July 26, 202
After much consternation this spring about the state of the theatrical box-office (and more “Movies are dead” obituaries than we can count), the industry has been thriving recently. Of course, the usual suspects – animation and horror – have helped quell fears that people would stop going to theaters. Inside Out 2 (which just passed Barbie in worldwide box-office), Despicable Me 4 and two movies I’ll cover this week had very strong openings, but not everything worked. Unfortunately, Kevin Costner could not recapture the magic of his 1990s Western talents, but there was a 1990s homage that came out last weekend that I absolutely loved. And if you’re looking for my thoughts on the new MCU movie, Deadpool and Wolverine, you’ll have to look elsewhere for those hot takes. I’ve never been a Ryan Reynolds fan, and that movie is not for me. I am thrilled that it has finally been released, so that I no longer have to see the trailer in a theater ever again.
OK, on to this week’s list, starting in the world of horror.
Bringing Out the Dread – Longlegs and Oddity
Nicolas Cage loves to work. Well, to be clear, due to questionable spending habits over the years, he needs to work. But, you have to admire his stamina. In the last twenty years, he has made dozens of movies. Some of them are quickly forgotten, banished to the world of “video on demand.” Some are very good, like his performance in last year’s Dream Scenario and 2021’s Pig. And some of his choices are bat-shit crazy characters like last year’s Renfield, in which he played Dracula in a comedy-horror that had its ups and downs. Cage is back this year, playing the titular Longlegs, about a serial killer being hunted by the FBI, directed by Osgood Perkins, the son of actor Anthony Perkins, who knew something about playing a killer.
Cage is featured in the headline cast, but the story is really focused on FBI agent Lee Harker who has a special ability (maybe clairvoyance?) in solving cases. She is assigned to find the serial killer who has been murdering families across Oregon. What ensues is a very good story as Harker deals with her own childhood trauma while trying to find Longlegs before he kills again. Cage is more of a secondary character in Longlegs, but really makes the most of every scene, proving he can do anything on film. I was particularly impressed with Maika Monroe as Harker, playing the agent with a social awkwardness that we rarely see with this kind of character. If you are a horror fan, you may remember Monroe as the lead in the excellent 2014 horror movie It Follows, which will be getting a sequel next year with Monroe returning.
I thought Longlegs was very good, but I found the third act a bit messy, after an excellent start to the movie. Perkins definitely has some talent – from the opening scene, you will feel a sense of dread that lasts throughout the film and we get some great jump scares, and a few terrifying scenes with Cage working his magic. If this one reminds you of The Silence of the Lambs, it’s not a coincidence. Perkins said that it was his inspiration for this story, and while Longlegs doesn’t measure up to that masterpiece, it’s still a very good scary movie. Longlegs is now playing in theaters.
This was a popular month for horror movies as I also checked out a small film featuring no actors I recognized, written and directed by someone I never heard of, but liked a lot. Oddity is set in Ireland and tells the story of a blind woman trying to find out what really happened to her twin sister, who was murdered in her home a year earlier. Darcy is a clairvoyant who deals in antiques that may or may not have mystical powers. Her sister Dani was married to a psychiatrist and one of the patients at his hospital was accused of murdering her. Darcy is not convinced that’s what happened, especially after learning the husband has a new girlfriend. So, she travels to the house where the crime was committed to investigate. She also brings along a creepy wooden statue, described as a family heirloom.
Oddity is another film that is filled with dread and suspense and will keep you on the edge of your seat, as long as you remain engaged with what’s happening on the screen. I found the opening scene to be very well executed and it roped me into the story immediately. While there are fantastical / supernatural elements to Oddity, I found the execution to be better than what I saw in Longlegs. Said another way, I think writer-director Damian McCarthy stuck the landing. It’s also worth mentioning Carolyn Bracken, who played the twin sisters so effectively that I didn’t even realize it was the same actress until the credits rolled. Worth putting on your list for the upcoming October scary movie season, Oddity should be available to rent on demand in August.
An Admirable Effort – Maxxxine
I love filmmakers taking bold swings, which brings us to our next movie. Back in 2022, director Ti West released X, a horror picture set in 1979 about a group of people making an adult film at a remote farm in Texas. The movie starred Mia Goth and was an excellent take on the slasher genre. While on location in New Zealand making X during the pandemic, West had an idea for a prequel story set fifty years earlier. Since the cast and crew were stuck there, and film production across the world had basically shut down, he got approval from the studio to keep working and make Pearl, which was released six months after X. Now, West and Goth are back with Maxxxine, set in 1980s Los Angeles.
