Tag Archives: movies

Reviewed: ‘Where to Land’ and “The Woman in Cabin 10′

18 Oct

‘Where to Land’ (2025)

The first film from indie stalwart Hal Hartley in more than 10 years – a Kickstarter campaign got it off the ground before a Covid pandemic delay – is a loose, autobiographical reflection on the director’s life and body of work like Almodóvar’s deeply personal “Pain and Glory” (2019). At the center is Joseph Fulton (Bill Sage), a lion in winter edging toward 60 and one-time maker of successful romantic comedies who’s taking a break from the director chair to get his last will and testament together. He also has a desire to put his hands in mother earth, and applies for a job as a cemetery groundskeeper. Through a comedy of miscommunication, Joe’s girlfriend, Muriel (Kim Taff), an actor in Season 14 of her “Wonder Woman”-esque TV series, and his niece and assistant, Veronica (Katelyn Sparks) discover an unopened, confidential letter from a hospital and think it all adds up to Joe dying. Adding fuel to the fire is the subplot about a wannabe screenwriter (Jeremy Hendrik) claiming to be Joe’s son. It’s a stoic, reflective affair with some strong writing. The best moment is when a film studies professor (Aida Johannes) challenges Joe with SAT word salad and Rorschach test reasoning about the meaning of his films. It’s blazingly brilliant, but begs the question as to why Joe’s rom-coms are being intellectualized as if they’re “One Battle After Another.” No offense to rom-coms, but it’s apples and oranges – and Joe, a likable sort, doesn’t really emanate the auteur je ne sais quoi that many in the film seem to heap on him. As to the title, the film begins and ends with a Shackleton-esque-esque ship amid rough seas – a clear metaphor for hitting a patch of turbulence late in life and what to do. It works, even if weakly employed. As with most Hartley (or Mamet, for that matter) films, it’s less about the oblique references and more about matters of the heart and struggling soul.

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Reviewed: ‘The Smashing Machine,’ ‘Ice Road: Vengeance’ and ‘Play Dirty’

5 Oct

‘The Smashing Machine’ (2025)

Brothers who direct together don’t always stay together. We know this from the Coens, who after 30-something films went off to do solo projects, and it seems to be the same for the Safdie brothers (“Good Time,” “Uncut Gems”), with Benny breaking out for this biopic about MMA fighting pioneer Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) when the sport was mostly in Europe and Japan. Much of the action takes place there, and it’s an odd sojourn. You can see Safdie, so good at channeling the freneticism of fringe personalities in “Gems” and “Good Time,” constrained here by facts versus fiction and straining to find a character motivation or that challenging event that drives the protagonist. Kerr’s challenges with painkiller addiction and recovery come early in the film, and there are domestic struggles at his Arizona hacienda with significant other Dawn (Emily Blunt), but otherwise no real arc. It’s more a meandering love letter to Kerr and an era, and in some ways has a docudrama feel. Johnson, jacked up to seam-bursting size, acts his pants off. It’s an impressive immersion and a major turn in his career, fusing his WWE roots and aspirations to be taken as more of a serious actor than straight-up action star or Schwarzenegger-ish comedian. Blunt, close in tenor to Amy Adams as the girlfriend in “The Fighter,” is good too but never gets enough breathing space to make Dawn fully formed, and the role comes dangerously close to lapsing into rote hysteria. The one seam Safdie finds is the camaraderie and bonding among the athletes, namely between Kerr and friend-coach-rival Mark Coleman (MMA fighter Ryan Bader, who nearly wrestles the film from Johnson and Blunt). It’s a soulful meander in search of a reason to go to the mat. 

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The Long Walk

14 Sep

Murderous marathon for an American dystopia by Vietnam-era Stephen King

There’s little surprising or new in “The Long Walk” despite its pedigree, passion and professionalism. It’s still a compelling and emotionally charged tale primarily because of those three Ps – and the grim prospect of how much further we as a society can fall. It’s based on Stephen King’s first novel, written as a student while at the University of Maine but not published until 1979; even then it went under King’s pen name of Richard Bachman, like “The Running Man.”

