The Weekend Warrior August 12, 2022
BODIES BODIES BODIES, FALL, MACK AND RITA, GIRL PICTURE, SUMMERING, EMILY THE CRIMINAL, LAAL SINGH CHADDHA, ROGUE AGENT, and More
Well, this is not going to be one of my better columns.
I figure I should get that out of the way, because over the last week, I’ve just been slammed with so many things, including freelance deadlines and medical procedures. It’s also just a weird weekend, since there are a lot of movies, and many that I had a chance to see last week, but not a ton to write about them beyond what will already be in my Gold Derby weekend preview, which will be live by the time you read this. On top of that, most of the other movies are getting only moderately wide or lower releases, and honestly, I’m not even sure if more than one or two of them will get into the top 10. That’s where we’re at in the summer box office, and one of the movies is already one that I wrote about last week, which is….
BODIES BODIES BODIES (A24)
We’ll start with the movie that’s already in theaters and that I’ve already reviewed last week, so I probably won’t waste too much time writing more about it. That is the Gen-Z horror-comedy (of sorts) that A24 will expand into somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 theaters, which will probably have more awareness than the rest of the pack. Because of this, Bodies Bodies Bodies has the best chance of breaking into the top 5, although I think it will fall just short with $4 million as returning movies will offer stronger choices and with potential direct competition from…
FALL (Lionsgate)
Offering some direct competition for Bodies Bodies Bodies in a similar number of theaters (about 1,400), this high-concept thriller from director Scott Mann stars Grace Caroline Currey and Virginia Gardner as two friends who decide (quite unwisely) to scale a 2,000 foot high radio tower… and then they get stuck up there. I hate when that happens. You can read my mixed-positive review below, but this has quite a bit going for it with teasers and trailers playing in front of movies for months, and it’s likely to open in as many theaters as the A24 movie, which is probably direct competition, appealing to the same young women. That’s tough for Fall, but I still think it could bring in $2 to 3 million this weekend, and who knows? Maybe it can even crawl into the lower part of the top 10, although it will still be behind Bodies Bodies Bodies.
Mini-Review: When you hear the premise for this high concept thriller, you’re probably going to think right away, “Why on earth would anyone want to climb to the top of this 2,000-foot radio tower?!” Well, if the two young women leading this piece weren’t such daredevils and thrill-seekers, there really wouldn’t be a movie at all, would there? (It’s good to know that this was produced by the people behind the hit thrillers 47 Meters Down and its sequel, since there is quite a bit of DNA in common despite this one going up where that one went down.)
We meet Grace Caroline Currey’s Becky as she’s free soloing a rock face with her husband (Mason Gooding) and her good friend, Hunter (Virgina Gardner), who is definitely the more daring of the two. After Becky’s husband falls to his death, we cut forward nearly a year where she’s still unable to get past what happened, and it takes Hunter’s return to drag Becky out of her home to climb a 2,000-foot tower where they can release her husband’s ashes. Hunter isn’t just a thrill-seeker, but she also has a lot of Instagram followers who loves seeing her doing dangerous things.Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays a smaller role as Becky’s father, who is already worried about her mental health after the death of her husband, because she’s been hiding out in her filthy home and not responding to his calls.
It’s a little strange how this movie opened so much like a recent low-budget dog called The Ledge, but after that, the movie is very much it own beast, and Scott Mann is just a much better filmmaker all around. The actual climb to the top of the tower is what sets up what will be a real nail-biter of a thriller as Mann makes sure we know how rickety and rusted this metal structure is, as the girls climb up the steep ladder to its very top. Mann does a great job with foreshadowing that something bad is going to happen, probably with that ladder, and sure enough, as Becky tries to go back down, the ladder beats her to it, as it clatters to the ground.
Without spoiling the movie, it goes into some strange places, including a number of twists that are so out there you might find yourself shouting at the screen, and for some, that alone will make Fall kind of enjoyable to watch with a young audience on a Friday or Saturday night. But it’s also going to be fun to watch how uneasy people get in certain scenes, where you might find yourself yelling, “No, don’t do that!!!”
Fortunately, the girls are fairly resourceful (and both actresses aren’t bad), which leads to what seem like good ideas, and then maybe a few not so great ideas, but the last act is very much going to make or break for most, because of those aforementioned twists.
