Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the horror film “Five Nights at Freddy’s” (based on the video game series) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A down-on-his-luck man, who is in a custody battle with his aunt over his underage sister, takes a job as a security guard at an abandoned pizza place that has some sinister animatronic robots.
Culture Audience: “Five Nights at Freddy’s” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the video game series, but it’s another movie in a long list of movies based on video games that fail to be inventive or interesting.
Josh Hutcherson and Piper Rubio in “Five Nights at Freddy’s” (Photo by Patti Perret/Universal Pictures)
“Five Nights at Freddy’s” is a horror movie that’s nearly two hours of boredom, odd pacing and weak jokes. The shallow animatronic robots in this dreadful dud have more personality than most of the human characters. “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is based on a popular video game series of the same name, but the video games offer much more entertainment than this terrible and disappointing movie adaptation.
Directed by Emma Tammi, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” (which takes place in an unnamed U.S. city) has some occasionally eerie scenes, but nothing is truly terrifying in this movie, which is really just about a showdown with animatronic robots that look like human-sized stuffed animals. The movie builds up suspense then grinds it to a halt with dull scenes that go nowhere, and then repeats this pattern until there’s no hope that the movie will get any better. All of the characters speak and act unrealistically. Tammi co-wrote the terrible “Five Nights at Freddy’s” screenplay with Scott Cawthon (who created the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” video games) and Seth Cuddeback.
In the movie “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” Mike Schmidt (played by Josh Hutcherson) is a man in his 30s who has custody of his 10-year-old orphaned sister Abby (played by Piper Rubio), who has a tense relationship with him because Abby would rather draw pictures than talk to Mike. In the beginning of “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” Mike is financially broke and has been recently fired from his job, which is something that has happened to him many times in his erratic employment history. Mike is in danger of losing custody of Abby to his mean-spirited aunt Jane (played by Mary Stuart Masterson), who (according to Mike) doesn’t really care about Abby but only wants the government payments that Jane would get for having custody of this orphaned child.
Mike meets with a callous career counselor named Steve Ragland (played by Matthew Lillard) at an employment agency. Steve tells Mike about a less-than-ideal job offer: being a low-paid, night security guard at the abandoned and run-down Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place, which used to be a popular family-oriented restaurant in the 1980s. Steve explains to Mike that the owner of this dilapidated pizzeria has a hard time letting go of the building and refuses to demolish it or renovate it. Mike is wary of taking this job, but he changes his mind and accepts the offer because he’s desperate for money. When Mike is at work, Abby is looked after by a babysitter named Max (played by Kat Conner Sterling), who hasn’t been paid by Mike in a while.
It should come as no surprise that Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place mascot robots (which have names like Freddy Fazbear, Foxy, Chica, and Bonnie) come to life and cause terror. That’s in between Mike falling asleep on the job and having guilty nightmares about the time when he was 12 years old and his younger brother Garrett was kidnapped during a family camping trip while Mike was supposed to be looking after Garrett. The kidnapper and Garrett were never found.
Five children who disappeared from Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place (the reason why the business closed) appear to Mike in these dreams. These kids don’t have names in the movie, and are portrayed by Grant Feely, Asher Colton Spence, David Huston Doty, Liam Hendrix and Jophielle Love. Only one of these children (played by Feely) actually talks to Mike. The scenes with the kids staring at Mike and sometime moving in unison are creepy but not very scary.
Mike’s nightmares look like they could be an intriguing clues to a mystery, but they end up being mostly time-wasting scenes that don’t go anywhere. When Mike gets wounded in these nightmares (such when he falls down or when one of the kids slashes him with a hook), Mike wakes up with the same wounds. In these dream sequences, Wyatt Parker has the role of 12-year-old Mike, Lucas Grant has the role of Garrett, and Jessica Blackmore and Garrett Hines have the roles of Mike’s unnamed parents.
When Mike and Abby find out that these robots have a life of their own, their human reactions are ludicrous. Abby discovers these robots when she accompanies Mike to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Place, after babysitter Max stops returning Mike’s phone calls, and he can’t find another babysitter in time. Mike befriends a police officer named Vanessa (played by Elizabeth Lail), who apparently has nothing better to do but show up alone and hang out with Mike at this desolate pizzeria. It all goes downhill from there and makes this stinker of a movie a complete waste of time for anyone expecting an entertaining horror flick.
Universal Pictures will release “Five Nights at Freddy’s” in U.S. cinemas on October 27, 2023, the same date that the movie will premiere on Peacock.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Massachusetts, from December 1970 to January 1971, the comedy/drama film “The Holdovers” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and a few Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A professor, a student and a cook (who all are associated with an elite boarding school for boys) form an unlikely bond over their loneliness and personal problems during a Christmas holiday break.
Culture Audience: “The Holdovers” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of director Alexander Payne, star Paul Giamatti and above-average movies about unique characters who are find themselves spending time together under unexpected circumstances.
Dominic Sessa and Paul Giamatti in “The Holdovers” (Photo by Seacia Pavao/Focus Features)
Filled with acerbic wit and superb talent, “The Holdovers” is an engaging comedy/drama about finding personal connections with unexpected people. It’s more than a Christmas movie. It’s an authentic portrait of humanity. “The Holdovers” had its world premiere at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival and then had its Canadian premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), where it came in second place for TIFF’s top prize of the People’s Choice Award.
Directed by Alexander Payne and written by David Hemingson, “The Holdovers” takes place in Massachusetts, from December 1970 to January 1971. (The movie was filmed on location in Massachusetts.) “The Holdovers” is a very impressive feature-film debut for screenwriter Hemingson, whose previous experience has been in television, with credits that include the TV series “Whiskey Cavalier” and “Kitchen Confidential.” “The Holdovers” was originally conceived as a pilot (test episode) for a potential TV series.
In “The Holdovers,” the three characters at the center of the story all have a connection to an elite boarding school for boys called Barton Academy, which is located in an unnamed suburb of Boston. Adjunct professor of ancient history Paul Hunham (played by Paul Giamatti), a longtime Barton Academy faculty member, is grouchy, strict and very demanding. Angus Tully (played by Dominic Sessa), a 17-year-old student, excels in Paul’s class, but Angus is a moody and rebellious loner who is often rude and sarcastic to people. Mary Lamb (played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the chief chook at Barton Academy, is sassy but compassionate and generous.
Through a series of circumstances, this unlikely trio of misfits find themselves alone for the Christmas holiday season at Barton Academy, while almost everyone else has gone away on vacation. The people who are left behind at Barton Academy during this vacation period have the unflattering nickame of “the holdovers.” It’s considered a stigma to be stuck on campus during this holiday break, because the assumption is that people in this situation don’t have any loved ones or friends who want to be with them for the holiday season.
Paul, Angus and Mary find out that they are all in emotional pain, in different and similar ways. Paul is a very cynical bachelor with a troubled past. Paul lives alone, has never been married, and he has no children. Angus (who is an only child) feels abandoned and neglected by his mother Judy Clotfelter (played by Gillian Vigman), who would rather spend this holiday season on a honeymoon with her new husband Stanley Clotfelter (played by Tate Donovan).
Mary is a single mother who is grieving over the recent death of her college-age son (and only child) Curtis, a Barton Academy alum who was drafted into the Vietnam War and died in combat. Curtis’ father Harold, who was Mary’s fiancé, died in a shipyard job accident when Curtis was very young. Harold and Curtis both died before they were the age of 25. Mary doesn’t want a lot of people to see her suffering, so she’s been somewhat avoiding her loved ones, including her boyfriend Danny (played by Naheem Garcia) and her sister Peggy (played by Juanita Pearl), who lives in Boston.
“The Holdovers” has sharp writing, directing and acting throughout the movie, but it takes a while before the movie gets to the best scenes. The first third of “The Holdovers” is a series of scenes establishing the personalities of the three main characters, while the last two-thirds of the movie unpeel some of the layers of their lives, thereby revealing flaws, secrets and emotional damage that they’ve experienced. As already shown in the trailer for “The Holdovers,” there’s a point in the story where Angus and Paul spend time alone together, and Paul starts to feel like a fatherly mentor to Angus.
