August Movies Part 3: Highest 2 Lowest, The Roses, Honey Don't!

Well, I ended August by watching two great movies, and one...not so great. Let's discuss!

Highest 2 Lowest: It has been established that I am a real sucker for films shot in New York City. Well, director Spike Lee has delivered another homage to the city that is a wild and crazy ride that I enjoyed from start to finish. Written by Alan Fox and serving as an adaptation/re-imagining of Akira Kurosawa's 1963 film High and Low, this is a twisty film about what happens when David King (Denzel Washington), an immensely rich and successful music executive, has to deal with a ransom request from kidnappers who have taken his son. What follows is a tense, but also extremely funny and frantic film about how rich people treat others, ambition and pride, and overall, the pursuit of Black excellence. The cast is brimming with great actors, and while the dialogue can sometimes be a bit silly and clunky like you're watching a play, there's nothing clunky about Lee's filmmaking prowess. It's so flamboyant and emphatic, and I soaked it all up like a delighted sponge.

It makes sense that for a movie about a music executive, the thing that delighted me most about the film was its soundtrack and the score by Howard Drossin. The opening of this extremely New York film is set to "Oh what a beautiful mornin'" from the musical Oklahoma. Which made me chuckle right away and set the bar for how funny and irreverent this film was going to be. There are action scenes set to some extremely tense piano music that I loved, and you will also be treated to a few musical performances over the course of this film that may or may not knock your socks off.

Denzel is having an absolute blast as this character, a risk-taking mogul who might be in deep financial trouble but is always looking for an angle to exploit. Then you've got Jeffrey Wright as his chauffeur, Paul, a man who will have his loyalty to his friend and employer tested in many ways, and Ilfenesh Hadera as David's wife, Pam, an extremely sensible woman who has to keep talking sense into her grandiose husband. And there's John Douglas Thompson, playing the detective in charge of this kidnapping case, who treats the rich David with kid gloves but then gives no quarter to Paul, a classism that will get called out several times. This may be a film about a rich guy living in a penthouse in Brooklyn, but you can bet that before the movie is done, we will spend a lot of time in less bougie areas of the city and that's where the film truly sparkles. It is so much fun, and so alive, that even when things feel a little corny, you'll brush them off. You don't have time to dwell on them, because the next scene is going to captivate your imagination and make you fall in love with this movie and this city all over again.

The Roses: Written by Tony McNamara and directed by Jay Roach, adapted from the novel The War of the Roses by Warren Adler, I was worried about this movie because it stars some of my favorite actors, but the trailer made everything seem rather mid. Well, I needn't have worried. Because you do not cast Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch as your central couple and end up with a dud of a picture.

Colman and Cumberbatch play Ivy and Theo Rose, two people who meet in the UK, but are fed up of their jobs and decided to fall in love and move to California. The trailer positions this entire movie as being about a horrible couple who hate each other, but this is actually a rather beautiful love story about how this couple fell in love, how deliriously happy they were for the first decade of their marriage...and THEN how they became a horrible couple who hate each other. The supporting cast is a murderer's row of folks like Sunita Mani, Ncuti Gatwa, Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon, Zoe Chao, and Jamie Demetriou, who pop in and out of the film as friends of the Roses who must witness their fracturing marriage and look on in horror as their dinner parties get increasingly tense. But in a very repressed, British way that these Americans cannot fathom.

The comedy is immensely British, so I can see American audiences squirming through a lot of this film. But boy did I happily eat it all up. Cumberbatch and Colman know how to dispatch dialogue with the best of them, but the best treat is to simply watch Colman's face during a fight - the way her face can go from serene to tragic to furious within the blink of an eye is a wonder to behold. This is a movie that has a lot to say about love and marriage, and gender roles and the patriarchy within a marriage. It is so sharply observed, well-acted, and all set in the most gorgeous Californian backdrop, that every scene is a delight. If you have avoided seeing the trailer for this long, do yourself a favor and continue to avoid it. Head straight to the theater and revel in this film. 

Honey Don't!: Directed by Ethan Coen, who co-wrote the screenplay with Tricia Cooke, this movie is essentially a murder mystery set in modern-day Bakersfield, but populated by bizarre characters who sometimes seem like they stepped off the set of The Maltese Falcon in the 1940s. Margaret Qualley plays Honey O'Donahue, a private investigator who begins digging into the death of Mia Novotny, a woman who died in what was considered to be a tragic car accident. However, Mia had made an appointment to see Honey the day she died, so Honey is convinced there's something more to this "accident." 

