Reviews
Reviews
2025
Mickey 17
Riff Raff
Love & Pop
Heart Eyes
The Monkey
Companion
Presence
Flight Risk
Nosferatu
A Complete Unknown
Mickey 17
I’ve been anticipating the release of M17 since last year. I know it's been set to release since 2023. I can’t remember when I
saw the trailer—and then there was a moment where they revamped the trailer entirely, adding
a new, later release date—which only lasted for a short time before going back to the old trailer
after the fact, with the original release date, probably on accident. But we finally get it, a couple years and a new presidency later.
In Regal fashion, I like to see movies on Tuesdays, but having a movie I was actually excited about, I felt like I had to see it opening night, like back
in Missouri, when I would see something every Friday.
The only real difference now is the price. I have Regal Unlimited, and
having had it for a year now, I can say it is well worth it. So my ticket is zero dollars. However, I
have to cop Tiff’s ticket as well, and on a Friday night, her ticket alone is $23. This made me
feel pissed immediately, which made me feel ashamed for having felt pissed about $23.
I relayed all of this to Tiff, who remembered that you can get free tickets to movies with
rewards points. Most of the rewards points that I accumulate are from getting a ticket for Tiff
every Regal Tuesday, and I only use the points on popcorn, and that's only once in awhile. I
checked my points; I had 16,000. To get one of the free tickets, I would need 18,000 points. So
to experiment, I purchased two tickets for movie for Tuesday night ($10 total), which granted
me around 2,000 more points, giving me enough for the free ticket. So tonight’s Friday opening movie was
free—OK, it was a 50-cent "convenience" fee for mine and a 2-dollar one for Tiff’s, so it was $2.50,
and now I have to see “The Rule Of Jenny Pen” at 6:20 this Tuesday, so that's a trade of some sort.
We got a showtime for 6:10, which wasn’t an available showtime when I first looked; I
think it got added very last-minute once they started filling seats for all the showtimes (I
checked a day before and all that was available for the 6, 7, and 9 o’clock were all front seats)
—This movie has been promoted heavily, and I think it's about all there is to see at the moment.
6:10 is an interesting showtime for a movie if you plan on getting dinner around it. I like
to get dinner before the movie, although some say that it should always be movie first, as you
may find yourself clock-watching during the meal. We decided to go to New Spicy Village at
like 4:30, which is a hilariously early dinner (and it also turns out that they have lunch specials
that we weren’t aware of, which made what Tiff was wanting, the Oxtail Hui Mei, even
cheaper. I got the Beef Brisket Huy Mei, which wasn’t at all what I was wanting, but it was
suitable and good).
After dinner we had more than enough time to get snacks for the movie, which was
what I was hoping for; that we would have a light (and early) enough dinner to where we would
have the time and will to get a bunch of snacks from Trader Joe’s. Tiff had already secured jelly
beans at Walgreens earlier in the day, so that was one. We walked to TJ’s, a couple blocks
from Regal, and got dried mango, a chocolate bar, chocolate peanut butter cups, and this bag
of cheesy popcorn. We stopped in Target as well because Tiff needed a new nail file; while
there, we got Cadbury eggs (dark chocolate). So we had about six things to choose from
during the movie, seven if you count the nail file.
We got to Regal at 6:06, and sat down in the theater (the very-back corner; my favorite.
I don’t have a preference on left or tight, but normally if they’re both available, I go with the left)
at 6:10.
We got one trailer at 6:20 for “The Amateur,” and then an ad for Progressive and then
the movie started at 6:25. 6:25!!! That is only 15 minutes after the posted showtime, about
15-20 minutes shorter than what I’m used to here at Regal. I enjoy trailers, so getting just one
was kind of blue balls (especially throwing it in the middle of Mountain Dew/Starry ads and the
movie trivia which I was able to get right this time, only from getting them wrong on Tuesday),
but it was pleasant to be able to get right into the movie (basically).
Oh, and if
you somehow missed Anora, it’s still got a few weeks of showing left; kind of smart for whoever got it the
Oscar win, definitely helped eek out some last minute publicity/box office sales four, five
months later. But there isn’t much else out right now that’s worth your money. Mickey 17 would
have been worth the $23 for two tickets.
One funny sidenote about our showing; it was advertised on the Regal app as having
closed captions, which I was like, ok, fine, I can deal with subtitles. I didn’t even realize until
after the movie when Tiff brought it up to me that we didn’t even have subtitles. A flub, I
guess? Again, I think it was a very late addition to showtimes for the night.
Mickey 17 is a sci-fi thriller comedy set on a space station in 2050-something. Robert
Pattinson is an “Expendable” on this spaceship, meaning he has an infinite life cheat (they
reprint his body after each death), so he is used to cure illnesses, things like that. He has died
16 times, hence the number (which we aren’t revealed the title card “Mickey 17” until about 45
minutes into the movie!!! As a huge fan of Friday the 13th: Part 2, this was a great moment for
me). He’s a pretty good spirit about dying, too. Pattinson is ultimately likable here, and I think
has been in most of everything I’ve seen him in since 2012-13 when he started playing a limo
driver in every Cronenberg movie. He’s always fucking around with that girl from Blink Twice,
Naomi Ackie (also likable here, much more than in Blink Twice). They’re always having fucking
sex! There ends up being two Robert Pattinsons, which is an issue with the head of the
operation (played by Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette). “Multiples,” are supposed to be put to
death, so much of what the Pattinsons are doing during the second act of the movie are hiding,
while also doing a Jekyll/Hyde thing (every new Mickey has a slightly different persona; #18 is
more of a Luigi Mangione type).
All while Ruffalo’s character is on a quest to take over this planet filled with this Jet
Force Gemini-looking bug monsters so they can cut off their tails and Toni Collette can make
sauce with it. Anywho.
Speaking of Ruffalo; I think he’s doing a quasi-Trump thing? It seems like somebody
trying to do a Trump accent. His followers wear red hats and all. He plays a great villain (both
shown here and previously in Poor Things) and it isn’t always funny but it can be. Collette was
somehow gonna be in this no matter what—she’s in everything!!!—but she plays the string-
pulling wife well. Lots of stuff about class struggle, war, political propaganda—all are here, in
short little bursts—are explored when the plot centers around these two; sometimes it slows
things down for me. But it’s a newer-style movie, a post-COVID film, it reminds me of super on-the-nose politcal comedies like
“Don’t Look Up” and “Triangle of Sadness”. It's much more fun than those, but often I felt annoyed by the preachy stuff.
