Weekend Screen Scene: The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Oh, Hi!

It seems that about every ten years, we are blessed/cursed with a new Fantastic Four movie. However, I went into the latest version, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, having never seen any of those previous films. I have since rectified that, and can now safely say that yes, this decade's is the best attempt yet.

But it's a curious approach, in that we are plopped smack dab into the middle of things, with no real backstory to speak of, aside from a highlight reel prepped for a talk show on "Earth 828," which, being a Marvel movie, means this adventure takes place on a retro, multiverse version of Earth. 

The "Fantastic Four" are Earth 828's greatest heroes, bestowed with super powers after a trip to space goes awry. Reed Richard/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal) is the patriarch of this makeshift family, a scientific genius with the ability to stretch any part of his body to extreme lengths. His wife is Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby) who along with invisibility, can generate force fields. Her brother Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) can control fire and fly. And Reed's best friend Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is a pilot and rock-like creature with super strength. 

When the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) arrives on Earth with the announcement that their planet will soon be devoured by a being known as Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and there's nothing they can do to stop it, the Fantastic Four learn there actually is a way to stop it, but the price is too precious, and a new plan must be made.

There's a lot of standard superhero stuff in First Steps, including a battle that destroys part of a city, something I'm frankly getting tired of seeing in these movies. The lack of real backstory also requires us to just instantly love the Fantastic Four, but being that Pedro Pascal is one of them, that is not too tall of an order, although I feel like he isn't given nearly enough chances to be charming, and Mister Fantastic's stretching ability, which I find kind of inherently goofy, is taken a little too seriously.

But I can forgive almost all of this movie's flaws because of its greatest gift: its production design, which is a mid-century modern lover's wet dream. A retro-futurist world full of sleek architecture, atomic age furniture, men in suits and skinny ties, and women in shirtwaist dresses and big hair. (This is the first Marvel movie I've ever wanted to live in, but barring that, a stay at the TWA Hotel at JFK may have to suffice.)  

The Fantastic Four: First Steps, with this unique world, and fresh set of Marvel heroes, could easily work as a stand-alone movie. Of course it isn't, ultimately setting us all up for next year's Avengers: Doomsday, which, if it stays on Earth 828, for at least a little while, means I won't be giving up on the MCU any time soon.

If you've seen the movie Companion earlier this year, you may get a sense of deja vu as you start watching Oh, Hi!. Its got an attractive young couple driving to a romantic weekend getaway. Its got a girlfriend named Iris. And it all gives off the sense that things may not end up going the way this couple would hope they would.

And indeed things do not go quite as planned for Iris (Molly Gordon) and Isaac (Logan Lerman), though Iris goes to extremes to try and rectify that. Molly Gordon, who came up with the film's story, along with writer and director Sophie Brooks, has called Oh, Hi! "a romantic comedy gone wrong," and that's putting it mildly. 

At times what happens is funny, at other times, it's extremely cringe, and many times, I pondered how I was ever supposed to accept what Iris does; I'm still not sure if do. But I enjoyed never entirely knowing where the story was going, even if I don't entirely buy where it ends up.

Weekend Screen Scene: Superman

Over the last couple decades I've been pondering why it seems to be so difficult to make a truly great Superman movie, and I have yet to come up with any real answers. It seems like it would be easy! He's the first real comic book superhero! The OG indestructible man! The ultimate good guy fighting for truth, justice, and the American way!

I didn't like how Christ-like he was in 2006's Superman Returns, and the Zack Snyder directed incarnations were just too gloomy and...Zack Synder-ey. And while I do adore 1978's Superman, I really can't say how much my love for that movie is fueled by pure childhood nostalgia, or genuine appreciation, because I have to admit parts of it are extremely hokey.

All of this is to say I enjoyed director James Gunn's Superman more than any Superman movie since 1978's, but that very well may be damning it with faint praise.

Gunn forgoes any real backstory, instead literally dropping Superman into the middle of the story. Superman has just prevented a war, saving the small and poor country of Jarhanpur from an invasion by the larger and richer Boravia, but this has resulted in some controversy, fueled in large part by billionaire Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), who has a vested interest in Boravia taking over Jarhanpur.

Superman this time around is played by David Corenswet, best known - at least to me - for his role as the seductive movie projectionist in 2022's Pearl, and his Superman is much closer to the earnestness of Christopher Reeve's Superman than to the more emo interpretations of Brandon Routh or Henry Cavill. Which is not to say he's milquetoast. But he's no cynic either. He's just a genuinely nice guy who wants to protect his adopted planet.

James Gunn is responsible for Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy movies, which have, for the most part, masterfully blended humor and action, making those films some of the funnest in the MCU. But I can't say Gunn's brand of humor works quite as well here. Yes, seeing Superman go out of his way to save a squirrel is delightful, and his foster dog Krypto, is a very, very good boy. But other things, such as Nathan Fillion's turn as the Green Lantern, and almost every scene at the Daily Planet, fall flat.

But there's so much more going on that it's easy to overlook the clunkiness. Rachel Brosnahan makes a great Lois Lane, one so dedicated to her job as a reporter that she doesn't stop working even when the city of Metropolis is crumbling around her (as toppling skyscrapers seem to be a common occurrence in almost all superhero movies, perhaps she's just used to it). Gene Hackman will always be the best Lex Luthor, but Hoult is a vast improvement over Jesse Eisenberg's twitchy version, a billionaire who has the ear of the government and literal typing monkeys controlling the Internet's narrative about Superman. 

I'm not going to say much about the stupid accusations being made by some that this Superman is too "woke," because anyone who says that obviously knows nothing about the history of the character, and is really nothing but another typing monkey on the Internet. But I will say that I appreciated that this Superman tells a story that mixes the fantastic (superheros; giant monsters) with the relatable (billionaires playing with the fates of nations; America turning against a good guy because of something they see on online).

