Speak No Evil

My View:  Speak No Evil  (2024)  R  In Speak No Evil, a married couple, Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise Dalton (Mackenzie Davis), and their young daughter, Agnes (Alix West Lefler), on vacation, meet another couple, Paddy and Ciara (James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi), along with their daughter and son. A friendship is develops, and the other family invites the Daltons to stay at their country home for the weekend. Their stay is fun at the start, but the hosts’ behavior soon turns sinister as dark secrets are exposed, and the family realizes that they will be lucky to get out alive. Speak No Evil is produced by Blumhouse, who gave us horror movies like the Paranormal Activity films, Insidious, The Purge, and Happy Death Day. So you would expect when buying a ticket it’s going to be another scary horror film. Not so fast. Speak No Evil is more a suspense film than a horror film. However, given the reaction of the audience that I saw the screening with, this is more of a black comedy than anything else. That’s the only way I can explain how this film pushes the boundaries of plot and common sense. While the audience I saw the movie with had fun shouting at Ben and Louise to get the hell out of Dodge, they also became frustrated as the couple continually did the old horror trick of ‘going back into the house’ or ‘going upstairs to escape the bad people’ tropes. A few times, I can accept, but this became a running joke as Ben, who has to be one of the weakest decision makers in the history of film, either can’t make a decision (one of the weaker moments in the movie) or keeps leading his family into worse positions. Louise is the hero of the story, someone who wants to leave almost immediately from the moment she enters Paddy’s home. She only agrees to go on the trip because her husband, Ben, has a little pity party fit. Unlike some of my fellow filmgoers, I did not enjoy Speak No Evil, except when watching James McAvoy just go nuts in almost every scene. It was a scary movie with no scares and a couple who couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag, much less a home filled with a couple of nutty people.  My Rating: Cable  Speak No Evil Website   Now playing in theaters nationwide.

My View:  The Killer’s Game  (2024) The Killer’s Game is about Joe (Dave Bautista), an assassin for hire who has been diagnosed that he will die in a few months, so he orders a hit on himself to get it over. Once the hit has been ordered, Joe finds out that the doctor made a mistake and he isn’t dying. The problem is an army of assassins are on the loose, and are out to kill him anyway. I had fun with this film for about the first hour, but then things were pushed too far; with a plot already put together with balling wire and bubblegum, it went off the deep end and never came back. I love Bautista, and I think he has become a delightful actor as he gives his character a clumsy charm that works so well you can see a woman (played by Sofia Boutella) being smitten by him. The film has fun with Joe as the killer with a heart of gold (he only does hits on bad people) but goes a little too far trying to be cute, giving us too many characters with cutesy names to follow, all introduced in a bloody haze of flying body parts and individual soundtracks. Wrestling fans may enjoy seeing WWE wrestler Drew McIntyre as one of the assassins sent out to kill Joe, but they will be disappointed by the fight sequence he takes part in.  The fight sequences are well done, but too often the film goes for the big ending for each assassin out to kill Joe, which becomes almost numbing to watch. The final thirty minutes doesn’t work at all, especially a trip to a church (flashbacks to John Woo’s The Killer, maybe?) that is so poorly done that it almost hurts to watch it. I had high hopes for The Killer's Game after seeing the trailer, but it was a disappointment because it tried too hard to be funny and cute.   My Rating: Cable  The Killer's Game Website  Now playing in theaters. 

My View:  Uglies  (2024)  PG-13  Uglies takes place in the future, where a society is obsessed with physical appearance, Tally (Joey King) is looking forward to when she turns sixteen. That’s when every citizen undergoes extreme cosmetic surgery to erase any imperfections, turning a person from an ‘Ugly’ into a ‘Pretty.’ Tally’s world is going to change when she meets Shay (Katherine Langford), who is part of a group of rebels living in the wilderness known as ‘the Smokies,’ who refuse to undergo the operation. For a while, we were getting a lot of these dystopian YA book-based films about a future where young people are the only hope for saving the world from tyranny and destruction. Films like The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Divergent came out, all based on YA best sellers. It’s been a few years, and now a new film has come out based on a best-selling YA series, Uglies. Joey King plays a young woman who can’t wait to become a ‘pretty’ on her sixteenth birthday. She soon learns that what she has been told her whole life might be a lie and that getting turned into a ‘Pretty’ comes at a price. Turning YA films into movies is not always a sure thing. For every Hunger Games, there is a Vampire Academy or Ender’s Game that doesn’t capture the magic that made those book series so successful. Despite the efforts of Joey King as our hero and Laverne Cox as our very stylish evil scientist, Uglies comes up short. The Uglies books were huge best-sellers, and fans have long waited for the series to be turned into movies, but I think those fans will be disappointed in this film. What works in a book doesn’t always translate to the visual medium of movies, and this film feels like they picked a few of what they thought were the best parts of the book and threw them against the wall to see what stuck. The CGI is at times lacking (there is a horrible hoverboard sequence that looks so bad I thought the sequence might be hand drawn) and the film seems like one long set up for the next movie, taking such a long time to set everything up. I think I’ll just read the books next time.  My Rating: Cable   Uglies Website  Now playing on the Netflix platform.

