Weekend Mullings - It Ends | Coyote vs. Acme

It Ends is the third horror movie this year that deals with familiar, but also eerie, and seemingly endless, locations where characters find themselves trapped. Backrooms offered a scenario in a vast liminal space within a furniture store. In Exit 8 a man finds himself stuck in a looping Japanese subway station with strict rules he must follow in order to gain an exit. And now we have It Ends in which a car full of recent college grads find themselves on an endless road they can't escape. 

All of these scenarios are similar, but to me, this one sounded like it would be the most tedious to sit through. Turns out it was my favorite of the three, by far.

Maybe it was the nostalgic Blair Witch vibes I was getting at the beginning, as four friends (played by excellent newcomers Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, and Mitchell Cole) find themselves lost on a eerie road surrounded by ominous woods. Convinced they've missed a turn-off, they circle back, only to find the road completely blocked, and some real dangers out to get them should they try to leave their car. So they turn around again and continue to drive, hoping to finally reach a turn off, or an end.

Questions like, "How can they possibly keep driving and not run out of gas?", and "Aren't they going to get hungry? Or have to use the bathroom?" are answered pretty quickly. Whatever alternative universe, purgatory, or nightmare these travelers have found themselves stuck in has taken care of any impediment to their continuing to just...continue.

Sure, the metaphor may seem a little obvious at times, but I enjoyed seeing this car full of Gen Z'ers react to the situation they've found themselves in, and I found myself contemplating whether I'd do the same. (In some case yes; in other cases, most definitely not.) Writer and director Alexander Ullom manages to turn what could have been cinema's most repetitive road movie into something original and thought provoking.

By now, Coyote vs. Acme's long and winding road to a theatrical release is pretty well known. Originally completed and set for a theatrical release in 2023, Warner Bros. ultimately decided to shelve the movie and take the tax write-off instead. 

One would assume they did this because they knew the movie stunk, and figured they'd get more from a tax write-off than from theatrical profits, but test screenings had been positive, so I still can't really wrap my head around this business decision. (The Wikipedia page delves further into the various offers and rejections that were made before it was finally acquired by Ketchup Entertainment, and released to theaters this week.)

Those test screening reactions were not a fluke. Coyote vs. Acme is genuinely entertaining, and probably the best animation and live action hybrid since Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 

The film opens with Wile E. Coyote making another attempt to capture the Road Runner with the help of some Acme products. Per usual, those products backfire, and he fails. When he sees a commercial on TV from a personal injury attorney (Will Forte) who specializes in faulty Acme product claims, the Coyote hires him.

The Coyote in this movie is the silent Coyote of the Road Runner cartoons, and not the "Super Genius" speaking version that showed up in cartoons with Bugs Bunny (who, of course, has a cameo). I mention this because his silence, and the slapstick comedy that comes as a result of it, leads to some of the movie's biggest laughs, and dare I say, some of its most touching moments as well. (Was I expecting to get chocked up during a courtroom scene featuring the Coyote and the Road Runner? Definitely not!)

As someone who still watches classic Warner Bros. cartoons almost every Saturday morning, I was prepared to cringe through this as much as I cringed through Space Jam (apologies to Space Jam fans, it just wasn't my...you know). Coyote vs. Acme doesn't quite reach the sublime level of the best Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, but it's the first feature film to come close.

Weekend Mullings - The Odyssey

When it comes to Christopher Nolan movies, more often than not, I come away from them impressed, but rarely enamored, and The Odyssey is no different. There are some moments that are undeniably awesome. But there are also a lot of moments that left me wanting more.

After ten years at war, Odysseus (Matt Damon) is trying to get home to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland), but the gods are not making it easy on him or his men. Essentially lost at sea, whenever they find land, their attempts to find shelter and provisions are thwarted at almost every turn from the likes of a Cyclops, cannibalistic giants, and a witch who is not fond of strangers, especially men.

These encounters are the highlight in this three hour epic, with the run-in with the witch Circe (Samantha Morton) being a particular fave. (Can we get Morton in a spin-off based on the novel by Madeline Miller now, please?) But like many of the encounters the men have with the more magical aspects of their journey, it is too short. Odysseus's encounter with Circe seemingly lasts about 20 minutes, as opposed to the year he actually spends with her in the original story. Plenty of time is given to the numerous battles against both the sea, and other men, but we are given only a brief and foggy hazed view of the Sirens?

Also woefully underutilized are Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy (and her twin sister Clytemnestra), a fact that I can't say for certain was influenced by the racists who were outraged by her casting, but can certainly imagine won't upset them, and Zendaya as Athena, who sometimes stands along side Odysseus (only he can see her) looking disappointed, or occasionally offering some platitudes. 