So, no, Superman is not the great Superman movie I've been waiting for. But it's close. And to paraphrase Lois Lane herself: a good director doesn't get great movie scripts, a good director makes them great. Maybe James Gunn will get there.

Weekend Screen Scene: Sorry, Baby

After a screening of Sorry, Baby, writer, director, and star Eva Victor admitted they probably didn't think hard enough about the poster image for the movie, which features Victor, with a look of concern on their face, holding up a kitten. Kittens!? Cute! But that title? And the look of concern? Should the audience be concerned about that kitten?

I'm happy to report that no cats die in the course of the film (though one creature does meet its ultimate fate via said cat). But a bad thing does happen to Agnes, and it's the magic of this movie that it manages to be truthful to the pain of that experience, without being exploitative, or triggering. 

Sorry, Baby is also also very, very funny, in both expected and unexpected moments, thanks to the immense chemistry between Victor and her co-star Naomi Ackie (who is really becoming a secret weapon in every movie she appears in). They play Agnes and Lydie, best friends reuniting for a long weekend at the house they once shared as graduate students at a small New England college. Agnes still lives there, and now teaches at the same school. 

Over the course of this visit, Agnes and Lydie hang out and joke around, are annoyed by the presence of strangers (them both reacting with disgust to a neighbor hollering "Ahoy!" at them is hilarious), and sit through a tense dinner with former classmates from the college. By the end of the visit it becomes clear that Agnes is still dealing with a past trauma, though it isn't until the film's second chapter, and its time shift, that we learn what happened to her.

Aaaand, unfortunately, I'm going to need to cut this review short because I had carpal tunnel surgery and was only able to finish the above before said surgery, and now I can't really type for very long. So let me just say this: Sorry, Baby is one of the best screenwriting and directorial debuts I've ever seen, I absolutely loved it, and I am really looking forward to what Eva Victor comes up with next. Do yourself a favor and seek this one out.

Weekend Screen Scene: F1 the Movie

Do not go into F1 the Movie expecting surprises. Director Joseph Kosinski and screenwriter Ehren Kruger have essentially recreated their previous hit Top Gun Maverick, replacing the fighter jets with Formula One race cars, and Tom Cruise with Brad Pitt. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing! It just depends on how much you like fast cars and Brad Pitt, because it's those things and not the story that are going to do the heavy lifting when it comes to entertainment.

Pitt is aging race-car driver Sonny Hayes. While racing for Lotus's Formula 1 team back in the 1990's he crashed and almost died, so stepped away from Formula One, though never left racing behind completely. After winning a race at Daytona, he's approached by his former Lotus teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) with an offer to join his now struggling F1 team, APXGP. Though they have the talented but brash rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), they have yet to win a race that year, and with nine ahead of them, and their second driver out for the season, Cervantes hopes Hayes will get them a win.

If you're suspecting the aging racer will Break the Rules, and Teach the Rookie a Thing Or Two About Racing and Life, you'd be right. Just about every cliche you'd find in an underdog sports story can be found in F1 the Movie, and every expected story beat is there. In fact, the only time it veers away from the predictable is in its ending, which is all wrong, and the one time it should have stuck to cliches.

Filmed for IMAX, the racing scenes are undeniably thrilling. And loud. I don't know enough about Formula 1 to know if what happens in these races is in any way plausible, but I suspect they are not. But they're what are required to make a sometimes monotonous sport a tad more thrilling to watch in a movie. If actual races feature as many POV shots, and camera whip pans as seen in F1 the Movie, I could actually see getting into the sport, which, thanks in large part to the Netflix series, Formula 1: Drive to Survive, has picked up a lot of new fans in the past few years. I'm not sure F1 the Movie will satisfy those fans. I suspect the implausibility of some of the races may irk more than thrill. But it could create even more followers of the sport, which I suspect is exactly the point.

Weekend Screen Scene: The Life of Chuck, The Phoenician Scheme

The Life of Chuck is like a Frank Capra movie bookended by a Stephen King movie. It's a King and Capra sandwich, if you will. 

Told in three parts, it starts with part three and ends with part one. Part three introduces several characters in an unnamed town who are facing what may be the end of the world, while also being bombarded by some inexplicable advertisements on billboards, TV, and sky writing, all thanking someone named Chuck for "39 great years." Part two centers on one moment in the life of Chuck, and part one tells the story of Chuck's youth.

And that's about all I'll say about the plot, because how all of this ties together is the film's central mystery, and message. And I'll admit, it's a message that had me crying more than once. Mike Flanagan is not new to the Stephen King world. Even when he is not overtly adapting his work, as he has done in the past with Gerald's Game and Doctor Sleep, the influence King has on his work is often clearly evident. (For instance, Midnight Mass could easily be viewed as an unofficial Salem's Lot sequel.) It's a match that works quite well because Flanagan, whose work is almost exclusively in the horror genre, understands the importance of sympathetic characters when you're telling a horrific story. 

Chuck is not a horror movie, but those bookends definitely have elements of the genre. I will offer a tiny spoiler and say that if you are going to see this movie because you are a huge Tom Hiddleston fan, you may be disappointed, as he is not in the movie as much as the advertising may suggest. But his Chuck is figuratively and literally the center of the movie, and he's quite good in a film full of excellent performances. (Chiwetel Ejiofor as a teacher, Mark Hamill as Chuck's grandfather, and Benjamin Pajak, especially, as the middle school aged Chuck, are all standouts.)

