Street Fighter and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures
Directed by Kitao Sakurai
It’s no secret that both of the recent Mortal Kombat movies were disappointments, but you know what? I was never that much of a Mortal Kombat fan anyway. Okay, I wasn’t much of a Street Fighter fan either as Smash Bros and Tekken were my jam, but Street Fighter definitely has a charm to it that the trailers for this latest adaptation captured beautifully. Will this be a fun and exciting martial arts film that understands the source material, or will this somehow be an even more compromised vision than the Legend of Chun-Li? Let’s find out!!
In the late 1980s, presumably due to the success of The Karate Kid, Martial Arts had become very popular and very competitive. No one knows this better than Ryu (Andrew Koji) who was the winner of the very first World Warrior Tournament, but after a controversial victory over the mighty Sagat and a tragedy that befalls his dojo, he puts himself into exile; leaving his training partner and number one bro Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) as the presumptive champion of the world, much the same way Diesel was technically a world champion at one point. Look it up, kids. Anyway, while Ryu is in hiding and Ken is drinking himself into irrelevance, the mysterious and ruthless M Bison (David Dastmalchian) desires to become the greatest warrior of all time and will do so by hosting the second World Warrior Tournament, for which Ken is brought onboard to try and bring Ryu out of hiding. Even if he’s just a patsy, however, Ken’s determined prove himself in front of the world no matter what it takes and no matter who he has to turn his back on to get there. Can Ken prove to be a better fighter than his old partner Ryu, and is there more to his rival’s strength than either of them wishes to acknowledge? What does M Bison plan to do once he has these warriors in his grasp, and where does the mysterious Chun-Li (Callina Liang) fit into his schemes? Are we gonna have to separate these two before the tournament even begins, because it looks like they have a lot more than just sibling rivalry to work through if either of them want to get out of this without breaking half their bones and losing all their teeth.
Digger and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros. Pictures
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Boy howdy, is this a contentious one! I certainly wasn’t expecting the film to be so polarizing given the talent behind it, but this seems to have hit a lot of people the wrong way. I guess I should have seen it coming given how silly it was for the initial trailer to be about Tom Cruise’s career that also just so happens to end with a teaser for the movie, but I guess if you’re gonna go for the Oscar, you might as well go as big as possible. I’m certainly still looking forward to it, perhaps even more so now that it’s become such a huge miss with a lot of people! Will I be one of those who will find greatness in Tom Cruise’s latest attempt to prove he can do more than jump out of planes, or is this an absolute train wreck that can only happen at the highest levels of Hollywood talent and creative hubris? Let’s find out!!
As long as the world needs oil, there will be men like Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise); an oil baron with the world at his fingertips and the US President on speed dial. Now typically, a man with that kind of power is rarely put in difficult positions, but that all changes when the one thing he can’t control, Mother Nature, gives him and the rest of humanity a kick to the gonads as one of Digger’s extraction sites in Greenland explodes and releases an ice shelf that’s on a one-way path to Europe. Not exactly the best PR for an oil company, but Digger is not about to be buried in controversy when he still calls the shots and keeps the modern world spinning. Of course, it’s not going to be an easy game of 4-D chess as everyone, from his head of environmental safety (Riz Ahmed), to his sister with a Green Energy company (Sandra Hüller), and even the very cranky President of the United States (John Goodman) is breathing down his neck to either fix the problem or make it someone else’s. With the facts of the situation so overwhelmingly against him, can Digger steer the narrative away from his company’s failings and make himself the hero of this crisis? Just how much damage can be expected from this icey torpedo of death, and is there any hope of stopping this disaster before it’s too late? Is this something that can be fixed with a few folksy stories about his grand-dad, because Digger certainly has a lot of those!
“Back in my day, a global catastrophe was just another word for opportunity! Now someone get my submarine before we’re all inhaling salt water and fish urine!”Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Digger”→
Primetime and all the images you see in this review are owned by A24
Directed by Lance Oppenheim
Oh boy, is this nostalgic in all the worst ways. Like many Millennials, I too went down the To Catch a Predator rabbit hole and watched the entire series half a dozen times during a semester at college. It’s a pretty ugly chapter in American television that frankly deserves a reexamination given how even more destructive our criminal justice system has gotten in the twenty years since, and I could hardly think of an actor I’d want to don the Chris Hansen stare than Robert Pattinson. This could very well be the best movie of the year, especially now that Millennials are starting to take over for the Boomers and so it’s our childhoods and early twenties that will be the subject matter of prestige films going forward. Is this a devastating yet necessary deconstruction of the Justice Served Humilitainment that To Catch a Predator set the standard for, or will this be a simple pantomime of a show that was better left in the past? Let’s find out!!
