KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. It's been a busy couple of weeks so I missed doing a write-up last week and am trying to get ahead of it this week as another busy weekend is ahead. To be perfectly honest, my heart and mind aren't really in it to win it, but here we go anyway.
This Week:
The Last of Sheila (1973, d. Herbert Ross - hollywoodsuite)
The Final Destination (2009, d. David R. Ellis - rental)
Starship Troopers (1997, d. Paul Verhoeven - netflix)
Hail, Caesar! (2015, d. Joel and Ethan Coen - blu-ray)
Christmas on Duty (2025, d. Jake Van Wagoner - hallmark)
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Turns out that Perkins and Sondheim are old friends and that for years they would stage grand-scale scavenger hunts and murder mystery parties for their pals (one of which was this film's director Herbert Ross). It wasn't a far stretch for them to take a few of their ideas and build a Hollywood-style narrative around it.
The result is The Last of Sheila, where millionaire movie mogul Clinton Greene (James Coburn) has invited a few of his Hollywood acquaintances from in front of and behind the screen to a weekend of games and adventure. His six guests include aspiring screenwriter Tom Parkman (Richard Benjamin) and his wife with family money, Lee, horny and hungry star agent Christine (Dyan Cannon), over-the-hill director Philip Dexter (James Mason), superstar actress Alice Wood (Racquel Welch) and her latest husband Anthony (Ian McShane). They're all in different states of desperation as to not turn down Greene's invitation, but it seems like the only one that wants to be there is Christine.
Clinton promises fun and frivolity, but there's an air of something quite off. Clinton's beloved wife, Sheila, died, a victim of a hit-and-run about a year earlier, and Clinton hasn't been the same since. His game, and the plot thereof has sinister undertones, and it's not long before people start to suspect that Clinton is either toying with them, or planning something far more damning and dramatic. It seems the roleplaying he has each person playing is the secret of another player, and it's up to the players to figure out who's who.
Only trouble is, on the second day of the multi-day event, Clinton is murdered, and so the game becomes, well, just which one of them murdered him, and why.
The Last of Sheilah may not seem like much at first, and the first act, right up until Clinton's death, seems maybe a little frivolous, as if the whole affair is about Clinton trying to uncover, through is game, just which one of his guests was the driver that killed his wife. But it's nary so simple, and the twists just keep on twisting in rather delicious fashion throughout.
It's an exceptionally clever mystery that, like the best of them, isn't teasing the audience with clues as to its answer, because the mystery it's trying to solve isn't the mystery it's actually trying to solve, and even when the mystery is solved, there's still more to it. This film doesn't really relent until its last frame, and it ends in such a unique place that, somehow, still feels utterly unique.
The only part about The Last of Sheila that is maybe a little underwhelming is that its a cast of six, which doesn't seem like enough suspects when we can narrow them down and eliminate them pretty quickly. Of course, Ross is very clever with what he shows and doesn't show, and the script is very delicate in what it tells us and what it holds back.
I don't want to oversell it, but it's a really fun movie, and an absolute must for any fan of murder mysteries.
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And so, seeing that Ellis was back behind the helm for the fourth entry, doing that 2010s-era trope of using the first movie's name but with a definite article rather than a number to differentiate it, I was excited to see what absolute lunacy Ellis had cooked up.
Unfortunately what he cooked up was a cowpie served on horseshit.
Wasting absolutely no time, The Final Destination opens on a quartet of 20-somethings (actually playing 20-somethings this time, and not teenagers as I first thought) at a racetrack. One of them has a vision of a brutal collision which dominoes into the stadium collapsing and many people dying. And so, like the other films, our protagonist has a freakout which winds up leading him and his friends and a few other interlopers outside the stadium when the accident occurs.
And then they all start dying in freak accidents.
We've seen it before, and it's all been done better.
At well under 90-minutes this is a film that takes no time getting to where its going and where it wants to go, killing off CW-quality actors in complicated fashions, while our protagonist and a few other believers follow the visions he's having to try and prevent the others' deaths.
This film doesn't care one lick about its characters. It doesn't even pretend. Any moment where two characters should be connecting with each other are quickly cut away from in favour of what narrowly constitutes this film's plot.
It wouldn't be nearly so bad if Ellis were up to his same tricks as FD 2, but the death scenarios have little of the panache that they did in his earlier movie, where he would set up innumerable potential means for a character to die, only to deke us out a number of times and blindside us to our uproarious delight. Here, he does it in half measures and it's not so exciting or entertaining.
Also there's a battle between the Wong and Ellis camps in how our protagonists learn to interrupt death's plan. Wong's films have the characters seeing signs, in shadows or scattered paperwork or splattered condiments or photographs. Ellis lazily has the protagonist see prophetic visions. I much prefer the former, because it's more clever and visually interesting, and it means that any of the film's characters can see the signs. In Ellis' films only one can have the visions.
The film is also extremely ugly. Shots are composed terribly, like sub-par Lifetime films, either a clear signifier of reduced budget, or a side effect of shooting a film for 2010's-era 3-D, or probably both. I was constantly taken aback by just how low-budget the film looked.
I had hoped FD3 was the low point of the series, but I was wrong. I know redemption is coming with Bloodlines but I'm hoping the fifth entry starts laying the path.
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In the nearly 30 years since, Starship Troopers has been re-evaluated by the critical community as a sly, subversive film that fits in perfectly with Paul Verhoeven's other sci-fi greats like Robocop and Total Recall. Except those films had good actors, acting good, while this film has a host of mediocre actors acting poorly. Oh, the bad acting is definitely intentional, I see that now, certainly in the direction Verhoeven was giving his cast if not actually a conscious effort on the parts of performers like Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards. It's evident Verhoeven was not a fan of the 90's trend of horny teen dramas starring late-20-somethings playing teenagers, and sending them into bloody combat and turning these beautiful white faces into tools of a fascist empire is entirely the point.
But it's still a tough hang.
The action is incredible. The bug creatures are probably the best on-screen alien creation this side of the Xenomorph (they're so damn colourful), and the satire, when it rears its head, stings like a paper cut. But any time we need to spend with any of these characters is like having a root canal without any anaesthetic...so, so painful.
Just like in 1997, I really, really want to like this film, and I kind of do, but I hate it more than I like it.
I've never watched any of its direct to video sequels, as I can't imagine it being done on a lower budget with even lower tiered stars, and not with an auteur director and totally leaning into the fascistic glory of warfare rather than satirizing it...yeah, no thanks.
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I can't help it. There's a chilliness to each of those other masterpieces of the Coens' career second half, but Hail, Caesar! is all warmth.
Their comedies, especially post-2000, tend to have a bit to then, something a little cynical. It's all love here, a true love letter to the Hollywood studio system of old and the movies that they produced, while also being very keenly aware of the sexism, the shadiness, the manipulation, the darkness behind it all. The Coens aren't saying that the art was worth the sacrifice...or maybe they are. I actually don't know. They dive into communist and socialist thinking in a manner that seems both mocking and reverential, much in the same way that they poke sharply at the studio behind-the-scenes while also adoringly creating synchronized swimming or song-and-dance numbers that rival (and possibly outdo) the similar films of yesterday.
I already reviewed the film back in 2016, and most everything I said there still stands. It's just an unabashed delight to watch with it's star-studded cast (just more and more faces popping up in tiny parts) and big time set-pieces. It wasn't the most warmly received movie at the time, but like most Coens films, people have come around on it and started embracing it. I've always been exceptionally fond of it.
The only thing I got wrong in my review was in my prediction of how big a star Alden Ehrenreich would become. I hadn't gauged how brutal the backlash would be to Solo (despite being a movie, that itself, has become a bit of an secret success in Star Wars circles), and Ehrenreich seemed to have taken the full brunt of that backlash. He's never become a big star, but revisiting Hail, Caesar! for the first time in a while, and I was blown away once again by just how damn charming, charismatic and multi-talented he is. He's just a magnificent performer and I enjoy seeing him in everything I've seen him in (hello Weapons). Hopefully he finds *that* movie or *that* prestige TV series that finally connects him with the public.
Watching this film reminded me that I need to get AppleTV back and finish off The Studio which feels like it's time travelling kin to Hail, Caesar!
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Oh, gawddammit, it's that time of year again isn't it.
Even before Halloween was over, Hallmark had already started airing its slate of seasonal romance films for Christmas 2025. They've slashed their roster practically in half from last year, likely in part because their leaning into episodic series and reality TV more this year, but also in part likely because of the cheddar prez who started slapping obtuse tariffs on productions made out of country, and the Hallmark movie churn is heavily dependent on crossing the Canadian border.
Anyway, I've already stockpiled a few Hallmarkies for the annual Toasty and Kent Advent Calendar, but this pile of doodoo isn't going to wait that long. I can't have its stink just wafting around for that long.
In Christmas On Duty, Parker Young of (Suburgatory and Enlisted in his Hallmark debut) costars with Janelle Parrish (Sugarplummed) in...ugh... a seasonal military-themed "romance". Usually the Hallmark military-themed productions are cloying wanna-be tearjerkers about a woman pining for her man serving overseas and how difficult life is without a man around or some shit. I dunno. I don't watch them, because they're pretty much what they say they are on the sleeve.
But this, at least, was stepping away from the tearful reunions, and instead was vying for an opposites-attract/road-trip engagement. It did try, and boy it failed spectacularly.
The story opens with Young and Parrish competing for a spot in the marine's infantry, and Parrish comes out on top. Their fathers have a long rivalry that has extended to them, if in a friendlier fashion. Six year later they're reunited at Quantico training where Parrish is looking for duty commander or something. I dunno, the movie care only marginally more about the rank-and-file-ness of the military than I do.
Their rivalry immediately rears its head and they get in trouble with their outgoing Colonel. Forced to serve watch duty together on Christmas Eve, the pair instead find themselves on a mission to rescue Christmas because the delivery truck can't make it's way through the storm to bring toys. Given an official mission, Young and Parrish put their difference aside and head out in an old 5-ton and go shopping for the kids, having a couple verrrry stupid detours and encountering some very contrived obstacles along the way.
Meanwhile.... nevermind. It's not worth getting into.
This movie not only has the talents of the usually quite charming Young and Parrish, but also the always solid Peter Jacobson (Colony) playing Parrish' Lt.Col.(ret) father. None of the military personnel in this film were convincing in the slightest, and the chemistry between Young and Parrish never really accelerated. The whole production feels like a trial run, a proof-of-concept rather than anything resembling refined product.
It's a story that wants to have the big road trip side-quests that lead to big comedic or romantic or dramatic set pieces, but none of the side-quests lead to anything resembling big comedy, romance or drama. The complication (and there's always a complication) is so under baked that when it cropped up I was left scratching my head why anyone thought there was a problem.
But there is real snow. Sometimes.
And there's Doug. At one side-quest Young and Parris encounter a hapless middle-aged stoner-coded store employee who has, accidentally, locked himself out of the store. Doug is the only bright spot in this otherwise kind of dull and sparkless movie, to the point that both Lady Kent and I were left asking "what's Doug up to?" multiple times after his appearance (did we spy him in the parade afterward?).
Also "Finding Mr. Christmas" Season 1 winner Ezra is in this, for about 5 lines and is out-acted by an 8-year-old. The man's an ex-marine AND won the Hallmark leading man competition and he relegated to a cameo!?! Don't expect to see him in any Hallmarkies next year. I honestly don't know what they were thinking (having seen the first two episodes of season 2 of Finding Mr. Christmas, at least it seems they can't do worse).
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