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”→
When it comes to two movies releasing on the same day the narrative is usually that of a fight to see which one will top the box office, and yet this whole Barbenheimer deal has been one of mutual appreciation which seems to have worked out well for both movies as they had strong opening weekends on the back of solid word of mouth and the novelty of this double-feature. Was this quirk of good timing the perfect way to energize two great movies, or will the memes be more fondly remembered than the movies they were celebrating? Let’s find out!!
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Barbie
Barbie and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures
Directed by Greta Gerwig
In the land of Barbies, where all Barbies are named Barbie and all Kens are named Ken, we follow Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) who is leading her stereotypical Barbie life of fun, empowerment, and dance parties! That is until she starts having some strange thoughts that put her out of step with the rest of Barbie land and she has no choice but to go on a journey to the Real World to find the little girl playing with her that’s giving her all these bad vibes. Not wanting to be left out as he usually is, Ken (Ryan Gosling) manages to tag along on this journey and has his own quest of self-discovery that could perhaps impede Barbie from finishing her own!
Starting things off with sunshine and sparkles, we dive into the bright pastels and infectious optimism of Hollywood’s latest attempt to cynically turn brands into cinematic universes! Well, that’s a little unfair as the movie takes a fair number of risks in creating such a uniquely faithful adaptation; not to any specific work in the Barbie canon, but to the idea of Barbie as a brand itself. What could have easily been an insufferable exercise in cheerleading a doll line manages to have more than enough wit and creativity to rise above its baggage. Of course, it can’t truly be a subversive work given that it’s made with the explicit endorsement of Mattel, but Gerwig and Robbie were still given a surprising amount of room to tell an unconventional and mature story within this pink and plastic world. What I most appreciated was the utter absurdity of it all as it revels in its own dream logic to tell its story; never getting so abstract as to be indecipherable, but never letting unnecessary plot details grind the pacing to a halt or hold it back from telling a funny joke. It’s the kind of storytelling that works for a high-concept fantasy like this where at any moment we could pull back to find the whole plot being elaborately staged by a group of young girls at a sleepover, and if you aren’t going to make a Barbie movie a fanciful journey then why bother making it in the first place? There does seem to be a missed opportunity, however, as they don’t go the extra mile to make this a musical which, to me, would have catapulted it to the camp classic it’s clearly aiming to be. The movie has songs, singing, and even some dancing for good measure, but there’s only one musical number for a movie that is otherwise so bombastic, and on top of that it’s done by the Kens instead of the Barbies which leads us to the other issue I have with the film. Perhaps this is where the gender divide is the most obvious, but when all was said and done I found myself thinking more about the Kens than the Barbies; especially when it comes to Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie. Robbie is great in the role and she carries this movie from start to finish, but Gosling is a riot throughout and I found his arc to be the more interesting of the two. Barbie doesn’t really have much that she needs when the movie begins and the conflict she has to resolve is thrust upon her by circumstances outside of her control. It’s through the disruption of her routine that she does eventually realize what has been missing, but there’s not much to distinguish her as a Barbie of note compared to every other Barbie in Barbie Land. Ken on the other hand begins the movie with angst and flaws that inform his actions throughout the movie, and where the script ends up taking him is fascinating and utterly hilarious even if it’s the primary obstacle that our true protagonist has to overcome. Again, this may be my own biases talking here, but Robbie just didn’t come across as the most interesting character in her own movie and my favorite moments are things that happened around her instead of anything with her specifically. For me, the movie feels a little pulled back at points which are all the more noticeable given how extra the rest of the movie is, so while it doesn’t quite hit cult classic status as many were hoping for it to, it does end up being a great time at the movie and one that I can happily recommend to everyone with an appetite for something sweet.
Sausage Party and all the images you see in this review are owned by Columbia Pictures
Directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon
I’m pretty sure I’ve been hearing this movie for at least five years and Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have been trying to get this made for even longer than that. I’m not sure how it took so much work to get this movie made as both of them are bankable stars and this movie ended up costing next to nothing (ten million is nothing in terms of Hollywood features), but regardless of whatever strife they had to work through, the day has finally come for us to see a movie about dicks, vaginas, and assholes being played by hotdogs, buns, and bagels. Does this movie end up being a classy as fuck masterpiece for the ages, or was all that effort for naught and this is just a giant steaming load of lameness? Let’s find out!!
The movie follows the misadventures of several food items in this one grocery store known as Shopwell’s, but for the most part our focus is on Frank the Sausage (Seth Rogen). He’s living the perfect sausage life; namely staying fresh inside his package and praising the Gods every day in the hopes that he will be chosen to leave the store and enter the great beyond! Well he’s also praying that he can nail that hot little number in the bun package, Brenda Bunson (Kristen Wiig), but he’s got to keep those urges in check. After all, the Gods only want FRESH food that isn’t tainted with sin! Now all the food in this store (and presumably all the other stores in the world) seem to all follow this belief system where the humans are Gods taking them to a promised land, but as we all know humans tend to be to total assholes and will end up eating them instead which is SUPER fucked up! The day finally comes for Frank, his other sausage buddies (Carl and Barry played by Jonah Hill and Michael Cera), and Brenda as one of the Gods chooses them and they’re put in its holy shopping cart. Of course, things don’t go quite as planned as the shopping cart runs into another one; splattering a lot of the food in a very gruesome manner and knocking both Frank and Brenda (along with a few other items) out of the cart and into the store… OUT OF THEIR PACKAGES!! Now you may have assumed that the shopping carts collided due to bad luck. Not quite so, as a jar of Honey Mustard (Danny McBride) had seen some shit and jumped out of the cart after telling the rest of the food how fucked they are, and that was the cause of the crash. Why is this important? Well there was one person listening the entire time, and that was Frank! So on top of getting back inside a sausage package (along with Brenda who needs to find a bun package) Frank is on a journey to find out the truth and if what Honey Mustard was saying had any merit to it! Can Frank discover the dark secrets that the world outside the grocery store holds? Will this inevitably create a schism between him and Brenda, the latter of which still has faith in the Gods and their divine plan? And what about Carl and Barry!? WHAT THE FUCK IS GONNA HAPPEN TO THEM!?
The Reviewers Unite 