Giamatti has played many curmudgeonly and jaded characters before (including in Payne’s Oscar-winning 2004 dramedy “Sideways”), but Giamatti’s performance in “The Holdovers” is probably the best of the bunch. Sessa makes a very admirable feature-film debut as the complicated Angus. Randolph gives a performance that is both amusing and heartbreaking.
The first third of the movie shows these three characters within the context of how they want to present themselves to other people in Barton Academy culture. But as more Barton Academy people go away for the holidays, the vulnerabilities of Paul, Angus and Mary start to become more apparent. And these three characters become more open among themselves in showing these vulnerabilities.
There are some interesting side characters in “The Holdovers,” but their impact on the story isn’t as powerful as the relationship that evolves between Paul, Angus and Mary. Barton Academy employee Miss Lydia Crane (played by Carrie Preston) is one of the few people at the school who likes unpopular Paul. She invites Paul and Angus to her home for a crowded holiday party, where Paul and Angus start to see different sides to each other.
Paul’s boss Dr. Hardy Woodrup (played by Andrew Garman), who is Barton Academy’s headmaster, is often frustrated with stubborn and ill-tempered Paul, who is harsh and tactless in the way he communicates. However, Paul prides himself on having high ethical standards: He is the type of professor who doesn’t give special treatment to his students, based on the clout and income of the students’ parents. An early scene in the movie shows Hardy and Paul having a tense conversation, where Hardy says he disagrees with Paul’s past decision to flunk a student son of a senator, who is one of the school’s biggest donors.
Angus has a contentious or aloof attitude toward his fellow students. The student he clashes with the most is a racist bully named Teddy Kountze (played by Brady Hepner), who is a spoiled and entitled rich kid. Other student characters who are featured in “The Holdovers” include a long-haired star athlete named Jason Smith (played by Michael Provost), an amiable introvert named Alex Ollerman (played by Ian Dolley) and a quiet immigrant named Ye-Joon Park (played by Jim Kaplan). Alex is a holdover because his parents are Mormon missionaries who are busy traveling. Ye-Joon is a holdover because is parents are in Korea, and they think he is too young to travel by himself to Korea.
“The Holdovers” is filmed as if it’s a time capsule from the early 1970s (the opening title card sequence is a tribute to this era of cinema), but the themes explored in this gem of a film are timeless. It’s the type of story that doesn’t need to be made into a TV series, as it was originally conceived. The conclusion of this film is just right the way that it is.
Focus Features will release “The Holdovers” in select U.S. cinemas on October 27, 2023, with a wider expansion to more U.S. cinemas on November 10, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on November 28, 2023. Peacock will premiere “The Holdovers” on December 29, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in England, the comedy/drama film “Medusa Deluxe” features a racially diverse (white, black, Latin and Asian) cast of characters portraying the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Hairstylists and their associates, who are preparing for a hairstyling competition, try to solve the mystery of who recently murdered a nearby salon owner.
Culture Audience: “Medusa Deluxe” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching offbeat murder mysteries with unusual characters.
Darrell D’Silva in “Medusa Deluxe” (Photo by Robbie Ryan/A24)
“Medusa Deluxe” is an ambitious and interesting but erratic murder mystery happening during a hairstyling contest. This frenetic dramedy would have worked better as a stage play. The characters are memorable though. The best scenes outshine any flaws. “Medusa Deluxe” made the rounds at several film festivals in 2022, including the Locarno Film Festival, where “Medusa Deluxe” had its world premiere. The film is acerbic, often weird, and filmed like it takes place in a neon-lit underground nightclub, where the amateur sleuths are neurotic hairdressers and their associates.
“Medusa Deluxe” is the feature-film debut of writer/director Thomas Hardiman. The movie is definitely not intended to have the same appeal as blockbuster films. It’s the type of quirky independent film where after the first 15 minutes, viewers will either be intrigued enough to want to watch more or will be turned off completely. Some of the characters talk in thick British accents (without English-language subtitles) and use a lot of British slang, so it might be difficult for some viewers to understand certain parts of the movie’s dialogue.
Filmed as if it’s in real time, “Medusa Deluxe” begins in a hair salon, just a few hours before the contest is set to begin. The movie takes place in an unnamed city in England. The people in the salon are abuzz about the death of a rival salon owner named Mosca (played by John Alan Roberts, shown in flashbacks), whose salon is nearby. Mosca had a particularly gruesome murder: He was scalped. No one in the salon seems to know exactly when Mosca was murdered, but they assume (based on what they’ve heard about the condition of his body), the murdered happened in the past 24 hours.
The people in the salon are waiting for investigating police to arrive to interview them. The hairstylist who is the loudest and most volatile in this group is salon worker Cleve (played by Clare Perkins), who is paranoid and superstitious about how this murder will affect her life and her chances in the upcoming contest. Cleve says that her father told her, “Evil will triumph” and “They follow me, dead people.”
Cleve had a tension-filled relationship with Mosca. She tells a story about hitting him over the head once with a shampoo bottle. What Cleve doesn’t say out loud right away but is pretty obvious is that because of her known history of conflicts with Mosca, she might become the prime suspect in his murder. Cleve can’t hide her nervousness about what she will say when the police arrive.
Also in the salon is hairstylist Kendra (played by Harriet Webb), who is another person who doesn’t get along well with Cleve. There’s been some gossip that Kendra and Mosca were conspiring to fix the contest so that Kendra would win. Not surprisingly, Cleve is furious about it. But does that mean Kendra killed Mosca to keep him quiet?
Another hair stylist is Divine (played by Kayla Meikle), who spreads gossip and misinformation, not necessarily to be malicious but because she likes to act as if she knows more than other people do. Three female models who are getting their hair styled for the contest are Timba (played by Anita-Joy Uwajeh), Angie (played by Lilit Lesser) and Etsy (played by Debris Stevenson), whose personalities aren’t as forceful as the hairstylists. Timba is the one who found Mosca’s body. Etsy starts to become suspicious of Kendra.
Some other characters might or might not be persons of interest in this murder. Mosca’s live-in boyfriend Angel (played by Luke Pasqualino), a very flamboyant Colombian immigrant, shows up and makes it known to everyone how much he is grieving. Mosca and Angel have an infant son named Pablo, whom Angel carries around with him, because apparently Angel couldn’t find a babysitter.
It turns out that Mosca was having a secret affair with a man named Rene (played by Darrell D’Silva), the director of a regional hairstyling competition who bankrolled Mosca’s salon. And that revelation adds more potential suspects to the list. Could Rene or Angel be the murderer? There’s also a socially awkward security guard named Gac (played by Heider Ali), who lurks about and seems to want to become friends with Rene.
“Medusa Deluxe” is often a cacophony of arguments, suspicions and resentments that erupt between this group of people. Although they want to know who killed Mosca, the hairstyling contest isn’t far from their minds. No one wants to drop out of the contest because of the murder.
Some of the fun in watching “Medusa Deluxe” is seeing the wild hairstyles that are being created for the contest. The styling of the hair is treated like avant-garde works of art, with wiring and extra materials infused in the hair to achieve the illusion that the hair is some type of art sculpture. (“The bigger, the better” is apparently one of the standards.)
The acting performances in “Medusa Deluxe” are adequate, with the exception of Pasqualino, whose over-the-top mugging for the camera looks amateurish and quickly gets annoying in how it becomes a shallow stereotype of gay men. However, “Medusa Deluxe” is unusual enough to hold the interest of people who don’t mind watching a bunch of unconventional people trying to solve a mystery while under the pressure of being in an upcoming contest that can affect their careers. The answer to the mystery isn’t too surprising, but there are a few clever surprises along the way.
