The general consensus about Sasquatch Sunset seems to be: “If you are in sync with what the Zellner Brothers are doing, you’ll find this moving touching and poignant. If it doesn’t work for you, you’ll find it gross and boring. There is no middle ground.”
That makes me the unicorn of this Bigfoot movie. Yes, there are a lot of impressive excretions, but all the characters are animals. They aren’t afraid of or embarrassed by their bodily functions. And I wasn’t bored- but I wasn’t enthralled, either. There were a few moments where a chuckled, and more moments where I connected to the feelings of the creatures, but for the most part I just watched with mild interest.
Riley Keough’s mother Sasquatch is given the biggest (but not very big) character arc, and she’s the easiest to connect with. The other actors do well with what they’re given, but what they’re given isn’t very much.
I just figured out a way to add some hidden text, so let’s try adding some spoilers!
The practical effects mostly work, but good golly they should have thrown a little CGI at the Sasquatch baby! Also: There’s a scene that’s a direct reference to the “drowning under a log” scene in Sometimes a Great Notion.
This is not a movie to watch for the intricate plot or complex mystery. This is a movie to watch Jessie Buckley, Olivia Coleman, and the rest of the cast show off their character part chops. Some lovely swearing as well. Not at all “important,” but fun to watch.
Used Cars
I bet I would have LOVED this movie forty years ago, but now I cringe at a ton of the jokes. Too much non-consensual nudity and casual racism for me.
Here’s what I think happened: there was a meeting about movie ideas, and someone said “We should do a classic ‘Fish out of water’ story,” and someone else said “Yeah! With Vespas!”
It’s not exactly a deep story with a complex message, but it’s fun, and the animation is light and breezy. No dark shadows or ominous music here. Even the constant threat of the main character getting hunted and killed is played for fun.
I only went to see this because one of my students was talking about it- and I am so very glad he did. Black and white, low budget, full of cartoon effects, no dialogue – and hilarious. I laughed harder than I have at any movie in years.
It’s the story of a drunken applejack salesman out in the woods of Wisconsin in the winter who becomes a beaver trapper to win over the heart of a furrier and the approval of her father. It’s Looney Tunes meets prime Mel Brooks. There are a couple of sight gags that parents might not want to share with kids, but no swearing and no nudity.
Side note: I’ve noticed that I tend to write less about movies I like. I think it’s because I don’t want to give away details of films I enjoyed.
A movie like this really makes you appreciate how good Godzilla Minus One is. This is not so much a review as a plot breakdown. If you are worried that this will spoil the movie: it will not. If you are going to enjoy this, there is nothing I can do to interfere with your pleasure.
The plot: King Kong fights some monsters in Middle Earth or whatever they call it, then goes to the dentist. He gets a new implant, then goes on a road trip with a little jerk monkey to find other apes. Since he can’t talk, he makes exasperated or disgruntled faces when the jerk monkey is particularly jerky. He has to fight things along the way.
Meanwhile, Godzilla fights a monster and takes a nap.
Then he fights another monster and climbs in a hole for half the movie.
Also, a woman goes to Middle Earth to find out why her kid is dreaming of triangles. She brings Kong’s dentist, a guy who exists to play the part of Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea, and a guy who saved the world but now is a failing podcaster. They find out that an Evil Monkey is trying to get to Earth with the unwilling help of a bunch of other monkeys and an ice dragon.
The Evil Monkey laughs at Kong’s new tooth.
Kong gets frostbite, but the humans happen to have a giant super-powered wrist brace with them (lucky for them it was made for the same side Kong hurt!) so it’s fine.
It turns out the kid was dreaming about triangles because she’s supposed to free a big moth. She does that, and everybody has a big fight. Many CGI fights are criticized because none of the characters seem to have any weight, but GxK:TNE solves this by explicitly having the fight in zero gravity. It’s not enough, though, and Evil Monkey gets to Earth, where he is defeated by everyone (including Jerk Monkey and Ice Dragon) teaming up to fight him.
Kong goes back to Middle Earth to celebrate with the other monkeys and his new pals, Jerk Monkey and Ice Dragon.
Godzilla takes a nap.
END OF MOVIE.
