Grade: B minus

Sasquatch Sunset, Ungentlemanly Warfare, and the Risk of Originality

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Eiza González in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare; a scene from Sasquatch Sunset

When it comes to intellectual property, cinema doesn’t operate in absolutes. There are great superhero movies and also terrible ones; there are great original movies and also terrible ones. Still, the franchise boom of the 2010s created an uneven playing field that lent a certain luster to smaller-scale films which weren’t rooted in comic books or young-adult literature. In fact, the continued survival of these types of pictures is what makes me confident that the medium isn’t on the verge of collapsing, despite the constant industry doomsaying about A.I. or tax write-offs or Netflix giving Zack Snyder a billion dollars to make seven different versions of an off-brand Star Wars rather than releasing any of its #content in theaters. The movies have been at death’s door ever since their birth over 100 years ago. They just never seem to die.

Currently, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe dwindling in dominance and audiences rewarding more ambitious storytelling like last year’s #Barbenheimer phenomenon, there seems to be an opportunity for studios to pivot away from the IP craze and toward more original movies. But again, the mere fact of a film’s putative originality doesn’t necessarily mean it’s, y’know… good. This past weekend featured two new releases that don’t feature masked heroes, magic wands, or talking animals. At last, real movies for adults! Except, well, suffice it to say that both have their flaws. Read More

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Civil War: The Revolution Will Not Be Rationalized

Jeremy BeckReviews
Kirsten Dunst and Wagner Moura in Civil War

Something is wrong. We know this immediately, as soon as the A24 vanity card appears and bursts of noise explode from all sides, as though miscreants in the theater have set off fireworks in both aisles. We see a middle-aged white man (Nick Offerman) fumbling his lines as he rehearses a televised speech, and the ceremonial nature of his surroundings gradually reveals that he’s the President of the United States. As he yammers about secessionists—a faction he labels “the Western Forces”—the screen periodically cuts away to scattered shots of chaos and destruction. The President blusters that these rebels are on the brink of defeat, but the panicked nature of his rhetoric, along with the pointed images of mayhem, suggest otherwise. This uprising won’t be put down anytime soon.

This is the arresting first scene of Civil War, Alex Garland’s engaging, muddled, knotty new thriller. Simultaneously sprawling and intimate, it chronicles the challenges facing four people as the country around them is engulfed by anarchy and despair. Garland is no stranger to grappling with weighty philosophical ideas in the context of spiky, character-driven adventures. Ex Machina, his first and still best movie as a director, meditated on the very nature of humanity via a twisted, triangular war of wills; his theatrical follow-up, Annihilation, and his TV miniseries, Devs, both conjured dazzling worlds while interrogating their heroes’ motives and pondering their destinies. Civil War is his boldest effort yet, and also his emptiest. Read More

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Drive-Away Dolls: Sapphic Jam

Jeremy BeckReviews
Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan in Drive-Away Dolls

One of the most deliciously perverse surprises of the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading occurs more than an hour into the movie, when the ominous device George Clooney has spent so much time tinkering with is revealed to be an elaborate sex toy. Drive-Away Dolls, Ethan Coen’s first venture (ignoring his little-seen documentary on Jerry Lee Lewis) without his sibling Joel, exhibits rather less patience in bombarding viewers with adult paraphernalia; within its first 15 minutes, contraband is inserted into various orifices, while a divorcing couple fights over ownership of a rubber phallus that protrudes invitingly from their living room wall. Sure, this movie may have half the number of usual Coens, but it has way more dildos.

This isn’t to suggest that Drive-Away Dolls is immature or unsophisticated. Setting aside that sex jokes can be very funny when delivered well, Coen’s solo debut is deceptively ambitious, cramming plenty of plot, action, and ideas into its fleet 84 minutes. Yet it lacks the elegant deftness of that Burn After Reading scene, which embodied the brothers’ nimble fusion of polished technique and puerile humor. Read More

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Lisa Frankenstein: Wit’s Alive!

Jeremy BeckReviews
Kathryn Newton in Lisa Frankenstein

Diablo Cody and the ’80s: match made in cinematic heaven, or ungainly fit? Despite a varied and underrated screenwriting career (Tully, Ricki and the Flash), Cody remains best known for her opening one-two punch of Juno and Jennifer’s Body, which instantly established her polarizing style: pithy wordplay, obvious themes, and referential characters who seem to know they’re living in a movie. The heightened quality of her writing would appear to make her a natural match for the era that brought us John Hughes and synth pop. What’s strange about Lisa Frankenstein is that it neither sends up classic ’80s teen flicks nor pays loving tribute to them. It seems to be set in 1989 for no other reason than to justify its kickass soundtrack.

Which is fine, as far as it goes. I’m skeptical that Lisa Frankenstein will earn the same cult following that Jennifer’s Body did—certainly it won’t send adolescent boys scurrying to the internet in search of “megan fox amanda seyfried kiss scene”—but it is at least a vibrant and playful production. The feature directorial debut of Zelda Williams (working from a script by Cody), it sports bright colors, cool music, and an array of outfits so dazzling, they’d make Cher from Clueless jealous. The movie is not without significant flaws—uneven dialogue, awkward staging, a general aimlessness—yet it offers the robust built-in defense of, “Sure, but did you see her hair?” Read More

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Anyone But You: A Plague on Both Your Spouses

Jeremy BeckReviews
Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney in Anyone But You

They say mature movies are supposed to challenge audiences, so here’s a test for you: Can you accept the contrivances of Anyone But You as frivolous eccentricities rather than shopworn clichés? If so, then you’re likely to enjoy it. Stripped of its tortured machinery, it functions as a sweet and playful romantic comedy starring two indecently attractive people who—in another universe where box-office success hinges more on actorly charisma than intellectual property—might have the potential to age into movie stars. I did my best to meet it on its terms. But some terms are harder to accept than others.

It takes all of five minutes, before the opening credits even roll, for Anyone But You to announce that it will operate according to the cruel whims of rom-com illogic. The alphabetically adjacent pair of Bea and Ben (played by Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, respectively) meet cute at a coffee shop, and following some bathroom shenanigans in which Bea struggles with a hand dryer, they spend a magical day and night together before falling asleep in each other’s arms. It’s true love! Yet for reasons known only to the screenwriters (Ilana Wolpert and Will Gluck, the latter of whom also directs), Bea sneaks out the following morning; she instantly realizes her mistake, but upon her return she overhears a wounded Ben assassinating her character to a friend. As a result of this symmetrical misunderstanding, these would-be lovers become less star-crossed than simply and irrevocably cross. Read More

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