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You Play Lizzy?

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Power Ballad

by George Wolf

Give it up for “Ireland’s grooviest wedding band…Bride and Groove!”

Back in the day, Rick Power (Paul Rudd) had an American rock band, a record deal and big dreams that never panned out. But after settling in the Emerald Isle with his Irish wife Rachel (Marcella Plunkett) and daughter Aja (Beth Fallon), Rick scratches his musical itch by playing other people’s classic hits and trying not to be too cliched about his glory days.

Power Ballad is yet another tune-centric winner from writer/director/composer John Carney. And much like Once, Sing Street, Begin Again and Flora and Son, his latest is a crowd-pleasing ode to authentic music, heartfelt inspiration and the twists of fate that change the course of our lives.

When Rick and his band play a high end wedding at a sprawling Irish castle, he meets friend-of-the-bride Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas), a former boy band star trying to transition into legit solo act. Danny sits in for a song, he and Rick hit it off and they end up drinking and jamming the night away in Danny’s lavish suite.

Fast forward a few months, and Danny’s first big solo hit is just a polished version of a song that Rick wrote years ago and played for Danny that very night.

Surely Rick can just call the number Danny left him with and settle this, right? He seemed like a great guy!

Well, he can only get through to Danny’s label head (Jack Reynor), who tells Rick that unless he has proof of his claim, buzz off or they’ll sue him into oblivion.

The endlessly endearing Rudd (who sings surprisingly well) shares a nice chemistry with Jonas, and Carney pumps the soundtrack full of both classics and some new originals that actually sound like pop hits. Carney also tosses in a couple wink-wink callbacks to Once and some outright hijinx, but the film’s greatest hits come from the warm humanity in the deep tracks.

Rick can feel his family and his band doubting his claim, and as Danny’s song becomes a global anthem requested at weddings (uh-oh!), Carney finds ways to probe the characters that are easily digestible.

Does Rick want the fame and riches that would come from a writing credit, or does he want to feel like he did when he was young and full of confident ambition?

And if that younger Rick had hit it big with his first band, would he really have had a better life?

Since the achingly beautiful Once, Carney has often relied on contrivances that work well in service of the feel good meter. Power Ballad follows that familiar rhyme scheme, but strikes an irresistible medley of joy, sacrifice and reward that feels like a bangin’ summer playlist.

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Master and Servant

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Masters of the Universe

by Hope Madden

Mattel, the company behind Greta Gerwig’s brilliant blockbuster Barbie, follows that unprecedented success by backing another woman centered feature driven by an Oscar worthy screenplay and helmed by a genius female filmmaker.

JK. They’re just making another toy movie.

Mattel welcomes you to Pride month with the return of their second pinkest toy. Bulging hero He Man (Nicholas Galitzine), saucy villain Skeletor (Jared Leto), and scrappy helpers including Ram Man (Jon Xue Zhang) and Fisto (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson), unite for a semi-campy Masters of the Universe origin story.

Director Travis Knight, who somehow carved one worthwhile film out of the Transformers franchise (Bumblebee), is tapped to try to Gerwig-up this afternoon 80s staple. The filmmaker’s been nominated three times for Oscars, all for producing truly exceptional animated films. He works here with a team of writers (Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee), collaborators all on other great animated features. It’s not Gerwig and Baumbach, but it’s an impressive pedigree for Masters of the Universe.

The cast off the top impresses. Galitzine, so spot-on in both Bottoms and 100 Nights of Hero, charms as the bumbling prince returned from Earth to save Eternia from the clutches of the cackling, weirdly muscular Skeletor.

Idris Elba elevates scene after scene as Duncan/Man at Arms, the tough talking softie who mentored young Adam and has become a bit of a lush in his absence.

Leto’s adequate. But Knight articulates his henchmen (Trap Jaw, Beast Man, Goat Man) well with a good practical/CGI mix.

The tone is the thing. Masters of the Universe is both playful and self-serious. This doesn’t always work cinematically, but there’s tenderness for the franchise baked into the film. And certain things require a bit of ribbing. Fisto? Seriously?

