My Film Critic pants have been put back on for some capsule (short) reviews of four New Releases for the week of Friday, August 23rd, 2024
Writer/director Nathan Silver's lovely, rough-around-the-edges, screwball comedy is a lowkey delight that is anchored by two of the best performances of the year.
Jason Schwartzman stars as a depressed, widowed cantor who reconnects with his high-school music teacher (a magnificent Carol Kane) as she tries to get back in touch with her Jewish heritage (which may or may not really exist) by planning a Mitzvah she never had in her youth.
What starts out as a rekindling of a student/teacher relationship reversed becomes a friendship in which both parties become closer while working through their sadness, doubts, and insecurities.
There is no question that this film has some serious "Harold and Maude" vibes front and center, and it covers some very similar machinations found in other quirky comedies. But, what sets this apart from the usual fare, are the performances.
Aside from Schwartzman and Kane, the cast includes terrific work from outstanding character actors like Caroline Aaron, Madeline Weinstein (particularly great here), Jacob Morrell, Pauline Chalamet (Timothee's sister!), and Robert Smigel, who is brilliantly inspired as a flustered rabbi, a true standout.
The loose, almost improvisational feel, and fun, shaky 16mm camerawork, add to the immediacy of the storytelling, while not being too much of a distraction.
It's the work of the two leads however that really make this thing soar. Schwartzman and Kane are just remarkable here, creating a lovely, complex chemistry that sucks you in and really makes you care about these two fully realized people.
It's a particular and distinct pleasure to see Carol Kane do her thing after all of these years. She has always been one of my favorite actresses, and with the right role she can do no wrong, and this is the right role.
Overall, this movie doesn't break any new ground and isn't particularly original, but when the two leads are firing on all cylinders it's special and enormously entertaining. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I gotta say, I was a little leery right from the get-go with this one. It opens with a title crawl (borrowed liberally from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre") informing the audience that they are about to see the story of a notorious serial killer, and then some title cards letting us know it was "Shot entirely in 35mm," and that it is a "thriller in six chapters." Uumm...ok?
Then, in very-1994ish-Tarantino-out-of-touch style, the chapters are presented in random order, shot in crazy shaky oversaturated color (by actor Giovanni Ribisi, making his cinematography debut here), featuring characters lazily named "The Lady" and "The Demon," showcasing the stunt casting of Barbara Hershey, Ed Begley Jr., and Jason Patric (for no particular reason), and pushing the envelope with violent, sexual and horror content.
Yeah...and it's all remarkably boring. All the loud huffing and puffing, the blood, the stylized dialogue, the tiresome shots of Zippos lighting cigarettes, the "weird" character traits, etc. just amount to derivative tripe, that would have absolutely no worth, or surprises if the story was told chronologically instead of randomly.
You can add this one to the ever-expanding list of the terrible (and suspiciously overrated) horror films of 2024. - ⭐️1/2
3) BLINK TWICE
Actress Zoe Kravitz makes her remarkably assured directorial debut with this nightmarish thriller about a couple of girls (Naomi Ackie and Alia Shawkat) who join a group of privileged, hedonistic partiers on the private island of a tech billionaire (a stunning Channing Tatum) for a weekend of craziness.
When one of the lady guests disappears, and the natives of the island begin to give clues as to what is really going on, the other women at the party begin to suspect something very, very bad is being perpetrated by the men who are hosting this soiree.
The film starts out innocently enough as a stylish, very funny satire of the rich (particularly slamming people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg), and then, very slowly (and brilliantly), it becomes an absolutely horrifying parable about male ego, brutality, and cruelty.
Some might compare this to the work of Jordan Peele ("Get Out," "Us," "Nope") in terms of set-up, pay-off, and social commentary. I think that this is far more interesting, and much deeper than the surface work that Peele has skates upon with his movies (with his past two films, Peele has proven to be a one-note, repetitive writer/director with no new ideas). Kravitz, with this one film, has out-Peeled Jordan Peele.
This is really powerful stuff that packs a massive wallop, and is bound to cause quite a stir. The performances are all top-notch, with a terrific Ackie at the center, surrounded by great actresses like Shawkat, Adria Arjona, Liz Caribel, and Trew Mullen, all doing stellar work.
The men are played by Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Levon Hawke, Haley Joel Osment, Kyle MacLachlan, and Tatum, who all transform from being hilarious and absurd, to completely shocking and terrifying.
The less you know about the plot, the better off you will be. Just know this, you will laugh, you will scream, you will be shocked, and you will cheer at every single surprise, twist, turn and stunning revelation.
Zoe Kravitz has announced herself as a filmmaker of incredible talent, passion and skill, and a writer of satire filled with pain, truth and anger. This is a vital, primal scream of a film, and it should be required viewing for every man on the planet.
It is a directorial debut of jaw dropping confidence and skill...and it is also one of the year's best movies. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
4) THE CROW
Yet another film version/reboot of the gothic comic book character that was most famously played by actor Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, in what would be his final film (he was killed on the set of the movie).
In this latest adaptation, Bill Skarsgaard plays Eric/The Crow, and it is not only one of the very worst films of the year, it is an absolutely incomprehensible mess. It is such a train wreck that I didn't know what the hell was going on from scene to scene.
Choppy, sloppy, and laughably horrible, this ultra-violent, forced "goth-comic" nonsense is an example of a terrible idea that has been made into a terrible movie. This reboot is so devoid of creativity that I could barely keep my eyes open when I wasn't laughing at the awful acting (Skarsgaard is a blank slate of lobotomized "charm") and pretty much everything else about this film.
Oh, and in an original and brilliant piece of casting, Danny Huston plays the villain....and it's the worst performance he has ever given.
From the desperate-to-be-hip soundtrack (which does feature some great music), to the over-the-top set design and photography, to the unbelievably hilarious costume design (I seriously laughed OUT LOUD at almost every single piece of clothing that Skarsgaard wears), this thing is a disaster.
It's all been done before, and better. Now, I didn't like the Brandon Lee movie at all (it's really bad), and I don't remember much from it all (except the soundtrack), but I'm positive that it was not as overtly idiotic and amateurishly made as this crap. - 1/2 ⭐️ (for some of the songs on the soundtrack)
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