Popcorn Flicks: Marry Me & Uncharted

Want a break from foreign movies and Oscar bait? Well you could do nothing better than head to the theater to watch a JLo romcom or a Tom Holland action comedy. Do you need some mindless entertainment for President's Day? These movies have you covered!

Marry Me: If you've seen the trailer for this movie, you already know what you're going to get. But that won't stop you from having a super fun time nonetheless. This is a cute, feel-good film about what happens when a glamorous pop star (Jennifer Lopez) gets jilted at the altar (well, technically it's the stage of a pop concert being watched by millions, but roll with it) and decides to marry a random stranger named Charlie (Owen Wilson) from the audience instead. Does it make sense? No. Is it the perfectly plausible plot of a romcom and allows for much zaniness and romance to ensue? You bet!

Wilson and Lopez have strangely compelling chemistry, but this might be down to the fact that we're talking about Jennifer Lopez here - this lady oozes so much charisma that she could make any pairing work, even if the movie consisted of her romancing a mop. But also, casting a music superstar as your leading lady means you're going to get some insanely catchy songs that will stick in your head for a while. I would catch myself humming the main Marry Me theme song months before I saw this film just from seeing the trailer.

There's a sassy best friend (the always engaging Sarah Silverman), a protective agent (the lovely John Bradley who now seems to be in everything post-Game of Thrones), and a cute little moppet child (the charming Chloe Coleman who also seems to be the de facto adorable kid in everything): this movie has all the familiar and fabulous ingredients of a great romcom and serves as nourishing comfort food for the soul. Directed by Kat Cairo, this movie will effortlessly carry you along for the ride and deliver everything it promised. Go ahead, say I do.

Uncharted: An action movie based on a popular videogame franchise, starring Tom Holland as Nathan Drake, a young adventurer who is a fountain of knowledge of lore about ancient explorers and where they may have buried their treasures, and Mark Wahlberg as Victor "Sully" Sullivan, a more hardened fortune hunter who needs Nathan's help to find some of Magellan's lost gold from the time he tried to sail around the world. Read that sentence again. It should tell you everything you need to know about whether this movie is for you or not.

In my case, I was all in. I love me some Tom Holland (Wahlberg, less so, but Holland has enough charisma to carry everyone in this movie), and this movie felt like a breezy Bond film, with plenty of rooftop chases in foreign locales, some dubious women who may or may not be trustworthy (both Tati Gabrielle and Sophia Ali show up as fun characters for these men to tangle with as the plot proceeds), and ultimately, a Da Vince Code-esque treasure hunt that requires both brains and brawn.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer, this movie will deliver action, laughs, and good times. Some of the plot twists you'll see coming from a mile away, but overall, it is well-produced, well-acted, and just oodles of fun. This feels like a summer movie that has been released in February to save us all as we weather snow squalls and wait for spring. So grab some popcorn and indulge in some wonderful escapism: it's what Hollywood does best.

Foreign Film Fest: A Hero & Bigbug

Last week I watched two foreign films that were fascinating in entirely different ways. One received the Grand Prix at Cannes and is a thoughtful and dire look at what it means to be a good person. The other is a futuristic sci-fi comedy that looks at what dystopia we might be headed for if we led the machines take over. Intrigued? Well then fire up your streaming services and give these movies a whirl.

A Hero: From acclaimed Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi, this is the story of Rahim Soltani (Amir Jadidi), a man who is in debtor’s prison and trying to find a way to collect enough money to pay off his creditor and return to his regular life. The movie centers on the events that spiral out of control when Rahim is on leave (apparently that’s how debtor’s prison works - it’s a terrible place to be, but you do get to leave every few months to visit family). His fiancée has found a purse full of gold coins on the street and wants to use it to pay off some of his debts. However, for various reasons, this doesn’t happen, and when Rahim decides to put up posters looking for the rightful owner of the coins, he sets off a chain of events that prove the maxim, no good deed goes unpunished.

This is such a clever and wonderful film about how humans are always this frustrating mix of good and bad. Depending on who you talk to, everyone has an opinion on Rahim's character and whether he deserves to be in prison and what was the nature of the circumstances that led him there. His creditor seems like a villain but maybe he had his reasons too? And yes, Rahim did a good thing, but he initially wanted to do a bad one, so does he deserve compassion?

This movie genuinely kept me on the edge of my seat for two hours - it’s not a thriller by any means, but the unfolding human drama is taut and high-stakes. There are a series of Sisyphean obstacles that will never allow our hero to win his freedom and it is startling and engaging stuff. I am shocked this didn’t get nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars because it is one of the most compelling movies I have seen all year. And while yes, it depicts people in a foreign land, the problems they are wrestling with, as well as the whole subplot involving social media, is so universal and relatable that after a while, you will forget that you’re relying on subtitles and connect with this story on a deep, human level. It’s magical.

Bigbug: This movie is, first and foremost, an aesthetic marvel. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who also co-wrote with Guillaume Laurent), the man responsible for Amelie, get ready for some incredible production design and eye-popping colors in every frame. But also, get ready for a very over-the-top French farce that is all about skewering our increasing dependence on artificial intelligence. This movie is what you would get if Years and Years was a comedy and it's simultaneously a bit too much and not enough.

Set in 2045, the entire film takes place in the home of a woman named Alice (Elsa Zylberstein) who was on a "date" of sorts with a man (who also brought his son?) but then unexpectedly receives a visit from her daughter, ex-husband and his fiancée, and her next-door neighbor. None of these people intended to stay for very long, but then Alice's household robots lock them all into the house to protect them from a crisis unfolding in the wider world as a sentient AI revolution takes place. Now the hapless humans must rage against the machines, and while they are initially annoyed with the outdated household robots, they realize maybe they need to ally themselves with these "dumber" robots to fight back against the more intelligent villains lurking outside. 

This is a very broad French comedy - don't expect sophistication and ennui, and instead prepare for a lot of silliness and satire. Every actor is dialing it up to eleven, and there are no subtle performances, except maybe from one of the robots. This is a fun movie to fire up on a lazy afternoon - you will be entertained and it will certainly dazzle your visual cortex, but the details will start to fade away almost as soon as you finish. But if you've been watching a lot of dull, glum movies lately, this will add a little pep to your step. And maybe convince you not to let a robot control as much of your household as it currently does. 

Murderous Mayhem: The Tragedy of Macbeth & Scream

Today's reviews may inspire some whiplash so be forewarned. What connects these movies is that some people are stabbed. But depending on whether you like your stabbings to be high-brow and Shakespearean or low-brow horror comedy, I have two VERY different recommendations for you.

The Tragedy of Macbeth: Written and directed by Joel Coen (solo, without his brother Ethan), this movie is exactly what it says on the tin. A straightforward adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, shot in black-and-white, starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. Nothing has been updated in terms of setting or language, so don't expect any surprises from that quarter. But do expect an eerie mood, particularly any time Kathryn Hunter shows up on screen as the Witches. Boy is she creeptastic.

In terms of the lead performances, Washington is...fine. But I have never found the character of Macbeth to be very compelling; I'm more intrigued by Lady Macbeth, and here, Frances McDormand delivers the goods. It also helps that her husband is directing the movie - I've never seen more loving cinematography than all her close-ups as she declaims those famous lines. 

The movie looks beautiful, with great thought given to sets that cast unsettling shadows and amplify the oddness of everything that is going on. But it is also abundantly clear that this movie is shot entirely on sound stages, especially any time a scene is purportedly taking place outdoors. The fake-looking skies and clouds reminded me of classic Hollywood movies from the 1940s, where we just took such settings for granted, but in this film it feels a bit jarring. It was a deliberate choice to make the film appear "untethered from reality" but it simply annoyed me. If you're going to make a black-and-white film in the 21st century, you need to take advantage of all the things you can now shoot and do with cameras that people couldn't do in the 40s. 

Overall, this movie is a solid and taut piece of filmmaking (it's only 105 minutes long, which is blessedly short for a Shakespearean tragedy), but it doesn't feel necessary. Everything about it is perfectly fine, but nothing about it feels novel or revelatory. Watch it if you want to appreciate some clever cinematography and set design, but don't watch it if you're expecting some fascinating new take on the Bard.

Scream: I was a little worried about going to see a slasher movie all by myself, wondering if I would spend the whole time anxiously curled up into a ball in my seat as people on screen kept getting stabbed. But nope, I spent the whole time with a big goofy grin on my face, thoroughly enjoying this loving and absurd ode to the Scream movie franchise.

Directed by Matt Bellinetti-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and written by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick (all of whom were involved in the making of Ready or Not, the last horror comedy that thoroughly delighted me in theaters), this is your classic Scream movie where a bunch of people, mostly teenagers, in the town of Woodsboro are being killed by Ghostface, the iconic masked killer that we all know well from the past four Scream movies. We will spend this film watching various people get tormented and killed until Ghostface is finally unmasked at the end. But what makes this movie so hysterical is the amount of meta commentary throughout. This is a movie that is about the Scream franchise - the characters keep referencing a "Stab" movie franchise that is about the events of the Scream movies, and it is all so twisty and self-referential and amazing. We also get the return of the original Scream cast, with Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette all getting a chance to help this new group of terrorized teens track down their killer. And we get some insights into the Rules of a Scream movie, some of which may or may not come true as the film progresses.

Special shout-out to composer Brian Tyler's score throughout this film. It is so cheeky, constantly hyping up an impending stabbing and then leaving you hanging as the music crescendos to nothing. And just when you've been psyched out for the fourth time in a row, Ghostface shows up and stabs someone in the throat and you shriek with both horror and delight. This movie is so spectacularly silly and fun, and as long as you can tolerate some thrills and jump scares, you are guaranteed to have a good time. So give it a shot...or should I say, give it a stab?!