Movie Reaction: Cocaine Bear

Formula: Scarface * The Bear

The problem with trying to critique the movie Cocaine Bear is that it's called Cocaine Bear. For example, here's a sample discussion of what would happen:

Me: I don't know that Cocaine Bear totally works.

Cocaine Bear Apologist: Was there a bear in it?

Me: Of course.

CBA: Did it do cocaine.

Me: Yes, an incredible amount.

CBA: Then what's your problem?

See what I mean? An immediate shut down. This really is one of those movies that you make up your mind on before ever stepping into the theater.

So far, I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Banks as a director. Pitch Perfect 2 was a solid follow-up to the original. Charlie's Angels (2019) is a favorite of mine from the last few years. Now Cocaine Bear. The best way I can describe her overarching approach is that she goes hard. That's exactly what Cocaine Bear needs.

There is actually a plot to Cocaine Bear. A giant stash of cocaine that was thrown from a plane lands in a state part in Georgia. A bear eats some which makes her incredibly violent. So, she goes around killing everyone she sees while also searching for more cocaine to eat. That stuff is addictive. There are some human stories too. A mom looking for her daughter. Some drug dealers trying to find the stash. A detective trying to track down the drug dealers. The main attraction is the cocaine bear antics though. The human stories are just there to give this some kind of spine. The main focus is the cocaine bear terrorizing people and doing copious amounts of cocaine.

They assemble a surprisingly strong cast for this. Either Elizabeth Banks has a lot of friends or a lot of people thought the title alone sounded stupid enough to work. Regardless, this has Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Ray Liotta, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and several others. And they are all uniformly OK. All the performances are pitched to being in a movie called Cocaine Bear. It would've been nice for someone to give more than the movie deserved, but it's understandable that no one does.

The movie is super comically violent. There are a number of good gags. There are some that don't quite work. The joy of this movie is seeing how everyone involved treats it like they are getting away with something. It's a low-brow movie that doesn't make me feel like I need to take a shower afterwards. It's imperfect, but I feel like a perfect version of this would've been somehow worse.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Magic Mike's Last Dance

Formula: Magic Mike XXL - all the friends

Magic Mike is one of the least likely franchises in cinema in large part because the movies aren't that similar. Magic Mike is more of a drama about life as a male stripper looking for more. Magic Mike XXL is a road trip buddy comedy. Now Magic Mike's Last Dance is a "Put on one last show to save the theater" movie. It's wild the swings the films take, when ultimately they are all about Channing Tatum being attractive and a great dancer. Personally, I'm fine with them making a new one of these every couple years with little to no connection to the last one. Just try out every genre and story type. Magic Mike as a crime thriller. Magic Mike as a slasher movie. I'm all for it.

Last Dance sees a retired Mike (Tatum) working as a bartender for private events after his furniture business failed. At an event he's working, a rich divorcee (Salma Hayek) finds out about his past work and convinces him to come out of retirement for a private dance. Let's just say the dance goes very well. She then hires him to come out to London where she owns a theater. He's hired as the director of a new male revue. And, basically that's it. He puts together a show. We see the show. It's good and fun. The men are all very attractive with great dance moves. I'm not sure the correct way to say I'm a straight guy who still enjoyed the hell out of this that doesn't sound a little "gay panic" or defensive. It's true though.

I don't have a lot else to say about the movie. Tatum and Hayek look hot as hell. Steven Soderbergh is back as director (although did he ever really leave?) and he automatically brings competency to it. Last Dance isn't the absolute joy of XXL, but that's a high bar. It's a fitting conclusion(?) to a franchise that never needed to be a franchise.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Antman & the Wasp: Quantumania

Formula: Ant-Man - Ant-Man

For all its faults, one thing the MCU has always been pretty good at is staying in the right lane despite all the overlapping stories and characters. The sub-franchises feel of a piece. I could watch the Captain America movies as part of an MCU rewatch but I could also watch just those three movies together. There's always some overlapping universe stuff, but the movies reflect what the lead character(s) are about. Much of that has to do with specific directors putting their stamp on the franchises. Ryan Coogler is Black Panther. Even if he leaves, the movies will be in his image. The Russos imprinted themselves on Captain America. James Gunn figured out Guardians of the Galaxy.