A24 released “Medusa Deluxe” in select U.S. cinemas, digital and VOD on August 11, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the San Francisco Bay Area and in New York City, the comedy film “Shortcomings” (based on the graphic novel of the same name) features an Asian and white cast of characters portraying the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: After an aspiring filmmaker and his girlfriend agree to take a break from each other while she does an internship in New York City, he and his semi-closeted lesbian best friend have various experiences in the dating scene.
Culture Audience: “Shortcomings” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching movies about single people looking for love and having a lot of quip-filled banter about their relationships.
Ally Maki and Justin H. Min in “Shortcomings” (Photo by Jon Pack/Sony Pictures Classics)
“Shortcomings” avoids romantic comedy clichés by not focusing on who’s going to be in a happy romance at the end. It’s a mostly entertaining character study of about a cynical grouch and his lesbian best friend, as they navigate the dating scene. “Shortcomings” is neither a classic film, nor is it an awful movie that’s a waste of time. It’s somewhere in between, as a movie that’s a fairly good option for people who are inclined to like movies where most of the scenes are people talking about themselves and their love lives.
Randall Park, who is best known as a comedic actor (he was a star of the 2015-2020 comedy TV series “Fresh Off the Boat”), makes his feature-film directorial debut with “Shortcomings,” a witty and occasionally sitcom-ish examination of unmarried people with a jaded attitude that often masks the hope of finding true love. (Park has a cameo in the movie as a waiter named Ji-Hun.) “Shortcomings” is based on the 2007 graphic novel of the same name by Adrian Tomine, who adapted the book into the “Shortcomings” screenplay. “Shortcomings” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and its New York premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival.
In the beginning of “Shortcomings,” aspiring filmmaker Ben Takanaka (played by Justin H. Min) and his girlfriend Miko Higashi (played by Ally Maki), who are both Japanese American and in their late 20s, are watching a romantic comedy at a movie theater in Berkeley, California, where they live. The movie they are watching is an unimaginative ripoff of “Crazy Rich Asians,” and it’s playing as part of the East Bay Asian American Film Festival. Miko is one of the programmers of the festival, so she’s thrilled that this movie is there.
After the screening in the theater lobby, Miko says to Ben: “As a community, we waited a long time to see ourselves reflected in a …” Ben then interrupts and finishes the sentence by saying, “A garish, mainstream rom com that glorifies the capitalistic fantasy of validation through wealth and materialism?” Miko looks slightly offended, but she’s become accustomed to Ben making cutting remarks when he doesn’t approve of something. Viewers will find out that Ben doesn’t approve of a lot of things.
Miko and Ben live together and have been dating each other for six years. Ben has issues with Miko recently having a political awakening about her Asian heritage and being more outspoken about Asian representation in many aspects of life. Ben (who occasionally talks out loud to himself and the “Shortcoming” viewers) says of Miko’s newfound political awakening: “She’s doing it because it’s trendy.”
It should come as no surprise that Ben and Miko have not been getting along with each other lately. Most of their arguments are about Ben thinking that Miko is some kind of “sellout,” while Miko thinks that Ben is jealous that her career has been advancing in the movie industry while his has not. Ben works as a manager of a local movie theater called Berkeley Arts Cinema.
Ben and Miko also have very different attitudes when it comes to love and marriage. Miko eventually wants to settle down and get married. She thinks that marriage should be the next step in her relationship with Ben. Ben doesn’t think they need to get married to prove anything. They’ve reached a stalemate regarding this issue.
Miko also has a problem with what she thinks is Ben’s sexual obsession with white women, especially pretty blondes. Ben denies it, but Miko gets triggered when she finds out that Ben has been looking at porn that only has white people in it. Ben thinks she’s overreacting and says it’s ridiculous for Miko to think he can only look at porn with Asian people in it. However, Miko is correct about Ben having an attraction to pretty blondes, based on who becomes his two love interests later in the movie.
And so, when Miko tells Ben that she has accepted an opportunity to do a three-month internship at the Asian American Film Institute in New York City, Ben and Miko mutually agree that they should take a break from their relationship. During this break, they can date other people and figure out after Miko’s internship ends if they should become a couple again or break up permanently. Ben sees it as a chance to explore the dating scene and see what he’s been missing.
Meanwhile, Ben’s best friend is Alice Lee (played by Sherry Cola), a Korean American lesbian who hasn’t told her conservative parents about her true sexuality. Alice not only hasn’t told her parents, she also deliberately misleads them into thinking that she dates men. As shown in the “Shortcomings” trailer, Alice pretends that Ben is her boyfriend when she introduces him to her parents (played by Borah Ahn and David Niu), who don’t have names in the movie.
Ben, who is a self-described movie snob, manages a small staff at Berkeley Arts Cinema. The employees he supervises include two self-admitted movie geeks who are concessions workers: talkative Gene (played by Jacob Batalon) and laid-back Lamont (played by Scott Seiss), who have constant debates and other discussions about movies. In a very meta joke, Gene mentions in one of these conversations that he prefers the “new Spider-Man.” (In real life, Batalon is a co-star of the “Spider-Man” movies starring Tom Holland.)
A new employee who has joined the team has caught the romantic interest of Ben. Her name is Autumn (played by Tavi Gevinson), a hipster who works in the theater’s box office. Ben wants to date her, but he’s also aware of how tricky it can be for a supervisor to date someone who reports to the supervisor. Autumn invites Ben to an avant-garde spoken-word performance that she is doing, and it’s Ben’s chance to see if this could possibly lead to a romance with Autumn, or if she wants to keep the relationship strictly platonic.
Around the same time, Ben meets down-to-earth Sasha (played by Debby Ryan) at a house party where Alice is also in attendance. One of the first things that Sasha says to Ben is: “We’re probably the only two people at this party whom Alice Lee has not seduced.” Sasha also confirms that she’s bisexual when Sasha tells Ben that she’s single and available after breaking up with her most recent girlfriend two months ago. Ben and Sasha have an instant attraction to each other, but Alice tells Ben not to date Sasha, whom Alice calls a “fence sitter.”
As already shown in the “Shortcomings” trailer, Alice decides to move to New York City. What’s not shown in the trailer: Alice moves to New York City because she got expelled from grad school for kicking another student in the vagina during an argument. This violent incident is not shown in the movie. While in New York City, Alice’s life changes when she meets another queer woman named Meredith (played by Sonoya Mizuno), and they quickly become involved with each other.
Ben decides to visit New York City, partly to hang out with Alice, and partly to spy on Miko. This is where the movie gets into sitcom-ish territory. Ben gets jealous after finding out that Miko has started dating a guy named Leo Alexander (played by Timothy Simons), who met Miko through Leo’s filmmaker friend whose movie was at the East Bay Asian American Film Festival. (Miko dating Leo is also revealed in the “Shortcomings” trailer.)
There really isn’t much of a plot to “Shortcomings,” whose appeal is mainly in watching how these characters interact with each other. The best scenes, of course, are those with Ben and Alice, who feel comfortable enough with each other to tell each other exactly how they feel. It’s in contrast to how Ben puts on more of a “nice guy” front as being sensitive and insecure when he’s dating someone new. He’s much more acerbic and pessimistic when people get to know him better and he shows his true personality.
It’s through the characters of Ben and Alice that viewers see how people often present themselves one way to certain people and another way to other people. Min handles his role as the often-unlikable Ben with considerable aplomb. Ben is not a “villain,” but he’s deliberately portrayed as a very flawed, self-sabotaging individual who hasn’t figured out yet that he’s going to have a hard time finding true love if he doesn’t love himself.
In the role of Alice, Cola has impeccable comedic timing and makes her banter scenes with Min have creative sparks of energy that are enjoyable to watch. The friendship between Ben and Alice is more meaningful than many of the romantic relationships shown in the movie. Overall, “Shortcomings” can be an amusing and realistic look at people’s personality quirks and insecurities that often get amplified (or covered up) when they go through the ups and downs of dating. It’s the type of movie that succeeds in its intention of making viewers laugh and feel uncomfortable at the same time, with an ending that is entirely authentic.
Sony Pictures Classics released “Shortcomings” in select U.S. cinemas on August 4, 2023. The movie was released on digital and VOD on September 14, 2023, and on Blu-ray and DVD on October 17, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the musical comedy film “Dicks: The Musical” (based on the stage show “Fucking Identical Twins”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people, Latin people and Asians) portraying the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two sexist and egotistical salesmen, who are rivals at the same company, find out that they’re identical twins, and they go on a quest to reunite their divorced parents, one of whom is living life as a gay person.
Culture Audience: “Dicks: The Musical” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the stage production on which this movie is based; the movie’s headlining stars; and comedy musicals that don’t have much to offer but gimmicky raunchiness.
Megan Thee Stallion, Josh Sharp, Aaron Jackson in “Dicks: The Musical” (Photo by Justin Lubin/A24)
“Dicks: The Musical” isn’t as clever and funny as it thinks it is. A better movie would have been about Megan Thee Stallion’s scene-stealing Gloria Masters character. The film makes a terrible pivot into glorifying the crime of incest. Incest is never okay. Worst of all, this abrupt change into an incest story is unnecessary and reeks of a desperate way to create shock value as a gimmick, not because it makes sense to the story.
Directed by Larry Charles, “Dicks: The Musical” is based on the stage show “Fucking Identical Twins,” which was the original title of the movie before it was changed to a title that’s more marketable and less offensive. Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson (two alumni of the comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade) are the writers and title characters of “Fucking Identical Twins,” which started out as an Upright Citizens Brigade sketch. Sharp and Jackson are also the writers and stars of “Dicks: The Musical.”
You can tell that “Dicks: The Musical” is based on a comedy sketch, because the very flimsy and simplistic plot gets repetitive and dull in too many sections, in order to fill up the time for a feature-length movie. There are only a few standout musical moments. Most of the songs are trite and forgettable. Jackson, Sharp and Karl Saint Lucy co-wrote the songs, with Marius de Vries (the producer of the movie’s soundtrack) also sharing co-songwriting credit on some of the tunes. “Dicks: The Musical” had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.
The identical twins at the center of the story are Craig Tittle (played by Sharp) and Trevor Brock (played by Jackson), two hard-driving, very competitive and extremely rude salesmen. In the very beginning of the movie, bachelors Craig and Trevor have known each other for a while but have no idea that they are brothers. The “joke” is that Craig and Trevor don’t look identical at all.
Craig (the uptight brother) and Trevor (the flamboyant brother) work for the same vacuum company and are fierce rivals at their job, which rewards the employee with the highest sales revenue. Craig and Trevor also happen to live next door to each other in New York City. The story is narrated by God (played by Bowen Yang), who is portrayed as a sarcastic gossipper who sees and knows everything.
Trevor and Craig both consider themselves to be politically conservative “alpha males” who are the best at everything they do. They are also homophobic and sexist, because they think heterosexual, cisgender men are superior to everyone else. How awful are Craig and Trevor? They’re nasty to pregnant women and don’t hesitate to do things like push a pregnant woman out of the way if she’s hailing the same taxi.
Craig was raised by a single father. Trevor was raised by a single mother. Through a series of events, Craig and Trevor find out that they are long-lost identical twins whose parents divorced when Craig and Trevor were too young to remember their parents being married. Craig and Trevor’s parents cut each other out of their lives completely after the divorce and did not make themselves known to whichever twin son wasn’t in their custody. Craig and Trevor were raised to be believe that whichever parent raised them was widowed.
Trevor and Craig think there’s a social stigma if their parents are divorced. Craig and Trevor agree to temporarily put aside their brotherly feuding, in order to reunite their parents, with the hope that their parents will remarry. (The filmmakers of “Dicks: The Musical” openly acknowledge that “The Parent Trap” is an inspiration for this part of the story.) Craig and Trevor decide to disguise themselves as each other when they visit whichever parent didn’t raise them.
When Craig (disguised as Trevor) meets his mother Evelyn (played by Megan Mullally) for the first time, he finds out that she’s a lisping eccentric who lives alone and doesn’t have a vagina, because the vagina has separated from her body and can fly like a bird. (Evelyn’s flying vagina is used as a sight gag multiple times in the movie.) When Trevor (disguised as Craig) meets his father Harris (played by Nathan Lane) for the first time, he finds out that Harris has been living alone as a gay man.
Harris has two pet creatures in a cage called the Sewer Boys, who are about the size of squirrels and are described in the movie’s production notes as coming from “the bowels of New York’s septic system” and looking like “rat demons.” The Sewer Boys (who can stand up and have human-like hands) don’t speak human languages but mostly grunt, mumble and hiss. One is named Backpack (voiced by Tom Kenny), and the other is named Whisper (voiced by Frank Todaro), but their personalities are indistinguishable from each other.
Just like a bird parent, Harris feeds the Sewer Boys with food that he chews in his mouth and spits into their mouths. (Harris usually misses the mouth target.) It’s a sight gag that’s over-used and yet another example of how this movie runs ideas into the ground with too much repetition. The rest of “Dicks: The Musical” is an occasionally hyper but mostly empty tottering of weak nonsense, where each scene tries to outdo the previous scene by becoming increasingly bizarre. The problem is that not much of it is very amusing.
Gloria is the vulgar-talking, crude-thinking, ultra-feminist supervisor of Craig and Trevor. She likes to pit employees aganst each other and only cares about two things in her job: bossing people around (sometimes with physical violence) and making as much money as possible for the company with her sales team. One of the few highlights of “Dicks: The Musical” is Gloria’s solo musical number “Out Alpha the Alpha,” which is hilarious in its filthy adult language as much as it is well-choreographed.
Gloria and God are two of the most interesting characters in the movie, but they get less than 15 minutes of screen time each in this 86-minute movie. Evelyn and Harris are also much more entertaining than their sons Craig and Trevor. Mullally and Lane portray these parental characters with a lot of gusto, but the dialogue and songs written for them become irritating after a while. (Mullally’s husband Nick Offerman has a cameo in the movie as a politically conservative activist named Steve Chaney.) Viewers are mostly stuck watching the witless and boring antics of one-dimensional Craig and Trevor, as they occasionally warble mediocre musical songs.
“Dicks: The Musical” is clearly a case of two guys who created hollow characters for themselves and then surrounded these characters with silly distractions that they want to pass off as a “movie plot” and fool people into thinking that it’s “edgy” comedy. Foul language or provocative topics can be part of comedy that pushes boundaries. But when a movie tries to push the idea (such as in the horrendous closing song “All Love Is Love”) that something is wrong with you if you don’t celebrate incest and bestiality, then it has crossed the point of no return into being pretentious garbage.
A24 released “Dicks: The Musical” in select U.S. cinemas on October 6, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on October 20, 2023. A sing-along version of “Dicks: The Musical” will have a one-week release in U.S. cinemas on October 27, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on November 10, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City and briefly in Delaware, the comedy/drama film “She Came to Me” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) portraying the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: An opera composer, who is in a stale marriage to his psychiatrist, overcomes his writer’s block after he has a sexual encounter with a female tugboat captain, who has a history of stalking, while his 18-year-old stepson has relationship problems of his own that involve an accusation of statutory rape.
Culture Audience: “She Came to Me” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and movies that try to be “slice of life” but aren’t very realistic.
Evan Ellison (pictured in front, at left) and Anne Hathaway (pictured in front, at right) in “She Came to Me” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)
“She Came to Me” is a meandering, off-balance dumpster of half-baked ideas. It fails to have much compelling drama and isn’t very funny in attempts at absurdist comedy. Everything really falls apart in the last half-hour that is annoying nonsense. The movie’s talented cast members mostly flounder around in characters who often don’t have believable chemistry with each other in relationships where they’re supposed to have believable chemistry.
Written and directed by Rebecca Miller, “She Came to Me” had its world premiere at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival. The fact that this subpar movie was at such a prestigious film festival is an example of how family connections (Miller is married to Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis) and having famous cast members can give certain filmmakers an advantage to get their movies into a major film festival. The Berlin International Film Festival tends to choose very artsy movies. There’s nothing artsy about “She Came to Me.”
“She Came to Me” is a clumsy back-and-forth stumble between two storylines that are shoved together in the last 20 minutes in a way that looks completely fake and unearned. It’s as if Miller couldn’t think of a good way to end the movie and came up with something that panders to the lowest-common, silly denominator in the last third of the film, when the tone for the previous two-thirds of the film aimed to have more of a cutting-edge comedic tone.
In “She Came to Me” (which takes place mostly in New York City and briefly in Delaware), the two storylines that are awkwardly placed are about the love life problems of a father and his 18-year-old stepson. The marketing of “She Came to Me” misleadingly makes it look like the father’s storyline is the only focus of the movie, but the son’s storyline gets nearly as much screen time. The teenage romance that takes up so much time in “She Came to Me” is not hinted at in the movie’s poster or trailer.
In the beginning of “She Came to Me,” viewers are introduced to New York City-based opera composer Steven Lauddem (played by Peter Dinklage) and his psychiatrist wife Patricia Jessup-Lauddem (played by Anne Hathaway), who are experiencing a rough patch in their marriage. Steven is mopey and anxious because he has writer’s block and is expected to meet a deadline in a few weeks to complete the first draft of his next opera.
Patricia has her own issues: She seems to be obsessive-compulsive about keeping everything neat and clean. Patricia has relegated her sex life with Steven to be “by appointment only.” She is also conflicted about her interfaith background (her mother was Catholic; her father was Jewish), but Patricia is currently a practicing Catholic.
The first scene in the movie shows Steven and Patricia at a house party. Some of Steven’s colleagues in the opera industry are there. Steven is very uncomfortable and reluctant to be at the party, because he doesn’t want to have to answer questions about his next opera, which he secretly hasn’t even begun to write. Only a few people, such as Patricia, know that Steven has writer’s block. Patricia thinks this party will be a good networking opportunity for Steven.
One of the people at the party is Duftin Haverford (played by Gregg Edelman), a high-ranking official at an opera company. Duftin inevitably asks Steven when Steven’s next opera will be completed. Steven pretends that he can meet Duftin’s deadline for a first draft in two weeks. It’s a deadline that Steven is dreading.
As Duftin walks away from Steven and Patricia, Duftin tells his party companion that Steven had a nervous breakdown five years ago and went into a deep depression. Patricia was Steven’s therapist, but at some point, their relationship obviously became more than a doctor-patient relationship, and they got married. Duftin quips, “If she were my therapist, I’d marry her too.” Little does Duftin know how stagnant this marriage has become.
Meanwhile, Patricia’s 18-year-old son from her first marriage is Julian Jessup (played by Evan Ellison), who is having a happy romance with his 16-year-old girlfriend Tereza Szyskowski (played by Harlow Jane) while they are students at the same high school. Julian and Tereza, who have no siblings, are good students in school and spend as much time as they can together. Tereza and Julian are lab partners in a science class, and they both have aspirations to become “futurist” engineers. It’s mentioned later in the movie that Patricia’s first husband (Julian’s father) left her and Julian and then died after the divorce.
Julian and Tereza are very close, but apparently not close enough for Tereza to introduce Julian to her parents or invite him into her home. Tereza’s mother Magdalena Szymkowski (played by Joanna Kulig) is a Polish immigrant who works as a house cleaner. Tereza and Magdalena have a tension-filled relationship that is typical of what can happen between a parent and a teenage child: The teenager wants more freedom than the parent is willing to give.
Magdalena is protective of Tereza because she doesn’t want Tereza to make wrong decisions when it comes to love and romance. The movie doesn’t go into too many details of what happened to Tereza’s biological father. However, Magdalena says enough in conversations for viewers to know that it was a bad marriage, where Magdalena felt disrespected and stifled, so she has vowed to never be financially dependent on a man again. She’s teaching Tereza to have the same outlook on life.
Ironically, Magdalena is now with a live-in partner who is very controlling. Magdalena’s current beau is Trey Ruffa (played by Brian d’Arcy James), who has adopted Tereza, even though he and Magdalena aren’t married. Trey works as a courtroom stenographer. Trey likes to think that even though he didn’t go to college, he knows enough about the law that he could be a prosecutor if he had the credentials for it.
Trey is a very strict parent, while Magdalena is willing to have more flexibility in parenting of Tereza. There’s a useless tangent in the movie about Trey being a Civil War re-enactment enthusiast. He brings an uninterested Magdalena and Tereza to a Civil War re-enactment event where participants have to dress in Civil War-era costumes.
There are other reasons (that are at first unspoken, but come out later in the movie) to explain why Tereza doesn’t feel comfortable bringing Julian to her home to introduce him to her parents. There are differences between Julian and Tereza when it comes to their ages (and what they can legally do because of their ages), social classes and races. (Julian is black, and Tereza is white.) If there’s a racist in Tereza’s family, it’s easy to guess who it is. Tereza is reluctant to show Julian what her family is like, but she is welcome in Julian’s home, where Tereza has a very good rapport with Patricia.
One day, while Steven is wallowing in self-pity over his writer’s block, he decides to walk his French bulldog Levi and go to a local bar at around 11 a.m. to have a drink or two. At the bar, he meets an unusual stranger: a tugboat captain named Katrina Trento (played by Marisa Tomei), who lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but is passing through New York City for work-related reasons. Steven and Katrina have a conversation where they tell each other a little bit about their lives. He doesn’t tell Katrina right away that he’s married.
Katrina mentions that her tugboat business has been in her family for generations. She makes it obvious that she’s attracted to Steven and invites him to go on her tugboat nearby. Steven is curious but a little nervous. On the tugboat, Katrina reveals more about herself. She confesses, “I’m addicted to romance.” She also says she’s been in court-ordered rehab, because she has a history of stalking love interests.
Most people with common sense would steer clear of someone with these problems, but Steven seems to crave the attention that Katrina is giving him at that moment. And so, when she starts taking off her baggy work clothes to reveal that she’s got slinky lingerie underneath, it comes as no surprise that Katrina seduces Steven. None of this is spoiler information, since this plot development (and many others) are revealed in the trailer for “She Came to Me.”
At the end of this sexual encounter, Katrina starts babbling to Steven as if she expects them to be in a relationship. Steven tactfully tells Katrina that what they had is a one-time encounter, and he doesn’t want to see her again. He also urges her to get psychiatric help for her obsessiveness. He then quickly leaves the tugboat.
Steven’s tryst with Katrina (and his accidental fall in the dock’s water when he leaves the tugboat) jolt him out of his writer’s block and inspire him to write the opera “She Came to Me,” which is about an attractive female tugboat captain who seduces men and kills them. The opera is a hit. Katrina eventually finds out that she’s the inspiration for the opera when she goes to a performance. After the show, Katrina tells Steven (who is surprised to see Katrina) that she has permanently moved to New York City. (This plot development is also revealed in the movie’s trailer.)
All of this sounds like more than enough for two movies, which is why “She Came to Me” is often unfocused and unwieldly. The movie’s opera scenes are embarrassingly horrible. In no way, shape or form would this amateurish opera ever realistically be on any legitimate, major opera stage in New York City. There are some high school productions in real life that look better than the opera scenes in “She Came to Me.”
And although the “love triangle” between Steven, Patricia and Katrina is a major part of the movie, the three middle-aged adults in this situation are a lot more foolish and less mature than the two teenagers (Julian and Tereza), who go through their own personal drama. The storyline involving Steven, Patricia and Katrina gets so unrealistic, it’s almost like it belongs in a completely separate movie. “She Came to Me” starts off with a somewhat offbeat comedic tone, then makes an abrupt turn into a melodrama, and then sinks into a cesspool of ridiculous schmaltz.