I was surprised that this was even a Bong Joon-ho film (although Paraside has "themes" in it about class etc I recall it being a lot more subtle). The entire premise
feels more like a Yorgos Lanthimos thing with a tacked on "the rich are bad" thing. It can be grating sometimes, especially with Ruffalo doing some kind of impression; I know he probably isn't trying to do an exact Trump thing but it's so obvious and just feels silly. It's stuff my dad would find funny. Personally, am I moved by the political discourse in the film? No. I just got sad whenever
they hurt one of the alien bug things.
But did I like the movie? Yeah!!! It's a lot of fun. There’s a lot of fun stuff happening throughout the
entire 2hr17m duration; sometimes too much, lots of subplots, themes and "messages" and then it just cuts to the bug/alien Creeper things. Again, at it is fun, so this isn't a complaint, but I could see somebody complaining about it.
Pattinson sells the whole thing though. He's incredible as both Mickey 17 and 18 (again, 18 being a little more like Luigi, which wasn't the purpose when it was written but has a different meaning now).
The universe takes place in the near-future but has that dystopian/cynical “everyone is dumb” kind of felling
like in the aforementioned “Don’t Look Up” or something like "Beau is Afraid"— this style always makes me think of someone who read a little
too much Saunders, but it works here, and doesn’t beat you over the head with it (it does beat you over the head with the political stuff, though. I was in a good mood so it didn't bother as much as it could have, but let it be a warning to you). It’s a fun
watch, and one of the first sci-fi or sci-fi-adjacent things I’ve seen in recent times that I would
probably watch again. This is probably going to have to sit at the top of my “Best of 2025” list
for now, unless I decide that I actually liked “Flight Risk” more.
3-7
Riff Raff
Riff Raff is a 2024 action (?) thriller (??) comedy (???) film which has nothing to with Riff
Raff the guy. I hadn’t seen any trailers or any sort of promotion leading up to this; it was
between this and “My Dead Friend Zoe,” which I had also not seen anything about besides a
synopsis on the Regal app. I was hoping to see that one, but Riff Raff had a 7:30 showtime,
which worked for Tiff and I meeting up to get dinner beforehand. We went to Cafe Himalaya
around 6:45, which I was hoping would give us enough time to stop at Trader Joe’s for snacks,
but it was too close to the showtime when we got to the theater, so we picked up some things
at the Regal Mall (this, for those not living in NYC, is the Essex Market, which is connected to
the theater; it’s a little easier for me to label the whole thing under Regal, though) instead.
Once the trailers started at like, 7:40, I realized we probably did have enough time to
get stuff at TJ’s, and it pissed me off more than the tardy showtime thing usually does. We saw
Love & Pop last week at the IFC, and the movie started exactly, and I mean exactly, at 7:45,
which was the advertised showtime. Not to mention that the seats are first-come-first-serve,
which until the Regal shit has always been what I was used to. It’s fucked to consider that with
Regal or AMC, you have to tack on an extra 30 minutes between the showtime and the actual
movie starting. 30 minutes, minimum, every single time—it’s normally closer to 35, with all the
Mountain Dew, Pepsi, and Starry ads, all back to back—to the people at Pepsi Co, can you
guys not just consolidate all the fucking drinks into one one-minute thing?
And this is somebody who likes to see all the trailers... It’s bullshit that you are actually
being punished for getting there early, for fucks sake, for getting there ON TIME...
But the movie itself may have put me in a bit of a mood. I wish that we had been late to
this one.
It is only the beginning of March as I type this but Riff Raff is the worst thing I’ve seen in
theaters this year. The top-billed people in this are Bill Murray and Pete Davidson, which they
are in it for probably 20 percent of the whole thing. Here’s the thing: I’ve actually grown to like
Davidson, around the release of The King of Staten Island, but he is pretty pointless here. Bill
Murray is somebody who I thought was funny when I was a kid, and then throughout the
Obama and first Trump presidency I got really tired of his “It’s Bill-Freakin’-Murray” cameo-type
thing. I have grown to despise him in nearly any appearance he makes. They play gangster type
hitmen here, but Bill Murray’s character seems to be propped up like Weekend at Bernies (he
would be Bernie here. I’m saying Bill Murray is lifeless as an actor and personality at this point. Let's throw in the towel, Bill!!!).
The movie follows Ed Harris—his current wife of 18 years and by-marriage son (the wife
and son are black; this doesn’t matter in the plot BTW)—and his mostly estranged son from his
former life and his ex-girlfriend-wife type (played by Jennifer Coolidge, who plays herself and
you know what to expect if you’ve seen anything from her in the last, twenty, twenty-five
years? “I’d cut off my left tit for an advil”— she’s a lush, we get it. But she’s also one of the only
funny things in the whole thing, and it’s like a 25% rate). Ed Harris’ character is a former hitman
gangster type; this is revealed late in the movie but if you haven’t figured it out in the first five
minutes you’re just fucked in the head, really. The whole thing plays out like A History Of
Violence (which Ed Harris is also in!!!), which I think is an apt comparison, and I’d like to
expand further on this, in some fashion.
A History Of Violence is a really strange Cronenberg film. It has a glossy look that
makes it feel like a soap opera sometimes, there will be some silly high-school drama, and
some of the dialogue just feels... daytime tv-ish. And then the you’ll be thrown into some
unsettlingly brutal (and hyper-realistic) violence. It all feels intentional, Viggo M’s character
acting as somebody else for a larger portion of his life, criminal life catching up to him... It’s
compelling, an awesome movie. Riff Raff has no idea where it’s going, and tries a bunch of
different formulas before crashing into a pretty nothing conclusion. It feels like something that
the writers wanted to make into a TV show, but were forced to condense it into a 100-minute
film (any longer... so help me God). There is not only forced exposition, but we also have to
have these flashbacks to explain to us why something happened when it’s pretty fucking
obvious why something happened (even if it makes no sense). The editing just feels like a TV
show, and the writing for each character feels like somebody watched a season of The Bear
and was like, OK, we need a bunch of cussing for each character.
(Side note; the beginning of the movie we are given a narrator (Ed Harris’ black son),
which comes back into the film I believe two other times. It isn’t a device that’s useful in any
way, and when it comes back, you’re like, Oh yeah, I forgot he was narrating). It starts with one of those, "OK, I know you want to know how we got here.
Well, let's just take us all the way to the beginning..." And then half of the movie are flashbacks anyways. So by that rationale, he's actually taking us closer to the middle of the movie... This movie has very little going for it, I promise you.