I would've said the same about Ant-Man and Peyton Reed. This was never the biggest of the MCU franchises, but the first two movies setup something reliable. Scott (Paul Rudd) is an affable, accidental hero. Hope (Evangeline Lilly) is the more driven complement to him. Hank (Michael Douglas) is an unwilling mentor. Scott has real legal and personal troubles as well as his comic book troubles. It's this nice San Francisco corner of the MCU. And the movies play with the ridiculousness of Ant-Man's power. The Thomas the Tank Engine fight is the high point of this. And it's why Rudd is a perfect fit. I won't pretend that I adored these movies, but they absolutely had an understanding of the formula that works best for them.

Meanwhile, there's Quantumania. A movie I kind of liked as I watched it and have liked less the more I've thought about it. In this film, the whole gang gets trapped in the quantum realm. That includes Scott, of course, Hope, now married to Scott, Hank, his wife/Hope's mother Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Scott's daughter Cassie (recast with Kathryn Newton). In the quantum real, they discover a whole CGI world that is under the rule of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). They must find a way out while also stopping Kang.

Unfortunately, Quantumania plays with the Ant-Man formula too much. To start, the CGI world has no tactility. Since it's a foreign world, there's no ability to play with size. One of the simple joys of Ant-Man is seeing something that's normally small get really big or vica versa. With no recognizable objects in the quantum realm, any playing with size is stripped of all context. Also, the movie splits the group up in disastrous ways. Scott and Cassie are together in one story. Hope, Hank, and Janet are together in the other. That means Scott has to be the adult in the room for most of the movie. That's not what Rudd excels at. He can do heroic moments, but he's not a Chris Evans. Scott is so much more interesting when Hope is one-upping him and Hank is judging him. So, the Hope/Hank/Janet group is missing a punching bag. Hope largely disappears. Janet is stuck apologizing a lot for things she never mentioned. Hank doesn't have a target for his wry insults.

It's a shame, because there are elements I really like. The core cast remains great if actually in a scene together. This is Jonathan Majors' first film appearance as Kang, and he establishes himself as a worthy follow-up to Thanos. I can't wait to see even more of him. Ignoring some age wonkiness, I'm really excited to see Kathryn Newton in the MCU. She's an actress who keeps popping up in things I've seen. I've been waiting for her to get picked up by a franchise for a while now. She isn't great in Quantumania, but this is a tough movie to be introduced in. They rush through her reintroduction early in the movie, including the fact that she has an Ant-Man suit for some reason. By the time they are in the quantum realm, they treat her like an already established character. I think she'll fare a lot better in a more tactile world.

Quantumania is the most an MCU movie has every felt in service of the universe-building over the specific franchise. The universe-building has always been a part of the MCU movies; often annoying and transparent parts. Never this dominant though. As a piece of placesetting for Phase 5 of the MCU, Quantumania does its job. I just wish it didn't come at the expense of the Ant-Man franchise.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: A Man Called Otto

Formula: Grumpy Old Men - 1 man

I'm a fan of "nicecore". That's the diminutive world people use to talk about shows or movies that are about nice people being nice. Don't get me wrong, I love a good story about the worst people in the world being awful too. But, there's something deceptively difficult to writing nice. It's easier to write something where a character is willing to throw a wrench into something for no good reason. It's harder when characters are aligned. And I've really come to appreciate the subcategory of "nicecore" about a person who thinks they are mean discovering they are nice. I don't mean a Scrooge having a change of heart. I mean someone who just doesn't realize their own nature. Recently, Honor Society was a great example of this. So is A Man Called Otto.

This movie, as you would expect, is about Otto (Tom Hanks). He's a recently retired widower. He's a man who likes when things work. It upsets him when things don't work. Given that the world is messy, he's become crotchety over the years. Just as he's given up on his ability to fix things, a series of small events like new neighbors moving in, convince him that he still has something to offer. The tagline for this is quite accurate: "Fall in love with the grumpiest man in America". Grumpy isn't mean. Grumpy is a puzzle.