Indiefest:  Seeking Mavis Beacon  (2024) Seeking Mavis Beacon is a documentary about searching for the woman who graced the cover of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, an incredibly popular computer program in the 1980s. Jazmin Jones (director) and Olivia McKayla Ross (associate producer) go on a quest to find this mysterious woman who taught so many people to type. I saw this film at the Atlanta Film Festival and was enchanted by a film about solving the mystery of who Mavis was and why she was on the cover. This is a film about two people who go on a journey of discovery. What I loved about the film is that the heart of the film is really about the journey and the people that the two investigators meet. The lives that were impacted by this computer program and how just a simple photo could inspire people around the world to think they could learn to type from the person on the cover. And yes, they find out who the woman in the photograph is and give her the attention she deserves.   My Rating: Full Price  Seeking Mavis Beacon Website  Now playing in theaters.

Sorry I Missed It (A film that I didn’t see when it was first released but have seen recently): Rebel Ridge  (2024)  TV-MA  In Rebel Ridge, all Terry (Aaron Pierre), an ex-Marine, wanted to do was post bail for his cousin, but a small-town police chief, Chief Sandy Burne (Don Johnson) has taken his money, and Terry is about to get it back anyway he has to. Rebel Ridge is one of those films where you go, that actor is killing it, and I can’t wait to see what he does next. Up to this, Aaron Pierre has mostly been a TV actor, but I’m telling you that Aaron Pierre is a movie star. From the first moments of Rebel Ridge, the tension builds and builds. The film has been compared to the Stallone film First Blood (the first Rambo film), but that’s a misplaced comparison. In Rambo, there isn’t much of a plot other than a sheriff (played by Brian Dennehy) who hates another man and will do anything to get rid of him. Rebel Ridge slowly gives us reasons why Terry is so determined to get his cousin out on bail and why the police chief is trying to keep Terry’s money. Rebel Ridge isn’t your typical, one-man-against-the-system movie, though Aaron Pierre as Terry can kick a lot of butt, all without killing anyone. Terry gets help from a court staffer, Summer (played by AnnaSophia Robb), who becomes Terry’s ally in his quest to get his cousin out on bail. It turns out there is a lot to Summer’s story too. There are plenty of action sequences to keep the film moving, and then there is Don Johnson, who is so good at playing a slick, cocksure Chief who thinks he can get away with anything because he has a badge. Well, he hasn’t met a man like Terry.  My Rating: Full Price  Rebel Ridge Website  Now playing on the Netflix platform.

Forgotten Film:  Bright Young Things  (2003)  R  The film takes place in 1930s England when young aristocrats wore tuxes, partied all night, and slept all day. They all thought their days of fun and debauchery would go on forever. Adam (Stephen Campbell Moore) has written a novel he is convinced that the world is going to love. Having already spent the advance, his only manuscript is seized as pornography, and he is now out of luck. What’s a guy to do when his fiancé Nina (Emily Mortimer) expects to be supported in the life she has grown accustomed to. Adam, desperate for money, starts writing an anonymous column in the biggest newspaper in the country, giving everyone an inside scoop into what goes on at all those parties that everyday people are never invited to. Bright Young Things is a fun and enjoyable film with a cast of soon-to-be stars like Emily Mortimer, David Tennant, and James McAvoy. It also has some brilliant performances by Stockard Channing, Jim Broadbent, Dan Aykroyd, and scene-stealer Peter O’Toole. It’s a look at a life that didn’t last as long as they thought it would.  My Rating: Full Price  Bright Young Things Info  The film is available on most streaming services.

Weird Credits:  From the credits of Speak No Evil:  Skipper

Coming Soon to a Screen Near You:  Saturday Night  (2024)  R  On October 11th, 1975, at 11:30 pm, a group of young, wild performers and writers launched a new live TV show that changed the landscape forever. This is the story of what happened in the 90 minutes before the first broadcast of what was to be later named Saturday Night Live. I want to see it just to see J. K. Simmons as comedy legend Milton Berle.  Saturday Night Website  The film releases in theaters on Friday, October 11, 2024.  

Until Next Time!

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

My View:  Beetlejuice Beetlejuice  (2024) PG-13  Beetlejuice Beetlejuice begins after an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family have come home to Winter River and the house we all know so well. Lydia (Winona Ryder) is still haunted by Beetlejuice, and to make things worse, her daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), has discovered that mysterious model of the town. It’s only a matter of time before someone’s name will be uttered three times. So Tim Burton and Michael Keaton decided it was time to revisit the weird house up on the hill. So the big question is, does going back to see the ‘Juiceman’ work? Yeah, it does. Is it anywhere close to the original? No, but it’s still a good, funny popcorn film that you will have a great time watching. One thing that Burton did is realize that Keaton is in only about 15 minutes of the 1988 film because most of the film is about Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis’s characters dealing with being dead and then trying to get their unwanted houseguests the heck out of there. So Keaton is in this film a lot more; in fact, there seem to be about four plots going on simultaneously, and Keaton’s Beetlejuice is involved in all of them. Catherine O’Hara is back as Delia Deetz, and O’Hara steals every scene she is in, just as you would expect, with some of the film’s best lines. Ryder does an admirable job of playing the mom who has made a career as a woman who can see ghosts. Lydia is just trying to keep things together after her ex-husband disappeared on a trip to the Amazon. Besides Keaton, this is Ortega’s film, as she plays a young woman who had to grow up as the daughter of the ghost whisper, and she misses her father, who made things seem not quite as weird when he was around. Ortega does a great job of selling us on a person who is constantly giving the side eye to her mom, especially when she brings up seeing the afterlife around them. Keaton has a blast as the man we all came to see and he doesn’t disappoint with lots of quips that only Beetlejuice can say (or do). The film is a little bloated by a secondary plot led by a character played by Monica Bellucci, who never quite feels like her character really was needed. The film also has a bit of trouble trying to tie all the loose ends together, and some of the resolutions to big plot lines seem rushed. Still, I had a great time watching this film, and yes, there are plenty of callbacks to the first film, including the shrunken-head guys (one of who plays a pretty big part). I also loved that a lot of the special effects weren’t done with CGI but with things that made the first film so much fun to watch, with lots of strange and creepy puppet-controlled ghouls and some stop-motion animation. So get ready to say a certain guy’s name three times and go back to the world of the weird and creepy. You will have a fun time.  My Rating: Full Price  Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Website  Now playing in theaters nationwide. 

