THE WEEKEND WARRIOR April 19, 2024
ABIGAIL, THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE, SPY X FAMILY CODE: WHITE, SASQUATCH SUNSET, PHOTOGRAPHIC JUSTICE, WE GROWN NOW, MORE
After taking a much-needed week off to work in the studio and try to finish up a record I’m mixing, we’re back with another column with a slew of new reviews. Unfortunately, my busy schedule has me finishing this up pretty last minute on Thursday.
Because I didn’t write a column last week, I ended up not seeing or reviewing Alex Garland’s Civil War, but I really loved it, and wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up in my top 20 for the year. I can understand some of the criticisms that Garland’s film received, particularly about it being vague about the politics surrounding the war, but there were aspects that I really appreciated – its insightful portrayal of wartime journalism, the relationship between two main women, played by Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny, and the rest of the cast as well. I’m definitely going to try to see it again while it’s still playing in theaters.
Anyway, onto this week, which is once again, quite jampacked.
ABIGAIL (Universal)
Radio Silence, the filmmaking collective behind the last two Scream movies, as well as the Samara Weaving horror film, Ready or Not, are back with an original horror film about a group of criminals who kidnap a little girl for money only to learn she’s a vicious vampire. The filmmakers have put together an impressive cast that includes Melissa Barrera from those Scream movies, Dan Stevens (recently seen in Godzilla x Kong), Kathryn Newton from Lisa Frankenstein, William Catlett, the late Angus Cloud (Euphoria), Kevin Durand, Giancarlo Esposito, Matthew Goode, and young Alisha Weir as Abigail. This will be opening pretty wide in over 3,300 theaters which gives it the best possible chance of opening in first place this weekend probably with $15 million plus.
Mini-Review: It’s hard not going into Abigail thinking you know fully what to expect, especially if you’ve already seen the trailer, and you already know the film’s high concept premise. That’s what I thought going in, and I’m happy to say how wrong I was, because Radio Silence have done it again with a vampire movie as vicious as Ready or Not or anything else they’ve done.
Yeah, the premise from the trailer is certainly how things begin. Six criminals from different backgrounds are brought together to kidnap the young daughter of a mob boss in order to get money. Some might immediately wonder why anyone would need six adults to capture a defenseless young girl, but things certainly aren’t what they seem, even if the viewers will know the truth about Abigail long before the other characters. Before that, we get a bit of “getting to know you” among the six unlikely collaborators, and we learn as much as we can despite them using assumed names and being told not to reveal too many personal details about themselves.
Melissa Barrera plays “Joey,” the one with some medical experience, so she’s put in charge of checking in on young Abigail, but that plan quickly goes awry, and Dan Stevens’ former detective “Frank” wants to find out who her father is. It’s not long before some of them end up suffering grisly deaths, and it’s not long after that where we learn the truth about Abigail.
While I wouldn’t consider Abigail to be a horror-comedy, it’s surprisingly witty, which can often be attributed to the characters played by Durand and Cloud. Honestly, it’s so great to see Durand back on screen in what could be the best role of his career. I also have to give huge props to the filmmakers for finding Alisha Weir (who played the title character in Matilda: The Musical, oddly) and casting her as the pirouetting ballerina who proceeds to fight off her adults captors, because she brings so much to the young title character working better than most.
As I’ve said, the movie goes into so many unexpected places, and that’s about all I’ll say about that, and that aspect of the film more than makes up for waiting 40 minutes for Abigail to reveal her vampiric tendencies. What really sets Abigail apart from so many other modern horror films is that Radio Silence are working from a terrific script (written by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick) with possibly one of the better ensembles in recent memory. They certainly play to their gory fortés as the movie progresses, always making things look practical even when there’s a chance that some of the stuff couldn’t have been done without VFX. I also have to make note of Bryan Tyler’s terrific score, which brings as much tension and excitement, as his scores brought to Ready or Not and the filmmaker’s first Scream movie.
Abigail offers so much gory fun, but Radio Silence revs the entire film up with so much excitement and energy, there really never is a single dull moment. This is the best vampire movie I’ve seen in some time.
Rating: 8/10
THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE (Lionsgate)
Guy Ritchie is back with his fifth movie since the pandemic began – can’t remember if that includes The Gentlemen, which opened in Jan. 2020 or not – and this one is another ensemble action-comedy involving spies, but it’s a movie with probably one of the weirdest and worst titles since… well… The American Society of Magical Negroes. (And some may remember how poorly that did at the box office… or more than likely, you’ve never heard of it.)
