Borderlands

My View:  Borderlands  (2024)  PG-13    Borderlands tells the tale of Lilith (Cate Blanchett), an infamous bounty hunter who has reluctantly returned to her home planet, Pandora, to find the missing daughter of Atlas (Edgar Ramirez), the universe’s most powerful villain. Lilith recruits a ragtag team to find the missing daughter, who might be the key to saving the universe. What drunken bet did Cate Blanchett make to be forced into making this movie? I can see why Kevin Hart would do it. He gets to be a hero in a sci-fi film, and it was probably a week’s worth of filming for Jamie Lee to do. Blanchett does give it her all, and it’s fun for a while to see her play the tough, spit-in-their-face bounty hunter with the red hair and the fun gunslinger outfit. She gives off her usual glow of charisma, which helps give the film some energy, but she’s just about the only one, as some of the cast seem to think they are doing a walk-through and not actually filming. The delivery of Edgar Ramirez's lines as Atlas, the film's bad guy, was so bad that fellow moviegoers at my theater laughed every time he spoke. I guess the film aspires to be a throwback to those late 70s/early 80s sci-fi movies that came out after Star Wars was a hit. Those films were often stupid and the special effects were bad, but they were fun to watch. Borderlands is not cheesy enough to be fun; instead, it’s just dull with a bunch of characters thrown together from the video game. I am guessing gamers who have played the game will be disappointed. Ariana Greenblatt, as Tiny Tina, the daughter of Atlas, tries to bring Cate some help as a pixie girl with a thing for bombs, but it doesn’t help. I don’t know; maybe this will become a campy cult film like Tank Girl or Buckaroo Banzai, but I think it will be forgotten like those 70s knockoffs of Star Wars. And by the way, Jack Black, as the voice of the sidekick robot Claptrap, has to be one of the most annoying characters in film since a certain Star Wars character that shall remain nameless. After the main credits, there is a brief bonus scene that features Claptrap, but it's not worth staying for. But then again, neither is the rest of the film.  My Rating: You Would Have to Pay Me to See it Again  Borderlands Website  Now Playing in theaters. 

My View:  It Ends With Us  (2024)  PG-14   It Ends with Us tells the story of Lily (Blake Lively), who has overcome a traumatic childhood and has moved to Boston to open her flower shop. There, she meets the man of her dreams, a neurosurgeon, Ryle (Justin Baldoni), and falls in love. However, she starts to see a pattern in Kyle that brings up the mistakes of her childhood. Then Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), Lily’s first love, reenters her life, and Lily must rely on her strength to make tough decisions. Much was made online when the casting of this film was announced because the book’s characters were much younger than leads Lively and Baldoni. However, the author of the best-selling book, Colleen Hoover, wanted to escape the YA label for the movie and make the characters older. Good idea, since there are very few 28-year-olds (how old Ryle is in the book) that are neurosurgeons about to do a new technique in surgery. The film does an interesting thing, allowing us to see events through Lily’s eyes, and when things go slightly wrong (in her eyes) with Ryle, she doesn’t remember how serious those incidents were. First, the good: Blake Lively, as expected, is terrific as Lily, and she gives us a character that we instantly fall in love with. She deserves much better than the plot or the dialogue gives her. As Lily’s best friend, Jenny Slate brings light and happiness to every scene she is in, stealing each scene and our hearts. The problem in this film is twofold. One is Justin Baldoni as Ryle. Baldoni is not much more than a lot of abs. He just doesn’t have the star power or charisma for us to think from the start that Ryle is a match for Lily. Then, we don’t get enough of Atlas as an adult to see the contrast between the two loves of Lily’s life. And don’t get me started on where the heck do all these people (excluding Ryle) get their money. Lily has more designer costume changes than a Taylor Swift concert. And both Atlas and Lily are able to open their own businesses in a big city like Boston and almost instantly become a hit. The film tries to address violence and how it can follow people from their childhood into adulthood, which is great, but it’s done in such a clumsy way that we never get that feeling at the end that justice has been served. It’s only moved on.  My Rating: Bargain Matinee  It Ends with Us Website  Now Playing in theaters. 