Indiefest:  His Three Daughters  (2024)  R  His Three Daughters is the story of three daughters (Elizabeth Olsen, Natasha Lyonne, and Carrie Coon) who converge on their father’s New York apartment to care for him in his last days. In the next three days, the daughters will try to heal old wounds and come together to patch together a family that has been separated for far too long. This is a film about how families aren’t always what they seem. Katie (Carrie Coon) is the woman who wants to plan everything, has opinions on everybody, and can’t seem to sit still. Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) is a free spirit who does yoga, tries to be the peacemaker, and seems to have a successful life. Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) is the daughter who has been living with their father for the past few years, taking care of him as his sickness took control of both their lives. Rachel, who has a different mother than the other two sisters, spends most of her days doing off-track betting and getting high. She would rather spend time in her room than interact with her sisters. The three are forced to work together to make their father’s last days as comfortable (aided by a couple of hostel nurses to help them make his death as painless as possible. His Three Daughters is a warm, funny, and touching film that also has a few tearful moments. All three women are wonderful in their roles. Coon has the most demanding role because Katie is not a likable person, and it’s Coon’s job to let us see beyond the hard shell that Katie has put up. Coon lets us know she does care but couldn’t always deal with the fact that her father was sick and dying. Olsen is fun to watch as the seemingly always positive Christina, who tries to keep things moving along but uses her yoga to escape when things get too tough. Of the three, Natasha Lyonne is the actor who shines throughout as a woman who just wants the whole thing to be over and uses her betting and getting high to escape the reality of her father’s soon-to-be death. Lyonne is perfect in the role, delivering the film’s center, as we see things through her (sometimes bloodshot) eyes. There are some incredible moments in this film, one of which is when Rachel’s boyfriend, played by Jovan Adepo, who knows how much Rachel has done for her father and lets the other two sisters have a piece of his mind on how they don’t known Rachel and what she has done this past year. I loved everything about His Three Daughters (though there is a section near the end that I wish wasn’t a part of the film, but that’s nitpicking), and the performances by these three outstanding actors are worth the price of admission alone. Just bring a tissue or two.  My Rating: Full Price  His Three Daughters Website    Now playing in select theaters and on the Netflix platform on September 20th. 

Sorry I Missed It (A film that I didn’t see in theatres but have seen recently):  The Killer  (2024) R   In The Killer, Zee (Nathalie Emmanuel) is the most lethal and feared assassin in the business. In fact, she is known by the name Queen of the Dead. Zee takes a job to kill a young blind woman (Jenna Silvers) and has a change of heart. Now, every hitman in Paris is out to kill her, and her only ally is a French detective (Omar Sy). A few directors have remade their own films through the years. Hitchcock is the one everyone remembers when he remade The Man Who Knew too Much. Was it a better film? I am a fan of Hitchcock’s early work, so I don’t think any film that has Doris Day sing Que Sera, Sera about a million times is a better film. In 1989, John Woo brought us The Killer, considered one of the best action films of all time, and brought Woo to Hollywood. So why would Woo remake this film? Sure, you can do a few more things with CGI than you could with actual stunts in 1989, but that’s what made that film stand out. Its action sequences are brilliant, and I loved how Ah Jong, the hitman played by the totally cool Chow Yun-fat, didn’t just shoot a person once (like so many of Hollywood’s action heroes). No, he shot them 6 to 10 times before moving on to the next guy. So, in this remake, Woo has our hero as a woman, Zee (Nathalie Emmanuel), known as the Queen of the Dead. It’s basically the same setup: our hero goes out to do a hit, and a singer gets caught up in the gunfire and is blinded by the firefight. Zee feels guilty, and instead of killing the singer, the only person who can testify against Zee, she saves her instead. The Killer has plenty of gunplay, some fun chase sequences, and a couple of well-choreographed firefights. However, Nathalie Emmanuel doesn’t have the star power to pull off the most feared assassin in the business. I also did not like the chemistry between Emmanuel and Omar Sy, who plays the cop who can’t be bought and slowly becomes Zee’s ally in bringing down the bad guys. One of the great things about the original was the chemistry and friendship that developed between the assassin and the cop. There just isn’t much there for us to care about either character. Woo pulls a few changes to the script (which I won’t give away), but I am incredibly disappointed by the ending of this film. It’s hard to revisit your old haunts, especially when they are shown so brightly in the past. Sometimes, it is best to let things stay in the past.   My Rating: Cable  The Killer Website   Now playing on the Peacock platform.

