It’s Almost April…Where Are The Good Movies?
#265: "Road House," "Immaculate," "Love Lies Bleeding," "Shogun," "The Gentlemen," "Physical 100," "Three Body Problem," "Palm Royale," "Masters of the Air"
Edition 265:
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
This week: A surprisingly good streaming comedy gives me hope for the genre that’s been dead for years. Also, did you know Adam Sandler has a new Netflix movie out? Probably not. I’ll explain why before diving into my streaming recommendations for the week. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” let’s talk about what sells a horror movie.
Road House | Immaculate | Love Lies Bleeding
We’re basically a quarter of the way through the year and there’s been exactly…one good movie? Thank goodness for Dune 2, but come one Hollywood, get it together. The big movies in theaters right now are a Godzilla vs. Kong sequel in which the two titans…team up (what is this, Fast & Furious??); a FOURTH Kung Fu Panda movie, since that’s what the world’s been missing in the eight whole years since the last one; and a FIFTH Ghostbusters movie in which they dragged out the 70+ year olds from the original to enact a version of the “how do you do fellow kids” meme.
These types of creatively bankrupt cash grabs are basically the reason why I started this newsletter in the first place, to show the average moviegoer that THERE ARE OTHER OPTIONS OUT THERE. Unfortunately, the alternatives haven’t lived up to expectations either in recent weeks. Here’s a quick breakdown:
Road House (Amazon Prime): It’s kind of hard to believe that a movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal and directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Edge of Tomorrow) could be this bad, and that disbelief led two different friends to text me this week double checking that they weren’t missing something hidden in all of the awful CGI and poorly written dialogue.
Nope! There’s not a single character in this story that’s passable as an actual human being, and no discernible reason why they decided to remake a 1980s B-movie in the first place. Oh wait, no, there is one: Gyllenhaal’s abs. The case for this movie as a movie star vanity project makes more sense when you see Post Malone and Conor McGregor pop up in kind of significant roles, despite the fact that neither of them can even remotely deliver believable lines. Jessica Williams, who actually can act, is given exactly nothing to do as the owner of a Florida Keys bar that hires Gyllenhaal as a bouncer. Anyone who has seen the 1989 original with Patrick Swayze knows the plot here is not much more than him…being a bouncer, against increasingly scary hooligans who show up at the bar. Even if you’re a fan of trashy action flicks, you can do better than this with your Friday night.
Immaculate (Theaters): If I haven’t officially said this before, let me say it now: Sydney Sweeney is a member of the Schwarzenegger Phylum, the group of actors whose physical presence is like a special effect, overwhelming their lack of acting range (other members include Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill and Jacob Elordi). I thought she couldn’t really hold her own on-screen in Anyone But You, but that had zero effect on the movie’s wild success (her work on social media and in tabloids is above reproach). We all know what the appeal is there, I don’t need to say it.
But she can do terrified and confused well. Playing a fish-out-of-water who shows up at a creepy monastery in Italy and gets victimized by evil priests and nuns is much more in Sweeney’s natural wheelhouse, not all that dissimilar from her Cassie character in “Euphoria.” I focus so much on the performance because there’s not really much else to the movie, which clocks in around 85 minutes and still has plenty of time for slow motion and long still shots with music playing the background, a reminder of just how thin the plot is.
It’s no spoiler to say that Sweeney’s character gets pregnant, mysteriously, and that the rest of the movie devolves into gross-out horror as she tries to figure out what happened. It’s not all that scary, outside of two or three jump scares, it’s more horror in the sense that you don’t expect to see blood and shocking images inside of a church. It’s well-made but not really my cup of tea. Perhaps I didn’t enjoy it because the movie promoted the inclusion of Simona Tabasco — the Italian bombshell who I’ve had a major screen crush on since “The White Lotus” — and then killed her off in the first two minutes. Now that is an unforgivable sin.
Love Lies Bleeding (Theaters): This is the best of the three movies listed here, by far, a pretty gnarly little neo noir set in a dusty little cow town near Las Vegas. Kristen Stewart continues to be a next-level charisma machine, even here playing a loser working at a gym who falls for a mysterious bodybuilder woman who shows up in town. The stranger is played by Katy O’Brian, who literally responded to a tweet that the movie was looking for a buff co-lead back in 2022, volunteering herself.
Their love story gets tangled up in the business of Stewart’s character’s father, played by Ed Harris in one of the most sinister performances I’ve seen in years. Without giving anything away, it’s dark and violent and extremely focused on the human body, whether it’s pumping up through weightlifting or sweating or bleeding. I wouldn’t say there’s anything too profound here, and a directorial decision in the ending did not work for me at all, but this movie did show some impressive stuff and I’m excited to see what writer/director Rose Glass does next.
That’s Why It’s TV szn!
It seems every year at this time I end up saying the same handful of things. Movies are bad right now! There’s too much TV on to keep up! But the thing I most frequently lament is that all these streaming shows continue to feel so impermanent. Last year when I did this TV breakdown, the most anticipated new shows were “Dead Ringers,” “Extrapolations,” “Love & Death” and “Beef.” How many of those are people still talking about (“Beef” got a second wind with recent awards wins, but give it a month).
The question is always “so what are you watching these days?” and we all have 20 different answers, but then a few weeks later instead of working through the best of that 20 we say “oh darn I missed that one” and go on to the next batch of 20. Forget a year ago: do you know anyone who is watching “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” now??
