On this episode, JD and Megan discuss one of the best surprises of the year in Coyote vs. ACME! This film has certainly been through the ringer. Shelved by Warner Bros. after full completion, it got sold to Ketchup Entertainment and is finally getting the release it deserves.
Review:Coyote vs. ACME
Director: Dave Green Writers: Samy Burch Stars: Will Forte, Lana Condor, John Cena
Director: Macon Blair Writer: Macon Blair Stars: O’Shea Jackson Jr., Dave Franco, Kiernan Shipka
Synopsis: When two unqualified bozos are hired to transfer a rich teen to rehab, their straightforward gig quickly spirals into dangerous mayhem.
Idiots (previously entitled The Shitheads at its Sundance premiere) is a fascinating film to dissect in terms of the specific type of comedy it’s aiming for and the multiple tonal inflections it ends up giving off throughout. From both the marketing and vibe of the film’s opening minutes, most would likely think of it as a good old-fashioned vulgar and delightful crude comedy that only increases in hilarity as its mountains of hijinks escalate, and while that’s mainly true, writer/director Macon Blair intertwines the escapades with a surprising amount of attempted genre blending. The film, as it plods on, takes a shift into multiple genres, including a touch of action, genuine drama between its two screw-up lead characters, and even a percolating commentary on the ever-growing privilege of the rich youth that those of lower classes couldn’t even dream of touching. The result is a film that grows a bit more uneven in its plotting the longer it goes on, and it occasionally struggles a bit to find a true identity as our leads get into more dangerous situations, often becoming too mean-spirited and tonally confused. Still, Idiots is able to stay just sturdy enough to provide a fair amount of hearty laughs as a thrilling road trip comedy, even if everything it attempts doesn’t fully land.
The setup is simple enough, as our leads are two screw-up slackers, Davis (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) and Mark (Dave Franco). Both of them, mostly due to incompetence, have been fired from their jobs as Davis opens the film being let go from his church after accidentally showing the group’s youth a showing of Antichrist (yes, THAT Antichrist), and Mark is fired from his desk job on a count of doing too many drugs while working. The two hope to turn their recent mishaps around as they sign on to work for a transportation service that brings kids to a court-ordered rehab facility. The kid they’re in charge of is Sheridan (Mason Thames), a bratty and pampered rich kid with a large follower base on social media, and throughout the film, he only further showcases his troubled tendencies. With one destination to get to and a legally binding contract that they both signed keeping them focused, Davis and Mark try to make the gig as straightforward as possible, but when a chain of increasingly insane events begins when they stop at a motel, their night veers out of control and what was a simple job spirals into pure chaos and a matter of life and death.
Idiots is at its strongest, both structurally and comically, throughout the majority of its first half, as the character dynamics between our main duo are formed fairly well from the start. Mark and Davis are essentially polar opposites in their outlook on their current life choices, and it makes for a captivating butting of heads that slowly transforms into a buddy duo of sorts that’s more than appreciated, with Sheridan acting as the chaos agent in the dynamic. Franco is particularly good here as a consistently inebriated weasel, and it’s a testament to Blair’s writing that he makes such tried-and-true character archetypes still worthy of rooting for. The film peaks during a stretch in the motel when Sheridan escapes, and Kiernan Shipka’s erotic dancer character Irina is introduced. The small spurt of her, Mark, and Davis trying to get Sheridan back is where the film best balances its absurd silliness and underlying discomfort (especially in one great bodily dysfunction bit).
Unfortunately, the longer Idiots goes on, the more what were previously smaller issues start to pile up. The movie admittedly starts with an underlying mix of tones that it later develops as the bad situations for our protagonist escalate, but the problem is that the film struggles to have a clear idea of the exact type of movie it wants to be. This is particularly evident when Peter Dinklage’s character of Koko and his band of armed criminals are introduced, and a film that was already veering towards a few different tonal directions takes a complete 180 into mean-spirited territory. The bits begin to overstay their welcome (especially one rap sequence with Nicholas Braun’s character going full “Werewolf”), and that, on top of a shift the film takes with Sheridan’s character, never feels quite earned considering its previous rich privilege commentary. It’s where the entire film completely capsizes, but Jackson Jr. and Franco’s chemistry are still just able to keep things afloat within what starts to become an uneven mess.
For the most part, what you see is what you get with Idiots, an increasingly insane road trip to hilarity that’s clever enough, bits bolstered by its committed cast; it’s just increasingly hampered from being anything stronger by a screenplay that can’t quite narrow down what exactly it wants to accomplish by its end. Still, if progressively wacky hijinks, mayhem, and fairly funny situational comedy are what you want, Idiots will suffice, even with more than a small number of caveats holding it back.
On this episode, JD and Megan discuss the latest film from Matt Johnson in Tony! Anthony Bourdain is a revered figure and the film has all of the right biopic ingredients, but does it all add up to make a good movie? Despite some great performances, we do have some big questions around the film’s execution.
Review:Tony
Director: Matt Johnson Writers: Matt Johnson, Matthew Miller, Todd Bartels, Lou Howe Stars: Dominic Sessa, Emilia Jones, Leo Woodall, Antonio Banderas
Director: Karim Ainouz Writer:Efthimis Filippou Stars: Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Elle Fanning, Jamie Bell, Tracy Letts, Pamela Anderson
Synopsis: In a Spanish villa, American siblings Jack, Ed, Anna and Robert wallow in isolation and their inherited fortune. When Jack wants to move in with his girlfriend and Ed uncovers the truth about their mother’s death, the fabric of the family begins to unravel.
Have you ever had the pleasure of eating the rich? Few have actually enjoyed the experience of turning a now-colloquial desire for economic equilibrium into a legitimate feast, but by golly, the concept hasn’t turned filmmakers off from trying their hand at dramatizing the affair. Occasionally, they do so by adapting a 1946 Alec Guinness vehicle into a serviceable but forgettable flop, dumped by its distributor in the recesses of February. Or, perhaps it manifests in a revenge thriller pulled from truth, one put to screen mere months before that film’s distributor crumbles under the weight of its own ambitions. But those films – two of the most recent examples in a long line of films within these “genre” confines with eyes larger than their stomachs – weren’t nearly ambitious enough.
At least, that’s what it seems the Brazilian director Karim Ainouz and his screenwriter Efthimis Filippou (a frequent collaborator of Yorgos Lanthimos’, most notably on The Lobster) felt when they elected to pull inspiration from Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 satire Fists in the Pocket in order to make Rosebush Pruning, a tale of retribution that claims to be a spin on its inspiration(s) but is nothing more than a retread. “Bringing vengeance?” one asks, to which Ainouz and his collaborators reply, “Bringing nothing at all.”
Ah, that’s unfair. The siblings in this yarn of familial flatulence are played by Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, and Lukas Gage, a respectable group of actors that appear to be having fun, if little else. But to frolic in such extravagance shouldn’t require such exertion, a fault more of Ainouz’s sleepy direction than Filippou’s screenplay, though said script is also riddled with throwaway lines that patronize the audience and provide its performers with inert exposition in one fell swoop. “People are roses. Families are rosebushes. Rosebushes need pruning,” Turner’s Ed rattles off within the first few minutes of the film, simultaneously managing to tell us exactly what’s bound to happen over the next 95 minutes and delivering an empty promise only a better film could have hoped to keep.
