Archive | July, 2025

Reviewed: “Happy Gilmore 2” and “Until Dawn”

26 Jul

‘Happy Gilmore 2’ (2025)

Nepotism abounds in the surprisingly tight sequel to the one-note 1996 comedy about a failed hockey player with anger issues turned pro golfer with anger issues. The success of that film made former SNLer Adam Sandler a household name and box office force to be reckoned with (and the run since has been long and profitable). Of those family ties, “Happy 2” features Sandler’s wife (Jackie), two daughters (Sunny and Sadie) and mother (Judy) in small parts. Loyal to the calendar, we’re 30 years out, Happy Gilmore (Sandler) is married to golf tour publicist Virginia Venit (Julie Bowen) and now has a brood of four: Hanson-esque hockey hooligan boys and a lone daughter, Vienna (Sunny Sandler), who wants to go to ballet school in Paris. Before we settle in, Virginia exits the picture and Happy, distraught, starts boozing wildly. The slide into financial ruin and derelict dad-dom is meteoric. That said, things are arguably worse for old foe Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald, funny and sinister as always), locked up in an insane asylum. Nearly every page from the original gets a nod, including the sadistic opportunist Hal (Ben Stiller, sporting a massive handlebar ’stache) who held Happy’s grandmother under duress as a maniacal nurse at her living facility, and here has moved on to running an AA-adjacent recovery program that Happy is ordered to dry out in. Needless to say, the only way to save the house and send Vienna to pirouette school (he needs $300,000 and then some), is golf. Added is Benny Safdie, co-director of Sandler’s “Uncut Gems” (2019), as the smarmy head of an upstart golf league called Maxi Golf (like Liv Golf on neon-infused crack) who wants to challenge the pro-golf tour, and Haley Joel Osment as the top pro on the tour – and subsequent Maxi Golf defector – who can drive the ball farther than Happy because of a radical hip ligament surgery. Many of today’s top players, including Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau, appear in the film, as well as old schoolers Lee Trevino, Fred Couples and legend Jack Nicklaus, who, when asked by a waiter (Travis Kelce, slick and sassy) what he wants to drink, says, lemonade and ice tea. The waiter pauses and asks Nicklaus if he’s not Arnold Palmer (cue rimshot). It’s a shaggy-dog laugh fest that pays astute homage (Sandler and original scribe Tim Herlihy doing a nice stitching job, plotwise) to what came before while expanding it. The best might be party-hearty golfer John Daly with a Santa beard as Happy’s next-door neighbor who’s forever in his PJs and sucking on nips. A surprising and unlikely above-par revelation, this “Happy” beats the cover off the old ball while notching a few new spins and a dizzying array of hip cameos.

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Super poop, or how AI killed the box office

21 Jul

Crowds jeer in James Gunn’s recently released “Superman.”

James Gunn’s “Superman” swooped into theaters a week ago and knocked it out of the park with more than $125 million at the domestic box office. Not bad for a flat-footed rebrand that’s a long way from “Jaws,” which 50 years ago became the pindrop for the blockbuster, pulling in more than $260 million ($1.5 billion by today’s standards), with the eventual Academy Award winner that year (and No. 2 in box office totals), “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” taking in less than 40 percent of that. With that success, Spielberg’s gambit forever altered filmmaking and the way we see films; producers began seeking ready-made target audiences and the next big onscreen wow that would blow watchers’ minds and create lines to the ticket booth.

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Eddington

18 Jul

Ari Aster’s America with Covid, mask off and reeling

The latest from art house horror darling Ari Aster, like his last outing, “Beau is Afraid” (2023), isn’t quite the occult blood-and-guts fest one has come to expect from an auteur of the macabre (“Hereditary,” “Midsommar”). But it is an American horror story to be certain. Set in the fictional Southwestern town of the title, “Eddington” takes place during the height of the Covid pandemic, with ripple effects of George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter movement factoring large into the equation. Eddington is a small, financially struggling New Mexican town of 2,000 that abuts a Pueblo Indian reservation. Beau, I mean Joaquin Phoenix, plays Joe Cross, the county sheriff who, despite orders from the governor and mayor (Pedro Pascal, who seems to be popping up everywhere), refuses to wear a mask. He’s not an antivaxxer or Covid denier per se, but close enough – and as a result, decides to challenge Pascal’s smooth and composed Ted Garcia for his mayoral seat.

The pratfalls and ills of social media and social politics drive the film for nearly two-thirds of its two and a half hours. It’s imbued with the shaggy-dog docudrama vibe of a Richard Linklater or Paul Thomas Anderson film, sans the slack, droll wit. Some of the satire on white privilege, however, lands quite cuttingly, especially as one pasty young man (Cameron Mann) shouting from a podium tells reluctant listeners that he’s become an antiracist and is ready to sit down and listen to others, but only after he’s had his time at the mic to “racesplain.” Also in focus is Cross’ Black deputy (Michael Ward) as BLM protesters jam the streets, and the sovereignty of the Pueblo Peoples and their lines of jurisdiction overlap with Cross’ and become a point of contention during a murder investigation. On all pointed matters (social media, race and pandemic policy), both sides get their due without a lean – that’s left to the audience. 

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Reviewed: ‘Heads of State,’ ‘Jurassic World: Rebirth’ and ‘The Old Guard 2’

10 Jul

Short Takes

‘Heads of State’ (2025)

They could have called this one “Peacemaker and Bloodsport Run for Office,” as it leverages the great yin-and-yang chemistry that actors John Cena and Idris Elba forged in the hilarious Harley Quinn DC comic reboot, “The Suicide Squad” (2021). Here they play Will Derringer (Cena), a former action movie star elected Potus, and British prime minister Sam Clarke (Elba). Derringer – an obvious and affectionate riff on Arnold Schwarzenegger – is famous for his “Water Cobra” films, whereas Clarke was a career commando before moving into the political realm. There’s a bit of a rift between the two, as it was perceived that Clarke supported Derringer’s rival by having fish and chips with them. Clarke and Derringer meet at a European summit and afterward, for squirrelly reasons, Derringer offers to give Clarke a lift on Air Force One. As Harrison Ford is nowhere nearby, the big jumbo jet is plucked from the sky by an international terrorist ring (led by an ever-menacing Paddy Considine), and Clarke and Derringer have to go off-grid and escape Belarus. While the two are assumed dead, their respective successors seek to dissolve Nato, and the U.S. intelligence network is hijacked by hackers. Fairly generic stuff made pleasantly smirk-worthy by the playful onscreen Frick-and-Frack chemistry of its leads and some nifty pacing and action scene choreography by director Ilya Naishuller (“Nobody”). Adding comic spice and sporty can-do are Jack Quaid (“The Boys”) as a wacky CIA safe house operative and Priyanka Chopra Jonas (“The White Tiger” and “Matrix Resurrections”) as a game British agent who served with Clarke in the military. 

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