Tag: A24

Cinema Dispatch: Marty Supreme & The Smashing Machine

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Whenever I feel the urge to put a couple of reviews together, I at least try to find some sort of thematic connection between them, and I may have found the most specifically connected double bill that could possibly exist. Both films are directed by a Safdie brother, both are character pieces about sports figures, and both have stars of billion dollar franchises but ended up with mediocre box office returns. Oh, and both were released by the same studio, if there weren’t enough similarities already. It’s like they had a bet to see which one could make the better movie with more or less the same premise and resources, which I suppose means that it falls upon me to call this match and raise the arm of the winner! Will it be the intense kid from Dune, or Dwayne “The Tooth Fairy” Johnson who takes home the gold!? Let’s find out!!

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Marty Supreme

Marty Supreme is owned by A24

Directed by Josh Safdie

Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) may not look like much, but underneath the scrawny frame and terrible mustache is a world-class table tennis player with trophies and prestige under his belt, but still barely scraping by and has to pull scams so he can fund his trips to international tournaments. After a devastating defeat to an up-and-coming Japanese star (Koto Kawaguchi), Marty is more determined than ever to be at the next tournament and claim the top spot from his new rival. Of course, it doesn’t help his case that he scammed the International Table Tennis Association for a luxury hotel room, so on-top of his usual hustles to make it to the next tournament, he has a neigh unpayable bill to the organization that needs to be paid in full before he can compete. Tack onto all of this his strained relationship with his family and a girlfriend (Odessa A’zion) who’s about to give birth, and Marty is stuck with more problems than he can shake a ping-pong paddle at. His only hope might be from a local ink pen magnate (Kevin O’Leary) and his wife (Gwyneth Paltrow), but since Marty is sleeping with her on the side, it might prove an even more fought situation than even he’s capable of navigating. Can Marty fulfill his dream without destroying his life in the process, and will he even give up that for an opportunity to be the best in the world?

The Safdies have been two of my favorite filmmakers for some time, and their last collaboration, Uncut Gems, was an absolute treasure. This film, on the hand, is not nearly as shiny as Josh Safdie was not able to recreate that success despite how obvious it is that he’s trying to. Their distinct style has been carried over here, as once again we are following a driven individual as he fumbles his way through an endless and chaotic series of vignettes in pursuit of whatever they think will fix everything that’s gone wrong in their life. While I found this quality both horrifying and captivating in Uncut Gems and Good Time, it wore me down seeing it repeated here, and to my mind, he needn’t of bothered as he was already making an interesting movie well before he started to indulge in his usual tropes. The table tennis matches are stunning to watch, with trick shots and big swings to convey just how high a level these players are, and the pacing of the matches leave you at the edge of your seat anticipating the next volley with breathless anticipation. A movie that stayed focused on the tournaments would have been amazing in its own right, but I suppose Josh Safdie likes his characters to frantically run through the streets of New York City, and so a majority of the movie is about watching him make bad decisions instead of watching him play table tennis. I appreciate that the personal struggles are necessary for the payoff of the ending to be worth it, but where the previous Safdie films felt intense and ran at a breakneck pace, this one ends up being repetitive and overlong; failing to capture the bleak grittiness of Good Time or the comedic tragedy of Uncut Gems. A shorter runtime would have helped to at least keep the pacing from dragging, but it also fails to make Marty and his struggles meaningfully sympathetic. It’s hard to avoid the fact that the first problem he runs would have been the easiest to overcome, especially given just how far he’s willing to go later in the film, and as good as Chalamet is in the role, I just couldn’t connect with him when he wasn’t holding a paddle. The takeaway here is not that this is a bad movie as even a poorly done Safdie film is still better than most filmmakers on a good day, but the heart is missing where it’s needed most, and a strong ending that returns to the table tennis action does only so much to bring me back onboard. As much as I liked watching them hit balls back and forth, I’m not sure if it was worth the two hours of misery and anxiety to get there.