While all of that's going on, we also get scenes at Four-Way Temple, a "church" helmed by Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans, having a glorious time), who is basically running a sex cult that also acts as some sort of front for French drug dealers? Or something? We also get insights into Honey's family life when she visits her sister who is overwhelmed with too many children, and also insights into Honey's sex life, when she starts dating MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), a cop at her local precinct.

There are a lot of seemingly random threads in this film, but they all tie up nicely in a little bow at the end. The trouble is, this movie is too weird, and none of the characters particularly feel like people you want to root for. Everybody is a bit too aloof and caricatured, and while Qualley is a commanding and delightful presence, she can't really save this movie. I'm not sure what happened here - this had the right ingredients to be a good film, but it goes off-piste too quickly with gratuitous female nudity (always a bugbear of mine - if you're gonna show naked women, you gotta throw in a penis too) and a lot of random non sequiturs. The conclusion to the mystery did genuinely surprise me, and I did appreciate that this film was a tight 89 minutes, but I can't give it a hearty recommendation. It's too average and all over the place. If you're thinking of seeing it...honey, don't!

August Binges: Ironheart, The Hunting Wives, Adolescence

Need to plop down on the couch and settle in for a summer binge? Well, I've got an action-packed Marvel show, a sexy murder mystery, and a rather distressing but brilliant British crime drama. Pick your poison.

Ironheart: Created by Chinaka Hodge, this is a six-episode series that follows Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) the young genius we first met in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Riri may be smart, but she doesn't like to follow the rules. She gets kicked out of MIT and returns home to Chicago, where she falls in with a bunch of criminals, led by Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos) as they provide the fastest way for her to earn enough money to realize her dream of building a flying iron suit that is even fancier that the one Iron Man has. But of course, our hero is going to clash with Parker, aka The Hood, who seems to be dabbling in some sinister powers that might be a little bit more than the simple life of crime she was expecting.

Complicating all of this is the fact that Riri has built an AI to help her while she's in the suit, but that AI unexpectedly takes the form of her dead best friend, Natalie (Lyric Ross). As you can imagine, watching her best friend walk around and talk to her is a bit unnerving at first, and then becomes a massive liability towards the end. This is a show with a lot of classic Marvel jimjams, but the actors are great, the production design is solid, and the fast-paced six episodes will keep you engaged throughout.

The Hunting Wives: Created by Rebecca Cutter, based on the novel by May Cobb, Brittany Snow stars as Sophie, a woman who has moved to Texas from Boston with her husband and finds herself thrust into a community of Texas socialites that she believes she has absolutely nothing in common with. But this fish out of water is going to find out that maybe she does have a lot more in common with them than she realized. Queen of the pack is Margo (Malin Akerman, drawling her way through a bravura performance), who is married to Sophie's husband's boss (played by Dermot Mulroney, who also appears to be having the time of his life), and is therefore someone that Sophie must play nice with. But of course, turns out that maybe Sophie will cozy up to Margo for her own reasons.

There's a lot of sex on this show, both gay and straight, and there's also a lot of murder, because, lest I forget, the opening scene is of a woman getting shot and then we spend the first half of the season in flashback until we figure out who got murdered, and then the rest of the season figuring out who the murderer is. The show is insanely over-the-top and ridiculous, but it is quite fun to watch all these women swanning around and talking about guns and Jesus. The only problem is that it ends with a real cliffhanger. This is a show that would have been better off as a silly, fun, limited series - I don't know that I want a second season of this inanity. But give it a shot (pun intended), because maybe this is just the show you've been hunting (groan) for.

Adolescence: Created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham (who also stars), this is a limited series that only consists of four hour-long episodes. But each one packs a punch. This is due to the excellent acting but also the fact that every episode was shot as one continuous take, a monumental feat that means you simply cannot tear your eyes away from the screen. The show begins with the police barging into a family's home early in the morning to arrest 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper), who is accused of murdering a girl he knew from school the night before. That first episode plays out like a police procedural where we get a detailed insight into how a juvenile is processed and interrogated by the British police. The subsequent three episodes are at different time periods following the arrest, and each looks at the case from a slightly different viewpoint, piecing together what may have happened, what was the motivation behind the heinous crime, and how Jamie's family are ever going to recover from this ordeal.

The show is propulsive, and engaging, and enraging. It tackles a lot of hot button issues that are relevant to today's youth, including the growth of the "manosphere" and the power of the Internet in persuading young boys that they deserve more from girls and women. It's about toxic masculinity, family dynamics, police work, and everything in between. The show is simply a masterclass in storytelling and filmmaking, and there's little wonder it has a slew of Emmy nominations, almost all of which are likely to be wins. It's certainly not easy to watch, but you will devour it once you sit down to watch it because it is compelling, urgent, and incredible. 