Everything is the matter here. Everything is played for laughs, oftentimes past the point
of annoyance, and then there will be a shift in tone where Bill Murray’s character shoots
someone dead for no reason. His character is unlikeable, and Murray isn’t
convincing as some sort of criminal type, besides that he says fuck and fuckin,’ as does every
character in this. Davidson is pointless and could have been replaced with anyone, but then
there’s characters like Coolidge’s, in which you can tell that a writer was writing the character
for her—or in this case, asking Chat GPT to write dialogue that sounds like things she would
say. Actually, I feel like saying that this film is AI-assisted is an insult to AI. I fully believe
some folks wrote this thing, bandaged it together haphazardly, and whatever I'm seeing is what we got.
With something like "Companion," I would believe AI did that. This feels like a group effort of really hasty people.
There is dysfunctional family/fatherhood/etc. themes that bubble up, but it’s all fucked
up. At one point in one of the pointless flashbacks, we get Bill Murray’s son, going to his dad’s
house to tell him he’s infertile, can’t have children. After a minute or two of light ribbing,
Murray’s character is like “fuck you, get out of my house.” And then the son goes out and
pushes a pregnant lady over? The pregnant lady being in cahoots with Ed Harris’ estranged
(white) son, who defends her and kills him? Which leads to Murray exacting revenge? And this
is all how we get to the climax? What the fuck???????
Again. Again! I have heard little about this film, and it makes sense why it’s been so
quietly promoted, if at all. It has the charm of last year’s Argyle, which is to say that is has
none. Skip this one, even though it seems like even the creators of it are asking you to. But
maybe you’re one of those guys who wears a Bill Murray t-shirt, and you’d think he was funny
in it.
3-4
Love & Pop
The first time I saw Love & Pop was only 8 or 9 months ago. I watched it with Tiff, who
suggested we try it out; it had been in her watch list for awhile. I really liked it. On editing and
cinematography alone, I was sold.
The other day, I get a text from her asking if I would want to see a remastered (I think)
version of it at IFC. It had been probably two years since I went to a theater that was neither a
Regal or AMC; I said, OK. The showtime was for 7:45. We had Hamburger America
beforehand, as it was a couple blocks from the theater. We would go here more often last
summer, but this time around it was not so great. The vibe there is always OK but the special
chili burger they were serving was not lovely. We have recently been going to Gotham Burger
Social Club, a place that by looking at it alone you would not think it would be worth a damn,
but it’s great. This is a small detail, but the radio at Gotham plays billboard hits, which I think
makes it more authentic. Most of these burger huts of the last decade want to replicate this
dive-bar burger pub kind of thing but most of the places that they try to cosplay are in the
middle of America, probably ran by high school employees, who probably pick the music. I
don’t think this is intentional on behalf of Gotham, but it feels more believable than a curated
Thin Lizzy type playlist.
We got to IFC theater at 7:43. We stopped in a deli next door because I didn’t think we
would be pressed for time. We got a few snacks, and hurried in—not before I showed Tiff the
little peephole thing outside of the building—if you’re near the IFC there is a set of binocular
type things placed in the wall, put your face up to it next time. The moment we stepped in the
theater (7:45), the lights went out. I asked Tiff where we were seated, and she reminded me
that it was first-come-first serve. I hadn’t been used to this for a long time. I forgot that it used
to be the incentive for getting to the theaters early. Back home, I used to sit in the parking lot of
the theater with friends, eating twizzlers and shit. We wanted to have the back row of the
cinema because we were a giggly bunch, so it was worth it for us to be hidden in the back.
Plus my friend Isaac worked at Target at the time, and he would often clock out an hour or 90
minutes before showtime. With little to do in between that time, we would just hang out near the whip and listen to mix CDs.
We'd get candy and energy drinks (RIP to Blue Amp, the greatest energy drink of all time) and kick it at the theater. We'd get our tickets in advance, and then do kickflips in the parking lot until it was
time to for the movie to start.
At IFC, Tiff and I were barely able to find two seats together; fortunately there were
some in the very middle of the place. It was packed. Some folks came in after us, probably as
couples, and were less lucky. I don’t think they managed to find seats next to one another. No
trailers, no warnings about no texting, no locally made skits with screaming women (If you’ve
attended Regal in the last three months, you’ll have heard the word “SPORTS!” screamed
before the showtime, one of those cheesy sketches that theaters find necessary to include
before the screening. This one is way too loud, but in the last few movies I’ve attended, it
seems that they have listened to peoples comments about it, and turned the volume down,
specifically the “SPORTS” line).
Love & Pop is A 1998 Japanese comedy-drama that is really a great thing to watch. It
gets labeled as an experimental film, but it has a pretty straightforward plot; the experimental
thing I suppose is the low-budget nature, filmed entirely on either a VX1000 or a GL2
(somebody who spend more time on skateperception.com could probably give a more
accurate answer on this), making it seem closer to one of those Dogme 95 style films, although
it isn’t that either. We follow a Japanese high school girl who goes on dates with older men for
money as she tries to make enough dough to afford this ring she wants. She runs around the
city with her friends and they talk about nasty little things and hang out with freaky little
Japanese guys throughout, but it doesn’t feel repulsive to be watching, like when you’re
watching something like Kids (I haven’t seen this movie since 2005. You are sick for liking it.).
There are themes of innocence blah blah. It’s a nearly 30-years-old film, it’s been talked about
to death, you should see it. As somebody who has spent twenty years watching skate videos
filmed with the same kind of camcorders and lenses and cross-dissolves, it feels very easy to
watch for me. It’s a cutesy and often funny movie, which the guy next to me would agree with,
as he was laughing at every single line and patch of silence between dialogue. His date or
girlfriend or partner never laughed once. It really was annoying but it also made me think too
much about Do I Do This Too? Nah, there’s no way...
I have no idea what was “remastered” about this screening. It still looked shitty to me.
It’d be like mastering Flip’s Sorry or something like that?? I’m not complaining either, I can’t
emphasize how much the filming and editing did for me. But I’m pleased to have seen it in the
theater, and one I haven’t been to in a long time.
The crowd though at IFC is a little different than at Regal though. Lots of they/them
Portland style folks (nothing wrong with dat!!!) with COVID masks (nothing wrong with dat!!!)
and a lot of performative laughter as mentioned earlier (something wrong with dat!!!) and
clapping during the credits (everything wrong with dat!!!). I forget that this partially is why I like
Regal. No goofy ass hipsta runoff like at Metrograph, no protester-looking poly couples like at
IFC, mostly just (and especially during the week) single 40+ men who just need somewhere to
sit between shifts, oftentimes sleeping. So I prefer to stay at Regal. Great film.
2-26
Heart Eyes
Heart Eyes is a horror comedy in the style of something like SCREAM, especially the
newer SCREAMs, even down to the main guy in it, who is from the newer SCREAMs. It’s a
Valentine’s Day-themed horror film, but different enough from other Valentine’s Day-themed
horror films to be it’s own thing (I like both the original My Bloody Valentine and the 2009 3D-gimmicked remake, and I have actually seen Valentine for some reason; don't have much to say about it, if that says anything).
