KWIF: Hope (+2)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. 

This Week:
Hope (2026, d. Na Hong-jin - in theatre)
Is God Is (2026, d. Aleshea Harris  - amazonprime)
The Christophers (2025, d. Stephen Soderbergh - amazonprime)

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I knew three things going into Hope:

1) it was the biggest budget Korean-produced film ever
2) the opening hour is an epic, action tour-de-force
3) the poor CGI for the film's creatures many say spoiled the film for them.

The first item is just a fact, the other two are subjective statements. What I had heard about the opening sequence, which again, is about a full hour in length, is absolutely true. It is an incredibly paced, beautifully shot, exceptionally well-structured sequence that spends the majority of its time using deft camera positioning and brilliant practical and digital effect to hide or obscure the creature at the centre of the chaos in this small Korea border town of Hope Harbor.

The set-up is phenomenal. Local police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min, providing a believably harried performance) arrives in the very rural farmland scene where hunters point out the very large, dead bovine in the middle of the road. It's been mauled severely, but not eaten. The hunters and the chief puzzle over both its placement (far enough from any grazing land) and the claw marks, which are not bear nor, as suggested, tiger. 

The parties split up with help called for, but unable to arrive due to regional fires being fought. Bum-seok enters the main street of the eerily vacant town and screeches to a halt when he spies a massive, destructive hole straight through the center of a shop, its proprietor dead under the rubble within. And then off in the distance, smoke, then gunfire, and it all pops off. 

Bum-seok races through town on foot, shotgun in hand, witnessing carnage as flung items crush people, people are tossed dozens of meters down the road, roving pickups loaded with ammo and men and women chase, then flee from whatever it is they're attacking. Bum-seok meets people and then separates from them, loses some of them, and generally is overwhelmed and questioning his own bravery.

It's an exhilarating hour of cinema, and, then the creature is revealed, and, even being forewarned and prepared, it's still a let down. In the preceding hour, minute-by-minute, the mind races at the possibilities of what the creature could be. Even knowing beforehand that it would be a disappointment, I still had (ahem) hope that the creature would at least be interesting. 

And you know what...it kind of is. It's definitely not what I was expecting (and I'll save said description for spoilers below), and it did kinda take me aback, both in its composition and in what's best described as excellent-for-2002 CGI effects.

It's clear that Hope Harbor is close-ish to the border with North Korea. There's signage about reporting spies and talk of heavily mined fields to the North. I suspected that there might be some form of North Korean-invasion or panic angle to this film, in metaphor if not literal, but no. It's just backdrop. I guess it explains why everyone has so many guns (or is it just an aping of American action cinema and going intentionally overboard?) 

The creature is taken down, and the second hour of the film cuts back and forth between the fallout of this epic rampage in the town, and what the hunters are discovering out in the woods. Bum-seok and his deputy Sung-ae (Jung Ho-yeon) independently find out more about what others have discovered in the woods, as Sung-ki (Zo In-sung) and his posse of hunters encounter some pretty fascinating and gnarly scenes in the trees.  

This process of discovery, which also includes a very gooey impromptu autopsy on the creature, is really, really good. It's the appropriate cool-off from the pulse-racing opener, and really gets you invested in the story a very fun, 1980's creature-feature kind of way (and Hope borrows more than a shots from such films throughout). There's not much CGI to speak of in this so the small let-down of the creature starts to fade (especially as it's a big, rubbery, practical piece for the autopsy).

Everything converges in the woods in the third act, and, well, this is where the film loses me. It's not the CGI. We've been dealing with unreal-looking computer generated images for over 30 years in movies and television, I can accept a lot if the story earns my trust...so long as the effects aren't unbelievably awful (which they aren't here, they just don't have Hollywood money to put into them to refine them over and over). No, what loses me in the third act is the tedium of it.

The second act give us enough of we need to know, the creatures motivations seem somewhat clear, providing a path to resolution. But the third act seems to disregard that we have this knowledge, and instead is another hour of shooting guns and chases and ugly cgi monsters crashing through trees and that hoary trope of going into slow motion as something near-misses biting or grabbing as it passes mid-air (we only see this about a dozen times in the film, mostly in this third act, ugh). It culminates in what should be a breathless chase sequence on the highway, Sung-ki on a horse and the rest of the gang in a police car fleeing the creature, but it feels just so staged and pointless and it goes on so long. Where in the first hour, each minute that ticked by seemed to open up new possibilities in your mind, really stimulating the imagination, every minute of the last half hour had me wondering if it was over yet.

The third act introduces that the creatures can talk, but in a language that isn't Korean (or English). But late, late in the third act, we start cutting to the creatures, independent of what else is happening to our main characters, and we start seeing subtitled conversations with them.... WTF!?! You can't just all of a sudden thrust on the audience that these are fully sentient creatures who we now need to invest time into understanding the meaning of what they're saying this late in the film (the creatures are voiced -and maybe motion capture performed?- by Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Cameron Brittan and Taylor Russell). 

And the film just ends on a conversation between these creatures, unresolved. After nearly 160 minutes, and a dire and truly pointless third act, there isn't a resolution, but instead the cliffhanger (but not really a tried and true cliffhanger) for the sequel.

I do not recall the last time I bought into a film so hard and then was so off board by the end. I can forgive overly-ambitious-for-its-budget digital effects, but I really can't forgive poor story planning and even poorer execution.

The cinematography by Hong Kyung-pyo (Parasite) is outstanding from frame one, some absolutely gorgeous vistas of this Korean terrain, and just making the immaculately decorated/destroyed streets and buildings of this town look incredible (I can't help but think of the devastation in Godzilla Minus One and think that, even if it is on a smaller scale, they one upped it here...this town got wrecked, or at least we truly are give the feeling that it's just been demolished). Even the highway chase, as overworked a sequence as it is, still looks incredible.  The score from frequent Jordan Peele collaborator Michael Abels will get your blood pumping. 

There's so much to like about Hope that is could have...it should have been incredible. This could have been next-level Attack The Block even with its middling-looking creatures, but it's clear Director Na has lore and mythology for the creatures that he wants to get into, just in another film next film. I would be fine with that, but finish. this. one. first.

Spoilers at the end of this post.

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Is God Is, directed by first-timer Aleshea Harris, is an adaptation of her own multiple-award-winning off-Broadway play. When you hear that a film is an adaptation of a play, you think more of a chamber-piece, more of a two-hander, or something rather...upscale... meaningful... contemplative... important.  You don't generally think of plays as being revenge thrillers with an elevated grindhouse aesthetic (now that we've finally laid the term "elevated horror" to rest, I'm trying to pomp up a new term to annoy people).

We meet twins Racine (Kara Young) and Anaya (Mallori Johnson), whose first trait we notice is their scars. Anaya, the quiet one, has extensive burn scars on her face, while Racine's right arm is horribly disfigured, carries a fire in her just waiting to erupt. The twins live together and work together and have a sort of synchronized routine to their day, including icing down each other's burns with extreme tenderness. It seems like it's the highlight of their day, despite all it may connote.  They also have a way of communicating non-verbally that is presented in distinctive subtitling on screen.

Their lives, obviously, have not been easy. Racine's rage as much, if not more of an impediment than whatever prejudices their appearance may elicit. One day they receive a letter from their mother, who they've long thought dead (having spent their childhood in a series of abusive foster homes), but turns out is now dying. She summons them and they hit the road heeding her call. Also horribly scarred (far, far more) and tended to by what seem like cherubs-in-disguise, Ruby (Vivica A. Fox) tells the children of their horrendous origin story at the hands of their even more horrendous father (Sterling K. Brown, just seeping sociopathic nefariousness). She then tasks them with but one goal: "make your daddy dead".

And so they're back on the road, trying to track down their father, along the way discovering the impact this despicable human being has had on the lives and minds of the people who have had the misfortune of being around him, including a few half siblings along the way.

The film side-steps any racial violence against Racine and Anaya (in fact, I think there's not a single speaking role not played by a Black actor here) because there's more than enough threats that Racine and Anaya have to face in trying to hunt down their father.  Along the way, Racine's fury, her lust for violence starts to conflict with Anaya's demure sensibilities, and suddely they're not in sync anymore. There is, one more than one occasion, a reason to question nurture versus nature, but also examine the context in which Racine and Anaya were raised. It becomes a complex idea to fully grasp, what's fueling the fire in Racine at any given time.

Is God Is may not have been a commercial hit, but it's a very successful movie. It isn't the naval-gazing, highbrow art that one might thing going into a stage-to-screen adaptation. It's a sprawling, intense, violent, pulpy romp that also has a sense of theatricality and thoughtfulness to it that distinguishes it and, yes, elevates it from typical B-movie fare.  But you can meet it at either, or both levels and be satisfied. Or maybe exploring this kind of darkness, even with the lighter elements and stylistic flourishes, might just be too off putting.

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A friend attended the world debut of The Christophers at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and raved about what a great movie it was. They had never seen Michaela Coel before and were blown away. 

I assumed, given how critically well-received it was coming out of TIFF, and also it being a Stephen Soderbergh production that it was going to be released in the fall of 2025 for awards contention.  I eagerly awaited its release. And waited. And waited. 