This is something director Marc Forster has explored before. Both Christopher Robin and my beloved Stranger Than Fiction are about men who has largely shut themselves out of the world who are shaken out of their rut by some outside force. In Stranger Than Fiction, it's the disembodied voice of a narrator. In Christopher Robin, it's the return of an old friend. In A Man Called Otto, it's a new neighbor who won't accept Otto's prickliness. In all of these cases, the men are good people who forgot how to show it. That's what I like about A Man Called Otto. Otto never gets nicer. The same things annoy him. He just finds the ways to work around them. And it takes something that I'm dubbing a "Manic Pixie Dream World". Instead of a dream woman to get him out of his rut, it's a whole world that seems determined to find the good in him.

Tom Hanks is understandably good in this. He's America's Dad. He can't help but be lovable. Yet, he's believably a grump too. It's a role he's played a lot and he's refined it with age. The film is well-populated with people who are just on the right side of Stepford. New neighbor Marisol (Mariana Trevino) is the exact kind of friend he needs. I like the flashbacks to young Otto (Truman Hanks) with his wife (Rachel Keller) to let the audience know that Otto has always been like this and what kind of person it takes to break down his walls.

I've already gone on long enough, but I do still need to talk about the fact that this is a Hollywood remake of a Swedish movie that was based on a book. I get why people complain about Hollywood remakes. People shouldn't be that afraid of subtitles. Hollywood studios with their assorted corporate entities and meddling producers can suck the life out of an idea. Often, the films retain only the one-sentence pitch and lose all the charm on the margins that made the original so good. Often though, I think people complain about the remake because they have a stick up their ass (myself included sometimes). It's reflexive snobbery. I haven't seen A Man Called Ove, the Swedish version. I have no issue with Otto, but I can definitely sense some things that were likely lost in translation. There's a running gag throughout Otto where he tries to commit suicide but keeps getting thwarted by what turns out to be an opportunity to be a good person. That's something that requires nimble handling and specific alchemy to work. In Otto, it feels more forced than I assume it did in Ove. Like an element they knew they needed to keep but had no real desire to. The street Otto lives on also feels out of place. It feels like that setup might've been more specific to Sweden. The Otto movie is probably less prickly than the Swedish version. I assume much of that is because the prickly parts wouldn't translate as well. While overall, I did like Otto, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was reverse-engineering something.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Infinity Pool

Formula: The White Lotus * Crimes of the Future

Rich people are the worst. Am I right?

In a nutshell, that is Infinity Pool. There are a bunch of trippy sci-fi flourishes and violence too, but the main point of Infinity Pool is that there's an ultra-elite class of people for whom the rules don't apply. It's a point that's made a lot these days in film and TV. It's not even a new point as much as a new target. A decade ago, after the Great Recession, it was banks and finance bros who got the focus. Now we've moved to the casual rich. Those who seem to be professionally rich. Personally, I'm hitting my saturation point on it. So, the question about Infinity Pool is if it offered enough variation on this idea to stave off my indifference.

It's hard to talk about Infinity Pool without spoiling it, so here's your warning. The film is advertised as the story about a couple, James (Alexander Skarsgard) and Em (Cleopatra Coleman), on vacation in a fancy resort in Europe. They meet another couple, Gabi (Mia Goth) and Alban (Jalil Lespert), and go on a day trip with them. On the way back to the resort, James hits and kills a pedestrian with his car. Since it's remote and night, they decide to flee the scene as though nothing happened. We're led to assume this will be a thriller about keeping this secret. Instead, the murder is discovered by morning and James is executed that day. Only, there's a twist. This fictional country has special technology and a deal with the US. They are able to - for a price - make a clone of James and execute that copy of him instead. Soon after, James learns that Gabi and Alban are members of a group of people who have been cloned and executed before. He starts hanging out with this group of people who are literally rich enough that laws and consequences don't apply to them. And even then, the twists aren't done, but I'll stop there.

In a lot of ways, Infinity Pool is an inversion on the Westworld idea. In that world, the rich can live lawlessly by abusing robots that come back every day. In this world, it's the rich who can die and come back every day. Weirdly, this also reminded me a lot of the Community episode where Pierce starts hanging out with a group of elderly trouble-making students. And of course, the way that they expect everyone in the world to work for them is reminiscent to The White Lotus. As I said, there's a lot of familiarity to this idea at its core.