We follow an
advertising creative director type lady and her fellow employee (the hot charming guy from
SCREAM that I was talking about) as they do this will-they-won’t they romance thing;
interspersed is a serial-killer-on-the-loose plot, Heart Eyes, of course (he wears a mask with
heart eyes; again, different enough from the other V-day horrors. I kind of like the Valentine
mask the best though). That’s probably the best way to describe this film. It feels like a
straight-up Hallmark movie with the romance stuff, and even with any kind of horror overlaid, it
still feels Hallmark-y, like if Hallmark decided to add gore and F-words in the mix. There isn’t
much violence in this, but there are a couple kills that had more gory detail than expected. The
twist we get about the killer is hilariously obvious; like we are introduced to this random NPC type character half way in the movie
and I remember someone in the crowd was just like "It's him." They try to add a secondary twist, which
sure is less obvious, but it gives us an earful in the way of useless exposition.
There is little tension in
anything that could be potentially tense, because there is always a character saying “Fucking
fuck fuck!” or hitting the bad guy with a vibrator. Our main star will be getting chased by Heart
Eyes, who we know hunts down couples (mostly). Our hero will yell to him, “We aren’t a
couple!!!” A lot of this schtick throughout. I found a lot of it pretty annoying in the theater, but you know
what, I kind of liked it in retrospect. I feel like most horror in 2025 is going to fall into this referential/meta/
“funny” category, and as long as it knows what it is, I guess I am OK with that. It isn’t a
NEON or A24 horror. It’s a late-night movie for late-night couples on Valentine’s Day. I saw it
alone, but I enjoyed it! (I AM NOT A INCEL!)
I saw this on a Saturday at like 2:30. It was cold as hell out and I wanted any reason to
get out of the house. Heart Eyes is not a great movie, but it’s comparable to the new SCREAM
movies. It’s enjoyable, and sometimes it doesn’t seem like it knows what it is, but I think that it
does. It’s dumb fun with a lot of modern-style references about incels and kinks and whatever
else square people think is taboo. But you know what... It was a good enough theater
experience. People hated the My Bloody Valentine remake upon it’s release, but I had a great
time seeing it in theaters back then. There were a lot of movies like that at the time, pretty
shitty stuff verging on Grindhouse cosplay, but I have yet to forget the experience. Machete,
Drive Angry 3D, stuff like that. I’m way more a champion of a good ass time at the cinema than
a good movie at this point, and do I have a choice? I see 50-ish films per year, and most of
them are gonna be closer to Argyle than Anora. At the very least, we can be given a good
experience, a job that falls in the hands of the director. This movie is about as stupid as
possible, and if it’s actually trying to be scary, then they failed at this. But it succeeds as a
movie that in like twenty years I’ll watch a scene from on Youtube and remember the nice
Saturday afternoon.
2-22
The Monkey
I got a text from Taylor in the afternoon asking me if I wanted to see The Monkey at 7. It
was an early screening for a movie I’ve seen the trailer of at least five times, both green and re
band. Ten years ago, the thought of a red band trailer was more exciting, but most of the time
they follow the same formula. I guess this is true for green band trailers, too; there were two
movie trailers back to back with: Female lead, background song is a slightly remixed/covered
classic, gun shots being fired off to the beat of the song, pow pow pow pow! To the beat of some David Bowie cover.
So I had seen trailers for The Monkey a bunch of times. I was lukewarm about it, but I knew I
would be seeing it. My mom had a copy of the book on our bookshelves since I was a little ass
kid and I hated the cover of that one. That and IT (the clown) I had to hide behind the bookshelf
at some point just because I didn’t even like the idea of me seeing the spines.
The Monkey is a horror comedy directed by Oz Perkins of Longlegs, a movie I believed
that I liked at first, but later on decided only the first half was any good. It could have been a
cool serious movie, but takes an OMG THAT HAPPENED? approach near the end that feels so
pander-some; it wants you to laugh, but all the tension leaves the film with about 30 minutes to
spare, so that’s all you can do anyways; also, be bummed.
The Monkey is a movie that’s so light on the horror aspect that all you can do is
laugh. It’s more a comedy horror than a horror comedy, how about that... I would only relate it
to a horror movie in that there is a lot of death & dying going on, something that happens most
often in horror. You can tell that Perkins knew what he was trying to make here, because the
tone is consistent through the movie, which already gives it a leg up on Longlegs.
As I mentioned, my mom had a copy of this short book when I was a little ass kid. I said
that, remember? This is a Stephen King adaptation, and if you didn’t know that, you’d be able
to figure it out pretty quickly. I haven’t read much Steve King (I read “11/22/63” years ago at
the recommendation of my mom and it was really so great. I’ve read his books on writing, like
“On Writing” and “Danse Macabre” which I think are great too. I read “Cell” as a teenager when
it was a new release and it was horrible. I’ve read The Green Mile and The Shining. OK, I’ve
read some Steve King.). I’m very aware of Steve King film adaptations, though. The Monkey
starts off with a similar feel to It (the clown) and we end up with something more like Maximum
Overdrive, without the AC/DC soundtrack, with a thick layer of Final Destination.
We follow a 40-year-old loser type, Hal (a man way too handsome to play the role of a
weird little haunted man, but again he’s handsome, so my ass ain’t gonna complain!!!), who has
been haunted by this drumming Monkey toy (“It’s not a toy” we will hear ten or so times
throughout), a gift given to him and his twin brother by their estranged father (played by legend
Adam Scott, a cameo we are given within the first minute of the movie, which alludes that it’s
going to be more of a funny thing than a serious one). When the key to the monkey is turned,
somebody dies, always graphically, and it feels completely random, Final Destination style
(although there is an order in FD, I guess). They continue to lose family members until they are
orphaned. We follow up 25 years later and there are themes here about something or rather
(this is where the IT comparison comes in). Estranged father, childhood trauma, blah blah blah
blah. There is a joke every half-minute in this thing, which really downplays any kind of theme
here. This is not a dismissal, because most of it is pretty funny, otherwise it wouldn’t work. But
it is pretty damn funny. You’ll have a priest at a funeral saying, “Fuck... It is what it is” next to a
coffin. It's stupid, it knows what it is, and it's enjoyable once you determine that.
One thing I found funny, and I’m not sure if it was supposed to be; Hal’s aunt is killed;
she falls through stairs into a box of fishing hooks, and then her face is set on fire, and then her
head is impaled by a wooden post outside of her house. It’s very graphic. Hal’s brother calls
him to tell him about her death. Hal goes, “Was she sick?” I just about bust a gut at that one. Very Norm Macdonald-esque.
