Delayed Reaction: Shithouse

Premise: A homesick college freshman tries to put himself out there one night.

 

I’ve gotta get better at shutting my brain off and just enjoying things. I loved this movie, but I’m already frustrated by how Cooper Raiff’s career arc will go. Right now, he’s a film festival wunderkind. He’s maybe 26. He just won the Audience Award at Sundance for the also excellent Cha Cha Real Smooth. This after earning raves for his debut feature Shithouse. There’s definitely a pattern to these movies already and there is a backlash coming; the same way there was with “mumblecore”. He’s going to be too earnest or too focused on a privileged perspective. Much like with the Joe Swanberg movies, I’ll agree with all the critiques while ultimately landing on “But I like the movie and look at all the actors I like who he got in it.” And I don’t know what I’m rooting for with his career at this point. Do I want him to attempt to bring his charms to a diverse group of genres or should he just make a movie every couple years about the phase of life he was just in (Next is his marriage movie, followed by his pregnancy movie, then his parenthood movie, and his career vs. family movie)? And it’s all annoying, because I’d like to just stop and focus on the movie I just watched and really loved.

 

I came in ready to love Shithouse and I did. I am so impressed with this as a debut film. He tries to take on too much and it actually works. I would’ve been happy with a Before Sunrise movie of Cooper Raiff and Dylan Gelula having one magical college night together. I loved all that, and it’s only the first half of the movie. Then it becomes a cringe comedy about all the things you shouldn’t do when you like someone. He goes from 0 to stalker at a rate I found acutely familiar. He lets that go to a really ugly place. Eventually, time softens everything and he gives that really satisfying time jump. That’s my favorite choice in the movie. The film could’ve ended with Gelula’s character liking Raiff’s Instagram posts. It’s an optimistic note that lets you know he’s going to be alright and maybe there’s some hope with him and Gelula. That’s sufficient for any movie. The 2.5-year time jump is a lovely litter coda. Sometimes I appreciate a preponderance of finality. I get to see Raiff’s friend group settled in. Gelula is acting. Raiff’s still seeing his roommate on occasion. There’s an implication of so much history between Gelula and Raiff in that time, where their decision to finally date feels earned. It was all so satisfying.

 

Side Rant: This movie reminded me a lot of this MC Lars song “Summer Camp Love (Is So Intense)”. The song is about a boy and girl who meet in summer camp as kids and keep reconnecting over the years until they live happily ever after. It’s a 100% happy story, and it ends with MC Lars basically saying “I made this really happy story because sometimes it’s nice to just hear a happy story”. Not everything has to be like that, but it’s nice when some things get to be.

 

The movie isn’t perfect. There are some small things that bother me. It weaponizes my college nostalgia in a way that’s almost unfair. Also, Raiff is so charming that it’s easy to overlook how much the movie is a fantasy. Think about it. That opening night when he’s homesick and afraid he’s never going to fit in, he goes to a party where a drunk girl throws herself at him and he turns her down for sex. Then he goes back to the dorm and talks to Gelula for only a couple minutes before she then invites him for sex. Would Raiff have written it that way if he wasn’t going to be the star of the movie? It’s hard to say. Most people wouldn’t make the sad loner that approachable. Stuff like this bothers me way too much, and yes, the reason is jealousy.

 

There are other things to pick at this movie too, but I ultimately don’t want to. This movie made me feel good then awkward then great. I’m a sucker for a coming-of-age story and this is a wonderful one.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Quick Reaction: Dreamland

I really have little to say about this. I watched it not realizing Margot Robbie was the Gatsby of the story. It’s Finn Cole’s movie about how he came to know Robbie’s bank robber character. I’m afraid I didn’t find her as fascinating as Cole did. And it’s a movie where the narration does too much of the work. Instead of saying the things that can’t be said otherwise, the narrator is saying the quiet parts loudly. It’s not a complete failure of a movie by any means. The period detail is nice. I appreciate how much Robbie likes to play characters with a little dirt on their face. I'm intrigued by these movies with A-list starts that quietly disappear, and it makes a lot of sense that this one doesn’t exist already.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Werewolves Within

Premise: A film about a small town being terrorized by a werewolf in hiding.

 

Wait, this is based on a game? Apparently, Werewolves Within is a VR party game. It sounds pretty similar to the in-person party game called Werewolf. So, that’s something I learned. I think my main reason for surprise is that I don’t think you need a game to come up with this plot. It’s essentially The Thing but with a werewolf. It’s kind of crazy there aren’t more movies like it. Take a group of eclectic characters, put them in an isolated location, and make one or more of them a killer. Done. You’ve got yourself a Clue.

