Weekend Mullings - Primetime | The Heart of the Beast

I'll fully admit that To Catch a Predator was one of my guilty pleasures back when it was still airing. I remember one weekend some cable channel aired a marathon, and I watched every damn episode in that marathon. And yes, I felt pretty gross about it afterwards. 

And to be honest, I felt a bit of the same after watching Primetime. 

Primetime is a weird movie, centered on a weird performance by Robert Pattinson as Predator host Chris Hansen. It's less an impersonation than an interpretation, in which Hansen is calm and collected when facing down predators on TV, but a brooding and manic mess in his off-screen life. Pattinson takes some big swings with this performance, and I will not soon forget the way he spits mouthwash into a sink, or uses his finger gun to point at someone's crotch and slowly mouth the word "cock." I'm not sure it entirely works, but it's fascinating to witness.

Set in 2006, the year when Something Bad Happened during the production of the show (a spoiler only to those who have never heard of or watched the show, I imagine), the film is not subtle in its messaging that the pedophiles in the show's cross-hairs weren't the only morally questionable people in that production. 

Along with Hansen, there is Merritt Weaver as Hansen's producer, who blanches when offered a job on What Would You Do? the "feel good" version of TCAP, because she doesn't think "feel good" is really her forte. Jeff Zucker, the head of NBC is, wildly, played by Jeff Zucker himself, and his biggest concern is ratings, and finding bigger and badder pedophiles to feature in the show's new time slot against Lost.

The one sympathetic character is Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo), an actor hired as one of the show's "decoys," a handful of adult actors that looked and sounded a lot younger than they actually were. He's excited that the role could finally get him his SAG card, but his first day on set goes about as horribly as one would imagine it could when one is forced to essentially perform improv with a pedophile. 

Director Lance Oppenheim has only directed documentaries prior to this, and indeed has the very buzzy documentary You Can See Everything, co-directed by Nathan Fielder, coming out next month. And at times Primetime does feel like a documentary, utilizing the multi-camera set-up of the Predator show, and split screens showing multiple angles. But the majority of the picture is filmed in a murky, overly color saturated style that is ugly and off-putting. Perhaps intentionally so.

To Catch a Predator was ostensibly about catching pedophiles before that could harm any children, but the fact is the majority of sex crimes against children are committed by adults the children know, not strangers, and ultimately the show did not have a very high conviction rate. It was always really about entertainment, not justice. I would never go so far as to say I felt sorry for any of the men who were caught by To Catch a Predator's cameras, but I also don't feel comfortable making some kind of moral equivalence between them and the people who created the show, which is the stance Primetime seems to be taking. Yes, perhaps they were all terrible. But please let's not pretend one group wasn't worse than the other.

You're pretty much guaranteed tears when a movie is about a dog, even if the dog survives, which it does in Heart of the Beast. (That's not a spoiler; we learn this at the very beginning of the movie). I was never bored during the film, and much of it is genuinely exciting. But a lot of it is also downright ridiculous, and when I found myself laughing as I was detailing some of the plot later, I realized all you'd really need to do to turn this movie into a comedy is change the soundtrack.

Brad Pitt stars as Special Forces veteran James Belmont. His dog Odin (played by a dog named Uber) is also a veteran, and they both suffer from PTSD. That PTSD results in nightmares that wake them up screaming. Or howling, as the case may be. 

When James suffers a heart attack while flying his floatplane through the Alaskan wilderness, Odin is sucked out of the plane as it crashes. Both manage to survive the crash, Odin after taking a long nap, and James after downing some aspirin. The rest of the film finds James and Odin trying to make their way out of the wilderness with only a few tools recovered from the crash. 

Things don't go smoothly. 

Granted some of what befalls the duo is just bad luck. But an awful lot can be chalked up to bad decision making on the part of so-called Special Forces veteran James Belmont. Such as coming across a ravine and deciding to cross on a fallen tree instead of taking the long way around. Because surely a three-legged dog won't have a problem walking across a slippery tree trunk, right? 

Or, upon discovering they are being stalked on all sides by wolves, deciding to continue walking through the woods in the dead of night, but non-nonchalantly; like pretending the wolves aren't there will somehow make them go away. Because I guess wolves are just bullies that get bored if you ignore them.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg of what befalls James and Odin. I'm actually surprised they don't run into trouble with an actual iceberg at some point. I'll freely admit I'm probably an outlier, and most people will find Heart of the Beast to be an exciting and heartwarming adventure story, and not preposterous and unintentionally funny like I did. But I've definitely had more fun laughing about this movie as I described it to friends and family than I had watching it.

Weekend Mullings - The History of Concrete | Resident Evil | The Weight

I was really sad when the HBO series How To with John Wilson came to an end in 2023, so hearing Wilson was coming out with a feature length documentary called The History of Concrete was definitely happy news, even if I wasn't entirely sure what this documentary would be like. Turns out, it is essentially a feature length episode of How to, and this is both a good and a bad thing.

For those not familiar with the show, each episode would, essentially, feature John Wilson, mainly as an off-screen narrator with a video camera, investigating topics, often centered on things in which he could offer advice, but would very rarely truly be about the topic at hand. For example, an episode about "How to Cover Furniture" finds Wilson pondering hostile architecture and how it's used to control human behavior; discovering the world of art replication; and meeting a man who is trying to regrow his own foreskin. All of this is accompanied by the "b-roll" footage Wilson shoots (primarily in New York, but also any other city an episode may find him), that offers hilarious visual commentary on what is being discussed.