Also: Star Trek II was originally supposed to have the subtitle “The Vengeance of Khan,” but they changed it to “The Wrath of Khan” because they were afraid it was to close to the announced title of the third Star Wars film, “The Revenge of the Jedi.” Meanwhile, the Ghostbusters and Godzilla/Kong franchises both released movies with “Empire” in the title within a week of each other. I guess “Empire” is striking back.
Benny Loves You
This movie about a murderous toy that certainly isn’t an Elmo doll wasn’t great, but it was a lot more entertaining and inventive than Lizard X Monkey: FIGHT TIME. And it probably cost about as much to make as any random two minutes of the other film. Probably the best bloody puppet horror movie I’ve seen all month.
This movie felt like when a kid tells you a story, but in all the right ways. A fairytale set in modern Wyoming (with Celtic overtones). Low budget, earnest but rough acting from three kid actors, and a plot that starts out with a child-planned warehouse robbery that evolves into a search for a speckled egg to make a blueberry pie so the leads can get the password to the TV and play the game they stole. Yeah, that old trope. It’s a quest movie about trying to play a quest game.
Golly, this movie was boring. I have no idea how many times I checked my watch, but it was a lot.
Thanks to convenient plot devices, nearly every character from Ghostbusters: Afterlife is back, even though the new movie is in New York. So many internships in Manhattan for small town Oklahoma kids! Everyone seems to have had the character bled out of them. Mckenna Grace as Phoebe does the best with what she’s given, but she sure isn’t given very much. Tons of characters could have disappeared without an impact on the story.
I heard that this movie was trying to lean more into the Real Ghostbusters cartoon, and if you leave out the sex dungeon jokes it definitely seems like an episode of a cartoon instead of a movie. There’s a Ghost of the Week, a problem to solve, and everything is back to the status quo at the end. There was also just about enough plot to carry one 30 minute cartoon.
…oh, and one more thing…
The Walter Peck Problem
In the first movie, William Atherton as Walter Peck is a representative of the EPA who tries to shut down the Ghostbusters. In this movie he’s somehow become the mayor, and he tries to shut down the Ghostbusters.
Both times, he’s right.
An EPA inspector absolutely should be trying to stop people from running around New York with portable nuclear accelerators that can (and do) endanger people and destroy property. A mayor absolutely should stop people from causing death and destruction. Ray casually giving a ball that tested off Evil Scale to someone to use for low security experiments definitely lead to multiple deaths.
Peck’s problem isn’t that he’s wrong about the Ghostbusters; it’s that he uses bad methods to get rid of them. If he had better management skills (or better advisors) the big bad ghost never would have been released.
Look, I’m not totally delusional – I know that the only consistent reader of my posts is me. But I liked this movie a lot, and I really don’t want to spoil it by saying why I liked it, so I’m going to say pretty much nothing here except that this movie is exactly what you think it is, except sometimes it isn’t. It’s sort of like if Drive Away Dolls was more cohesive and darker, except it’s not really that either. Whatever it is, it’s full of style that doesn’t bury the substance.
Snack Shack is from an alternate reality where Richard Linklater directed teen sex comedies, then decided to get rid of most of the sex. Characters and plot points that seem like they will be important to the story just disappear. Two very mature looking 14 year old boys take huge financial risks and it’s mostly fine. They also drink an impressive amount of beer, but it doesn’t seem weird because they look like they’re well past drinking age. None of it makes any sense, but that’s fine. The real story is the relationship the “kids” have with each other, and with the other folks in their lives. Not a great film, but watchable. It’s a watch while folding laundry kind of movie.
I didn’t laugh out loud very much, but I think a lot of that is because I saw it in a nearly empty theater. This is definitely a “see it in a crowd” kind of movie.
There are tons of old movies I’ve always wanted to see but never manage to get around to watching. I usually end up thinking “oh, I’ve waited this long- I can watch it later.” And then I don’t. Lucky for me there’s a partial solution: Alamo Drafthouse movie festivals! Make a movie an event and I might actually make time for it.
Orlando doesn’t always work, but Tilda Swinton is great as the titular boy/man/woman. She breaks the fourth wall a lot- I bet Phoebe Waller Bridge got some ideas from here- but it felt like an acknowledgment that the audience is part of the story.
Lots of character actors you might recognize in cameos, including Billy Zane at his Billy Zaniest.