The good natured humor is not enough to entirely salvage the movie. Indeed, it makes you realize anew how remarkable Barbie was for its lack of cynicism and endless insight. But we may never again see a film quite like Barbie, especially if men keep deciding who makes movies. As Orko might have helped us see at the end of an episode, Masters of the Universe is no masterpiece, but sometimes it’s OK to have fun. And the movie is OK.

Stay tuned for three post-credits scenes. Number one will thrill fans, while two and three tease future installments. Bye for now!

Outtakes

Rifles and Roos

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Seven Snipers

by Rachel Willis

Director Sandra Sciberras and writer Andrew O’Keefe drop us into the outback of Australia for her intense thriller, Seven Snipers.

The movie doesn’t take its time before jumping into the action. The intensity throughout the first half of the film is top notch. We’re not given much information as we’re introduced to a reclusive mom (Radha Mitchell) and her stubborn daughter, Anja (Annabel Wolfe). After Anja leaves for school with her boyfriend, a realtor drives onto the scene to offer to buy the farm from Mom.

From here, we’re thrown right into an intense battle that leaves you wondering just what the hell is happening. When the realtor addresses our main character as Voodoo Child and references The Dragon, Mom’s shocked and fearful reaction lets us know something bad is on its way.

Seven Snipers works best during its first half. The lack of information only makes the situation more interesting as the tension ratchets up with the arrival of six battle-hardened men and women who offer to help protect Voodoo Child and her daughter.

It’s when the action slows and backstory creeps in that the movie starts to feel bogged down. While Seven Snipers never spends too much time on the why of things, it’s still a disappointing comedown from the preceding action. Especially since the reason behind it all is not very interesting.

Despite the dissatisfaction that colors the backstory, the acting is stellar. We spend very little time with each character in service of the action, but the actors still carve out independent personalities (well, most of them).  O’Keefe tends to rely on oft-used character tropes, but Sciberras makes it work. You’re not going to find the most lively cast of characters, but the acting does a lot of the heavy lifting to make the audience at least feel something as everyone is put through the wringer.

Flaws and all, Seven Snipers is an entertaining hell of a ride.

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Honky Tonk Blues

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Carolina Caroline

by Hope Madden

Bourbon soaked and steamy, Carolina Caroline spins a modern Bonnie & Clyde tale with brains, sexual chemistry and emotional impact.

Samara Weaving is Caroline Daniels, stocking shelves and cleaning bathrooms at a two-pump filling station in an ambiguously timestamped, uncertainly located small Texas town. In walks Oliver (Kyle Gallner). He’s not from around here. And she is the one thing Oliver cannot entirely predict.

Director Adam Rehmeier struck gold with this cast. Certainly, he knew Gallner’s capabilities going in, the actor having led his subversive yet adorable misfit romance Dinner in America in 2022. Gallner’s as reliably magnetic an actor as anyone working today, forever mining the outsider character for its humanity.

And Weaving is just a star, pure and simple. Impossible to look away from, charming and vulnerable, those enormous eyes taking everything in, the wheels always turning, in her hands, Caroline is no cliched country beauty.

Strong support from Jon Gries (so dear as Caroline’s dad) and Kyra Sedgewick (brutal!) keep you emotionally engaged.

After two top-tier comedies (Dinner in America and Snack Shack), it’s impressive to see Rehmeier show such instincts with sexier, heavier material. It would have been simple enough for him to coast on the chemistry between his leads, Jean-Philippe Bernier’s photography, and an impossibly on-point honky tonk score and still produce a film worth watching.  Although, there are times when that’s kind of what he does.

Writer Tom Dean (Charlie Harper) usually sidesteps cliché, even given the film’s worn-thin roadmap. We have heist machinations, romance, violence, laughs, family drama and more, none of it out of place or off putting. But maybe because of the skill Rehmeier shows in keeping this road picture intimate, when the script hits some obvious notes, they stand out.

But then Weaving moseys in and rescues the scene with unbridled charisma, and you’re back to enjoying yourself. For the film’s handful of rough patches, it would be a shame to miss Gallner and Weaving sizzle like this.

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Bloody Mess

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Chum

by George Wolf

After Chum‘s third or fourth continuity error with Alice Eve’s sandals, you start to wonder why they didn’t just fix that with AI, too. We get AI sharks, and AI victims, so at that point some AI bare feet are hardly going to register.

