The Weekend Warrior Feb. 24, 2023
COCAINE BEAR, JESUS REVOLUTION, BRUISER, MY HAPPY ENDING, GOD’S TIME, LINOLEUM, THE QUIET GIRL, and More
It’s generally known that releasing a movie even in the second weekend of a Marvel movie is a fool’s errand, but considering the mixed reaction to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, a couple of this weekend’s movies might actually do okay.
COCAINE BEAR (Universal)
The movie I’ve been looking forward to the most for a very long time comes out this weekend, directed by Elizabeth Banks and starring Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich, O’Shea Jackson, Jr, Isiah Whitlock, Jr, Margo Martindale, Brooklyn Prince, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and the late, great Ray Liotta. If you can’t figure it out from the title, it’s based on the true story of a wild brown bear (or maybe it’s a black bear, I couldn’t tell) that gets into a stash of cocaine that’s been dropped in a wildlife park in Georgia. It’s based on a true story, but there’s some definite artistic license involved.
Mini-Review: I’ve been looking forward to this movie maybe not since I first heard about it but definitely since I saw the very first trailer. I have such a strange relationship with the 1975 Jaws tagalong Grizzly, because I remember seeing it way too young on television with more of the gore left in then you might expect for television. I’ve grown to love the movie, so I was pretty excited to see Grizzly not exactly on crack but pretty darn close… cocaine! (I mean it’s no spoiler, it’s right there in the title.)
After an opening where we see a clutzy pilot dumping packets of cocaine out of his plane before he hits his head and falls out, we then learn that this has been a regular and real thing in the ‘80s when this takes place. (If you saw Tom Cruise’s American Made, that also dealt with a similar scheme about dumping drugs over remote areas.) Isiah Whitlock, Jr. plays a detective in a nearby county who is trying to find and stop the drug smugglers, whose drops he traces to a wooded parkland area in Georgia… but one guess who finds the coke first. We also have Alden Ehrenreich and O’Shea Jackson Jr. as the lackeys of the druglord who are also trying to find the dropped coke and run afoul of Cocaine Bear. Margo Martindale plays the park ranger who is more interested in making time with Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s nature preservist, and Keri Russell is the mother of a young girl (Brooklyn Prince) who has gone off into the park with her friend Henry (a very funny Christian Convery from Sweet Tooth), and they’ve also fallen afoul of Cocaine Bear (or Cokey as he’s been lovingly called by the VFX team who brought him to ferociously adorable life.)
I believe this is Elizabeth Banks’ third feature film as a director, and she proves her ability to handle comedy, making this my favorite of the three films she directed. (The movie was produced by Lord and Miller of 21 Jump Street fame, and I have to assume that helped bump up the humor factor with the script.) Cocaine Bear is also super-gory, which probably should be expected from the premise alone, but some of the kills actually shocked me.
Obviously, the biggest draw for this movie should be Cokey — that’s the crew’s nick for the bear — and though the cast is generally decent, the movie definitely falls a bit short in the time between (spoiler!) *HER* appearances, even though the cast is very good, and it’s especially fun to see a face off between Isiah and O’Shea Jr. when they finally come to a head.
There’s a lot to enjoy in Cocaine Bear, a hilarious romp of a film. I wouldn’t tell anyone to check their brain at the door (you might never get it back), but if you’re sold on the premise by the title alone, you shouldn’t be disappointed.
Rating: 7.5/10
JESUS REVOLUTION (Lionsgate)
I try really hard not to be cynical about these faith-based movies, although I know it’s unlikely any of them might change my mind about organized religion. I’m agnostic to the very core, but for once, they’ve actually allowed film critics to see one of these movies in advance, so why not?
This one tells the origins of the Cavalry Chapel run by pastor Chuck Smith, played by Kelsey Grammer, and how that branched out of the peace and love movement of the late ‘60s, early ‘70s in Southern California to explode into a wave of spirituality. It’s adapted from a book by Greg Laurie and Ellen Vaughn, which I haven’t read, and directed by Jon Erwin and Brent McCorkle, both of whom are pretty heavily steeped in these faith-based movies going back for some time now. Since I was a very young kid living in Brazil when all of this was going on in California, I probably only knew about the later stages of the religious explosion, the Pat Robertsons and the likes.