The Life of Chuck could have easily veered off into the realm of maudlin sentimentality, but I think it's those small nods to the horror genre that both King and Flanagan know so well that keep it grounded, and ultimately make the movie so effective. Perhaps it's my age, where there are more years behind me than there are ahead of me, that make stories like this hit differently, or just the general state of the world right now. But I came away from the movie with a profound feeling of both sadness, and hope.

I've grown less tolerant of Wes Anderson's patented brand of twee ever since The Grand Budapest Hotel, the last film of his I can say I truly enjoyed. And while I would not put The Phoenician Scheme on par with Anderson's greatest, I did find it it to be more fun than annoying, which is at least an improvement.

All the things that make a Wes Anderson movie a Wes Anderson movie are here: A muted color palette. Symmetrically composed shots. An overall vintage aesthetic. And characters that deliver their deadpan dialogue in a story centered in some daddy issues.

Benicio del Toro is Zsa-Zsa Korda, the central daddy this time around, a mysterious and corrupt industrialist hoping to complete his latest "scheme" which involves taking over the infrastructure of Phoenicia. But because he is under constant threat of assassination, he decides to get his things in order and make his estranged daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) his sole heir. Liesl, who is a nun, is reluctant. Along on this journey is Bjørn (Michael Cera), an entomologist who has been hired as a tutor because...well because this is a Wes Anderson movie.

For me, it's safe to say that Michael Cera's performance is what makes this movie so fun, and I'm as shocked as anyone that this is his first Anderson film; he was basically built in a lab for this sort of thing. At one time, Wes Anderson movies were a complete package: aesthetically pleasing movies that made me laugh and cry. For the last two movies, I was only able to get one those three things. This time, thanks to Michael Cera, The Phoenician Scheme offers two of the three.

Weekend Screen Scene: Bring Her Back, Bad Shabbos

Danny and Michael Philippou, the twin brother directing team behind 2022's Talk to Me, have returned to the genre with Bring Her Back, another very dark horror film centered on people dealing with debilitating grief. You know. Fun stuff!

After losing their only parent, 17-year old Andy (Billy Barratt) and his blind, younger step-sister Piper (Sora Wong) are placed into foster care with Laura (Sally Perkins) a former children's counselor. At first she seems kooky but kind. But soon, Andy begins to suspect something sinister is at play.

Both Talk to Me and Bring Her Back deal with loss, and the urgent longing for connection beyond the grave. Talk to Me's ventures into the world of the supernatural had some moments of levity, turning ghostly possession into a kind of party game which resulted in some exhilarating and often funny moments. But Bring Her Back is a movie you endure more than you enjoy, and there's not one moment in it the entire film that I could describe as fun.

The Philippous do a great job of establishing Andy and Piper as very sympathetic characters from the get go, and Barratt and Wong are so good in their roles, that you really don't want to see anything bad happen to them. And when bad things do, it hurts. It's literally horrifying.

But the film takes way too long to establish just what is going on with the Laura character, and despite Sally Perkins also giving a stand-out performance, any sympathy we are supposed to have for her comes too late, resulting in an ending that doesn't hit the way I suspect it's supposed to.

So, yes, the film is filled with terrific performances, is beautifully shot, and is absolutely effective; at times so horrifying I had to cover my eyes. (If you have any phobias surrounding dental trauma, you may want to skip this.) And yes, I know horror movies are supposed to affect and horrify you. Absolutely. But it is up to every horror fan to decide the level of horror they can endure. And turns out, watching vulnerable children subjected to multiple traumas is not the kind of horror I can endure. Bring Her Back is a good horror movie; perhaps even a great one. But I can safely say I had a miserable time watching it, and absolutely never want to see it again.

While watching the dark comedy Bad Shabbos, I kept finding myself pondering what the prison sentence for accidentally causing the death of someone via a practical joke may be. Obviously, involuntary manslaughter would be the charge. But would someone really face a long prison sentence? Especially a white kid from a well to-do family in New York? 

The Gelfands, the family at the center of Bad Shabbos, do not think with such rationality, so when a guest at their Friday night shabbos dies as a result of a prank, they go to extreme lengths to try and cover up the crime, and a dinner that was supposed to bring the parents of newly engaged David (Jon Bass) and Meg (Meghan Leathers) together for the first time turns into a comedy of errors.

Bad Shabbos is not the most original comedy, and I'd say only about half of its jokes land. But if the movie is worth seeing at all, it is for Cliff "Method Man" Smith's hilarious performance as Jordan the doorman, who ends up being the exact kind of guest one may need at a murderous shabbat dinner. He can charm parents, quote the Talmud, and knows when and when not to use a luggage cart to get rid of a dead body.

Weekend Screen Scene: Lilo & Stitch

Not longer after the release of the live action Snow White, Disney announced a pause on their live action remakes, but for better or worse, those already made, or in production, will likely see the light of day. Lilo & Stitch is one of them.

I saw and really enjoyed the original Lilo & Stitch back in 2002, but admit it is not a Disney film I ever returned to, so I went into this remake with pretty fresh eyes; I certainly wasn't making constant comparisons to the animated original in my mind. But as I was watching I did begin to question my fond memories of the original, because this new version felt so very, very mild. It's way more of a movie made for kids than one that would appeal to all ages, as the original seemed to. So, yes, I did go back and re-watch the animated version a few days later. And yes, the remake simply pales in comparison.

The character of Stitch is definitely one ripe for CG animation. If kids came away from the original wanting their very own Stitch, they're definitely going to want this legitimately cute and fluffy version. But while Stitch's visual characterizations are damn near perfect, his manic comedic energy is now tailored to simple things kids will find amusing, with far less of the weirdness displayed in the original (Elvis Presley, for instance, is no longer a running gag).

I can't fault anything about Maia Kealoha as Lilo and Sydney Elizebeth Agudong as her sister Nani. They both give amusing and heartfelt performances. Kealoha, in particular, is the kind of child actor I am sure directors dream about: adorable and precocious without feeling like they're mugging for the camera.