Indiefest:  Red Rooms  (2023)  Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) is a model by day and an online poker player at night. Although she excels at both, she doesn't find much pleasure in either (although she enjoys watching men lose). She starts attending a high-profile trial of a serial killer, but not just any serial killer, but one where the man kidnapped young teen women, held them captive, and tortured them to death, all while videotaping them. Kelly-Anne's obsession with the trial is so great that she sleeps outside the courthouse to be first in line to get into the proceedings. Kelly-Anne has started on a path that will become such an obsession that she will risk her career to keep going. Not only that, she is willing to pay any amount to obtain the missing footage of one of the girls. Red Rooms is a dark and disturbing film that looks at how people get so involved with serial killers, making them almost part of a weird kind of religion where they worship at the feet of the killer. We don't exactly understand why Kelly-Anne does what she does, but we watch her become more and more obsessed with the murderer and what he did. Juliette Gariépy does a magnificent job of keeping Kelly-Anne at an arm’s length from us, the audience, and we never see her waver, even when things seem at their most desperate. I saw the film at the 2024 Atlanta Film Festival and could hear the audience occasionally gasp as we followed Kelly-Anne down the rabbit hole. Red Rooms is a horror film without the bloodshed (we never see the footage, only hear the screams), but it’s still scary as a young woman seems to lose her self-worth as she delves deeper and deeper into an abyss that she may never come out of.  My Rating: Full Price  Red Rooms Website   Now playing in theaters.

Forgotten Film:  Boomerang (1992)  R  Marcus (Eddie Murphy) is a successful cosmetic company executive who loves to date women like they are just another conquest, another notch on his bedroom headboard. He meets his match when Jacqueline (Robin Givens) becomes his boss and plays Marcus like all the women he used to date. She flirts with him, sleeps with him, then dumps him, and then does it again. Marcus soon realizes he is being played with like he used to play women. His eyes are opened when he realizes there has been a remarkable woman right there all along, Angela (Halle Berry). The cast shines in this film with Givens perfect as the man-eater who doesn’t care who she hurts, as long as she is in power, and Berry as the sweet and wonderful Angela, a woman who is perfect for Marcus, if he would only realize it. Boomerang is one of those movies that makes me mad at Murphy because he is brilliant in this film and plays Marcus perfectly, but too often in Murphy’s career, he took the easy money and made a bunch of crap films that were below his talent. So see this film, revel in Berry and Murphy’s chemistry, and have fun with Givens giving Marcus his just turn at being used. My Rating: Full Price  Boomerang Info  Available on Amazon and Apple TV to rent or buy.

Weird Credits:  From the credits of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: Shrinker Performers 

Coming Soon to a Screen Near You:  Never Let Go  (2024)  R  A mother (Halle Berry) and her two sons (Anthony B. Jenkins, Percy Daggs IV) have been haunted by an evil spirit for years. They stay connected at all times, even tethering themselves with ropes when they travel outside so they are always connected back to their house. When one of the boys questions if the evil is real and the ties that bind them together are severed, their fight for survival becomes life and death. I’ll go see Halle Berry in anything where she has to kick some evil butt.  Never Let Go Website   The film is in theaters on Friday, September 20, 2024. 

Until Next Time!

The Deliverance

My View:  The Deliverance  (2024) R  In The Deliverance, Ebony Jackson (Andra Day) is a single parent who moves her family into a new home, hoping for a fresh start. Ebony is determined to put her troubles behind her, but something in the house is causing trouble. With Child Protective Services threatening to tear her family apart, she must battle a demon in a battle for her life and the souls of her children. This is a mess of a film that doesn’t quite know what it aspires to be. The Deliverance is from Lee Daniels, who gave us Precious (2009) and The Butler (2013). The film starts as a drama about a family trying to survive. The family is in turmoil, as their father is away overseas in the military, and the mother, Ebony, played by the always interesting Andra Day, is a woman who handles the pressures of life by either lashing out at her children or drinking. Bill collectors are constantly hounding Ebony, making it difficult for her to keep a roof over her head. The situation is not helped by Ebony’s mother, played by Glen Close, who is full of opinions on how Ebony should raise her children while she is dealing with cancer. There is a brilliant scene that lets Close have fun with the role of her character. While hooked up to a machine for her treatment, she shows off her red bra and flirts with a medical technician (Omar Epps). And then there is the Department of Child Services woman, played by Mo’Nique, who shows up to check on the children without warning and with an attitude. If the film had continued along those lines, I think we would have a film that could have had an impact. Instead, we start having weird things happen. The basement becomes a breeding ground for flies, and Andre (Anthony B. Jenkins) begins to behave strangely. Andre begins talking to an imaginary friend, gets up in the middle of the night to drink a whole carton of milk and keeps going down to the basement. This is where the film goes off its rails, as the weirdness goes overboard. The scene where the film lost me was when Ebony hears a pounding on the basement door. She opens it up and Andre has been pounding his head against the door. Now, it’s a pounding that is cracking the outside of the door and the kid has a massive bump on his head. How does Ebony react? Asking what the heck was he doing down there. Not a worry about the huge bump on his head (one that stays there for a few days). The film goes into a bad ripoff of The Exorcist; this time, instead of a priest, we get a woman who calls herself an ‘Apostle’, who wants to do a ‘Deliverance’ in the house and get the Devil out of Andre. The last 30 minutes of the film is a mishmash of every possession movie you’ve seen (minus the projectile vomiting), with the usual devil high-jinks. Andra Day's outstanding performance is wasted in the film, which portrays a mother you won't like very much but still care for. The Deliverance is a drama that stops midway through and becomes a horror film with very little horror in it. To put it frankly, The Deliverance just doesn't deliver.  My Rating: Bargain Matinee  The Deliverance Website  Now playing on the Netflix platform.