Goth plays the titular character, who survived the carnage of X, and has moved on with her life. She is pursuing acting roles in more conventional movies, but has received skepticism about her past work in adult films. She nails her audition in the opening scene and is offered the role in a new slasher movie. Her excitement is tempered by threats she starts receiving from someone who knows about her presence at the Texas killings. She is also living in Los Angeles at the time of the Night Stalker murders, so tension is very high.
I kind of had mixed feelings about the concluding film of West’s trilogy. He does a great job in bringing the 80s vibe (set locations, costumes, and a killer soundtrack) to the screen, but I found the story to be a little lacking. It could be that I was so impressed with X and Pearl that this new entry had a lot to live up to. I just felt that the ending was a little flat and the big reveal of the killer was a bit of a letdown for me. That being said, I admire what West accomplished with this trilogy and Goth is outstanding in all three films. I’m hoping that she continues to make bold choices and her movies bring her to a wider audience. With her acting talent, she deserves to be a household name. Maxxxine is now playing in theaters and will be available to rent on demand on August 2nd
This Could Have Been (Should Have Been?) a TV Show – Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1
If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you know I am a big movie fan, especially the theatrical experience. So, it may sound blasphemous to suggest that Kevin Costner’s new Western epic might have been better served as a television series. Hear me out. Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is the first in a four-part series of films that Costner is planning. I use the word “planning” because the future of the series is in doubt. The first part was released in late June to tepid reviews and lackluster box-office results. Part two was scheduled to be released in mid-August, but was recently pulled from the release calendar. Costner is reportedly working on part three now, and has a script done for part four. He has financed a lot of the production cost himself, but also has outside (rumored Saudi) investors who have helped him out. It’s also unclear how much money he still needs to finish the series. When we talk about a filmmaker taking a chance on themselves, this is the ultimate example.
Adding to Costner’s stress is that the filming schedule of Horizon led to conflicts with his commitments to Yellowstone, which devolved into an ugly (and public) pissing match between Costner and Taylor Sheridan, the creator of the television series. He decided to move forward without Costner, wrap up the Yellowstone story this fall, and focus on his other series, which may include another Yellowstone spin-off. So, in addition to delivering a movie with disappointing box-office results, Costner lost his regular gig on television. Yikes.
So, is this movie any good? Well, for what it is, I actually liked it. Look, Costner knows how to make a Western. You don’t win Best Picture and Best Director (for 1990’s Dances with Wolves) if you don’t know what you’re doing. His 1994 film Open Range was also very good. Horizon – Chapter 1 looks exquisite, especially on a big screen. The story is pretty compelling – about several groups of people migrating west, shortly after the Civil War. The biggest problem (other than the three hour runtime) is that the story itself doesn’t feel like a movie. It feels like the first few episodes of a television series. There are so many characters to keep track of and there is very little closure at the end. In fact, I was very confused at the end trying to understand what was happening when I realized that the last few minutes were a sizzle reel of scenes from future chapters. But there wasn’t a title card that said, “On the next episode of Horizon.” So, look – it’s worth checking out if you are a fan of Yellowstone. It’s not the same characters, but it’s the same vibe. And I hope Costner releases all of these movies as I’ll gladly go see them. We’ll see if he can find the money and magic to keep this passion project going. Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is now available to rent on demand.
Two Different Types of Nostalgia – Fly Me to the Moon and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
It may come as a surprise to you that there was a new film in theaters this month starring Scarlett Johannson and Channing Tatum, two megawatt movie stars. Fly Me to the Moon is a period-piece romantic comedy set during NASA’s efforts to beat the Soviet Union to the Moon. The film is a production by Apple Studios and reportedly cost over $100 million, so you would think there would be a heavy marketing push to get people to theaters to see it, but we saw just the opposite. No heavy promotion and tepid audience reaction – instead, they went to see Longlegs.
It’s unclear to a lot of people in Hollywood what Apple’s film and television strategy is. They have their streaming app (Apple TV+) which has delivered some strong television shows (including Ted Lasso, Severance, and the phenomenal Presumed Innocent that just wrapped up) and have had hit or miss results in film. The studio did win Best Picture for CODA and Killers of the Flower Moon was critically revered, but did very little business at the box office and cost Apple a lot of money. The studio is losing a fortune on these projects and there was a recent report in Bloomberg that they will be scaling back their spending, even if their parent company makes plenty of cash from selling phones and computers. Time will tell what happens with this little hobby of Apple.
In Fly Me to the Moon, Tatum plays the flight director at NASA, spearheading the Apollo 11 mission and battling the waning public interest in the space program. In comes advertising specialist (straight out of a late season episode of Mad Men) played by Johannson to punch up the likability of NASA and appeal to the American spirit. Her efforts are successful and things start to pick up. She is then instructed by the secret government agent who recruited her (Woody Harrelson in a very good performance) to create an alternate recreation of the moon landing on a soundstage in case the real mission fails. Cue the conspiracy (and Stanley Kubrick) jokes.