My View:  Cuckoo  (2024)  R  In Cuckoo, Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) is seventeen and is mad at the world after her mother died and her father remarried. She and her family move into a resort, where Gretchen’s father (Marton Csókás) and stepmother (Mila Lieu) have been hired to design a new resort to replace the aging one. Gretchen takes a job as a receptionist at the resort, and strange things start happening. It’s a job that just might be Gretchen’s last. Hunter Schafer is brilliant and fun to watch in this weird horror film that takes you down a road you didn’t know you wanted to be on. While playing the angry teen, Schafer gives us a reason to root for her early on and she doesn’t disappoint when the action scenes start. Schafer plays the outcast, having to join her dad’s new family because her mother has died. What makes it worse is dad has a new job at a really creepy European resort where you aren’t supposed to go out after 10 pm, and people throw up all the time. Add in the resort owner, Herr Konig (played with a great accent by Dan Stevens), who is just as creepy as his resort, touching everyone too long and always talking about science in a way that just seems personal. Gretchen takes the job at the resort to make money so she can return to her home in America. Then things get weird, with people throwing up in the lobby, then disappearing, and Herr Konig keeps warning Gretchen not to go out by herself after 10 pm. The film has some terrifying moments, with most of the scares building up to create tension that doesn’t let up. When things start going off the rails, Gretchen decides to find out what the hell is going on, and we know when she does, it is going to be off-the-charts bizarre. Cuckoo is a film you want to keep watching just to hopefully figure out what the heck is happening at this ‘cuckoo’ resort.  My Rating: Full Price  Cuckoo Website  Now playing in theaters. 

My View:  The Instigators  (2024)  R   In The Instigators, two robbers (Matt Damon, Casey Affleck) are part of a heist that goes bad. With the assistance of one of their therapists (Hong Chau), they go on the run. To put it simply, they have a lot of problems to work out. The Instigators is a heist movie where things keep going wrong. It’s supposed to be a fun romp, but like Matt Damon’s character Rory, who won’t laugh at any of Cobby’s (Casey Affleck) jokes, we also never get it. The film feels like Casey Affleck, who co-wrote the film, wanted to do a buddy pic but didn’t want to be a buddy to anybody. The Instigators is a film that works hard at trying to be clever, but it never is, as it uses car chases and blowing up buildings to try and build excitement, but we never get that feeling that the stakes are very high, especially when they ‘kidnap’ Dr. Rivera (Hong Chau), a character that is there to add humor and meaning to the movie but instead adds nothing but another person to look like they aren’t having any fun making this film. This may be one of Matt Damon’s worst performances, but it’s hard to tell if he is even in this film; his character is so dull. The ending is as unbelievable as the rest of the film and as just as unexciting and humorless as the rest of the film.  My Rating: Cable  The Instigators Info Now playing on Apple TV+

Indiefest:  Sing Sing  (2023)  R  I am rerunning this review from July 12th because the film is finally releasing wider and it’s that good! Devine G (Colman Domingo), a man in jail for a crime he did not commit, survives by acting in a theater group with other inmates. This is a powerful and emotional film about a group of men in a hopeless situation who find comfort and power in the theater. Led by an incredibly moving performance by Colman Domingo, we see how inspired the men are to find an outlet for their emotions and thoughts. The cast is made up mostly of former convicts who were in the theater program. Because of the casting, we see how moving and powerful acting is to let the men get in touch with their feelings and emotions in a system that doesn’t always allow you to do so. We get to see the men start the process of finding a play, in this case, written for them, that melds Shakespeare with modern spoken word to significant effect. I was struck by how much this cast made us feel what they were going through, giving us an inside look at a world we can only imagine. Sing Sing is a film about healing, no matter what you have done in the past, and using the power of theater and acting to find that way.   My Rating: I Would Pay to See it Again  Sing Sing Website   Now playing in theaters.

