The New and Improved* Weekend Warrior for March 18, 2022
X, THE OUTFIT, JUJUTSU KAIZEN 0, UMMA, ALICE, DEEP WATER, MASTER, INTREGALDE, AHED's KNEE, CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN, and More
Those of you who read the Weekend Warrior I wrote a couple weeks back – hello to the two of you – may have remembered my frustration with the amount of time it’s been taking me to write this column each week vs. how much I make financially in doing so. There are just too many movies being released each week, and I feel bad not trying to cover most, if not all of them in some way. But I just can’t do it anymore, and I need to figure out a way to make this column more manageable, not just for you, as a reader, but for me, as a writer*.
We’re gonna do things different for a while, or I’m going to try to anyway*. No more 6,000 word columns with 1,000 words on every movie that’s being released, most of them on VOD. I’m going to be focusing more on theatrical releases, and primarily on the wider studio releases but also a couple of key independent releases, while continuing to cover some of my local arthouse and repertory theaters, as well, because – and this is important here – I really want people to RETURN TO MOVIE THEATERS!
I will basically be covering:
* Any movie that opens wide in over 500 theaters
* One or two limited releases that are getting primarily a theatrical release
* At least one foreign film and one documentary a week, when possible
* Streaming stuff when I’m sent screeners in a timely manner i.e. not Tuesday night
* Repertory stuff at a few select theaters in NYC and LA
Ideally, I’d like to get this column back on a Wednesday schedule, but it might eventually move to Substack or something similar, so I won’t be as in the dark about who is or isn’t reading this. I was thinking of starting a point system to deal with some of the crap I’ve had to go through to get screeners/screenings, but we’ll hold off on that for now.
(*And yet, writing this week’s column didn’t seem much different or quicker than previous weeks, maybe since this is such a packed week. Sigh.)
Each week, we’ll start with the movies getting wide and semi-wide release, and in this case, I’ll begin with the two movies I’ve already seen (and both, which I quite liked, in fact), although there are four wide or semi-wide releases this week.
X (A24) - Rated R
Ti West makes his triumphant return to horror filmmaking with what’s likely to be his magnum opus, a horror movie about a group of filmmakers in 1979 going to a remote farmhouse to make an adult film despite the puritanical ire of the guy letting them stay there, played by Stephen Ure. (Ire/Ure, get it?) His cast includes the underrated Martin Henderson, the magnificent Mia Goth, Scott “Kid” Mescudi, Brittany Snow, Owen Campbell, and Jenna Ortega, playing various adult film stereotypes. While the movie certainly has elements that will remind many of Tobe Hooper’s horror classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it’s a very different kind of horror movie in terms of the killers and kills, and that’s probably all I’ll say about that here, cause it’s a good movie to watch sans spoilers.
Listen, A24 has practically created the genre of “heightened horror” with the movies of Ari Aster like Hereditary and Midsommar, Robert Eggers’ The Witch and The Lighthouse, as well as releasing last year’s The Green Knight from David Lowery, which was delayed over a year due to COVID. That had an okay but not great $6.7 million opening in 2,790 theaters, but compare that to the $13.4 million opening for Hereditary in a couple hundred more theaters. I’m honestly not sure Ti West’s movie can get such a wide release, not just because of The Batman still taking up screens, but also because this is VERY R-rated, more like last year’s Zola or Red Rocket from A24, the former going wide into 1,468 theaters a few weeks before The Green Knight and kinda tanking with $1.2 million.
X benefits from being horror and having much stronger marketing than a few of A24’s 2021 releases, but some people are just weird about adult films and porn that they might prefer to watch a movie like X at home. I understand that the movie is being released into around 2,500 theaters, which is wider than the other three movies this weekend, but I think it will still have trouble getting an audience with The Batman still being quite dominant in theaters. I would be surprised if this makes more than $5 million, but as you can read in my review, I’m definitely a fan (and have been of West for over a decade), so I hope that I’m wrong.