When it finally was released early this Spring, it was not released very wide, and screenings around Toronto, a very movie-friendly city, were not as regular as your average release, nor did it remain in theatres long enough for Lady Kent and I to catch it on the big screen. 

Next think I know it's on Amazon Prime, which I don't regularly subscribe to and which continues to have a pretty user-unfriendly interface (it's designed to sell you stuff, as well as gather data on you, not give you movies to watch). Point being, it took a lot longer to get to seeing The Christophers than I wanted. 

And, holy cow... this is one of Soderbergh's best films in a very lengthy filmography of good-to-great films... it's also one of Ian McKellan's best performances in a very long career of good-to-great acting, and, well, Michaela Coel whom I already liked a lot (while unfortunately admitting I've not followed her career closely enough) is just one of the most captivating performers in film and television today.

McKellan plays famous artist Julian Sklar, a notable painter of the modern age, but who hasn't released much work in decades, and has become more of a media personality in recent years. His most famous works are the two series of paintings of his lover from the 1990s, labelled The Christophers. Rumours have long held there is an unfinished third series that, despite how his reputation may have fallen off, audiences are still anxious to see finished... including Sklar's own son and daughter.

Barnaby (James Corde) and Sally (Jessica Gunning) see the third series of The Christophers as their inheritance. They look to Lori Butler (Coel), an art restorer and former classmate, to become Julian's assistant, and, more specifically, they want her to covertly finish the paintings. 

That's the set-up, but the execution is a complete two-hander between McKellan and Coel as Julian waxes poetic to the sound of his own voice, barely letting Lori get an word in edgewise. He dismisses her and is disinterested in her, until he does a web search and reads her critical think-pieces on him which take on his ego and take him down more than a peg or two. And he is intrigued, and also more than aware of the ploy his shiftless offspring are trying to parlay.

With the jig up, Lori doesn't need to hold back as her already tenuous employment is now obviously severed, and she proves herself to be, at the very least, his intellectual equal, if not artistic one.

With two fascinating characters played by two incredible actors, the script serves them both, Julian with a sharp, self-satisfied, erudite wit, while Lori is reserved but tactical in her words. McKellan gets bold with his body, embodying Julian half-robed, as much for his own comfort as for the discomfort of others. Coel, meanwhile, delivers some of the slyest glances in the film, at times telling more with her facial expressions than with her words.

For Soderbergh's part, it's all about capturing a space, being Julian's London double townhouse, which is the home of a disorganized artist. There's no reason for Julian, who hasn't worked with any proficiency since the '90's ended, to have a home in such disarray, but it's clear he hasn't managed his money well, and that how he lives is of no bother (his sectional corner sofa looks like it's from the 70's and hasn't been used in years, but was very well used at one time). Soderbergh captures and sometimes focuses on the surroundings as his characters negotiate them, making the space a major component of every scene.

I was expecting an almost psychological drama out of The Christophers for some reason, not a surprisingly fun and immensely enjoyable while still emotionally resonant picture. What a true delight with just the most satisfying ending.

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***SPOILERS FOR HOPE***

As I said, you're just not at all prepared for these creatures when you see them, and yes there are multiple creatures, and no they are not the same. The first creature, the one wrecking havoc on the town, is teased so exceptionally well. It is a mystery to us, and we're given clues, like the goopy, goopy blood, the fishy smell, the cut in on fish here and there throughout the chase, the description that it looks like a pile of beans? But also, it's clear that the way this creature is fighting, and the speed at which it's moving around, it's not running on instinct, it does have some kind of thought. It's using tools to kill people, and it seems like its on a distinct mission to kill every human in town. It's like the cow was a mistake, and it learned who its enemy was, and it was going to destroy every one of them. And when it's revealed, it's large (as expected) but shockingly humanoid. It's got green skin, looks a little slimy, a human-ish face, long scraggly hair, human-ish limbs and hands, but triple-jointed legs like an animal. I was thinking that it was maybe a sea hag, hence the fishy smell, and that its skin would be so tough and dense because it has to be able to withstand the crushing depths of the Pacific. But no, it also turns out that it's an alien. We see at least four more alien creatures, and each one is different than the others, still humanoid but their bodies are differently composed. One of them can transform into something that looks like the dog-alien from Alien 3 while another has two massive racks of horns growing out of their shoulder blades that makes you wonder about the logistics of living with those. We also see their space craft, which is a gigantic orb, and it looks fantastic, both outside and in. The interior is clearly cribbing from the Geiger school of ship design, but it has its own distinct feel from the Alien/Prometheus tekno-organic look. Again the discovery process exploring all this in the second act I genuinely enjoyed as much as the hyper first act. It just falls all apart in the third act.  The second act finds sympathy for these creatures, so when the third act just starts shooting them all up again over and over and over again, you keep wondering where the sympathy plays into this. There's clearly been a misunderstanding between species, but nobody is keen to resolve it, certainly not the director, not in this film. Sigh. The only possible route for the second film is to redo much of the first film but from the creatures' perspectives. But that would take beaucoup bucks (or a heavy reliance upon AI-generated effects, which double gross), so I don't think it's going to happen (and I'm not sure I would even see it if it did).

***END SPOILERS FOR HOPE***

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Death of Robin Hood

2026, Michael Sarnoski (Pig) -- download

I've had a story in my head for a few years now. A few actually, tied together. One speaks of The Slayer or The Unkillable; he's had a few names. It tells of an unkillable (duh) sword wielding warrior, a man who has been killing men and monsters alike, a warrior who fears no one and nothing. Another iteration of the tale tells of him in his old age, long since "retired" from swinging his sword, and now only swings an axe. He is the mysterious woodcutter living deep in the woods, avoiding people, avoiding his reputation, hiding from his legacy of endless death, a tired man, a sorrow-filled man who only wants peace and hard labour.

This movie tells the tale of Robin Hood, but a long aged Robin (Hugh Jackman, Logan), and not the man of legend. The legend was created by him to mask the brutality and killing he wrought in his youth. He was never truly the hero of myth, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. He was just a brigand, a killer of people so he could take what they had. And his legacy is that he is endlessly pursued by the families of those he has slain, always on the run, no longer a young and unkillable warrior, just an aching, but still powerful man hiding when he can, killing when he has to. 

This movie begins as a grimdark, violent, bloody and gritty tale. They needed to set the story who the real man is. There are no flashbacks, no images of a dashing hero in a green hood, flashing a smile as he steals bags of coins from the moustache twirling Sheriff of Nottingham. There is just the mumbling Little John (Bill Skarsgård, Barbarian) who is fleeing after having been outed from his farm by vengeful foes, a farm that he acquired himself by killing the previous owner. Fuck, this is a dark world -- there is no irony in John's (now calling himself Edward, a name taken from the man he killed) description of what he has done -- he killed a man and set himself as the head of his new "family" and, well, they have accepted him. He comes across Robin on the road, and seeks his help in recovering what is his. Together they kill the vengefuls, but not before all but one of John's Edward's family are killed in front of him. 

One escapes (not really, as Robin puts an arrow through the back of the boy's head, and he stumbles, dying, home, bearing the mark of who did the deed) causing the return of the head of the family, armed and armoured, unlike the usual staff & pitch fork bearing farmers that Robin and John can easily dispatch. And the battle is so brutal, it leaves Robin on the edge of death. John all but carries him to a boat which takes him to an island where a Prioress, Sister Bridgit (Jodie Comer, 28 Years Later) is known to heal all who are brought to her. Edward hands "Roderick" over to her care, who is barely alive, cut and crushed and suffering great blood loss. Their lies are accepted, and Edward departs.

Act Two. Healing. The tonal shift in this act is palpable. Via music (the use of "Twa Corbies" is wonderful) and mood, we observe Roderick heal, but all the while wondering when the tables will turn. This is not an unfamiliar story telling technique, where we wonder whether a violent amoral character will stay true to that course, or will he be swayed by kindness and acceptance. The Prioress has her own past, but its only just touched upon, but other members of the priory tell of it being full of darkness and loss. Meanwhile, a quiet wise leper lives out his last days on the island, bringing Roderick into his confidence, offering his place as the protector of the apple and pear groves. You know the leper knows who Roderick might be, but there is no judgement, no coaxing, just an ask that Robin not bring his violence to the island. 

Roderick's healing is not quick, and the gentle touch does soften him, especially when Edward's daughter appears on the shores -- her "papa" was attacked and she fled to here. She has been abused and traumatized but when she sees Roderick, she grasps him silently. And also, with time and a gentle touch, she softens to him, finding a new father figure. It surprises him as much as the rest of the islanders. BUT we still see the darkness behind his eyes. We wonder if he will end up returning to his ways, kill her for revealing who he is.

I absolutely loved Jackman in this role. And not because he is the living image of the retired Slayer from my mind's eye, but for the reserved manner he approached the role. This was not big acting, but quiet and brooding.  Hell knows, I love a good brood. Comer is, as usual, magnificent. And Skarsgård just disappears into his small role, more than he did behind the makeup of Pennywise. This movie won't be for everyone, as it can be ponderous at times, and does very little to rise from its dark mood, but for me, already steeped deeply in such a mood (not a good time in my life right now), it was pitch perfect.