Indiefest:  City of Dreams  (2024)  R  City of Dreams is about Jesús (Ari Lopez), who dreams of becoming a soccer star for his local team. His father surprisingly sends him to Los Angeles to train, but Jesús learns his destination isn’t a training camp but a sweatshop that his father has sold his son to. Jesús now dreams of escaping from his nightmare. This is another in a long line of films that have their heart and intent in the right place but don’t quite know how to get their idea across. We follow Jesús, who dreams (a lot) of becoming a soccer player for his favorite team, as he becomes part of a sweatshop that makes dresses in an old house run by a ruthless boss (Alfredo Castro) and his evil assistant (Andres Delgado). The film shows us the horrible conditions through the eyes of Jesús, a young man who doesn’t speak. With Jesús not being able to speak, it unfortunately gives us a lot of shots of Jesús, with his face always full of sweat and his mouth permanently open in horror. Anytime Jesús is in a situation that is too hard for him to handle, he imagines himself on a soccer field playing for his favorite professional team. Often those thoughts are interrupted by some sort of the Aztec warrior. I'm not entirely sure why. The film tries to do too much, as Jesús  realizes that not only is the place a sweat factory, but also involved in sex trafficking. And we have the treatment of Jesús when he attempts several escapes, which end with him being whipped while on what looks like a prayer bench. The film constantly uses religious symbolism to make Jesús a martyr and a possible savior. The ending of the film is strange and unsatisfying, with a scene that feels too staged to have any impact. City of Dreams, after the final scene, makes a plea from the filmmakers for people to become more involved with ending child slavery. As I said, the film’s heart is in the right place; it just delivers a film that never provides the impact it wants to.  My Rating: Cable  City of Dreams Website Now playing in theaters. 

My View:  You Gotta Believe  (2024)  PG  You Gotta Believe is about a Little League baseball team of misfits who dedicate their season to their best player’s dying father. Things begin to turn around and they achieve what they had previously believed was impossible: playing in the World Series. You Gotta Believe is a feel-good movie, which is strange because one of the main characters has terminal brain cancer. You Gotta Believe is helped by a solid cast, including Greg Kinnear, a too-busy father who takes over coaching the team when his best friend, played by Luke Wilson, is diagnosed with cancer and can’t continue coaching the team he loves. The film is also aided by Sarah Gadon and Molly Parker, who play the coach's wives with some humor and warmth. The cast makes this film watchable, and the chemistry between Kinnear and Wilson makes their characters’ relationship fun and believable. It’s an inspiring story of a coach who finds his talent in figuring out why particular players aren’t doing well and changing their positions or beliefs to where their strengths lay. I wish the director had opted for a more traditional storytelling approach. Instead, he tries too many cute camera shots, and there is a horrible sequence where we see the team on a winning streak as everyone from the coaches to the players and even the umpires sing the theme song to the old 60s Rawhide TV show. Those scenes take away from the film’s heart, which is about love and believing in yourself. That’s a shame, as You Gotta Believe is based on a true story about a team that went to the Little League World Series against all the odds.   My Rating: Bargain Matinee  You Gotta Believe Website  Now playing in theaters. 

Indiefest:  Tokyo Cowboy  (2023)  PG   Tokyo Cowboy is about Hideki (Arata Iura), a Japanese corporate executive known for turning failing companies around. When his company is about to liquidate a money-hemorrhaging cattle ranch in Montana, Hideki decides he can go to America and turn the ranch into a money-maker. Hideki is about to learn firsthand about life on a cattle ranch, and it’s going to be a bumpy ride. I loved this film and hope it will find the audience it deserves. The film reminds me of the wonderful 1983 film Local Hero, which starred Burt Lancaster and Peter Riegert, about an oil executive sent to buy out a small village in Scotland. Tokyo Cowboy is also a fish out of water story as Hideki is a brash corporate executive who has gotten his company’s attention by finding companies to buy and turning them into money-making machines. He is in a long-term relationship with Keiko (Ayako Fujitani), who happens to be his boss. Hideki is a headstrong guy, confident that he has the Midas touch, and at a big meeting, proposes that he can turn a failing Montana cattle ranch into a success by switching them to Japanese beef, the rare Wagyu cattle. He does this behind his boss/girlfriend’s back and is given the go-ahead to go to Montana. From the start, Hideki’s trip is a disaster. His luggage is lost, he insists on a small, cheaper car instead of a 4-wheel drive model, and his traveling companion, an expert in everything Wagyu, is more interested in having fun with the Montana ranch hands than listening to Hideki. Things go from bad to worse, and it’s very apparent that Hideki’s grandiose plans won’t work, but he keeps trying. Slowly, through the interaction of a ranch hand named Javier (Goya Robles) and the beauty of the Big Sky country, Hideki begins to realize that maybe he isn’t always right and, more importantly, isn’t happy with his life. There are some wonderful moments in this film, where characters feel real and are able to connect with each other. I loved a sequence where Javier takes Hideki to a Quinceanera, and Hideki not only has fun but suddenly realizes that he wants more from his relationship with Keiko. Tokyo Cowboy is filled with small moments that make the film feel warm, fun, and honest. I loved the performances of Goya Robles, a cowboy who wants to find a way to make money so that he can marry his girlfriend, and Robin Weigert as the Ranch manager whose family used to own the ranch she now manages and has seen company executives come into her home before. Arata Iura makes this film work as his character goes through a drastic change from a stuck-up corporate shill to a man who can find beauty and meaning in his life and his surroundings. It’s a fantastic multi-level performance that brings his character to life. So put on some boots, jump on a horse and take a ride with Hideki and maybe learn a few things about being a cowboy.   My Rating: Full Price  Tokyo Cowboy Website  Now playing in select theaters. 