3 out of 5
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Cinema Dispatch: Caught Stealing & Eddington

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

My End of 2025 Catchups will still be ongoing well into the New Year, which is perfectly fine for me, as January looks to be the usual crop of mid-range horror movies and previous year stragglers. Today is what I like to call the Austin Butler Downer Double Feature, as both films are movies that had me feeling rather sad despite Austin Butler being on hand to try and liven things up.  I suppose it’s a shortcoming of mine as a critic that depressing movies have to work much harder to convince me of their quality than goofy ones, and being presented with two films by notoriously grim directors was definitely a challenge.  Can either of these depressing films by depressing filmmakers manage to get a thumbs up from yours truly? Let’s find out!!

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Caught Stealing

Caught Stealing is owned by Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by Darren Aronofsky

Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) isn’t someone you’d look at twice if you passed him on the street. He’s a bartender in New York City, he has a crappy apartment in the Lower East Side, and his good looks and charming personality do just enough to cover for his obvious alcoholism. When his neighbor (Matt Smith) asks him to watch his cat one weekend, it seems like just another meaningless event in his meaningless life, but then gangsters start chasing after him, the cops get involved, and the few friends he has left in this world start getting mixed up in whatever mystery he finds himself at the center of. With few people to turn to and fewer clues as to what’s even going on, can Hank outrun this waking nightmare as faster than he did from his own dark past, or has the universe decided that now’s the time to pay the piper for all the ways he managed to screw up his life?

I probably should have known better than to expect a fun movie out of the most depressing filmmakers of our generation, but the trailers suckered me in with a silly premise and goofy characters in what looked like a lost Guy Ritchie joint, so I took the gamble on him lightening up for once. Sure enough, the finished product is undeniably an Aronofsky movie which means a lot of sad things happen, and frankly it was a real struggle to get through. What’s at least interesting about this movie, though also why it doesn’t work as well as some of his better films, is that he does seem to be trying to break outside his comfort zone with larger than life characters and the farcical plotting, but he’s simply ill-equipped for this kind of material and fails to merge it with his usual sensibilities. Someone like the aforementioned Guy Ritchie, or even Vince Gilligan, could have juggled the disparate parts of this story and wrangled them into something coherent, but they both have backgrounds in comedy which Aronofsky clearly does not. We flip wildly between tragedy and humor in a way that fails to take full advantage of either, with the darker elements feeling gratuitous and the lighter moments robbing our characters of any consistency or depth. Austin Butler, for all the charm and charisma he brings to this, can’t find a consistent emotional wavelength to explore because the script has him running from one plot point to another at breakneck speed. He’s given one scene to express his sadness over a bad thing happening before he’s back to spinning lies, crafting schemes, or cracking jokes, and while he’s good at all of those things, having him rush through it in such quick succession leaves him feeling rudderless and without much of an arc to go through. The script is based on a book which is always a double-edged sword for filmmakers, and I’m guessing the pacing between scenes worked much better on the page than trying to cram it all on screen, but even taking that into consideration, I still think the blame falls squarely on Aronofsky’s shoulders. I give the man credit for at least attempting to tell a few jokes and I think the narrative did cater to his sensibilities as a filmmaker, but he’s gonna need a little more practice before he can successfully make us laugh at a clown and then jab him in the throat to watch as the blood slowly pools around the floor.

3 out of 5
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Cinema Dispatch: Friendship & Another Simple Favor

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Summer is a good time of year to catch up on things you’ve let fall to the wayside. Maybe it’s a good book, or perhaps a fun game. Maybe you haven’t reviewed anything in nearly a month and want to get back on that horse! Well, now that I’m on vacation, I finally have some time to review some of the movies I haven’t had a chance to talk about yet, at least when I’m not doing other vacation stuff like watching TV and ordering takeout. Will this be a relaxing exercise in extolling the virtues of movies you should see for yourself, or will my time off be filled with bitter resentments at the films that wasted my precious free time? Let’s find out!!

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Friendship

Friendship is owned by A24

Directed by Andrew DeYoung

Craig Waterman (Tim Robinson) seems to be living the suburban dream, but the arrival of a new neighbor who takes a shine to him causes him to realize that life can be so much more. Unfortunately, Craig is not what you’d call a suave individual or even that much of a cool dude, and when this new neighbor Austin (Paul Rudd) starts to distance himself from Craig, it leaves a hole in his life that starts to affect his job, his wife Tami (Kate Mara), and his son Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer) as he tries to find new ways to recapture that feeling of true friendship in increasingly desperate and dangerous ways.