This one is a true story based on classified files from Winston Churchill which were declassified in 2016, revealing info about a group of special operatives, played by Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Henry Golding, Eiza González, and Babs Olusanmokun, who go on a special mission to Africa to disrupt the Nazi U-boat dominance in the Atlantic Ocean that has kept America from getting to Europe to help out with WWII. The movie also stars Cary Elwes, Rory Kinnear (from Men) as Churchill, and Til Schweiger.
It’s opening in 2,600 theaters, give or take, and I’m dubious that it will connect with American audiences in the same way as some of Ritchie’s other recent releases, such as Wrath of Man and The Covenant.
Mini-Review: It’s hard to believe that Guy Ritchie has never done a WWII movie, though this action-comedy with the world’s most unwieldy title really can’t be seen so much as a war movie, even though comparisons are very likely to be made to Tarantino’s far superior Inglourious Basterds.
In a similar way, Ministry essentially follows a mission by a motley group from different backgrounds, brought together by Henry Cavill’s gregarious Gus March-Phillips at the behest of Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear) to try to stop the German U-Boats making any sort of commerce in the Atlantic Ocean next to impossible. Gus’ first recruits are Alan Ritchson’s Swede Anders Lassen, Hero Fiennes Tiffin’s Henry Hayes, and Henry Golding’s Freddy Alvarez. Before going on the mission where they can do the most damage to the Nazi fleet, they have to break Alex Pettyfer’s Geofrrey Appleyard out from a German gulag. Along for the ride but playing key roles are Eiza González’s Marjorie Stewart, a Mata Hari-like spy with a very specific mission of her own, and Babs Olusanmokun as an agent who has already infiltrated the group’s African port destination as a club owner.
All the members of the group are introduced in a fairly reasonable way, with Cavill generally taking point as the group’s cocky leader, meeting them while already on the ocean taking on a group of Nazis boarding their boat.
Once they get to their destination – a 15-day trip, they need to try to do quicker once the Nazis change their plans — the biggest thread is the vicious head Nazi, Heinrich Luhr, played by Til Schweiger, who Marjorie is sent to seduce and distract while the others do the dirty work of blowing up the Italian tug boat, a plan that almost immediately goes sideways.
Despite this being a genre that tends to be dominated by males, Gonzalez is an interesting choice, being a Mexican woman playing a New York woman of Jewish descent, but she is easily the best part of the movie, as she’s able to use her looks and wiles to pull many fast ones over the Nazis she encounters. I also enjoyed Ritchson’s murderous Swede, who used all sorts of methods of swatting down Nazis. Others, like Henry Golding, are mostly wasted in nothing roles that give them very little to do. Kinnear’s Churchill is disappointingly bad.
This normally would be a film that I might be interested in, especially with Ritchie at the helm, but something about how everything unfolds is just done in such a bland way that it’s hard to stay very interested. There are a few larger setpiece that might make you curious about the budget, but watching the group killing Nazis only provides a certain amount of entertainment, especially when there doesn’t seem to be very much danger for the majority of the group, other than Marjorie.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is well-directed by Ritchie, and he has a general decent cast, but the central premise is so dull, uninteresting, and derivative of better movies, it’s hard to really be on board when things aren’t being blown up. Either way, explosions and lots Nazi-killing can only go so far to instill any sort of excitement into this dull, cookie-cutter of a story.
Rating: 5.5/10
SPY X FAMILY CODE: WHITE (Crunchyroll)
For various reasons, I have never seen many if any of Crunchroll’s theatrical releases, maybe because I don’t always have the context for some of them, being based on long-running ongoing Anime series.
Fortunately, Spy x Family Code: White, based on the manga by Tatsuya Endo and directed by Takashi Katagiri, is more or less a standalone feature film, which made it much easier to jump on board to watch it, probably why Crunchyroll has gone a bit further with its marketing and outreach, to the point of even making the movie this week’s Regal Monday Mystery Movie. (From what I understand, there were a ton of walkouts, since you can’t expect everyone to like or love anime and many adults just do not like it at all.)
MIni-Review: Again, not really having that much context for modern-day Anime other than a few better-known filmmakers like Miyazaki, Makoto Shinkai (Your Name.), Satoshi Kon (Paprika), and a few others, I went into Spy x Family without much knowledge of what to expect other than the very basics of the story, and that’s about it.
As the title might imply, it revolves around a fake family put together in order to work together on spy missions, as Loid Forger (Codename: Twilight) and Yor Forger (Codename: Thorn Princess) have a young orphan named Anya who helps pass themselves off as a true family. Much of the first half of the film involves a mission where Loid needs to find a recipe for a special dessert, something which isn’t quite clear why. Yor is madly in love with Loid but won’t let him know since it might jeapardize their mission, as he looks for the ingredients to create this elusive dessert.