The deaths are nasty, but it’s played out as slapstick the whole way through. It never comes as mean-
spirited. Or I guess the whole thing is so mean-spirited and cynical that the deaths are all
NBD in this world. Once all these deaths start happening because of that stinky little monkey (it’s
key being turned by a villain, a twist we receive in the second half, an obvious one), cheerleaders show
up to cheer, and silly crap like that happens. Lots of
NEON films style shite, hyper reality type of stuff where everyone’s a piece of crap. As long
the film is actually funny, that can be achieved. The cynicism is turned up really high, but so are
the jokes. Some of it is almost like Family Guy kind of stuff. Again, I LIKED IT!
It is absolutely not scary, besides that the monkey itself is creepy to look at. What's funny is that Longlegs (god bless whoever was in charge of marketing, cause they did a great job) was being titled as the scariest movie of the decade, or century or some shit. Yet it's really no more scary than the damn scary looking little Monkey. I think there
was one jump scare in this that slightly got me, but it was just a real estate lady popping up next to
the side of Hal’s car. It was a joke jump scare, something I remember from the movie Horrible
Bosses, for some reason.
This movie, especially with it’s 1999 setting in the first half-hour, is what Kyle Mooney’s
Y2K from last year could and should have been. Of Oz Perkins, I am now somewhat of a fan. I
don’t think he should stick to only Steve King short story adaptations, or even this tone. And that's not to call this movie perfect, it's far from it. There were stupid mistakes throughout, plotholes, things that happen for no reason, pointless characters that are thrown in for a 30-second gag (one side character literally steps on a rake, old school humor style; it didn't seem like a death but we never see him again, so I guess it was); it feels like a kind of cult classic in the making, which if you're trying to actively make a cult classic you probably are some kind of asshole. But I suppose if the movie is enjoyable, then that's just great. And this movie is absolutely enjoyable. I complain about the saturation of horror movies in mainstream cinema today, which furthers the belief that we're having an 80's style resurgence in culture (not my belief, somebody's though). Compared to last weeks sort of horror-comedy Companion (which achieved neiter genre), this was a fake horror classic.
2-12
Companion
I spent several days toiling over whether or not I should try getting a group of people together
to see a movie on the first Regal Tuesday of February; it is an involved process. There is a quie
group chat of friends that I now send messages to asking whether or not anyone wants to go,
and there are several other people outside of the chat that I like to ask as well. The hard part is
getting all of this done by the time I can order tickets on the Regal app, and making sure I can
get a row or arrangement of seats that are all close to one another. I wanted to see Companion
at 6:30 initially, but even on Monday there were like five seats in the entire theater left. I opt
for a 9:20 showing, which everybody was OK with. Taylor recently become a member of Regal
Unlimited, so he was able to get his own ticket. The only available seats were in the bottom
two rows—the bottom-est is nightmarish seating, where you absolutely have to recline back in
the chair just to get an average view of the screen that’s four feet in front of you. By the time he
told me he purchased his, and by the time I got seven OK’s from people who wanted to go,
seats continued to feel up. My only choice was to get three seats next to Taylor in the second
row, and the four seats right in front of his (nightmare seating). Last Tuesday, we got to see
Flight Risk in the far back row, my favorite. I bought everyone’s tickets and everyone sent me
one via Venmo and it was all OK (we would deal with the seating later that night).
Tiff and I took the bus first to Trader Joe’s near the theater to get snacks for the movie.
decided to do this before dinner because of time restraints; the showtime was for 9:20, and
TJ’s closes at 9. So it would be TJ’s-Dinner-Movie. Our original idea was to go to Hamburger
America, because number one it’s a pretty great cheeseburger (with a pretty modestly-priced
menu for two) and number two they had one of their specials that would be ending that night.
I’m not sure what the burger was, Tiff mentioned it but I don’t know what she said. It was muc
too out of the way for me, though. There is another cheeseburger place that we went to once,
Gotham Burger Social Club, that is pretty much across the street from Regal, so we decided to
go there instead after TJ’s (at TJ’s we got some of those little bags of PB cups and chocolate
almonds and gummy things and Valentine’s Day candy hearts—I love the chalkiness).
Gotham Burger is a pretty damn good smash burger place, if that’s still a thing we can openly
declare. It’s a similar price to HA and it lacks the diner-cosplay vibe that that place does really
well; and again, I actually really like HA, and me saying cosplay isn’t intended as any kind of
dismissal, I love when we get to go there, and the specials I’ve had are all pretty exciting;
Gotham has a more pub type of feel, with stickers on the walls about Willie Nelson, dark oak
walls, crap like that. There was Blink 182 and like Nelly Furtado playing on the radio, which
actually felt more authentic, somehow. Like the owner’s kids are working at it, and they decide
what’s playing on it, because it feels old. We both got double burgas and fries and tots. It was
way too much food. The burgers were so smashed they became like a skirt in the middle of the
sandwich. Really good place... I swear to god Gotham was a different establishment when
used to walk past it even two years ago??? And at some point I started seeing on the internet
that people were raving about it, comparing it to HA and 7th Street. Seemed all psyop-y to me,
but I’ll be damned, it’s pretty true. I will definitely come back, especially doubled with a movie
I’m pretty sure the Champion Pizza that I used to love coming to near there closed down, so I
was looking for a replacement.
We walked across the street to Regal, and met everyone there right at 9:20, showtime. Yazan
showed up first, and then Taylor, and then Sid, David, and KT after, with Parker showing u
right after them (he got a pancake at North Dumpling and bought Junior Mints at the theater as
well—such a weird pairing).
In the theater I immediately felt bad seeing Yazan, Sid, David, and KT sitting in the row above
us. Their necks looked broken trying to look at the screen from so close. Sid and Yazan moved
somewhere in the back once the movie started, and David and KT braved the frontline. Tiff
Parker, Taylor and I had significantly better seating by just one row behind, although it wasn’
that great either. We were seated so far to the left that sometimes in the movie Jack Quad’s
eyes looked so unaligned.
Companion is one of these romantic-ish-horror-ish thriller movies that feel popular these days.
It isn’t exactly fitting for one of those genres; it’s too light in tone to be a real thriller, it neve
creates any kind of tension to begin calling it a horror, and it isn’t romantic, because it isn’t. It’s
a movie about a guy (Jack Quaid, from the RedLetterMedia Galaxy Quest review) who brings
his robot fuck doll (Sophie Thatcher, from Heretic and probably Dime’s Square) to his friend’s
gigantic estate out in the woods or forest somewhere. It’s a small get-together with a few
friends, and like fifteen minutes in we get a “You’re Next” style plot twist that, like all romantic-
BPD-who’s-the-good-guy-and-who’s-bad type thrillers like this, turns you against th
supposed nice-guy lead actor (kind of like Strange Darling from last year, although I thought
that did the twist in an unexpected way).