To get past the issue of having the two space aliens who are chasing after Stitch look like two space aliens who are chasing after another space alien, this time around, Jumba and Pleakley are able to disguise themselves as actual human beings once they get to Earth. They are played by Zach Galifianakis and Billy Magnussen, respectively, and I wish I could say this comedic duo brings the laughs, but they both just felt flat. I seriously cannot remember laughing at a single moment of their screen time.

The idea that Stitch is an alien-made creation longing for a family is less of a focus this time around. Now the family focus is aimed more at Lilo and Lani, and the threat to separate the two of them. But the introduction of a character not in the original, friendly local Tūtū (Amy Hill) who lives nearby, and is always willing to help, seems like the natural answer to that threat, negating the idea that Lilo and Lani are truly alone. Lilo's story is important, for sure. But Stitch's character arc is just not as touching as it should be, and the film suffers because of it.

Weekend Screen Scene: Thunderbolts*

I'll admit, after seeing Captain America: Brave New World earlier this year, I was pondering whether I would bother with Thunderbolts* and continue investing time in the MCU, which has now officially reached Phase Six(!). (And to be honest I don't really understand what that actually means, since both Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* are officially part of Phase Five, but seem more like the start of Phase Six?)

But I decided to give it one last shot with Thunderbolts*, and despite the lingering resentment I have over the fact that it is essentially kicking Sinners out of IMAX screens after only two weeks (though Sinners will be back), I will admit, it's convinced me not to quit the Marvel teat quite yet.

Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) is the center of the film, and is facing an existential dilemma. Clearly, the death of her sister, the Black Widow, has had a lingering effect on her, and as the movie opens, she's questioning her own worth and existence. A secret op assignment from CIA director Valentina de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) leads to a team-up between Belova, the new assholish Captain America (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Belova's father, Red Guardian (David Harbour), and a guy named Bob (Lewis Pullman).

This band of anti-heroes, some of whom would really prefer to be known as just heroes, join forces with the Winter Solider (Sebastian Stan) in fighting a familiar villain, and a new one, and it's this new villain which ends up feeling refreshingly novel. I've grown pretty tired of superhero villains whose goals are world conquering and/or destruction, with big battles that end up destroying cities. The villain in Thunderbolts* is essentially the deepest pits of depression personified, and that's a pretty relatable and scary foe to face.

To be clear, Thunderbolts* is still filled with lots of fights, shooting, and some urban destruction; the usual beats of a Marvel movie are all here. But what feels new is the decidedly human, emotional pain the heroes and villain have to face and try to overcome. I think it probably goes without saying that Florence Pugh is great, and the rest of the Thunderbolts, particularly David Harbour's Red Guardian, have their moments; Marvel movies have never been lacking when it comes to comic performances. But it's the darkness of this one that will linger.

*and be sure stay to the very end of the credits to learn what that asterisk is all about.

Weekend Screen Scene: Sinners

Experiencing Ryan Coogler's Sinners, ideally in IMAX, is the kind of cinematic experience that reminds any movie lover just why they love movies, and could well convince the skeptical that cinema can be a transcendent experience. 

Sinners is really three movies wrapped into one. It's a historical drama, set in 1932 Mississippi, where twin brothers Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan) have returned to town from adventures in underworld Chicago to open a juke joint. It's a musical, about Sammie (Miles Caton), a preacher's son, blues guitarist, and singer, who wants to pursue his musical passions, despite the objections of his father. And it's a horror movie, about monsters both real and supernatural.

How Coogler melds all of this together is masterful. There are only a few filmmakers I trust completely, meaning I can go into their films knowing that even if I don't end up loving the movie, I'm in the hands of a master who understands how to craft a movie. Coogler is becoming one of them. 

There's a sequence near the middle of the film, once the Smoke Stack brothers have opened their juke joint, Sammie begins to play, and the legend that music can "pierce the veil between life and death" begins to come to life. Past, present, and future start to share the screen, the camera glides around the dance floor, and all of these pieces that shouldn't work together come into harmony. It's the most electric bit of filmmaking I've seen in years.

Love and sex, violence and blood, all play a part in Sinners, but it's the music that's going to linger. Coogler has once again teamed with Ludwig Göransson for a score that, like the film itself, is a melding of genres that one would assume to be discordant, but just works. Filled with swampy blues, Irish folk songs, and a score that melds it all and more, the soundtrack deserves the same kind of fervor the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack garnered. 

I'm purposely avoiding saying much about the plot because I went into Sinners only knowing what was in the trailer, and that was even more than I wish I'd known (the trailer above is the most obtuse I could find). I was still happy to be surprised, and let the nuances of the characters and plot reveal themselves. One of the biggest sins of a horror movie is not giving you any reason to actually love the characters that are eventually put in danger. That's not the case here, as Coogler allows the characters to slowly reveal themselves, and their backstories. When it comes time for them to fight, you're cheering them on.

In the age of streaming it can be hard to convince people to fork over the dough for a movie theater experience. But I really can't stress enough that Sinners really should be seen in a theater. If you're in the Bay Area, see it at the Metreon in IMAX, which is one of the only true IMAX theaters in California. And if I can't convince you, I'll let Ryan Coogler try, with this bit of video where he nerds out explaining film formats and aspect ratios.

Weekend Screen Scene: Drop, Sacramento

First dates can be pretty harrowing experiences, but hopefully not as harrowing as the first date in Drop.