Listen, there’s just no way around the fact that the little girl, Anya, is so annoying it frequently makes you want to stop watching altogether, and her ersatz dog pal, Bond, does little except to “Borf” at her. Sure, some younger viewers might relate to her or find her cute, but there’s no way to take the spy aspects of the film seriously with a little girl running around, basically getting in the way. If that wasn’t bad enough, there’s a whole section about Anya pooping out a piece of important microfilm that was hidden inside a chocolate she ate. At one point, she’s visited by “the Poop God” who brings her to the “Garden of Toilets.” I can’t make this up.
Otherwise, there’s just a lot of yelling and over-emoting, which I guess is what Anime fans might enjoy or be accustomed to, and it takes a good hour before things get more serious, and we start to see the actual war going on between the East and West that required all this spywork in the first place. The movie does grow on you, especially when it gets into the action sequences, which are on par with a live action summer blockbuster, but it just takes too much time to get there, as we follow this plot to get some recipe that seems to have little to do with the actual resolution.
Spy x Family may appeal to younger girls with its brand of humor and general silliness, but as a grown adult, it’s hard to take it very seriously as an animated film against so many far superior efforts from Japan and other countries. This is clearly for fans of the manga and Anime in general, but probably won’t do much for others, and there were many aspects that I just didn’t get at all.
Rating: 6/10
SASQUATCH SUNSET (Bleecker Street)
The latest film from Nathan and David Zellner premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, but I saw it more recently. It stars Jesse Eisenberg, Riley Keough, Christophe Zajac-Denek, and Nathan Zellner as a family of Sasquatches, living in the forest and doing whatever can to survive. It expands nationwide on Friday after a limited release last weekend.
Mini-Review: This is another Sundance movie that I didn’t see, because it wasn’t on the virtual platform, but I did eventually see it a few weeks ago, and it’s… interesting… to say the least. I’m not sure that necessarily makes it good.
The premise is simple enough, involving a family of four Sasquatches out in the wild, scrounging for food, having sex, pissing and shitting wherever and whenever they need to, and that’s really about it. Eisenberg, Keough and the others are completely unrecognizable, though they’re in some impressive costumes and make-up to make them effectively more (is this a word?) Saskatchewan. (Sorry, Canadians, that was my idea of a joke. My jokes have NOT improved with age.)
It isn’t that hard to get into what the Zellners are trying to achieve here, because it’s almost cinema verité in the way it follows this family around the forest setting. Riley Keough is the only woman Sasquatch, so she is put in an interesting place almost as a sex object (and she does get pregnant later), but I also enjoyed Christophe Zajac-Denek – who I believe is a little person? – who may or may not be the child of the family, though it’s hard to tell since he seems fairly wisened at times. I actually could not really detect any part of Eisenberg or Keough under all that hair and make-up, since there’s very little of their own personalities remaining.
Even so, I didn’t enjoy this nearly as much as the Zellner’s 2014 drama, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter – even interviewed them for it – though probably about as much as Damsel, which I probably saw at Sundance in 2018.
Ultimately, this is a movie that just doesn’t have enough of a story to really pull me in and keep me interested in a bunch of actors in Sasquatch suits grunting at each other
Rating: 6/10
Incidentally, speaking of woodlands creatures, Mike Cheslik’s hilarious Hundreds of Beavers, which I didn’t end up reviewing since I saw it after its initial release, hits VOD and digital this week.
VILLAINS INCORPORATED (Purdie Distribution)
Jeremy Warner’s comedy, which premiered at last year’s Austin Film Festival, will get a nationwide release, which is quite surprising. It stars Mallory Everton, Colin Mochroie (yeah, from “Whose Line Is it Anyway?”), and Jason Gray as Beatrix, Harold, and Cain as three people who are living in an abandoned grocery store after their boss dies, forcing them to make a pact to fight to take over the world by any means necessary. I guess this is getting a wide release. I’m not sure I would have even heard of it if I didn’t write this column.
THE BOX OFFICE CHART
1. Abigail (Universal) - $15.5 million N/A
2. Civil War (A24) - $11.5 million -54%
3. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (Lionsgate) - $8.6 million N/A
4. Godzilla x Kong: A New Empire (Warner Bros.) - $8.3 million -47%
5. Spy x Family Code: White (Crunchyroll) - $7.5 million N/A
6. Kung Fu Panda 4 (Universal) - $3.9 million -39%
7. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Sony) - $3.6 million -38%
8. Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros.) - $2.5 million -42%
9. Monkey Man (Universal) - $2.1 million -48%
10. The First Omen (20th Century) - $1.8 million -52%
This week’s “Chosen One” is…
PHOTOGRAPHIC JUSTICE: THE CORKY LEE STORY (All is Well)
I was quite thrilled when I received an Email in my inbox notifying me about this new documentary about Corky Lee, because I really didn’t know much about him, despite having lived in Chinatown for over thirty years. Turns out that I had a direct connection to him through a friend of mine, who had also made a movie about the Chinese-American place in history. (It’s called Far East Deep South, and I highly recommend seeking it out. It’s been touring around the country for the past couple years.)