Indiefest: Coup!  (2023)  Coup! takes place during the 1918 influenza epidemic, when a new cook named Floyd Monk (Peter Sarsgaard) comes to work for the family of wealthy journalist Jay (Billy Magnussen) and his socialite wife Julie (Gadon) at their family estate on an island. It’s a hiring that will turn the family’s idyllic life upside down. The film is set during the 1918 influenza epidemic but the film certainly has COVID overtones as a family has camped out in a lush estate on an island in what they hope is isolation to wait out the flu epidemic. In walks Floyd Monk, who we know from the movie’s first few scenes, isn’t really Mr. Monk, but someone who has taken the late Mr. Monk’s identity. Right from the first appearance on the island, the now Mr. Monk, played by the wonderful Peter Sarsgarrd, starts causing trouble. From catching the eye of the socialite wife to pushing back at how the family treats the staff, Mr. Monk starts up the fire on Jay, the wealthy journalist who prides himself on being a voice for the working man. Peter Sarsgarrd is the reason to see this film because he has a blast as Mr. Monk, a man who enjoys pushing boundaries. The phrase ‘give someone an itch and they’ll take a mile’ fits Mr. Monk. He’s like the somewhat cool guy in the bar who is fun to hang around for an hour or two, but don’t invite him to do anything else because he will take every advantage of you. Billy Magnussen is fun as the put-upon head of the household, Jay, who thinks he is smarter than everyone else, but Mr. Monk runs rings around him, taking advantage of every little slip Jay makes. Coup! is a movie about class and how it sometimes breeds hypocrisy. So take a sip of the flask of Jay’s whiskey that Mr. Monk hands you and join him on a ride to see who actually runs the household. It may not last, but it’s going to be fun for a while.  My Rating: Full Price   Coup! Website  Now playing in theaters. 

My View:  Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes  (2024)  TV-MA  The documentary Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes uses newly discovered interviews with Elizabeth Taylor to give us an inside look at a star who fascinated a world long before the internet and social media. In interviews given to a writer for a book that was never published and recordings that Liz did with friends and husbands, we follow Elizabeth’s path from child star to the highest-paid actor of her time. It’s a fascinating and insightful look at a woman who wasn’t always happy with her life, loves, and career. From being forced by the MGM studio to do movies, she felt didn’t show off her talent and only exploited her looks, Elizabeth wanted to be out on her own but also continually desired to be married. That conflict shows up time after time as she marries the wrong man almost every time. From watching the film, I feel that Mike Todd, the movie producer, was the only man who could have stayed married to Liz and made her happy. Unfortunately, he died in a plane crash, and her next husband, the sleazy singer Eddie Fisher, moved in. The film does a great job of giving us an inside look at the disastrous making of Cleopatra and the romance of Liz and Richard Burton. And she does talk about her first Academy Award win for Butterfield 8, which she felt was not deserved. That she only got the award (for a film she calls shit many times) because she almost died. The Lost Tapes is a wonderful celebration of a woman who captivated a world not only with her beauty and talent but also with her kindness and compassion. My Rating: Full Price  The Lost Tapes Website Now playing on Max.