The story revolves around Smith, and a few young people that come into his life, changing his mind about the hippy-dippy free love boom of the time. One of the pivotal turning points comes when he meets Jonathan Roumie’s Lonnie Frisbee, who has come down to Southern California after spending time in Haight-Ashbury; he quickly moves into the Smith home with his colleagues pitching a tent in his backyard. At the same time, Joel Courtney’s Greg Laurie is about to enter a military academy, but he falls for Kimberly Williams-Paisley’s Kathy, and starts hanging out with hippies as well, though that will lead to an on-again off-again romance, because she doesn’t want anyone or anything to distract her from her love of Jesus.
That’s the gist of the plot for a movie that is all over the place, switching points of view and taking its sweet time before we learn why we’re even bothering to learn about Greg and Kathy. That’s because this is a real story based on real people, none of whom I had ever even heard of before. A bigger problem is that the two romantic leads really have no chemistry or charisma whatsoever, so any time either of them is on screen, you start wishing to see anyone else… not that they’re much better.
The filmmakers lean so heavily on the soundtrack’s needle drops, that you can probably write down every rock song you know from the late ‘60s and ‘70s before seeing the movie and guess most of the songs that will turn up correctly. It’s a shame the filmmakers seemed to spend more money on licensing these tracks then to actually hire decent writers to perfect the script or get actors who can make any of it any more interesting than it ends up being.
You would think Lonnie Frisbee would be the character that might break out and make things more interesting, but he never does, even though he probably can be credited for helping to bring music into church services. Yay, him. Furthermore, it’s just strange seeing Grammer hanging out with all these long-hairedkids dressed like hippies yet never growing his own well-coifed, tightly-cropped haircut. So yeah, this is Frasier preaching religion basically.
Maybe the filmmakers thought that this could be seen as a hip bit of history of the Christian kids, but most of it just feels so dull and dated and probably of very little interest to non-believers. This is just a big waste of time and money, and I have to hope these filmmakers don’t try to make a movie about the early days of Creed next.
Rating: 4.5/10
MY HAPPY ENDING (Roadside Attractions)
This movie from directors Tal Granit and Sharon Maymon, who have made a lot of movies I haven’t seen, is one of the other wide releases this weekend that I didn’t get a chance to see. It stars Andie McDowell as a movie star who ends up in a British hospital for treatment with three women helping her, who aren’t aware she’s a star, I think. I guess it’s sort of like Knotting Hill, but set in a hospital? I haven’t seen it, nor will I, but it’s supposed to be getting a fairly wide release on Friday for whatever reason. (Contractual obligations?)
This week’s Top 10 goes something like this…
1. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Disney/Marvel) - $40 million -62%
2. Cocaine Bear (Universal) - $14.4 million N/A
3. Jesus Revolution (Lionsgate) - $8 million N/A
4. Avatar: The Way of Water (20th Century/Disney) - $3.7 million -43%
5. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (DWA/Universal) - $2.9 million -46%
6. Magic Mike’s Last Dance (Warner Bros.) - $2.8 million -48%
7. 80 for Brady (Paramount) - $2 million -47%
8. Knock at the Cabin (Universal) - $2 million -50%
9. Titanic 25th Anniversary (Paramount) - $1.1 million -54%
10. My Happy Ending (Roadside Attractions) - $1 million N/A
This week’s Chosen One is a very rare streaming movie, despite my efforts to use this column to focus on theatrical releases whenever possible.
BRUISER (Hulu)
Miles Warren’s directorial debut, which world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (though I saw it closer to AFI Fest) stars Jalyn Hall (Till, Armageddon Time) as 14-year-old Darious, who is being bullied and beaten on by local kids, so he turns to help from Porter (Trevante Rhodes from Moonlight, who is also one of the film’s producers), a lone recluse living on a houseboat who turns out to be Darious’ true father, who had been in jail for some time. Porter spending time with her son doesn’t bode well with Darious’ mother Monica (Shinelle Azoroh) or her new husband Malcolm (Shamier Anderson), who has raised Darious since childhood, creating a conflict that builds and potentially could explode around the young teen.
I saw this movie last year outside of the festivals where it played, and I was really blown away by it, though I knew absolutely nothing about the movie going into it (or even after it was over). There’s just so much talent on screen in this movie starting with young Jalyn Hall, who impressed me as Emmett Till in Till and in my opinion, was the only good thing going for James Gray’s Armageddon Time, which was not a good movie. I was equally impressed with Trevante Rhodes, who looks very different in the film, but his scenes with Hall are just fantastic, but honestly, all four main leads are terrific, and that’s saying something.