KWIF: Coyote vs Acme (+5)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. Oldies, and some not-so-goodies. Let's try and be quick about this...ha!

This Week: 
Coyote vs. Acme (2026*, d. Dave Green - in theatre)
Love Wedding Repeat (2020, d. Dean Craig - netflix)
9 to 5 (1980, d. Colin Higgins - hollywood suite)
ABBA: The Movie (1977, d. Lasse Hallström - hollywood suite)
The Gumball Rally (1976, d. Charles Bail - hollywood suite)
Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance (1974, d. Toshiya Fujita - tubi)

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At a holiday Monday matinee in a local neighbourhood repertory theatre, I expected a film like Coyote vs. Acme to have at least a few children loading up on sugary drinks and popcorn and running around the theatre. While there were probably over 100 attendees at this screening, I don't think I clocked a single person under the age of 10, and the vast majority were at least 30 or older.

The early millennials were probably the last to experience Looney Tunes as part of the general pop culture diet. Anyone younger, like my GenZ kids, would have probably experienced them on some sort of physical media presented to them by their parents, if at all. While these ridiculous cartoons were a very large part of peoples childhoods for over 60 years, the changing nature of entertainment has rendered these characters and their antics somewhat...obsolete.  There are other characters in other animations on other media that are doing the Looney Tunes thing, but in a modern context, servicing a modern audience.

This is all to say that Coyote vs. Acme is, maybe, the best thing featuring the Looney Tunes characters that I've seen in many decades.  It's not saying much. The efforts to bring these characters to a modern audience have largely been failures (whether artistically or commercially) outside of the original Space Jam and Tiny Toons back in the 1990s. I don't know how often I have though about the Looney Tunes gang since I started "adulting" half my life ago, but I can tell you, it's not very much, not really much at all.  And I think about this kind of stuff all the time.

Coyote vs. Acme was set to release in 2023, and the buzz at the time was that it was a real winner of a film. An honest-to-gosh funny, entertaining, and meaningful film revitalizing these somewhat antiquated characters. Anticipation was already starting to percolate when the film was unceremoniously shelved by Warner Bros. in 2023 for tax writeoff purposes (alongside a nearly completed Batgirl movie and a Scooby-Doo project already in production).  The belief was that we were never going to see this film.

Ketchup Entertainment stepped in and I guess offered Warner Brothers the correct sum of money to release distribution right to them.  I can't imagine that Ketchup did this for any other reason than a strong desire to see the film, because the Looney Tunes box office track record over the past 30 years speaks for itself. 

But it's here, and it's, frankly, magnificent, whether people are seeing it in droves or not, this is both a deliriously funny and entertaining movie and a real love letter to the Road Runner cartoons and cartoon violence in general.

The plot is pretty basic: after decades of faulty equipment and zero successful attempts at capturing and eating the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote decides he wants to sue Acme, the provider of all his bird-chasing gear. Kevin Avery (Will Forte) makes a living out of filing frivolous settlement claims with Acme for token sums to the point that it's a very routine and uneventful process. But Wile E. isn't interested in settling and communicating by using only paper cutouts, a limited supply of placard signs and wild gesticulations, he gets Kevin to commit to taking on Acme on a much, much larger scale.

Accompanied by his neice, Paige (Lana Condor), Kevin and the Coyote start investigating Acme only to start hearing scuttlebutt about secret projects and experiments, with their own carrot-chewing Deep Throat informant guiding them on.

This is an Erin Brocovich meets Mr. Smith Goes To Washington-type mash-up that somehow gets to the noble heart of the little guy persevering in taking on the big guy even though they know they will lose. It's a story about continuing to try even though failure is the most probable outcome, of making movements out of adversity.  There's a "thank you" to all the people who hold up signs and stand up and make noise in the credits, and it spells out perfectly what's at the heart of what should be just a silly live action/animation mash-up.

We've been living with real people in animated worlds on screen for decades upon decades now, but most of that is cgi (not that this isn't) and not the melding of toon worlds with the real world. There are more than a few examples dating back to classic Disney (the best of the more recents being the Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers from 2022) but the gold standard has always been Who Framed Roger Rabbit, being a film that merges these realities into an odd yet cohesive place of existence. Coyote vs. Acme finds if not exactly that same balance then very, very close.  You believe these human characters are occupying the same space as these cartoon beings, and vice versa.

The way director Dave Green and his crew subtly (well, as subtle as a cartoon can be) inject animated things into the everyday world (like the screen on someone's cell phone being a cartoon screen instead of a real one) further serves this meshing. There's a super fun action sequence in the third act which finds a human character employing animated devices to wreak animation-style havoc on the real world (like grabbing the pavement on the road, pulling a section up like it were a carpet, and then jerking it causing ripples to wave their way down the road, tossing cars up into the air...really fun special effects).

The comedy comes from all angles, including physical and animated, wordplay and situational comedy, but Coyote vs. Acme, with its script from Samy Burch (with story by James Gunn, Jeremy Slater and Burch - based on a satirical New Yorker piece by Ian Frazier) finds its greatest comedy in the repurposing of tried and true Looney Tunes jokes and gags in different contexts throughout the film. This will be the litmus test for any viewer and their enjoyment...how familiar are you with the Tunes of yore? I imagine it's still a funny movie without getting these jokes, but it's probably significantly less funny if you don't.

And therein lies the challenge for this film. It can only be a hit if word of mouth is so resoundingly positive that it makes it an unavoidable feature, a real foundational pop culture piece. But if a large part of the audience is too young and unfamiliar, or similarly a large number of the critical/social media attention market don't have the familiarity, the enthusiasm will probably be much less than, say, someone like myself who just smiled the biggest, dumbest smile throughout the entire film, except when I was laughing, which was often. The whole family went to see it with 40 years between youngest and oldest and we all had a blast with it...we'll be shaking the dust off for weeks.

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You can't use a title that riffs on the tagline/second title of one of the all-timers in the time loop genre and not be a time loop movie. Whomever named Love Wedding Repeat should go to movie jail for a decade and think about what they've done (or didn't do).

No, Love Wedding Repeat is not a romcom spin on Edge of Tomorrow's alt Live, Die, Repeat (but could you imagine if this were a wedding romcom taking place at the same time as Edge of Tomorrow? Oh to dream!). Instead it's intoning the film's actual gimmick which, in all honesty, is not bad conceptually but terribly executed. But we'll get to that shortly.

The film opens in Rome where Englishman Jack (Sam Claflin, who is not Nicholas Hoult) was visiting his sister Hayley (Eleanor Tomlinson, who is not Sophie Turner) but instead has found himself out on a non-date with his sister's American roommate Dina (Olivia Munn, who is Olivia Munn), and the two are just clicking. As they breach the distance for a kiss, they get interrupted by an old college pal of Jack's and the traditional awkward British pleasantness finds Jack swept away back to London instead of staying to spend more time with Dina.

Fast forward 5 years and Hayley is getting married to an Italian man in an Italian villa. Dina is on the guest list and Jack has one objective in reconnecting with her. He will, however, have to hurdle his spiteful ex-girlfriend Amanda (Frida Pinto) and her boyfriend-with-an-inferiority-complex Chaz (Allan Mustafa) and run interference when Marc (Jack Farthing), a coked-up classmate Hayley had a fling with not too long ago, shows up to disrupt the wedding.  Hayley asks Jack to effectively roofie Marc with a powerful sleeping aide she's been using and, due to divine intervention (or some impish children attending the weddings who rearrange the name placards for the seating at the table), the glass with the sleep aide becomes a game of Russian roulette. Who will get dosed? Is it Marc as intended? Or Jack? Or Dina or Amanda or Chaz? Or dull friend Sidney (a perfectly utilized Tim Key), or sarcastic friend Rebecca (an underutilized Aisling Bea), or Marc's best friend (and Hayley's Maid of Honor) Bryan (Joel Fry)? 

It's Bryan. And so having to handle a sleepy Bryan also falls on Jack's plate as he tries to reconnect with Dina. It's pretty much a catastrophe, and an hour later the groom winds up dead. 

But rewind...what if someone else drinks from the tainted glass instead?

Rather than play through a few of these scenarios, in the way that a time loop would, instead we get an extremely rapid -- to the point of being unintelligible -- montage sequence of other scenarios and blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpses of what the fallout of those situations might look like. And then the second scenario plays out where it's Jack, instead, who gets dosed.

Love Wedding Repeat is a frustrating movie. For a romcom it spends most of its time keeping the romantic couple apart, and offering mostly situational comedy with ringers Key, Bea, and Fry offering a little extra sauce (Fry's sleepy physical comedy is pretty good, Key's attempts to charm Munn are deliciously weird, and Bea's hilarious quips are too infrequent). The situational comedy, however, comes with a lot of questions, and, moreover, the sense that the only reason people are acting the way they are is for the sake of the story.  I mean, obviously... but their actions aren't logical or feel grounded in either reality or even this somewhat heightened reality.

