‘MaXXXine’ Underscores the Killer Pastiche with Surprising Vulnerability

July 3, 2024

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Blinded by the starpower (CREDIT: Justin Lubin/A24)

Starring: Mia Goth, Kevin Bacon, Giancarlo Esposito, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Sophie Thatcher, Ned Vaughn, Chloe Farnworth, Simon Prast

Director: Ti West

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: R for Extravagant Gore, A Fair Amount of T&A, and Some Hits of Blow

Release Date: July 5, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) will simply never, never, never, never, never, never, EVER accept a life that she doesn’t deserve. It’s a lesson that her father instilled deep into her psyche from a very young age. Cut ahead to 1985, when she’s now one of the biggest names in adult entertainment, but anxious to cross over into mainstream cinema. Her talent is undeniable, especially to the casting team of “The Puritan II.” It’s a schlocky demonsploitation horror sequel, but the director (Elizabeth Debicki) is trying to make an artistic statement, and she sees a kindred spirit in Maxine. Everything she’s dreamed of looks like it’s about to come true, but a mysterious figure who knows her backstory as the lone survivor of a bloody massacre six years earlier threatens to derail everything by killing the people closest to her.

What Made an Impression?: It’s the 80s, Do A Lot of Coke And…: MaXXXine is the satisfying culmination of writer-director Ti West’s bloody little trilogy starring Mia Goth that began in 2022 with X and Pearl. While the former captured the early slasher era of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the latter adopted a sheen of Old Hollywood melodrama but with just as much gore. MaXXXine expands its slasher trappings by taking inspiration from the exploitative thrillers of Brian De Palma, while also situating itself amidst the Satanic Panic of the Day Glo decade. The soundtrack blasts classics of the era from the likes of Animotion and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, while also boogieing unexpectedly hard with an opening credits sequence set to ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’.” And the pastiche is more than surface-level. Indeed, it’s engagingly lived-in, with conversations that are both of the moment and eternal representations of the characters’ deepest desires.
Plenty of Scenery to Chew: Mia Goth pulled double duty in X, but she’s been able to flex her acting muscles a lot more in the solo spotlights of those two characters. Pearl wasn’t quite a one-woman show, but the inimitable titular farm girl was pretty detached from the rest of humanity. Maxine Minx, meanwhile, is just as fiercely independent, and Goth once again delivers a transcendent degree of steely resolve. But this time around, even though she may be reluctant to admit it, Maxine has people that she cares about and who care about her. And accordingly, this is quite the ensemble piece, with West giving his players plenty of space to find notes that they’ve never reached before. That’s especially true of Kevin Bacon as a private investigator tracking Maxine who’s saturated in the molasses of the New Orleans bayou. His performance absolutely gives a whole new meaning to the phrase”I smell bacon.”
A Cautionary Tale?: Without getting into too many spoiler-y specifics, I’ll tease that Maxine kind of does achieve exactly what she’s driving towards. But I hesitate to call it a happy ending. Nor would I call it a pseudo-happy ending. It’s complicated. Yeah, she gets the star-making gig, but she also has a cocaine habit that I don’t think she has under control. And while the future looks bright for her, I’m worried that her obsession with fame will leave her empty. But we do get enough moments of vulnerability to suggest that Maxine realizes she’s never quite fully allowed herself to just be a human. It’s been a great joy to watch her story unfold these past couple years, but I’m ready to simply hope that she can find some peace after escaping all the horror that wouldn’t let her go.

MaXXXine is Recommended If You Like: Video nasties, Escaping and confronting the past, Righteous defiance

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 Star Turns

This Is a Movie Review: Mission: Impossible – Fallout

August 12, 2018

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CREDIT: Paramount Pictures

Mission: Impossible – Fallout is to Ethan Hunt what Spectre is to James Bond, but not that (transparently) insane and mostly successful. But what I really want to talk about is this idea that Hunt is irreplaceable. The conjecture that there is only person for the most dangerous jobs in the world is certainly compelling, but is it healthy? If we’re talking about how it applies to reality, certainly not. For the sake of the world and for the sake of their personal lives, experts and superheroes should have backups and successors in place. But when we’re talking about the cinematic medium, the calculus is a little different … or is it?

M:I isn’t the only spy and/or insane stunt franchise that has been killing it in the past 20 years, which means we’ve got our backups. And when Tom Cruise finally calls it quits (in a billion years or so), maybe a worthy Ethan Hunt successor will somehow run into our hearts. In the universe where the IMF exists, Hunt really shouldn’t place the entire weight of the world on his shoulders. But since this world is a fictional place, it’s working as it’s supposed to.

I give Mission: Impossible – Fallout 4 Cliffhangs out of 5 Shifting Allegiances.

This Is a Movie Review: Patriots Day

December 20, 2016

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This review was originally published on News Cult in December 2016.

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, Kevin Bacon, J.K. Simmons, Michelle Monaghan

Director: Peter Berg

Running Time: 133 Minutes

Rating: R for a Graphic Recreation and the Explicit Language Reacting to It

Release Date: December 21, 2016 (Limited)/Expands Nationwide January 13, 2017

Films about real-life terrorist attacks are tough beasts. Even with the best of intentions, the results can be sensationalistic. And even if the end product is as respectful as possible, survivors and witnesses may be too traumatized to relive that day in any capacity, which begs the question: is it even worth it? It is a conundrum whose scope goes beyond any simple answer, but it is important to keep in mind.

Then on pure storytelling terms, there is the matter of where to even place the focus. Patriots Day, which retells the story of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the subsequent capture of its perpetrators, chooses to spread its character reach far and wide, which works surprisingly well. The implications and motivations behind a terrorist act can be too massive to capture completely, but this particular event actually lends itself well to the real-life recreations that director Peter Berg (Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon) has recently excelled at.

A frequently reiterated theme is that Bostonians have each others’ backs, and that is borne out through how interlinked the main characters are to each other. That connection is heightened through crisis, but the glue is already there. Even the terrorists themselves (chillingly and matter-of-factly played by Themo Melikidze and Alex Wolff), classmates and neighbors to many, are part of the Boston milieu.

Following the bombing, Patriots Day turns into a chase movie, with the urgency of the best of that genre already baked in. Armed forces, intelligence agencies, and civilians join together for an inspiring display of coordinated decision-making and action. The actors playing them summon their best reserves of basic decency to pull it off. The entire cinematic effort makes for a mix of emotions, often uncomfortable, frequently awe-inspiring, never without honor, even through the cathartic bursts of laughter.

Patriots Day is Recommended If You Like: Lone Survivor, World Trade Center, Credits Scenes with the Real-Life People Portrayed in the Movie

Grade: 4 out of 5 Acts of Bravery