 

I mostly liked this movie. They put together an entertaining, gettable cast of sitcom types. It was cool seeing Sam Richardson get a lead role. I like how he’s weaponized being a nice guy. His lack of complication makes him an oddity. It even lets him play against it effectively in movies like Promising Young Woman. Here it’s sincere though. I was really happy to see Milana Vayntrub show up. It’s weird to me that she’s not in more things. She’s funny, attractive, and has a clear voice. What more do you need? To be fair, she’s shown up in a lot of things over the years (Silicon Valley, This Is Us, Love), but rarely anything that plays to her comedic voice. This movie isn’t perfect, but it does let Vayntrub cut it up more than I’m used to seeing.

 

It’s hard to argue with the collective strength of this ensemble. In addition to Richardson and Vayntrub, there’s Sarah Burns, Michael Chernus, Harvey Guillen, Cheyenne Jackson, Michaela Watkins, and others. None of them blew me away. They’re do what they need to. The movie could be funnier, and in hindsight, knowing that it’s adapted from a game sure does explain some of the structural choices. Horror comedy is a tricky balance that this struggles with. They try to poke at some genre expectations with Vayntrub late in the movie, although that’s railing more again lazily written character types than anything horror specifically.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Sweet Girl

Premise: A man gets revenge on the pharmaceutical company execs who withheld a treatment that could’ve saved his wife.

 

I assume that anyone even vaguely interested in this movie would’ve seen it by now, since it’s been out for long enough for the Netflix algorithms to quit spotlighting it. Given that, I won’t talk around the big twist of the movie, since I believe it creates a problem throughout the film. The movie is actually about Isabela Merced getting the revenge and imagining her dead father is doing it. I’m all for a good twist. The caveat is that it shouldn’t get in the way of the rest of the movie. The Keyser Soze reveal in The Usual Suspects works because it doesn’t change anything about how the story is told or how the characters interact. I don’t feel like the film is talking around something the whole time.

 

Sweet Girl doesn’t feel right for most of the movie. My notes pretty early on point out that Jason Mamoa doesn’t fight like he’s played by Jason Mamoa. You bring him into a movie like this to be a brute. He’s all muscles and size. Years of similar films have conditioned me to not ask why I’m expected to think a random everyman is built like Jason Mamoa or the Rock or Dave Bautista. The tradeoff is that when they do start beating up bad guys, they can deliver the kind of ass-kicking they look like they could deliver. When Sweet Girl has Mamoa fighting like - well, it turns out - like a teen girl, it doesn’t look right. And it’s a waste of Mamoa. No offense, but I’m watching this movie for Mamoa’s physicality, not his acting range. Yes, the reveal that he isn’t real did fool me. I wasn’t expecting that, and it does explain a lot of my questions and concerns about earlier parts of the film. It doesn’t solve them though. Even if there’s a reason for it, I still had to watch an hour of bad fight scenes with Jason Mamoa and story beats carefully constructed to conceal a twist.

 

Al that said, once the twist is revealed, I started to like it more. It’s still a silly and ridiculous movie, but suddenly, I’m watching action sequences designed to maximize Isabela Merced’s strengths and the story is free to talk directly about things. Then again, I’m probably not watching something advertised as an Isabela Merced action movie, so maybe there’s no way to get this movie right.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Relic

Premise: A woman and her daughter find her missing mother, who is afflicted by something dark and strange.

 

This is a rather simple movie, really. It fits into a couple horror subgenres that have been producing good films in the last few years. It’s an old age horror like The Visit or The Taking of Deborah Logan which use things like dementia or Alzheimer’s for horror purposes. It’s also Australian horror which has been producing some of the best horror in recent years. Look no further than The Babadook.

 

Relic isn’t a horror movie that relies on big tricks to work. I don’t recall any jump scares. There are a few disgusting moments, but it doesn’t revel in them. It’s more psychological and not that concerned with explaining it all: a decision I almost always prefer. I don’t fully get the point of things like Bella Heathcoate’s character getting caught in a loop moving through the house. It felt right in the moment though. And the ending is perfect in a subdued way. It’s not a big reveal. Just a sad indication that it’s all set to repeat. I prefer horror that leaves me with dread rather than ones that try to scare me in the moment, so I’m a fan of what Relic does.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: In the Cut

Premise: A woman has an affair with a detective who is investigating a murder near her.

 

I didn’t know much about this movie before I saw it, and I still don’t. I mostly think of it as that movie that Meg Ryan got really naked in and that torpedoed her career for some reason. On both accounts, that’s unfair. It’s not like it’s the first time she ever got naked in a movie. She may have had an “America’s Sweetheart” reputation, but she was hardly a nun for her career. As for her career fortunes, In the Cut was just one in a series of missteps. Kate & Leopold and Against the Ropes before and after In the Cut hardly helped matters. While I do think it’s often overstated how few roles there are for actresses of a certain age, it does seem like Meg Ryan turned 40 and Hollywood no longer had any interest in her. Which is a shame.