Forgotten Film:  Telling Lies in America (1997) PG-13 Karchy (Brad Renfro) is the son of a Hungarian immigrant (Maximilian Schell) who works as a janitor. Karchy goes to a Catholic high school, where the rich kids mock him for being poor. Karchy, to pique the interest of a girl (Calista Flockhart), whom he has a crush on, goes to work for a local DJ (Kevin Bacon) who goes by the name of Billy Magic. The kid lies to get the job, and Billy sees that as a plus since he is going to use Karchy to receive the payola that Billy is getting to play certain records on the radio. This film is a blast to watch because of the cast. Bacon is perfect as the slick Billy Magic, who stays in a town only long enough to make some money, staying ahead of his child support payments. Brad Renfro is superbly portraying the boy who believes he has found the perfect role model in Billy, but eventually realizes that perhaps Billy's life isn't as great as it appears. A charming Calista Flockhart steals every scene she is in and is a delight as the girl who Karchy has fallen for. The film was written by Joe Eszterhas, who at one time was Hollywood’s highest-paid screenwriter with his mega-hit Basic Instinct (1993). Telling Lies in America was a passion project for Eszterhas, and it doesn’t have the crass and coarseness of his usual work, making the film feel more about its characters and how Karchy learns that appearances and brashness can cover up a lot of flaws.   My Rating: Full Price  Telling Lies in America Info  The film is available on most online screeners.

Weird Credits:  From the credits of Tokyo Cowboy:  Boss Wrangler

Coming Soon to a Screen Near You: The Substance (2024) R A celebrity (Demi Moore) believes that her days as a beauty have passed until she finds a black market drug. This cell-replicating formula temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself. The film received a huge standing ovation and won the Best Screenplay award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. I have always been a fan of Demi Moore, and I hope the film will give her more lead roles in the future.  The Substance Info   The film is in theaters on Friday, September 20, 2024.

Until Next Time!

 

Dragon Con 2024 - Aug. 29th - Sept. 2nd

It’s Labor Day Weekend, which means it’s time for Dragon Con! Located in 5 downtown hotels at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Atlanta Marriott Marquis, Hilton Atlanta, Sheraton Atlanta, Westin Peachtree Plaza, and AmericasMart. Plus, there are special events at the Center for Puppetry Arts and Landmark Midtown Arts Theatre. Dragon Con brings together actors, writers, comic book artists, singers, dancers, and cosplayers to celebrate all things pop-culture-related.

There is a fantastic lineup of creators, writers, artists, and actors at this year’s Dragon Con, including writers Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files) and Kim Harrison (The Hollows), voice actors Neil Newborn (Baldur’s Gate 3) and Townsend Coleman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), comic artists Kevin Maguire (Justice League) and Antonio Fuso (G.I. Joe).

Dragon Con this year will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons with the son of the late creator Gary Gygax, with Luke Gygax headlining a weekend of tournaments and panels with designers and writers of the legendary tabletop game.

The stars will be out at Dragon Con with a lineup that includes Jared Padalecki (Supernatural), Jodie Whittaker (Doctor Who), Nathan Fillion (Firefly), Gates McFadden (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Kristin Kreuk (Smallville), Eddie McClintock (Warehouse 13), Cobie Smulders (Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D.) Mike Colter (Luke Cage), Ming Chen (Comic Book Men), Adrian Pasdar (Heroes), Alan Tudyk (Resident Alien), and Patrick Warburton (The Tick).

While you need a pass to get into Dragon Con, you can watch the famous Dragon Con parade on Saturday morning for free. You will see just about every cartoon, anime, and superhero character, along with a variety of other delightful cosplayers in the procession. The parade’s highlight is the legion of “Star Wars” Stormtroopers that finish the parade. The Parade is a fan favorite, with the festivities starting at 10 am. Check the Dragon Con website for details of the parade route. Be sure to get to the parade site early, as the sidewalks along the parade route fill up quickly, and taking Marta to the parade is highly suggested. If you can’t make it to the parade, stay home and watch it on Atlanta 69 starting at 10 am. You will beat the crowds and still have all the fun of watching the fantastic costumes and floats in a uniquely Atlanta parade.

The cool thing about Dragon Con is that no matter what your interest is in, there is probably a panel or even a track (panels and events that fall under one subject like Star Wars, Star Trek, or even just Space) that will peak your knowledge of your favorite Sci-Fi subjects.

