The Machine (2023)

Yeah it's a bit of a bonkers premise and yes it doesn't always work, but Kreischer's film "companion" to his infamous comedy routine about getting involved with the Russian Mafia while in college still ends up being a rather fun time. His charisma along with the joy of seeing Mark Hamill in this gonzo performance ends up being more pros than cons in this rather unique film. 

The film is clunky in places and edited very poorly, so poorly it can be jarring to watch. The plot points are rather ridiculous and the film requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. But when it lands it does land. The funny bits are quite good and there are touching moments too which were far more effective than I would have thought. The film doesn't overstay it's welcome and remains entertaining throughout. 

It's all just so unexpected and ends up just being a lot of fun. 

The Machine

Starring: Bert Kreischer, Mark Hamill

Director: Peter Atencio

Writers: Kevin Biegel, Scotty Landes

 

The Little Mermaid (2023)

The Little Mermaid is the 13th time Disney has taken one of their beloved animated films and remade it in "live action" through a straight up "copy" style, not only telling the same story but hitting the original's plot points and even dialogue pretty much beat for beat with only minor alterations. Unlike more "spin off" takes like the recent Cruella or Christopher Robin, which take ideas from the earlier films and extrapolate new stories, these films stick close to the scripts of their source materials, basically giving audiences the same thing they got in traditional animation but this time with live actors and CGI! 

This sort of exercise has never done much for me. The problem is we've seen the film before and if we want to rewatch it there is nothing stopping us from rewatching the original. Therefore to work a remake needs to offer us something new (and I don't just mean an extra song) like a new way of understanding the story and characters. But the approach Disney uses to tell these stories is to eschew that and instead focus on playing into nostalgia, throwing big stars into the roles, and recreating the moments we are familiar with through dazzling special effects. But what this often accomplishes is the new film missing out on what made the original magical in the first place. Because what makes animated films special is that they can tell stories in ways that so called "live action" cannot. They are not just "drawn" versions of stories, they have a different language for how to tell a story, and much is lost in translation when it is worked back into a live action production.

For example, the problem with photorealism came to light with The Lion King take. Watching real looking animals sing and dance and generally behave anthropomorphically doesn't really work. Flounder, Scuttle, and Sebastian all look terrible and their behaviours all feel just feel off. But it is a problem for the almost-human characters too. Ariel's design is pretty good but both Ursula and King Triton feel far less grand and threatening. They don't fit well into a real world setting. They look like they'd fit better into a David Cronenberg film and I'm not sure that accomplishes what this story needs. 

The original The Little Mermaid's song score is one of film's greatest so that gives this film a huge head start but also a lot of live up to. The new songs truly pale in comparison and I'm not sure any of the covers live up to the original. Digg's Under the Sea almost feels sad and while I thought McCarthy's take on Ursula was noble, her version of Poor Unfortunate Souls just doesn't capture all the grandeur that Pat Carrol's did, a song that managed to be a banger while also moving the plot forward and explaining so much to the audience. 

Speaking of McCarthy, she does what she can with the role, channelling Divine (the original inspiration for the classic villain) but so much of her strength is in riffing on screen and this film doesn't allow her to do that. She sticks to the script which almost wastes her potential. I like what she did with some of her phrasing, inflections, and her amazing eyes. But it did feel like watching a hostage sometimes, hoping for subtle messages to come through. Awkwafina got a little but more leeway playing Scuttle but most of the cast, from John Hauer-King's saccharine Prince Eric Javier Bardem's innocuous Triton fell flat on the screen. The one exception was Bailey who is luminescent in the role. She also sticks to the script, even mimicking Jodi Benson's voice style but making it her own. She also feels constrained by the film's desire to box it all in but yet she still shines. 

I'll point out that the film is a full 52 minutes longer than the original movie yet tells pretty much the same story without adding much in terms of plot. It really just takes longer to tell the same thing. And it feels like it. It drags. Shots take longer. There is more filler. Whatever happened to "less is more"?