Mini-Review: I may just be too big Ti West fan to trust on this one, because I loved his earlier films, I loved his foray into the Western genre, and man, did I miss seeing his movies in theaters, and X plays with a lot of the things I love. (No, I don’t mean porn, you pervs, but I bet that’s the first thing you thought, right?) No, I just enjoy vintage horror and retro films like this, but also one that focuses so well on the characters first and foremost before getting into the obligatory craziness that comes with the type of horror I love. It didn’t really surprise me so much, since West did this in both The Innkeepers and House of the Devil, but here, he brings a lot of new things to the slasher sub-genre, much like he did with ghost stories and satanism in those prior films.
Doing something like this starts first and foremost with his cast including Martin Henderson as Wayne, a gregarious film producer who comes across a bit like Matthew McConaughey in some of his more boisterous roles, although he is more interested in making a buck than the young director he’s hired to shoot and edit this film, RJ, as played by Owen Campbell. I maybe was a little more surprised by Mia Goth – no stranger to horror or nudity – as Wayne’s protegée/ingenue – and Mescudi as his leading man, because they both are playing characters quite different from what we’ve seen from them before. In fact, the same can be said with Brittany Snow and Jenna Ortega (appearing in her third horror film of 2022!)
West sets this movie up as the type of shlocky slaughter flick we’ve seen many times before, like in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it’s not really that at all, even with the opening of local police showing up at the location to find bloody bodies everywhere. (It actually reminded me more of the classic ‘70s TV movie Helter Skelter about the Manson killings, which probably scarred me as a child.) There’s also some rather dark humor in the set-up, even if it’s just the idea of making an adult film based around the perennial “Farmer’s Daughter” joke, to the point where I wondered how this hadn’t been done before, like by James Gunn in his PG Porn phase!
I wasn’t particularly familiar with Ure, who plays the cranky old man letting them stay in the bunkhouse, unaware of their real intentions, but he is set-up as the film’s antagonist, even though there’s a lot more to what is about to happen to the unwitting filmmakers. Honestly, I don’t want to say much more, because much of one’s enjoyment of X will come from some of the absolute shockers in store. I don’t even want to say too much about the farmer’s wife Pearl whose involvement in what’s to come definitely sets this apart from Texas Chainsaw, but it’s an equally fascinating performance and highly artistic piece of make-up work. (The movie also involves alligators, but that’s also all I’ll say on those.)
Essentially twisting horror archetypes into something unique but still quite gory and terrifying, Ti West continues to solidify his place as a true auteur in the genre realm.
Rating: 8.5/10
You can also read my interview with Ti West over at Below the Line.
THE OUTFIT (Focus Features) - Rated R
Oscar winner Mark Rylance stars in this feature directorial debut by The Imitation Game writer Graham Moore, playing suit maker Leonard – a “cutter” by his own definition – who has set up shop in ‘50s Chicago where the gangs have run rampant, and he ends up getting caught up in one such war when Richie (Dylan O’Brien), the son of the main boss, comes into the shop bleeding after an altercation with another gang. Leonard realizes his assistant Mable (Zoey Deutch) has been seeing Richie, but his partner Francis (Johnny Flynn) suspects Leonard of knowing too much, leading to a tense face-off in his shop.
This is quite a terrific film from the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game, as he directs only his second screenplay to get produced after directing a short in 2008, and this one is definitely a winner. Although the movie premiered at the Berlinale film festival in February, it still seems more of a less high-profile film for Focus, only because it’s not being released later in the year when Rylance could very well get another Oscar nomination for it after winning his Oscar for Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies.
A movie like this would probably have been platformed in the “before times,” but Focus has a pretty clear theatrical market as it goes into its 20th Anniversary as a distributor, and it’s going wide right off the bat, having had the trailer in theaters for a few months. The lack of big name stars is a bit daunting, and it’s hard not to compare it to The Kitchen, which opened with $5.5 million in more than twice the amount of theaters, only grossing $12 million with much bigger stars. I think this one will open closer to $2 million or less, which is a bummer because I think a lot of people will be quite impressed with Moore’s directorial debut.
Mini-Review: If you want to talk about a movie that seems like one thing, but then pulls the rug out from under your feet, then you should definitely check out The Outfit. It starts out a bit like PTA’s Phantom Thread with Rylance playing a character that could easily step in for Daniel Day Lewis in that movie, which honestly, I found to be rather cold. We meet Leonard as he’s going through his day-to-day making expensive suits for Chicago’s finest, including the city’s criminal element. It’s the 1950s and while Al Capone is gone, there’s still a mob presence, and they’ve been using ex-pat Leonard Burling’s shop as a drop-off point for money and messages.
