‘The Life of Chuck’ Reveals All the Lives Within That Life of Chuck

June 4, 2025

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The Spontaneous Choreography of Chuck (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay, Chiwetel Ejifor, Karen Gillan, Mark Hamill, Annalise Basso, Mia Sara, Matthew Lillard, Carl Lumbly, Samantha Sloyan, Harvey Guillén, Kate Siegel, Nick Offerman, Q’Orianka Kilcher, David Dastmalchian, Rahul Kohli, Heather Langenkamp, Violet McGraw

Director: Mike Flanagan

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: R for Language, Apparently (Nothing Overly Outrageous)

Release Date: June 6, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Told in three acts unfolding in reverse order, Act Three of The Life of Chuck opens on a future on the verge of apocalypse: the internet is becoming ever more unreliable, natural disasters are an everyday occurrence, and soon enough the stars are being wiped from the sky. Everyone is despairing, and the only sign of hope are literal signs popping up all around town thanking some guy named Chuck Krantz for his 39 years of service. But nobody has any idea who Chuck is! But then we step back to Act Two, taking place on one of the most memorable days of Chuck’s (Tom Hiddleston) life, when he spontaneously decides to start dancing in front of a busking drummer and quickly draws an enraptured crowd. And finally, Act One introduces us to a middle school-age Chuck (Benjamin Pajak), who’s living with his grandparents (Mark Hamill and Mia Sara) following the tragic death of his mom and dad.

What Made an Impression?: The King’s English: Mike Flanagan is currently our foremost adapter of Stephen King, with The Life of Chuck based on a novella that was published in 2020. I’ve never read a single story written by King, but it’s impossible to avoid him if you’ve been watching movies for the past 50 years. While I’ve enjoyed plenty of those big screen versions, they’ve never made me want to dive into the source. There’s something that’s just a little bit uncanny about the worlds that King weaves. It’s like he’s speaking a language that’s ever so slightly different from the one I’m speaking. And when that language is filtered through the lens of someone who’s clearly as much of a fan as Flanagan is, that uncanniness is a rather strong flavor.
Voice Overlord: I’ve enjoyed the narration in plenty of movies that feature it, and I’ve also enjoyed Nick Offerman in pretty much everything he’s ever done. But the narration narrated by Nick Offerman in The Life of Chuck? Well, that had me going “Huh.” It’s blunt, literal, and near-constant. But it also felt completely necessary if this movie was going to be the movie that it wants to be. Does that make sense?
One Life: The whole idea underlying The Life of Chuck seems to be that there’s an entire universe living within Chuck’s brain (and by extension, everyone else’s brain). To get mildly spoiler-y, he’s dying of cancer, and that universe is dimming in his final moments. Is Chuck truly worthy of this biographical treatment? Yes, insofar as every single individual is worthy of such treatment. If The Life of Chuck didn’t fully work for any of us, well, then perhaps we could respond by crafting our own The Life of (Whoever the Hell We Want).
All He Wants to Do Is…: Despite all my misgivings, I’ve got to give it up for that dance scene. Actually, there are multiple dance scenes, but I’m talking about that busking one right in the middle. Damn, Hiddleston-as-Chuck gives it his all. And you know what else this scene underscored me? I really love drumming. Taylor Gordon just pounds away on the skins, and it goes straight to my core. And then Annalise Basso plays Chuck’s impromptu partner, who’s wearing the perfect dress to accentuate all of their spins and dips. It’s one of the best scenes of the year.

The Life of Chuck is Recommended If You Like: Hanging upside-down while reading a book all day until the sun sets

Grade: 3 out of 5 Chucks

‘Dog’ Review: Channing Tatum and His Four-Legged Friend Find Their Way Back

February 17, 2022

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Dog (CREDIT: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/SMPSP/© 2022 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved)

Starring: Channing Tatum, Jane Adams, Kevin Nash, Q’orianka Kilcher, Ethan Suplee, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Bill Burr, Nicole LaLiberte, Luke Forbes, Ronnie Gene Blevins

Directors: Channing Tatum and Reid Carolin

Running Time: 90 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Veterans Struggling with Civilian Life

Release Date: February 18, 2022 (Theaters)

Dog is basically The Odyssey, but as if Odysseus’ crew were replaced by a military-trained Belgian Malinois named Lulu. She absolutely has to get to the funeral of the soldier who handled her, and Army Ranger Jackson Briggs (Channing Tatum) takes on the assignment to convince his superiors that he’s fit enough to head out on another tour of duty. So they trek down the Pacific Coast, and along the way they endure several tests of character and meet a fascinating array of folks. It’s a typical road trip buddy comedy of opposites who of course eventually realize that they’ve got more in common than they thought. They’re both experiencing PTSD after all, and they can be each other’s emotional support if they can just manage to open up.