In the long ago days of the mid-2000s, there was a little show called To Catch a Predator hosted by journalist Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) that sought to stop predators from taking advantage of young children. That’s what it claimed to do anyway, but it’s clear that Hansen, his producer Andie (Merritt Wever), and the crew from Perverted Justice who help him set up these sting operations are not as altruistic as the slick marketing would have you believe; not with so much fame, money, and prestige on the line. The quest to stay on top ultimately requires bigger and bigger spectacle, which means more deranged predators and a new decoy to lure them in. Enter Dan Plum (Skyler Gisondo), a young actor who didn’t seem to read the contract and finds himself in the middle of this parade of human misery, but perhaps with the right mindset and a little convincing from Chris, he can see this as a genuine calling that helps people instead of just another gig to pay the bills. Of course, this resolution will be truly tested when the crew get wind of a big fish out there on the pervert message boards; someone who isn’t just some boring loser but a genuinely connected and influential person who could cement the shows legacy and ensure its ratings domination. Will this be the show to define an era of television in all the ways that the team envisioned, or is this chaotic stab at punitive justice a cautionary tale for all of us? Can Dan put his feelings aside and accept his role as bait for these disturbed men, or will the artifice of it all leave him with scars that may never heal? Hey, maybe we’re just thinking about it too much. I mean what’s wrong with indulging in a little bit of justice every now and again?
Resident Evil and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing
Directed by Zach Cregger
If I could get one wish of unlimited facetious power, It’d be for every single gamer to get an offline hobby which, to my mind, would solve at least ten percent of the world’s problems. An extremely vocal minority of us is far too enamored with their own sense of self-importance, and this has only grown stronger in a Post-GooberGate world where the malignant moans of the man-babies can reach those in the highest seats of power. Sadly, they seem to have turned their ire on critically acclaimed filmmaker and all-around cool dude Zach Cregger for not taking the Resident Evil franchise seriously enough in a movie that they hadn’t seen yet, and while no one is saying outright just how “persuasive” these complaints were, Cregger has confirmed that the movie was reedited after test screenings to take out a lot of jokes. Heaven forbid that we don’t have a laugh at one of the campiest franchises in all of gaming, but let’s not let the behind the scenes drama overwhelm everything. After all, one of Hollywood’s fastest rising stars has directed a video game movie that actually looks really good; even if it’s not an obvious adaptation of a specific entry in the series which I’m sure would have made the fans happy but I’d wager would be a far less interesting movie given that this is the same fantastically creative mind that gave us Barbarians and Weapons. Is this the creative and artistically challenging entry that finally elevates the Resident Evil film franchise, or was it better left in the hands of B-Movie maestros like Paul WS Anderson? Let’s find out!!
Poor sad-sack Bryan (Austin Abrams) is yet another victim of the gig economy and is stuck delivering organs through some particularly morbid app-based service while arguing with his girlfriend over some unexpected news. The job and conversation are cut short, however, when he runs over a woman who doesn’t seem all that affected by it, and he finds even weirder happening at a nearby farmhouse when he goes looking for help. It seems that the Umbrella Corporation has done what they always do and accidentally released a virus that is turning everyone into tentacle monsters, and they all want to turn our boy into a Bryan-sandwich before the night is through. The only hope he and the rest of humanity has is in the box he’s delivering to Raccoon City Hospital, but with so much in the way and so few life skills for such a situation, the future looks rather grim for us all. Will Bryan find the will to save the day and fight for the life he’s been taking for granted all these years? Is there any hope of fixing all of this, even if Bryan can make his way to the hospital and give the scientists what they need to craft a cure? The worst part is, he’s probably not gonna get a good tip either way.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and all the images you see in this review are owned by Mubi
Directed by Jane Schoenbrun
I can’t say I was the biggest fan of I Saw the TV Glow, but it definitely left me with the impression that Jane Schoenbrun was a talented filmmaker to keep an eye on. Perhaps it was an issue of subject matter as I’ve never been much of a fan of Buffy which their previous film took a lot of inspiration from, and am much more of a slasher geek which is what their newest feature is mostly about. Well, that and a bunch of other ideas about identity, sexuality, and the terrifying reality of being yourself, but I think the slasher stuff is what’s gonna clinch it for me. Is this another masterpiece from an up and coming star director, or will this struggle to capture the same lightning in a bottle success of their last feature? Let’s find out!!
Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder) is an up and coming indie filmmaker who has been tapped by a bunch of studio suits to modernize the long running Camp Miasma franchise; a series of slasher films with a problematic past that could use one of those woke adaptations that the kids are all talking about these days. In the hopes of making a truly authentic reboot, Kris goes to see the reclusive star of the original film, Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson) who just so happens to live on the campgrounds that the film was shot on long ago. With the hopes of a young artist and the cynicism of a young adult, Kris tries to sell Billy on her new ideas for the franchise, but she’s gonna need to impress her with more than just meta-commentary and a more diverse cast if she hopes to get her endorsement. Kris is gonna have to delve not just into the nitty gritty of the venerable franchise, but into the depths of her own soul if she’s going to find any way to connect with Billy and get this project off the ground. Will Kris open herself up to the Billy’s eccentric world view and the mysterious nature of this camp? Why does she chose to live here, and is there more to this old set than memories and gaffers tape? I mean, if I was gonna be toyed by a potentially malevolent diva who may or may not be planning a ritualistic murder… yeah, I’d go with Agent Scully too.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
Who doesn’t love good ol’ Spider-Man? Well if the box office is anything to go by, then the answer is no one, because this thing is making money like nobody’s business; certainly more than anything Disney has put out recently. Heck, even Toy Story 5’s billion dollar haul pales in comparison to the numbers that Spider-Man is putting up! Does the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler live up to the hype and truckloads of money in this latest outing, or are we all so desperate for any Spider-Man movie that we’ll take a mediocre one? Let’s find out!!
Following the events on No Way Home, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has taken to his job of Spider-Man with gusto; foregoing any relationship that doesn’t involve punching and webbing, and pining for the life he no longer has which only becomes more difficult when his former friends Ned and MJ (Jacob Batalon and Zendaya) move back to town. Couple this with a new threat in the city that can seemingly control the minds of anyone they want, and we’ve got the recipe for a Spider-Meltdown which manifests as bizarre powers that Peter can hardly control. Will Peter have to lose himself to become the Spider-Man the city needs to fend off this newest threat? Can he finally come to terms with what he lost and start his life anew, or do the echoes of his past guide him to be the best hero he can be? Will the movie answer these questions and more while also giving us awesome ninja fights!?
It’s funny how things work out sometimes. You wouldn’t think that Disney and Nolan releasing movies back-to-back would make for an interesting double feature, but there are some unavoidable similarities between their latest tent pole blockbusters. Both are oceanic adventures that are adaptions that are heavily influenced by mythology, albeit from vastly different cultures, and the biggest difference seems to be that one was an overwhelming success while the other is slowly crawling its way to making its budget back. Can we figure out why one succeeded where the other failed, or are the audiences as fickle as the whims of the gods in these movies? Let’s find out!!
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The Odyssey is owned by Universal Pictures
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Following the Trojan War, the king of Ithaca Odysseus (Matt Damon) must make a long journey back to his home where his wife and son, Penelope and Telemachus (Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland), have been waiting for some time. The path proves to be treacherous, however, as Odysseus and his crew are thrown off course and must face a series of terrifying trials and outlandish endeavors if they have any hope of getting back to their island in one piece. In that time, a series of suitors have attempted to take Penelope’s hand, chief among them the duplicitous Antinous (Robert Pattinson), which has brought Odysseus’s family and the island itself to brink of violence and ruin. Can Odysseus fight against the elements, the creatures, and even the Gods themselves that stand in his way, or is the fate of Ithaca no longer in his hands?
