The Packers and Film

This week, I have continued on my journey to watch as many new releases as I possibly can, and in doing so, I continue to be deeply impressed with the slate of releases studios have churned out this year. Here is everything I watched this week.

Normal

Normal is an action comedy that tells the story of Ulysses, played by Bob Odenkirk, an interim sheriff in the town of Normal, Minnesota, who discovers a strange plot happening in the small town when he drives out to stop a bank robbery.

Normal is the newest film from Ben Wheatley. Knowing that Wheatley was the director of the film going into it, I was unsure what to think of the film going into it. Wheatley has always been a deeply hit or miss director for me. I had fun with The Meg 2 even though it was deeply stupid, and I thought Sightseers was a fun and entertaining film. However, at the same time, I hated Wheatley’s remake of Rebecca, and while I liked parts of Free Fire, it mostly drove me crazy, and I found High Rise to be way too far up its own ass. So, keeping that in mind, I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about Normal, but I had a great time. The film clearly borrowed a lot from Hot Fuzz, another comedy I enjoy, and I loved the dynamic of the small town. Odenkirk is delightful in the film as well. He pulls off the melancholic feelings of his character incredibly well, and I really enjoyed seeing him do some more action after the Nobody films. The action itself is also wonderful. Incredibly fun and gory deaths with good camerawork and cinematography, and some of the deaths were so funny I burst out laughing in the theater. Now, the film does slow down near the end, and after the delightful twist, I was not a big fan on how they decided to end it. However, there is enough for me in the first 60 minutes that it did not bother me too much. It was still a good time.

Rating: 8/10

Mile End Kicks

Mile End Kicks is a coming of age film centered around Grace Pine, played by Barbie Ferreira, an up and coming music critic that moves to Montreal to write a book on Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill, but things take a turn when she falls in love with a singer in a local indie band and decides to become their publicist.

Going into the film, I didn’t know that much about it, but within the first five minutes, I knew I was going to like the movie. Mile End Kicks gave me the same feeling that Almost Famous did, and it was clear that the director, Chandler Levack, was a big fan of that film. You can see Almost Famous in every ounce of this film, from the running away from home to cover a band, to the way music makes the main character feel, and even to aspects of the romance. Being that it is one of my favorite films of all time, of course I deeply enjoyed Mile End Kicks. I loved Grace’s character. The anxiety she got at the parties, feeling like she could never be cool enough, and feeling like whatever she said was never heard was all very relatable to me, and while her character made bad choices sometimes, she was never unlikable, and I was rooting for her the whole way. Now, while I loved Grace, the best part of the film is Archie, played brilliantly by Devon Bostwick, which is maybe my favorite performance of the year,. Archie just had this cool, chill peace to him. He’s a character I would love to be best friend’s with in real life. He is always there to calm Grace, keep her level headed, and always tries to help her as best as she can. My favorite scene of the film was at the party Grace goes to on her first night in Montreal. She is overwhelmed and freaking out, and Archie just comes over, sits down, chills with her, and completely puts her at ease. I also loved the camerawork and directing of the film. There are some beautiful shots in the film. I love that at certain points in the party, there is a spotlight on Grace, or when Grace sees Chevy perform on stage for the first time, the colors on screen brighten. Little touches like that were great, and really added to the film. While there was a lot I loved in the film, I did think it wore its inspirations on its sleeve a bit too much. The film was very good, but if you keep reminding me how similar you are to Almost Famous, I am going to wish I was watching Almost Famous at points. I also hated the parts with Jay Baruchel. While I understand why the director would want to include scenes like that, it felt so unnecessary. The film already had plenty of content, and those scenes added nothing to the film. All in all, however, I had a lovely time.

Rating: 8/10

Faces of Death

Faces of Death is a remake of the 1970’s cult horror classic starring Dacre Montgomery and directed by Daniel Goldhaber. The film tells the story of Margot, a content moderator on a social media site, who discovers some videos on the site of a man killing people, and thinks the deaths are really happening.