The movie reminded me a lot of You’re Next, actually. Setting up a murder to get money from
the estate of the people you’re visiting... an unexpected female hero who defends herself
against the greedy a-holes (it’s expected here, for some reason, though. Like obviously it’s
gonna happen!)... even the final kill of the movie was similar to You’re Next. Even a scen
where they’re listening to CD’s at the party, which feels like a reach of a comparison—but it
does feel ripped from a few scenes in that one. It lacks the dark cynicism and overall tone of
You’re Next, though, and trades it for another incel-ish Jack Quaid bad-guy-who-is-in-denial-
about-being-a-nice-guy narrative that feels like a trope at this point—which should involve a
bleaker feel, I feel, but it goes for laughs pretty much the whole thing. When it isn’t going for
laughs, it’s trying to get you to applaud for when something Bad happens to the Bad guy.
Every movie I see has this kind of tone now. Blink Twice, for instance. It’s in this league of
newer-style movies, which try to do some kind of genre-bending (yet always using “horror” as a
backdrop), but you’re never scared, because you can tell by the silly quips every few minutes
that obviously nothing bad is going to happen (and like Blink Twice, we will get to see our
female hero leave the scene either rich or a girl boss, which to me seems... morally unsound?
Like we’re supposed to be happy that Thatcher’s character has left the scene with 12 million
dollars in a briefcase/s. And then we are all supposed to applaud? This 2021-Chinatown-lookin
ass robot girl just killed people (but they were bad!) and now she’s running off to hide with
bunch of money I guess? Maybe I’ve watched Crispin Glover talk about Back to the Future too
much...).
I think Quaid & Thatcher are both good here with what they have, but the entire thing feels like
something that would have been fresh in 2015. Even Quaid’s wardrobe looks like just some
dude from when Obama was president. I really liked Thatcher in Heretic, which was one of the
better things I saw in 2024. I liked her here too, but I didn’t really like Companion. It was fun to
watch in a large group but nobody had that much good to say about it after. But it was still a
good time, although I would probably see Flight Risk again before I would see this again. I feel
like a guy in an Aime Leon Dore hat and a neck tat would have fun on a date with his WFH-ad-
agency girlie would enjoy this type of thing, though.
2-4
Presence
Soderbergh is pretty cool, I feel like. His career started with the revolutionary Sex, Lies, and
Videotape, and somewhere in the middle of it he was doing all of those Oceans movies, and
then made time somewhere to make cool little films like the 2005 “Bubble” (a movie I saw las
summer and really liked; shot entirely on HD video, with a soundtrack by Bob Pollard, the goat
of all time). Presence is kind of like a mix of a Paranormal Activity-like plot with the mundane,
sort-of-linear narrative that Bubble had. In the film, we follow a family who have moved into
new home, and throughout the film there are disturbances throughout the house, clearly bein
caused by another god damn ghost. The entire movie is placed through the eyes of said god
damn ghost; we witness the family, throughout the course of the movie, realize that there is
some kind of PRESENCE in the house. Sprinkled in is a bunch of mild family dysfunction from
a voyeuristic perspective; sometimes the dad will be talking with his lawyer on the phone on
the back patio, sometimes the mom (played by Lucy Liu, just great here) will be hugging her
son and giving him adoration in a way that feels inappropriate to witness from such a close
distance, stuff like that. There are a lot of problems within the family unit, but there is neve
enough exposition to say what exactly, it gives us just enough to know it’s there, and it’s all we
need. The family feels very... real. It’s kind of a ghost movie with a lot of really average family
discussions at the dinner table. The editing and filming is great too. Each scene, if I recall, i
filmed in one shot, and each scene cuts to black before we enter another one. Nothin
revolutionary, maybe, but it felt fresh. The twist/reveal ending is a little stupid, but I also feel like
Soderbergh needed to do something with it, I guess. It isn’t scary, really, but it’s one of the
better movies like this I’ve seen. The trailers made it look like a boring haunted-house movie,
and it kind of is that, but the way it’s put together is fun to watch. I saw the movie at 1:20 in the
afternoon, and there were probably twelve people in the theater altogether. I don’t picture this
one getting too much attention, but fuck it, I also don’t think this thing seemed to have a big
budget, and if it did, I don’t know where the money went to. Soderbergh’s work is so all over
the place, in a good way. I feel like I have to watch more of his movies, because he does so
much different stuff it’s difficult for me to pinpoint a through line stylistically for his film
but everything I’ve seen of his I’ve at least liked. Presence is a fun watch, I’m pleased and
happy with my 50-cent convenience fee on the Regal App and the decision to spend my shitty
and frigid Saturday afternoon in a place I like to think of as my second home, at this point.
1-31
Flight Risk
January is known as a slog of a month for moviegoer types. Most of the stuff that’s
actually good playing during the month is often stuff that opened during Christmas
season. When I first saw the trailers for Flight Risk, I was pretty sure it would be one of thos
kinds of movies, the kind you see in the middle of January because there’s not else to do
movie-wise, besides wait for Oscar season (the nominations this year are funny). I knew I had
to see it, though.
During the early afternoon I asked a few friends via text message if they were interested
in seeing it with me that evening. I hadn’t seen much this month so far, which made me feel
annoyed. I have been hitting up people less to see stuff with me in general, because it create
a whole curation thing through the rest of the day, where I have to figure out exactly how man
tickets to buy and all that—not to mention that Regal makes you choose designated seats,
which makes you have to finalize who exactly is going, otherwise you risk having to put a stra
friend in a separate row. This happened during the fall when I got 14 tickets for the Joker
musical. A friend last minute asked if it was OK if his girlfriend could come, and I had to explain
to him the pain in the ass it would cause, and it did. It was a packed theater, and they had to
consolidate into one seat just so they could stay in the same area as us. This wasn’t an issue
with Flight Risk because there were probably 15 people in the entire theater.
I got the tickets earlier that day at the box office—if you do this rather th
purchasing via the app, you can remove the $1.50 “convenience fee” entirely, making all the
tickets 8 dollars instead of closer to 10. Not that it matters that much, because all of my friends
are good about sending me money, so I don’t have to eat any kind of cost, plus my ticket is no
money. But it’s a thing anyways.