A traditional comedy would put our protagonist(s) in a tight spot for comedic purposes and eventually they would find their way out of it again. The whole point is to build up the characters, to put challenges in their way, to observe their character flaws, and to show them overcoming them. Here, it meticulously goes through the wedding day and builds up all these catastrophes, and then, just, resets, presenting them with a whole other set of challenges to overcome, this time triumphantly.

But unlike a time loop where a character succeeds at leaving the time loop, and then life continues for everyone everywhere as if nothing happened, here, we're effectively dealing with alt realities, and in one alternative timeline Hayley accidentally kills her husband. I mean, where's the satisfaction in knowing that?

There's a kernel here in the story that really could have worked, but the fantastical premise sinks it. The cast is pretty charming, but it's not even close to being enough to save a fundamentally flawed production.

Rome looks nice.

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9 to 5 opens with that iconic low-register piano key (with bass accompaniment, a tapping of the hi-hat, and Dolly herself click-clackking her fingernails emulating a typewriter) and that's all this film needs to suck the audience in. The first couple stanzas of the song further draw you in as Dolly sings about getting up in the morning, forging your way to work and then toiling throughout the day, all while we see imagery of mobile women on the streets of New York on their morning routine. It's all a celebration of women in the workplace, to which the film that follows never lets down except in the last possible moment.

Recent divorcee Judy Burnly (Jane Fonda) enters the workforce for the first time, hired in the secretarial pool at Consolidated Companies under VP Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman), a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.  Judy is put under the wing of Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin) the senior supervisor of secretarial, who should be in Hart's position but was passed over for not being part of the boy's club... and has once again been passed over for promotion by Hart, the role given to a far junior man (and also Hart recognizes that Violet's supreme competence elevates him, especially when he takes credit for her work).

Hart keeps his secretarial pool under a tight, regimented regime, observed by his subservient personal assistant Roz (Elizabeth Wilson), with Doralee Rhodes (Dolly Parton) being his personal secretary less for her skills than because she is pretty and buxom.  Hart denigrates his female staff regularly, has no compassion for their personal lives, intentionally underpays them and sexually harasses Doralee multiple times a day, while spreading rumours that he and Doralee are actually sleeping together (ostracizing her from her coworkers).

Eventually Doralee snaps at Hart's advances one Friday night and hogties him with a telephone cord. Violet - whose tether was already ready to snap - and Judy, with lingering trauma from her divorce, decide to take matters into their own hands, kidnapping Hart and holding him hostage at his own house while they make incredible improvements to the working lives of the women on their floor - job sharing, flex hours, in-building day care, equal pay for equal work, and talks of unionizing.

There's a ticking clock to their hostage situation, with Hart's wife on vacation and Roz sent away for a multi-week French immersive learning course. Likewise Hart has them on many criminal charges (including attempted murder), but they have a smoking gun that Hart has been embezzling from the company, but a records request will take time to process.

The kidnapping, which is part of the promotion of the film in trailers and the poster, doesn't happen until past the halfway point. Prior to this, the film spins its wheels in two frustrating side-quests. The first finds Doralee, Judy and Violet bonding while getting high and fantasizing about revenge on Hart. The bonding is good-not-great, but the three fantasy sequences are each overlong and kinda corny (although the role reversal fantasy with Doralee being the boss sexually harassing Hart was amusing, to a point...even as I recognize any sexual harassment of any kind is not really funny).  The second finds Violet accidentally poisoning Hart's coffee and getting taken to the hospital after receiving a concussion (unrelated), and there's some stealing a dead body shenanigans that feel like they're from another film entirely.

The characters here work. They are well drawn with interior lives and there are both spoken and unspoken motivations that fuel them. The glimpses as each of their lives outside of work are great and could have been explored even further rather than, say, the whole body-thieving subplot.  The juice of the movie is all in Hart's kidnapping and the changes they implement in his absence, and the lurking people at the office and outside Hart's home that may spoil it all adds layers of intensity.  You want these women to succeed, you want this horrible boss to be exposed, but you know the real risk is that should Hart have any small liberty he will gain the upper hand because of status and gender.

The conclusion of the film finds Hart failing upwards, the trio's changes deemed a corporate success, and that old cliche of still-frame postscript text providing a little glimpse into our main characters' futures. And as successful as the movie is at being quite progressive and feminist forward, it lets our characters down with a lack of imagination and thematic resonance in these postscripts by turning Doralee into Dolly Parton as a successful country and western singer, while Judy gets married to the Xerox guy (and, it sort of implies) isn't working anymore. Only Violet has true success relevant to her character, gaining the vice-president position she's long deserved.  It's also disappointing that Hart's postscript says he gets kidnapped in Brazil and is never seen again, as opposed to, you know, being exposed as a no-talent fraud and philanderer whose wife divorces him, taking everything and he winds up working at McDonalds or something.

Tomlin was always a fiery comedic performer with a very strong presence and no-bullshit personality which served her very well for a time, but the usual Purple Suits seemed to have less and less use for her as she got older (not a new story for women in Hollywood). She's perfect here. Coleman plays a slimeball like no other, where he's imposing but not really threatening, and elicits disgust at almost every turn. Likewise perfect. Fonda's role as Judy is sort of the gateway into this world, and is meant to act as the audience's shepherd through the film, but Judy's journey is a bit thin and could have been beefed up more. She's not much of a presence in the film.  

And then there's Dolly, the petite gal with big hair and big personality bolstered by a big Tennessee accent. She is very pretty, but it's always been Dolly's personality that was her greatest allure over 60 years in the entertainment business. She is so positive and kind and charitable, and that resonates from her no matter what she's doing. Here, as Doralee, that positivity, kindness and charity is taken advantage of, and abused, and watching Dolly flip into a tough-talking, no-nonsense, southern broad is remarkable while still feeling authentic. Dolly was not a pushover. Her successes were her own because of how driven she was and clearly how she could demand respect and would not accept anything else. This was her first film role, and beyond variety shows, her first big acting role, and she destroyed it. Doralee isn't Dolly, but Doralee isn't the same if it's not Dolly in the role. What a magnificent performance and performer. Rest in peace.

Following 9 to 5 there were a handful of other working women movies in the 1980s and they sort of disappeared after that, particularly once the Julia Roberts effect took hold in the 90's, and films about women were either romcoms or sappy melodramas, and there's not been a lot of mainstream movies reckoning with how American workplaces still, by and large, fail women. Even most revenge-on-your-boss movies have been male led.  In that respect 9 to 5, rather than being an archive of a certain time and place, still has an unfortunate vitality to it, especially as angry, old white men in America are attempting to claw back the inches of progress made in the 45 years since this film debuted.

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ABBA was one of my mom's favourites growing up, such that many, many ABBA songs feel baked into my very being. I wouldn't say I was ever a fan, but I really can't imagine an existence without their music.  

When I saw that ABBA: The Movie was on cable (...cable...?) I was hoping for either a so-bad-its good Spice World-style wacky musical adventure around the globe, or else a concert film that would give me the feeling of being at one of their shows in their heyday of the late 1970's when they were the number one musical artists in the world.

It's really unfortunate that ABBA: The Movie is neither of these things. Instead it's a film that follows an Australian radio DJ (Robert Hughes) tasked by his boss to go out an nab an interview with ABBA while they're on their Australian tour. 

Thus much of the movie, rather than being concert footage is instead footage of this personality-deprived non-character trying in vain to worm his way into backrooms and concerts, and, sometimes, interviewing the public about how they feel about ABBA (that most people love ABBA because they're so joyous, wholesome, nice and "clean" winds up feeling like some kind of propaganda after a while).

The concert footage we do see gets us some of that big sound with those big voices, but, I'll be frank, the stage show leaves something to be desired.  Maybe it's the fact that we never get into a groove with the live performances... I don't think there's a single live song that isn't interrupted by cutting to what the DJ is doing in the meantime. 

We get a bit of interview footage (but not ABBA with this DJ) instead fielding questions from the media circus around them, including such hard hitting questions as Agnetha Fältskog being asked about having a "sexiest bottom award" (*eyeroll*), which is then brought up again late in the film (*double eyeroll*).

There are a few of ABBA's bangers presented here, as well as a couple not-so-bangers, and a weird music video at the mid-point that finds the DJ having a dream sequence I guess. It's all nonsense.

ABBA: The Movie is not very entertaining and a terrible waste of potential. For hardcore fans only.

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There was a spate of movies in the 70's that featured characters on long drives, chases or races across the United States, things like Vanishing Point, Death Race 2000, Cannonball!, Convoy, Duel and more. Americans were obsessed with their highways and it seems like they couldn't get enough of watching them be traversed.

It turns out it wasn't just in movies, but in real life as well. The Gumball Rally was inspired by the same unofficial New York-to-LA race that Cannonball Run was (officially?) based on: "The Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash". For five years in the early-to-mid 1970's teams of drivers competed in a non-stop race from one coast to the other for little else but the glory of being the winner.  These events were covered by Car and Driver magazine as fun and whimsical adventures featuring some real personalities, and Hollywood was quick to capitalize upon the stories' popularity, pumping out both Cannoball (starring David Carradine, from the director of Death Race 2000) and The Gumball Rally.