The Odyssey is the very definition of an epic movie, but I guess I was just expecting to be a little more wowed by it all. That it's a technical achievement can't be disputed. The entire film was shot on IMAX, which, if you ever seen the size of an IMAX camera, you know must have been an odyssey unto itself. With that in mind I was expecting it to look a little...better? Action scenes are often blurry and confusing. The lands Odysseus find himself visiting are...dull. And Ithaca itself does not look like a place anyone would spend 20 years desperately trying to get back to. And as is often the case in Nolan's films, the sound is...challenging, often unbearably loud with some dialogue hard to understand.

You're also going to have to accept that everyone in this movies speaks with a flat American accent, which ultimately makes as much sense as everyone in this Greek story speaking in some kind of generic British accent, but it still takes some getting used to, especially hearing Telemachus repeatedly refer to Odysseus as "My dad!" 

After all that it may come as a surprise when I say The Odyssey is worth seeing. It is the kind of classic Hollywood epic that deserves to be seen somewhere bigger than your living room. You need to see that Trojan horse in a giant theater. You need to see the Cyclops on a screen the same size as he is. This is a Christopher Nolan movie, don't you want to be impressed?

Weekend Mullings - Supergirl

Supergirl is like a blend of Star Wars movie, Mad Max: Fury Road, and 2025's Superman, but the proportions are all off. It's not a bad movie, but it's also not very fun.

Milly Alcock is Kara Zor-El, cousin to Kal-El, AKA Clark Kent, AKA Superman. She's surly, disillusioned, turning 21, and celebrating by making a pub crawl across the universe, preferably on planets with red suns, since she can't actually get drunk on planets with yellow suns, like Earth. Her sole companion is her rambunctious dog, Krypto. After space pirate Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) shoots Krypto with a slow acting poison dart, Kara joins forces with the orphaned Ruthye (Eve Ridley) to find this common enemy. Ruthye wants to kill Krem, and Kara needs the poison antidote he carries.

In flashbacks we learn how Kara made it to Earth years after her cousin, and Superman (David Corenswet) does make a brief appearance. The band of space pirates Krem leads are also human traffickers, kidnapping young girls to be breeders for their all male society, but unlike in Fury Road, these girls are never anything but background players in need of saving. And the pubs Kara crawls are filled with all the creative alien scum and villainy you'd expect to find in the likes of Mos Eisley.

Craig Gillespie directs, but it seems producer James Gunn can't resist his usual urge to include Earthly pop songs in a story that only briefly includes stops on Earth. That Kara's record collection and iPod (!) would be filled with the hits of Earth makes sense, but I am not convinced The Girl From Ipanema is a tune that would have reached the song list of an alien lounge singer on some distant planet.

Milly Alcock is really winning as Kara, but she's stuck in a gloomy and repetitive movie that feels like it has been overstuffed with violent dudes - including Jason Mamoa as Lobo, for some reason - as a way of overcompensating for the fact that the two leads are girls. (Well, one is a girl. Supergirl is a woman, and why she's called "Supergirl" and not "Superwoman" does not go unnoticed.) I fear if this movie doesn't do well, this may be the last we see of this Supergirl, which is a shame because I really would like to see what she could accomplish back on Earth with her old cousin Kal-El.

Weekend Mullings - Toy Story 5

After seeing Toy Story 5, I decided to re-watch the previous films (except for the first film, because I've seen it more than any of the sequels, and also the primitive state of the animation just kind of depresses me at this point), and I'll stand by my probably overly simple take that after Toy Story 3, the films should have been re-titled. The first three films are about the toys living in the Andy's world, with a very clear ending to that arc in Toy Story 3. Toy Story 4 and 5 are in Bonnie's world, and despite still containing the core characters (to varying degrees) that have defined the series, they are in a new story era. I wish the titles of the films acknowledged this.

Taken with this mindset I also feel it's easier to forgive some of last two films' shortcomings. It would be impossible to omit Woody and Buzz from the franchise entirely, but the gradual reduction of their screen time together feels less like a loss, and makes more sense in the context of this new era, especially because we've got a little girl as the toys' kid now; of course Jessie should take center stage. 

Bonnie was a pretty shy kid in Toy Story 4, and as Toy Story 5 begins, that hasn't changed. She's still happy to play alone with her toys, but she is also beginning to long for the companionship of other kids, but finds it hard to connect. Knowing so many kids these days are "connecting" (scare quotes very much intentional) via screens nowadays, Bonnie's parents buy her a "Lilypad," thus opening Bonnie up to the world of online gaming, chatting, and cyber bullying. Whoops!