Violet (Meghann Fahy), the widowed survivor of an abusive relationship, has agreed to finally meet the man she's been texting with for months, leaving her young son with her sister as baby sitter. Her date is Henry (Brandon Sklenar, probably best known as the nice guy in another domestic violence tale called It Ends With Us), a photographer with the mayor's office. He's very polite, and very cute. All is going well until Violet starts to get some ominous "AirDrop" messages (here called "digiDrops") telling her unless she does what she's told, and does not tell her date what is happening, her son will die.

As tends to be the case with movies centered on technology, the tech in Drop is pretty preposterous, as is the notion that Henry would stick around for as long as he does once Violet starts acting completely insane, trying to keep what's happening to her secret. (She's constantly looking at her phone, leaving the table for various reasons, or asking to switch tables and then changing her mind.) But director Christopher Landon, who also directed the horror comedies Happy Death Day and Happy Death Day 2 U, knows how to keep the film fun and suspenseful, amping up visual tricks that keep you engaged, despite the action taking place in primarily one location.

Sacramento kept reminding me of a younger version of Sideways, but then I looked up the age Paul Giamatti was when he filmed Sideways, and turns out, he was 36! Which is the same age Michael Cera is! Mind blown! 

Now granted, I think Giamatti was actually supposed to be playing older in that movie, as Sideways is truly a middle aged crisis story, and Sacramento is closer to a quarter-life crisis story. Cera plays Glenn, who, with his wife Rosie (Kristen Stewart) are expecting their first child. He's doing his best to present a calm exterior about this impending life change, but Rosie knows better, and is clearly the more solid partner in this relationship.

When Glenn's old friend Rickey (Michael Angarano) shows up unexpectedly, Glenn is reluctant to have anything to do with him, but Rosie convinces him otherwise, thinking this reunion may help him out of his funk. Soon the two friends are on a road trip to Sacramento, ostensibly to scatter the ashes of Rickey's recently deceased father, a story that's not entirely true.

The best word to describe Sacramento is probably pleasant. It tells this story of two friends, both dealing with some heavy emotions they can't seem to express to each other, with a light touch, never getting too heavy, even when the subject matter can get a little dark. That owes a lot to the performances, which also includes a smaller role featuring Maya Erksine, and I'd gladly watch a spin-off or sequel that just focused on her entirely.

Weekend Screen Scene: Freaky Tales, The Luckiest Man In America

You don't have to be from the Bay Area to appreciate the Oakland-set Freaky Tales, but it probably helps one forgive some of the film's shortcomings. There's so much that will hit different for those from the Bay than for those who aren't, especially those who were here during 1987, the year the movie is set. 

Four interconnecting stories form Freaky Tales, all with some level of supernatural (or alien?) influence in the form of a strange green glow that seems to permeate the Town. The stories include punks vs skinheads at Gilman Street; a rap battle at Sweet Jimmie's between Too $hort (who actually narrates the movie, though he's played by DeMario Symba Driver in the battle) and the female rap duo Danger Zone; a hit-man (Pedro Pascal) on his last job, which starts at a video rental store with a familiar clerk; and a robbery at the home of Sleepy Floyd, the same legendary night he scored 29 points in the fourth quarter of game four of the playoffs against the Lakers. (For all the true details behind these stories, I recommend this piece from KQED.)

Written and directed by the team of Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, whose most recent film was the considerably bigger-budgeted Captain Marvel, the stories are obviously near and dear to the heart of Fleck, who grew up in Oakland and Berkeley. The era is nicely captured in the low-budget feel of the of the film, where such 80's cult classics as Repo-Man, Scanners, and The Last Dragon. are immediately brought to mind. This is a pulpy movie, with no shortage of gore and outrageous plot developments, perhaps sometimes too outrageous. But again, the love for Oakland that permeates the entire production makes it easy to shrug things like that off.

Freaky Tales would definitely benefit from a theatrical viewing, especially if you live in the Bay Area, so you can all laugh together as you recognize all the numerous cameos and locations, maybe even at the Grand Lake, which has a prominent cameo in two of the tales. Now that's a hella good time.

We're sticking in the 1980s for The Luckiest Man In America, the story of Michael Larson, who won over $100,000 on a single episode of Press Your Luck in 1984. First let me state that I don't think he did anything that should be considered cheating that day. The rest of the choices he made in life are a little sketchier, but winning on Press Your Luck was actually something that took a tremendous amount of skill, and it was impressive.

It's a story begging for a Hollywood telling, but The Luckiest Man In America chooses to fictionalize it in some weird ways that don't always work. Paul Walter Hauser is great as Larson, a stand out in an impressive cast that also includes David Strathairn, Walton Goggins, Pattie Harrison, and Maisie Williams. Johnny Knoxville also has a small role as a talk show host, but it's one of several moments in the movie that feels completely out of place; maybe even inexplicable.

The film works best when it is centered on the game show itself. The studio set is perfection, and brought to mind the equally impeccable retro set designs in the recent films Woman of the Hour and Late Night With the Devil. The game play is also pretty exciting, when the movie allows it to flow, which is not often enough. Watching it I just kept thinking there had to be a better way to open the story up than having the game constantly get interrupted for reasons that made sense (commercial breaks) and reasons that didn't (that aforementioned Johnny Knoxville scene.) Stick through the credits to get a glimpse of the actual Michael Larson on Press Your Luck, and if that and the film drive your curiosity enough, you can see most of the real episode on YouTube.

Weekend Screen Scene: Death of a Unicorn

I was a little apprehensive about seeing a movie called Death of a Unicorn because watching animals suffer on screen, even animals that don't actually exist in the real world (or do they??), is probably my Achilles's heel. I can't deal. And indeed, we do witness the death of a unicorn - several times! - and yes, it's hard to watch. And that definitely helps to turn what is supposed to be a very dark horror comedy into something veering into uncomfortably unfunny.

Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega star as Elliot and Ridley Kinter. They have a tense relationship; Ridley is a sullen teen, and they are both dealing with the death of her mother a year earlier. Hoping to both bond with his daughter and secure a solid financial future for her, Elliot takes her along on a work retreat to the home of his employers, the insanely rich Leopold family, who live a remote Canadian forest. Along the way, they hit a unicorn with their car, but that's not the last they see of it, or that unicorn's family.

The Leopold family are played by Richard E. Grant as the dying patriarch Odell; Téa Leoni as his wife Belinda; and Will Poulter as their asshole son Shepard. They all have their moments, but Poulter as Shephard probably gets the most laughs. He's just so good at playing contemptible characters.

But that's also part of the problem with Death of a Unicorn. All of the characters are some level of horrible, including Paul Rudd, who is not given nearly enough opportunities to be funny. Ortega has to shoulder the likability burden, but the story takes way too long to get to the point where you're really rooting for her, because Ridley is pretty annoying for a lot of it as well. (Anthony Carrigan, in a supporting role as the put-upon butler Griff, however, is hilarious, and the highlight of the movie.)

I'm all for an eat-the-rich story, and we seem to be getting a lot of them these last few years (hmmmm....wonder why?), and Death of a Unicorn does have a few satisfying moments of carnage. But its uneven tone, and a third act that drags ultimately sinks the film. The unicorns may have bite, but this satire does not.

Weekend Screen Scene: Snow White

Snow White, Disney's latest live-action update of a classic animated feature, was barely announced before the controversy surrounding it began. Some of the uproar was garbage, and some probably had some legitimacy. In either case, it resulted in a lot of negative buzz for the movie, ultimately even causing Disney to tone down its Hollywood premiere in an excess of caution.

When I say some of the uproar was garbage, I'm talking mainly about the screams of protest that erupted the second it was announced that Rachel Zegler, a Hispanic woman, was cast as Snow White. No matter that she does look the part, and has the voice needed for the musical role. And after seeing the movie, I can safely say, she's good! The movie's other efforts at inclusion could almost be called aggressive, and to that I also say, good. If this Snow White manages to piss off a bunch of racists, I do not have a single problem with that.

I'm less enthusiastic about the casting of Gal Gadot, and only some of that has to do with her stance on the Israel/Palestine conflict. I'm against her primarily because she cannot sing, and she brings nothing but her beauty to the role of the Wicked Queen, a character that deserves to be played with some level of camp and wicked joie de vivre.

Which brings us to the dwarves of it all. Frankly, I do not know how you can approach a story that features five dwarves who are primarily there for comedic relief and not have it be problematic. Feature them as fully animated characters, and you are depriving real actors from the LP community of acting roles. Cast real actors, and you are limiting their humanity to being the film's comic relief. It's a no win situation that Disney seems to have tried to rectify by casting one real LP to do one of the voices, and another as an entirely new character, who is not one of the dwarves.

To be fair, the word "dwarf" is never mentioned in this new Snow White (hence the truncated title), and since the "dwarves" are fully animated, and do not look much like the real LP who is also in the film, I believe we are to think of them as closer to gnomes, or purely fantastical beings. (They are, after all, said to be almost 250 years old).

The film's biggest sin is not in any of these controversies, but that it is simply not a lot of fun. Of course Snow White as a character had to be expanded, and given more agency. Having a heroine whose main character attributes are cleaning and falling in love with a man she's barely even met just would not fly today. And I can't argue with the film's chosen plotline that focuses on rising up against an evil leader who cares more about themself than those they lead, because, hello. But mixing in rebellion with peppy songs and cute (and I mean really, really cute) animals leaves us with a film that, while beautiful, in a Thomas Kincaide kind of way, is tonally all over the place, and only rarely captures the cinematic magic of the original classic.

Weekend Screen Scene: Mickey 17

Mickey 17 is director Bong Joon-Ho's first film since 2019's Oscar winning Parasite, and it tackles many of the themes found in that, and in his 2017 film Okja, specifically, capitalism, class, and how we humans treat each other, and other living things, all with the dark humor he's best known for.

Robert Pattinson stars as Mickey Barnes, who, like many people on the Earth of 2054, is desperate to leave, although his reasons center more on getting away from loan sharks than trying to escape a planet that's seen better days. That desperation results in him signing up to be an "expendable" on a space mission to colonize a planet, only realizing too late what this means: that he will be a human guinea pig tasked with the most deadly jobs and horrible experiments that will all lead to inevitable death, again and again. And these things will happen again and again because he will be cloned, with all memories intact, again and again. (That the cloning process essentially involves Mickey coming out of a huge 3D printer over and over is the film's funniest running gag.)

The colonizing mission is led by a Kenneth Marshall, a billionaire who, having failed as a politician, decides to just create his own fiefdom, and his wife, Ylfa, who is obsessed with...sauces. They are played, with much cartoonish villainy, by Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette, and it's not too hard to see a lot of this country's present leaders in their characterizations.

Mickey's life lives has one bright spot, and it's a girlfriend named Nasha (Naomi Ackie), who seems to view Mickey's multiple incarnations as a kinky asset and not a fault. But their relationship, and Mickey's future, is put to the test after their ship lands on the new planet, and Mickey breaks the one rule about "expendables"...

Robert Pattinson's performance, or more accurately, performances, as Mickey, complete with a very weird accent reportedly inspired by Steve Buscemi's voice in Fargo, is the highlight of the movie, and definitely keeps it afloat when it could easily sink under some of its clunkier moments. At times, it drags, especially its climax, which involves an extended confrontation with the native inhabitants of the planet. But Pattinson as the Mickeys, the all too familiar political absurdity that surrounds them, and Bong Joon-Ho's patented black humor, is a welcome reprieve from the actual absurdity of today.