Faces of Death was a deeply mixed bag for me. Let’s start with the good. Dacre Montgomery and Barbie Ferreira both do a wonderful job in the film. I loved the OCD tendencies Montgomery gave to the character. It gave the killer a little more complexity than he would have otherwise had in the performance. Ferreira does a great job of showing the spiral of the main character, and showing the trauma she has had slowly bubbling up to the surface and causing her to breakdown over the course of the film. I also absolutely loved the allegory and symbolism of our society’s numb feelings to violence, and seeing people watch and like and share the videos of people getting murdered. The film had a lot to say about that, and I think a lot of it worked well. However, there were a ton of plot holes near the end of the film. First, when Margot is escaping from the killer’s lair, she takes forever looking at every little picture and post on the drive. Why would she spend all that time looking at it? After the first couple photos, it is perfectly clear what is on the drive. Why would she not immediately take it and run? Why does it take until the other girl gets shot until she starts to run away? She is in the house of a serial killer. It did not make any sense. There were a lot of other similar choices made that I do not wish to spoil, but left me feeling equally frustrated.

Rating: 6/10

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy

The Mummy tells the story of a couple that lost their daughter ten years ago when they were stationed in Cairo. The daughter has finally been found, but she is not the same as she once was.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy was titled the way it was as it is the only way anyone would remember who directed this piece of shit. God this movie was awful. It is generic and boring from start to finish. There are no interesting choices made, no interesting scares, and the performances are so monotonous. When Jack Reynor discovers that his daughter, after ten years, is still alive, he doesn’t even react! He doesn’t cry or smile or cheer or anything. He just stares into space without a single reaction. Absolutely terrible acting all around. And the worst part about this film? It is over two hours long. It felt like it was over three. It was absolutely excruciating watching it, and so far, it is the worst film I have seen this year. A complete and utter trainwreck.

Rating: 1/5

Fuze

Fuze is an action thriller starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson centered on an old WW2 bomb found in the middle of a construction site in London. While the army tries to disable the bomb, a group of men attempt a heist on a bank vault inside the bomb site.

Up until about three days before this film came out, I had never heard of it. I had no idea it was happening. I only discovered the film when my local theater put up a poster of it. I didn’t know what the plot was. From the look of the poster, I just assumed that it would be a Jason Statham type of action movie: schlocky and stupid, but kind of fun to turn your brain off and watch for 90 minutes. However, that is not what I got. This was much better than that. Starting off, I knew immediately I was wrong when I saw that the film was directed by David Mackenzie. Mackenzie has directed a number of films I enjoy, including Perfect Sense, Outlaw King, and Hell or High Water, all of which are high quality films. Halfway through the film, I did not understand why the movie got mixed reviews. The parts with the bomb had me on the edge of my seat. It was incredibly tense and stressful, and I loved watching it switch from the bomb team to the heist team. The camerawork is frenetic, and keeps the pace up. I thought the movie was great. However, once the heist was done, I realized why the film got mixed reviews. The film started with the start of the heist, and since there was still 30 minutes left in the film once the heist ended, the movie went off the rails. Mackenzie threw way too much at the screen. There were too many twists, with no enough substance, and a lot of choices that just didn’t make sense. In addition, with keeping the movie going, the film lost the frenetic pace that it had going for it, making the film feel like it was really dragging towards the end. Still, there’s enough that I liked in the first two-thirds that I would recommend it.

Rating: 6/10

Nirvana The Band The Show The Movie

Nirvana The Band The Show The Movie is a film, based on the web series, and starring Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol about a comedy duo who accidentally goes back in time to the year 2008 after a failed plot to book a gig at the concert venue The Rivoli.

Going into this film, I had not seen the web series and I didn’t have much context for the movie, but I heard great things about it. While I don’t think I loved it as much as most people, I still deeply enjoyed it. Let’s start with the stuff I loved. The movie looks fantastic. There are some parts of the film that I genuinely am unsure how they pulled it off. When they first made it to 2008, and I saw the bus play the infamous Black Eyed Peas song, I was deeply impressed. I haven’t seen a movie quite like this ever before. However, the comedy was very hit or miss for me. Parts like the Black Eyed Peas song was very funny to me, but there were other moments that felt like the movie thought were funnier than they actually were. The movie also has a certain weird tone that took me a while to truly process and get into. I think if I checked out the web series and saw it again having more of a sense of what to expect, I think I would have liked it more.

Rating: 8/10