Richie Boyle (Dylan O’Brien) is the son of the preeminent mob boss, who comes by Leonard’s shop to pick up the “mail,” though one night, he shows up at Leonard’s shop, bleeding profusely, along with his partner Francis (Johnny Flynn), the latter insisting that Leonard use his “tailoring” skills to sew Richie up. From there, we get an amazing night as we learn more about Leonard and his past, but he still keeps things fairly close to vest (tailoring pun.) about why he left Saville Row in the first place.
It’s obvious that Leonard does not want to get on the wrong side of these violent individuals, but he also seems to be playing them against each other for reasons that aren’t quite apparent. Things step up quite a bit when Roy, the main boss and Richie’s father (Simon Russell Beale), shows up at Leonard’s shop looking for his son.
Again, I didn’t know much about this movie besides the basic premise, and Moore definitely surprised me with the way this story is told. We know that Moore is a brilliant writer, but he surrounded Rylance with such a fantastic cast that keeps what is essentially a one-location film interesting. This includes Zoey Deutch as Leonard’s assistant who has gotten too involved with bad boy Richie, and pretty much the entire relatively small cast.
When you realize how much was done with such a simple premise and small cast, it’s quite amazing, but Moore was wise enough to get a lot of great craftspeople on the movie from DP Tim Pope, to composer Alexandre Desplat, and of course, the production designer, costumes, etc.
Even if you don’t watch movies for that sort of thing, you’re bound to be caught up in a story that moves a relatively brisk pace in terms of developments and tension-filled twists. The Outfit is superbly well-crafted in terms of its storytelling and craft and a fantastic feature directorial debut from Moore, just a banger (to use a British term) of a crime-thriller that confirms that Rylance is indeed one of the finest thespians on earth.
Rating: 8.5/10
JUJUTSU KAISEN 0: THE MOVIE (Crunchyroll) - Rated PG-13
Opening in roughly 1,500 theaters is this anime feature based on a seemingly popular series that can be seen on HBO Max, but which I know next to nothing about, although that’s generally true with most manga series these days, except maybe the classics. The thing is that these movies have been doing really well in their theatrical release over the past few years, especially those based on existing series. This one is based on a manga that appeared in the popular Jump Comics about a high school student named Yuta Okkotsu who enrolls into the Tokyo Jujutsu High School that’s haunted by the curse of his childhood friend. Yup, sounds like manga to me.
I’ll be perfectly honest that I’m quite stumped by this movie being released by Crunchyroll (which has incorporated the thriving anime releaser, FUNImation) into 1,500 theaters. You only need to go to FUNimation’s page on the newly-designed The-Numbers.com to see its success with Dragon Ball Super: Brolly in 2019 and Kimetsu no Yaiba: Mugen Ressha-Hen (the much longer Japanese name for the Demon Slayer sequel) last year, which opened with an astounding $22.8 million in roughly the same number of theaters as Jujutsu Kaisen 0.
Anime is huge these days, proven by how fast tickets for various Anime Cons sell out. It’s just what the kids are into these days. Unlike a few other anime films from GKids, this is doing a fairly standard wide release with previews on Thursday night (vs. a single night preview in wide release and then limited otherwise). I don’t think this has a chance of besting The Batman in its third weekend, which probably will be somewhere around $30 million, but I would not be surprised if this takes a strong second place, leaving many people scratching their heads, even as the kids fully understand. I think the low-end for this is about $7 million, and I would not be shocked if it ends up doing $10 million or more. I just don’t have enough reference or knowledge to nail down a number.
UMMA (Stage6/Sony Pictures) - Rated PG-13
Written and directed by Iris K. Shim, this horror film stars the wonderful Sandra Oh as Amanda who moves to a farmhouse with her daughter (Fivel Stewart), although when the remains of Amanda’s mother arrive from Korea, she becomes haunted by the thought of turning into her own mother. (“Umma” is the Korean word for mother, by the way.) And yes, kids, this means that we have TWO horror movies this week that mostly take place on a farmhouse, and it does seem like Umma might be the horror version of an aspect of Pixar’s recent Finding Red, also starring Ms. Oh. Weird, huh? (Don’t worry. We’ll have another movie next week about Asian mother issues. It seems to be a running theme this month.)