The cast members are not to blame for why this disappointing movie has such an unfortunate identity crisis. Dinklage, Ellison, Jane and Kulig give solid performances. Hathaway and Tomei (the two Oscar winners in the movie’s principal cast) make an effort to bring nuance to their roles, but the characters of Patricia and Katrina are such cringeworthy clichés (the sexually repressed wife and the wacky, uninhibited mistress), these stereotypes are borderline misogynistic. Toward the end of the movie, certain characters make decisions that are nonsensical and look very inauthentic. Ultimately, viewers are more likely to feel disconnected from most of the characters in this dreadful dud of a movie, instead of feeling connected and invested in what will happen next.
Vertical released “She Came to Me” in select U.S. cinemas on October 6, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Oklahoma, from 1919 to 1926, the dramatic film “Killers of the Flower Moon” (based on the non-fiction book of the same name) features a white and Native American cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: World War I veteran Ernest Burkhart gets caught up in murders of members of the Osage Nation, including family members of his Osage Nation wife, who are being killed to gain possession of land that is rich in petroleum oil.
Culture Audience: “Killers of the Flower Moon” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker Martin Scorsese, the star headliners and history-based movies with a top-notch principal cast.
Robert De Niro and Jesse Plemons in “Killers of the Flower Moon” (Photo courtesy of Apple Studios/Paramount Pictures)
Epic in scope and tragic in tone, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is an impactful drama that tells the true story of a shameful part of American history when racism and greed caused the murders of Osage Nation people. The movie is very long but worth seeing. At 206 minutes (nearly three-and-a-half hours), “Killers of the Flower Moon” has moments when the pacing tends to drag. However, the movie is impressive in almost every other way.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Martin Scorsese directed “Killers of the Flower Moon” from a screenplay that he co-wrote with Eric Roth. The screenplay was adapted from David Grann’s 2017 non-fiction book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.” “Killers of the Flower Moon” had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” (which takes place in Oklahoma from 1919 to 1926) is fairly straightforward in showing what it’s about early on the story. World War I veteran Ernest Burkhart (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) arrives in the city of Fairfax, Oklahoma, to start a new chapter in his life. Ernest was wounded in the war, so his job opportunities are limited.
Ernest begins working for his cattle-farming uncle William “Bill” Hale, also known as King Hale, who is one of the most powerful and corrupt people in the city. Bill, who is also Farifax’s deputy sheriff, has a fake persona of being an upstanding and lawful citizen. Fairfax and the surrounding cities have a lot of petroleum-rich land that is owned by the Osage Nation tribe of Native Americans/indigenous people, who have a complicated and often uneasy co-existence with the white people who live in the same cities.
Soon after bachelor Ernest arrives in Fairfax, Bill asks him what kind of women appeal to Ernest. Ernest says he likes all types of women and is open to romancing women of Native American heritage. Bill tells Ernest that it would be to Ernest’s financial advantage if he marries and has children with an Osage Nation woman, in order for Ernest to get control of some of the Osage Nation land that can make the owners wealthy from the petroleum oil mined from the land.
There’s a very sinister aspect to this inheritance-by-marriage scheme: Osage Nation people in the area have been dying in alarming numbers in the region. Many of these deaths look like accidents or suicides but are actually murders. This period of time was called the Reign of Terror.
The local law enforcement controlled by white people are doing little to nothing to investigate these deaths and hinder any investigations from Osage Nation officers. It isn’t long before Ernest gets involved in these murders. None of this is spoiler information, since “Killers of the Flower Moon” is a history-based drama.
At Bill’s urging, Ernest begins courting an Osage Nation woman named Mollie Kyle (played by Lily Gladstone), who has hired Ernest to be her driver. Mollie is the movie’s frequent voiceover narrator. Ernest and Mollie have a mild flirtation that quickly grows into mutual sexual attraction. Mollie genuinely falls in love with Ernest. Meanwhile, Ernest seems to have romantic feelings for Mollie, but he’s more in love with what he can get out of this marriage. After a quick courtship, Mollie and Ernest get married and they have children together.
At the time that Mollie and Ernest get married (she changes her last name to Burkhart), her family consists mostly of women. Mollie’s widowed mother Lizzie Q (played by Tantoo Cardinal) suspects that white people are murdering Osage Nation people, so she doesn’t trust white people, and she disapproves of Mollie’s marriage to Ernest. Mollie’s sister Reta (played by Janae Collins) is married to a white man named Bill Smith (played Jason Isbell), who was previously married to Mollie’s other sister Minnie (played by Jillian Dion), who died of a “wasting illness.” Mollie has another sister named Anna (played by Cara Jade Myers), who is feisty and who likes to party.
Other people who are connected in some way to the murders and/or the investigations include Federal Bureau of Investigation official Tom White (played by Jesse Plemons); Osage Nation Chief Bonnicastle (played by Yancey Red Corn); and a lowlife thug named Kelsie Morris (played by Louis Cancelmi), who works closely with Bill. Other supporting actors in the movie include John Lithgow as Prosecutor Peter Leaward and Brendan Fraser as defense attorney W.S. Hamilton. Fraser’s over-the-top performance verges on being campy and doesn’t quite fit the more grounded and somber tone of the movie.
A valid criticism of “Killers of the Flower Moon” is it that the Osage Nation people in the movie aren’t the center of the story and should have been given more screen time and better character development. Except for Mollie and her Osage Nation family members, Osage Nation people are primarily depicted in the movie has having vague or non-existent personalities. Without Mollie and her family, “Killers of the Flower Moon” would be a largely soulless portrayal of hate crimes and racial injustice.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” accurately shows that the wealthy Osage Nation people couldn’t get access to their money without getting permission from the white government officials (in this case, all white men) who controlled the Osage Nation’s finances. Ironically, similar dynamics exist in the film industry, in terms of who usually gets to tell stories about Native American people in big-budget movies. (Not much has changed since the Oscar-winning blockbuster success of 1990’s “Dances With Wolves.”) It’s unlikely that Native American filmmakers—no matter how talented or experienced—would have been given the same privileges or budget to tell this story as the all-white team of producers, screenwriters and director who made “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
One of the more fascinating aspects of “Killers of the Flower Moon” is how the personalities of Ernest and Mollie change during the period of time when this story takes place. At first, Ernest appears to be somewhat of an easily led buffoon who doesn’t seem to know much about life. Over time, Ernest shows that he’s much more manipulative and cunning than he first appears to be. He’s the type of schemer whose loyalties to anyone except himself are very murky, questionable, and can quickly shift to suit his own agenda.
Mollie starts off being confident and outspoken, with more power in the relationship. After all, she was Ernest’s boss when they began their courtship. However, as time goes on, after Mollie and Ernest are married, she becomes worn down and insecure by tragedy and illness. (Mollie, who has diabetes, is being slowly poisoned by tainted insulin without her knowledge.) Mollie’s unconditional love for Ernest also blinds her to the dark side of his personality, so she becomes too trusting of what he’s saying and doing.
The movie tries to push a narrative that Ernest is a loving father and husband who’s conflicted about his ulterior motives. However, during the latter half of the film, there’s no doubt about what type of husband Ernest is, because of his knowledge about why Mollie is slowly dying. Ernest is also not shown having a close bond with his and Mollie’s children (Elizabeth, Cowboy, and Anna), who are all under the age of 7, and are mostly background characters.
Vanessa Rose Pham has the role of Elizabeth as a baby. Kinsleigh McNac has the role of Elizabeth at ages 2 and 3. Elizabeth Waller has the role of Elizabeth at ages 3 to 5 years old. Alexis Waller has the role of Elizabeth at ages 5 and 6. Roanin Davis has the role of Cowboy as a baby. Bravery Lane Nowlin has the role of Cowboy at ages 2 and 3. Mamie Cozad has the role of Anna as a baby. Lux Britni Malaske has the role of Anna at 2 years old.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” is not a murder mystery, because it’s revealed very early on in the story who are the main perpetrators of these crimes. The movie is more of a chronicle of systemic racism and how it leads to incalculable damage that goes beyond city borders. The story is told through the lens of the relationship between Mollie and Ernest as a way for viewers to see how one particular family was affected by evil disguised as entitlement.