I find Christopher Nolan to be a frustrating director as he makes interesting movies with an astounding level of craftsmanship, but he never seems able or willing to move his audience at an emotional level. He wows them with his spectacle and imbues his characters with pathos and motivation, but at the end of the day, he leaves us with something that feels cold and mechanical; a beautifully crafted tin-man who’s dying for a heart. The bombastic nature of Greek Mythology has at least given him a strong foundation to tell an epic story, but Nolan seems uncomfortable with Homer’s more unsavory aspects and has drained a lot of the hot blooded machismo out of it which is frustrating, but also winds up being very funny. There are several points I found myself laughing at this movie when it was clearly trying to be serious and portentous with material that is unavoidably shlocky. I suppose this gives it something of a unique flavor as Nolan and humor are rarely found at the same table, but I never found myself swept away by the action or drama given how drained and morosely it all plays out. For a film that’s as long as this is, it settles into its groove far too early and rarely surpasses the excitement of its earliest encounters.
As for mythology nerds, he does capture the individual adventures with a panache that will surely make this fun viewing for high school English classes, and there was at least one sequence involving a forest that took my breath away, so I wouldn’t call it boring even if it does feel rather one note. I’m also mixed on the ending which at least shows some ambition from Nolan to put all of this in a modern context and try to make it relevant for today’s audience, but I don’t think he pulls it off and it ends up highlighting the movie’s biggest flaw which is that I don’t find this version of Odysseus compelling. Sure, it’s a very flexible character and can played many different ways, but the film tries a little too hard to make us sympathize with him which ends up clashing with Nolan’s ideas for the broader story. You can say what you will about the problematic nature of Homeric violence, but the story was crafted with that framing in mind, and trying to turn fights with soldiers, battles of wits with monsters, and faring the treacherous seas into a melancholic exploration of man’s inhumanity to man puts a huge damper on the movie. It leaves us with a character that is far more upstanding if you were looking for a good role model, but far less compelling if you wanted an engaging character. I can’t put this on Damon who is giving Nolan exactly what he wants from this idea of the character, but his well-rounded dad performance leaves us without any interesting sharp edges. Thankfully, the rest of the cast doesn’t feel as locked into Nolan’s vision and have a little more room to play with their roles. Pattinson continues to be one of the best actors working today and is a lot of fun as a sniveling schemer, while Tom Holland and Anne Hathaway equip themselves admirably for the larger than life operatics that a story like this calls for. Frankly, all the Ithaca stuff ends up working far better than the journey itself, but I guess that means we have a decent balance between engaging interplay between characters and spectacle driven adventures; though it’d be nice if the latter had a little more of the former.
Nolan is a great filmmaker, but he always seems to be a step behind his more interesting contemporaries. You can see quite a bit of Eggers in this, but he usually filled his movies with a dark sense of humor which this movie is lacking. There’s a good chunk of David Lowery’s Green Knight in here, but where that felt like a brilliantly realized art-film, this has too much of the blockbuster mindset to really get as strange as that was. Nolan’s just too much of a studio creature to give us the auteur edge that’s desperately needed here, and so we’re left with a handsomely put together straight-faced retelling of a classic story. In a lot of ways, it ends up being a great companion piece to Del Toro’s Frankenstein movie, but where that feels rigidly faithful out of an abundance of love, this feels stiflingly straightforward out of an adherence to rigor. Nolan certainly has his admirers who have always appreciated his po-faced approach to filmmaking, and I’m certainly a fan of a number of his films, but I could have used a little more yearning in a story about trying to get back home.
Supergirl and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures
Directed by Craig Gillespie
The James Gunn led DCU seems to have hit its first snag since his takeover in 2023 as audiences and critics are divided on this in a way that seems more than a little absurd. It’s not that I find it impossible for Gunn and co to make a less than stellar movie, but opinions on this are varied enough that I start to wonder what’s really going on under the hood that brought us to this point. Is this a misunderstood gem that audiences were just unable to fully connect with, or is this just as bad as some are saying it is? Let’s find out!!
Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) is your typical twenty-something Gen-Z mess. She grew up seeing everything she knew and loved slowly die away before getting thrust into adulthood with a mandate to save the world, and frankly, she’s not in the mood for any of it. Rather than join her cousin Kal-El (David Corenswet) in the superhero business, she travels the universe with her dog Krypto to find rad parties to crash and calm meadows to nurse her hangovers. However, she can’t seem to outrun all the jerks in the world, and an altercation with a nasty Brigand (Matthias Schoenaerts) leaves Krypto in a bad spot and Kara with only a few days to set things right. The journey will prove difficult, especially with a fellow vengeance seeker Ruthye (Eve Ridley) tagging along and being questionably useful, but with so much on the line, Kara has no choice but to step up to the plate and fight for those she cares about. Will this journey prove to her that she can be just as heroic as her cousin on Earth? What tragedy has brought her to this place, and can she ever find peace from the ghosts that haunt her every day? Maybe it’s not even that complicated; perhaps she just wants to chill and have fun! You ever think of that, Clark!?
“I don’t know, fam. When I’m in my comfy chair, I can’t see the appeal of this whole ‘superhero’ malarkey. Maybe it’s a perspective thing, or maybe it’s because I’ve got a bag of my favorite chips right next to me. Who can say?”Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Supergirl”→
Masters of the Universe and all the images you see in this review are owned by Amazon MGM Studios
Directed by Travis Knight
Seriously, weren’t we done with eighties nostalgia by the end of the second Obama administration? I feel like that wave crested a while ago, which is perhaps why this movie has bombed as hard as it has. Transformers, GI Joe, Thunder Cats, all this stuff may still exist in some form today, but their hay-day has long since passed with TMNT being the only one to hang onto any sort of relevance in recent years. The eighties are dead and the nineties aren’t far behind, but I suppose that alone doesn’t mean a He-Man movie can’t work. Heck, the template for this kind of retro fantasy movie is still Flash Gordon which was an adaptation of a comic from fifty years prior, so perhaps there’s still a little juice to squeeze out of this lemon. Is this the kind of retro revival that will stand the test of time, or is this just another sad attempt to get Gen-Xers to flock to the theaters and relive their childhoods? Let’s find out!!
In the magical realm of Eternia, young Prince Adam is forced to leave his homeland when it’s attacked by the nefarious Skelator (Jared Leto) and his arm of skull themed minions. Unfortunately, the escape plan was rather slap dash, and he lands in the middle of Oklahoma without a way to get back and no one to give him any guidance, so he grows up to be a buff blonde dude (Nicholas Galitzine) who works in a cubical and lives in an apartment with a roommate; one that is very tired of hearing about his fantasy home world. Of course, destiny cannot be held off forever, and he’s brought back to Eternia by his childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes) who is one of the few remaining heroes fighting back against Skelator’s empire. With his home, his friends, and his god like powers returned to him, is Adam ready to reclaim his lost kingdom from the forces of evil? Has his time on Earth prepared him for this moment, or is he simply unprepared to do what needs to be done to stop Skelator once and for all? For real, how does a guy look like this end up in HR? I get that he’s a sensitive kid underneath all that muscle, but you’d think he’d still end up as an indie wrestler or something!
Backrooms and all the images you see in this review are owned by A24
Directed by Kane Parsons
William Goldman said that nobody knows anything in Hollywood, and the best can you hope for, if you’re lucky, is that you’re making educated guesses. I’d like to expand upon that idea and say that anyone who says they know anything about Hollywood knows less than most or are trying to sell you on a different story entirely. The release of this movie and other high profile, and highly profitable, films from the YouTube scene has certainly got people talking about the future of cinema; Never mind that the biggest hit of last year was a studio adaptation of Minecraft by a well-known director or that the biggest movie of this year is an animated kids movie based on a licensed property. I’m certainly happy whenever young talent gets a chance to break into Hollywood, especially if they come from unconventional backgrounds, but the hype around this movie after its strong box office opening was quite a thing to behold. I guess the quality of the movie is immaterial at this point given how much money it made and how much press it garnered, but is there a good movie to be found once you cut through all the noise, or is the hype surrounding it a far more interesting than the film itself? Let’s find out!!
Down on his luck furniture salesman Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is having a tough time dealing with his failing furniture store and his much more quickly failing marriage. His therapist Dr. Kline (Renate Reinsve) is doing her best to help him through his issues, but Clark seems to be far beyond the reach of anyone around him and is more intent on managing his store and maintaining his little world. Perhaps that’s what drew The Backrooms to his shop, or perhaps it was just a coincidence. Either way, he finds a mysterious doorway in the basement that leads to a series of yellow rooms with disquieting furniture and illogical architecture. His obsession with exploring this place is so great that others get dragged into this strange world and potentially to danger as something seems to be down there with them. What does Clark hope to find in these mysterious hallways, and will he regret his decision to seek it out? Can Dr. Kline save him from his own obsessions, or have The Backrooms claimed his as a victim? I mean if he’ hurting that badly for money, he could just sell tickets to the thing! Either they come back with a cool story, or the body is never found! Win-win!