What sets Infinity Pool apart is the cast and Brandon Cronenberg's warped vision. Cronenberg has a lot of his dad in his directorial style. The visuals and sounds of this movie are twisted. He's a fan of that upside down camera shot that's becoming popular for the "elevated horror" filmmakers. Cronenberg is great at extracting the casual inhumanity of his actors. Mia Goth - no surprise - is the stand out. While she's been around for a decade, in the last year, she's really established herself as the most intimidating petite women who sounds like the ghost of a gothic child. I get the sense that whatever a director asks her to do, she will do it and will go further just for the hell of it. Skarsgard is interesting too. He's in that Jude Law group of actors who you get the feeling wished they were less handsome. Skarsgard loves to be weird and pathetic. He's often betrayed by the fact that he also looks like a hunky Tarzan. He's found ways to use it to his advantage though. In Infinity Pool, it's the fact that beneath his looks and proximity to wealth he knows he offers nothing.

I do think I liked Infinity Pool. The more casual it got in its nihilism, the more I appreciated what it was doing. Cronenberg is good at making some of the weirdest parts of the movie feel almost mundane. It's set in a fantasy world hidden beneath the real world. As tired as I think the ending at the airport is (just a couple months ago, The White Lotus had the exact same thing), it is a necessary reset. Anyway, the performances alone made this interesting enough to watch.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Knock at the Cabin

Formula: The Mist * The Strangers

M. Night Shyamalan is by no means my favorite director. His only movie to even sniff my favorite movies discussion is The Sixth Sense. But I do love that there is an M. Night Shyamalan making movies. I'm not sure there's anyone better and more willing to try out any one sentence movie pitch. For the most part, he's used his clout to make whatever her wants, not to scale up where it's more of a collaboration with a studio and producers. And a healthy movie industry needs directors who are willing to go for base hits rather than home runs.

Knock at the Cabin is a modestly-sized home invasion movie about the end of the world. Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Aldridge), and their daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) are on vacation in a remote cabin where they get held hostage by a group led by Leonard (Dave Bautista). This group claims to have seen visions of the end of the world that led them to this cabin where this family must make a terrible choice. One of Eric, Andrew, or Wen must sacrifice themselves to prevent the end of the world.

That's one hell of a pitch. To his credit, Shyamalan doesn't try to get too clever with this. That's exactly what the movie is about. No twists. Just Sophie's Choice with an apocalyptic twist.

Bautista is excellent in this. He's physically menacing yet carries himself like he's apologizing for taking up space. I love how often he opts to play against type for someone who looks like him. The others in his crew are good too: Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abby Quinn, Rupert Grint. They play varying degrees of conviction and self-doubt. None of them want to be enforcers of the apocalypse. It fell on them though. Kristen Cui continues Shyamalan’s underrated track record of getting great child performances. Aldridge and Groff did a little less for me. Groff is sidelined for much of this with a concussion and Aldridge is just angry a lot.

Despite the subject matter, I didn't feel much tension watching this movie. Certain characters have plot armor. I never really doubted Leonard's group. The version of this movie I would've responded more to would've given me more reason to doubt them. Fewer news stories and less obvious plagues, maybe. I had a little trouble remembering that these characters don't realize they are in a movie.

While I didn't adore this movie, it is the thing it sold itself as. Good performances. Intriguing premise. Shyamalan also has a special skill at making PG-13 movies that don't feel like they scrimped on anything. This movie is pretty brutal.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Women Talking

Formula: 12 Angry Men - 11 Men

I've spent a lot of time over the years trying to figure out what my deal is with play adaptations for the screen. I adore some and find others tedious. It's been hard to put my finger on why. Lately though, there have been some films coming out that look like play adaptations that are not based on plays. Films like The Outfit and Women Talking. Those helped put into focus the differences, and I have a theory now. I love a movie that constricts its characters. I like to phrase it as "trap a bunch of personalities in a room together and see how they bounce off each other". It's the reason I love Free Fire so much too. Where a movie like this loses me is when the tenor of the performances and style of the filmmaking still feels like it's appealing to a stage audience. That's why I have trouble with August Wilson adaptations. As great as the acting is, it still feels like stage acting. Whereas, it doesn't feel like the Women who are Talking are playing to an imaginary audience. And the filmmaking is concerned with catching moments that a play never would. In summary, I like when a confined story is told as a film. I don't care for when a play is simply put on film.