In “Walk,” we get dropped into a dystopian America in the late 1960s or ’70s. It takes a while to register, but the unhappy alter reality has the distinct tang of “The Mist” or “The Stand”: The United States has just emerged from a war, but the country is not the portrait of Ozzie and Harriet productivity we’ve all been sold on. Much of what we see in our limited lens is the depressed and the needy. Most of the people we see along the long stroll could use a hot shower, a bowl of hot soup and some new threads.

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‘Honey Don’t!’ has a detective who stands out against drab settings, luckily for these Coens

22 Aug

Ethan Coen and co-writer and wife Tricia Cooke reteam with actor Margaret Qualley for the second of a purported loose lesbian neo-noir trilogy. That first outing, last year’s “Drive-Away Dolls,” was a bit of a rickety start, but through no fault of Qualley, who packed the punchy best of both Thelma and Louise as one of two gal pals who zoom off in a car with various factions of angry patriarchy hot on their tail. It was a concept in search of a story. Here, Coen and Cooke dial up the noir aspect and concoct something more worthy of Qualley’s onscreen allure. 

She plays Honey O’Donahue, a private detective working the dusty, depressed streets of Bakersfield, California. There’s trouble right off the bat as an angular French woman (Lera Abova) in leopard-skin tights navigates the scree of a ravine to get to an inverted car, its driver dead or dying. She’s not there to help, but to pluck a signet ring off a finger, and in the next scene Abova’s agent of cold deeds is floating casually full frontal in a nearby quarry pond. An important fashion note: As she clads up, there’s a Garanimals moment as we realize her underwear and bra match her motorbike helmet.

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All the drama a movie trivia fanatic would want shows monthly in Somerville’s Crystal Ballroom

15 Aug

Somerville TheatreSomerville Theatre Crystal Ballroom Movie Trivia nights draw more than 150 people monthly, as seen from the POV of the scorekeeper.

Somerville Theatre Crystal Ballroom Movie Trivia nights are a raucous two hours of competitive film fan fun for self-anointed cinephiles and trivia tricksters looking to flaunt deep stores of knowledge to attain factoid alpha status.

The nights, on the third Tuesday of the month, are hosted by Billy Thegenus, program and outreach coordinator at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline and Ian Brownell, co-owner of CSB Theaters (with longtime theater manager Ian Judge), which runs the Somerville Theatre.The events have drawn 150-plus people – or 20-ish teams of five to six – to the Crystal Ballroom space. You can show up with your own, ready-to-roll crew or go freelance and hop on with a duo or trio needing a trivia turbo boost.

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“Weapons” sees a class full of kids vanish into the night and a town search for answers

9 Aug

Zach Cregger’s follow-up to his 2022 surprise art house horror hit “Barbarian” builds just as confidently with mood, moxie and acrid, enigmatic tugs. “Weapons” has you from the get-go as a young child from the fictional town of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, informs in a soft, reflective voice-over how one night 17 children exited their suburban homes at the exact moment of 2:17 a.m. and, holding their arms out like birds about to take flight, ran into the night and vanished. There’s a liberating joyousness to the otherwise ominous exodus. The next day at school, we learn that all were students of a new teacher, Justine Grundy (Julia Garner, “The Assistant,” “Ozark”), so when Justine walks in, the classroom is empty except for one: Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher), a small, quiet boy and the subject of regular bullying.

Parents are understandably upset and want answers. During a town meeting, Justine is blamed and castigated for her inability to provide answers. Later, her car is vandalized with the ominous tag of “witch” in bold red letters.

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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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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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Short Takes

14 Jun

Reviewed: ‘Mountainhead,’ ‘Straw,’ ‘Echo Valley’ and “Fountain of Youth’

‘Mountainhead’ (2025)