The Gumball Rally features a dozen or so vehicles participating in the event, which begins merely with the mention of the word "Gumball" relayed across the land. The participants show up to New York, parking their flashy vehicles in a secret garage and meeting in a private room at a restaurant to discuss how the race will proceed. Lieutenant Roscoe of the LAPD has, for years, been trying to catch the participants of The Gumball Rally, the intonation that their race is a public safety issue (and, given some of the destruction we see in the film, he's right). The organizers of this affair are Roscoe's target: Michael Bannon (Michael Sarrazin) and Steve Smith (Tim McIntire), each hitting the highways in their own sporty coupe. 

The film spends a half hour establishing who the players are, with a little hint as to where they come from and their personalities, and then gives them an extended sequence where they're all putting the finishing touches on their vehicles in the garage, establishing a smidge of repartee between many of them. It's a half hour of movie time before the race begins, and I won't say it was a wasted half hour, but they could have compressed a little more to get to the part we're just waiting to see.

The racers leave the garage 10 seconds apart at 6am on a sleepy, sunny morning in New York. The vehicles race through the near-empty streets where only the construction workers, cops and newsstand agents are mobile. New York is so lovingly shot, we could have spent an hour just moving through those naked streets with rays of sun reflecting off glass, and I would have been happy. As such it's about a 10 minute sequence of the cars attempting to get out of town. It's kind of awesome.

Once out on the highways, the vistas are there, but they are less enticing than New York. The vehicles, particularly the sporty ones, are shot with a near-lustful lens... a real ogling of the AC Cobra, Ferrari Daytona, Chevy Camaro 7-28, Chevy Corvette, Porche 911, and Rolls Royce Silver Shadow among others.

Ostensibly a comedy, The Gumball Rally isn't terribly funny. While there are a few situational chuckles here and there, it's Raul Julia as Smith's ringer, an F-1 driver imported from the Ferrari team in Italy (along with some of his pit crew stationed across the country) that is the biggest personality. He is horny-to-the-point-of-distraction and there's more than a few good gags made from his skirt chasing.  The other big personality in the film is Gary Busey (paired with a suffering John Durren in the Camero) who is fully embodying ADHD in his performance, needing constant, escalating stimulation.

Having never heard of The Gumball Rally before, I was shocked with how expensive and visually appealing a film it is, excellent cinematography, some great (and once-unique) camera placements on the cars, and the sheer number of helicopter shots. There's some requisite smashing-through-shit sequences that are kind of the weakest parts of the film, yet still sort of impressive in the level of destruction (nowhere close to The Blues Brothers level of chaos, but then nothing is).  The best thing about The Gumball Rally, though, is how it doesn't try very hard at all to have character development or story arcs (really, it's only Roscoe that has an arc in this film).  It does what it needs to do, and I very much enjoyed it even if the stakes were very, very low.

I feel another project coming on... Cannonball, Cannonball Run, Death Race 2000, Speed Zone and the others of this ilk, I'm going to have to do comparison watches.

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The titular character of Lady Snowblood, aka Yuki Kashima, was born as a tool of revenge, raised to be a demon whose sole purpose was to avenge the family she never met, punishing the many responsible for their deaths. In the first film, Lady Snowblood accomplished her goal, and had become legend in the process, but by the end was grievously wounded.

While maybe not in top shape when this film begins, Yuki is definitely healthier than when we last saw her, and she's actively trying to evade the law, but eventually must give in. Before her sentence can be carried out, she's rescued by Secret Police and sent on a mission to spy on a revolutionary.  She become the housemaid of  Ransui Tokunaga (Juzo Itami), but it's not long before Ransui reveals he knows who she is. She fills him in on his important dissident work and implores her assistance in toppling some corrupt government officials.  Except they get the jump on them, Ransui is taken, Yuki escapes to find his brother and bring him some damning documents that could explode the country into chaos.

She flees to the slums where Shusuke Tokunaga lives and finds a man who loathes his own brother, and will not cooperate in taking down the government. Instead he plans to blackmail the men in power for the benefit of the slums, requesting much needed money and food. Instead, the slums are burned to the ground and it's up to Yuki to take revenge.

Unlike the first film, where Yuki is the quiet, driving center of the film, the plot moving with her wherever she may lead it, here she's frequently on the sidelines and one has to ask, in this story of class, segregation, veterans affairs, police brutality, corrupt politicians, and socialst revolution, where exactly is she supposed to fit? The story is not bad, but it's not well matched to the character, and it fees more like Yuki is swept up the the films events rather than steering them.  

A story set in two halves, neither dominates over the other, but then neither does either elevate itself. Given how brilliant the first film was, this one is quite the let down without really being bad. 

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Juliet, Naked

2018, Jesse Peretza (LOTS of TV) -- Amazon

As I struggle with the Blockbuster "write about something you enjoyed but don't remember actually why" 'Masters of the Universe', I am just popping into the other drafts.

This one came to us by way of "the algorithm". It flowed along the Amazon "if you liked..." and, well, it did catch our attention. A British woman, Annie (Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You), is in an unhappy relationship with Duncan (Chris O'Dowd, Slumberland), and part of her unhappiness is his unsettling obsession with 90s American shoe gazer musician Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke, The Magnificent Seven). When Duncan gets a copy of the demo's for Crowe's seminal album Juliet, and Annie doesn't appreciate it like all the people on his message board do, they argue, annoying her to the level of writing her own review on the blog. Said post captures actual Crowe's attention and they begin a bit of a back-n-forth message chat, ending with him inviting himself over to meet Annie, on the pretense of seeing the birth of his grandchild from one of his many estranged children. Enter conflict.

This is an odd, atypical little British feel-good movie based on a Nick Hornby novel (something I didn't know until the credits rolled) which I loved because its Ethan Hawke pretty playing the aged up version of his character from Reality Bites, who is equal parts actual Ethan Hawke and one who is a bit of a pompous, self-centered ass, but desperately trying to rewrite that part of his code. Most of Hawke's other characters in his last decade have been characters but this one seems... more genuine? 

Its a romcom that dispenses with almost all of the tropes, filling in the story with weird choices. For example, upon arriving in the UK, Tucker feels a bit off from the overnight trip, and then immediately drops from a massive heart attack. Like typical fiction, the impact is washed away, so they can focus on the awkwardness of Annie and Tucker's first IRL meeting being in the hospital ward, him surrounded by members of his family who showed up, most of whom despise him. Tucker hasn't been the best person most of his life, but he's acknowledged that and is working on it; its just taken him a long time to come to that point in his life and many of his bridges are burned. But to Annie, he's a blank slate pretty much, not at all the iconic image from her (now ex; they breakup before Tucker even hits the tarmac) boyfriend's little shrine in the basement. He also spins life with homespun folky wisdom that is so unlike anyone in her life. The only "comedy" comes from our observations of awkward annoying Duncan.

What I liked the most about the movie is that they don't (immediately) fall into each other's arms. They attempt to, both being more than a bit of an emotional mess at the time, but it doesn't work out. And they separate, both returning to their lives separated by the pond. But there is an epilogue...

Edit: Kent!

3 Short paragraphs (Or Not): The Rip

2026, Joe Carnahan (Copshop) -- Netflix

The Rip is a cops & crime movie starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as two aging, tired and possibly corrupt cops dealing with finding Too Much Money in a cartel stash house. Ben and Joe worked together twenty years ago on his movie Smokin' Aces but Matt and Joe have never worked together before. But seeing the two friends together in a movie, under Joe, says a lot about the collaboration between the three. 

When the credits rolled was the first time I was reminded this was a Carnahan movie.

The movie begins with the murder of police captain Jackie Velez (Lina Esco, S.W.A.T.). She's walking in a parking lot when two masked individuals attacked, ending her life with a shotgun, but not before she enters a txt into a phone and tosses it away.

Next up, the intros. As the Tactical Narcotics Taskforce (TNT) squad reels from the death of their captain, Internal Affairs and "the Feds" (FBI) are also there, as this Miami-Dade station is already under the microscope after the disbanding of a fully corrupt major case squad, which has made things tough for the TNT. This little opener, constantly switching between Detective JD Byrne (Ben Affleck, Mallrats) and the others in the bullpen, especially him squaring off with his own brother FBI Agent Del Byrne (Scott Adkins, Avengement), to the point of fisticuffs. Meanwhile, Lt Dane Dumar (Matt Damon, The Wall), squad leader, is chatting with Major Vallejo (Nestor Carbonell, The Morning Show) about how difficult this all is, and whether he really even wants to be a cop anymore. Between the damage to their reputation by way of the other corrupt cops and the death of their friend and comrade, he's dispirited.

This opening is dialogue forward; in fact, much of the movie is. Writers Carnahan and Michael McGrale (The Following) really lean into the cop shop talk, a mixture of cop jargon and street lingo. They build personalities and build expectations for the viewer, of what we will think of these guys. Are they Good Guys? Are they just another bunch of corrupt cops. And also, Vallejo has pointed out the Feds are here because they believe another cop was responsible for Velez's killing, so pretty much everyone is a suspect.