The reason why horror fans should be looking forward to this is because it’s the latest production from one of only a couple remaining living horror masters, Mr. Sam Raimi, who has had some good luck teaming with Sony for remakes of The Grudge and Evil Dead, and also produced the original Don’t Breathe and its sequel with Evil Dead director Fede Alvarez. Ms. Shim is a bit of an unknown quantity, having directed a short and a doc, but I have confidence in Raimi’s eye for talent.
Unfortunately, Umma was kind of dumped into this weekend very last minute (about a month back), and guess what? This one has reviews embargoed until 7pm on Thursday, like right before the first preview showtime. I’m not sure I’ll even have seen it before this column goes live, so you’ll either have to wait to read my review, or just take your chances to go see this on Thursday. I know that if Sony chose *NOT* to screen this in advance, I would be there Thursday night to see it, because I do love horror and Raimi, and Oh has been one of my favorite actors going back even before Sideways.
Still, a last-minute dump into roughly 700 theaters with very little advance marketing – by comparison, I saw the trailer for Morbius maybe a dozen times in front of other movies – is not a good sign that this one can even crack a million this weekend, though it might just peek into the top 10.
Mini-Review: Where to begin with this fairly high concept horror film that is better than many other similar attempts, but not quite up to snuff with what could have been done with it. I’m very familiar with J-horror and the equally scintillating K-horror, which has delivered films like A Tale of Two Sisters, Ghosting, and others. I would think that producer Sam Raimi would remember how hard it was to translate this stuff to American audiences, though I guess not from how well The Grudge did in theaters. I also would never complain about Raimi getting behind a fresh, new filmmaker like Umma director Iris K. Shim, who definitely has directing chops.
After an opening flashback or two to introduce Sandra Oh’s Amanda, we jump forward 16 years to when she’s moved to a farm with her teen daughter Chrissy to become beekeepers and apparently get as far away from her mother and electricity as possible. You see, Amanda has the same condition as Bob Odenkirk’s brother on Better Call Saul, where she can’t be near any electricity, and hence, she lives on a farm with no computers, celphones or electricity. Her daughter isn’t so thrilled about that last part, since it makes it tough for her to make friends.
One day, a Korean man, Amanda’s uncle, shows up with the remains of her mother, who has plotted to continue shaming her daughter from the grave, while causing friction between Amanda and her own daughter at the same time. (I’m sure I won’t be the only person to make the obvious joke by calling this movie “Umma Dearest,” but hey, let me think I’m being clever for a couple seconds, k? At least I didn’t make the joke about Amanda “gaslighting” her daughter by pretending she’s allergic to electricity.)
From there, we get a bunch of the typical horror jump scares, spooky shadows, lots of strange occurrences, etc, etc, and things just start getting sillier and sillier as it goes along. Then again, Umma does have some saving graces like the way it explores and explains Korean culture and mythology in a way that can be quite educational for those interested in Asian culture (as I am). And Sandra Oh and the rest of the small cast are more good than bad.
The problem is that Umma just doesn’t cut it as a particularly compelling horror film, plus it has the unfortunate onus of being situated between the far better Turning Red and Everything Everywhere All At Once, which both deal with similar Mommy-daughter issues but in far more creative and entertaining ways.
Rating: 6/10
And always, my weekend predictions, and it will be little surprise to anyone that The Batman will remain at #1, and at least one (and maybe just one) of the new movies will break into the top 3.
UPDATE: A few theater count updates on Thursday night means that Jujutsu Kaizen, X, and The Outfit are in more theaters than originally estimated, so I’m going to give them each a little bump.