So like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast before it, The Little Mermaid is a faded facsimile of a greater piece of art. Once again it isn't terrible and I likely prefer it to those two I mentioned. But not by much. 

The Little Mermaid

Starring: Halle Bailey, Melissa McCarthy, Javier Bardem, Jonah Hauer-King, Daveed Diggs, Jacob Tremblay, Awkwafina, Jodi Benson

Director: Rob Marshall

Writer: David Magee

 

You Hurt My Feelings (2023)

I couldn't tell what was "off" about You Hurt My Feelings until about half way through. We are so conditioned when we watch movies (or read stories, follow series, listen to songs) to expect melodrama and conflict that when a movie is about relatively healthy people working through real emotions in productive and respectful ways we aren't really sure what to make of it. Writer/director Holofcener's script is sharp and subtle but one thing it is not is condescending. It is about adults dealing with adult feelings in adult ways. In that way it is quite remarkable. 

Menzies and Louis-Dreyfus fit together so nicely here as a long term couple who "don't have affairs" and treat each other well. They have a new adult son who they also treat very well. But as humans they make little missteps and they have to navigate those choosing to do so in ways that actually address the problems, don't lead to comic misunderstandings or overly dramatic crises. This may be the most grown-up movie I have seen in a long time. 

The film is subtly funny, not making you guffaw but certainly making you smile quite often. But the real power of the film is how real it feels. Truly so many romantic comedy tropes are about a toxicity that needs to be overcome and it was such a breath of fresh air to see good people dealing with real life, complex and grown up emotions in ways that were constructive and nurturing. 

I vote for more of this please. 

You Hurt My Feelings

Starring: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Amber Tamblyn, David Cross

Writer/Director: Nicole Holofcener

 

Fast X (2023)

The Fast movies aren't really known for the quality of film making, their character development, or even their logic. It's all just all the lowest form of spectacle and I guess the absurdity is the point. So as the franchise reaches it's planned peak, they have just thrown as much big dumb action at the screen, as many actors as they can find (even many we thought were dead or gone), and as many explosions as they can set off, and hope it all sticks. I do think fans of the series will eat it up but for anyone who hasn't drunk the kool-aid Fast X is so much garbage it becomes a total slog. 

Fast X is dumb. Capital D dumb. The plot is silly requiring multiple unbelievable coincidences and the most cliched and thin of motivations. The dialogue is atrocious to the point of eye rolling. The performances are sad. I don't care how many Oscar winners they throw into this mess you can't turn Vin Diesel into a good actor, nor most of this franchise's main cast. The film tries to have gravitas but it all falls so flat you want to giggle watching Dom talk about "family". Even many of the special effects felt cheaply done. It really is a big hate watch kind of of movie where the pleasure comes from just how bad it can get. I get that spins some people's wheels but those kinds of films slam stall for me.

But there is one redeeming quality: Jason Mamoa. He rips this movie apart, giving a tour de force performance that is as entertaining and satisfying to watch as the rest of the film is overwrought and draining. His character is like nothing we've seen him do before and he creates something delightful here that you just want to watch more and more of. It is rare you find such an outstanding role in such an otherwise terrible film. He really made the whole thing watchable. I found myself rooting for his character even if his plot and motivations were as thin and cliche as the rest of this series. Can he kill Dom in the next film and take over the franchise, please? That's probably something I would watch. 