There were few movies I was looking forward to this year more than Tim Robbinson’s uncomfortable examination of male bonding, and there were many reasons for this, not the least of which being that Tim Robbinson is one of the best comedians working today. He understands Millennial anxiety like few others do, and it’s no surprise then that his first major film to follow the success of I Think You Should Leave wound up being one of the most personally affecting comedies of my generation, and certainly pulls the rug out from under everyone else who claims to know what’s wrong with men these days. It’s an issue that we’re constantly hearing about, but few movies have found as genuine a starting point to twenty-first-century malaise quite like this. There was a moment in the first Joker film where our protagonist imagines himself being seen by his favorite comedian, and it was one of the only moments in that allegedly serious-minded exploration of male loneliness and mental illness where I felt it was speaking to something profound and real. This movie is that scene for an hour and a half, only done by a guy who is genuinely funny, and beyond any other value it may have at lending an empathetic voice to the people who could really use a wake-up call, it is a fun film despite how uncomfortable it can be. Tim Robinson isn’t going for the same maniacal energy he does for his Netflix show, but even as a more subdued presence he still has a magnetic energy about him that compels you to pay attention and laugh out loud whenever the tension inevitably breaks, and he’s supported by a cast who understands the assignment and bounces off him in interesting ways. It’s fascinating to watch how everyone in his life treats him like a different person while all still coming to more or less the same conclusion about the guy, and it speaks not only how we present ourselves in different social contexts, but how much of our genuine selves still comes across even when we try to mask it. It’s not a movie that offers a lot of answers, but it gives an uncompromising examination of what’s wrong, which is frankly more than what a lot of people are offering to young men these days. The movie does lose a bit of steam in the second half as the narrative gets a bit unfocused with a couple of scenes that aren’t irrelevant, but do feel more like asides. The one that comes to mind is a sequence with drugs which makes sense as recreational use of drugs as a substitute for therapy is a thing a lot of guys are trying these days, no doubt encouraged by the likes of Joe Rogan, but it comes off as the type of indulgence you often see when sketch comedians, or those writing with them in mind, struggle to shake off when moving to a narrative feature. It also fails to stick the landing for me, which is a shame given how well the rest of the movie handles its subject matter. It’s not a bad ending borne out of incompetence as the film telegraphs its turn into ludicrousness well in advance, but it still feels disconnected from the tone we’ve established. It’s an escalation whose purpose is to give us a memorable ending, but the movie was plenty memorable up until that point and this feels needlessly excessive in a movie that simply didn’t need a big finale; completed with a character verbalizing the themes of the movie in case everything else had gone over your head. It’s a shame that the movie just couldn’t get over the finish line without losing confidence in its own conviction, but I guess a movie about disappointment having a disappointing ending is somewhat on brand.

4 out of 5
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Cinema Dispatch: Monkey Man, The Fall Guy, and I Saw the TV Glow

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Between the time I saw the first of these movies and finished the last of them, the movie industry was dead, saved, and probably died again with each week being a coin toss as to where the story will go next. Perhaps it’s best that I didn’t have time to get to them right away, and in doing so avoided the box office drama that surrounded each new release. I certainly don’t have anything interesting to add to that conversation as I’m just here to watch the movies, but I’m sure that’s why you’re here as well, so let’s not waste any more time and dive right in!

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Monkey Man

Monkey Man is by Universal Pictures

Directed by Dev Patel

In the roughest part of a city of Yatana, you will find several less than savory characters; some in the rich cocaine dens run by the upper crust of society and others in the dingy arenas where fighters pulverize each other for cash. One such fighter is a man known as Kid (Dev Patel) who fights as the Monkey Man so that he can buy the tools he needs to exact vengeance on the rich and powerful who destroyed his childhood village and murdered his mother. Nothing is as simple as it seems, however, as the corruption that led to this slaughter goes to the highest peaks of India’s government, and none of them are going to stand for this forest brat tearing through their carefully laid plans to run the country. Will our hero bring down the system as an act of divine justice, or will his single-minded quest for blood only lead him to his own grave?