This is just such a refreshing bit of original storyteling, especially by showing the differences in the personalities of Porter and Malcolm, the former who seems very calm and laid-back compared to Malcolm’s burning rage. One might think that it would be the opposite, being that Porter spent time in jail, but this is a great example of why getting redemption after spending time in jail is such an important thing.
Warren displays an equal amount of talent as a filmmaker with fantastic scenes between Porter and Darious, especially, and the film is accompanied by a terrific score from Robert Rusli, a composer with whom I was unfamiliar. What he brings to the film really boosts the work by Warren and his cast rather than detracting from it.
Bruiser deals with toxic male role models and what it means to be a father and a man in ways that we haven’t seen on this level. Personally, I can’t wait to see what Warren does next, since this is an impeccable, hard-to-match directorial debut.
Rating: 8.5/10
Bruiser will be on Hulu this Friday, where I’ve also just learned that Trevante Rhodes has a mini-series, in which he plays Mike Tyson, which now I HAVE to watch, especially after seeing Creed III. (That review is coming later tonight.)
GOD’S TIME (IFC Films)
Daniel Antebi’s indie street comedy follows two friends, Dev (Ben Groh) and Luca (Dion Costelloe), as they ride their bikes around New York City, trying to prevent their friend Regina (Liz Caribel) from killing her ex-boyfriend, in hopes of being done with that trek in time to make a callback audition.
Apparently, I missed this at the Tribeca Festival last year, and I have to say I was kind of put off by this movie’s title, at first, but I did give it a try, and I was pleasantly surprised. Antebi’s film takes place during the pandemic with many scenes taking place during addiction recovery group sessions, where we first meet Regina and Dev, who seemingly has a thing for Regina, unaware that she’s been seeing his best friend Luca. In group, Regina constantly talks about her awful ex-boyfriend, and all he’s done, and keeps suggesting she might kill him, something Dev and Luca try to stop from happening.
This is a very NYC movie that reminded me of one of my favorite movies of all time, Martin Scorsese’s After Hours (which I’ll be seeing for the dozenth time on Sunday at the Paris Theater! See below.) In this one, the main duo travel from the Lower East Side/Chinatown (my hood!) to the Upper West Side – a trip I’ve made many times, and it’s not nearly as fun as this movie makes it seem — although it also deals with serious topics like addiction, as well.
Like Bruiser above, this is another movie with a ton of talent on display, though it’s clear that Antebi had a very small budget to work with. In some ways, it also reminded me of last year’s Emergency, in terms of being a great display of such talent on both sides of the camera. Groh especially is very, very funny, which may be why he gets to riff a bit during the end credits. It’s not at all surprising that Caribel is the actor in the cast regularly getting work, since she’s quite attractive but also a similar standout as the guys. (She won an award for her performance at Tribeca, apparently.)
In fact, it’s always nice for a movie like this to show off so much talent without needing big names, though unfortunately that might make it harder to get people to go out to see it or pay to watch it on VOD (it’s on both this Friday).
God’s Time is a frequently fun, sometimes frenetic comedy (of sorts) that suffers more for having a crappy title than for any of the filmmaking or acting involved.
Rating: 7.5/10
This will open in select theaters in New York (including the IFC Center, where some of the filmmakers and stars will do a QnA on Friday night) and L.A. as well as on VOD this Friday.
LINOLEUM (Shout! Studios)
Jim Gaffigan stars in Colin West‘s sci-fi dramedy as Cameron, a Bill Nye like children’s science show host that is about to be cancelled who dreams of being an astronaut and starts to build a rocket ship in his backyard. This actually reminds me a bit of a movie I saw at Tribeca last year, Keira Sedgwick’s Space Oddity, and I really wanted to write a full review, but I just ran out of time and had to decide whether to write this review or you know, eat and sleep. The movie is okay, but I kind of want to watch it again if I review, since there’s so much to absorb. It’s opening at the Quad Cinema in New York and the Laemmle NoHo in on Friday with QnAs at both locations (but neither with Gaffigan).
THE QUIET GIRL (Super LTD)
The Oscar-nominated International Feature nominee from Ireland is directed by Colm Bairéad is set in 1981 rural Ireland where a young girl is taken away from her dysfunctional family to live with foster parents for the summer. I’m embarrassed to say that I still haven’t gotten around to watching this despite it being included in NEON’s screeners last year, but hopefully, I’ll get to it eventually.