“How do you like my new watch?” Father (Tracy Letts) asks at dinner, followed quickly by a demand for Jack (Jamie Bell) to check what time it is by, indeed, looking at his new watch. Father is blind, so the watch is there for show. It’s a fitting, if on the nose metaphor, for the lives of these billionaire characters and the rest of their trappings – from the family’s expansive Spanish villa, where they moved due to their mother’s love for the architect and their realization that Balenciaga wasn’t born in New York – to the garish tone in which they speak to one another, performative and amiss alike.
At this same early meal, Robert (Lukas Gage) openly pines for Jack, his eldest sibling, urging the rest of his sight-bearing kin to ogle at how sexy Big Bro has been looking lately; Jack teases the arrival of his new girlfriend Martha (Elle Fanning); Anna (Riley Keough) broods and smirks all but silently, not offering so much as a “tsk tsk” when her father asks if Martha is as hot as his daughter, the same daughter who also wants to sleep with Jack; Ed, meanwhile, contemplates his next move. It’s worth pondering the moves he’s made already, those we haven’t seen, but are meant to feel some type of way about.
A film can only tell without showing so much before it becomes grating, and it’s not five minutes into Ainouz’s second English-language effort – following 2023’s handsome but flawed Firebrand – that you can feel the seams coming undone. Or maybe you’re doing that dirty work yourself, desperate to feel something given how little the film thinks of you, its viewer, forcefeeding you empty spoonfuls of muted diatribes from angry siblings whose mission statements might as well be tattooed to their foreheads. They want to one-up one another, but Rosebush Pruning doesn’t care to give its actors any room to find their respective footings in that regard, a shame considering how individually talented most of the ensemble is, or how promising they’ve shown themselves to be in their previous work. Turner is meant to be a mysterious lead here, but it’s clear that Ainouz missed Mark Jenkin’s Rose of Nevada, a labyrinth of a film in which Turner is as difficult to read as the picture itself. (And all the more tremendous for it.)
Bell, Fanning, Keough, and Letts have all had their fair share of stellar supporting turns in the past, so it’s devastating to watch Ainouz become so restless as to direct attention elsewhere the moment their scenes start becoming interesting. They are recognizable faces in a faceless film, relegated to bit players when they could have been front and center if not for their steward’s penchant for the “Look! Over there!” fakeout. If nothing else, it’s nice that they appear in Rosebush Pruning as their presences serve as reminders of their careers, those that will go on successfully with this work appearing as but a blip on their curriculum vitaes. Watch literally anything else they’ve done instead.
Rosebush Pruning is now available to stream on Mubiand VOD.
Director: Rafael Manuel Writer: Rafael Manuel Stars: Jorrybell Agoto, Joanna Maria Banua, Angeli Bayeni
Synopsis: Teen Isabel’s attraction to Dr. Palanca at her country club job turns dark as she uncovers violence beneath the club’s facade and discovers their disturbing connection from the past.
There is a magical moment that every film critic or cinephile knows. When the credits roll, and the film opens up to the viewer, baring glimpses of its soul, revealing whatever the filmmaker decides to uncover from the beginning. It never gets old, and reminds us all of why we love cinema. When there’s a new mysterious film at hand, that plays this mind game on us to the bone, that’s when we sharpen our teeth and take a deep…bite into the material at hand.
Rafael Manuel’s Filipiñana is that kind of film. It uses golf as a metaphor for power disparity, the shameful uneven distribution of riches and money, and the morbid isolation of the elite from the working class, while picking a select few from them to diligently do what they -in the elite’s minds- are born for: serve those upstairs.
The feature is about 17-year-old Isabel (Jorybell Agoto) a tee-girl in a prestigious, private golf club. Her job is lining up golf balls for haughty golfers to drive into the manicured horizon. But Isabel’s curious nature and inquisitive personality leads her to places she shouldn’t be, discovering harrowing truths about the nature of the club, her country, and her own repressed memory.
Manuel perfectly captures the contrast between vast, luxurious spaces and tired, sweaty faces working in the underbelly through his use of the 4:3 aspect ratio; a very contradictory image to what the public perceives of a spacious golf course. His composition and sharp focus on skin tones and textures highlight the difference between the upper class, those who are served, and the servers, whom nobody asks if they are well-hydrated or not. He perfectly captures the presence of the “heat” as another protagonist, besides the ones already in the heart of the story, and it is evident through every sweat stain and sweaty forehead.
Manuel also alternates between long shots and close-ups, reserving each shot type for a particular purpose. Long shots are to enhance the beauty of the liminal spaces in which the servers exist on the periphery, even though technically they are the ones running it, and close-ups are for the voyeuristic faces, like Isabel’s as she silently watches the events unfolding around her, while lacking the power to shake things up.
Manuel’s use of sound is en pointe, heightening the sensations in a film that demands feeling before following a structured narrative. The director tries to put us in an eerily voyeuristic place of lurking and peeking at things we aren’t supposed to access or approach. The rustling leaves, the fine arcs of water from the sprinklers on the courses, golf clubs hitting the ball, people stepping on grass, or feet stomping in shallow ponds, pristine tablecloths being placed, or the synchronized, collective movements of the resort staff dancing as they greet the wealthy guests. The awkward angles make the conversations hard to follow and highly uncomfortable, almost as if the viewer is spying on something they shouldn’t see.
This feature provides not-so-subtle political statements in an apolitical world. It’s about the violence that shaped the luscious, glossy manicured landscapes, how the bored rich and powerful tread over grounds that have seen suffering and mass graves. The land is careless, and so are the ones who get to claim it, greedily sucking the marrow out of the real Filipino people. After tales of nature grifting and forest decay, knowing the history of some of those posh golf clubs, make this film harder to swallow, and more impactful.
Filipiñana provides a grim, stripped-bare portrait of another side of Manuel’s home country, the Philippines. It opens at Film Forum in New York on August 28th and at Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles on September 4th before expanding to select theaters nationwide.
Director: Ben Masters Writer:Ben Masters Stars: Ethan Hawke
Synopsis: Water, wildlife, and land conservation in Texas. Wildlife stories from each of Texas’ major river basins, as well as diving into our state’s successes and failures when it comes to managing water for both people as well as ecosystems.
Texas is known for being big. From vast deserts and open plains to bigger-than-life characters. Not surprising when 33 million people are living there. But Deep in the Heart 2: Texas Rivers takes audiences beneath the Lone Star State’s familiar landscape and into the waterways that sustain its wildlife, revealing a world of otters, turtles, mountain lions, cranes and plenty of creatures that are considerably less interested in posing for the camera.
Following the success of Deep in the Heart, director Ben Masters returns with another wildlife documentary centered on the natural beauty and biodiversity of his home state. This time, the focus is firmly on Texas’ rivers, springs, creeks and bays, travelling from the Rio Grande to the Sabine and Neches and into the ecosystems surrounding them. At 85 minutes, it is an accessible introduction to an enormous and often overlooked part of the state’s natural environment.