1. The Batman (Warner Bros.) - $35 million -47%
2. Jujutsu Kaizen 0 (Cruchyroll) - $8.2 million N/A (up 1 million)
3. Uncharted (Sony) - $6.5 million -30%
4. X (A24) - $5.2 million N/A (up .7 million)
5. Dog (MGM) - $3.9 million -25%
6. Spider-Man: No Way Home (Sony) - $3.4 million -23%
7. The Outfit (Focus) - $3 million N/A (up .3 million)
8. Death on the Nile (20th Century/Disney) - $1.5 million -38%
9. Sing 2 (Universal) - $1.4 millon -10%
10. Umma (Sony) - $750k N/A
And now we get to the limited releases…
ALICE (Roadside Attractions/Vertical)
Following its premiere at Sundance – which was surrounded in controversy, apparently – this thriller by Krystin Ver Linden, stars Keke Palmer (Hustlers and Jordan Peele’s upcoming Nope) as a slave woman in the antebellum South who escapes her Georgia plantation only to discover an even more shocking secret. It also stars Common and Jonny Lee Miller, and I feel like I should warn those reading this that while I liked the movie, I think it’s best going in not knowing too much. And yet, I’m going to tell you more about why I liked it. All good?
I have to say that not watching the trailer for this or knowing what the movie was about nearly made me stop watching it roughly half an hour in. It starts off like a pretty well-made but ultimately dull and derivative movie about slavery, a clear 12 Years a Slave wannabe, with Palmer playing the housemaid on a plantation run by the ruthless and torturous Paul Bennett, played by Johnny Lee Miller. Honestly, I was ready to give up on this one because it fits into the mold of a genre I call “slavery porn” ala movies like the horror film Antebellum and even Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad series. In fact, I’ll admit to not watching all of the latter, because I’ve grown tired of that genre, and there’s nothing particularly enjoyable about watching Palmer’s character being abused, assaulted, while also watching her loved ones killed. There is nothing to learn about this period in American history. It was bad, there are racists, and we can’t go back in time to fix things.
And then the movie has a huge twist, which I won’t spoil, although I will say that it is the exact same twist as one of M. Night Shyamalan’s movies, so maybe you can figure it out. But that’s also where Common turns up and the film transforms into something much more worthwhile and watchable. If you don’t want to be spoiled, then stop here or move onto the next section of this column.
So yeah, that whole 19th Century plantation is actually a remote area in Georgia with a terrible man who has decided to live in this horrible past. Yeah, that does make it a little bit like Antebellum, but what Ver Linden does with Palmer’s character once she’s able to escape is what makes Alice so unique, since it essentially turns into a ‘70s revenge thriller. Alice begins reading and watching stuff to learn about what the world is like, and she’s influenced by Black Panther Angela Davis and by Pam Grier in Coffy to return to the plantation to get her revenge. That idea is actually pretty cool, and I enjoyed watching
Palmer’s performance is pretty good, although there’s a bit of overacting from her and Miller especially – and I generally like Common as an actor – but after we get off the plantation is where Alice (and Alice) really thrive, as we watch her learning about Black history post-abolition in a way that transcends what might have been a typical fish-out-of-water drama.
This is an exceedingly well-made debut from Ver Linden – I particularly loved the score that incorporates a decent mish-mash of musical styles and songs – and once it gets off the plantation and gets to the real plot, it becomes something far more original and innovative and something not as dull or torturous to watch as this might have been. (That said, I’m also not quite sure what part makes this “inspired by a true story.” Maybe something like this happened in the ‘70s that I wasn’t aware of?)
Rating: 7/10
INTREGALDE (Grasshoper)
Romanian filmmaker Radu (Tuesday, After Christmas) Muntean’s drama – which also did the film festival circuit and will open at New York’s Film Forum this Friday – is about a trio of young people from Bucharest delivering food and aid across the countryside when their SVU gets stuck in a muddy ditch in the mountains. Before that, they also encounter a strange old man who asks them for a ride to a sawmill, who will end up playing a large part in their experience.
This was another movie I went into with very few expectations or knowledge. Honestly, I tend to be somewhat mixed on Romanian cinema, because there’s a tendency to make needlessly long films with lots of talking and not much in terms of plot. Some might say that about Intregalde, since it does mostly end up in a single location where the three main characters get stuck and have to deal with a situation that grows worse and worse. Rather than turning into Deliverance, which is what I was expecting, it instead shows what these people do when literally stuck in a situation that seems impossible to get out of, but also involves their concern for this old man. Probably my favorite part of the movie is when the guy in the trio goes off looking for the man and get help leaving the two women talking on their own, probably the most compelling section of the film.