Fall probably won’t be for everyone, and some will definitely enjoy it for what it is vs. those who take things far too seriously and can’t seem to enjoy movies that aren’t trying to be some high-end art-film. Fall works for what it is intended to be — a frequently nerve-wracking though sometimes quite dumb thriller — with some moments that will shake you up (especially if you have issues with heights!).
Rating: 7/10
MACK AND RITA (Gravitas Premiere)
Opening in an undisclosed number of theaters on Friday but presumed to be wide, so maybe 800 to 900 theaters or more (?) – although I’ve heard closer to 2,000 theaters, which is insane – is this body-swap comedy starring Elizabeth Lail as Mackenzie Martin, who goes on a bachelorette trip with her soon-to-wed best friend Carla (Taylour Paige), and while visiting a spiritual guru (played by Simon Rex), she’s transformed into the 70-year-old version of herself, as played by Diane Keaton. Although Carla knows the truth, Mack starts pretending that she’s her own “Aunt Rita” and begins a romance with her dog-sitter Jack (Dustin Milligan) while also trying to figure out how to get back to her own body. The movie is directed by Katie Aselton, who previously directed the fun indie comedy, The Freebie, and the horror-thriller, Black Rock. The movie also stars Loretta Devine, Amy Hill, Lois Smith, Wendie Malick, Patti Harrison, and features a voice part for Martin Short. If you read my review below, you’ll realize how much I hated this movie and not having a definitive theater count (and not believing this might get 2,000 theaters), this is likely to end up with less than a million this weekend.
Mini-Review: You know, I love a good body swap comedy as much as the next guy (or woman… because they’ve swapped bodies, get it?). This is not “good” by any definiont of the word, as it’s a comedy that falls somewhere flatly between indie pablum and studio drek. The movie is just so ill-conceived, I’m saddened and mortified that a filmmaker and person I quite like, such as Katie Aselton, was somehow convinced to direct it. (Movies like this are why they created the pseudonym Alan Smithee!)
It starts out okay with Elizabeth Lail’s Mack being an Instagram influencer like we’e seen in so many movies (including a few this week!) but she has an “old soul” that is constantly mocked by her shallow friends, because that includes her taste in fashion. Unfortunately, having seen Bodies Bodies Bodies and way too many other movies with annoying, shallow young women, the movie almost lost me right away, but then Lail transforms into Diane Keaton, and
Watching this movie, I really wondered what anyone involved was thinking, because who is this movie supposed to appeal to? Is it supposed to appeal to Keaton’s mostly over-50 female fans, because the movie certainly goes into that direction as she hangs out with a cadre of wine-loving ladies… but then there’s all the
The thing is that this movie deals with so many pretentious aspects of modern life that I absolutely loathe – influencers, for instance – and if it wasn’t bad enough that the screenplay is abysmal, Keaton is so far beyond giving anything resembling a quality performance that we’re instead subjected to her screaming and screeching.
Though unfamiliar with Lail, I actually didn’t mind her so much, but she quickly vanishes from the movie, so we instead have to watch a cringe-worthy December to May romance between Keaton and Milligan that’s harder to believe than the body swap premise at the film’s core. That might sound ageist, but ageism is very much at the core of most of this movie’s completely inappropriate humor, and just when you can’t get more annoyed at Keaton’s performance, she falls into a pool. Groan.
By far one of the worst movies I’ve seen this year, Mack and Rita is a movie so poorly thought out and abysmally-realized, that one seriously has to question the involvement of every single person who made it. Avoid at all costs.
Rating: 2/10
LAAL SINGH CHADDHA (Paramount)
Another movie that’s getting a more moderate release than the above — supposedly around 400 theaters — but has quite a bit going for it nonetheless, is this Punjabi language movie from Bollywood that is a (I kid you not) faithful remake of Robert Zemeckis’ 1994 Oscar winner Forrest Gump. This has been faithfully adapted from Eric Roth’s screenplay and the original novel by Winston Groom and transported to India, covering a number of decades as the film’s simple-minded title protagonist (as played by Aamir Khan) experiences all sort of things in the country’s history while chasing after his childhood sweetheart (actually, they’re just friends), Rupa (Kareena Kapoor Khan), who he spends his life pining after. You can read my review below to see that I loved this, but it’s a little tougher trying to make a prediction on its box office, because even after doing this for 20 years, I still have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to Bollywood and how well its movies might fare in North America. I think this could do okay as it opens in roughly 400 theaters, but probably end up with about $1.5 million outside the top 10.