August Movies Part 2: Together & Weapons

You know what's fun in the summer? Heading into a dark theater and watching a clever and bizarre horror movie. Bonus points if it makes you laugh. This month, we've got two such films, one more comedic than the other, but both great examples of the wild and crazy imaginations of horror filmmakers.

Together: Written and directed by Michael Shanks, this movie stars real-life married couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Millie and Tim, a couple who have recently moved away from the big city into a rural area so Millie can pursue a teaching job at a local school. Their relationship is a little rocky, with Tim being extremely apathetic and indecisive, while Millie is clingy and trying to get their lives on track. One day they get lost on a hike in the woods, it starts raining, and then they fall down a hole and discover a mysterious cave. They drink the water from a pool in the cave, and that was their biggest mistake. Because that water has magical properties and they are now in for a wild ride.

What follows is a very funny and weird body horror film about what happens when a couple starts to literally become one. Initially it's just little things where they wake up to find their legs are stuck together and they need to pull them apart - they blame mildew. Then one night they wake up and Tim is eating Millie's hair and choking on it, and it is all chalked up to being some sort of crazy sleep terror. But of course, things keep escalating and eventually, it becomes clear that there are forces that are trying to get them to fuse into each other, in the ultimate expression of co-dependency. The movie is a great treatise on couples who think that they have to be just like each other, to such an extent that they become indistinguishable from one another, and it's a deliberation on whether that is truly the point of true love. Of course, it's not actually that profound, and it's mostly just extremely hilarious. If you need a 100-minute diversion, this is exactly the kind of thing you should seek out on a summer afternoon.

Weapons: Written and directed by Zach Cregger, who directed the 2022 movie Barbarian that I loved, this is a twisty and compelling movie about the people of a small town who all wake up one day to find out that a bunch of children all got out of their beds at 2:17 am, walked out of their houses, and have now completely disappeared. All of the children were in the same third-grade class, and their teacher, Ms. Justine Gandy (Julia Garner) is under attack by all the parents and townspeople, who think she had something to do with this. Meanwhile, she has no idea what happened, and why Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher) is the only student in her class who didn't disappear that night. No one will let her talk to Alex, and she is paranoid and helpless. The action picks up one month after the incident and we will follow five different characters to see how their lives intersect with one another over the course of a few days until we eventually solve this mystery.

The script is tight and has a Rashomon feel as you get the perspective of these different characters and their lives in this town. I won't go into too much detail because the delight of this movie is in watching it unfold and finding out who are the key characters in this tale and how their lives will intertwine to produce the insanely dramatic conclusion. There are so many jump scares, and you will spend a lot of time peeking through your fingers as you anticipate something extremely creepy about to take place on screen. But there's also a lot of humor sprinkled throughout, especially as events start to get increasingly bizarre and the characters are just absolutely baffled at what is happening to them. It's great storytelling and perfect summer entertainment, so head to the theater, as long as your nerves are up to the challenge.

August Movies Part 1: The Naked Gun, Freakier Friday, The Life of Chuck

I'm behind on blogging this month so prepare for a deluge of random reviews. That's what summer's for!

The Naked Gun: Directed by Akiva Schaffer, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, this is an 85-minute spectacularly silly movie filled with sight gags, a billion puns, and the dumbest jokes imaginable. If you're having a tough day and want to see Liam Neeson disguised as a little schoolgirl, this is the movie for you. 

Neeson plays Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr., the son of Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) from the original Police Squad! TV show and subsequent Naked Gun movie franchise in the 80s. Like his father, Frank Jr. is a detective who doesn't play by the rules but manages to be surprisingly effective, much to his supervisor's chagrin. When he meets the sultry Beth Davenport, played by the delightful Pamela Anderson, he is pulled into a twisty murder case, trying to figure out who killed her brother and what devious criminal plans must be thwarted along the way. Fans of the original franchise will eat this movie up, whereas for someone like me, it was a perfectly apt diversion. My favorite joke? A shot of what is clear Crypto.com Arena, with a sign renaming it as Ponzi-scheme.com Arena. Readers, I chuckled.