Narrated by Texan actor Ethan Hawke, the documentary has an appealing sense of place from the outset. Hawke’s voice brings warmth and a serious sense of intrigue to the piece. In choosing Hawke to narrate, this documentary isn’t simply a collection of beautiful wildlife footage; it’s a love letter to Texas. They really have pride in their state, and you can’t help but feel that whilst watching.
And there is certainly plenty to admire. The cinematography is the film’s greatest strength. Three years of filming have produced some remarkable encounters, from mountain lions navigating the Pecos to river otters raising their young along the Sabine. Alligator Snapping Turtles provide one of the more unusual highlights, looking less like wildlife documentary stars and more like prehistoric creatures that somehow missed their exit several million years ago. Some graphics support the narration, such as showing the number of rivers in Texas – these visuals help with the more detailed, scientific explanations.
The film also finds room for some less obvious characters. Turkeys, Whooping Cranes, and Fatmuckets, a species of freshwater mussel (with the best name, ever), all receive their moment in the spotlight. I really enjoyed that there’s an appreciation for the smaller, stranger, and less celebrated creatures on this planet. There’s something so humble and comforting about looking at ducklings and hearing the sound of gentle rainfall.
Masters’ affection for the subject is easy to understand. He’s known for talking about growing up on the Canadian River, falling in love on the Brazos, getting married on the Guadalupe, and finding adventure on the Rio Grande. Those personal connections give the film an emotional foundation that complements its conservation message.
Deep in the Heart 2 is so committed to celebrating Texas that it sometimes feels reluctant to linger on the more uncomfortable realities facing its waterways. There is an important conservation story here, but the film is more successful at making us admire these environments than at fully exploring the threats that put them under pressure and how we could help.
This means the documentary prioritizes wonder over alarm. That isn’t necessarily a weakness, particularly when the imagery is this impressive, but a little more balance between celebration and environmental urgency could have given the film greater weight. The rivers are beautiful, but understanding what threatens them would make their preservation feel even more important.
Still, there is something wonderfully straightforward about Deep in the Heart 2: Texas Rivers. It wants you to look closer. Beneath the familiar image of Texas is a complicated network of waterways supporting an extraordinary range of life, much of which can be easy to overlook when you’re busy thinking about cattle, cowboy boots and everything else the state has become known for.
With spectacular cinematography, an engaging narration and a genuine affection for its subject, Deep in the Heart 2: Texas Rivers offers an entertaining reminder that some of nature’s most fascinating stories are happening just beneath the surface. Texas may be known for doing everything big, but this film makes a convincing case for paying attention to the smaller things swimming, crawling, and wading through it.
This week on the InSession Film Podcast, inspired by the release of The Dog Stars this weekend, we did a Ridley Scott movie draft! JD also gives us his thoughts on The End of Oak Street and The Rivals of Amziah King.
– The End of Oak Street (9:13) While Megan and Max were not very high on David Robert Mitchell’s latest, JD ended up having a very different take on the film. He didn’t see the ending as a cop out, but rather a provocative and mean-spirited twist that makes you look at its characters a little differently.
– The Rivals of Amziah King (40:38) Next, JD gave his thoughts on Andrew Patterson’s new film The Rivals of Amziah King. While he disagreed on Oak Street, he had nothing but praise for Amziah King. It’s a film that shouldn’t work given how many genres it’s navigating, yet somehow it all comes together in a seamless way. All complimented by two of the best performances of the year with Matthew McConaughey and Angela LookingGlass.
– Ridley Scott Draft (1:03:07) Ridley Scott is a fascinating filmmaker. He begins his career with two of the best sci-fi movies ever made. Somehow made one of the most underrated Best Picture winners given the discourse around it. The late-stage of his career is riddled with polarizing movies. There is so much to love about Scott, and he’s made some incredible films, so where do you go when drafting his best work? Some of it is obvious, however after those first few, it could go in a number of direction. With that said, what did you think of our draft?
If you want to help support us, there are several ways you can help us and we’d absolutely appreciate it. Every penny goes directly back into supporting the show and we are truly honored and grateful. Thanks for your support and for listening to the InSession Film Podcast!
Directors: Jon Lucas, Scott Moore Writers:Jon Lucas, Scott Moore Stars: Leslie Mann, Anna Faris, Michelle Buteau
Synopsis: Three friends go on a spa weekend that descends into chaos when their trainwreck friend joins, leading to hilarious consequences.
Rarely has a movie felt less real than Jon Lucas and Scott Moore’s Spa Weekend. The screenwriting duo behind Todd Phillips’ The Hangover (and its sequels) and the directors of Bad Moms give us one of the biggest “this movie doesn’t exist” products of all time, one that attempts to be a big-screen comedy event but fails at virtually every turn. It’s a real shame, because the quartet of women leading the fray are all individually talented and have been funny in movies beyond this one, but they are all wasted inside a premise that gets tiresome relatively fast and does its ensemble zero favors.
Anyone who has been calling January “the dumping ground of movies” must now relegate that title to August, because nothing in Spa Weekend feels engineered for the big screen. This is the type of movie you’d buy at a Walmart bargain bin, or, in more apt 2026 terms, generate on ChatGPT. Every line, every situation, every character, every image, feels artificial. It has more in common with a commercial than it does a film you’d willingly pay money to see on the big screen. Worst of all, though, it is terribly unfunny. Lucas and Moore mistake endless shouting for comedic situations, and fill their entire movie with one loud shouting match after the next, as the titular Spa Weekend quickly turns into a total nightmare.
I’ll give them this, at least the premise is simple. Three women, Jane (Leslie Mann), Coco (Michelle Buteau), and Sophie (Anna Faris), go to a spa resort in the hopes of relaxing from the day-to-day operations of their increasingly busy lives. Jane is a lawyer whose responsibilities as a single mom prevent her from doing anything outside of work and parenting. Coco is still reeling from a painful divorce, and Sophie can’t seem to stand up to her misogynistic boss who has been manipulating her at every turn.
They hope that, by going to a spa, their worries will be washed away momentarily…until the friend they didn’t invite, Mel (Isla Fisher), shows up unannounced. To put it politely, Mel is a bit of a loudmouth. She says (read: shouts) what she thinks, and, well, apparently, hilarity ensues, but I waited, desperately waited for a scene where I would laugh. It never happened. This is a movie that thinks it’s funny by engaging in lazy, crude “extreme slapstick,” but none of it actually garnered a chuckle out of me.
The whole thing is painfully telegraphed. You can clearly tell where it’s going from the moment it starts, especially once Mel is introduced. Of course, everyone hates her guts. Of course, she basically ruins the whole vibe of the relaxing spa weekend and kinda sets fire to the resort, which vehemently angers its general manager, but what do you think will happen in the end? I don’t even need to spell it out for you – it’s written in the stars! It’s exactly what you think will happen, especially when Jane finds love in a hot yoga teacher, Coco attempts to make amends with her ex-husband, and Sophie finally stands up to her sexist boss. These archetypal stories are quickly resolved to a heartwarming conclusion, so foreseeable it’s almost laughable that all the “right notes” are hit, without a shred of emotional depth or humanity to make such an ending feel earned.