So, you can be sure The History of Concrete is not really about the history of concrete, although it definitely covers more about concrete than most people would ever hope to know. Instead, it's about John Wilson trying to figure out what to do now that he doesn't have a TV show; the impermanence of so many things that encompass a city; and, ultimately, the fragility of life. That last bit comes via Wilson's chance meeting with the lead singer of a heavy metal cover band, and the truly unexpected place that story leads.

But does all of this work as a theatrical feature? That's not something I can really answer, as I watched it at home, on TV, via a screener, so it just felt like I was watching his TV show. But I do have my doubts. For one thing, it is very clearly shot on video, and that can be an unsatisfying visual experience in a theater. For another, I am not sure this is the best introduction to John Wilson's style of documentary. What works in a 30 minute format may feel a little indulgent at 90 minutes, especially to someone new to his work.

I really can't imagine there will be a lot of people coming to the theater truly hoping to learn the history of concrete, but I am sure some people coming into it will come away very confused. For me, I was just happy to see the world through John Wilson's eyes again. 

When I first heard Zach Cregger's next movie was going to be a Resident Evil reboot I was confused. It just didn't seem like the logical next step in his career. When I learned it would center on a dude, I was a little annoyed. While the Resident Evil movies haven't been my favorite, I have appreciated that it is a horror action franchise with a kick-ass woman at its center, and learning a reboot was doing away with that aspect and sticking a bumbling guy at the center just felt regressive.

But what Cregger has given us is less a reboot, or sequel, as it is a Resident Evil story as seen through the eyes of a NPC (non-playable character) from one of the video games. And really only the second half of the movie feels similar to Resident Evils of the past. The first half is exactly what Cregger has given us thus far: a horror movie filled with impeccably timed scares and comedy. 

Austin Abrams, who was so memorable as the drug addict in Cregger's Weapons, is Bryan, a medical courier who agrees to a last minute delivery to Raccoon City. Along the way he encounters an every growing string of improbabilities, including driving through a snowstorm and striking a random wandering woman with his car; a police escort to the hospital that goes awry; and increasing encounters with monsters straight out of John Carpenter's "The Thing."

And that's just the first half. By the time he makes it to Raccoon City, the video game influence is in full effect. But what makes this a Zach Cregger version of a video game movie is that Bryan is a terrible at almost all of the missions and puzzles he's faced with, to comedic effect. He is constantly explaining that he's not good with guns, and then demonstrates that repeatedly. He tosses away objects that would obviously be useful later. He doesn't pay much attention to signage. And while I probably enjoyed the more "Cregger-esque" first half, by the movie's end I was really wishing a "Try Again" prompt would flash across the theater's screen and I could start it all over again. Hopefully, a sequel will fulfill that wish.

The Weight would actually make an excellent double feature with Zach Cregger's Resident Evil, as both are centered on perilous journeys involving precious cargo, though the men in The Weight don't have monsters to content with, at least not the living dead kind.

The Weight is a throwback crime drama that brings to mind classics like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Sorcerer. Ethan Hawke stars as Samuel Murphy, a Depression-era widower who is separated from his young daughter when he is sent to a work camp after getting caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. When Murphy proves himself trustworthy to the crooked warden Clancy (Russell Crowe), Clancy promises him early release if he will put together a team of men to smuggle gold through the Pacific Northwest mountains before the government takes control of it. 

The journey is of course rife with the perils of backwoods travel, along with treachery and betrayal, and director Padraic McKinley keeps the story moving at a satisfying clip, introducing memorable characters along the way. I continue to be surprised and delighted by Ethan Hawke, and what a grizzled character actor he is in movies like this. His Murphy is an honorable man amongst thieves, and the type of hero Hollywood, and frankly the world, seems to have forgotten of late.

Weekend Mullings - Onslaught

Onslaught, Adam Wingard's return to the world of smaller budgets and ultra violence, after helming two Godzilla x King Kong movies, supposedly takes place in the same "universe" as his previous films The Guest, and You're Next. So, basically a universe where military and ex-military can invade homes and violently murder civilians? Which is to say, the U.S.?

Fine. Unstoppable, conscience-free super soldiers are not yet a thing (that we know of!), but heavily armed and masked government "law enforcement" is not as shocking a sight as it may have been even three years ago. And perhaps that's why Onslaught isn't quite as fun as it's intended to be.

Adris Adjora stars as Celeste, a veteran with obvious PTSD who manages a trailer park in a small town in New Mexico. She's also a single mom dealing with the unexpected arrival of her daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy) on a weekend that's not "hers."

And what's worse than dealing with a child when you're not prepared to? Dealing with a child while also having to protect that child from three murderous super soldiers who have escaped from a secret government lab run by a pale German scientist (Dan Stevens) who is almost definitely descended from actual WWII-era Nazis.

Wingard isn't subtle when it comes to his 80's movie influences. From using John Carpenter's favorite font in the opening credits, to the synth-heavy score, to the figures with glowing eyes, framed ominously in the foggy distance. Center the film on a tough broad protecting a kid from relentless killers, and there's your two James Cameron influences. 

These tributes to the genre greats, and to the grindhouse era of filmmaking in general, are enjoyable, and Adjora's Celeste is fierce an refreshingly complicated heroine. But that's mixed in with some modern vibes that made me a little uneasy. I'll admit I was glad when the super soldiers eventually have to resort to weapons other than guns, as watching mass shootings in a brightly lit convenience store just feels a little too real to be entertaining these days.

And I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think the movie is too short! The onslaught in Onslaught is relentless and filled with some intriguing side characters. But the end of that onslaught felt a tad anti-climactic - unless we are given the sequel it very obviously sets up.