Indiefest:  Didi (2024)  R  In 2008, during the last month of summer, before he starts high school, Chris (Izaac Wang), a thirteen-year-old at the horror of his mother (Joan Chen), is constantly shooting videos and trying to make friends instead of studying. He is a typical American boy, learning to be a teenager while trying not to disappoint his Taiwanese family. This is a touching, heartfelt coming-of-age film about a teen trying to find something, anything that he is good at because it seems all he does is disappoint his family. Chris is called Wang by his buddies and Didi by his family, but when he meets some older skating guys, he tells them his name is Chris. Chris decides to make his mark by being a skateboard filmmaker and googles everything he can on the subject. He tells a group of skaters that he is a filmmaker and will create videos for them. Then runs home and googles how to do it. Chris is surrounded by women in his family (his father is overseas), and his mother Chungsing, played by the fabulous Joan Chen, is holding down the fort. He has an older sister who is getting ready to go to college and is constantly at war with Chris. And then there is the opinionated grandmother (his father’s mother) who constantly tells the family what to do and puts down Chungsing every chance she gets. Chris has a crush on a girl named Madi, who he secretly stalks until one day, it turns out she might be interested in him. Chris tries what he thinks is the right thing, but often, he misjudges his audience or himself. In the end, Chris’s plans come crashing down, and he discovers that life can’t be learned on the internet. Didi is a wonderful film, full of laughs and a few heartbreaks, just like a thirteen-year-old kid’s life should be.  My Rating: Full Price  Didi Website  Now playing in theaters.

Forgotten Film:  Regeneration (also known as Behind the Lines) (1997) R  The story of soldiers from WWI who have been sent to a special asylum for emotional troubles. Two of the soldiers sent there are Wilfred Owen (Stuart Bruce) and Siegfried (James Wilby), two of England’s most important WW1 poets. Sassoon has been sent there after winning a medal for bravery, wrote a document citing his objections to war, which caused a stir when it was read in the halls of Parliament. He was given the choice of court-martial or treatment. The soldiers are under the treatment of Dr. William Rivers (Jonathan Pryce), who slowly comes to understand that the road to recovery is long, some of which may never recover from the horrors that they saw. The film shows the lives that are ruined by war and how hard it is to get back to the everyday world when you have experienced war. It’s a thoughtful and intense movie that has some outstanding performances.  My Rating: Full Price   Regeneration Info  The film is available on most streaming services under the title Behind the Lines.

Weird Credits:  From the credits of Cuckoo: Mood Storyboard 

Coming Soon to a Screen Near You: Speak No Evil  (2024)  R    A married couple, Ben (Scoot McNairy) and Louise Dalton Mackenzie Davis) and their young daughter, Agnes (Alix West Lefler), on vacation, meet another couple (James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi), along with their daughter and son. A friendship is developed, and the other family invites the Daltons to stay at their country home for the weekend. Their stay is fun at the start, then the hosts’ behavior soon turns sinister as dark secrets are exposed and the family realizes that they will be lucky to get out alive. The film is a remake of a Dutch movie of the same name and is already causing a stir among horror/suspense fans. The film comes out in theaters on Sept. 13, 2024.  Speak No Evil Website

Until Next Time

The Bikeriders

My View:  The Bikeriders  (2023) R  In The Bikeriders, it’s the mid-1960s, and after a chance encounter at a local bar, Kathy (Jodie Comer) becomes involved with Benny (Austin Butler), the newest member of a biker club named The Vandals. The biker club is led by Johnny (Tom Hardy), and under his leadership, the club is starting to change. It’s a change that will force Benny to choose whether to stay with Kathy or The Vandals. I was excited when I heard about this film because you have three Oscar nominees in the cast: Austin Butler (Elvis), Tom Hardy (The Revenant), and Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, Nocturnal Animals). However, they are all let down by a script that goes nowhere and dominated by a performance by Jodie Comer, who makes this film watchable. Comer is brilliant and captivating as the girlfriend/wife of Benny, a woman who speaks her mind, is in love with her man (from first sight), and is the storyteller of this tale as she is interviewed by a reporter/photographer (Mike Faist) who documents the early days of the biker gang. While Hardy, going full brood, is dominated as the biker gang leader who seems to make the rules up as he goes along, the performance of Austin Butler is a letdown. Butler seems to believe that his character's look is too cool for him to do anything else. Of the three main characters, Benny, the focus of much of the film, is the most uninteresting character in the bunch. Kathy's presence made this film enjoyable and entertaining, even with the subject matter of a violent, rebel-rousing biker gang. My Rating: Bargain Matinee  The Bikeriders Website  Now playing in theaters.