This is just a terrible movie, so bad you can’t help but imagine what kind of bet Eve must have lost to sign on.

She plays Tina, who gets hitched to Tom (Eric Michael Cole) at a destination wedding in the Mediterranean. Neither bride nor groom is happy on the big day, and only reluctantly agree to join some family and friends (Elle Haymond, Lisa Yaro, Sarah Siadet, Johnny Gaffney) on a daytime yacht excursion.

But after a fire onboard, the gang is rescued by a passing seafaring psycho (Jim Klock), and soon find themselves fighting against being dangled as bait for a predatory Great White.

I know you’re thinking Dangerous Animals right now, but this mess from director/co-writer Jonathan Zuck leans more Jaws: The Revenge – in both story and stupidity.

The premise is laughable, the characters and dialog inane, the wooden support cast make Eve look like Streep, and the eye rolling moments – from battle cries spoiling sneak attacks to Eve’s disappearing/reappearing shoe – come early and often.

And honestly, it’s just depressing to know this is where we’re headed. At least the recent Deep Water didn’t go further than CGI sharks – and even that muted the tension considerably. But after Zuck teases us with a few looks at real man-eaters, he lets loose a succession of attacks that more than justify the branding of “AI slop.”

I know it’s too expensive to shred on the natch (thank you, Doonesbury) with mechanical sharks these days, but if this is what it’s come to, just go over-the-top absurdist and call it a day.

Intentional comedy always has at least a chance of being funny. Chum can’t muster much more than sympathy – for Eve and the audience.

Outtakes

Give Yourself Over

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Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror

by Hope Madden

I would like…if I may…to take you on a Strange Journey.

Linus O’Brien—son of Rocky Horror creator Richard O’Brien—directs a mash note by way of documentary about his dad’s other baby. For fans of the show and film, the documentary is a delightful accounting of the phenomenon that is Rocky Horror.

Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror chronicles Richard O’Brien’s early plans for the stage show, his collaborators, its humble beginnings and its immediate success. And though the spine of the film is a sequential history from stage to screen, box office bomb to midnight monster, the flesh on those bones is tender and tasty.

O’Brien the elder is raw and emotional, but like everyone else in the film, brimming with joy over the film’s lasting impact. He strums out some greatest hits, in fine voice for 83! O’Brien the director flanks the homey footage of his father with interview pieces from everyone you hope to see.

Tim Curry (a scientist), Susan Sarandon (slut), Barry Bostwick (asshole), Patricia Quinn (a domestic), Nell Campbell (a groupie), and Peter Hinwood (a creation) all have fun and funny tales to tell. It is especially dear to hear how in awe everyone was of Curry, undeniably iconic in the lead role. And listening to both Quinn and Campbell note their shock at Meatloaf’s voice is a kick.

Film producer Lou Adler and director Jim Sharman shed some light on the maneuvering that went on to keep O’Brien’s vision pure. As the doc kicks into its third act, both O’Briens are keen to shift focus to fans.

Richard O’Brien created, for himself firstly and luckily for the rest of us, a film that celebrates the weirdo, that revels in gender and sexual fluidity, that disdains the status quo. He created a raucous, glittery space where people could stop pretending to be ordinary and could indulge in their own beautiful uniqueness.

At the film’s end, Richard O’Brien tells us that Rocky Horror isn’t his at all. It belongs to all of us. Strange Journey is essential viewing for all of us too.

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Subterranean Homesick Blues

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Backrooms

by Hope Madden

There is reason to compare Backrooms, feature debut from 19-year-old co-writer/director Kane Parsons, to Skinamarink, the 2022 feature debut from writer/director Kyle Edward Ball. If you are one of the many who found Ball’s nightmare an effective, even terrifying head trip, Backrooms might be for you.

If you didn’t, that’s OK too. Backrooms shares the true experiential nature—you may feel as though the director has somehow filmed your actual nightmares. But a lot more happens in this one.

Backrooms is liminal space horror, not entirely unlike Genki Kawamura’s effective video game adaptation, Exit 8. But for all these comparisons, Parsons crafts an unnervingly unique excursion into the uncanny.