Overall, if Fly Me to the Moon stuck to these two storylines, I would have liked it a lot more than I did. Not to say it’s bad – it’s a perfectly fine romantic / workplace comedy with some great 1960s nostalgia. It just has too many side plots involving lobbying politicians for funding, unnecessary side characters, and an ill-advised backstory for Johannson’s character that was distracting to me. Seeing as the film is overstuffed with plot, you can feel the 130 minute runtime. That being said, if you like these actors and are interested in a light comedy, it’s worth checking out when it’s available at home. Fly Me to the Moon is playing in theaters and will be streaming on Apple TV+ in the next few months.
Now for a different kind of nostalgia that made me long for the earlier days. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is the fourth installment of the franchise starring Eddie Murphy as the wisecracking Detroit cop sent to Beverly Hills to investigate a crime and play the “fish out of water” for lots of laughs. The 1984 original film is an all-time classic. The sequel released three years later was excellent. Not as good as the original, but it captured a lot of the same magic. The third installment released in 1994 is an all-out disaster. I watched it for the first time earlier this year for my 1994 retrospective and was stunned at how bad it was. 30 years later, Netflix convinced Murphy to get back to work as Foley.
The new film has Axel traveling back to his second home when he hears that his estranged daughter is in danger while defending an accused cop killer. Axel’s old buddy Billy (Judge Reinhold) convinces Axel to come out, but then he disappears. So Axel and his daughter Jane (Taylour Paige) team up to investigate the cop’s murder and find Billy. Along the way, we see all the old faces (Paul Reiser, John Ashton, and even Bronson Pinchot) from the earlier films, as well as Kevin Bacon as a police captain and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a detective who previously dated Jane.
This movie has a nice cast and it’s great to be reunited with the old gang and even some songs from the first two films – we open with Glenn Frey’s The Heat is On and also get the Pointer Sisters’ Neutron Dance. So, the nostalgia is pretty good and there are a few fun chase sequences, but the story is a little thin, and the Foley character is much tamer than the first two films. I get it – Murphy is 63 and would feel foolish doing bits from a movie released 40 years ago. He is funny in this new installment, just not nearly as raucous, but that’s ok – it’s not that kind of movie. I had a perfectly fine time with Axel and the gang – it’s not nearly as bad as the disastrous third film, but it will probably make you long for the original. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is now streaming on Netflix.
Here’s How a Prequel Can Work – A Quiet Place: Day One
Prequels are tricky. If you are telling the story set before a beloved film, you can face the backlash of a devoted fan base. Just ask George Lucas. While his Star Wars prequel trilogy was underwhelming, the Rogue One prequel was outstanding, thanks to a script by world-class screenwriter Tony Gilroy. The real challenge in making a prequel is to keep the story compelling, even though we know the events that occurred in the original. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a perfect example. The end of the movie leads us right up to Mad Max: Fury Road (even showing scenes from it, which I think was a bad decision). Yes, there is no suspense about whether Furiosa will survive the danger she faces, but director George Miller still made an excellent movie because he created an exciting story about the character, even if a lot of people didn’t show up to see it in a theater.
Last month saw the third movie in what is now the Quiet Place universe. The first two films were a linear storyline about a family dealing with a world overtaken by aliens who hunt via their supersonic hearing. The parents were played by real-life couple John Krasinski (who also directed) and Emily Blunt and the films were not only box-office hits, they were scary as hell and well made. Krasinski created a new kind of scary movie that audiences responded to. For A Quiet Place: Day One, he stepped aside as a director, but helped craft the story with Michael Sarnoski, who took over duties behind the camera. It was his second film after the excellent Pig, with Nicolas Cage.
For this installment, we moved from the rural setting of the first two films to Manhattan, one of the loudest places on Earth, not exactly the place to be when this type of alien invades the planet. Our protagonist is Sam, who is dying of cancer and just wants to get a good slice of pizza while on a field trip with other patients from her assisted living facility. Then the aliens strike and the world is turned upside down. Sam is played by Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o and gives a fantastic performance. These are not easy movies to act in – you have to do so much with your body movement and facial expressions, since there is little dialogue. Sam meets up with a British law student (Joseph Quinn) and the two of them (along with Sam’s cat) navigate the streets of Manhattan to find safety.
I had no expectations going into this film, as sometimes a movie like this can seem like a rehash of a previous story, but I thought it was excellent. It doesn’t fall into the prequel trap because we are in a different setting with entirely different characters. But they are connected by the same event that impacted the world, so we have just enough continuity to understand the basic premise, without unnecessary exposition. The first two films took place long after the invasion, so we were already in the middle of the post-apocalyptic world. Aside from a brief sequence at the beginning of the second film where we see Krasinski and Blunt on the day of the invasion, we had little time to see the initial reaction to what happened. And that’s what we get with this new installment.