Thankfully, filmmaker Jennifer Takaki had the wherewithal to express the desire to follow Corky Lee around on his various photo opportunities after first meeting him in 2003, because Photographic Justice does a great job not only telling Corky’s story, but helping the viewer truly understand him and why he went to such great lengths to be there with his camera when there were issues affecting Asian-Americans across the country, and not just in New York City. If you haven’t figured it out from my use of past tense, Corky died in early 2021 due to complications from COVID, but he left behind a legacy in photography that included recreating a classic photo of the transcontinental railway that was constructed largely by Chinese-Americans, who were then omitted from the pictures taken to commemorate.
I definitely have an affinity for the Chinese community, having lived around them for so long – and I think I may have met him through my friend Baldwin (of the aforementioned doc) – I wish I had more of a chance to meet and know Corky before his death, but Ms. Takaki’s film does a great job getting the viewer up to speed in learning what made him unique, both as a photographer and as a person. A terrific film!
It opens in New York’s Chinatown at the Firehouse DCTV Cinema on Friday, and no surprise, but most of the weekend screenings with panels are sold out! (Corky had a lot of friends in the neighborhood, many of whom will be on-hand to talk about him after the movie.) It will then open in L.A. at the Laemmle Glendale on Friday, April 26, and then air on PBS on May 13.
You can also watch my interview with director Jennifer Takaki talking about the movie over at Cinema Daily US.
WE GROWN NOW (Sony Pictures Classics)
Minhal (Hala) Baig’s coming-of-age drama debuted at Toronto last year, which seemed odd enough for a movie set in Chicago, but it’s also being released by Sony Pictures Classics, and let’s face it. This is not the type of movie they normally would release. I guess they’re trying to branch out.
Much of the film revolves around two best friends, Eric and Malik, played by Gian Knight Ramirez and Blake Cameron James, who live in the Cabrini-Green housing projects of Chicago, dealing with all that entails back in 1992, which oddly, is the same year that the horror movie Candyman came out, also taking place in Cabrini. There are a few better known actors in this, as well, including Lil Rel Howery from Get Out, Jurnee Smollett, and S. Epatha Makerson.
Mini-Review: If you haven’t figured it out, I try to make a concentrated effort to see a lot of different kinds of movies on a regular basis. While I generally enjoy coming-of-age films, especially ones that seem as semi-autobiographical as this one does, I also need to have a strong enough story to justify telling one’s story, and this one falters in that regard.
Baig tells the story of two young friends in a Chicago housing complex, who deal with all sorts of adversity, including police raids on their home, and just generally getting into trouble. While Baig has done a decent job finding these young actors for the roles – and she has some true ringers playing parents, grandparents and such – the storytelling really doesn’t much to keep the viewer that invested in what is going on. There are certainly moments that improve matters, but they’re shoehorned into a lot of bland storytelling that just doesn’t connect in the way that’s intended.
On the other hand, Jay Wadley’s score does so much to elevate any emotions of the film, and that score frequently surpasses any actual writing or acting or direction, which certainly is not something any filmmaker will want to hear when telling such a personal story.
Ultimately, the film ends in a decent enough place that you might be satisfied with how long it took for Baig’s film to actually get to any sort of point, but having seen this so shortly after Kore-eda’s masterful Monster, this one just isn’t able to deliver anything nearly as powerful.
Rating: 6.5/10
It will open at the Film Forum in New York City, as well as in L.A. and Chicago this Friday with plans to expand wider on Friday, April 26
STRESS POSITIONS (NEON) - IFC Center, LA and other cities on 4/26
I saw Theda Hammel’s COVID comedy, co-starring John Early (from Search Party, which I havent’ seen), as part of the virtual Sundance, and boy, did I LOATHE it. I mean, almost to the point of not wanting to even try to write a review of it, since I haven’t seen the movie since January, and I hated it so much back then that I wouldn’t want to watch it a second time. Essentially, Early plays Terry Goon, a Brooklynite stuck in his ex’s abandoned Brooklyn brownstone due to COVID with a bunch of LGBTQ people, as he cares for his Moroccan teen nephew, a 19-year old model named Bahlul. Theda herself plays another one of the neighbors. Again, I’m not going to review this one, due to the length of time since I saw it, but I really hated this and thought it was so terrible that I was mystified why Sundance (and then New Directors/New Films) would run it… and that NEON would pay for it. Do they really think this will make any money at all?
