionsgate)

Starring: Zachary Levi, Anna Paquin, Dennis Quaid, Chance Kelly, Cindy Hogan, Ser’Darius Blain, Adam Baldwin, Bruce McGill, Hayden Zaller

Directors: Andrew and Jon Erwin

Running Time: 112 Minutes

Rating: PG for Mild Adult Situations

Release Date: December 25, 2021 (Theaters)

Is American Underdog The Great Evangelical Christian Movie we’ve all been waiting for? Not quite, but it does promise a decent amount of inspiration. Plenty of professional athletes have attributed their success to God, and Kurt Warner is one of the most successful to ever do so. He was named Super Bowl MVP in 2001 and eventually made his way into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but he took a uniquely circuitous path to the big time. He went undrafted out of a college that’s not exactly known for producing NFL talent, got a job stocking grocery shelves just to get by, and then tried at hand arena football just as his dreams were starting to slip away for good. That’s when he landed on the radar of the St. Louis Rams, a struggling franchise willing to take a chance on a guy that everyone else had written off as too old to be a rookie. And even after all that, he was still just a backup. But not for long, as the Rams’ starting quarterback got injured in a preseason game.

You might think it would be a little odd seeing 41-year-old Zachary Levi playing Warner throughout his twenties, but fortunately Shazam! did us the favor of establishing his overgrown kid bona fides. Besides, world-class athletes are often so physically imposing and metaphorically larger-than-life that they can easily appear to be ten years older than they actually are. So Levi sells that part of the role, but what about the Christianity aspect? I certainly believe that Warner lives his life dedicated to God and that he became especially committed to his faith when he meets divorced mother of two Brenda (Anna Paquin). But does that aspect of his life make for an interesting movie? I’ll say this: it could’ve been more interesting. There are some hints at internal existential struggles, particularly when Brenda’s parents die in a tornado. But we never feel the full weight of how the Warners can reconcile a merciful god with a cruel world. We just kind of learn that they in fact do do that.

But what about the football? It’s not hard to make the career of Kurt Warner exciting. His years with the Rams were nicknamed “The Greatest Show on Turf,” and they certainly featured some of the most dynamic offensive playmaking in the history of the NFL. I love touchdowns much more than I love concussion-causing tackles, so I’m reasonably happy with a highlight reel of this nature. But does American Underdog say anything that the real licensed game footage doesn’t already say? As with the Christianity, the answer is a resounding … “maybe”? There’s a running theme about how Kurt is resistant to the strictures imposed by his coaches. Did he possibly revolutionize football by scrambling out of the so-called “pocket” and thereby opening up the game to untold possibilities? Perhaps! The movie doesn’t really give us a definitive answer either way.

Oh well, at least there’s Dennis Quaid really enjoying himself (and relishing a chicken sandwich when we first meet him) as Rams coach Dick Vermeil, who’s in his sixties during the film’s events but even more of an overgrown kid than everyone else. Maybe American Underdog should have just been a Warner-Vermeil buddy comedy – and not even necessarily primarily about football! Just spitballing, but perhaps they could solve pigskin-related crimes in the St. Louis area. Billion dollar idea here for the taking, folks.

American Underdog is Recommended If You Like: Real life sports footage mixed with fake movie scenes, Inspirational kids with disabilities, Honky tonk bars

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Touchdowns

Movie Review: ‘A Dog’s Journey’ is Overflowing with Human Melodrama

May 16, 2019

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CREDIT: Joe Lederer/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment

Starring: Josh Gad, Kathryn Prescott, Dennis Quaid, Marg Helgenberger, Betty Gilpin, Henry Lau, Abby Ryder Fortson, Ian Chen

Director: Gail Mancuso

Running Time: 108 Minutes

Rating: PG for Emotional Neglect and a Car Crash

Release Date: May 17, 2019

Movies centered around dogs sound all well and good, but what we perhaps are not always as cognizant of as we should be is that these flicks often need human stories happening around the pooches. It might be natural to ask, “If I love dogs, will I love A Dog’s Journey?” Well, it turns out that is not the most relevant question, because what really matters here is your taste for melodrama.