This is all a roundabout way of saying that I really enjoyed Women Talking. It's exactly a kind of movie I love. It tells the story of a Mennonite (or something similar) community that must make a big decision. For years, the men of the community have been drugging and raping the women then convincing them they imagined it. Several of the rapists are caught and sent to prison. The remaining men leave for the city to bail them out and return them to the community. While they are away, the women form a council to decide what they will do. The three options are: forgive the men, stay and fight for change, or collectively leave the community entirely.

So that's the movie: a debate.

And I loved it.

It helps that the cast is absolutely stacked. It feels like Sarah Polley just had a running list of every actress who had popped in the last few years and threw them into this. Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, and Jessie Buckley are the big three. Frances McDormand is the biggest name but by far the smallest role. And there are many actresses who I either haven't seen in a while (Judith Ivey) or hadn't seen before (Kate Hallett, Live McNeil, and especially Michelle McLeod) who get a lot to do. The only male actor of note is Ben Whishaw as a lone ally and minute-taker for the meeting. I won't bother breaking down who all is on what side of which argument. I think it's fair to say you can guess the positions of most characters based on the actress. Except McDormand. That was a surprise.

What's refreshing about this is how much it doesn't rely on theatrics. This feels like a complex discussion and not a series of monologues. And they don't present the decision as a toss-up. It's clear early on the direction they need to go. The debate is more about assuaging the concerns of the detractors. I like the different levels of investment too. In the middle of all this discussion, Hallett and McNeil's characters spend most of the time drawing and playing: anything to stave off boredom. Sarah Polley pictures this perfectly for the cinematic experience. The movie never feels as dry as the description could make it sound. There's a lot of focus on the smaller moments and background details that a play couldn't do. And the films shakes us out of the confines of the barn just enough to keep things from getting stale.

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Quick Reaction: Divinity

I do feel bad for the last Sundance movie I watch in a given year. At that point I'm worn out from binging a ton of movies over a few days and am ready to move on. My head just isn't as in it by that last movie. Although, in the case of Divinity, the only thing seeing it earlier would've changed it whether my feeling was apathy or distaste.

I applaud the movie for really taking a swing. It's a bizarre Sci-Fi movie. The cast is eclectic with everyone from Scott Bakula and Stephan Dorff to Bella Thorne and at least one porn star that I know of. It has the look of an ambitious movie funded by begging family members and maxing out credit cards yet it actually lured some name stars.

I found the style aggressively off-putting though.

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Quick Reaction: Run Rabbit Run

Little to say about this one. It's decent little horror thriller. Sarah Snook is good in the lead role. I love seeing her get a lead role. This movie does feel a lot like horror by the numbers though. It fits that mold of PG-13 or barely R horror with a touch of the paranormal, starring an overqualified actress that seems like it's trying a little too hard to make some larger point. See Mama, Dark Water, Antlers, etc. Not a bad movie. Just not particularly fresh.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Sometimes I Think About Dying

Premise: A lonely woman in a small town begins dating a new coworker.

As I watched this movie with friends, I repeatedly pointed out how aspects of this reminded me of Stranger Than Fiction. For me, there is no higher praise. I am a person who has trouble opening up and gets set in my ways, so characters like Daisy Ridley's Fran really speak to me. Even the bits of darkness that she's afraid to reveal. I think Ridley is incredible in this movie. It is a restrained performance. I really didn't think she could go this small. Just as good is Dave Merheje as Robert, the potential love interest. He's just very good as a nice guy. Outgoing but not overbearing.

What I love most about this movie is the dance as Fran and Robert feel each other out. Neither speaks a language the other can understand. Robert is someone who can befriend anyone, so his advances look indistinguishable from being a friendly guy. Fran, on the other hand, gives you nothing in her responses. While something like making a joke in the office instant messenger is huge for her, you'd have to know her really well already to understand that. It's frustrating in a good way as a viewer to see the fight they get into and know how much it would be resolved by just knowing each other a little better.

The title comes from Fran's recurring habit of imagining ways that something could kill her. The one drawback to the movie is that it doesn't find a way to make that more than a character quirk. It could be removed without damaging anything that I loved about the movie. I didn't hate the inclusion of it. It just felt extraneous. There is a part of me that thinks it could turn into a weird inside joke in their relationship. A lot like Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen joking about how they'd kill each other in Take This Waltz.