Freakier Friday: Do I remember anything about the 2003 Freaky Friday movie? No. Was I still looking forward to seeing this sequel written by Jordan Weiss and directed by Nisha Ganatra? You bet!  Jamie Lee Curtis and Linsday Lohan are back as Tess and Anna, the mother and daughter who switched bodies in the original movie and got a literal lesson in how to walk in another person's shoes. Now, Tess is all grown up and made the choice to be a single mom, so she has a teenage daughter of her own, Harper (Julia Butters). Harper's archrival at school is a new girl named Lily (Sophia Hammons), and when the two girls get into a fight, their parents are brought in to speak to the principal. Well, turns out Lily's father, Eric (a very hot Manny Jacinto, with a hot British accent), is a young widower, and sparks immediately fly. Within six months, he and Anna are ready to get married, much to the deep objection of their daughters, who still hate each other. And so, of course, the universe decides another body swap is in order. 

Except this time, the two teenage girls swap bodies with the two older women, and it's all twice the fun. It's silly, it's predictable, you'll forget everything you saw the minute you leave the theater, but you'll have a good time while you're watching it. Jamie Lee Curtis is probably the most committed actor to the bit -- maybe that's why she's the one with an Oscar -- but it's clear everyone involved is having a ton of fun, and sometimes, that's all you want from your silly summer sequel.

The Life of Chuck: Written and directed by Mike Flanagan, based on a novella by Stephen King, I would be hard-pressed to tell you anything about what this movie is about. I started watching it on streaming, and then pulled up Candy Crush on my phone and promptly stopped paying attention. The movie starts as a story about a teacher named Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan) who are living at a time when the world seems to be on the brink of ending. The news is always terrible, and the planet seems to be in trouble, and everyone is in a constant state of panic. And yet in this midst of this chaos, there are billboards for a man named Chuck (Tom Hiddleston) and we get the story of how this man lived his life and why life is a wondrous thing, full of beauty, and we must seize the moment every day. And there's a scene where he dances for a very long time with a stranger on the street.

I don't know why this movie stars all these British actors doing American accents, and it was just so vibey that I completely checked out. If there was a plot, I'm sorry, I did not notice it. I'm a huge Hiddleston fan, but this movie just felt too anodyne to compel me in any way. Upon reading the Wikipedia plot summary of this film, I can see that oh sure, there was some structure, but again, none of it felt like it had anything important to say. If you love this movie, please let me know if I'm wrong and this movie deserves a second viewing, but my first certainly left me with no impression whatsoever.

July Movies Part 4: Happy Gilmore 2 & The Fantastic Four: First Steps

To close off the month of July, I watched one movie on streaming and one in the theater. Both were perfectly adequately movies that could serve as a good distraction this weekend, so give them a try!

Happy Gilmore 2: First off, I had never seen Happy Gilmore, so my husband quickly rectified that oversight in my film viewing by making us watch that movie earlier in the week. Then we tuned into Happy Gilmore 2, so I could see exactly how much nostalgia was baked into this sequel. Written by Tim Herlihy and Adam Sandler and directed by Kyle Newacheck, Adam Sandler is back as the titular angry golfer who wanted to be a hockey player but turned out to have a flair for golf instead. Spoiler alert, this movie kicks off with him being widowed, so what then follows is a descent into alcoholism and depression, which he then claws himself back from as he has to raise money to send his beloved daughter to ballet school in Paris. A noble goal, if ever there was one.

There are a lot of callbacks to the original movie, and you can bet that almost everyone from the original has returned to this film (unless they're dead, in which case they still might make an appearance). There are also a lot of cameos from new folk who were clearly huge Gilmore fans that wanted to ensure they showed up in the sequel. There's a plot involving an upstart golfing league that's trying to make golf cool again, and Happy will side with a bunch of famous professional golfers to defeat these newbies. It's all very silly and fun, and exactly what you would expect. This movie is perfect fan service so if you loved Happy Gilmore, hop on the couch and tune into Happy Gilmore 2.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps: Written by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer, and directed by Matt Shakman, this movie is aesthetically glorious. The production design by Kasra Farahani captures a futuristic 1960s New York and is wonderfully reminiscent of the cartoons. It's all very fun and fabulous (and dare I say...fantastic?). The cast of Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach is unsurprisingly great, and the quartet look like they are having a lovely time as they banter with each other and save the planet from certain doom. There's the added complication of Sue Storm being pregnant, and the worries of whether the baby will have weird powers, and that storyline just keeps building and building as they encounter a giant cosmic being named Galactus who wants to annihilate Planet Earth. The stakes are high.

I would have recommend this movie without reservations, but the problem is that it came out one week after Superman and really pales in comparison to that movie. While all the right elements are there, the script is just not tight enough (as evidenced by the presence of four screenwriters, never a good sign), and the middle of this film drags interminably and goes off into a lot of unnecessary tangents that ultimately don't pay off. It's still a decent movie, but it misses the mark to be a truly good one.