Seeing how miserable the device is making Bonnie, the toys try to intervene, but only manage to make things worse. So they decide to try and connect Bonnie with a real friend, someone who matches Bonnie's level of quirk. This quest also brings Jessie face to face with some traumas from her past.

(Also, there's an army of shipwrecked Buzz Lightyears making their way to Bonnie's town, in a side-story that eventually pays off, but is a bit of a head-scratching distraction until that happens.)

Bonnie is such an anxious little kid, having to watch some of things she goes through can be rough, especially for anyone who's either been that anxious and shy kid (hi!) or has been a parent to one. It's not a surprise to say I cried more than once, Pixar movies often reduce me to a sobbing mess. But I feel like it's been a while since one was so overtly heart-tugging, and even painful to watch at times.

Which is not to say the movie is a total downer! There are plenty of laughs. Greta Lee is great as the voice of Lilypad, the perfect benevolent villain. And I love Joan Cusack's Jessie finally getting to be a hero. Of course Woody does show up to lend his help, but he's an aging Woody, and a lot of laughs are milled out of that. I also really loved the pastel animation used to depict Bonnie's playtime scenarios, an approach I'm really surprised hasn't been used sooner in the series.

Toy Story 5 will never be my favorite Toy Story movie, but I think over the years, and perhaps after the release of even more Toy Storys, it may become the one I appreciate the most, for tackling a complicated and often painful aspect of modern childhood.

Weekend Mullings - Disclosure Day

I want to live in the kind of world Steven Spielberg envisions in Disclosure Day. A world where people not only want to believe, but actually would believe if presented with proof of alien life. A world where reaction to proof wouldn't immediately be an exclamation of "That's A.I.!" or "Fake news!" But if the collective shrug that was the response to the release of government UAP files this past May is any indication, I'm not sure people would even bother looking into a revelation long enough to debate its validity. 

This latest alien adventure from Spielberg is more Close Encounters meets Minority Report than it is E.T. the Extraterrestrial, though it's fun to think that Close Encounters and E.T. actually take place in the same universe as Disclosure Day, and were just two more alien events in our history that have been covered up by covert operators. 

Josh O'Connor stars as whistleblower Daniel Kellner, who is determined to release 79 years worth of secret film, video, photos, documents, and alien tech proving that the United States has had contact with aliens since Roswell. And a lot of that contact was not so great for the aliens. On the run from Wardex, a secret branch of the U.S. government, and its head, Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), Daniel and his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), fight to stay two steps ahead of their pursuers. Meanwhile, Kansas City TV meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) begins to suspect she has a higher calling after she suddenly develops a kind of ESP where she can read people's thoughts, along with a fluency in Russian, Korean, and an alien dialect. Together Margaret and Daniel soon learn they have a history that explains how they've ended up on the same quest.

Disclosure Day is not a sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but it definitely has a lot in common with it, including this central relationship between two strangers who are drawn together by alien encounters, and a government that is trying to suppress the truth, though this time that suppression feels more nefarious. And this desire to suppress the truth doesn't just involve people in power. Jane, a Catholic who once studied to become a nun, questions Daniel's intentions because she fears the knowledge that we are not alone in the universe could somehow destroy people's religious faith so much that it could bring about societal collapse. 

Spielberg seems more interested in delving into this existential threat than into anything evil the government might be up to, but frankly I think he ignores just how intertwined stubbornness and faith can be. I'm not sure the knowledge of intelligent life outside of our solar system would make that many people give up the belief that we're still smarter. Or stronger. Or better.

Even if I don't really believe the reality of that faith-based concern, I did appreciate its inclusion, as it allows Spielberg to get philosophical while also giving us a some of the action he's historically good at. There are plenty of well executed chases and action sequences, including a banger involving a car and some trains, to keep this two-and-a-half-hour movie from feeling long. 

Not all of it hits. Josh O'Connor is just not that...interesting? At least compared to Emily Blunt, who gets to be weird, and funny, and vulnerable. And Coleman Domingo spends the majority of the film talking on the phone while wandering around what looks like a 1990's sitcom set, and the ultimate reveal of just where he is doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Disclosure Day is almost definitely not Spielberg's final film - he's already started working on a Western - but it does feel like it could at least be the culmination of the one realm of his career. He lands on a hopeful, and yes, somewhat hokey - in the best Spielberg version of hokey! - message about our place in the universe, and the power of empathy. I may not entirely buy it, but I want to believe it.