Instead, great comedic actors are relegated to a comedy of errors, haphazardly shot, lit, and edited, with the year’s worst musical score on display, clearly highlighting its lack of budget. Whenever a character mentions a song the production didn’t have the rights to, Philip White’s music will lightly reference it. I’ll admit, it’s a smart and economical choice, but the music itself sounds like royalty-free tunes you’d hear in a 2009 YouTube video edited on One True Media. The performances aren’t any better. Only Michelle Buteau gets one genuinely impassioned sequence near the end, but the rest of the cast deserve much better than to play one-note archetypes at this stage of their careers.
If Spa Weekend wanted to continue bringing the comedy back to the big screen, they’ve spectacularly failed. With Will Gluck’s horrendous One Night Only, there seems to be a recession indicator for actually funny movies. We might, however, reach the bottom of the barrel with this one. It’s actually so unfunny that it might be regressing our desires to have real comedies back on the big screen again. If this is what passes as comedy these days, maybe they all deserve to be relegated to Netflix….
Directors: Emily Bennett, Justin Brooks Writers: Emily Bennett, Justin Brooks Stars: Emily Bennett, Brendan Sexton III, David Call
Synopsis: In her remote country home, a religious zealot takes a young filmmaker captive, claiming her sadistic rituals will change him into a god.
There is something inherently unsettling about a film that takes something as comforting as light and makes it feel dangerous. Blood Shine, the latest feature from directing duo Emily Bennett and Justin Brooks, builds its folk horror around that contradiction, creating a strange, sweaty, and increasingly disturbing descent into religious obsession. It’s a film that will leave you somewhere between fascination and discomfort.
Set in the isolated landscape of upstate New York, the film follows Brighton West (David Call), a troubled horror filmmaker who retreats into the countryside to finish his latest screenplay. His plans for solitude don’t last long when he encounters Clara (Emily Bennett), a deeply religious woman whose devotion to light has developed into a series of extreme rituals. This unpredictable encounter gradually becomes something far more sinister, as Clara draws Brighton into a world where faith, violence and physical transformation become difficult to separate.
Visually, Blood Shine is one of those films where the environment is as important as the characters. The cinematography embraces the starkness of its setting, contrasting expansive natural beauty with moments of physical ugliness. There is a tactile quality to the filmmaking: sweat, blood, skin, sunlight, and dirt all feel deliberate. It makes the film’s more visceral moments difficult to ignore. Darkness is usually the obvious enemy of the genre, but here the light becomes something to fear. Another film that builds on this premise is The Others, but Blood Shine is far more bloody and brutal.
Clara’s belief system is built around purity, worship, and the rejection of darkness, but her pursuit of spiritual enlightenment becomes increasingly grotesque. There is a deliberate contradiction between the beauty of her beliefs and the brutality of her actions. Emily Bennett gives a committed performance, balancing conviction with an unsettling unpredictability. Clara could easily have become a one-note fanatic, but Bennett gives her enough vulnerability and sincerity to make the character more complicated. She genuinely believes in what she is doing, which makes the increasingly disturbing nature of her rituals considerably more uncomfortable.
David Call’s Brighton is a different kind of troubled character. A horror filmmaker arriving in the woods to escape distractions and finish his work, he initially seems like an observer who has wandered into someone else’s nightmare. Instead, he becomes increasingly absorbed by it. His profession also adds a pleasing layer of irony: a man who makes horror films finds himself confronted with something that is considerably harder to turn into fiction.
The supporting cast adds further weight, particularly Larry Fessenden, whose presence is always welcome in this corner of cinema. Brendan Sexton III and Toby Poser also contribute to the film’s increasingly strange atmosphere.
Blood Shine can occasionally become too opaque for its own good. Its refusal to provide answers is often part of its appeal, but there are moments when the symbolism feels more interesting than the actual narrative. The film has plenty to say about faith, obsession and the human desire to find meaning, yet some of those ideas are communicated through repetition rather than development.
The pacing may also test patience. At 91 minutes, it is hardly an epic, but the measured build-up can make the middle section feel longer than it needs to be. The journey here isn’t always as compelling as the destination.
Nevertheless, there is confidence in Bennett and Brooks’ filmmaking. Blood Shine doesn’t feel like a horror film assembled from familiar ingredients; it has its own particular and sinister flavor, even when it occasionally gets carried away with its more abstract ideas. The combination of psychological thriller, folk horror and religious imagery creates an unsettling atmosphere that lingers.
Blood Shine is strange, unsettling and occasionally excessive, but beneath its blood-soaked imagery is a thoughtful exploration of faith and fanaticism. This film invites us into Clara’s world and asks us to stay there long enough to realize that the light she’s worshipping may not be salvation at all. Sometimes, enlightenment comes with a warning label.
September, we are in the twilight of the year 2026. The next two months, October and November, will have a Criterion sale of some kind within – so if you choose to seek any of these titles out, maybe wait? We are also hitting the heat of new and great cinema – future Criterion releases on the way in 2027? Criterion is dropping seven (7!) new releases, pretty solid line up! Criterion is bringing back an out-of-print box set on Blu-Ray, as well as three new 4K+Blu-Ray releases, a new 4K+Blu-Ray combo boxset, and one new Criterion Premieres release.
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Angry Men is one of the most incredible pieces of cinema – ever. It’s sort of unbelievable that something like this exists. 12 Angry Men is about a group of white jurors who deliberate the verdict on a Puerto Rican teen charged with murdering his father. It’s the original pressure cooker film and one of the most intense legal dramas ever made. To say this film is a masterpiece is the equivalent of saying the sky is blue or the sun is hot. 12 Angry Men is a 4K+Blu-Ray combo pack featuring a new 4K digital restoration.
Two Prosecutors (2025)
In a new release from Criterion’s ‘Criterion Premieres’ line of films, Two Prosecutors is a freshly released film from Icelandic filmmaker, Sergei Loznitsa. Two Prosecutors is a film about a Soviet prosecutor finding a letter from a prisoner that exposes corruption in the NKVD during Stalin’s Great Purge. This is the first Criterion Premieres release from Loznitsa and the film premiered at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in 2025. Criterion Premieres is a line of films that releases new Janus Film releases with minimal special features and Two Prosecutors will release on Blu-Ray and DVD.
Shoah (1985)
Shoah is a nine hour documentary that took over a decade to produce and follows survivors of the Holocaust as well as former Nazis detailing how the events of the Holocaust still follows them and how prevalent the past is in their lives. While I am unfamiliar with this film, I do know that people that have seen it are changed for having seen this. This is a previous Criterion Blu+Ray release that only recently went out of print, but the difference between this new release and the previous release is that a film recounting the production of Shoah, All I Had Was Nothingness, is now included in this release. This has been on my list for quite some time to finally sit down and watch, and this is the push I need to finally sit down and watch this. Shoah is a Blu-Ray box set featuring a 2K digital restoration.