The truth is that Romanian filmmakers just see the world differently than we do here in America, and that perspective allows Muntean to take a movie that’s essentially about an SUV stuck in a ditch and turn it into a compelling narrative that explores the relationships between characters from different walks of life. It’s hard to believe a movie like this can keep you invested in what’s happening, yet it does.
Rating: 7/10
AHED’S KNEE (Kino Lorber)
From Israel comes Nadav Lapid’s drama, which premiered at Cannes last year and played at the New York Film Festival, TIFF and other fests. It stars Avshalom Pollak as an Israeli filmmaker known merely as “Y,” who travels to a remote desert area of Israel to show his movie only to end up in a philosophical discussion with the significantly younger Ministry of Culture rep Yahalom (Nur Fibak) about a release he’s expected to sign. (The title is in reference to a Palestine rebel who was shot in the knee, I think.)
I definitely was on board with Lapid’s film for at least the first part of it, and I was particularly interested in learning more about the female rebel Ahed, who received such a huge show of support from the people of Israel for the way she was treated. In fact, that’s merely a plot device to set up a film being made by Pollak’s filmmaker character, as he travels to a remote area of the country and immediately gets into it with this young woman. At first, you might think we’re watching some strange Israeli meet-cute, but it ends up being something far more pretentious offering lots of talk, talk, and talk with not nearly enough plot, plot, or plot.
Rating: 6/10
This opens uptown at Lincoln Center’s Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and possibly in L.A. as well.
Streaming stuff…
DEEP WATER (Hulu)
After being delayed and moved around the release schedule for over two years before being dumped to streaming, this thriller directed by Adrian Lyne, the master of the ‘90s erotic thriller – he directed Fatal Attraction and 9 ½ Weeks if you don’t believe me – stars former lovers Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas as a wealthy man who lets his wife have affairs to avoid her divorcing him, who also becomes the prime suspect when one of her suitors vanishes and then turns up dead. This is based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley, Carol), so there’s some serious thriller pedigree there, plus the script was co-written by Sam Levinson of Euphoria fame, so why has it been shuffled around the release schedule and dumped to streaming? Read on…
Mini-Review: This generically-titled thriller with an incredible pedigree is already on its way to becoming 2020s equivalent of Affleck’s earlier film, Gigli. This is not just because he appears in it with his ex in Ana de Armas either, but more because it’s very, very, very bland, and also quite bad. Listen, I can’t really blame anyone involved in the movie, even Lyne, because yeah, on paper, this sounds like something quite worthwhile, but it becomes quite obvious that we’re in for a chore as soon as it begins.
First of all, the two leads seem to have so little chemistry, you might be shocked they were a couple in real life, but as characters, Affleck’s Vic and de Arma’s Melinda are just arguing all the time, mainly because she’s constantly throwing herself at every pretty young man who she sets her eyes on. In the meantime, Vic’s favorite hobby is trying to scare these pretty young things by mentioning that one of Melinda’s previous adulterous lovers disappeared, and not long afterwards, the young man Vic tells this to also disappears. It becomes a bit of a pattern, and a few suspect Vic, such as Tracy Letts’ family acquaintance. Oh, also Lil Rel Howery appears in the movie as Vic’s best friend, because that’s essentially what Howery has become typecast as following Get Out. It seems particularly inappropriate here, because his only role is to continuously question why Vic is so calm about his wife’s adultery. (The couple also have an adorable young daughter named Trixie, played by Grace Jenkins, who is there basically to break up the monotony by acting cute.)
I’m not quite sure where everything goes wrong, but it really is all over the place, and while de Armas has done some good stuff, her performance in this one just isn’t great. Of course, she’s sexy as hell, but playing such an obnoxious character, and Affleck really isn’t much better. It’s not even like there’s any mystery, because there’s even a point where Vic’s daughter even asks him why he killed someone, so even SHE knows he’s a killer, and yet, he isn’t even questioned by the police. The whole thing is just plain ridiculous, and it gets worse and worse as it goes along, because there’s no tension at all, and just as it could explode with a Hitchcockian final act, it just ends, and we get end credits with the adorable Trixie singing along to Leo Sayer’s “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.” It might be one of the movie’s only saving graces.