Anyway, it’s opening at the IFC Center in New York this Friday, as well as in L.A. and other cities on Friday, April 26.
HARD MILES (Blue Fox Entertainment)
Matthew Modine and Sean Astin star in R.J. Daniel Hanna’s sports drama about Greg Townsend a prison social worker (Modine) who is commissioned to put together a cycling team in order to bike from Denver to the Grand Canyon. It’s directed by RJ Daniel Hanna and will hit select theaters this weekend. I’m all for a good inspirational true-life sports drama, and I was hoping to get to this one, but I just didn’t get around to it in time to review. Sorry.
REBEL MOON: PART 2 - THE SCARGIVER (Netflix)
I wasn’t going to be seeing the conclusion to Zack Snyder’s outer space epic until Thursday morning, and reviews are embargoed until later tonight. I wasn’t a fan of Part 1 – I reviewed it here – but was going to give the conclusion a chance, since Part 1 was mostly set-up. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t make that happen, but this will be on Netflix tomorrow in case you’re a fan and want to see more.
A few other movies this week that I didn’t get to…
BLOOD FOR DUST (Avenue Entertainment)
LITTLE EMPTY BOXES (Abramorama)
EGOIST (Strand Releasing)
NYC REPERTORY
“Filmcraft: Frederick Elmes,” celebrating the award-winning indie cinematographer, continues this weekend with screenings of Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm (1997), Bergman’s Cries and Whispers (1972), the ‘80s classic River’s Edge (1986), starring Keanu Reeves, and on Saturday morning, there’s a FREE screening of the final episode of the HBO mini-series, The Night Of, presented by the American Society of Cinematographers East Coast Events Committee. (I’m not sure if Mr. Elmes will be on-hand to discuss afterwards.)
“On the Run in Paris” will screen Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows (1958) and Diva from 1982.
“Divine Intervention” will screen Vittoria de Sica’s 1951 drama, Miracle in Milan, as well as one more screening of Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1987) on Monday, while “Novel Encounters: The Films of Lee Chang-Dong” will screen a new DCP of his 2002 film, Oasis, as well a A Ouin Lecomte’s Brand New Life (2009) – written and produced by Lee, and the Oscar-nominated Burning on Tuesday.
The “Bad Actress” series will screen John Cassavetes’ Opening Night (1977) starring his wife, Gena Rowlands, while “Forever Young” will screen Bertrand Bonello’s 2016 film, Nocturama, which is also available on the Metrograph’s At Home digital platform, as well as Richard Linklater’s classic, Dazed and Confused from 1993.
“Animal Farm: Pigs” will screen a Porky Pig showcase on Saturday and Sunday mornings; I’ll be there on Saturday!
There’s a really exciting retrospective series beginning this Friday on the brilliant British filmmaker Kevin Loach, includes many of his beloved classics, some great modern films like I, Daniel Blake, as well as other lesser-screened films, some only screening once or twice. This Sunday’s Film Forum Jr. is Loach’s Kes (1969) – get the kids into Loach early, that’s what I say. Melville’s Le Samourai continues to run for another week, while Classe Tous Risques and Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia end today.
This weekend’s “Late Night Favorite” is John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars (2001), starring Ice Cube, Jason Statham, and Pam Grier.
On Thursday and Saturday, the Roxy will be showing a 35mm print of the Western Giant (1956), as well as a 35mm print of Twilight and the 1998 comedy, Half Baked. Friday night will be a 35mm print of Bertrand Bonello’s House of Tolerance, presented by my pals at The Film Stage.
As part of “Always on Sunday: Greek Film Series,” MoMI will be screening the 2018 film 1968, and then next week, it will be screening Pixar’s Elemental on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It will also be seeing classic Warner Bros’ cartoons on Friday afternoon.
On Sunday, the Academy Museum Branch Selects selection is Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), presented by the Short Films and Feature Animation branch, and then on Wednesday, the Executives Branch is showing Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978).
Starting Wednesday is “Desire/Expectations: The Films of Edward Yang,” a pretty straight-ahead retrospective that runs through April 25.
On Monday night, the East Village theater will screen Julie Taylor’s Beatles musical, Across the Universe, from 2007.
That’s it for this week. Next week (hopefully), I’ll have my review of Challengers and much more!
You people who judge anime as inferior entertainment are the problem.