Nouvelle Vague (2025)
Richard Linklater is no stranger to the Criterion Collection, and Nouvelle Vague follows a muse of the Criterion Collection, Jean-Luc Godard, making a film that embodies what the Criterion Collection strives for, Breathless. Nouvelle Vague is a perfect storm/a Criterion ouroboros of sorts, and seemed like a no brainer to be added. I have a soft spot for Linklater, and his intuitions as a filmmaker speaks to me as a filmgoer – even at times where his films may not hit for me (I’m looking at you, Slacker). To plug, he is a fellow Texan and I will always go to bat for him. Next up, could we get Everybody Wants Some!!? Nouvelle Vague is a 4K+Blu-Ray combo pack featuring a new 4K digital restoration supervised and approved by director Richard Linklater.
The Secret Agent(2025)
I have not gotten around to seeing The Secret Agent, which is a huge hole for me at the moment. One of my very good friends has been pushing me to check this out and his reasoning is that it’ll hit for me as a fellow Metal Gear Solid fan. Every person I know that has seen The Secret Agent has praised it endlessly and I feel incredibly behind for having not seen it. If you are reading this article, I wouldn’t say it’s a stretch to say that you are aware of this film at the absolute least. I will report back on my findings in a future article when I get around to this (as well as when I purchase this in the October flash sale 😉 ). The Secret Agent is a 4K+Blu-Ray combo pack featuring a new 4K digital restoration supervised and approved by director Kleber Mendonça Filho.
Three Films by Leos Carax
Leos Carax is a filmmaker for me where his style is a cut above most modern filmmakers. While it’s not for some people, it is certainly for me. Holy Motors, Annette – I got down with those! This set was a total surprise, and similarly to the recently released Mike Mills box set, is a very welcomed surprise. This set features the first three films that Carax made, and are all incredible in their own right. Additionally, the packaging on this is some of the most artistically alluring work that Criterion has done in years. If you are uninitiated in the cult of Carax, this wouldn’t be a bad jumping off point. Three Films by Leos Carax is a 4K+Blu-Ray combo box set featuring new 4K digital masters of Boy Meets Girl, Mauvais sang, and The Lovers on the Bridge.
Days and Nights in the Forest(1970)
My only knowledge of the films of Satyajit Ray is that The Simpsons character Apu is named after the Apu trilogy (which is also in the Criterion Collection). Additionally, my only knowledge of Indian cinema is through S.S. Rajamouli with his masterpiece RRR, as well as his appearance in the masterpiece Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. I have been due to explore deeper into Indian cinema and the films of Ray. When I first discovered John Cassavetes, I was overwhelmed with the excellent Criterion box set of six of his films so I dabbled with a film not in that set – Husbands, then nosedived from there. I will be doing a similar tactic by buying this and diving into Ray’s other films. Days and Nights in the Forest is a roadtrip buddy comedy about the deconstruction of masculinity and ego – all elements that I’ve loved in other films (see Two Lane Blacktop). All to say, this is my personal diving point and if this also sounds like your jam then you should give it a whirl too. Days and Nights in the Forest is a 4K+Blu-Ray combo pack featuring a new digital 4K restoration.
Director: Sophia Silver Writer: Sophia Silver, Sianni Rosenstock Stars: Emajean Bullock, Anastasia Victoria Lee, Adam David Thompson
Synopsis: Over/Under is a coming-of-age story that shows the pain of slipping out of sync from your childhood best friends.
I’m such a sucker for coming-of-age stories, especially ones that explore girlhood with all its awkwardness, tenderness, curiosity, and contradictions. There’s something about watching young girls slowly realize that childhood doesn’t last forever that gets me every time, and Over/Under completely understands that feeling. It’s a warm, beautiful, quietly heartbreaking little film that feels like looking back on a summer you didn’t realize would be the last one before everything changed.
Sophia Silver’s film follows Violet and Stella, two best friends who spend their summers together, running around, playing in the water, making wishes, and finding little ways to make the world feel magical. Their friendship is the center of the film, and I loved how natural it feels. They aren’t constantly explaining how much they mean to each other; they simply exist together. They joke, explore, get annoyed with each other, make up, and share the kind of tiny secrets that feel enormously important when you’re a kid.
There’s such a lovely sense of freedom in these early scenes. The summer setting gives Over/Under this dreamy, sun-soaked atmosphere, but there’s always a little sadness underneath it because we know these girls are growing up. Every day feels endless when you’re young, yet somehow the years disappear before you realize they’re gone.
As Violet and Stella get older, that innocence begins to shift. They become more aware of their bodies, their appearances, popularity, boys, and the expectations that seem to suddenly come with being a girl. What I appreciated most is that Silver doesn’t turn these experiences into big dramatic milestones. Instead, they’re presented as small, sometimes funny and sometimes uncomfortable moments that gradually add up.
A different haircut can suddenly make you feel like a completely different person. Wearing makeup can feel like stepping into an entirely new version of yourself. Suddenly noticing things about your body that you never thought about before can be exciting, confusing, embarrassing, or all three at once. Over/Under understands that girlhood is often made up of these tiny moments that seem insignificant to everyone else but can feel monumental when you’re living through them.
The film also gives both girls lives outside of their friendship, and that adds a lot of emotional depth. Violet struggles with bullying and feeling like she doesn’t fit into the version of femininity everyone around her seems to expect. Stella is dealing with serious problems within her own family, forcing her to confront parts of adulthood far earlier than she should have to. Their friendship becomes a kind of refuge, but even that begins to change as they grow older.
I especially loved that Over/Under never feels like it’s judging these girls for wanting to grow up. There’s no easy message about how childhood is pure and adolescence is somehow corrupting it. Instead, the film recognizes that growing up can be exciting and frightening at the same time. You can desperately want to be older while simultaneously wishing you could stay exactly where you are.
Emajean Bullock and Anastasia Veronica Lee are fantastic, bringing an incredible naturalism to their performances. Their friendship feels lived-in rather than scripted, and so many of their interactions have the messy spontaneity of real childhood friendships. That authenticity is what keeps the film from becoming overly sentimental.
And honestly, I adored the atmosphere. There’s something gorgeous about the way this movie captures summer—the sunlight, the water, the warmth, the feeling that the season could last forever. It has that slightly hazy quality of a childhood memory, where you remember the feeling of a place more vividly than the actual details. It made me nostalgic for a childhood I wasn’t even necessarily experiencing alongside these characters.
Over/Under isn’t trying to reinvent the coming-of-age genre, and it doesn’t need to. Its strength comes from how intimate and observant it is. It understands that growing up rarely happens in one huge, defining moment. It happens quietly, through hundreds of little changes that you barely notice until you look back and realize just how far you’ve come.
Tender, funny, gorgeous, and a little bittersweet, Over/Under is exactly the kind of small indie coming-of-age film I’m always hoping to discover. It captures that strange space between being a kid and becoming someone new, and I found myself completely charmed by it.
Director: Joe Swanberg Writer: Joe Swanberg Stars: Dakota Fanning, Jake Johnson, Cory Michael Smith
Synopsis: A woman’s relationship with her older, divorced boyfriend hits a rough patch just as her ex reappears in her life, leading to complicated emotions and messy entanglements in the Alaskan wilderness.
There’s something inherently frustrating about watching two people who clearly love each other struggle to figure out whether or not they should actually be together. Joe Swanberg’s The Sun Never Sets leans directly into that frustration, turning a seemingly straightforward breakup into a much messier examination of what it means to want a future with someone while still wondering if that future is actually the one you want.
Wendy (Dakota Fanning) has spent two years with Jack (Jake Johnson), a man who seems perfectly comfortable with the life he has built. He has children, a stable routine, and a pretty clear idea of what his future looks like. Wendy, meanwhile, is at an age where the question of what comes next feels increasingly unavoidable. She wants marriage, children, and a sense that her life is moving somewhere. Jack doesn’t necessarily want those things again. Neither of them is necessarily wrong, which is what makes their situation so painful.
When Jack suggests they spend six months apart, his reasoning is almost absurdly sincere. He wants Wendy to figure out whether she really wants him or whether she is simply afraid of letting go of the relationship they’ve built. It’s the kind of decision that sounds noble in theory and absolutely infuriating in practice. Of course Wendy spirals. Of course everything becomes more complicated. And when Chuck (Cory Michael Smith), the ex who once represented a different possibility for her life, comes back into the picture, that six-month experiment becomes even harder to navigate.
What I appreciated most about The Sun Never Sets is that Swanberg doesn’t really treat Chuck as the answer to Wendy’s problems. It would have been easy for the movie to become a conventional love triangle where one guy represents the safe choice and the other represents excitement and possibility. Instead, Chuck becomes another part of Wendy’s uncertainty. Even when someone else enters her life who seems to offer something different, she still has to confront the same question: what does she actually want?
That question is much more interesting than the romantic mechanics surrounding it.
The movie can absolutely test your patience. There are stretches where Wendy and Jack seem to have the same conversation in slightly different forms over and over again. Their constant drifting toward and away from each other eventually had me wanting to shake both of them and tell them to just make a decision. But at the same time, I think that repetition reflects something painfully recognizable about relationships. Sometimes people know a relationship isn’t working and still can’t bring themselves to walk away. Sometimes they break up and immediately realize they don’t actually want to be apart. Sometimes love doesn’t disappear simply because a relationship has become complicated.
Swanberg’s filmmaking fits this material perfectly. There’s a looseness to the movie that makes the characters feel less like perfectly constructed fictional people and more like people you might actually know. Conversations wander, emotions aren’t always neatly resolved, and the performances have a natural rhythm that makes the quieter moments feel particularly intimate. The film isn’t interested in turning every interaction into some grand cinematic declaration. Much of its charm comes from simply watching these people exist together.
Dakota Fanning is the heart of it all. She gives Wendy a warmth that makes it easy to understand why people are drawn to her, but she never makes her perfectly likable. Wendy can be impulsive, uncertain, selfish, affectionate, and frustrating all within the same scene. Fanning understands that contradiction and plays it beautifully. There’s a real sense of someone trying to hold onto the person she has been while figuring out who she wants to become.
Jake Johnson is also terrific, especially because Jack could have easily become an unbearable character. His decision to push Wendy away feels incredibly misguided, but Johnson gives him enough vulnerability that you can understand why he thinks he’s doing the right thing. There’s a sadness underneath his awkwardness. He knows Wendy wants things he may no longer be able to give her, and rather than confront that directly, he tries to remove himself from the equation.
The Alaskan setting adds another layer to the movie. The expansive snowy landscapes are beautiful without overwhelming the intimate nature of the story. Eon Mora’s 35mm cinematography gives everything a warm, slightly nostalgic texture, making the film feel like a memory even while its characters are stuck trying to decide what their future should look like.
Ultimately, The Sun Never Sets isn’t really about choosing between Jack and Chuck. It’s about Wendy learning that another person can’t necessarily give her the certainty she’s looking for. You can love someone and still want something different. You can have a relationship that works in many ways and still wonder whether it is enough. And sometimes the only way to figure that out is to step away from the life you’ve built and see what remains when you’re standing on your own.
I didn’t love every part of the journey, and the movie occasionally circles its ideas for a little too long, but there’s an honesty to its messiness that stayed with me. Swanberg has made a small, intimate film about a very big question: what happens when the person you love isn’t necessarily the person who can give you the life you want?
It’s imperfect, sometimes frustrating, but quietly affecting—and Dakota Fanning gives it a wonderful center.
Director: Ben Gregor Writer:Simon Farnaby Stars: Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Nonso Anozie
Synopsis: A modern family relocates to the countryside where the children discover a magical tree with eccentric residents. They’re transported to fantastical lands, rekindling their family bond through adventures.
Art often reflects the anxieties of our time in places we don’t expect. Many of us are concerned by disconnectedness, apathy, and technology stunting intelligence. Often it’s easier to understand that there is a worry when children are involved. It’s easier to see through the eyes and experiences of children that technology has absorbed and overtaken many aspects of life. Technology has fundamentally changed what we think of as childhood and how children interact with the world. Films like The Magic Faraway Tree can remind us of the magic of childhood amidst the noise of the modern world.
While The Magic Faraway Tree can impart wonderful lessons for children and adults, it is skewed heavily toward a younger audience. This is why it’s strange that the film has what feels like missing pieces. It certainly follows most of a formula, but it’s like they took out something and didn’t replace it. This feeling of something missing can make the story feel flat. Beth (Delilah Bennett-Cardy) and Silky (Nicola Coughlan) seem to be moving toward something like mutual respect, but as soon as their relationship begins, it seems to be over. Writer Simon Farnaby is no stranger to children’s literary adaptations having handled the scripts for all the Paddington films and Wonka, but The Magic Faraway Tree doesn’t feel as grand or even as grounded as those films. Most of it could be because the otherworldly antagonist is just not strong enough and the real world antagonist feels as if she doesn’t have a bite.
Having a big bad that propels the protagonists toward good is a staple of any film like this. The supposed antagonist of the fantasy portions of the film is meant to be Dame Snap (Rebecca Ferguson). Yet, her screentime is minimal and her participation in the overall plot is tepid. She’s less of a villain than a speed bump. It’s like she was forgotten about and then added to a later draft without any sort of actual plan to use her. She’s completely unnecessary. On the flip side in the reality portion of the story, Grandma (Jennifer Saunders) is necessary and intimidating, but her threats feel uninspired and toothless. We never see her menacing hand wringing or machinations. She’s just there to bluster, then she’s gone.
Instead of focusing too much on fantasy problems, the film would feel more interesting with more emphasis on the problems of the real world. Seeing these scenes of the family struggling to do something and build something together makes you wish the film had no fantasy elements at all, or that they were less involved and grandiose. There’s a dramatic and exciting story happening on this optimistic long shot of an idea.
The movie truly shines when Andrew Garfield is on screen. As Tim, Garfield takes the hapless, weird dad to new heights of adorkable. Tim’s a man with big dreams and a desperate need to keep his family from falling apart. He’s a man who makes things happen, sort of. Really he’s the idea man to his incredible engineer wife, Polly (Claire Foy), who takes his manic energy and turns it into reality. Garfield is so good at playing characters who understand the real world and its problems, but will do anything and everything to change that real world and make it better for those he loves. He plays Tim with an elfin sparkle that utterly charms us even as we cringe that Tim’s plan is incredibly risky and hard to like.
Though, if the story were just a simple family drama and that wonderful reality of the Magic Faraway Tree didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have a hand crafted feast for our eyes. The production design by Alexandra Walker is truly fantastic. She’s created multiple worlds with unique and intricate details. Her team has built a fabulous fantasy that you will make you wish you could visit. This goes double for costume designer Ann Maskrey who created some awe inspiring looks. Teamed with the tremendous hair and makeup crew, the characters all look so amazing and make each personality stand out so well, even with the mundane clothes of the Thompson family there is individuality and fun.
The Magic Faraway Tree has some very good ideas. It’s an adaptation of a children’s book series from the mid-twentieth century, so it’s obvious that the filmmakers took liberties with modernizing the story and this makes it for the better. The anxieties of now are similar, but starkly different than those in the time of the original novels. In order for it to reach into our hearts and our capacity to change, it needed to be modern. The story doesn’t always sing, but there are bright spots amongst the holes and it makes the journey worth it in the end.
The group of films by Joel and Ethan Coen, the Coen brothers, between 1987’s Raising Arizona and 1996’s Fargo are eclectic period pieces that only these two could come up with. The first is Miller’s Crossing, which masquerades as a straight forward gangster film, but is far more intricate. The third is The Hudsucker Proxy, which is a classic hapless Coen protagonist who finds himself in over his head as he invents a wildly popular toy, “you know… for kids.” The middle feature of these three is Barton Fink.
To describe what Barton Fink is really about is like trying to braid cooked spaghetti noodles. You get a few strands going, but there’s going to be another that slips your grasp and you have to start over. On paper, the film is very simple. A writer, Barton Fink (John Turturro) is simultaneously experiencing writer’s block and imposter syndrome as he attempts to write a screenplay.
Barton, like many screen depictions of a writer, has lofty ambitions. His are about the upheaval of theater to take the stories away from the perspective of wealth and privilege and bring it down to the common man. It’s his constant refrain that his work is meant to be viewed, enjoyed, and judged only by the people who live it every day. Yet, every common man he meets he talks down to as if he is their demi-god, meant to be the only vessel who can bring meaning to their lives. This is in stark contrast to the flighty wealthy people in New York and the motor-mouthed powerful people in L.A. who don’t listen or care what he’s about.
In his most intimate encounter, Barton is taken in by the idea of Charlie Meadows (John Goodman). Charlie, who is known by another name late in the film, is an avatar of the common man Barton purports to be the champion of. He sells insurance and “boy, [he] can tell you some stories.” He becomes Barton’s sounding board, confidant, accomplice, and eventually his inspiration. Barton’s instinct is to overpower Charlie who he sees as a sort of hayseed. Though Charlie, while biding his time, is able to get Barton to give into a little temptation. He gives Barton an offer without Barton realizing it. Charlie is emotionally overpowering him and breaking him down. Charlie is suddenly a friend Barton didn’t know he needed. Yet, it may also be that Charlie is the devil or some other supernatural force.
Is that lofty to equate Charlie with supreme evil? Not necessarily in the context of who we see Charlie become. Late in the film Charlie “ventilates” Barton’s captors and flames erupt from the walls of the Hotel Earle. Charlie screams that he’ll “show you the life of the mind” and venerates the man who is the equivalent of pure evil in human form. With these actions and the ones Charlie admits to in a speech to Barton as the flames grow, we can’t help but contemplate every action, motion and deed of Charlie and question the reality and sanity of Barton.
This is the brilliance of John Goodman’s performance. Goodman is a staple of many recurring actors the Coen brothers employ. He’s always a stand out, but more than anything, Barton Fink is a showcase of his immense talent, both physical and emotional. From his first scene, you can see the eventual truth of Charlie on Goodman’s face. There’s a split second as Charlie makes his decision on how he wants to play Barton. The look Charlie gives to Barton when he’s trying to get him to learn the basics of wrestling is all at once manic, enticing, and a threat. Goodman imbues his performance with little moments that show Charlie is much, much more than what he appears.
Barton Fink is one of the Coen brothers most enigmatic films. It has their signature wit, weirdness, and unpredictability wrapped into every frame of it. The film rewards the careful viewer and its many themes and metaphors are up for interpretation. Barton Fink isn’t a film for the casual fan, but for those that want to experience a nagging feeling like an unseen mosquito buzzing around a room that you aren’t even sure is there. Then, just as you forget about the mosquito, you see it and it changes your entire perception of reality.
This week on Episode 701 of the InSession Film Podcast, inspired by the release of Tony this weekend and the late-great Anthony Bourdain, we thought it would be fun to dive into our Top 5 food movies! There’s perhaps a fine line between movies where food is a vital throughline and those with just a few delicious scenes that stand out. But regardless of your criteria, there are so many great food movies to consider and we had a great time talking about why these films move us. That said, here are our lists:
(Note: Please keep in mind that we each had different criteria for our selections)
JD
1) Ratatouille
2) Man Push Cart
3) Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels
4) First Cow
5) The Taste of Things
Megan
1) Ratatouille
2) First Cow
3) The Taste of Things
4) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
5) Willy Wonka
Honorable Mentions (Combined) Pig, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Marie Antoinette, Phantom Thread, Chef, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, The Menu, Raw, The Princess and the Fog, Like Water for Chocolate
Hopefully you guys enjoyed our lists. If you agree or disagree with us, let us know in the comment section below. There are obviously many more food movies that we didn’t have time to mention (or they’re blindspots for us), so if your list looks very different than ours, we totally get it. That being said, what would be your Top 5? Leave a comment in the comment section or email us at [email protected].
For more lists done by the InSession Film crew and other guests, be sure see our Movie Lists page.
Director: Dylan Meyer Writer: Dylan Meyer Stars: Kristen Stewart, Alia Shawkat, Cate Blanchett
Synopsis: Two aimless young women inadvertently gain telepathic abilities after ingesting an experimental drug, pitting them against dangerous rivals pursuing the same powerful substance.
Why did Hollywood stop making stoner comedies? Once a staple of the early 2000s, films such as Grandma’s Boy and Pineapple Express proved that audiences were looking for a friendship film with a hazy flair. They offer an abundance of laughs, quotable moments, and original stories that resonate with broader audiences. Thankfully, The Wrong Girls enters the genre at just the right time, and it is a blazing blast. With Kristen Stewart’s cool girl charm and Alia Shawkat’s easygoing comedic timing, The Wrong Girls is the female friendship film of my stoner dreams.
It’s a rather straightforward story by writer and director Dylan Meyer: two roommates with their cats living in a rented house they have dubbed their chill zone. There’s the munchie chef Molly (Shawkat), who manages spreadsheets (poorly) for cash while spending her free time creating her wildest stoner snacks. Frankie (Stewart) is a college dropout, working for a delivery company with a joint hanging out of her mouth. Neither woman is highly motivated; they don’t even earn enough to cover their rent without extensions from their landlord, Jose (Chris Estrada). The film opens with them taking long hits from the masterful glassware that Frankie creates using her engineering skills. From the start, their laid-back, chilled-out personas pull you into a wild trip as the pair have to find a way to make their rent or be thrown to the streets.