The Dragon Con Dealers Hall, located in AmericasMart, is where you can buy just about anything your geeky heart desires–from Steampunk clothing to comic books and rare collectible artwork.

Cosplay is an integral part of Dragon Con, and costumes will always be out and about. There are many Costume Contests during Dragon Con, including the Bunny Hutch Costume Contest, the Cults of Dragon Con Contest, the Animation/Anime Costume Contest, and the ever-popular Masquerade Costume Contest.

There are a ton of panels throughout the weekend. Some are located in enormous halls, while others occupy smaller conference rooms. You can find panels on almost everything you can imagine covering the gambit of fandom, from your favorite current and past Sci-Fi shows. Featured panels this year are on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Roswell, Doctor Who and Baldur’s Gate III.

Gaming runs throughout the con, with some gaming contests going on 24 hours a day. No matter what kind of gaming you are into, Dragon Con has it, including Board Games, Collectible Card Games, LAN Gaming, Live Action Role Playing, Table Top Gaming, and of course, all types of Video Gaming.

Dragon Con Dealers Hall, located in AmericasMart, is where you can buy just about anything your geeky heart desires–from Steampunk clothing to comic books and rare collectible artwork.

If art is your thing, you will want to go to the Comic and Pop Art Alley. You can talk to and buy work from comic book writers, artists, and publishers. Panels and how-to-workshops on comics are held throughout the con. There are also a bunch of live performances by bands of just about every genre, including jazz, punk, rock, and folk.

In the spirit of the Dragon and with infinite admiration, Dragon Con has created The Dragon Award as a vessel to recognize excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy. These awards will be by the fans, for the fans, and are a chance to reward those who have made real contributions to SF, books, games, comics, and movies.

And, of course, the Walk of Fame will be ongoing throughout Dragon Con, where you can get an autograph of your favorite personality.

Dragon Con is in downtown Atlanta, GA, from Thursday, Aug. 29th, through Monday, Sept. 2nd.

For more information, go to dragoncon.org

Blink Twice

My View:  Blink Twice  (2024)  R  Blink Twice starts when Frida (Naomi Ackie) and her best friend Jess ( Alia Shawkat) sneak into a big fundraiser party for tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum). Never in their wildest dreams did they think they would be invited to Slater’s private island to party with his friends. What follows is a dream of wild nights and sun-soaked days that slowly reveals itself to be a nightmare. Blink Twice is a solid debut by Zoë Kravitz as a director, with a film that tries a little too hard to impress with images and loses its intent to create a message at the end. The film is part mystery, part horror, as Frida slowly figures out that not everything is right on the island and that maybe her luck at meeting Slater wasn’t as lucky as she thought. Channing Tatum is perfect as the tech guru who thinks he is smarter than everyone in the room and oozes with a little too much charm and caring for it to be true. I believe that most moviegoers will recognize the clues that Frida begins to assemble, and that's the enjoyable part of the film. Where I felt the film fell apart was when it tried too hard to hit the landing of the ending too cleanly. When we see the horrors start happening, they don’t have the impact we need. Sorry about the bit of spoiler there, but this is what I would call a dark comedy with a lot of horror thrown in. It’s just not horrific enough to make it a great film. Still, Blink Twice is worth seeing for the performances and all the fantastic shots that Kravitz throws in. I look forward to seeing what Zoë Kravitz does next.  My Rating: Bargain Matinee  Blink Twice Website   Now playing in theatres.

My View:  The Crow  (2024)  R   In The Crow, soulmates Eric Draven (Bill Skarsgård) and Shelly Webster (FKA Twigs) are brutally murdered when Shelly’s dark past catches up with them. Eric is given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, becoming a man who rises from the dead to seek revenge, traveling between the worlds of the living and the dead. The 1994 version of The Crow starred Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee. Unfortunately, Brandon Lee died due to an accident on the set. The entire film was dark, gothic and Lee looked amazing in the black trench coat as Eric, who rises from the dead with the help of a crow, kicks bad guys’ butts right and left. The film had a dual theme of revenge and protecting the innocent. This version is so chaotic I’m not quite sure what happened for most of the film. In this version, Eric is a troubled youth. We know that because when we meet him, he is being bullied by other ‘youths’ at some sort of facility. He meets Shelly, and they instantly fall in love, but she has a video that implicates some big whig, played by Danny Huston. I never figured out how it implicates him, but he wants that video and sends his bad guys to get it back, killing Eric and Shelly. Eric goes to an afterlife-holding place, and a weird guy tells him that if he kills Danny Huston’s character, he and Shelly can go back to living on Earth. I have no idea why. And I don’t care. The plot gets messier from there as Danny Huston’s character is some kind of demon that can make people kill. Eric finds a sword with the strongest and sharpest blade I’ve ever seen, and many people die. I like Bill Skarsgård as an actor, but he’s no Brandon Lee, and Bill’s Crow character can’t fight, only shoot a gun and swing an incredibly sharp sword. Once Eric turns into the full Crow, he looks like an punk rock kid from a low budget 80s film, bad makeup and all. The film never creates a backdrop of darkness and creepiness that is needed for this film to have a chance to succeed. Instead, we get a story that takes forever to start moving forward, and we never find the magic feeling that the original film had.  My Rating: Cable   The Crow Website  Now playing in theaters.