On a technical level, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is nearly flawless, when it comes to cinematography, production design, costume design and musical score. (Robbie Robertson, the composer for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” passed away in August 2023.) “Killers of the Flower Moon” succeeds in immersing viewers into this particular community where “truth” and “justice” can be warped and have different meanings to people.
People who watch “Killers of the Flower Moon” can expect the usual excellence from the principal cast members, although there’s a lot of familiarity to DiCaprio and De Niro portraying dishonorable characters in Scorsese movies, as they have done so many times already. Gladstone has the breakout performance in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” since her depiction of Mollie is absolutely superb. Although the Reign of Terror involved many people in several regions, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” along with Gladstone’s performance, shows with disturbing clarity the horror of a duplicitous serial killer as a trusted member of one’s own household.
Apple Studios and Paramount Pictures will release “Killers of the Flower Moon” in U.S. cinemas on October 20, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Mexico, from 1988 to 1993, the dramatic film “Cassandro” (based on a true story) features a predominantly Latin cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Openly gay wrestler Saúl Armendáriz changes his name to Cassandro, and he becomes a wrestling star, but he faces challenges inside and outside the ring because of his sexuality.
Culture Audience: “Cassandro” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Gael García Bernal and anyone interested in unique stories about wrestlers.
Gael García Bernal and Perla De La Rosa in “Cassandro” (Photo by Alejandro Lopez Pineda/Amazon Content Services)
The dramatic film “Cassandro” isn’t a comprehensive biopic because it only focuses on a period time when luchador Cassandro (whose real name is Saúl Armendáriz) had a career that was on the rise. Even though Gael García Bernal doesn’t look like the real Cassandro, he does a pretty good job of embodying his essence. This lucha libre biopic isn’t as interesting as the documentary “Cassandro, the Exotico!,” but it’s a fairly compelling drama.
Directed by Roger Ross Williams (who co-wrote the “Cassandro” screenplay with David Teague) “Cassandro” glosses over or leaves out some things that were in the 2019 documentary “Cassandro, the Exotico!,” which told much more of Cassandro’s life story. The dramatic film “Cassandro” (which had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival) is more like a few chapters in a biography. Bernal’s performance is the main reason to watch, because some of the movie gets repetitive.
The real Cassandro was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. As an adult, he relocated to Mexico, where he made his name as a luchador. His birth year was 1970, and the “Cassandro” movie takes place from 1988 to approximately 1993, when he was in his late teens and early 20s. Bernal was born in 1978, which means that he was in his early 40s when he made “Cassandro” but portraying someone who is supposed to be in his late teens and early 20s. Bernal is also much thinner than the stocky Cassandro, and their faces have no resemblance to each other.
Despite these discrepancies in physical appearance and age, Bernal immerses himself in the character of Cassandro. People who know what the real Cassandro looks like might not be able to get past how different Bernal looks from the real Cassandro. However, for those who can appreciate seeing a wrestling movie with good acting, there’s plenty to like about “Cassandro.”
The movie is told in chronological order and begins in a dressing room before a wrestling match. Cassandro, whose wrestling persona at the time was wearing a mask, is being taunted by the wrestler who will be his opponent in the ring: a brute named Gigántico (played by real-life wrestler Murder Clown), who is nearly twice the size of Cassandro.
“Do you like digging holes, or do you like getting your hole dug?” Gigántico asks Cassandro. Cassandro then places a photo of his mother Yocasta (played by Perla De La Rosa) on his dressing room table. Gigántico then tells Cassandro: “You should take off your mask and become an exotico.” (An exotico is a luchador who dresses in drag or wears heavy makeup un wrestling matches and does exaggerated moves that are meant to depict someone who is a flamboyant gay man.)
Gigántico continues to needle Cassandro: “What’s with the shitty moustache?” Cassandro answers, “I grew it for you, honey. I heard you like the way it tickles.” Cassandro loses the match against Gigántico. And then, Cassandro is even more disappointed when he hears he has to fight Gigántico again in Cassandro’s next match.
At the time, Cassandro is on the low end of the professional wrestling hierarchy. Like most athletes, he wants to become a champion. As luck would have it, Cassandro finds the trainer he needs. She’s a wrestler named Sabrina (played by Roberta Colindrez), who uses the wrestler name Lady Anarquía.
Sabrina has been observing Cassandro for a while and has become an admirer who thinks Cassandro has a lot of potential. When she offers to train Cassandro, he tells her he won’t be able to afford what she charges. Sabrina replies, “Don’t worry about it.”
Saúl/Cassandro is very close to his mother Yocasta and is unapologetic about being a “mama’s boy.” Yocasta, who works as a housekeeper/maid, is accepting of Saúl/Cassandro being openly gay. The movie shows that Yocasta gets some prejudice from two maid co-workers who make derogatory remarks about Yocasta being a single mother of an illegitimate son.
Saúl/Cassandro is estranged from his religious father Eduardo (played by Robert Salas), who does not accept Saúl/Cassandro being gay. Saúl/Cassandro and Eduardo have not seen each other since Saúl/Cassandro came out as gay when he was 15 years old. Eduardo and Saúl/Cassandro later have a conversation, which is one of the best scenes in the movie.
The movie alternates between showing Cassandro’s rise as an exotico in the lucha libre circuit and showing things that happen in his personal life. He starts using cocaine with a drug buddy named Felipe (played by Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, also known as music star Bad Bunny), who seems to be sexually attracted to Cassandro, but Felipe (who has a girlfriend) presents himself to the world as being heterosexual.
Cassandro has a more emotional connection to a fellow wrestler named Gerardo (played by Raúl Castillo), who is married to a woman and has two underage kids with her. Cassandro briefly met Gerardo’s wife and kids when he and Yocasta were at a diner and happened to see Gerado and his family at a nearby table. Soon after Cassandro and Gerardo meet each other, they have a secretive romance. But considering that Gerardo is deeply closeted and has no intention of leaving his wife, it’s easy to predict what will happen to the affair that he’s having with Cassandro.
“Cassandro” shows glimpses of the business wheeling and dealing that takes place in lucha libra industry. Cassandro’s agent/booker is Lorenzo (played by Joaquín Cosío), who introduced Felipe to Cassandro. Lorenzo’s ethics are very murky, since he knows and almost encourages Felipe to supply Cassandro with cocaine. Cassandro experiences a lot of homophobia from people in the wrestling industry and in the general public, but Lorenzo doesn’t seem to care too much, as long as Cassandro is making money for Lorenzo.
Because “Cassandro” takes place over an approximate five-year period, which consists of Cassandro’s earliest years as a pro wrestler, it’s not depicted in the movie how Cassandro’s cocaine addiction escalates and nearly ruins his life and career. This part of Cassandro’s life story is in “Cassandro the Exotico!” documentary. Perhaps the filmmakers of “Cassandro” didn’t want to do a typical “rise-fall-comeback” story arc that is often used in celebrity biopics, but it still feels like the movie doesn’t have a realistic portrayal of the down sides of Cassandro’s cocaine addiction.
“Cassandro” has some areas that come across as a bit dull and too talkative. The wrestling scenes are entertaining, but the movie’s most emotionally resonant moments happen outside the ring. The mother/son relationship that Cassandro and Yocasta have is enjoyable to watch. However, the character of Sabrina seems underdeveloped in the movie, which makes her dialogue quite generic. Even when the movie has some weak moments of banality, Bernal carries the movie with emotional authenticity and charisma.