Weekend Screen Scene: The Monkey

Osgood Perkins has been churning out atmospheric horror films for a few years now, but his latest, The Monkey, is his first outright horror comedy. Loosely adapted from the Stephen King short story "The Monkey," which was published in his 1985 collection Skeleton Crew, it's centered on an evil toy monkey that causes random deaths whenever the key in its back is turned, and its drumstick hits its drum.

The film follows the structure of many Stephen King properties, beginning with a story about kids, then leading to the story of them as adults. In this case, it's twin brothers Hal and Bill (Christian Convery), who live with their single mother Lois (Tatiana Maslany) after their airline pilot father (Adam Scott) ditches the family, leaving behind all the random junk he'd collected in his world travels, including a pristine, albeit very creepy wind-up toy monkey.

The boys, who hate each other, soon learn that monkey has the power to kill, which leads to a serious of random and very gruesome accidental deaths that the boys are eventually able to put on pause. For a while. Adult Hal and Bill (Theo James) grow up completely estranged, but the Monkey's return finds them both dealing with old grievances and new carnage. 

I've appreciated Oz Perkins' films, but I've never found myself really loving any of them. Too often I come away from them with the nagging feeling that he thinks he's way more clever than he actually is. I like The Monkey more than any of his past works, including last year's Longlegs, and the fact that it is a comedy that does succeed in its humor the majority of the time is probably why. I laughed a lot. But that doesn't mean it is without its flat jokes, and it's the jokes that fall flat that had me once again feeling that the movie is not quite as clever as it thinks it is.

The other film that most easily comes to mind when watching The Monkey is Final Destination. Both deal with the idea of death as inevitable destiny. But Final Destination's humor was built around the suspense of just how its characters would meet their end, which often happened in crazy Rube Goldberg-esque scenarios. In The Monkey, the deaths are just a series of sudden punchlines to the same joke, and not all of those punchlines land. Enough of them do to make the movie a success, but I'm still not completely sold on Osgood Perkins as our new master of horror...

Weekend Screen Scene: Captain America: Brave New World, Paddington in Peru

Captain American: Brave New World is ostensibly a sequel to Captain America: Civil War, and the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. At least, that's what one would assume. But in reality, it's also a sequel to 2003's The Incredible Hulk, which you may not remember since it came out over twenty years ago and didn't star Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk; it starred Edward Norton.

I may not be up on all Marvel Cinematic Universe lore, but I feel like I know enough to be confused by this decision, especially since the villain from that film also returns, and I'm sorry, as much as I may like Tim Blake Nelson, Samuel Sterns (AKA The Leader), at least as depicted in these two movies, is a boring villain! Also, very gross. Gross and boring do not a charismatic villain make! 

Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) is now officially Captain America, passing his Falcon wings down to Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez). This Captain America is not a super soldier, which one would assume would be a detriment, and it is. I can't believe at one time I complained about these Marvel movies having too many superheroes per movie because Brave New World feels empty with only one, especially one that could more easily die in any fight he's in.

For the majority of the movie, we also only have one villain, and this lack is only barely helped by the arrival of the Red Hulk, since that doesn't happen until the film's last fifteen minutes. (I'd say spoiler alert but it's on the poster. It ain't a surprise.) The overarching plot is also a snooze, centered on newly elected President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford, taking over the role from the late William Hurt) and his efforts to garner a treaty centered on the Celestial Island in the middle of the Indian Ocean that you probably don't know about unless you saw Eternals (which I have, and I barely remembered it).

As this is a Marvel movie, there are plenty of action sequences and fight scenes, but aside from some ridiculous monumental destruction near the film's end, none are particularly memorable. (Also, the theater I saw the movie in was so loud I began to dread any scene that wasn't just characters talking.)

I appreciate the idea of a Black Captain America, but the issue of this Black man fighting in the name of a country that has historically not championed Black Americans is pretty much ignored. Perhaps they figured since it had been covered a bit in the TV series, it didn't need mentioning. But that decision ultimately makes this already hollow movie feel practically cavernous.

Let's move on to a movie franchise that has yet to have a misfire: the Paddington movies! Paddington in Peru is the third film in the Paddington series, and while this one is a departure in many ways. with a new director, a new location, and, in some cases, a new cast, it's still got the same Paddington, and is therefore a delight.

Paddington the bear still loves his marmalade, still lives with the Brown family, and is still liable to stir up some misguided mischief. When he learns that his beloved aunt Lucy has gone missing from the Home for Retired Bears in Peru, Paddington and the Browns venture to his homeland to find her, and, as it turns out, possibly find the lost city of El Dorado along the way.

Hugh Bonneville is back as Mr. Brown, but Mrs. Brown is now played by Emily Mortimer, replacing Sally Hawkins. Most importantly, Ben Whishaw continues to voice Paddington, because any changes in that sweet and calming voice would surely be the death of the franchise. The best addition to the cast this time around is Olivia Colman who is hilarious as the Reverend Mother at the Home for Retired Bears. She's a nun with some secrets.

Paddington 2 was one of the rare sequels that was actually better than the film it follows, and while Paddington in Peru doesn't quite reach that level, it still manages to carry on the series in a utterly satisfying way. (And fans of Paddington 2 should definitely stick around for the credits for a little cameo at the end.)

Weekend Screen Scene: Heart Eyes, Love Hurts

Valentine's Day lends itself well to a horror movie plot, especially when you consider the violent origins of the holiday itself. The most well known V-Day horror is probably My Bloody Valentine, though my personal fave is a batshit crazy 1982 movie known as both Hospital Massacre and X-Ray. 