Dev Patel has definitely earned his Thespian stripes in recent years with a series of indie dramas and the bizarre art piece that was The Green Knight, and while it does feel like something of a swerve for his directorial debut to be a John Wick knock-off, he does fill it with enough stylistic flair to find a niche separate from its influences. It’s a movie that’s less about its plot and more about the details, with the setting playing as much a role in this movie as any of its characters. Some of it will perhaps be lost on Western audiences who aren’t familiar with India’s political landscape or economic situation, and I’m counting myself among those who are ignorant of these topics, but Patel fills the scenes with enough life and interesting side characters that it’s easy enough to slip into the world with Kid serving as our guide throughout it. Still, if there’s any area where the movie feels underwhelming, it’s with a few of the characters who are well drawn to fit the archetype or class of person that they need to represent, but don’t have much going on beyond that. The big bad at the end of the movie is almost a throwaway character; not for being unimportant to the overall plot as he’s the one pulling the strings and is most emblematic of the criticism Patel is leveraging against India’s government, but because the movie is simply not as concerned with his actions as they are with the secondary villain who gets far more screen time and is directly involved with the tragedy that sent Kid on his path of vengeance. The film makes a game attempt at melding social commentary with a classic revenge story, but there’s an obvious tension between the two that the film never fully resolves. Thankfully, the action is able to pick up the slack in the film’s narrative, and Patel has thrown himself into the role with a fiery passion. Physical roles like this can be quite taxing on an actor, especially one who’s not used to these kinds of roles, so the fact that he manages to look convincing throughout is impressive to say the least. I suppose my final thoughts on this is that it’s about as good as any number of action films that have tried to recapture the magic of John Wick; including the John Wick sequels. In some respects, this is a bit disappointing as Patel is clearly shooting for this to be an elevation of the genre given its themes and social commentary, but then again, how many first time directors can pull off action this good, both in front of and behind the camera?

3.5 out of 5
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Cinema Dispatch: Love Lies Bleeding

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Love Lies Bleeding and all the images you see in this review are owned by A24

Directed by Rose Glass

Somehow we got two lesbian crime movies released within weeks of each other, and while I sadly didn’t get a chance to see Drive-Away Dolls, at least not yet, this one became a top priority for me when I saw the trailers. Kristen Stewart is already a good indicator of quality for me and A24 has a mostly solid track record, so the math added up, and I went to check it out as soon as I had a window in my schedule. Was this grimy slice of eighties mischief worth getting excited for, or is this a situation where all the right pieces are there, but it just doesn’t come together in the end? Let’s find out!!

One night in Nowhere Middle America, a woman comes into town with big dreams and even bigger muscles. Her name is Jackie (Katy O’Brian) and she catches the eye of the local gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) who gives her a place to stay and the two fall madly in love. Sadly, the Beatles were incorrect when they said love is all you need, and their lives start to encroach on their whirlwind love affair as Lou’s estranged dad (Ed Harris) is a local gun runner always on the outskirts of their lives and Lou herself is not exactly the perfect partner for someone who’s been through as much as Jackie has. It all comes to a head when Lou’s sister (Jena Malone) is in serious trouble, and Jackie’s instincts lead her down a dark path that will drag Lou and her entire family down with her. Can Lou keep her love life and her family in one piece despite barely keeping her own life intact? What does Lou’s dad want from her, and what does he want from Jackie as well? Seriously, if there’s this much drama around, why don’t you just move? It’s the eighties! People could actually afford that back then!

“We can get a place in California. Clean beaches, nice weather…”     “What, and buy our bologna at someplace OTHER than the Piggly Wiggly!?”
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Cinema Dispatch: Everything Everywhere All at Once

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Everything Everywhere All at Once and all the images you see in this review are owned by A24

Directed by Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert

I heard a lot of good things about this movie going into it, but what really grabbed my attention was finding out that this was directed by The Daniels. Their previous film, Swiss Army Man, was a pretty fantastic little indie film (that I did a pretty poor job reviewing despite giving it a good score) and I’d always wondered what they had been up to since then. You probably don’t need me to tell you if this movie is good given how far-reaching the praise has been for it (and the fact that I’m reviewing it almost a month after its release), but maybe my little voice out there in the universe will ultimately make a difference for someone! Is this as great as everyone says it is, or will I be the bearer of bad news that’s about to rain on everyone’s parade? Let’s find out!!

Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is not very happy with her life. She runs a laundromat with her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), her father (James Hong) has health issues and needs to be taken care of, and her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) is bugging her about something when all she wants to do is keep everything from falling into chaos. Throwing a wrench into her plan is the IRS who is auditing her business, and the agent assigned to her case (Jamie Lee Curtis) is not exactly the most amenable to her stressful situation. Sometimes you just have to wonder where things went wrong and if there’s a better version of you out there. Fortunately for Evelyn though, she gets an answer to that question when her husband starts acting very weird and tells her to wear these wireless earpieces that end up sending her to alternate dimensions. It turns out that Evelyn may just be the key to solving some sort of inter-dimensional timey-wimey nonsense and that her husband is being controlled by a parallel version of him from the Alpha-verse that is able to hop dimensions and is searching for a way to stop a terrible threat that is about to shatter all of existence. Sort of a lot to drop on someone already struggling to make it through the day, but when the alternative is talking to someone at the IRS, it’s pretty easy to figure out which is the better option! Evelyn has to find the strength within her and put everything she holds dear on the line in order to save the future (or something like that), but can she juggle the problems of multiple versions of her life when she’s struggling just to deal with the one she’s got? What is this all-powerful threat that Evelyn needs to face, and is Alpha Waymond keeping some very important secrets from her? Can you apply deductions from businesses in an alternate reality, or do you need separate filings for each parallel universe?

“This may be a bit hard to believe.” “Let me guess. You’re from the planet Mars and the stream deck you tried to write off was for parts to rebuild your spaceship?” “I mean, you’re not TOO far off.”
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Cinema Dispatch: 2021 Catch Up (Part 2)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

January is still proving to be a rough month across the board, so we’re gonna continue our look back 2021 with a few more movies that I missed!  Will some of them be contenders for the end of the year lists I’ll be putting together very soon?  Let’s find out!!

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Being the Ricardos

Being the Ricardos is owned by Amazon Studios

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) are about to have a rough week making their show I Love Lucy when a local news station accuses Lucille of having ties to the Communist Party.  Couple that with tabloids about Desi’s behavior, fights with the network over content, and a director that really gets under Lucille’s skin, and there may not be a show to put on by the time it goes to air!  Can Lucy and Desi smooth through all of these problems without alienating the people who help them make the show, and is there more at stake than their careers if things go badly?

Aaron Sorkin has always been fascinated with the inner workings of organizations that carry a lot of public weight; places where hiding the turmoil behind the scenes is just as important as anything else they are doing.  It seems almost natural that he’d turn that fascination even more inward with a movie about the field he’s most familiar with, television productions, and while there are some Sorkin-esque flaws in this movie, I think the material has steered him into making one of his best works.  Lucy and Desi, at least as they are portrayed in this movie, are fascinating characters with deeply compelling inner lives, and the movie makes no bones about singing their praises throughout.  Whenever they clash with the network over their creative vision for the show, it’s played with reverence as these victories did end up revolutionizing television and American culture, and Sorkin definitely uses this story to indulge in his favorite topics.  Strong men and women with sharp tongues and even sharper wits sticking it to the old guard to make way for the next generation is well-worn territory for him, but the fact that he’s drawing from real things that other people did tempers that enthusiasm and so it comes off as genuinely important rather than mere wish fulfillment.  Now that’s not to say he doesn’t exaggerate in places as the film does lack a certain sense of authenticity.  Clothing, technology, and even a lot of the attitudes do fit in with the time period, but it never quite feels like a period piece with Sorkin’s dialogue being what it is, and the overall look and feel of the show just feels too modern.  I don’t know if there are HD transfers of I Love Lucy, but I’m guessing they don’t look this crisp and they certainly weren’t shot in widescreen.  Still, even if it’s a bit showy in places where it probably wasn’t in the real-life story, Sorkin’s overly enthusiastic style fits with themes of the movie and his specific brand of dialogue creates a clear delineation between the deep and flawed people who make the show and the more modest caricatures they bring to life in front of cameras.  This is where the movie shines brightest, where these two people are darn near Herculean in their ability to solve problems, fight for what’s important, and smooth talk their way to getting what they want, but at the end of the day, when the cameras stop rolling and the lights turn out, they are still flawed people barreling towards an ending they are too scared to face.  Desi is madly in love with Lucille and Lucille is just as passionate about him, but Desi also can’t help but hurt her in ways that she cannot ignore.  This tension between the genuine love they feel and their uncontrollable selfishness (admittedly much more so with Desi than Lucille) is where the tragedy of this story ultimately lies and where the story is at its strongest.  This ends up being a double-edged sword however as the movie feels the need to be about more than just that and so it feels a bit scattershot and overstuffed with subplots and characters that don’t have the impact you would expect them to given the prominence of certain scenes.  The big red elephant in the room is the Communist allegations which are what kicks off the movie and you assume it’s what the whole thing is going to be about, but that ends up fading into the background as the network stuff and the relationship between Lucy and Desi end up pushing it to the background. It ends up being relevant only to the start and the end of the movie which is a bit of a shame as the fervor surrounding communism in the mid-twentieth century is certainly a frightening chapter in television history, but it at least ends on a very strong note and sets us up for a pretty big gut punch right at the end of the movie.  It’s certainly a flawed movie throughout, but it’s entertaining from the first frame to the final curtain call, and frankly, something that walks with confidence is more interesting to me than something safe; even if the former trips over itself a few times along the way.