Just need to post at least one line of dialogue, so you get the idea; from Byrne, as he talks to his brother about the aforementioned corrupt cops:

"Not a lot of straight-A students. But superb fucking murder police. And you guys fucking torched the place. Which further hamstrings Jackie’s investigation because now all the VCAT guys, not just the bent ones, are buried fucking alive."

Then Dane gets a tip on his phone, a text message from a burner phone about a money house belonging to the cartels. As they are all leaving the station, he tells them what's what and they are all coming along, no OT, it just has to be done. If you are quick, you might catch that he tells one person one dollar value, another person a different amount. Hmm...

From there, its somewhat typical Miami cop fare. They go to a run down subdivision where apparently the only occupied house is the one they are going to. The cartels buy up homes to hide their monies in plain sight. Inside is Desi Lopez Molina (Sasha Calle, Sugar), living in her late grandmother's house. "Nope, no money here!" she says, of course, but they bulldoze their way in with typical veiled cop threats. We are not exactly supposed to like these guys, definitely not trust them. In today's context, that's not hard to impress upon the viewer. Then they find a completely empty attic. In an old lady house, just this side shy of hoarding (the garage has 30 years worth of phone books...), an entirely empty room is more than a little suspicious. And Desi has no idea, nope, no way. When they kick in a wall, they find industrial tubs jam packed with neatly sorted, packaged and labelled cash. Not $150k as Dane suggested to some, but much more... way way WAY more. Millions. Tens of millions.

And with my typical overly long opener, the movie is presented. Stupid Money. Enough money for all these cops to just disappear, even if they weren't corrupt. Even the best of them would be tempted. And Desi just sitting, handcuffed, on the sidelines, being all nervous, cuz she knows exactly who owns the money.

And it begins. The movie instantly begins playing them off each other. Dane vs Byrne, the two biggest personalities in the room. Some come together, just counting the money and postulating what they could do with it, like everyone does when they see a big lottery number on the TV. Others are acting very suspicious, pulling out burner phones, even though Dane specifically asked everyone to give up their phones, as this is the kind of money that ruins everything. But do we even trust Dane? Byrne definitely doesn't. But who do we trust? The movie plays on our expectations, manipulates everything we know about these kinds of movies and has a lot of fun with the constant, never ending stream of dialogue and chat, back and forth between the squad. 

There are a few twists. A phone call from the cartel saying "go ahead, take the money, we don't care, we will accept the loss, and no we didn't kill Jackie, but we don't need the heat from killing a house full of cops." And who is Detective Ro (Steven Yeun, Nope) talking to on his burner phone? And what about the house at the far end of the roundabout that is blinking "PIGS" on their porch lamp in morse code? What about when the power is cut and masked, armoured thugs unload automatic weapons into all their vehicles, essentially trapping them all there. Its not a scene-ender, it doesn't kill anyone, so... why? What the ever living fuck is going on here?

I thought the movie was pretty effective in leading your around by the nose but not directly to the conclusion. You might get an idea of where you will end up, but I doubt most will. I am not saying there is a Big Reveal, but there are some satisfying revelations. The pair of leads are now aging action stars, so the movie does lean on them being tired. grizzled veterans, but with still the power & motivation to be effective. And I loved the fact that the movie wanted you to put down your phone, sit up on the sofa and just listen.  I also enjoyed that it was pretty much a "bottle episode", primarily taking place inside the stash house. We get to become comfortable with the characters, watch their faces, make our own decisions on what happens next.

Oh, and we do find out why Jackie was killed, her connection to the stash house and who was corrupt, and who wasn't.

KWIF(3): City Hunter (+2)

 KWIF=Kent's "Week" in Film. I realized this past weekend that I had watched almost a film a day this August, so the goal has become to cram the last bunch of films in on the final couple of days. These are numbers 29 through 31.

This Week:
City Hunter (2024, d. Yuichi Satoh - netflix)
Seven Psychopaths (2012, d. Martin McDonagh - tubi)
What's Up, Doc? (1972, d. Peter Bogdanovich - tubi)

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After watching Jackie Chan in City Hunter, I started to inquire into what other City Hunter adaptations were out there. I had no idea there was a Netflix-produced mid-budget feature released just two years ago... but then again, why would I? Anime/manga properties are not my wheelhouse by any means, so why would I be paying attention to adaptations of them? 

Anyway, here we have a modern take on the franchise which finds Ryohei Suzuki playing horny PI Ryo Saeba.  We're introduced to him via a hero shot of him standing on a rooftop..but with binoculars ogling girls in bikinis at the bath house across the way. Acting as a sort of origin point for the City Hunter story (as so many comic or cartoon adaptations like to do, rather than, you know, just present a new adventure of this already well-established character), Ryo's partner, Makimura is killed as fallout from a case they are working on together.  Makimura asks Ryo to look out for his sister, Kaori (Misato Morita).  Makimura's death relates not just to the missing persons case they were working on, but a larger story about an experimental drug that gives its users super strength and agility, but also extreme rage, temporarily, before killing them, and it's being tested on street kids. This is all the product of an international criminal cartel called The Union, and, the story relates, improbably, to Kaori origins as Makimura's adopted sister as well (this is really a nothing thread and did not need to exist).

The film jostles back and forth between being a goofy, horny comedy, with Suzuki ably letting his freak-flag-fly (this is after all the star of Hentai Kamen: The Forbidden Superhero, look it up...or better yet, don't?) and heavy melodrama, and the two do not mesh well together.  It feels so emulative of the the last 20 years of comic book cinema, all the hoary overused tropes are there...and it would be one thing if this adaptation of City Hunter were lampooning such tropes, maintaining a consistent comedic bent throughout, but it does not. So when a depressed and angry Kaori starts following Ryo around the darker edges of Tokyo society, he winds up bringing her into his world...which involves showing him performing a "Mokkari Dance" on stage, a hyper, horny male burlesque show of sorts. While the Chan version of City Hunter may have not been the purest adaptation either, it at least found a tone and stuck to it.

Suzuki is perhaps the ideal Ryo, a very, very good looking guy with charm to spare who can easily flip the switch to salivating pervert and flip it off again to look the dashing hero and very ably perform some really fun choreographed fight sequences (one sequence finds him fighting an assassin while also fending off tranq darts fired by a sniper, all taking place at a cosplay modelling show, while having a giant stuffed horse head mounted on his crotch... it's the right tone, loaded with inventiveness and humour that most of the other fairly well-done action set-pieces lack, instead making them too straight.)

Also unlike the Chan movie, the women of this adaptation are a little less capable, a little more damsels...maybe not in distress, but also not the ass kickers we saw in the Hong Kong adaptation. It is pretty funny though that the only women in this movie that seem legit charmed by Ryo are the many, many sex workers he obviously frequents (and who are paid to be charmed). Every other woman seems somewhat put off by him, if not immediately upon meeting him then soon thereafter.

The things that work here really work, and when they're working it's quite a lot of fun. But whenever it falls into the trap of trying to be "real" it just comes undone. A sequel has been greenlit, which I hope means that they get a second chance to try harder at making this a full-on action-comedy series about a horny detective and the women who tolerate him because he's so damn capable.

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Martin McDonagh is primarily a well-regarded Irish playwright. His turn to film -- which is almost like a hobby he's dabbled in over the past 18 years -- has been likewise pretty well-regarded.  His first short film, Six Shooter, won him an Oscar, which led to his first feature length film, In Bruges. It was a film I didn't respond to at the time but has a sizable cult following (plus I've heard at least a few film nerds cite as their favourite film, ever). His third film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was a major awards contender in 2017 and a massive success despite its dark subject matter (I didn't see it, but Toasty did) . The Banshees of Inishirin was a critical darling in 2023, and I liked it quite a bit. His second film, 2012's Seven Psychopaths is kind of the outlier, a bit pulpier and more divisive.

The setup here finds L.A.-based screenwriter Marty (Colin Farrell) who has literally nothing but a title for his overdue screenplay, "Seven Psychopaths". He's best friends with Billy (Sam Rockwell) whose current job is stealing dogs from parks, waiting for reward posters to go up, and his partner, Hans (Christopher Walken in prime form) returns them. Billy steals the wrong dog one day, taking the beloved shih-tzu of mobster Charlie (Woody Harrelson).

Of these characters I mentioned, only one of them is labelled as one of the seven psychopaths when we first meet them, but eventually a couple more will be a part of the seven. The remaining psychopaths are part of the stories told to Marty as he's trying to fill out his screenplay, with Billy providing a story or two and a stranger, Zachariah (Tom Waits), responding to an ad, tells his dark tale.