I walked to Delancey Regal with Tiff. We met Yazan, David, and David’s gf KT
They were upstairs waiting for me to gift them their paper tickets. I was excited to see them
because it’s great to be in the presence of good friends. The showtime was at 9:20, and me
and Tiff walked in the doors at 9:15. I had to spend several minutes getting one ticket refunde
due to another friend who backed out of the movie last minute. The manager gave me a free
movie ticket for the next time I attend a movie, which is cool with me.
Flight Risk is an action thriller type thing directed by the wild Mel Gibson,
taking place entirely in a private plane. Mark Wahlberg and his haircut plays a hired criminal
type who is hired to kill Topher Grace’s character, Winston, a pussy ass little dude, who is
being taken by Michelle Dockery’s character, a cop-type lady. Winston got captured by her in
Alaska for doing shady criminal type stuff, and he immediately tells on his criminal type higher
ups, so they hop on a plane to get to New York so he can tell on them in a more official kind
way. But Mark Wahlberg as I said is a criminal type, so he is there as the pilot and also as their
killer. The whole reveal happens within the first twenty minutes of the movie. The middle of the
movie is some on-flight fighting between the three (mostly Dockery and Wahlberg) with Top
Grace pretty much playing the same character as he does in That 70’s Show, cracking
ridiculously light jokes (“I’d rather fly Spirit!”). There’s such a heavy amount of "funny stuff"
that it makes me hesitate to call it an action thriller; much of the supposed-to-be funny stuff
isn’t that funny, and a lot of the tense stuff is what made the audience laugh. So maybe
Gibson’s purpose here is for the whole thing to be funny, which I guess it is. A lot of what we
see is Dockery having to learn how to fly the plane due to incapacitating Wahlberg (his name
we never find out; we definitely find out Dockery’s character’s name but I don’t remember. A
lot of that reminds me of the Top Gun episode of the Angry Video Game Nerd, which is cool.
There isn’t a lot happening for the second act, lots of scenic plane-flying-through-Alaska
scenes, with small hints of tension and action, but nothing that warrants much of an R-rating,
besides Wahlberg threatening rape to poor Topher Grace, and one kinda gross and cool scene
of Wahlberg breaking out of his handcuffs. We get small hints of backstories with our two
heroes but you really don’t find much reason to sympathize with Grace, because he spend
much of the time being intentionally so annoying. The ETA for the flight gets brought up a lot of
the movie (“We have 75 minutes left” “15 minutes until land”) and it seems like 4th wall
breaking, like they’re telling the audience how much time of the actual movie is left. There is a
really silly love/flirtation side-plot between Dockery and a pilot that is helping them navigat
their safe landing via radio signals. Their landing the plane and in general the final fift
minutes or so of the movie are just awesome. At this point in it you know that it isn’t that
serious of a movie, and you can only enjoy the craziness with your friends. The small audience
was having a great time once they realized what they had gotten into; like we all collectively
decided we are stupid as shit for wanting to see this, but we get a final act that we deserve fo
sitting through Topher’s constant mugging and Wahlberg’s rapey crap (he is awesome in this).
When the credits appeared on the screen, the crowd clapped and cheered. Everyone leaving
the movie seemed happy. I was definitely in a silly mood after watching it. I can’t in good fait
say it’s the best movie I’ve seen at Regal this year so far (although I probably would watch it
again over Nosf), but I recommend seeing it in theaters, because it’s a fun watch with people.
It’s absolutely not Gibson’s best work, either, and I have no idea why he made this (the one-
location type of thing and sparse cast just feels like something that would have been filmed i
2020 or something) but I guess I’m grateful that he did.
1-28
Nosferatu
The cold grip of January can make a fellow quite mad... I feel that’s how they would say
that in this movie. But it remains true! I have been suffering as a byproduct of the cold. I get
bored of the winter naysayers, people who you feel like are always saying “I get so depressed
in January” I get it. Get the hell over it! I was feeling that though on this particular Saturday. I’ve
learned that a good fix for it is to walk my ass to the Regal on Delancey and catch a movie.
There’s actually quite a bit out at the moment that I want to see—Tiff didn’t seem all that
interested in Nosferatu so I figured, OK, I can see that one myself.
I booked a 2:20 showtime. I stopped in the Essex market, which at one point I was
accidentally calling it the “Regal market” which became the “Regal Mall” which I still think it
should be renamed to. I got a Celsius from a store inside as my movie snack, for some reason.
I had a Monster on my mind but I didn’t see one immediately, so I got some kind of apple-
flavored Celsius.
I sat in the theater at 2:21–I got to sit in my favorite seat, the very top-left corner—either
that or the top-right but only the top-left was available for this showtime—actually quite a
packed theater for a 2:20 show—and the trailers started at 2:25. There was a couple that were
sitting directly next to me, although there were five or so seats to the left of them that were
vacant. Around fifteen minutes into the movie, they shifted to the further-down ones, and I was
happy for that. Those kinds of gestures of privacy are so meaningful to me. Not that the movies
are private, per se, but... I’ve been in a theater before that’s probably at 20 percent occupancy
and for some reason a guy or some guys decide to sit directly next to me, even though there’s
rows of seats open. Like, why? Maybe this is a “me” thing.
The trailers rolled from 2:25 to 2:40, which is really not so bad for a Regal. Although—
and I’m a huge fan of Pepsi products BTW—the pre-trailer commercials are always in this
order: A Pepsi ad, a Mountain Dew ad, and then a Starry (!?!?!) ad. Can’t Pepsi just hire their in-
house people to consolidate it all into one commercial? I do need to try a Starry though.
Another thing about modern-day trailers I want to speak on: There is always a constant
editing trend throughout any string of trailers. I started noticing this during the Obama era. In
2012, every trailer would have a medley of what we called back then “Transformers sounds”-
machine-like, dubstep-y buzzing. In the first Trump era and some of Biden’s, we got the
tinnitus craze, which, halfway through every trailer, a high-pitched tinnitus-style would ring,
muting any sounds or other dialogue happening. In the last few years, every trailer seems to
feature a female-fronted cover of a classic song... Kind of like how Donnie Darko had that
famous cover of that Depeche Mode song. That’s for your more A24-style movies. For action
movies, they’re edited like a skate video or something. Every gun shot and kick to the face is
edited perfectly to the song. It’s not bad, it even makes sense, but when you see it for every
Den of Thieves style film, it gets tiring. One trend in trailers that absolutely is not around
anymore is the 3rd-person voiceover. Very 80’s/90’s style... “In a world...” Wonder when this
will come back in style.
About Nosferatu—I liked. I don’t know much about the original property. I’m a
millennial, so I know who Nosferatu is because of the Hash-Slinging Slasher episode of
SpongeBob. I liked Nic Hoult, again. I’ve seen him starring in three different major motion
pictures over the last few months, and I’ve liked him in all of them. I like Depp, who I only know
from Yoga Hosiers, which is one of the worst movies I’ve ever partially seen. Her role in this
reminded me of 1999’s Sleepy Hollow, starring her dad, Johnny. I found myself thinking about
Sleepy Hollow several times during this movie—and not just because there are children killed in
both (just kidding, that’s pretty much only why). There are cool scenes that stand out to me,
most of them with Hoult, honestly. The violence is good enough for an R, and the last thirty
minutes are good. There’s some slow moments and the tension is all over the place—I think a
huge reason for this is how much we see Nosferatu himself. And Bill Skarzg. plays Nosf
awesomely in it (how accurate to the old one, I have no idea) but we see so much of him that I
feel like it loses a lot of the dread that you’re supposed to feel when you have a horror villain.
There’s a shadow play scene that is from the 1920’s film (again I haven’t seen it but I know
enough about it’s iconography to know—even if you didn’t know that I you can tell director
Eggers is basically telling you, look, dickheads, it’s like the old movie). There’s a lot of funny old
speak in here which mostly feels unintentionally funny but I do think that they have Dafoe
saying some things that are supposed to be funny (he is good in it too—I feel like he’s in so
much stuff lately and I could see myself growing annoyed by this in a matter of months but for
now I’ve enjoyed his presence). The audience laughed at stuff that I don’t think was supposed
to be funny—there is a scene when we first meet Nosf and there is a moment of silence and he
says what sounds like just the word “Yeet...” Someone laughed at this which caused a larger
laughter throughout the crowd. Also the fact that they’re German but all have British-style
accents... Anyhow. There is a certain dread just in the tone of the film that I like, and it did
remind of me of how I felt about Sleepy Hollow in a way. Living in that time probably was as
depressing as depicted, I’m sure. There’s nary a happy moment in the whole thing, is one way
to put it. The consensus on it seems to be... Well there doesn’t seem to be one. You either like
it, or hate it, or neither of those. I say- it’s good, but I don’t care if you see it or not. I left the
movie kind of in bad spirits; not because the movie was bad, but rather, it just has that kind of
tone to it. It isn’t fun, but it’s chilling (and this will be the first and only time I ever call something
that).
I left the theater around 4:50, feeling somewhat better than I had when I first decided to see a
movie. Hopefully next time I will have enough redeemable Regal redeemable Regal points to purchase a Starry on tap.
1-11
A Complete Unknown
Biographical thing about the rise of Bobby D. Thought it would be written over a larger timeline but it stays within the frame of folk music up until 1965; I don't know much about his story so I thought it was a nice lil' biopic about not entirely just Dylan himself but moreso about his relationship and succession (and success) from the folk music scene, specifically from his move to NYC up until the release of Highway 61 Revisited. For the last decade I haven't had much of an opinion about T. Chalamet but lately I've been getting a lot of videos on Tiktok about how he likes college sports and shit so I've been growing to like him, which is pretty much what sparked my interest in the movie. That, and that there is one brief scene that is filmed at White Manna Hamburgers in NJ; Tiff and I went here a month or two ago and there were posters on the wall about filming taking place there, so I thought, Hell, now I gotta see this movie. It's good, btw (the movie, I mean, but the hamburger place is recommended also). It doesn't step out of the boundaries of these kinds of musician memoir things, but it does it's job. T. is good as Bob Dylan, I think. Maybe a bigger Dylan fan than me would disagree, but I thought he was great. A quarter of his dialogue is mumbl-y crap that probably wouldn't be transcribed properly via closed captioning, which is unintentially-intentionally funny, probably some of the funnier stuff in the movie, and close to accurate to the stuff I've heard of Bob's at whatever ceremony he's attended that I happened to watch on Youtube. Norm Macdonald has some funny bits about him (he was a huge fan) so I had to look them up - Bob's a funny MF and I don't know if he knows it or not.
Supporting cast is great too, Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, whoever plays Joan Baez is good at playing Joan Baez - there's some will-they-won't they stuff that's fun to watch unfold if you don't know the story - I don't by the way - I can't be judge on whether a lot of the stuff that unfolds is accurate or not; like, I really doubt his manager actually punched Alan Lomax at a folk festival (upon a quick search, turns out he actually did. so yes, I cannot be a judge on this stuff). One thing I liked is the way they did up NYC in early-60's fashion - a better job with 20th-century NYC than Joker 2. There's little scenes to showcase how the times were('a) changing; JFK coverage on the TV, Bob playing a show at DC, stuff like that. It doesn't get too into this stuff, only using it to further the timeline (which only seems to happen in 1961 and 1965). It's mostly about the music stuff and it's cool to get a glimpse into the struggling folk scene, and Dylan's resistance to it; he has a few lines that are either verbatim or paraphrasing something like "200 people in there want me to be somebody I'm not." It could come off as corny but I kind of liked that stuff. He seems cool to me.
It doesn't stray from portraying him as an asshole, though, either. It shows that pretty clearly in the trailer too ("You're kind of an asshole, Bob" - Baez) but that was part of the draw for me as well. He's an original dickhead with a lot of imitators, both musically and attitude-ly. But, at least in reference to the movie, he seemed to be only about the music... Kind of like how Tom Cruise only cares about the Law in the movie The Firm.
I also like the stuff with Johnny Cash, played by Boyd Holbrook. I didn't really know they were friends like that but they are played as two stupid yet funny guys when they're together or as pen pals. Going into the movie I thought there would be some kind of corruption-of-Bob-Dylan kind of plot, but there isn't anything of the sort, really. Mostly everyone Bob kicks it with seem like they just annoy him, minus I guess Woody Guthrie, who is in a mental hospital in New Jersey, and Bob pays him visits throughout the film to play him music, which is nice. But again, everyone else just pisses him off mostly, and it's funny to see him walk off stage in a scene because he doesn't want to play a song he was playing like three years prior. Pure asshole behavior, but also... I think it's cool.
There's a scene towards the beginning where it is revealed to the audience that Bob has been lying about having been in a traveling circus (instead it turns out that he is actually Jewish); it never gets brought up again and I suppose the only thing we are supposed to take from it is the classic coming-to-NYC story for any rich kid pretending to be poor.
I recommend it, it's a cute little movie about a pretty cool asshole. It was a Regal Tuesday, so I was able to take the lady there for cheap. We met there a little before 7 (showtime @ 7:10). She brought a cheeseburger from 7th St and I brought some peanut butter cups and licorice from Trader Joe's down the street. I also got us a small popcorn (had enough points with my Regal acct that I was able to get it for free). We had a good time at what was probably a half-filled theater. We will definitely be attending the sequel. I want to know just exactly how the Traveling Wilburys started.
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