With that in mind, here are the handful of shows I’m in various stages of watching right now:
Shogun (Hulu): This is the best show of the year by a mile. My valuation of it has only risen with each new week’s episode, scratching that itch of early seasons of “Game of Thrones” with its complexity and political intrigue, while still coming through with shocking set pieces and plot twists. If subtitles and a feudal Japan setting are the only thing keeping you from this masterclass in storytelling, then shame on you. It’s a fully realized and mostly unknown world (to westerns like myself!) that’s endlessly fascinating, populated by memorable characters, and there’s so many of those decision points that leave a viewer thinking about which chess move he or she should execute. Seriously, give this show a try immediately!
The Gentlemen (Netflix): Perhaps you remember The Gentlemen, a star-studded Guy Ritchie gangster movie released in the doldrums of 2020? It was one of my favorite movies of that year, and in the time since, it’s become one of my most rewatched movies of the entire decade. Any time something you love gets adapted into something new, it’s natural to be pretty nervous. Would this Netflix show retell the exact same story as the movie? Would new directors and writers be able to maintain Ritchie’s vision?
This new show answers every question and does so much more, taking inspiration from the movie’s premise of British aristocracy’s messy involvement in the underground marijuana trade and telling a whole new story with entirely new characters. Theo James (of “White Lotus” fame) leads a cast that includes many Ritchie regulars (you know the lot: Vinnie Jones, Ray Winstone, and basically anyone comfortable with regularly dropping the “c word”), maintaining that chaotic energy while executing plots that are distinctly TV in their construction (each episode has its own hair-brained adventure, while further building out the world and characters). I’m more than halfway through and loving where this is heading, my second favorite show of the year. And rejoice Guy Ritchie fans, we get a new movie from him next month!
Three Body Problem (Netflix): The thing about “Game of Thrones” that worked so well, in my mind, was that it overachieved on a small scale and then slowly built up to the biggest scale TV has ever seen, in the latter seasons. But for its creators, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, once you go big it’s hard to go back. Their next project needed to be more epic than the last, so we’re overwhelmed with a gigantic canvas here right from the start, across three timelines and with no less than a dozen characters to keep in mind.
I’m quite certain that over time all the pieces will fall into place — and I’m told the end of the fifth episode is “the reason to watch the show” — but I’m not there yet and I’m finding it all a bit much to digest so far. There are, at times, shades of that “Game of Thones” S8 plot cramming problem. It will be interesting to see the degree to which spectacle on TV can keep myself and others energized long enough to reach that hook. I do think I’ll stick it out, since Benioff and Weiss have proven to be among the best at big scale TV in the biz.
Physical 100 S2 (Netflix): Season 1 was one of my favorite reality shows of all time, and this time the production is bigger and more impressive looking. For the uninitiated, they basically gather 100 of the most ripped and athletic people throughout all of Korea and have them compete in physical challenges to see who has the most perfect body. On the reality TV scale it’s closer to sports than, say, “The Bachelor,” but there is still plenty of drama and storylines.
Through three episodes I do find this season’s cast of characters to be not quite as compelling as the first season (though that would’ve been hard to top), and I’m slightly annoyed by challenges which seem more mental puzzle than physical tests, but I savor each new episode of this show all the same.
Palm Royale (AppleTV+): I keep seeing rave reviews of this Kristin Wiig show about a desperate woman trying to Ripley her way into an elite social circle in 1960s Palm Beach, Florida. But through one episode I quickly determined it was not for me. I’m starting to grow concerned that Apple might develop a reputation for glossy but substance-free programming that seems to think collecting a bunch of big name stars in the same frame means no need for drama or conflict. Or maybe I just didn’t give this one a chance.
Masters of the Air (AppleTV+): Had it not been for a TV podcast I listen to and my own brother assuring me that this show gets very good after four or five episodes, I would’ve shared the same critique as above. The show looks expensive, and not just because some quite high percentage of every shot is drawn in using CGI.
This project got the ol’ producing crew of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks back together from “Band of Brothers” for the same kind of red meat WWII Americana, but seems to have forgotten to include any of the plot engine that drove the original at 100 mph. I’m sticking around because I’ve become a big believer in the Austin Butler movie star project, and because I need to see what lessons I can learn in charisma from Callum Turner (who in real life is now dating Dua Lipa). Oh, and apparently it gets really good halfway through the season, which apparently means I can forgive the first HALF OF THE SEASON for being mediocre.
Trailer Watch: Bad Boys: Ride Or Die
If I gave you 10, 20, or 100 tries, there’s no way you would have guessed that the highest-grossing movie in the U.S. in 2020 (and 3rd-highest in the world) was Bad Boys For Life (my negative review of the movie is one of my favorites and it’s crazy how it’s the same stuff I’m ranting about four years later). Add in all the very legitimate caveats you want — like the fact that it was the only blockbuster movie to come out before March, when the Covid pandemic shut down theaters for the rest of the year — but it doesn’t detract from the fact that the previous movie made $426 million.
Of course, the entire marketing push of that movie was “one last time,” with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence joining forces almost 20 years after Bad Boys II for one last hoorah. Except that, when they saw how much money they could make, they immediately planned to make a sequel (now the fourth in the franchise). On principle, I want to hate this movie. And this trailer did nothing to change my mind!