So now I'm comparing this to Stranger Than Fiction AND Take This Waltz. I really must've loved it.

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Cat Person

Premise: A college student begins dating a man she met at the movie theater she works at and goes through all the benchmarks of modern dating.

I missed when the New Yorker story this is based on blew up. From what I gather, the movie covers everything in the story then adds on a final act where everything goes haywire. I think that was needed for this to work as a movie, but I think it also highlights how this works best as a short story.

The most interesting thing about the movie is how much it works as a Rorschach test for the viewer. I watched this with a few friends and loved seeing how we all responded to aspects of the movie differently. As a straight male in my mid-30s, I kept trying to cut Nicolas Braun's character some slack. Others seemed to more immediately side with Emilia Jones. And we all most sided with Geraldine Viswanathan as the best friend.

One part in particular comes to mind when thinking about the complexity of this. There's the scene after the breakup when Margot (Jones) sees Robert (Braun) hanging outside the movie theater. She ends up calling the police after he leaves, which does make a kind of sense. She can feel threatened by that and why wait until it's too late to do something about it? On the other hand, I see Robert as a guy who got abruptly dumped and can't go to the movie theater he used to go to anymore. Maybe he got as far as the theater to actually see something then got paralyzed by the idea of an awkward confrontation. The idea of this movie, especially since it is only from Margot's perspective is that there's no easy way to read any situation. And that's what I liked most about the movie.

The last act does go too far and gets to a point where I can't defend any character. Instead of waffling between whose side I'm on, I just ended up on neither side, which is far less interesting to me. Then the side story with Viswanathan's internet feuds has nowhere near enough time to develop. It felt very forced in.

All that said, the movie got me thinking a lot, which means it was effective in a way many movies aren't. Emilia Jones proves that CODA was no fluke. Braun is very deft at adapting to the way the view of him in the movie continually changes. He can be charming, pathetic, and threatening in the same scene without really changing the performance in large ways.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Magazine Dreams

Premise: An amateur bodybuilder goes a little nuts to pursue his dream.

Ok. I did a great job getting all caught up on these to immediately fall weeks behind. Let's see if I can power through a few of these. Sorry for short-changing some movies that deserve more discussion.

This movie is all about Jonathan Majors' very committed performance. I think he's incredible in a movie that asks him to be very unlikable and hard to sympathize with. His incredible physique is basically a special effect. The sequence that I'm calling "the Whiplash scene" is very impressive. Just complete mania and obsession and determination on screen.

I do think the movie dragged on toward the end. There were just a few too many chapters, especially for an ending that backs out of all the threads. Not that I wanted Majors to go full Joker.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Fantastic Machine

Premise: Cameras are cool, man. Just look at all the ways we use them.

It's seems that a portion of Sundance docs each year goes toward furthering the discussion of technology's place in our lives. That's definitely the purpose of Fantastic Machine: a loosely structure doc about the many, many uses of cameras throughout time.

I don't know that I left this movie with any clear message about video technology. It mostly serves as a reminder of the possibilities. It just as easily could've been cut into a series of YouTube videos with roughly the same effect. Much like a YouTube rabbit hole, Fantastic Machine was engaging from beginning to end. Before I knew it, 90 minutes had passed and I wasn't sure where the time went.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: AUM: The Cult at the End of the World

Premise: A documentary about the Japanese cult that attacked the Tokyo subway system in the 1990s.

I love a good cult story. How did it grow? What did they believe? Who was their leader? It's all fascinating stuff. And if there's a series or movie about it, something wild happened with the group. It's hard to mess this kind of story up.

AUM: The Cult at the End of the World does a fine job covering the AUM cult in under 2 hours. I got the feeling watching this that it could've easily been a multi-part doc series. There were so many corners of AUM left under-explored. And it's a good sign when a doc leaves me wanting to learn more. The filmmaking was pretty straightforward. They knew to let the story drive the movie rather than try to inject their own special flair.

The main limitation of the movie is one that's common of this kind of movie. I wish I knew more about the leader. Whenever I'm watching a doc about a cult, the question I'm implicitly asking is "Why did people follow this guy?" I can't say I came away from this movie with an answer. They paint Shoko Asahara as an interesting man, but there's little direct footage of him that captures the charisma that enchanted his followers.

I did appreciate the ballsy move of the movie to call out the Japanese press at the time for normalizing AUM. Surely, they must see the irony of making an entertaining documentary of AUM then complaining that giving a platform to these cults is dangerous.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Kim's Video

Premise: A man tracks down the famous Kim's Video library from New York to a small town in Italy.

The story of Kim's Video is a fascinating one. It was this small New York City video franchise that collected an enormous library of legal and illegal films. Both proper releases and bootlegs you couldn't find anywhere else. It was part of a specific scene throughout the 80s and 90s. The number of famous former employees and members is extensive. The founder of Kim's Video is an enigmatic South Korean businessman who you'd never guess owned such an establishment. When it closed in 2009, as all video stores eventually did, they sent the collection to a town in Italy that promised to maintain and digitize the collection. While it did go to Italy, the collection was not taken care of. I love the idea of a documentary that tracks down the how, why, and what next of Kim's Video.

Unfortunately, the filmmaker of this also seems to be the most insufferable film nerd. Throughout the movie, co-director/co-writer David Redmon is compelled to prove his film nerd bonafides with references to all the movies he's seen. He can't just go to Italy. He has to muse about how much it was like the Corleons in The Godfather. He can't even just cut in the clip of the reference. He has to point it out every time. If the movie just disposed of that aspect, I'd bump this several letter grades. I can't express just how annoying that was.

I was also not a fan of the ending when they appear to either invent or exaggerate the tale of how the collection makes it back home. I really wish the filmmaker would've trusted how interesting the story was on its own. They added so many unneeded flourishes that both distracted and annoyed. Hopefully, this movie at least leads to a more in-depth Wikipedia article or investigative piece on The Ringer or something. I'd love to read more about this story without the annoying stuff strewn throughout this doc.

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: 20 Days in Mariupol

Premise: A small group of journalists capture footage from early in the Russian invasion of Ukraine and try to get out alive.

This goes in that category of documentaries, like The Act of Killing, that I have a hard time recommending, per se. It's a very good doc, but it's a hard watch. This tells the 20-day story of a group of journalists in Mariupol getting footage of all the awful things happening there, looking for a way to send the footage out to the world (wifi is hard to come by in a war zone), and getting out safely when exits are blocked from all sides.

I saw this the same day that I watched Victim/Suspect and the difference in style and quality were stark. Victim/Suspect kept forcing the story to be about the journalist investigating, even though there was no clear reason to give her that focus. In 20 Days, the movie is the filmmaker's story. It's about where he goes and what his struggles are. He does everything he can to stay out of focus though. If he's at a hospital that has just been bombed, it's not about how he came this close to getting bombed. It's about the people who were hit.

Again, it's a hard watch. There are dead bodies throughout. Children in peril too. Not to sensationalize. Rather, to reflect what was actually happening. If you have the stomach for it, this is a worthwhile movie to watch. But I understand if you don't want to go through it.

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: A Little Prayer

Premise: The patriarch of a suburban family realizes that he can't help his adult children as much as he'd like.

I had a lot of trepidation going into this movie. I haven't loved the films of director Angus MacLachlan that I'd seen. In particular, Junebug - which A Little Prayer looks the most like on the surface - left a bad taste in my mouth. I couldn't shake the feeling that Junebug was a movie from a more worldly, cultured person looking down on small town life. Or at the very least, it was patronizing about it. I didn't think that I needed more of that from him.

I'm so glad I took a chance on A Little Prayer though, because I really loved this movie. A Little Prayer isn't really about much. Bill (David Strathairn) lives a pleasant enough middle-class life. He's happily married to Venida (Celia Weston) and runs his own business with his son, David (Will Pullen). David and his wife Tammy (Jane Levy) live in a guest house* out back. Bill realizes David is carrying on an affair with a woman at work and doesn't know what to do about it. He loves his daughter-in-law and also doesn't want to overstep. Around the same time, Bill's daughter Patti (Anna Camp) and her daughter move back into the house after the latest dispute with her bad news husband. So, the movie is essentially about Bill realizing the limitations of his ability to help his children. There are no huge blow ups. It's a gentle movie in that way. And that's what I loved about it.