The script is, at times, very funny, quite punchy, but also at times too clever to the point of cutesy and annoying. I'm frankly tired of stories centred around script writers, because all too often stories about script writers start to get meta about talking about the actual scriptwriter, and get too lost in the idea that there's something laborious or glorious about the process of writing. Here, more than once, Marty talks about how he wants a certain type of pacifist psychopath protagonist or placid tone for his movie, while Billy desires much more a splashy, guns-blazing type of tale. So naturally we get both. *Wink*  

McDonagh also blurs the line between screenplay and screenplay-within-a-screenplay a few times, telling stories that are just tales that turn out to be true within the context of the film, or a story that just can't be cracked. As sharp as McDonagh can be, the agonies of a writer are not that exciting.

Farrell is sort of promoted as the lead but is a passive passenger in the film. A somewhat hapless guy with a drinking problem that he refuses to admit is a problem, he kind of lets things happen around him without intervening. Rockwell is more in charge, certainly spewing the most lines and having the most fingers in the plot pot. Walken is magnificent, and there's probably a better movie if he's just our central figure. 

It's definitely not neo-Tarantino, and we should be thankful for that. There's something more at the root of it that McDonagh is looking for with this story than just a off-brand Coen Brothers mobster picture, but I don't know that he ever finds it.

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I have only ever seen one other Peter Bogdanovich film. It was The Last Picture Show, a "new Hollywood" classic which I watched, and neither enjoyed nor appreciated much back in 2019. I don't think I've ever seen a Barbara Streisand movie before, but, growing up, Streisand was still an important pop culture figure even if you didn't listen to her music or see her films. You just knew who she was.

I have, however, seen quite a few works of screenwriter (and also actor and director) Buck Henry. Get Smart was fundamental to the development of my sense of humour. He's one of three screenwriters credited on the Bogdanovich-directed, Streisand-starring What's Up, Doc? (with story by Bogdanovich) but you can definitely tell what Henry contributed to the film.

The story finds Ryan O'Neal's handsome but drab musicologist Howard Bannister arriving in San Francisco with his drab and dour fiance, Eunice (Madeline Kahn) to attend a special dinner party where he will lobby for a research grant. Upon checking in he's spied by Judy Maxwell (Streisand) a creature of id, who cherchez l'homme right into a drugstore where she forces a meet-cute upon them and proceeds to both attempt to woo and grift him.  We were introduced to Judy mere moments before as she followed a man carrying pizzas perhaps through San Fran traffic causing many a scene...her stomach motivating her more than common sense.

Judy and Howard just so happen to have the same plaid duffel bag, and it also just so happens that another hotel guest also has the same bag.  He's just arrived from the airport where he's collected the bag, which is revealed to be full of top secret documents. He's been followed the whole time by a man who is very poor at being discreet and yet still doesn't blow his cover (we're not sure for some time who is the good spy and who is the bad spy in this scenario). Meanwhile a fourth guest at the hotel, a posh, upperclass elderly woman also has the same overnight bag, only this one's stuffed with jewels. The hotel clerk has shady colleague who he is colluding with the steal the jewels before they're locked up in the safe.

So the thrust of the film is two-fold, Judy is almost criminally forcing herself into Harold's dull, dull existence, shaking everything up and spraying it all over the walls, floor, ceiling and anything touching them. And then there's the game of bags being played like three-card monte, as people come in and out of the hotel rooms mixing up the bags that makes it almost impossible to keep track of which one's where at any given time.

The Buck Henry influence finds a tremendous amount of quick-talking characters who have the snappiest responses, taking them out of the sphere of normal and into something quite other. And then there's the situational comedy of it all, which together with the dialogue, feels so Get Smart adjacent to me. The film escalates into a chase sequence across San Francisco which doesn't get into Blues Brothers level of chaos (nothing else really does) but still is quite chaotic and features an extended sequence within playing with the gags of smashing a pane of glass and knocking a guy off a ladder.

Streisand as Judy is iconic. Her blue eyes have such a majestic twinkle, a little devilishness that is very flirty and sexy. She is a poster child for ADHD. There's not as much chemistry between her and O'Neal as one would hope, mainly because he's meant to be fighting his attraction for the entire picture (but mid-way, when a kiss just so happens to occur, well, it's an all-time cinematic kiss, as opposed to the one at the end pales direly in comparison). 

What's Up, Doc? is straight up a zany comedy that just so happens to have a little bit of romance. It's not a romantic comedy, which is truly unfortunate. We don't ever really see the moment where Harold falls in love with Judy, just the moment where he gives in to her, mostly because they're too busy dealing with the swapped bags and angry gangsters and other sub-plots that have nothing to do with the romance. 

There's a lot to like, little to dislike, just a desire for a little more of what we don't get.

KWIF(2): The Running Man (+3)

KWIF=Kent's "Week" in Film. I realized this past weekend that I had watched almost a film a day this August, so the goal has become to cram the last bunch of films in on the final couple of days. These are numbers 24 through 28.

This Week:
The Running Man (2025, d. Edgar Wright - crave)
Zodiac Killer Project (2024, d. Charlie Shackleton - hollywoodsuite)
City Hunter (1993, d. Wong Jing - tubi)
Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970, d. Mario Bava - tubi)

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The Running Man falls into my beloved "most dangerous game" subgenre. The man-hunts-man-for-sport (and/or entertainment) never gets tired for me, although its entries are frequently not very well done. The Running Man, like The Hunger Games or Battle Royale, is kind of a brand in the subgenre, or at least notorious enough to be a name big enough to check-point (as in "Oh, it's like The Running Man").

While I've read the Stephen King-as-Richard Bachman novella three and a half decades ago, I don't recall it very specifically, and likewise it's been quite some time since I watched the 1987 Arnold Schwartzenegger-starring adaptation. From memory, that film was definitely a product of Reagan-era economics, and was concerned about wealth disparity and social order, to a degree. It was concerned with crime, totalitarianism, and classism. 

We're now in an age where the wealth gaps are far more dramatically pronounced and we have government institutions that seem to only be serving to perpetuate that trend. We've given too much power to corporations, non-corporeal entities that have their own rights but seemingly no responsibilities. The people in charge of corporations seem to have free reign to influence government policy, and are not held liable for their actions and decisions made while running such organizations. Lands and waters are polluted and poised, people get sick or are killed, minds are manipulated and tainted by increasingly clever propaganda, and a token sum is only ever paid when they corporations are caught...and the execs still get paid.

Edgar Wright's new adaptation of The Running Man finds its protagonist, the angry and righteous Ben Richards (Glen Powell), blacklisted from the Network, which, in this dystopian future, pretty much controls all of America. They are the primary source of employment and entertainment in the country, and though they are not the government, their sheer economic power means they pretty much dictate policy. With a sick daughter at home and no income, Ben turns to his last-ditch option: Reality TV. Looking to get on any of the Network's many programmes except the brutal, life-threatening "The Running Man" program (the Network's most popular show), he, of course, is chosen for "The Running Man" because otherwise there wouldn't be a movie.

He's sweet-talked by the Network's head honcho into signing the deal to join the show. Surviving 30 days wins Ben and his family a cool 1 billion New Dollars, while he also receives a daily survival bonus, plus a bonus for killing any of the Network's security goons or the show's elite "hunters".  But from the jump, Ben sees that the Network doesn't play fair. They introduce him (and two other runners) with lies about being career criminals, disparaging their name, and denigrating their families, going so far as to have doctored clips (the use of deep fakes is central to this movie but it doesn't ever reckon with the general public's awareness of them).

Needless to say, Ben survives with the help of some activists and supporters, but it's never easy, and (once again) the Network cheats, tracking his location (duh) and manipulating the narrative of the show by coaching the hunters when, and when not to go in for the kill. The audience is also invited to participate, with the Network offering a hundreds/thousands of New Dollars for anyone who rats out a Runner and leads to a kill. It takes the audience out of being passive observers with, maybe, some moral responsibility for the perpetuation of this barbaric program, and turns them in to active participants in murder. And, of course, it's all propaganda, fuelling The Network's ideology of keeping the teeming masses stupid and hungry, and distracting them from the real cause of the problems in their lives.  It's up to Ben, who's really just doing this all for his family, to realize he's the catalyst for waking people up as to who the real enemy is.

The opening scenes of The Running Man are, to be blunt, really clumsy in how they set Ben Richards up. These scenes are meant to establish Ben as a rage-filled man, a man who fights injustice, and a man who desperately loves his family, but the writing and performances lack nuance, to the point that I was concerned that Powell was decisively the wrong guy for this part. He turns out to be fine, in the end, but Edgar Wright's script pushes and/or pulls Ben through the plot, without him doing much to instigate things on his own. He's a passenger in his own story, and through to the third act he's not consistently written. 

He's established as a man who does the right thing and then turns him into a murderer. He's established as a man who defies the order of things, but he denies being a revolutionary. He's a good person, and, for the most part, remains a good person...but Wright's script never quite finds the right balance for shifting between his anger and his kindness, and Powell seems to only be following direction. A likeable enough lead, but not clearly defined enough.

Similarly, the dystopia we find Ben running around in is fleshed out only so much. We don't get enough establishment between the different, disparate class hierarchies, but the film is very clear that the propaganda machine the Network employs is very effective across the class spectrum.