 

Anyway, I opted to watch this after Jane Campion’s latest film, The Power of the Dog, made a great impression. I haven’t seen her entire filmography, but I’m definitely noticing some trends like nudity (across gender lines). She also seems to be big on telling crimes stories that aren’t that interested in the crimes. They are really character studies that have a crime for some plot structure. Top of the Lake was like that too. I find it a little disorienting. In a good way, I think.

Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo are good in this as two people who are pretty bad for each other. Ryan’s performance is interesting, because while it feels like it’s such a departure for her, it’s really not. We remember her for the RomComs, but at the same time she’d done movies like Courage Under Fire and When a Man Loves a Woman that dirtied her up. It’s also a nice reminder that Jennifer Jason Leigh didn’t just disappear from 1994 to 2009.

 

I know the movie needed some kind of plot, but I think I preferred everything in the movie not tied to the murders. I’d rather just watch 2 hours of Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo observe the world. I’m not sure how that would work, but I like the challenge.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Used Cars

Premise: Rival local car dealerships feud and maneuver for dominance in the used car market.

 

Beyond being a really fun comedy, Used Cars is fun for how Robert Zemeckis reveals himself in it. Most of this movie felt pretty anonymous; like anyone could’ve made it. I was enjoying it but nothing signified that it was made by anyone I should remember. Then the climactic convoy happens and reminded me what Zemeckis does. That’s an unexpectedly epic and ambitious sequence. A skuzzy little movie about car dealerships shouldn’t have the scope of a Mad Max chase through the desert. It’s crazy how I watch this and it seems so obvious that his next two movies would be Romancing the Stone and Back to the Future. Zemeckis can’t help but make big movies. Even his small moves feel big. Think about Forrest Gump. That should be a little character movie, but with Zemeckis making it, it becomes a Boomer epic that cost $100 million in 2022 dollars to make.

 

And what’s with giant car chases in 1980? You’ve got Used Cars with dozens of cars racing across the desert. Also in 1980 is the insane Blues Brothers chase scene that destroyed what seems like dozens of cop cars. Cannonball Run the next year too. There was something in the water. Was it all because they say how well Smokey and the Bandit did?

 

Anyway, Used Cars is a very easy to enjoy movie. A couple things don’t hold up very well. Raunchy 80’s comedies all have that problem. I sort of watch any of them with 10% forgiveness built in. It’s the perfect moment to get Kurt Russell in this movie. Right before he becomes a real leading man, yet he’s still young enough that he’s trying to shake the Disney Child Star perception. That probably motivated him to be seedier in this role than he would’ve been even a couple years later. Then that climactic sequence gives the movie a “where’d that come from?” scope I didn’t expect.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Quick Reaction: Frank & Ollie

Documentaries have really advanced over the years. There are obviously classics of the genre as early as Nanook of the North, however there are at least two factors that have caused the genre to explode more recently. One is streaming. There was barely a marketplace for documentaries before streaming that weren’t tied to a larger brand. Sure, you could get PBS to air something or HBO. Beyond that, it was hard to find a way to get one seen or bought. It’s not like people ever flocked to theaters for more than one or two docs a year. Second is digital. It’s really hard to carry around a nice film camera and expect to get anything natural. No matter how comfortable around a camera someone was, there was always a sense of artificiality. Or, at the very least, it was harder to always be recording when film is expensive.

 

What that all means is that a lot of documentaries for a very long time looked like Frank & Ollie. It’s pretty dry. The movie does play like someone got a little money from Disney to interview some old guys and occasionally mix in some animated footage they worked on. There’s nothing innovative or even all that interesting about the doc. It’s nice for a little Disney history but not much else. Scant production value too. This level of documentary filmmaking mostly went away with the internet and Wikipedia.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Pretenders

Premise: Two friends vie for and emotionally share the same mysterious woman for years.

 

James Franco is a more prolific director than people realize. He’s been directing since 2005 and has made 24 feature films (including some documentaries) in those 18 years. That’s not to mention all his TV work as a director. The reason people don’t realize this is because his movies are mostly small and not that well received. The Disaster Artist is the only one I can say had large appeal, and it feels more like a Seth Rogen/Evan Goldberg movie*. Otherwise, it’s hard to name any of his movies.

 

*Rogen and Goldberg were producers on that.