Mini-Review: I know fully well how this must sound on paper, and I’m also well aware how much film critics are normally supposed to hate remakes. I’m also aware that not everyone loved the original Forrest Gump, as much as I did, and clearly, I wasn’t alone since it won six Oscars and made a boat-load of money. Laal Singh Chaddha is not the first time that Bollywood turned to Hollywood for source material either, and probably won’t be the last. And yet, with all that in mind, I ended up quite enjoying LSC for how it transformed the original story and transported it to India, which makes it quite different.
We first meet the film’s title character as he’s travelling on a train for reasons we’ll learn later. He is riding in the train equivalent of steerage with shoes that look like they’ve seen better days. A woman seated across from him makes the mistake of engaging Laal in conversation, and he begins to tell her his story starting from childhood and right up until the moment they met. As he tells his story, more of the people on the train grasp onto the story and begin listening in, as we learn about the amazing Laal Singh Chaddha has had.
I’m not going to go beat-for-beat in telling how Laal (the character and movie) is different from Tom Hank’s Forrest Gump - maybe because it’s been a VERY long time since I’ve seen the original – but there are a lot of minor and larger differences that help to make Laal (the character and movie) quite charming. I mean, the depiction of someone who is clearly mentally-challenged may seem partially problematic but the love story at the center
The movie even plays with things like the “life is like a box of chocolates” adage and in this case, the character representing “Bubba Gump” is actually a master underwear manufacturer, plus there are other changes that actually work in context. On top of that, you’ll learn a lot about Indian history and customs - Laal being born and raised Sikh but his mother forcing him to cut his hair and turn his back on those ways, since she’s so worried for him. There’s also a terrific middle section that gives us a pretty decent Indian version of Saving Private Ryan, taking us into the next phase of Laal Singh’s life as an entrepreneur businessman, all the while still thinking of and dedicating his life to Rupa.
Laal is filled with lovely songs by Pritram and Amitabh Bhattacharya, and the score by Tanuj Tku is equally wonderful, but don’t expect any big dance numbers ala RRR. This is not that kind of movie, and it would be hard to make things like that work without taking you out of the movie.
Ultimately, Laal Singh Chaddha is just as effective at evoking emotions as Forrest Gump, and despite having a good idea where things were going from the little I remember from Zemeckis’ movie, I found myself pulled irrevocably into this story and every facet of Laal’s life and personality, making this one of my favorite movies of the year.
Rating: 8.5/10
Also, Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extraterrestrial will be getting a 40th Anniversary IMAX release by Universal into 300 IMAX theaters across the nation, and I think that should be good for around $2 million, but again, probably not enough to get into the top 10. (That is what I’m going to go see on Friday!)
THE CHART:
What the holy heck!? Could it be true that Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick might actually break back into the top 3 this weekend? It certainly seems to be the case, but it really depends on how many theaters it loses compared to Nope, Thor, and Minions, and Paramount has already announced that it will be rereleased into IMAX, Dolby and other premium formats, which certainly will help continue its strong run as the movie not only of the summer, but also the year! (All the numbers below are based on estimated theater counts, which in some cases are pretty spotty this weekend.)
UPDATE: As mentioned above, if the theater counts changed, my predictions would change. Bodies Bodies Bodies is actually in 1,800 theaters and Mack & Rita actually *IS* in 1,900 theaters so I made a couple minor adjustments
1. Bullet Train (Sony) - $14.5 million -52%
2. DC League of Super-Pets (Warner Bros.) - $6 million -46%
3. Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount) - $5.5 million
4. Minions: The Rise of Gru (Universal) - $4.6 million
5. Thor: Love and Thunder (Marvel/Disney) - $4.4 million
6. Nope (Universal) - $4.4 million
7. Bodies Bodies Bodies (A24) - $3.8 million (up .4 million)
8. Where the Crawdads Sing (Sony) - $3.7 million
9. Fall (Lionsgate) - $2.8 million N/A
10. Easter Sunday (Universal) - $2.6 million -52%
– E.T. the Extraterrestrial 40th Anniversary IMAX Release (Universal) - $2.2 million N/A (up .2 million)
- Laal Singh Chaddha (Paramount) - $1.5 million N/A
- Emily the Criminal (Roadside Attractions/Vertical) - $1 million N/A (down .1 million)
- Mack & Rita (Gravitas Premiere) - $1 million N/A (Up .2 million)
This week’s “Chosen One” is…
GIRL PICTURE (Strand Releasing)
I saw and reviewed a bunch of movies at Sundance coming out this weekend, but one I didn’t review that’s hitting both New York and L.A. this Friday is this terrific Finnish coming-of-age drama about three 17-year-olds – Mimmi, Emma and Rönkkö – on the cusp of womanhood who each go through their own sexual revelation, two of them falling in love with each other while the third seeking out the pleasure she’s been unable to achieve previously.
Directed by Alli Haapasalo, this is quite a different movie than Hatching, another Finnish coming-of-age film that premiered at Sundance, but it reminds me of Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang and the Swedish girl rocker band We Are the Best! from 2013. The three main actors are all quite terrific, as the film explores different aspects of a girl’s older teen years, and I was impressed with what Haapasalo was able to get out of all three of them. This isn’t a dark or overly-serious drama though, and there are moments of actual joy (a bit like the recent Lebanese film, Memory Box, actually) that made me really appreciate what the filmmaker was doing.
I know that foreign language films continue to be a hard sell for American moviegoers, especially with so much crap thrown your way – see some of this week’s roster for examples – but Girl Picture is another terrific discovery film from Sundance that I can only hope finds an audience sometime, because Finland continues to be one of the more underrated countries on the world cinema stage.
EMILY THE CRIMINAL (Roadside Attractions)
Another one of my favorite movies out of this year’s virtual Sundance, one which I already reviewed, was this feature directorial debut from John Patton Ford (who I interviewed for Below the Line – look for that soon), which will be released into roughly 500 theaters this Friday. It stars Aubrey Plaza as Emily, a young woman trying to make ends meet in L.A. while dealing with overwhelming school loan debt. Getting a tip from a co-worker, Emily gets involved with a credit card fraud scam and meets Theo Rossi’s Youcef, who helps her navigate that world.
You can read my review linked above, but I liked the movie even more on second watch, because I think it’s just such a distinctive crime-thriller with one of Plaza’s best performances (and that’s saying something!) plus Ford manages to do a lot with presumably a fairly small budget.
Emily the Criminal is scheduled to open in 500+ theaters on Friday, and it should do decently based on buzz and Plaza’s presence, as well as the lack of similar movies, which I think should allow this to open with around a million or maybe slightly more. Again, probably outside the top 10, which is a shame, but I know that this will probably be even better watching in a theater, which I haven’t been able to do just yet.
SUMMERING (Bleecker Street)
Another movie I reviewed out of Sundance, and also have an interview with the director is James Ponsoldt’s coming-of-age film that’s a little more high-profile than Girl Picture, this one starring Lia Barnett, Eden Grace Redfield, Madalen Mills, and Sanai Victoria as best friends on the last weekend of summer before middle school, who discover a dead body and then go on an adventure to try to figure out who the man is and how he died. This is a nice dramedy that straddles the line between classics like The Goonies and Stand By Me, while still be fairly modern, and a nice showcase for the young actors who are all likely to go onto great things. I thought this was going wider but it’s only going to be in
ROGUE AGENT (IFC)
A nice surprise this weekend is this psychological thriller, directed by Declan Lawn & Adam Patterson and starring Gemma Arterton as Alice Archer, a woman who encounters and falls for conman Robert Freegard (James Norton), who claims to be an undercover MI6 agent, but she soon learns that he’s been using his charm and guild to rob many women (and a few men) of millions of pounds. Alice’s interactions with Robert nearly breaks her, so she decides to work with authorities to try to catch him and possibly save other women from going through what she endured.
I should preface this mini-review by informing anyone reading this how much I love Gemma Arterton. I’ve been a huge fan of this British actress probably from before she appeared in Quantum of Solace, because in my opinion, she is one of the most underrated British actresses working today, and sadly, she hasn’t really done much in recent years. This is a great vehicle for her, a bit of a two-hander with James Norton (of who I wasn’t familiar), but there are other important characters, most notably some of the other women who have been fleeced by Robert’s underhanded lies. One of these is Marisa Abela’s Sophie, who has been led to believe by Robert that he’s recruiting her as a field agent for MI6.
Robert basically tells the women he meets what they want to hear, but in Alice’s case, she’s a very intelligent high-powered lawyer, so it’s shocking that she falls for Robert’s lines. But he is quite charming and very good-looking, so maybe it’s not so hard to believe that women might fall for him despite Alice constantly questioning much of what she’s told.
I have to be honest that I watched this without knowing much about it, so when it starts in Ireland in 1993, I assumed it would be another movie about “the Troubles,” which I wouldn’t have minded. It’s actually a very different take on the “spy thriller,” and something more akin to Catch Me If You Can as we try to figure out whether Alice will be able to figure out a way to stop Robert even though he clearly has been doing his con for a very long time.
Rogue Agent is a surprisingly strong drama with Arterton once again delivering another performance that may not win her any awards, but it shows she’s able to service an emotionally-complex story in a way that makes you want her to get through it after being put through such a wringer.
Rating: 8/10
FREE CHOL SOO LEE (Mubi/Trafalgar Releasing)
A rare doc I’ve had a chance to watch, this film from Julie Ha and Eugene Yi takes a look at the arrest and imprisonment of Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee in San Francisco in 1973 and the fight and movement to get him released and exonerated, even as he’s accused of another murder while in prison.
I really didn’t know this story, but it’s interesting to me for many reasons, the first one being that it involves San Francisco’s Chinese Gangs, while Lee is falsely accused by witnesses who didn’t realize he was Korean, and therefore, not involved with the gangs. Filmmakers Ha and Yi have a lot of archival footage to work with, which they assemble quite masterfully to tell Lee’s story. This includes television news footage but also testimonials by Lee himself during his whole ordeal, which only gets worse when he’s finally released but just can’t get away from the stigma of being an ex-convict and ends up being pulled further into the criminal world. Despite this, Lee’s story is quite inspirational, because before he dies, he is able to turn things around and begins to do speaking engagements to help others avoid a similar fate.
Free Chol Soo Lee opens at the IFC Center in New York this Friday (the filmmakers will be there for QnAs!) with a nationwide one-night only event (through Trafalgar) on August 17, as well as a nationwide rollout. You can learn more about where it will play here.
INU-OH (GKIDS)
I’ve heard good things about this musical anime, but I just haven’t had time to watch in order to review. Directed by Masaaki Yusa (Mind Games, The Night is Short, Walk on Girl – both quite crazy), the movie is getting a fairly wide release on Friday after premiering at last year’s TIFF, and it’s based on characters by Taiyo Matsumoto (Tekkonkinkreet) with vocals by Avu-chan and Mirai Moriyama. The title character, Inu-oh, is dealing with an ancient curse, who discovers his ability to dance when he meets a priest named Tomona, becoming business partners as they start putting on larger-than-life concerts. This actually is going to be opening in hundreds of theaters on Friday, so this may also be in play for some sort of showing in the top 20.
EMERGENCY DECLARATION (Well Go USA)
This Korean political thriller from director Han Jae-rim stars Song Kang-ho from Parasite, Lee Byung-hun from Squid Game, Jeon Do-yeon from The Housemaid and more, as it explores a terrorist threat involving a suspect that recently boarded a plane bound for the United States when a passenger suddenly dies, causing a panic both on the flight and on the ground. The movie is pretty long at 2 hours and 20 minutes but if I can find some time next week and it’s still playing at the AMC Empire, I might give it a shot, since I do love Korean cinema.
Streaming…
SECRET HEADQUARTERS (Paramount+)
Owen Wilson and Michael Peña are the two main adult actors in this new family film directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost (Catfish) about a young boy named Charlie (Walker Scobell) invites a few friends over and discovers an underground headquarters in his father’s house. Wilson plays Charlie’s superhero father while Peña is a wealthy scientist who wants to get his hands on the hero’s power source, all things that come to a head as Charlie and his friends start discovering and playing with his father’s cool gizmos. (Look for my interview with the directors and their co-writer over at Below the Line sometime very soon.)
Repertory stuff…. (Unfortunately, time limitations have prevented me from do this as normal but you can click on any of the links below to see what’s happening at the NYC repertory theaters this weekend. Thanks for understanding.)
ETC…
WIFE LIKE (Paramount/SP Media Group)
WE ARE LIVING THINGS (Juno Films) - Falco
WE ARE AS GODS (Greenwich Entertainment)
EL GRAN MOVIMIENTO (KimStim)
LE TEMPS PERDU
DAY SHIFT (Netflix)
STAY ON BOARD: THE LEO BAKER STORY (Netflix)
Next week… at least we’ll have some wider releases including Idris Elba’s lion thriller, Beast, and Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. One of those I’ve seen, one of them I’ll never see.
Box office data provided by The-Numbers.com.