This smug billionaire-boys-behaving-badly dramedy from “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong landed just as the relationship between Trump and Musk imploded fantastically in the headlines, not so much an aptly ironic parody as a loaded diaper. Why is America so obsessed with the rich, when most of us – the other 90, 95 or 99 percent – are not so? The fantasy that money can change your life and buy you happiness? With Trump and Musk and this sour lot, it’s more about power and being right, even if you’re not and money is an afterthought (though how much you have is a boasting point). In an airy mountain chalet, four tech bros with complicated pasts and agendas hang out for a weekend of poker and backdoor business parlays. If you called them Zuck, Musk, Altman and Kalanick (the series “Super Pumped” on the Uber founder is a worthy watch), you’d not be far off. The driving plot is the alter-reality tech platform Traam run by Venis/Ven (Cory Michael Smith, who played Chevy Chase in “Saturday Night”). It has 4 billion users but has been coopted to make deepfake news stories with devastating results worldwide. Newscasts show the bloody inflaming of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and retaliation to a faked story in which women and children in a house of worship are barricaded in, firebombed and killed. People are literally dying because of Traam. Does this give pause or stop Venis from pushing his next release? Nah, he sends it out to the world with the lede “Fuuck!” because “two ‘u’s are cool.” That’s the kind of fuck-all we’re dealing with. When asked about the mayhem Traam is causing, Venis retorts that “The first time people saw a movie, everybody ran screaming because they thought they were going to get hit by a train. The answer to that was not stop the movies. The answer was: Show more movies.” (It’s here that we can drop the “V” and add a “P.”) Ven’s weekend cohort of self-loving insufferables include Randall (Steve Carell), a fat-walleted venture capitalist recovering from cancer, Souper Van Yalk (Jason Schwartzman), the host who hasn’t quite made it into the billionaire club, and Jeff Abredazi (Ramy Youssef, “Mr. Robot”), the most sensible of the bunch, who has just kicked off a tool that could thwart Traam’s AI mayhem but won’t sell it to Ven because of past grievances and ideological differences. As the world continues to go to hell on the widescreen TVs around the chalet, the boys debate taking over and running some of the countries whose governments have fallen. When the water in the manse runs dry, our quartet thinks sabotage and of an imminent terrorist attack and head to the bowling alley bunker below. “Mountainhead” is pretty much a stage play in form, and the actors are all in and hit their mark. What doesn’t is the satire that roils in human misery with a nod and a wink at cheekiness so we can walk a mile in the shoes of the rich and famous who wouldn’t give five dollars to a starving family on the street. 

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From the World of John Wick: Ballerina

10 Jun

Expanding universe of assassins, one star bigger

This “John Wick” spin-off has not quite the muscle or star power to fill the triple-E fandom shoes that the Wick World has grown to offer. It’s a double letdown too, as Ana de Armas, excellent as K’s virtual lover in “Blade Runner 2049” (2017) and transformative, not to mention Oscar nominated, as Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde” (2022), seems more than capable of taking on a fierce female franchise character. Sadly, as rendered by director Len Wiseman and writer Shay Hatten (who penned the past two Wick chapters), in action and character it’s a template in search of a soul – which is something of a shock. Wiseman’s directed kick-ass heroines better before, namely then-wife Kate Beckinsale in the “Underworld” films. 

To be clear, the World of Wick was never anything all that imaginative. Like the “Fast & Furious” films or Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible” stunt projects, it’s always been an excuse for a star to blaze across the scene. Keanu Reeves, the man who is John Wick, sold the franchise with his weary, zoned-out zen assassin persona and willingness to go all in on the fight work and stunts. The action in “Ballerina” takes place between “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” (2019) and “John Wick: Chapter 4” (2023). If you remember from “Parabellum” when Wick visits The Director (Angelica Houston) at the Tarkovsky Theater, a front for the Ruska Roma crime syndicate that Wick used to do hits for, there was a lithe, tiny dancer on stage (played then by real-life ballerina Unity Phalen). Turns out those tiptoe gazelles are the kikimora, elite assassins and not bad dancers. With de Armas now donning the pointe slippers as Eve Macarro and losing her “Parabellum” handle of Rooney, we get her backstory: father killed by another assassin org run by some grizzled honcho known as The Chancellor (the ever stately Gabriel Byrne, though he’s not as stately here as Ian McShane as Winston, overseer of the New York outpost of The Continental Hotel, where all the hip, high-paid hit-people hang out gun free); goes through grueling assassination training under The Director – the grimmest being in a room with an assassin in training and put on a clock to assemble a Glock or die.

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