Captain of that voyage is Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor). He manages a furniture store where he dresses like a pirate for low-fi ads. It’s 1990. Clark wanted to be an architect. He just keeps making the same mistakes, like a circuit he follows forever expecting a different destination. That’s why he sees Dr. Mary Krane (Renate Reinsve).

Let’s pause, because that’s reason enough to see the movie. Here are two actors who’ve built careers on understated, natural performances that ground every moment onscreen in something honest. Which makes them a magnificent choice for a film where nothing makes sense, and that’s the whole point.

Kane adapts a series of shorts that made him a YouTube force, all of it based on online Twenty-teens creepypasta dread of being trapped eternally in an endless, yellow, moistly carpeted maze of empty rooms with no hope of escape.

The fact that Parsons turned this concept into a compelling feature essentially about our own labyrinthine minds and psychiatry’s impotence is pretty impressive for a fucking teenager!

Both leads give the film earnest vulnerability and obvious intelligence, which sells the madness. Their few scenes together are wonderful, but that’s not simply because of their talent. The script is engrossing, forever mirroring what’s been seen and said in a way that could feel heavy handed were it not for Kane’s sure direction.

It’s easy to make a trippy movie that doesn’t make sense because you don’t really have to make sense. A lot of bad horror leaves you guessing because of sloppy scripting. Backrooms never feels sloppy. Every tee shirt, piece of furniture, neighborhood street feels intentional, tells its own story. Everything loops, remembers but doesn’t, until you can’t shake the dread that nothing is right.

Backrooms, because it’s so singular in its vision, won’t sit with everyone. But for those of us who have nightmares of being trapped in room after windowless room of fluorescent buzz and mildew smell, this is our Skinamarink. I mean that in the best way possible.

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Safe Spaces

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Tuner

by George Wolf

His first narrative feature may focus on busting into safes, but Oscar-winning documentation Daniel Roher shows some fine natural instincts for cracking the code that makes “romantic thriller” a crowd pleasing genre ride.

The thriller part comes when mild-mannered piano tuner Niki White (Leo Woodall from Nuremberg and The White Lotus) gets lured into a secret life of crime. Niki was a child prodigy on piano, but a diagnosis of hyperacusis (allergic to loud noises) derailed his performing career. Working with father figure Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman) as a piano tuner blessed with perfect pitch, Niki wears noise canceling headphones all day and laments what might have been.

A chance encounter with a shady security team at a high-end mansion leads Niki to show how his hyper-sensitive hearing can be used to open combination locks. So the menacing Uri (Lior Raz) offers Niki the chance to make some big money, just when Harry’s medical bills have started piling up.

Romance blooms when music student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu) needs her piano tuned (pause for laughter, but she really does). Ruthie is vying for a choice position as an assistant to maestro Marius Maissner (Jean Reno) and doesn’t really have time for a boyfriend…but she and Niki are such an irresistible match!

Woodall’s turn is understated and sympathetic, Liu (Bottoms, Lurker) has a natural presence that gives Ruthie some complex layers and Hoffman is clearly having a ball with some blatant (scene) stealing of his own. All three of their characters seem real from the opening minutes, allowing the film to pull you in with ease.

Roher (Navalny) launches Niki’s two lifelines on a consistently engaging collision course buoyed by the terrific performances, sharp editing (film and sound), effective tension, shocking twists and an unlikely couple we can’t help rooting for. And along the way, Roher and co-writer Robert Ramsey find time to toss in well-placed nods to the rot of “fuck you money,” America’s obscene health care system and the often under-appreciated nature of art.

Yes, Tuner packs a lot into its 109 minutes, so much so that it’s easy to stop wondering about security cams or why Niki paying bills with stacks of cash doesn’t arise any suspicions. You just shrug it off, and that speaks loudly about how well the rest of the film is constructed.

In fact, the slightly contrived, crowd-serviced turns that come in Act Three would elicit a few eyes rolls in lesser films. But by then, Tuner has carved out its own safe space, as a pitch-perfect example of how to make an audience want exactly what you’re going to deliver.

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The Weather Is Here

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Pressure

by George Wolf

How do you wring new tension from any well-known historical event, much less one with an outcome that’s been globally celebrated for over 80 years?

The films that have done it successfully focus intimately on the personalities involved in making pivotal decisions, and on some lesser-known factors that influenced their actions.

Pressure wisely does the same, turning the final order for the Allied Invasion of Normandy (D-Day) into a standoff between two polar opposite weathermen.

Andrew Scott is terrific as Group Captain Dr. James Stagg of the RAF, the Allies’ Chief Meteorological Officer who comes to General Dwight Eisenhower (Oscar-winner Brenden Fraser) with the highest recommendation from Winston Churchill himself.

Stagg’s blunt, no nonsense and analytical approach clashes immediately with Colonel Irving Krick (Chris Messina). Krick has earned Gen. Eisenhower’s trust through a history accurate forecasts, but Dr. Stagg believes Krick’s approach to the data at hand is suspect.

D Day is planned for the morning of June 5th, 1944. The film opens with 72 hours to go, and Eisenhower needs an answer.

Are we good to go? Krick says clear skies. Stagg says dangerous storms ahead.

Director Anthony Maras and co-writer David Haig adapt Haig’s 2014 stage play as an effective character study of a man who knew enough about the weather to never proclaim certainty. Stagg is quiet but confident, and Scott (All of Us Strangers, Wake Up Dead Man) deftly captures the internal struggle of a man being urged to tell the Generals what they want to hear even though he believes it’s wrong.

When Stagg tells Krick “You’re selecting data that suits you and ignoring the rest!” the line lands hard (just imagine if Krick had social media.) And it’s part of how the script cements Stagg’s courage of conviction as the largest seaborne invasion in history hung in the balance and his pregnant wife’s hospital took shelling back home.

Maras (Hotel Mumbai, The Palace) gets solid support from Fraser, Kerry Condon and Damian Lewis, and only occasionally drifts from the effective intimacies for more broadly brushed, war film grandstanding. And while the actual invasion sequences may not be exactly Private Ryan-worthy, that is a very, very tall order, Maras knows the film needs to go there and kudos to him for reminding us of that those brutal beach sacrifices.

Gen. Eisenhower’s famous quote to JFK credited the success of the Normandy invasion to having “better meteorologists than the Germans.” That wasn’t just a quip, it was an invitation to learn more.

Pressure is a good place to start.

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Fashion Forward

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I Love Boosters

by Hope Madden

For anyone bemoaning the state of the film industry, claiming that there are no original films, only sequels and superheroes, may I introduce you to Boots Riley?

There is no more original voice in cinema today. And what’s extra great is that the voice is actually saying something worth hearing. His second feature, I Love Boosters, certainly proves that there’s talent looking to work with a visionary filmmaker. Look at this cast: Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Don Cheadle, LaKeith Stanfield, Demi Moore, Eiza González, Will Poulter. Damn.

They tell a wild, boldly colorful, sometimes Claymation, often surreal, occasionally demonic, fantastical, consistently smart, regularly hilarious, and shockingly personal tale about the individual’s need for community. And, of course, the inescapable evils of capitalism.

Thanks to Palmer and Ackie, there’s a crackling emotional center that sets the friction between community and the individual on understandable ground. Stanfield is a hoot as an emotionally naked suitor (that storyline takes a turn!), Moore is great as the brash talking “innovator,” and it may take a moment to recognize Cheadle, but you won’t forget him.

If you saw Riley’s 2018 jaw-dropper Sorry to Bother You, you know to go in with no expectations. Predictability is not one of the tools this filmmaker wields. And though there are no horse men in I Love Boosters, the movie goes in wild directions.

But excess is Riley’s joyous medium. And no one paints revolution with such glorious color.

Underneath the metaphysical science fiction banter, beneath the scathingly comical evisceration of fast fashion, at the heart of the wacky heist flick, is a lonesome story that resonates. It’s all one struggle.

If that doesn’t sound entertaining, then I’m not doing my job correctly. Brazenly original, ridiculously entertaining, with relevance and immediacy to spare, Boots Riley’s second feature film I Love Boosters is the adventure of the summer.

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?