Amazon Studios released “Cassandro” in select U.S. cinemas on September 15, 2023. Prime Video premiered the movie on September 22, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Beijing, China, the comedy film sequel “The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plans” has an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two male best friends—one who’s divorced, and one who’s in a live-in relationship with a woman—navigate society’s pressures to settle down and get married.
Culture Audience: “The Ex-Files Marriage” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and romantic comedies that don’t do anything original or clever.
Ryan Zheng and Kelly Yu in “The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan” (Photo courtesy of CMC Pictures)
“The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan” is the very definition of an unnecessary sequel. There’s not much to this story except people whining about how they have relationship problems. Viewers of the movie don’t have to know anything about the previous three “Ex-Files” movies, although it helps to have some context about the returning characters and what types of relationships they had in the previous “Ex-Files” movies.
Directed by Tian Yusheng, “The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plans” (which takes place in Beijing, China) continues the story of best friends Meng Yun (played by Han Geng) and Yu Fe (played by Zheng Kai, also known as Ryan Zheng) and shows what happens in their love lives. The previous “Ex-Files” movies are 2014’s “The Ex-Files,” 2015’s “Ex-Files 2” and 2017’s “The Ex-File 3: The Return of the Exes.”
In “The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plans,” Yun is divorced and still looking for love. He’s skeptical but hopeful that he will find his soul mate. Yun has a somewhat tense relationship with his ex-wife Lin Jia (played by Kelly Yu), since they had a bitter divorce. who has a son with her current boyfriend. Soon after Yun and Jia make peace with each other, she tells him that she’s getting married to the father of her child. Yun has mixed emotions and feels a little envious that his ex-wife has found a new spouse.
Fe is living with his girlfriend Ding Dian (played by Zeng Mengxue), who is pressuring him to marry her. Dian has owns a coffee shop that is struggling financially. Dian asks Fe for advice on what to do about the coffee shop, but he tells her it’s her decision. Dian and Fe also have to decide whether or not to split their financial obligations equally. Dian thinks Fe should be more emotionally invested in their relationship and more willing to commit to marriage. Predictably, Fe and Dian have many arguments about their relationship.
Meanwhile, a large portion of “The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan” is about Yun getting back into the dating scene. He ends up casually dating two women around the same time: opinionated divorce attorney Huang Yue (played by Zhu Yan Man Zi) and perky Liu Liu (played by Cya Liu), who both find out that they are dating Yun. The movie shows if Yun chooses one woman over the other. A female bartender named Xiao Ai (played by Zhang Tian Ai) at Yun’s favorite restaurant/bar (where he romances Yue and Liu) observes all of these shenanigans and is a friendly listener whenever Yun tells sob stories about his love life.
“The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan” has adequate acting performances, which are hampered by a fairly dull screenplay. The problem is that the movie doesn’t go beyond the usual romantic comedy stereotypes about unmarried people and problems in their love lives. There are breakups, makeups, jealousies and misunderstandings. It all adds up to a very lukewarm story for a sequel that didn’t need to exist.
CMC Pictures released “The Ex-Files 4: Marriage Plan” in select U.S. cinemas on September 29, 2023, and in China on September 28, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Tokyo, the action film “King of Killers” has a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A master assassin assembles other assassins in a competition to try to kill him to prove their worth.
Culture Audience: “King of Killers” will appeal primarily to people who are just want to see a movie with mindless violence and don’t care if the movie’s story is awful and filled with plot holes.
Frank Grillo in “King of Killers” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
“King of Killers” is a terribly conceived mess with bad acting and a nonsensical plot about an assassin overlord pitting other assassins against each other. For an action movie, there are too many scenes of people having boring and witless conversations. Avoid this tone-def and idiotic flop.
Written and directed by Kevin Grevioux, “King of Killers” starts off by showing protagonist Marcus Garan (played by Alain Moussi) being attacked in a warehouse. Marcus is a “wet man” for the U.S. intelligence community, with options to be hired by non-U.S. entities. Will he survive this attack? The movie makes people wait a long time to find out the answer, because it then switches to a flashback that took place one year before.
In this flashback, Marcus is shown to be a loving husband and father. His wife is named Karla Graran (played by Amy Groening), and his daughter is Kimberly Garan (played by Zoe Worn), who’s about 8 or 9 years old. Marcus speaks to Kimberly in French.
Stephen Dorff shares top billing for “King of Killers,” but his role is a useless cameo. He plays a character named Robert Xane, who asks Marcus to do a job for the next day. However, Marcus declines the offer because the next day is the wedding anniversary of Marcus and Karla.
One evening, Marcus is at a bar called Coal Train, where he has certain people under surveillance. In a back room of the bar, there are three men at table. One of them holds what’s called a cyrstal matrix unit that can replace hard drives of any kind. It can contain information for over a million supercomputers.
Marcus barges in on this meeting and gets into a shootout with about five men. He survives, but unbeknownst to Marcus, his wife Karla had followed him to the bar. She was standing outside the room where the shootout took place. And to Marcus’ shock, he sees that Karla has been killed.
The movie then fast forwards to on year later. Marcus is raising Kimberly with the help of Karla’s mother. He’s still working as a secretive operative. Marcus gets a mysterious phone call from a Scottish man named Roman Korza (played by Gianni Capaldi), who tells Marcus about a job offer that will pay $10 million and requires a trip to Tokyo.
Roman is vague about the details of the job, such as who’s doing the hiring and what the job entails. Roman says that Marcus will get the details after Marcus meets with Roman in Tokyo. Marcus thinks he doesn’t have enough information, so he turns down the offer.
But then, Kimberly ends up in hospital because she has an enlarged heart. The medical diagnosis is that her heart is deteriorating and will lead to heart failure, unless she can get a heart transplant, which is a high-priced medical procedure. Marcus suddenly sees how $10 million can come in handy, so he takes the job in Tokyo. (“King of Killers” was actually filmed in Winnipeg, Canada.)
When Marcus arrives in Tokyo, Roman takes him to a remote mansion, where Marcus finds out what the “job assignment” is really a twisted game set up by a self-described master assassin named Jorg Drakos (played by Frank Grillo), who has assembled other top asassins from around the world. Jorg announces to the people in this assembled group that their task is to see which one of them can kill him first. Whoever “wins” by killing Jorg first will get the $10 million. Anyone who doesn’t want to participate will be killed by Jorg. In other words, it’s not a fair fight.
Besides Roman, the other people in this group are:
Scott Angus, a deposed J2 member, who set off a war between terrorist factions.
Asha Khanna (played by Marie Avgeropoulos), an ex-MI6 operative, who left MI6 after 16 years because she got tired of the “rat race.” Marcus already knows Asha as an assassin rival.
Dyson Chord (played by “King of Killers” writer/director Grevioux), a former U.S. Marine Force re-con commander for Dark Forces and a former National Security Agency sweeper.
Rick Nigel (played by Ryan Tarran), a former ASIS International security employee, who plays many sides and almost “put a hit on himself.”
Ren Hiro (played by Shannon Kook), a Japanese-trained protector whose services go to the highest bidder.
Zach Hebron (played by Dennis Lafond), a freelance sniper for military companies.
One of the people in the group doesn’t go far in the game, because this person refuses to participate and gets shot to death by Jorg. The rest of “King of Killer” is a vapid and turgid series of scenes where some of the assassins decide it’s better to eliminate each other first, and the last person standing will be the one to take on Jorg. It’s as stupid as it sounds. Needless to say, Jorg wants to kill them too. Jorg wears a ridiculous-looking green goblin mask as part of his rampage.
Even worse, there are scenes where Jorg could easily be killed by any of the other assassins in the room, but that doesn’t happen, because these dimwits think it’s better to stand around and talk. That’s essentially what clogs up much of the screen time in “King of Killers,” which is truly bottom-of-the-barrel garbage filmmaking. Not even a “plot twist” at the end can redeem this awful movie, which hints at a sequel that will most likely never happen.
Lionsgate released “King of Killers” in select U.S. cinemas, digital and VOD on September 1, 2023.