This year's entry into the Valentine's horror genre is Heart Eyes, which attempts to blend horror with romantic comedy but only partially succeeds at either. Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding star as Ally and Jay, two young professionals who meet cute but end up together on a platonic work date on Valentine's Day while Heart Eyes, a serial killer who targets couples is on the loose. When the killer sets his sights on Ally and Jay, they try to convince him they aren't actually a couple, to no avail.

Too much of the movie feels like a first draft, with jokes that fall flat more often than they hit, a weirdly paced plot with scenes that go one forever, all leading to an ending that's both obvious and dumb. Heart Eyes wants to be Scream so bad, but it isn't nearly as clever; it's a waste of a genuinely good concept for a slasher killer's mask, even if those heart eyes don't make a lot of sense when you think about it.

Before his return to acting and a Best Supporting Actor Oscar win for Everything Everywhere All At Once, Ke Huy Quan had been working behind the scenes choreographing fight sequences for a number of action films. Now he's the one doing the fighting in Love Hurts, this week's second Valentine's Day-themed film. And while not a horror movie, it definitely has as much, if not more, blood and violence as most of the V-Day horror movies out there.

Quan stars as Marvin, a seemingly mild-mannered real estate agent who finds himself called back into the crime world he left behind when Rose (Ariana DeBose), the woman he loves but was also supposed to kill years ago, returns to town.

Aside from that, the film really doesn't have much of a plot, and is instead scene after scene of fighting and shootouts, shootouts and fighting. As good as some of these sequences are - director Jonathan Eusebio does his best to place the camera in some unexpected places - it gets very repetitive very quickly, to the point of exhaustion. I fought the good fight and kept my eyes open, but I promise it wasn't an easy battle to win.

Weekend Screen Scene: Presence

Last year's In a Violent Nature was a unique approach to the slasher movie, an essentially POV movie that literally follows a killer around as he commits numerous murders one night in the woods. Steven Soderbergh's new ghost story, Presence, takes this POV approach one step further, as the whole film is "seen" through the eyes of a silent ghost in a haunted house.

POV movies seem to be having a moment. Last year also brought the (recently Oscar nominated) Nickel Boys, which is told entirely through the eyes of its two protagonists. This meant that often, other characters will be looking and speaking directing into the camera, as they interact with the two leads. But because the "presence" in Presence is an unseen entity, the film's characters, for the most part, do not know its there, and do not interact with it. In that respect, it balances a fine line, because when you think about it, the camera in most movies kind of behaves like an unseen ghostly entity floating around, capturing moments in time. 

The film's plot is pretty simple. Rebecca (Lucy Liu) and Chris (Chris Sullivan) and their teenage children Chloe (Callina Liang) and Tyler (Eddy Maday) all move into a house with a ghostly presence that takes a little while to make itself known to them. When it does, it focuses on Chloe, who is dealing with depression after the mysterious death of her best friend. Meanwhile, Rebecca and Chris are having some issues that may or may not involve something illegal on Rebecca's part, and Tyler is focused on swim meets, getting into college, and befriending the most popular boy in school.

The "ghost" pops in at random times in the family's daily lives, which means we, the audience, only get snippets of these characters interactions and conversations. As a result, some things remain pretty vague, while other things become painfully clear.

Soderbergh, as he often is, was also the cinematographer, and the handheld camerawork is smooth and suitably ghostly, like we're following the afterlife of a dead Steadicam operator. I would imagine having the director as, essentially, another cast member, albeit one holding a camera in your face, could be disconcerting to the actors, but all of the performances (save for one, near the end), feel completely real and natural.

Presence is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, and I could see it disappointing some horror fans, as it's not exactly a scare fest. It's a strange amalgam of traditional storytelling techniques, and experimental production. But at the hands of Steven Soderbergh, and at a brisk 90 minutes, it's an experimental movie that doesn't feel tedious.

Weekend Screen Scene: Wolf Man

Wolf Man, a reboot of the classic Universal character, was announced back in 2014, and was originally set to star Ryan Gosling. But when Universal's plans for a Dark Universe - a cinematic universe conceptually similar to Marvel and DC's cinematic universes - ended up dead on arrival with the 2017 reboot of The Mummy, plans to tie all these monster movies together were scrapped. Instead, Universal has released some stand-alone reboots of classic monster movies, including the aforementioned Mummy, Renfield, and The Invisible Man.

Which brings us back to Wolf Man, which also comes from The Invisible Man director Leigh Whannell. I enjoyed The Invisible Man, which I thought was a clever modern twist on "invisible" monsters, both literal and figurative. And I can see that Whannell is trying to do something similar with Wolf Man, turning it into a story about the horror of generational trauma, and also, you know, a werewolf. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work.

Christopher Abbott and Julie Garner star as Blake and Charlotte Lovell, San Francisco-based writers (we know they live in San Francisco because of the establishing shot of the skyline, and also because the one street scene - not actually shot in SF - includes a suspicious amount of homeless people on the sidewalk), who are parents to young daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth). When Blake gets news that his father, after disappearing years before, has been officially pronounced dead, he decides a visit to the remote cabin that filled his childhood with fear would be a great place to take his family.

Wolf Man wastes no time throwing the family into chaos; there's no settling into the cabin and getting comfy for this clan, and that's one of the film's biggest problems. Given no meaningful time to know these characters and care about them, when they're faced with danger and difficult decisions, we really have no investment in the outcome. And for a movie that's not even two hours long, stretches of it are incredibly boring.

There are some interesting aspects. We're given a glimpse into the world as the werewolf experiences it - in monochromatic color, eerily attuned to sounds in far off rooms, and suddenly unable to understand what people around him are saying, like a dog just hearing garbled sounds from its owner's mouth. And the transformation - every werewolf movie has to have one! - is gross in some surprising ways, and sticks primarily to practical effects, which is refreshing to see. I just wish those effects were a little...better. And that goes for the movie as a whole.