As a "most dangerous game" story, it's not unexciting or entertaining, and the film is asking people to hold the persons in charge of nefarious corporations accountable, but even still it's not the clearest message. It's still a retrograde story where T.V., and not the internet, or social media, is the primary form of audience engagement and how organizations manipulate the masses. As much as it's trying to represent modern concerns, the atmosphere of the story doesn't reflect our modern society enough.

I'm a fan of Wright's work, but couldn't exactly pin down the man's style (much of it is married to music or toying with genre tropes, neither of which is l'objet du jour here). In the piles of effects and craftsmanship needed to realize the dystopian future, I think maybe Wright's particular cinematic flair gets lost. As Toasty said in his toastypost "the movie is not over-the-top enough or biting enough to be a fun, corny romp. Neither is it dark & grim enough to reflect the Dark Urban Future it wants to rail against". We certainly agree.

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Zodiac Killer Project sounds like a cheapo Tubi-original slasher movie or possibly a Tubi-original pseudo-documentary with some weird right-wing bent (as befits the service's Fox Corp ownership). Turns out it's neither of these, though it's clear it's still a very modestly budgeted production.

Over a decade ago filmmaker Charlie Shackleton was prepping for a documentary based on the 2012 book, "The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge" by Lyndon E. Lafferty, a former California highway patrol officer whose maybe-encounter with the Zodiac Killer sent him on a decades long crusade to bring the man he considered to be responsible to justice. It was unsuccessful and Lafferty, and his suspect, are little more than a footnote in the Zodiac Killer conversation. But as Shackleton was ramping up production on his doc, he lost the rights to the book, and all his investment in the documentary was for naught.

He couldn't escape it though. In the intervening years, true crime podcasts and documentaries have proliferated on every channel and streaming service, and with them a visual language all its own has developed. In Zodiac Killer Project, Shackleton relays what he would have done, how he would have shot the b-roll footage, the "backtors" (actors in true crime reenactments whose backs are all we see), the locations, and how it all would have been to serve an entertaining narrative far more than the truth.

Because Lafferty's accusations and investigations were not limited to his book, Shackleton has some clearance to discuss Lafferty's prime suspect and the situations that led him to believe his suspect was the killer as well as many of the details around his investigation in to the suspect (what he can only touch upon is why Lafferty suspects there was a cover-up to dismiss and not investigate his suspect, which leaves a big cloud over the whole proceedings here).

In detailing how he would have made what sounds like a pretty bog standard true-crime documentary, Shackleton drolly takes apart all the tropes we know from most other true crime docs... specific types of footage or editing style, the presentation of certain information, the cheats the productions do to condense the story or make it more entertaining that may be stretching or warping the truth.  What Shackleton doesn't really do is account for the ethics of it all, of making entertainment out of these real-life horrors, and his capacity for examining why the public is so enthralled by such media isn't very deep.

The Bay area location imagery that Shackleton and his team shot, mostly of empty or vast spaces takes on a slightly meditative nature, with Shackleton's voice over occasionally calling out whether the footage we're seeing is at all relevant to the point in the narrative he's discussing.

Dryly funny with a slight intensity and more than a little reserved playfulness, Zodiac Killer Project doesn't get us anywhere new with the whole Zodiac Killer thing, but it brushes back the fur on a genre and exposes its soft, and kind of ugly, underbelly.  

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City Hunter was a manga that ran from 1985 through 1991, while near-simultaneously an animate tv series ran parallel, between 1987 and 1991. I have a vague recollection of having watched some of this anime on Canadian TV, but I may be wrong.

Jackie Chan's starred in the 1993 Hong Kong adaptation, which I think is pulling more from the anime than the manga. Chan's City Hunter is a very, very broad comedy that's trying to be a live action cartoon, one of the most difficult cinematic challenges ever. 

"City Hunter" is the nickname of infamous private investigator Ryo Saeba (Chan) an affable, womanizing, and semi-capable man-of-action. He is assisted by his deceased former partner's little sister, Kaori, who he sort of had a hand in raising and now, as an adult, she's in love with him, and he has to resist his own libido and keep her at arms length. It's a gross dynamic that, for the most part Ryo is on the right side of, but not always.

Ryo and Kaori, through separate misadventures, wind up on the same maiden voyage of a cruise ship which gets taken hostage by a ruthless white American pirate, Col. "Big Mac" MacDonald (Richard Norton). The plan is to kill all the lower-deckers and hold the richest hostage for their money. Unfortunately for them, not only is City Hunter aboard, but so too is undercover officer Saeko Nogami (Chingmy Yau) and gentleman thief Kao Ta (Leon Lai) to aid in liberating the boat.

City Hunter is a goofy movie, one that is really leaning into comedy far more than action or adventure. This is no Speed, more of a Speed 2, if Patrick Muldoon stared at Sandra Bullock's boobs and imagined them as hamburgers.  Ryo is very charming but also a known cad, so women are as apt to bat him upside the head as to fawn over him or give him a kiss. Chan isn't really known for playing much of a romantic hero, and certainly not known for playing a sexual one, so here Ryo's horniness is tempered by the fact that the character spends much of the film starving and just hoping to eat something...anything.

The usual Chan flair for action and physical stunts seems to be scaled back pretty dramatically from his more infamous efforts, I think out of service to the situational comedy. There's less physical comedy overall for Chan to perform as well. He may be a bit of a goofball but we also have to believe he can turn on the charm as well and that ladies will not only fall for it, but actively pursue it (the who Kaori side-plot depends on it).

There are some very regressive (and, at one point, brutally offensive) jokes in this film, which shouldn't be surprising for any '90's comedy. The sexism or gay-bashing aren't persistent, but they are there. On the plus side, the women of the film are largely pretty strong, capable, independent and a diverse (personality-wise) group, and central to the film. I liked them all.

Trying to do animation-style gags in physical reality is very, very challenging and doesn't often work because, well, real world physics get in the way of having these things really happen, so special effects making them happen can look really awkward and corny.  As much as this type of gag in City Hunter doesn't work, through Chan's immense charms and a remarkably game cast of performers, it winds up being a fairly fun, if not fully successful production.  The extended set piece where Chan and his opponents become Street Fighter characters after getting electrocuted by an arcade machine is a highlight of the film though (lowlight, the painfully prolongued musical number at the midway point, made worse by the fact that it wasn't subtitled ... also, if I'm not mistaken, much of the film was performed in English then dubbed and subtitled...curious).

I had fun, but this isn't essential Chan by any means.

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Five Dolls for an August Moon is a last gasp of beatnik free-love-era filmmaking and sitting just outside of the Italian giallo wave. It's a murder mystery of sorts, but a film full of characters that seem pretty disinterested in the murders, and even more disinterested in the mystery.

Industrialist George Stark (Teodoro Corrà) has invited four associates and their partners to his remote island home for a weekend holiday, but really it was all a ruse to get the men facetime with Professor Garry Farrell (William Berger) and try to convince him to sell them a secret, revolutionary new formula for a resin that will redefine...something. Whatever.  

The next morning, the houseboy winds up dead, and you know what, nobody really seems to care. They wrap the man up in plastic and put him in the meat locker. They discover that Stark's boat has gone missing and the radio has been tampered with rendering it useless. Typically this would start sending people into a panic, a murderer loose on an isolated island, nowhere to go, no one to call. But, these upperclass twits keep on partying as if nothing is happening. Except, there's plenty happening, including each of the men propositioning Farrell to obtain the formulae alone, and two of the wives having a secret affair with each other, and another of the wives having affairs with, well, everyone else. And what's up with the island girl in the mini-skirt (Justine Gall) watching everything from afar?

The bodies start piling up in an almost comical fashion, new additions to the meat locker in pretty rapid fashion, along with a couple disappeared bodies that are even more puzzling. In a typical giallo, someone would be trying to figure things out. In a typical suspense thriller, everyone would be pointing fingers at each other and things would get tense.  Here, everyone's still just drinking and trying to figure out how to get that damn formula.

The ending reveals/twists are ... to be blunt... silly. But then the fact that no tension has built up around these reveals means there's little sense of stakes here. There's an organ-led jazzy soundtrack to the film from Piero Umiliani that is far too bouncy and upbeat for the events of the film.  And that the film is largely shot with gorgeous Italian seaside daylight and perhaps a slight overexposure, there's a vibrancy to the proceedings that leaves little hidden in shadows.  I'm really not sure what exact tone was trying to be set.

Bava's an incredible director, though, so his films, even the lesser ones, still have style and impact. Here he uses a lot of split fore and background shots with a character very close in the front of frame and other characters deep in back of frame all in focus. As well, he's exceptionally focussed on the eyes and letting the eyes tell the characters' stories of lust, love, suspicion, betrayal, intrigue, etc. And with such focus on eyes, also is point of view, most highlighted by the many whip-pans the camera does to shift our point of view... not in a first-person sense but a third-person. We will see a character staring off and the camera will whip across to see what they are looking at, and if someone else is looking back we'll whip back to see their perspective. It's a curious but effective technique, even if it's not perfectly deployed here.

Had maybe the island girl been investigating these murders from the outside, and her life put at risk for doing so, this would really feel like a true giallo. As is it's a mystery that barely lifts the eyebrow, and tepidly sexy.