A slog of a film that ends up with an equally “huh??” ending, Deep Water is a film that anyone involved will hope to forget as quickly as anyone who watches it.
Rating: 4/10
MASTER (Prime Video)
Another movie from Sundance (which I also missed) is Mariama Diallo’s horror film starring Regina Hall as the new master of a house at the prestigious “Ancaster” University, who is thrown into the middle of a conflict between another Black professor and the new student Jasmine, played by Zoe Renee, who starred in a series called The Quad. Oh, and her house is haunted by the ghost of a Black girl who killed herself, which is terrorizing Jasmine, almost as much as the inherent and less than subtle racism that surrounds them both.
Where do I even begin this movies, which actually may be the movie that stirred up controversy at Sundance rather than Alice. Honestly, I have no idea since I wasn’t really paying too much attention to other reviews while cranking out my own. This is the problem with Master. It’s far too obvious and far too on the nose in terms of its attempt to create social commentary. I think that some white critics were called to task by Black critics by comparing this to the movies of Jordan Peele, but this movie isn’t even CLOSE. Peele is much better with tone as well as incorporating humor into the terror.
Master has no humor, and it also isn’t particularly scary, even though are some nice squirmy moments of Hall’s character finding maggots in a drawer and some of the nightmares Jasmine has. The bigger overall problem with Master is that it just isn’t reality. Sure, there’s racism in the world, and sadly, there probably always will be, but in trying to shine a spotlight on this fact, Diallo invents an unrealistic environment that seems more like fiction. She then delivers a couple last act twists that bury even the smallest amount of good will you want to give her as a filmmaker trying to share her truth.
So yeah, this is nothing like Jordan Peele, and YET, this movie would not exist without Peele having had success with Get Out and Us. It just wouldn’t. That is a fact, and it’s unfortunate that the material is never nearly good as the performances being delivered by Hall and Renee. Master is just dull and depressing and tries too hard to hit the viewer on the head with white characters who are racist idiots, rather than exploring the subtleties of an important topic.
Rating: 5.5/10
BLACK CRAB (Netflix)
Rooney Mara stars in this Swedish action-thriller from filmmaker Adam Berg set in a post-apocalyptic world, which follows six soldiers on a mission to transport a mysterious package through the frozen wasteland. Okay, I did get a screener for this, and I may try to watch and review it, but it depends on how much of this column gets written today.
This week, Netflix is also releasing WINDFALL, the new movie from filmmaker Charlie McDowell (The One I Love), starring Jason Segel as a man who breaks into a tech billionaire’s vacation home, only for him to return with his wife. The billionaire is played by Jesse Plemons and his wife by the wonderful Lily Collins, so yeah, I would have really loved to get a screener for this movie. I asked for one. No response. See what I mean?
CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN (Disney+)
Hitting Disney+ on Friday is a second remake of the 1950 comedy, which starred Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy, but this one stars Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union as Paul and Zoey Baker, the parents of the blended family of 12, as they try to deal with the hectic home life that having 10 kids of different ages. Hilarity ensues… I mean, I assume it’s a comedy, because this could go in another direction and be like Agatha Christie’s 10 Little Indians, but no. It is a comedy.
Mini-Review: I tried to go into this remake (let’s just call it what it is) with a pretty open mind and not with the cynical “Oh, no, Disney is falling back on the awful comedies it used to churn out in the oughts with an added bit of diversity and inclusion!” Okay, maybe only with a half-open mind.
The plot is basically the same as before, as it explores this extended blended family and what they go through as Braff’s breakfast sauce gets a major investment deal that allows him to move his family into a mansion in an upscale neighbor, but also how that changes the family dynamics. At the same time, Zoey’s wealthy and famous sports star ex Dom (Timon Kyle Durrett) reenters the picture and wants to be more involved with his kids. Paul’s ex Kate (Erika Christensen) is also always hanging around, basically acting wacky and quirky. (It’s not a great look for Christensen.) The already enormous family is also joined by cousin Seth (Luke Prael), when his mother (Paul’s sister) has to go back into rehab.
There were definitely times during this movie I wasn’t sure whether I could get through the whole thing, especially because it frequently veers into fairly obvious territory. The script, co-written by Kenya Barris and Jennifer Rice-Genzuk from his “Ish” shows, is all over the place. On the other hand, Braff is perfectly suited for the role of dorky Dad which often helps elevate the humor, and Union is also great in this beleaguered mother kind of role. The kids are all over the place, literally, but also in terms of skill and talent, as this version does try to have a mix of races and ages with varying levels of precociousness. Some of the young actors are a bit too “actory” — you know the type — but they ultimately work well off each other, and television producer/director Gail Lerner does a decent job keeping all the various subplots from bringing the whole thing crashing down in her feature debut.
The fact is that it’s nice to have something rather light and airy like this in the times we’re currently in, and that being said, it still does get into the whole race thing a few times, especially in one particularly tense moment between Dom and Paul, though never losing sight of this being a comedy for families with kids.
Sure, it gets corny at times, but it’s also frequently cute and even quite charming, so it eventually did grow on me, and I do think it would appeal to families of various shapes and sizes. I bet it would even make a great Disney+ series, mainly because Barris’ background in family sitcoms frequently comes to the fore.
Rating: 7/10
Some repertory stuff…. And I may start adding back some L.A. arthouse theaters soon, but maybe once they add me to their press lists?
So happy that my favorite local arthouse theater seems to be returning to its prior greatness with the release of the first catalog in two years!
Continuing through the month until April 4 is “Left Bank Cinema,” which focuses on some of the filmmakers who were not given as much of a spotlight as part of France’s “New Wave” but are just as important filmmakers, such as Agnès Varda, Alan Resnais, Chris Marker, and more. This weekend, you can see Varda’s Vagabond (1985) and Georges Franju’s Eyes without a Face (1960), the latter which I previously saw at the Metrograph. There are also screenings of Jacques Demy’s The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and on Wednesday afternoon (today!) you can catch Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), which regularly screens at Metrograph.
As far as the ongoing series, this weekend’s “Play Time” movie is Frank Oz’s The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), screening once on Saturday at noon, and then another time a week from Saturday. This week’s “Late Nights” screening is South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999), screening on Friday and Saturday night at 11:15pm. This week’s “Metrograph Presents A to Z” are two movies I don’t know: Luis Bunuel’s Él (1953) and William Wyler’s Dodsworth (1936), both playing on Saturday and Sunday.
A reminder that if you’re not in NYC, you can still join the Metrograph’s amazing streaming system, The Metrograph Pictures Library, which shows a wide range of new and repertory films for just 5 bucks a month!
On Monday, Buster Keaton’s College (1927) will be screened with his 1922 short Cops with piano accompaniment for both. Richard Linklater’s classic family film turned stage musical, School of Rock, starring Jack Black screens as part of Film Forum Jr. on Sunday at 11AM. Film Forum is also showing Joseph Losey’s 1976 film Mr. Klein (Rialto Pictures) again, even though I feel like this had a run there not so long before the pandemic hit. I guess it was quite popular.
This Friday and running through March 27, FilmLinc is showing a Kinoyu Tanaka Retrospective with movies starring the Japanese actress who appeared in roughly 250 films, including some by the likes of Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Mikio Naruse, before turning to directing herself. You can get an all-access pass for $79, and this is definitely a case where I had more money and time to delve into Ms. Tanaka’s work. I’m sure I’ve seen many of her films but there’s just so many films I’ve never seen and many I’ve never even heard of that this sounds like another great “discovery” series for film lovers. The series will focus on the six films Tanaka directed but also will screen six of her personal favorite films, and you can find out more here.
MOMA had to cancel some of its film series due to the recent attacks there you may have heard of, but they’re in the midst of a Peter Bogdanovich series, and their Modern Matinees series focuses on “Linda Darnell, Dark Lady of Fox,” although that’s on hold until next week. (Shame, because 1940’s The Mark of Zorro was one of the movies cancelled, sadly.)
And lastly… ETC. i.e. the movies I knew about but just couldn’t get to…
JANE BY CHARLOTTE (???)
THE TORCH (???)
PANAMA (Saban Films/Paramount)
MAU (Greenwich Entertainment)
MEASURE OF VENGEANCE (Vertical)
THE HATER (Vertical)
Next week, Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, and Brad Pitt team up for the action/comedy The Lost City from Paramount!