A Quiet Place: Day One has its scary moments, but this is primarily an acting showcase for Nyong’o and Quinn. They portray characters that are forced together by a terrifying event, and develop a friendship that helps each of them get through each minute of their horrific experience. Also, if I must say – great acting by the cat! Seriously, A Quiet Place: Day One was a worthy addition to the canon that Krasinski helped create in 2018, and Sarnoski showed a lot of talent as a filmmaker. Combining special effects and creating tension-filled terror is tough to balance with a thoughtful story about two strangers becoming friends, but he pulled it off. I’m excited to see what he does next and what Krasinski has in store for the next film in this series. A Quiet Place: Day One is still playing in theaters and will be available to rent on demand next week.
Hell Yeah! – Twisters
Exactly the kind of big-budget summer blockbuster you want to see on the big screen with a bucket of popcorn on your lap. If you read the title of Twisters too quickly, you might think this is a remake of the 1996 blockbuster Twister. It’s been referred to as a “legacy sequel” (think Top Gun: Maverick) but I consider this a “spiritual sequel.” None of the characters from the first movie have anything to do with those in this installment, although there are a few subtle nods to the original. So, if you never saw Twister, or wonder if you need to rewatch it before you see Twisters, don’t worry. This is a brand new story, and while not a “remake” in the strictest sense, there are similar storyline beats that you might recognize.
As the film opens, we meet a group of storm chasers and friends from college, led by Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones, an up and coming English actress who was excellent in the Hulu series Normal People), studying tornadoes. A disaster occurs while they are on the hunt one day and Kate retreats to New York city to get away from her trauma. She’s taken a job at a science agency studying weather when she is visited by an old friend who recruits her back to their native Oklahoma to help his team. That friend is Javi (Anthony Ramos, who may recognize from Hamilton) and he has investors backing his military-based technology to create 3D images of tornados, as long as they can get close to them. Kate reluctantly gives him one week of her time and when she gets to town, she meets a group of “tornado wranglers.” They are led by Tyler (Glen Powell, continuing an impressive hot streak over the last few years) and chase tornados while filming videos for their YouTube channel.
What transpires over the course of Twisters has some familiarity with the 1996 version. Serious vs. fun tornado chasers. A woman studying science as a way to overcome grief from her past. And most importantly, incredible action sequences. In fact, due primarily to advances in film technology, this movie is a lot better than the original. The action sequences are amazing and harrowing at times, where you are left wondering what will happen to our main characters, and transfixed at the power of nature. One sequence, in particular, at a rodeo rivals the original film’s thrilling set piece at a drive-in theater. Speaking of which, the ending of Twisters features a scene where townspeople are ushered into a movie theater to protect them from an approaching tornado. Movie theaters can save us? “On the nose” symbolism? But, I kind of love it?
Powell and Edgar-Jones have great chemistry together as their relationship evolves from rivals to partners, when they realize they can pair up to create a tool to help diffuse tornados. Is the science wonky? Probably, but I’m not a science guy, so I just went along for the ride and enjoyed myself. The film also features a deep supporting cast, much like the original, who provide enough comic relief and scientific exposition to propel the story. But the real star here is the action, which brings me to the film’s director.
Lee Isaac Chung is not a household name, but he was nominated for Best Director for 2020’s wonderful family movie Minari, which also received a Best Picture nod. Not exactly who you would think of for a mega-blockbuster disaster movie, but damn if I’m not impressed with what he delivered. Much like Sarnoski’s advancement from Pig to A Quiet Place: Day One, I’m thrilled that a studio would hand over the keys (and a big budget) to someone who has the talent to combine a good story with dynamite special effects, and has an eye for casting a quality group of actors. If you’re looking for the movie of the summer (non-Marvel category), then look no further than Twisters, now playing in theaters.
One More Thing – Skywalkers: A Love Story
Earlier this year in my 2024 movie preview, I covered a documentary that I watched as part of the virtual Sundance Film Festival. I’m happy to report that Skywalkers: A Love Story is now streaming on Netflix. It’s a documentary about two Russian rooftoppers, who scale buildings while filming videos for their social media followers. They are also a couple, so we see the dynamics of their relationship, along with breathtaking footage of their adventures, which most of the time involves sneaking past security to gain access to the buildings they scale. If you are afraid of heights (like I am), this one may make your palms sweat, but it’s an excellent documentary worth checking out. Skywalkers: A Love Story is now streaming on Netflix.
That’s all for this month. I hope you found some interesting movies to check out or add to your watchlist. I’ll be back next month with thoughts on some more new releases and news from the movie world. Thanks for reading and if you’d like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe below.
A great blog Steve!