Fast X

Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Mamoa, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, John Cena, Sung Kang, Nathalie Emmanuel, Helen Mirren, Brie Larson, Rita Moreno, Jason Statham, Charlize Theron, Jordana Brewster, Scott Eastwood, Daniela Melchior, Alan Ritchson, Joaquim de Almeida, Pete Davidson, Gal Gadot, Dwayne Johnson

Director: Louis Leterrier

Writers: Dan Mazeau, Justin Lin

 

Still (2023)

Within the documentary genre there are quite a few subgenres, and one that can be difficult to navigate is the kind of documentary which is set up as an opportunity for its subject to tell their story. Unlike many documentaries where the film makers are observing and perhaps making their case, these films can lean a little too heavily into self-promotion and other problematic elements. But when handled well, these kinds of films can offer us an insight into the experience of someone from whom we can learn and that is how Still feels. Yes it is an opportunity for Michael J Fox to share with us his personal journey through a successful career and into a debilitating disease, but it is also quite honest, likely helped along by the fact that Fox doesn't have many skeletons in his closet to worry about and his everyman and decent man persona appears to be very much grounded in who he is. 

Still celebrates a blessed life that has also been besieged by the sort of hardship that diseases like Parkinson's bring. Successful and rich, and more importantly blessed with a loving family and support, Fox gets to tell a tale about facing a struggle but not having to do it alone. He does discuss his own digressions into stardom's arrogance and struggles with alcoholism, albeit only briefly. But that is okay that he doesn't dwell here because that's not what this story is about. 

Still is very much designed to be something we can all relate to. It has a real world balance of ups and downs, blessings and hardships. And it offers some lovely hope about survival and the challenges of optimism. It also feels a bit like reaching down to help out those who might not have as many resources to get them through similar struggles, modelling and saying you're not alone. I think for me the most moving part of Still was seeing someone in pain surrounded by love and the hope that all of us could have that. 

Still

Starring: Michael J Fox

Director: Davis Guggenheim 

Writer: Michael J Fox

 

The Mother (2023)

The Mother is a decently shot and executed thriller. It may lean a little too into the "mama bear" cliche for my tastes, but it's solid entry into the reformed former assassin subgenre. I appreciated how it negotiated some of the complexities of adoption issues focusing on the love a birth mother carries for her adopted child and the importance of that adopted family to the child and its other members. 

You're not going to be be too surprised by anything in The Mother and while there are touching moments nothing here should be too challenging emotionally. The film relies heavily on a wolf mother and her cubs as metaphor that feels a bit heavy handed. But the film's story fills out its runtime sufficiently without dragging. And Lopez does a convincing job in her role. 

For a light easy watch, you can do worse than The Mother.

The Mother

Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Joseph Fiennes, Omari Hardwick, Gael Garcia Bernal

Director: Niki Caro

Writers: Misha Green, Andrea Berloff, Peter Craig

 

BlackBerry (2023)

Corporate intrigue films can be challenging cause they have to weave the narrative that is based on numbers and abstractions often spread out over significant amounts of time, and pace it like an action movie ensuring the audience comprehends the stakes. The effective ones make everything feel life and death. Writer/director/star Johnson manages to pull this off with his docudrama style film, a mash up of comedy and drama, BlackBerry, that is gripping and entertaining from the first frames. 

The tale of Research in Motion's rise and fall has all the classic elements of these sorts of drama and is rich for the dramatization. There's a great cast here but Howerton for me was the standout, playing unlikeable well and even walking a fine line between hero and villain without ever fully falling into the later category. I found myself reflecting on how riveting the. movie was despite the ending being rather anti-climactic... I mean all our protagonists remained out of jail and remained millionaires. I mean even the company whose "decline" this follows remains a profitable company. While the story follows how we all went from having BlackBerries to having iPhones, the stakes here, for the personas we are following, end up feeling more dramatic than they are. Perhaps that is some of the strength of the film. 

BlackBerry is a fun film that will make you want to talk about it after. It's recent history feeling leads to this cause much of the audience will be remembering where they were when, which of the phones they had, and feel even more pulled in to the story. But even without that Johnson has infused a fantastic energy into his story that makes it all so much more involving than it should be. 

BlackBerry

Starring: Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Cary Elwes, Saul Rubinek, Michael Ironside, Rich Sommer, SungWon Cho, Michelle Giroux, Matt Johnson

Director: Matt Johnson

Writers: Matthew Miller, Matt Johnson