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Movies Review

REVIEW – Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Director Sam Raimi (the EVIL DEAD movies, the first SPIDER-MAN trilogy, and DARKMAN, to name his most relevant credits here) makes his first new film in just shy of a decade, and it’s a simultaneously convoluted yet simple quest adventure sequel to not just Scott Derrickson’s first DOCTOR STRANGE from 2016 but also a laundry list of other Marvel-branded entertainment. And somehow it largely works! It’s not as uniquely its director’s baby as, say, THOR RAGNAROK or the GUARDIANS flicks — but as with Shane Black and IRON MAN 3, you can definitely see Raimi’s fingerprints all over it. The whole thing is soaked in Raimi’s particular visual language — from the tense edits, jump scares, and creatures that recall his early horror work to inventive scene transitions and overlaps that remind me of some of his more unique visual touches from DARKMAN all those decades back.

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Movies Review

REVIEW – The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent / The Northman

Well THERE’S a tonally disparate double-feature — a comedic action riff on a beloved actor’s eccentric public persona followed by a meticulously researched and exceedingly UN-comedic riff on the story underlying one of the most famous tragic plays of all time.

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Movies Review

REVIEW – Ambulance

A preposterous pile-up of explosions, jargon, snark, and dizzying flipping & swooping drone shots that you just know director Michael Bay wishes he’d had access to for the entire duration of his career. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is Will, a decorated soldier and all-around good guy in a bad situation. His wife needs surgery, and his insurance ain’t gonna cover it. Enter his adoptive brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhall), a fast-talking bank robber who invites him onto a major score alongside a real rogues gallery of weird assholes you won’t have to remember — because the whole thing goes sideways, and in desperation the two brothers wind up hijacking the titular vehicle, with super-awesome EMT Cam (Eiza Gonzales) and a poor rookie cop they shot along the way along for the ride. It’s a hostage situation, a long car chase, AND an ongoing medical emergency all rolled into one. Cop cars crash and flip and occasionally explode, additional weird characters keep wandering in on both sides, and things just keep escalating for most of the two hour-plus running time. It does continue the Michael Bay trademark I recall from the TRANSFORMERS flicks of the occasional interjection of strange character beats; the musical moment Will and Danny share with a pair of Airpods as they’re trying to calm down on the road jumps to mind. Gyllenhall mixes up sleazy charm with bouts of furious shouting as the situation deteriorates, while most everyone else is given a single note to play — though it’s not like anyone puts in a BAD performance. It’s actually nice to see Gonzales given not just a straightforwardly heroic role — she’s THE unambiguous “good guy” in this story — but also one where the audience isn’t invited to leer at her. That’s not the kind of thing that’s on this movie’s mind in the least bit; it’s all about the limits of trust and the consequences of violence (though it does take pains to assure you there’s not any REAL consequences for most of these flipped & crashed cars, which I found amusing and ironic). Glad I made the time for it on this last day it was showing locally; don’t think those head-spinning drone shots would’ve had quite the same effect on TV.

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Movies Review

REVIEW – Everything Everywhere All At Once

Thank the heavens this was playing in Joplin this weekend; I was gonna have a small-scale fit if I had to wait for disc or streaming. Michelle Yeoh stars as prickly, stressed-out and very ordinary laundromat owner Evelyn Wang. Her relationships with her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Qwan, who you probably remember from TEMPLE OF DOOM and THE GOONIES) and daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) are strained, her estranged father (James Hong) is flying in for Chinese New Year, and she’s being audited by the IRS. In the elevator on the way to meet the IRS inspector (an amusingly dowdy and cross Jamie Lee Curtis), Waymond’s body is briefly possessed by an alternate universe counterpart who tells Evelyn that she is the key to stopping the multiverse-threatening nihilist Jobu Tupaki; using tech to access the skills she needs from other potential lifetimes, she finds that she also gets to behold and even inhabit those what-could-have-beens. What follows is an exhilarating, inventive action spectacle filled with bizarre gags, sights you’ve surely never seen before, and a warm, thoughtful core message that I think uses the big ol’ web of branching timelines idea really well. Honestly, at this point I’m just happy to see a multiverse story that isn’t trying to sell me something else or play on my nostalgia, but I’m thrilled to report that it’s also brilliant and bonkers and full of heart, with Qwan in particular being the incredibly charming key to the film’s most emotionally moving moments. Yeoh of course is also terrific throughout; it’s a long road of growth and change she’s given to play, and no step on it is not believable. My dad did offer the fair criticism that it feels long — between widely spaced act titles, digressions that are in-the-moment puzzling, one major fake-out, and a story structure that gives the viewer no familiar landmarks to orient their sense of time through most of the middle stretch, I can definitely see where he’s coming from; I do expect it to play differently in this respect on rewatch. And therein lies the big issue I have with this being in Joplin as opposed to li’l ol’ P-burg — I do rather wish I could go straight back out to give this another go. Highly, highly recommended if it’s in your neck of the woods.

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Movies Review

REVIEW – The Lost City

The short version is, I was expecting it to be funnier, but it’s still amiably charming. Aaron & Adam Nee’s film is reminiscent of ROMANCING THE STONE in the broad strokes, but sillier. Sandra Bullock is romantic adventure novelist Loretta Sage, a recluse in a bad place in her life who’s been dragged kicking & screaming out on a book tour to promote “The Lost City of D,” which is a gag deemed too obvious for them to use as the title of the film. After the first stop goes disasterously sideways, she winds up nabbed by goons in the employ of rich scumbag Abigail Fairfax (an intense, manic-grinning Daniel Radcliffe), who can tell from the well-researched bits in Sage’s latest steamy tome that she’s the only one who can lead him to a long-lost treasure located in the REAL titular lost city. Blaming himself for her storming off and winding up in this mess, her seemingly vapid book cover model Alan (Channing Tatum) forces himself into the rescue party. As they say, hijinks ensue, the majority of which you’ll have seen in the trailers. Yes, Brad Pitt is here as the real rescuer, and he’s a hoot. Bullock is doing a very fine job doing the sort of romantic comedy lead work she’s been doing for decades, with the sort of coming-out-of-her-shell, warming-to-her-costar arc you can set your watch by. Tatum’s character starts in a broad comedy himbo mode and then, like a switch was thrown, suddenly has to function as a viable romantic lead so he gets huffy about being treaded as a broad comedy himbo. Doesn’t quite work. The gags that weren’t spoiled by the trailer, many of which are found in a subplot about the misadventures of Sage’s publicist (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) making her OWN attempt at rescue, keep the film’s head above water. Radcliffe’s wild energy doesn’t help the flick’s general feeling of mismatched tones; I like what he’s doing here, but I also feel like the way he’s playing this he DEFINITELY would have shot our heroes dead at the end. Probably wait for rental or streaming unless you’re really jonesing for a trip to the cinema, but ultimately I think still worth a watch.