4 out of 5
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Cinema Dispatch: The Green Knight

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

The Green Knight and all the images you see in this review are owned by A24

Directed by David Lowery

The first trailer for this movie dropped in February of 2020 which was mere weeks before the world pretty much came to an end and movies were either shelved or released on streaming services for exorbitant prices.  I was definitely interested in seeing it as I had a vague understanding of what The Green Knight story was and seeing it realized on the big screen with such interesting visuals and an AWESOME looking design for the titular knight seemed like a slam dunk to me!  I was ready to open a spot for it on my top ten list of 2020 based on the trailer alone, but we all know what happened next, and much like Sir Gawain himself we all had to wait one year to see how it all worked out.  Was it worth holding out until we could return to theaters to release it, or was it would it have been a better idea to just toss it onto HBO Max and hope that everyone forgets it before the studio puts out their next movie?  Let’s find out!!

In the time of legends and poor hygiene, a young knight name Gawain (Dev Patel) was going about his life without much knighting to speak of.  Sure he had the title, but he spent most of his days waiting for glory and honor to come to him rather than seek it out himself.  Fortunately for him, opportunity presents itself at the King’s Christmas party where a mysterious green Knight offers anyone there a simple challenge!  Strike him once however they wish, on the condition that in one year’s time they will take the same blow from the Green Knight.  Feeling plucky and looking to prove himself, Gawain takes up the challenge and with one swift strike, chops the Green Knight’s head off!  Well so much for taking a blow next year, am I right?  Well… it looks like this will still come to pass as the Green Knight casually picks up his head and rides off into the night!  I mean it’s KINDA on Gawain to not assume some magical shenanigans were at play, but still; he has one year to make up his mind as to whether he will got to face the Green Knight at his chapel and go through with this game despite him being PRETTY sure that his own head is not so easily reattached.  Gawain seems to be willing to face his fate as he mounts a horse and starts his journey, but things are not as straightforward as they seem; not with the path ahead of him or the convictions in his own mind.  Will Gawain preserve his honor and face the Green Knight’s blade despite how unfair this all seems?  What challenges will he face along the way, and are they enough to make him waiver in his convictions?  Seriously, WHY DOES THIS GUY LOOK SO COOL!?  Maybe that’s how he gets people to fall for this; he just charms them with his rugged good looks!

Green Knight for Smash!!
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Cinema Dispatch: Uncut Gems

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Uncut Gems and all the images you see in this review are owned by A24

Directed by Josh and Benny Safdie

Good Time wasn’t one of my favorite movies of that year by a long shot, but it’s also a movie I keep thinking about even now as the filmmakers clearly made something wildly compelling even if it wasn’t exactly for me.  If nothing else, I was eager to see what they did next as I really believe they can make a movie that’s not just great but one that I’d like as well, which is why when I first heard of this new movie they were making AND that it would be a dramatic turn for Adam Sandler, I knew that this had to be a top priority that I needed to see as soon as it came out!  Okay fine, AFTER Star Wars, but this was locked in for second place!  Do the Safdie Brothers improve on their last film and make a film that’s even better, or was all the potential I saw in Good Time actually the peak of their creative vision?  Let’s find out!!

Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) runs a jewelry store out of New York City where he makes a tidy living selling exquisite trash to those looking for something Gaudy more than Elegant, but most of the money he makes is then funneled into his gambling addiction which means he gets to talk to sports stars, have nice apartments, and live a life of relative comfort, but he’s also in deep with loan sharks (Eric Bogosian, Keith Williams, and Tommy Kominik) who want nothing more than to rip his heart out right out of his chest since that’s about all they’ll get from the guy who can’t stop throwing all his money away on terrible sports bets.  Still, he’s got an ace up his sleeve which is this opal he got straight from a mining company in Ethiopia which he plans to sell at an auction for up to a MILLION dollars.  Seems like he’s got it all sorted out, but of course when you’re a guy whose got as much bad blood as he does, those people who want something from him could easily derail everything in an instant, and Howard himself can’t seem to keep his own behavior under control long enough to get the money and clean the slate; especially when he “loans” the opal to basketball player Kevin Garnett (playing himself) and for whatever reason he can’t be reached and his go between guy (Lakeith Stanfield) is being awfully cagey for some reason.  Can Howard get the opal back in time to sell it and get his life back in order?  What sorts of comeuppance will he have waiting for him the moment he gets the money and what if it comes for him sooner than that?  I mean if he’s THAT deep in the red, can’t he just make Happy Gilmore 2?  Nineties nostalgia is ALL the rage now; tell me that wouldn’t make a hundred million at the box office!

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“Weren’t you Little Nicky?  No, you’re thinking of the other guy.  I think his name was SHUT UP!!”

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Uncut Gems” →

Cinema Dispatch: The Lighthouse

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

THELIGHTHOUSECD0

The Lighthouse and all the images you see in this review are owned by A24

Directed by Robert Eggers

The director’s last film The Witch was a PHENOMENAL film that is easily one of the best horror films in the last decade (certainly better than Hereditary), so I was excited to see what he was going to do next.  Lo and behold, his next movie starts two of the best character actors working today, is presented in Black and White, and is about something relatively mundane but will no doubt lead to horror and intrigue!  Jeez, you might as well have wrapped it up, put a nice bow on it, and put it on a drone to crash into my house!  Does Robert Eggers’s second film exceed the high bar he set with his first outing, or is a talent as great as his still not immune to the dread Sophomore Slump?  Let’s find out!!

Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattison) is the new assistant lighthouse keeper watching over a crappy little light house on a crappy little rock not too far from shore but far enough that you wouldn’t survive an attempt to swim towards it.  His supervisor Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) is an old sea captain with the accent, peg leg, and pipe to back it up, and his task is to whip this young whipper snapper into ship shape if he’s to one day maintain a lighthouse of his very own.  Seems simple enough, and they certainly have more than enough work to do maintaining this house and the light therein, but over time it starts to become clear that maybe Captain Wake isn’t all he claims to be and that maybe Winslow isn’t as cut out for this work as he initially thought.  Oh well, it’s not like he’s gonna be there FOREVER, right?  He’s only there for a month before being moved somewhere else… oh what’s that?  There’s a big storm coming that’ll make it impossible for his ship to come anytime soon?  Well then!  That’s… unfortunate for everyone involved.  So Ephraim is stuck there for a while and with each passing day it seems that little bit of his sanity has gone with it as things get weirder and weirder around here; not the least of which being Captain Wake who REALLY seems to like the light at the top of the tower.  I mean… he REALLY likes that light!  So much so that Ephraim hasn’t had a chance to maintain it despite that being part of his training because Wake wants to keep it all to himself… for some reason.  Can Ephraim keep his head down, focus on his work, and stay out of trouble long enough for the lighthouse company to send him another boat?  What is going on up there at the top of the tower, and is that just the tip of the iceberg as far as strange happenings on this unassuming island?  After seeing Pattinson brood his way through this, is there anyone else who COULD be Batman!?

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People are starring miserably at the camera.  Of COURSE it’s yours!

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: The Lighthouse” →