*It's not really a guest house. There's no kitchen. It seems to just be a room. The point is, don't mistake that description for thinking Bill is rich. Maybe just barely upper-middle-class...Maybe.

There aren't many people built to wear 70 as well as Strathairn. He keeps this movie chugging along in the least intrusive way. Personally, Jane Levy is the real breakout for me. I've liked Levy forever. She's a lot of why I opted to see this. I haven't seen her in this mode though. Her character is just the nicest, sweetest person, but it's the kind of sweetness that you know is a choice. She has some darkness that she refuses to let win. I would absolutely love it if she managed to get awards love for this like Amy Adams did back for Junebug. That's doubtful to happen though, since that role is sort of split between what Levy and Camp are doing in this. Still, incredibly impressive.

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Theater Camp

Premise: Imagine if Christopher Guest made a movie about theater camp.

This is one of the easier Sundance movies to talk about because it's one of the ones that is only concerned with being a comedy. It's not a "Sundance dramedy" which normally means it's a straight drama but with actors who normally do comedies. Theater Camp is just a silly movie about a struggling theater camp that's trying to carry on after their director goes into a coma after a freak children's theater accident.

Theater Camp is shot in a mocumentary style, reminiscent to Christopher Guest's movies or Spinal Tap. I don't know if it was as improvised as those comparisons, but it sure felt like it was. I've never been the biggest fan of Guests movies or even something like Curb Your Enthusiasm. While they can result in some great jokes, the rest of the time feels like stalling. I can see the actors thinking on their feet too much. I get the appeal but it doesn't work as fully on me.

Given that, I liked Theater Camp about as much as I could. Directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman know this world well. No doubt a lot of the characters and beats come from their own experiences. Both the adult and child casts are game for anything. I particularly like Ayo Edebiri as the clearly unqualified camp instructor.

I do wish the movie had some more time for the younger cast. I get why there wasn't. It's incredibly hard to cast a campful of under 16 actors with impeccable comic timing and instincts who can be relied on to punch up lines and riff. Just because I get why something is next to impossible though, doesn't mean I can't point out that it didn't fully work.

Theater Camp is a shaggy movie. But it's short, has a strong cast, and reflects a deep understanding of the topic. You could do a lot worse than that.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Persian Version

Premise: A Persian-American woman reflects on her and her mother's stories.

This is a fun and nimble movie. From the opening credits, I could tell that even if the movie ended up being a complete mess, I was going to have fun watching it. It all starts with star Layla Mohammadi as Leila. She carries herself like she's already had a Nickelodeon series and 5 teen RomComs under her belt. I was shocked to find out that she's relatively new and has only a couple TV episode credits. I expect that to change. Her narration and direct addresses to the audience keep this movie humming along. It's almost comical how much this movie shows of the deep reserve of under-utilized Persian* actors there are out there. Leila's family is huge, and everyone is quick to make an impression.

*Or generally Middle-Eastern. I'm not sure the background of every actor nor familiar enough to identify ethnicities by look.

This is a weird screenplay to talk about. It won the Screenplay award at Sundance, which is well-deserved. However, I also feel like the screenplay could be improved a lot. You see, this is a movie that covers a lot. Part of why Leila (and later Kamand Shafieisabet as Leila's mother when she was much younger) narrates this is because there's so much packed into this movie. Functionally, narration is telling, not showing, which breaks a writing 101 rule. Personally, I'm fine with that as long as it’s done really well. With The Persian Version, I can't shake the feeling that writer/director Maryam Keshavarz had too many ideas and wasn't willing to kill any of her darlings. You see, Leila is an interesting character who could carry a movie about her getting pregnant despite being a lesbian. Her large family creates a plethora of dynamics to explore. This movie could be 9 Months with a Persian twist if it wanted to be. However, the movie is also an ode to Leila's mother. It not only covers all the ways her mother overcame hardships in America but also the scandal that cause her and Leila's father to leave Iran. It's so much for one movie. Especially one that is 1h47m. Essentially my problem with this movie is that it feels like Keshavarz got 90% of where she needed to with the screenplay. That's still a very good screenplay and better than most. It feels like it could be even better though. There's no reason this movie couldn't be as efficient as a Clueless or Lady Bird. In other words, this is a movie where my only complaint is that it's very good but it could've been great.

Verdict: Strongly Recommend