 

Personally, I haven’t heard much bad about his other movies. So, I decided to check one out. Pretenders is…well, it feels like the movie an art student would make after working on the set of The Deuce. And wouldn’t you know it, this came out a year after Franco, who seems to have been in an MFA program for the last 15 years, starred in the first season of The Deuce. Pretenders has a lot of fetishization of the film and film appreciation scene in the late 70s, with the arthouse cinemas showing European classics and there was just enough gatekeeping to the community that everyone had a whiff of trust fund.

 

He puts a good cast together. Weirdly, this is the first time I recall seeing something that recognized that Jane Levy is quite attractive. She tends to either have girl next door or troubled youth roles. It was nice to see her flex some femme fatale muscles. Shameik Moore has been on the verge of a breakout role for almost a decade now. Jack Kilmer didn’t really stand out. I kept confusing him with assorted Shailene Woodley costars. They all feel way more comfortable in the college scenes than the grown-up scenes. James Franco gets in front of the camera for a few scenes and gets the likes of Juno Temple, Dennis Quaid, and Brian Cox to put in some time.

 

I worry that then movie doesn’t realize that it is the very thing it’s criticizing. At one point, a female student (played by another Deuce alum, I’m pretty sure) criticizes Kilmer’s short film about Levy as being pretty to look at but only wanting to examine Levy at the surface level. Pretenders is equally surface level but in the opposite way. It wants Levy to be a mystery: this woman who can never be tamed and never lets anyone get close. When Brian Cox finally appears to explain some of her backstory, he speaks broadly, like he read about her from a book, not like he was a surrogate father. I’d suggest that the movie was being very clever – a genre examination that also is that genre – except the clunkiness of the AIDS story at the end has me convinced that it’s just sloppy.

 

There’s nothing truly egregious about the movie. It’s just very middling.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Tender Bar

Premise: A man reflects on his working-class Long Island upbringing and how it led him to Yale and ultimately to becoming an author.

 

It’s weird. In a certain light, no one had to scrap harder than George Clooney to become one of the most powerful names in Hollywood. He worked for two decades taking any job he could. He was an infamous show-killer for years. When he did find success finally on E.R. he didn’t get complacent. He built relationships with filmmakers and performers that would become fruitful over the years.

 

However, in another light, it’s weird how little success he’s had to be so established. 2001 is when we realized he IS a movie star. He had The Perfect Storm the year before as his first blockbuster, then Ocean’s Eleven is a definitive movie star role. He basically was Danny Ocean in the public’s eyes. He started making films the next year with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, making him a multi-hyphenate. He got an Oscar for Syriana in 2006, the same year as his second film, Good Night and Good Luck became a hit with the Oscars. At that point, he was the king of Hollywood. So, 5 years to go from “established movie star” to “cemented governor”. He continued to go at it hard for another 5 years, but he’s been pretty quiet in the last decade. He’s good in Gravity. I think he’s underrated in Tomorrowland. He did a Coen movie and Money Monster for Jodie Foster. I don’t know the last time on screen when he looked like the king of the industry though. And his directorial efforts have completely fizzled. Good Night and Good Luck isn’t that remembered. What’s the best movie out of Leatherheads, The Ides of March, The Monuments Men, Suburbicon, The Midnight Sky, and The Tender Bar?

 

Don’t get me wrong. I love George Clooney. It’s just weird to think about how he basically got to the top of the mountaintop and has coasted for a decade.

 

The Tender Bar is a movie you’ve seen before. It’s not as patronizing as Hillbilly Elegy. It’s better acted than The Glass Castle. But, it’s just a memoir about an author’s colorful childhood leading him to adulthood. In this case, it follows protagonist JR from childhood (Daniel Ranieri) to shortly after college (Tye Sheridan). He has a single mother (Lily Rabe) who has had a hard life but puts everything she has into giving her son better opportunities. There’s Ben Affleck as JR’s wise, bar owner uncle and surrogate father figure. JR goes from working class to Yale to the New York Times.

 

I have some trouble with this kind of movie, because it’s ultimately a story about the author congratulating himself. Here’s the story of the people that made him the success he is. It’s about JR’s mom and uncle propping him up to be better or him realizing how much better he is than his deadbeat dad. Either way, it’s JR using his history to self-aggrandize himself. The way the story shifts from “Gee, can you believe I’m at Yale even though I came from such a lowly place” to “the people in this lowly place are really the best people” is disingenuous.

 

I didn’t derive much meaning from this movie. I don’t know why George Clooney wanted to make this movie. The best thing about it is that Ben Affleck gives a really great performance. That could’ve been the worst character in the wrong hands since the character is begging to be seen as endearing. Affleck plays him like a guy who really would be embarrassed by the canonization he’s receiving in the film. Otherwise, this is just a really inert film.

 

I mean, congrats to J.R. Moehringer on his journey. But the film just never convinces me why I’m supposed to care about that journey.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend