Reaction Shots

This summer has provided us with two bonafide hits that are likely to be considered classics sooner than later, and a small percentage of big films that didn’t quite make the splashes the studios were banking on and others anticipated. As with every season, though, there are mid-budgeted films that are outliers, near-misses, surprise hits. Here are three that I liked for different reasons, and that belly up to the bar of satisfaction, with varying degrees of success. If I ever open a bar, I may call it Satisfaction…or maybe, “The Cusp of Greatness”...I will never open a bar. In no particular order, I’ll start with Strays . I love stupid and clever and vulgar and potty humor. And when the protagonists are CGI’d dogs replete with dick and poop jokes, I’m in! I knew I was when I saw the trailers for Strays earlier this year. I also know to keep my expectations low because like so many, I’ve been burned. This time out, I figured I was in at least extremely capable hands.  Phil Lord an...

Every so often a film comes along that is so well intended, so wanting to tick off the right boxes that it can’t help but fall short. In Jules ’s case, it’s a short fall because it really isn’t that ambitious and does manage to hit some of the higher notes. Jules wants to hark back to a more fully realized film like Cocoon and maybe some other, “quirky” movies and that’s a problem; if Jules were any more quirky, it would be Zoeey Deschanel on steroids in full-blown Manic Pixie Dream Girl Mode. As it is, our little movie just sort of limps along. The general conceit is that a flying saucer - very much a fifties style vehicle - crashes into an elderly gent’s backyard, crushing fence and azaleas, from which emerges a humanoid alien that our central protagonist Milton (Ben Kingsley doing what he can with pretty little) christens “Jules”. Milton lives alone, in his late seventies; his daughter, a veterinarian, lives in the same town and is concerned about his forgetfulness.  Milton’s ...

  Screenshot of my Regal account I’ll be clear: I love Regal Unlimited! As someone who loves and writes about cinema and hits the theater more than twice and very often more times, a month, the 21.99 (+taxes) is more than worth it. What follows is less about Regal Theaters, perhaps, and more about expectation and the unconscious desire for reward. I’ve been at Ruby status for I don’t know how long but as the screenshot shows, I have only three visits to go before I get Diamond status. I emailed Regal and received a terribly unclear email that didn’t really address what I was saying and pushed back with “multiple visits a day don’t count”; but this was not the issue. The quandary is why, after all this time and more than three visits - often within a month (sometimes a week), am I still languishing at Ruby? Moreover, according to Regal's Terms, you reach Diamond "After 20+ visits per year." This year, I have logged 47 visits on my spreadsheet, not including yesterday's...

Having completed and suffered the twin humiliations of Waltzes from Vienna and the critical and box-office failure of Rich and Strange , Hitchcock found a new lease on life out from under the foundering British International Pictures. What happened next wasn’t just a restoration of his reputation but a leap forward into the Hitchcock that would find his full flowering in Hollywood with newer technology, larger budgets, and a broader stable of actors to choose from.  If I’ve devoted more time to the pre-Thriller Sextet (Donald Spoto’s coinage), it’s to point up the contrast of what a Hitchcock following his instincts in a more challenging genre would look like against one that was under contract and had to work in a proscribed environment. We’ve seen what happens when a director gives up, cedes power and/or hope, or just capitulates to the demands of producers or the masses.  At the same time, we’ve seen how Hitchcock could employ his ample and sure talent to - in contemporary...

Out of the gate, when I first heard Amy Schumer was working on a Barbie movie, I leaped ahead trying to wrap my mind around the bits that Schumer would frame. There'd be plenty of innuendo, some shrewd observational and slapstick comedy, and likely, a sure thread of subversion throughout. What I couldn't figure out is what would drive the plot? A Barbie come to life like some out of control mecha? An Ex Machina with Barbie in place of Eva?  Then the project halted as Schumer and Warners parted company over creative differences. Then, Greta Gerwig's name shows up attached to the project. And Noah Baumbach. And Margot Robbie. And Ryan Gosling and before long it sounded like someone's idea of an artists' loft party gone out of control. And all of it somehow involving the IP of one of the most reviled and/or lauded products from Mattel. The convocation of two of our finest auteurs with Hollywood royalty sounded like a match made in some Warholian heaven. After seeing t...