My View:  Thelma  (2024) PG-13  Thelma is about 93-year-old Thelma Post (June Squibb), who gets duped into giving away 10,000 dollars in a phone scam. With the help of a few friends, Thelma decides to go on a treacherous quest across the city to get her money back. This is one of those rare films that is precisely what you think it is: an enjoyable film with some fun performances and a story that isn’t going to win any Oscars but is going to delight a lot of people. Thelma is June Squibb’s first headlining film in her long career. We fell in love with Squibb in her Oscar-nominated performance as Kate, the feisty mom in Nebraska. While Thelma isn’t going to speak her mind like Kate, she is a strong-willed woman, still living on her own, and is determined to confront the people who stole her money. Squibb is aided by an outstanding supporting cast. Parker Posey and Clark Gregg play a married couple, with Fred Hechinger portraying their son Daniel, Thelma's 20-something grandson. Posey and Clark's overreaction to any information about Thelma and her journey is hilarious. I loved how the film portrays Daniel, who loves his grandmother and is on her side (his parents are on the verge of putting Thelma in a home), even when she escapes from his care. The movie features Richard Roundtree's final performance, and it's a delight to watch him on screen with June Squibb. Roundtree is perfect in the role of Thelma’s friend, who provides Thelma with his scooter, but only if he can come along so she won’t get in trouble. And here’s where the fun begins with Squibb going on a road trip (of sorts) that will involve breaking and entering, gunplay, and maybe an explosion or two. So maybe drink a nutritional supplement, put on your best tennis shoes, and get ready to ride with Thelma as she tracks down the bastards who stole her money. And by the way, June Squibb did almost all her own stunts.   My Rating: Full Price  Thelma Website  Now playing in theaters.

Indiefest:  Ghostlight  (2024)  R   Ghostlight is about Dan (Keith Kupferer), a construction worker struggling to deal with life after a family tragedy. He is not talking to his wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen), and has no idea how to relate to his troubled daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer). Dan finds comfort and community after he stumbles upon a misfit company of amateur actors rehearsing Romeo and Juliet. When Dan joins the company, he realizes that confronting his buried emotions is crucial to becoming the actor he aspires to be. As a former theater kid, I always enjoy watching films that showcase the behind-the-scenes stories of putting on plays, particularly when it's a local production. That’s what we get in Ghostlight, a film that follows Dan, a father who isn’t dealing well with a traumatic event that has affected him and his family. Dan is having trouble sleeping and isn’t communicating well with his wife. Almost every time he tries to connect with his daughter, Daisy, she becomes hostile. Things change a bit when Dan stumbles upon a local community theater group, and they convince him to join their group. What makes this film work so well is the performances of Keith Kupferer and his real-life wife Tara Mallen and daughter Katherine Mallen Kupferer. The performances are outstanding and feel so touching, as all three characters are trying to deal with the tragedy in their own ways. Even when Dan's daughter Daisy tries to bring him into her therapy sessions, he has chosen not to talk about it. Daisy is always angry, and Sharon is just trying to keep the family going while also trying to keep a lawsuit the family has filed on track. Ghostlight is a heartfelt and moving story that lets the cast take us on a journey of discovering and healing, as Dan learns to get in touch with his emotions through his work as an actor. Ghostlight is a film that examines the power of art to aid in healing and comprehending our emotions and feelings. So, study your lines and help Dan and his family put things back together, maybe in time for a performance of Romeo and Juliet.  My Rating: I Would Pay to See it Again  Ghostlight Website  Now playing in theaters.

My View:  Black Barbie: A Documentary  (2023)  Black Barbie: A Documentary chronicles the journey of three former Mattel workers who questioned why Barbie didn’t look like them and then made it happen. This is the personal journey of filmmaker Lagueria Davis, whose Beulah Mae Mitchell was one of the first Black employees at Mattel and was there when Black Barbie was first released. The film gives us a history of not only how and when black Barbie dolls were introduced but also how those dolls impacted the lives of kids around the world. The film features an interview with Kitty Black Perkins, the creator of Black Barbie, and the individuals who followed her at Mattel. We also receive personal stories from Gabourey Sidibe, Shonda Rhimes, and Misty Copeland about Barbie's influence on their childhood. I loved the behind-the-scenes footage and the fascinating history of the Barbie doll. The movie reveals that Mattel still needs to work on bringing Black Barbie from the shadows to the spotlight she deserves.   My Rating: Bargain Matinee  Black Barbie Website Now playing on the Netflix platform.

My View:  The Exorcism (2024) R   A troubled actor, Anthony Miller (Russel Crowe), is known for his past addictions. When he exhibits disruptive behavior on the set of a horror film, his estranged daughter (Ryan Simpkins) wonders if he has slipped again or if something more sinister is at play. This film marks the return of Russell Crowe to his I've Met the Devil phase of his career, following the release of The Pope's Exorcist in 2023. At least The Pope’s Exorcist had a bit of fun with Russell as a scooter-riding Father sending The Devil packing. In this film, Russell is an actor who plays a priest. Apparently, Tony has ruined his career and his relationship with his daughter by drowning his sorrows in liquor and drugs after his wife's death to cancer. Now, Tony has returned from rehab and is trying to mend fences. He is given the lead role in a film called The Georgetown Project, a knockoff remake of the classic 1973 horror film The Exorcist. Despite its promising beginning, the movie quickly goes off the rails with a plot that is downright silly. The film uses only jump scares coming from the dark because the budget couldn’t afford more than one light at a time. An unbelievable sequence occurs about an hour into the film that brings the film to a crashing halt. I guess we are to think that everyone on the Georgetown film crew thinks that what they see is just something that happens to actors from time to time. At that point, I thought about leaving, but I wanted to see how it ended and if David Hyde Pierce, playing a Priest/psychologist, would say the words “The Power of Christ compels you!” Unfortunately, he doesn’t. Can Russell Crowe please put down the priest collars and make a sequel to The Nice Guys instead?   My Rating: You Would Have to Pay Me to See it Again  The Exorcism Website  Now playing in theaters. 

Forgotten Film:  Road to Perdition  (2002)  R  The story of two men, Mike Sullivan (Tom Hanks) and Connor Rooney (Connor Rooney), who are henchmen for mob boss John Rooney (Paul Newman). Even though Mike is not flesh and blood related to John Rooney, John sees Mike more as his son than the volatile Connor. After Mike’s young son (Tyler Hoechlin) witnesses a botched killing by the two men, Mike realizes that he and his son must go on the run to escape the mob. However, they won’t be able to escape the past. Road to Perdition is a film with incredible performances and Oscar-winning cinematography but it has been forgotten because Tom Hanks plays a hitman who kills for a living. There is a great supporting cast that includes Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stanley Tucci, and Ciaran Hinds. If you are a fan of gangster films and film noir, this is a film for you.  My Rating: I Would Pay to See it Again  Road to Perdition Info    The film is available for rent/buy on Apple TV+ and Amazon. 

Weird Credits:  From the credits of The Bikeriders: Principal Fitter

Coming Soon to a Screen Near You:  Didi (2024)  R  In 2008, during the last month of summer before he starts high school, Chris (Izaac Wang), a thirteen-year-old at the horror of his mother (Joan Chen), is constantly shooting videos and trying to make friends, instead of studying. He is a typical American boy, learning to be a teen while trying not to disappoint his Taiwanese family. The film won two awards at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for three awards at the Seattle International Film Festival.  Didi Website  The film will be in theaters in late July.  

Until Next Time!