At only an hour and a half long, you might expect Dog to have a fairly straightforward plot, but it’s actually a series of non-stop detours. As Jackson makes his first stop at a hipster bar in Portland and then finds himself in the throes of a tantric threesome, I found myself wondering what the heck was going on. That thought remained top of mind throughout, as the randomness of Jackson and Lulu’s excursions just kept pulling up. One day, they’re being held captive by a pot farmer who suspects espionage, and then soon after, Jackson’s impersonating a blind man to score a luxury hotel suite. When they end up at an encampment for unhoused people, I’m still wondering how they suddenly got to this point, but at least in this case the thematic resonance is immediately clear, considering the fate of too many veterans who are unable to find the support they need. Ultimately, much like the epics of yore, these vignettes do their best to paint a mythic panorama of the society we’re living in today.

Considering its subject matter and its pedigree, Dog has an appropriately shaggy disposition. It’s the directorial debut for both Tatum and Reid, who previously worked together on White House Down, 22 Jump Street, Logan Lucky, and both Magic Mike chapters. With this collaboration, they display plenty of empathy and patience, and in that spirit, Dog is worth warming up to. It’s not the most enthralling or life-changing experience at the multiplex today, but it’s got some tricks up its collar that can make you reconsider what it’s up to. Its happy ending is as formulaic as any platonic (pet-tonic?) rom-com in which it’s no surprise that Man and Mutt are going to fall for each other, but it’s endearing enough that you’re pleased when they do.

Dog is Recommended If You Like: Early 2010s Hipster-based comedy, A Carousel of Character Actor Cameos, Chew Toys

Grade: 3 out of 5 Dog

‘Color Out of Space’ is Here to Blow Your Mind Just as You Asked

January 25, 2020

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CREDIT: RLJE Films

Color Out of Space is basically the inverse of Cats. While the nonsense with the Jellicles was disturbing in just the ways one would expect, this blast of no-holds-barred horror sci-fi is satisfying in the ways that you would expect a movie based on an H.P. Lovecraft short story starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Richard Stanley after a long stint in director jail to be. In many ways, it’s like Annihilation but if instead of starring a quintet of women, it starred Cage with his typical five-times-bigger-than-the-average-person personality. After a couple hours’ journey through an unremitting vision, it concludes on a note (for the survivors) of “Well, that was weird. At least now we can move on with our lives.” And you can, too!

I give Color Out of Space A Million Colors Into My Face.

This Is a Movie Review: Christian Bale Gives It His Grimmest in the Dour, Distressing ‘Hostiles’

December 19, 2017

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CREDIT: Lorey Sebastian/Yellow Hawk, Inc.

This review was originally posted on News Cult in December 2017.

Starring: Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Rory Cochrane, Jesse Plemons, Adam Beach, Q’orianka Kilcher, Ben Foster, Bill Camp, Stephen Lang

Director: Scott Cooper

Running Time: 127 Minutes

Rating: R for Western Hostility

Release Date: December 22, 2017 (Limited)

Christian Bale excels at playing men who are forced into carrying the weight of a profoundly demanding mission, whether by their own volition or due to leverage someone else holds over them. The Dark Knight’s “the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now” is basically that status as personal credo. In the 1892-set Western Hostiles (Bale’s second collab with his Out of the Furnace director Scott Cooper), he plays a much more reluctant protagonist, an Army captain forced to deliver a Cheyenne chief and his family back to tribal lands, under threat of losing his pension if he refuses. He looks like he hasn’t bathed in years; that stink and his impressive mustache tangibly represent the brunt he is under.

Ergo, Captain Bale (Captain Joseph Blocker is his character name) is filled with a lot of hostility, and he is surrounded by a lot of low-grade or full-blown hostility, whether it be from his fellow soldiers, the suicidal widow (Rosamund Pike) whose family was recently slaughtered, his Cheyenne transports, or the natives that ambush them. We might have our winner for Most Accurate Title of the Year right here.

While nobody in this film is particularly heroic, I do worry that its portrayal of Native Americans hearkens back to a more racist tradition of Westerns. The opening scene presents a group of Comanches at their most savage. For no clear reason, they burn down a family’s home, skinning the father’s scalp and mercilessly killing him and his two young daughters. I am sure that some natives were actually this brutal in late-19th century frontier America, and I do not mean to say that I think that Hostiles is implying that all of them (or all of this particular tribe) were this awful. But the fact that this worst version is all we see of them and that this portrayal is presented so bluntly is concerning.

At least we can appreciate at the aesthetic pleasures (or anti-pleasures, really) with fewer moral qualms. If you ever wanted to see Ben Foster tied up in the cold, muddy rain at night, Hostiles is the film for you. Cooper’s designs for how icky and uninviting nature gets without modern amenities is thoroughly harsh. Lovingly so, even (at least the crafty attention to detail is loving). You’ll probably want to shower afterwards, in a cathartic sort of way, or if you’re a 19th century fetishist, you’ll run right out and find the closest available barren lands.

Hostiles is Recommended If You Like: John Wayne and Clint Eastwood at their most rugged

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Hostiles