Indiefest:  Between the Temples  (2024)  R Between the Temples tells the story of Ben (Jason Schwartzman), a cantor who is grief stricken over the death of his wife and has lost his voice. Ben is a man who is lost until he meets Carla, his 70-year-old grade school music teacher (Carol Kane). Carla longs for her bat mitzvah, which she had never had the opportunity to experience, and it could be the turning point in Ben’s life. Between the Temples is a film that is both quirky and funny, depicting a man who is lost and the woman who helps him find his way back. Despite the constant attempt by everyone to find Ben a date (including his Rabbi, who throws his willing daughter at him), Ben has found someone he likes. The problem is that she is 70 years old. But Carla isn't your ordinary 70-year-old, but someone who shows Ben that life is something to be treasured and explored. The chemistry between Kane and Schwartzman is incredible and their timing is superb. The film drags a bit in places, spending too much time on a sequence when the two get high together, but the two leads make this film move along. The ending is a little different, but so is the couple it highlights.  My Rating:Bargin Maintee  Between the Temples Website  Now playing theaters.

Sorry I Missed It (A film that I didn’t see in theatres but have seen recently): Dance First  (2023)   As the ceremony that gave him the Nobel Prize, Irish writer Samuel Beckett (Gabriel Byrne) leaves his body to have a conversation with himself. The two Beckett’s revisit his childhood, his early days in France interning for James Joyce, working for the French Resistance in WWII, his successes, and all his loves. A film about the playwright who created one of the most puzzling plays of all time, Waiting for Godot, has to be a little weird, right? Other than Beckett talking to Beckett as they introduce another flashback sequence, the film is rather conventional. Certainly, the film gives us a few clues about what made up Beckett, including a childhood that wasn’t a lot of fun. And we see Beckett has a lot of guilt, as it is brought up at almost every conversation the two Beckett’s have. The problem is that we don’t get a handle on the man’s work. It’s almost as if the film thinks we are all Beckett scholars, knowing which play, book, or short story was reflected in his personal life. The only time we see his personal life in his work is when he wrote Play, a work we see performed for about a minute (it’s notable because of the three actors throughout the play are immersed up to their necks in funeral urns). I did enjoy the performances of Byrne as Beckett from the 50s on and the brilliant, reserved performance by Fionn O’Shea as the Beckett of his late teens and twenties when he was still trying to figure out what he would do with his life. Dance First is an attempt to tell us the story of a man who was so full of mysteries while being someone who didn’t want the spotlight that maybe the story should have been told less conventionally.  My Rating: Bargain Matinee  Dance First Website  Now available for rent on most online services including Amazon and Apple TV. 

Indiefest:  Strange Darling  (2023) R  Strange Darling is a story where nothing is what it seems when a one-night stand between two people (Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner) turns into a tale of a murder spree of a serial killer or does it? It's been awhile since I've been on such a wild and crazy ride with a film. The film is broken up into six chapters, but they don't always follow the order, so you're constantly trying to figure out what just happened and why. There are so many twists and turns in this film that when you see the final credits, you aren’t sure the film is over. Willa Fitzgerald as ‘The Lady’ and Kyle Gallner as ‘The Demon’ (remember, things aren’t always as they seem) are so much fun to watch in this film as their characters try to best the other in a battle of wits and endurance. The film is a bloody mess (in a good way) as your brain tries to keep up with what is happening on screen. Just when you think you have it figured out, I guarantee you that you haven’t. Strange Darling is a violent mess, where there are lots of surprises, including Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley Jr. as two former hippies that…never mind, you’ll find out. This is the best thriller of the year, one that needs to be seen in the theater so you can hear your fellow theatergoers gasp. Strange Darling is one big, long, bloody rollercoaster of a ride where the designer decided you needed one last big unexpected drop before trying to find your sea legs to get off the ride.   My Rating: I Would Pay to See it Again  Strange Darling Website Now playing in theaters. 

Forgotten Film:  Into the West (1992)  PG  Two young boys growing up in a high-rise slum in Dublin with their alcoholic father (Gabriel Byrne) are given a white horse by their grandfather. They move the horse into their apartment, but that doesn’t last long as the police show up, and through a shady deal, the horse ends up in the hands of a horse breeder. The boys go to get their horse, and they are off on an adventure that all of Ireland will soon know about. The cast is outstanding, with David Kelly as the grandfather and Ellen Barkin and Colm Meaney as friends of the father who enlists them to help find his boys and stop the horse breeder from taking the horse. This film reminds me a lot of The Black Stallion, as one of the boys (Ciaran Fitzgerald) has such an instant report with the horse that it can almost read his mind. Into the West is a beautiful tale that families will enjoy as they ride on the back of a white horse through the beautiful countryside of Ireland. My Rating: Full Price  Into the West Info  The film is available on online services, including Amazon and Google Play.

Weird Credits:  From the credits of Blink Twice:  Dental Prosthetics 

Coming Soon to a Screen Near You:  Joker: Folie à Deux  (2024)  R  Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), the failed comedian, has caused a lot of trouble and has been put away in the Arkham State Hospital. There he meets the love of his life, Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga), and they soon embark on a journey of mayhem and romance. This is the sequel to Todd Phillips’s Oscar-winning 2019 film Joker. Joker: Folie à Deux is one of the most anticipated films of the year and the only question is: is it a musical or not?   Joker Website  The film will be in theaters on Friday, October 4, 2024.

Until Next Time!