DANCING TO THE TWIST IN BAMAKO (ArtMattan Films)
Opening at Film Forum on Friday is this movie by Robert Guédiguian set in 1960s Mali under French colonial rule, a romance set in this world of political change and the musical energy of the decade. (That’s just from the description on Film Forum.) It revolves around a young socialist named Samba, trying to make changes by day and dancing with his girlfriend Lara to American rock and soul at night. According to the description, “The film’s sensibility is inspired by the vibrant images, patterns, and compositions of famed Malian photographer, Malick Sidibé. Lara’s orange silk dress and Samba’s dazzling white suit, shot against the striped backdrop of their dance club and the black and white checked dance floor they cut up — all suggest that change is coming rapidly, that life is for living.” Sounds like it might be cool, but I wasn’t able to get to a screening.
Check out the trailer…
AMBUSH (Saban Films)
Hitting select theaters and on VOD and digital this Friday is Mark Burman’s Vietnam War epic starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Connor Paolo, and Aaron Eckhart set at a small outpost that’s ambushed forcing a U.S. Army squad to take the battle below ground for a new type of warfare.
Other stuff hitting streaming this week…
WE HAVE A GHOST (Netflix)
LUTHER: THE FALLEN SON (Netflix)
THE MANDALORIAN S3 (Disney+ and network simulcast on ABC!)
First up, the Metrograph is showing Lulu Wang’s excellent The Farewell (2019) as part of “Filmcraft: ACE” with editor MIchael Taylor doing a QnA.
Some good stuff in “Metrograph Presents A to Z” this weekend including Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Michae Haneke’s Caché (2005), David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975), and Fellini’s La Dolce Vite (1960). WOO!
I have a feeling that “Live by the Sword, Die by the Gun” might be ending this week, but it ends on a doozy with two Lone Wolf and Cub movies: Sword of Vengeance and Baby Cart and the River Styx, both from 1972.
“Handmade Horror” continues this weekend with another screening of The Wolf House on Thursday night and screenings of David Lynch’s disturbing debut, Eraserhead (1977) over the weekend.
Brandon Harris’ “Strange Fruit” wraps up with Hellbound Train/The Blood of Jesus and Topsy and Eva, both on Saturday.
“Yvonne Rainer: A Retrospective” continues through the weekend with screenings of The Man Who Envied Women, Kristina Talking Pictures (on Monday), Privilege, and Murder and Murder.
Paul Verhoeven’s cult classic Showgirls will screen on Friday and Saturday in 35mm as part of the “Trashterpieces of the 90s” series in Waverly Midnights. It’s going to continue showing Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible: Straight Cut through the weekend and others.
A new 4k restoration of Claire Denis’ debut feature Chocolat (1988) – not the one starring Johnny Depp, which opened two years later and stole its title – will open this Friday.
Pretty focused on Netflix’s Oscar-nominated movies, but on Sunday afternoon, you can see Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece, After Hours, starring Griffin Dunne, who will be there in person with Amy Robinson. I’ll be there for sure ‘cause this is one of my favorite movies and the one that convinced me to move to NYC in the first place.
Suzhou River continues, as does The Blue Caftan. On Friday, Marcel Ophuls’ 1969 documentary, The Sorrow and the Pity, about France under the Nazi Occupation during WWII will open. Sunday’s “Film Forum, Jr.” is Tomm Moore’s Oscar-nominated 2014 animated film, Song of the Sea.
Showing Thursday and Friday is Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime (2009), while his 2005 film Palindromes will screen in 35mm on Friday and Saturday. Solondz’s 2016 movie Wiener-Dog will screen on Thursday and Sunday. Also on Sunday, try to check out “Peculiar Puppets Puppets Vol. III,” a great array of movies with puppets screened from 16mm prints. I can’t make this one but the last one was fun and strange.
Over at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (aka BAM) starting Friday, you might want to check out “Kino Polska” which runs through Thursday, March 2. Showing some of the latest films from Poland, many of them having New York premieres. (But also showing the Oscar-nominated Eo.)
Other movies out this week…
BLUEBACK (Quiver Distribution)
THE WELDER (Terror Films)
KINGS OF THE WORLD
JUNIPER
Next week, Michael B. Jordan returns to star and direct Creed III, co-starring Jonathan Majors, while Guy Ritchie returns with his ensemble comedy, Operation Fortune. Crunchyroll will release its latest anime, Demon Slayer: To the Swordsmith Village. (Since I’ll only have seen one of these, and I’m back in the studio next week, I may skip the column and just review Creed III, but we’ll see.)