A sequel to A Dog’s Purpose, A Dog’s Journey is an extension of the narrative but also a re-do, running through the exact formula set by the original: a soul with the inner voice of Josh Gad lives a full dog life, dies, and then gets reincarnated as a new breed with a new name, but with the memories of the past lives intact. “Purpose” has been dropped from the title, because this time the pooch (who consistently knows him/herself as “Bailey” despite all the new monikers) learns his mission right from the start. His original owner Ethan (Dennis Quaid) informs Bailey that he must stay by the side of his step-granddaughter CJ (Ant-Man‘s Abby Ryder Fortson as a youngster and Kathryn Prescott as a young adult) as she navigates a rough and painful life.

And oh boy, does CJ have a tough upbringing, often comically so. Her mother Gloria (GLOW‘s Betty Gilpin) is chronically absent and frequently antagonistic to her family members. At one point, CJ comes right out and tells her, “You are literally the worst mother in the world.” Gilpin is impressively committed, but Gloria comes off as little more than a caricature. While there may be bad parents just like her in the real world, her behavior is so bizarrely motivated that it always feels like she and CJ are acting like they’re in a soap opera when everything else around them suggests verisimilitude. The ostensible appeal of a canine-based movie like A Dog’s Journey is the dog’s askew interpretations of human behavior. Those zingers are present and occasionally worth a chuckle, but the majority of the plot is overwrought human tragedy. That’s generally exhausting, though occasionally it thankfully enters the territory of self-parody.

A Dog’s Journey is Recommended If You Like: A Dog’s Purpose, Unabashed melodrama, Believing that your loved ones can be reincarnated

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Boss Dogs

This Is a Movie Review: A Dog’s Purpose

January 26, 2017

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A DOG'S PURPOSE

This review was originally published on News Cult in January 2017.

Starring: Josh Gad, K.J. Apa, Britt Robertson, John Ortiz, Dennis Quaid, Peggy Lipton

Director: Lasse Hallström

Running Time: 100 Minutes

Rating: PG for a Few Moments That Make a Dog Whimper

Release Date: January 27, 2017

A Dog’s Purpose asks, “What is a dog’s purpose?” Before answering this question, it is important to note that A Dog’s Purpose presupposes that reincarnation (or at least canine reincarnation) is a fact of existence. If you have been a dog parent multiple times and ever believed that one of your more recent pups was somehow the same as one of your older ones, then this film has your back. This is the third in director Lasse Hallström’s dog trilogy (following 1985’s My Life as a Dog and 2009’s Hachi: A Dog’s Tale), so I feel confident in determining that he imbued that belief into every single frame.

The film seeks its meaning by tracking the lives of the dog (voiced by Josh Gad in each iteration) over approximately 50 years. The lifetimes that are traversed include an all-American football-slinging, farming sixties family; a seventies detective buddy story; a Jheri curled-style romance in the eighties and nineties; and a reunion narrative in the 2000’s, along with a few danger-filled detours along the way. The canine perspective remains endearing, with much humor mined from the dog growing into its new bodies, often switching genders (the breeds range from Red Retriever to German Shepherd, down to Corgi, concluding as a St. Bernard-Australian Shepherd mix).

But the quality of the film is only as strong as the quality of each of the human stories. The most prominent is also the most cliché-ridden. Ethan (K.J. Apa) is a wholesome high school quarterback with everything going his way until an accident derails his guarantee of an athletic scholarship. Rectify’s Luke Kirby does what he can in the mandatory drunk dad role, and Britt Robertson is a minor delight as Ethan’s best gal, but this whole segment is a slog due to painfully unimaginative writing.

Much more fun, and offbeat, are the two middle segments. John Ortiz is a natural as a ’70s detective in the K-9 unit. His pursuit of a divorced dad who has kidnapped his daughter is a weirdly engrossing mix of family friendly and urban grit. That is followed by a portion that is a bit like The Cosby Show, except with a lot more perms and a-ha.

A Dog’s Purpose is never so cloying that it ought to be resented. Yet its storytelling is all too often so surface-level that it does not matter how lovable dogs are. But it concludes nicely when it returns back to the farm, redeeming a story that had little going for it in the first place. Let’s put it this way: Dennis Quaid has a face and physique that were made for carrying bales of hay, and Peggy Lipton makes the case that all cinematic love stories should henceforth star 70-year-olds.

A Dog’s Purpose is Recommended If You Like: Dogs More Than You Like Good Storytelling, Pretending That Your Dog’s Internal Voice is That of Olaf from Frozen

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Games of Fetch