When Molly’s boyfriend Josh (Zack Fox) wants her to live her dream of becoming a chef and move in with him, the best friend dynamic shifts. At the same time, Frankie learns that her ex has replaced her with Frances (Kristen Stewart, also), who looks identical to her. They look so much alike that Not Metal Head Dave (LaKeith Stanfield) mistakes Frankie for Frances and hands off an incredibly important briefcase that holds the answer to Frankie’s money woes, or so she thinks. Meyer has all the pieces of a stoner classic on the board, and The Wrong Girls goes from a buddy comedy starring two lovable potheads into a psionic test of loyalty.
It’s hard not to see yourself in either roommate’s shoes; it’s the life everyone has wanted to live at least once. Eating junk food all day with your best friend and smoking weed together while living under the same roof. Getting baked while watching Shark Week, or taste-testing a new culinary concoction that only the inebriated mind can create. Barely making enough to get by but loving every minute of it, there’s no doubt that both Molly and Frankie share a bond that goes beyond a regular friendship. They are inseparable; it’s almost as if they share the same mind, split between two bodies. A sisterly connection that comes naturally to both Stewart and Shawat; it helps that both already genuinely exude a chill girl vibe as is. Their chemistry is what elevates the film from good to great, especially when the pair has to deliver their lines telepathically. It’s hard to see the film working with any other talent in Stewart’s shoes, especially given her performance, which leaves a yearning for more comedy roles.
The Wrong Girls is a refreshing expression of female friendship and of embracing the imperfections of even those who are dearest to us. Yet, the film spends a lot of time insulting Molly and Frankie. Meyer makes it a point to have Molly and Frankie called out several times for being “stupid stoner chicks,” even to the film’s detriment, and it’s the biggest blemish on it. The choices the pair make are definitely facepalm-worthy, but it’s part of the cartoonish humor that comes with the genre. Audiences go into the film knowing the humor will be dumb and silly at times; constantly calling out their choices for that feels redundant. Especially when each scenario the pair are faced with (in their journey to make cash from their mysterious briefcase filled with pink drugs) is that much more hilarious, as the tables turn on those who doubt their stoner powers. Still, the overwhelming insults hurled their way start to become distracting; luckily, they fizzle out right when they become most irritating.
Visually, there’s a signature absurdist nature to The Wrong Girls that is seen from the designs of the chill zone to the clothing each character wears. This is especially evident from the use of bright colors that illuminate the trippiest parts of taking psychedelics, and distorting wide angles. There’s an atmosphere created that makes us question if these things are really happening or if they’re just the imagination of two women who take their fair share of drugs. Todd Banhazl, the film’s cinematographer, captures their dreamlike states as their buzz creeps in, in a place that makes it hard to want to stay sober. Frankie and Molly are styled to reflect their personalities: Frankie likes to wear band T-shirts and has a thin layer of grime in her hair. Molly dons more colorful pieces that glow brightly with the film’s use of neon lights. Each visual element pairs well with the others, elevating it beyond just another comedy film.
While the film’s humor won’t be for everyone, it is more in line with comedy like Superbad; there’s no doubt it has aged. With recreational use legal in many states, the need for counterculture mid-budget films fell off. It’s no longer taboo to talk about using marijuana, and it’s not uncommon to see it in public anymore. But for people who grew up with those films and embraced their themes, The Wrong Girls will more than likely be a hit. Admittedly, some of the film’s bits go on too long, like random dance numbers or telepathic back-and-forths. Meyer juggles a lot within her script; it all mostly works until you’re in the third act of the film waiting for the punchlines to roll. When she is displaying the perks of female friendship with a chronic twist, she knocks it out of the park, but as the film delves into increasingly wild predicaments, like car shootouts, it suffers most.
Overall, summer should feature more films like this, original mid-budget comedies for adults. Stewart and Shawat will hopefully usher in a new wave of stoner comedies that place broke 30-something cat-mom girl failures at the forefront. For her first feature, Meyer’s The Wrong Girls is ambitious; though it’s far from perfect, it’s a breath of dank air.
Director: Jean-François Richet Writer: J.P. Davis, Lindsay Michel Stars: Jason Statham, Annabelle Wallis, Adrian Lester
Synopsis: After his billionaire industrialist boss is murdered in front of him, Cole Reed is set up to take the fall for the crime — leaving him on the run as he works to uncover an international conspiracy.
I remember my grandparents once telling me that if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. So, let me start here: if you have 90 minutes to waste, there are certainly worse ways to spend them than watching Jason Statham’s latest. Unfortunately, I’m also obligated to point out the ineptitude and laziness of Mutiny.
And if Grandpa Frank is looking down at me today, I’d remind him that when he gave me that advice, he never had to sit through a Statham-by-the-numbers action picture that is anything but spectacular. So much for smooth sailing, as the viewer has no choice but to go overboard, and even the most passionate Statham supporters have no choice but to abandon ship.
Yes, you know exactly what you’re getting in a Jason Statham thriller like Mutiny. The modern-day Steven Seagal, minus the obligatory environmental message and slapfighting, has produced his own brand of action-movie comfort food: inane plot points, generic characterizations, and the same tried-and-true recipe.
Unfortunately, “Handsome Rob’s” latest formula is a New Coke version, not the classic. To illustrate the point, a scene in Mutiny is so laughable and befuddling that it shows how little the filmmakers respect their audience. In the scene, the villain knows Statham’s character is going to create a diversion. The foe knows the hero has to get to the bridge.
Why? Simple: to contact the authorities. It’s the one place they can do it. Even the high-seas menace says out loud that he knows exactly why the diversion is happening. Yet, all the bad guys run off in search of the dangerous Mr. Clean, leaving just one villain to guard the freighter’s communications deck, the sole connection to the outside world.
Mutiny is that kind of film. The script, from Lindsay Michel (Sandpiper) and J. P. Davis (Plane), offers your standard action fare. Statham plays Cole Reed, a former London police officer who also served in the British Army’s Special Forces. Reed comes from a long line of cops but lost his job after failing to play the political game necessary to climb the bureaucratic ladder.
Cole works as a personal bodyguard for Tibu (Ramon Tikaram, of the upcoming The Magic Faraway Tree), a wealthy billionaire industrialist and shipping tycoon. Tibu considers Cole family after he saved his life five years earlier. Reed plays chess with Tibu nightly and even gifts him a Rolex for his retirement.
Tibu has decided to sell the business so his son, Kameron (Black Narcissus’s Chaneil Kular), can pursue his own path. Which, frankly, makes no sense. Tibu is a billionaire. He can fund his son’s dreams and still keep his baby. But then we wouldn’t have a plot point to move the story along excruciatingly, painfully.
If you watched the trailer, you know what happens next. It is pretty obvious who is involved, making it painfully clear you just have to add or subtract who was there. Statham’s character then heads to one of Tebu’s ships, on flimsy evidence, to seek vengeance, where he finds Angie (Annabelle Wallis), a last-minute addition to the crew, who tags along for the ride.
Mutiny is from Jean-François Richet, whose Plane is one of the most overrated action films in recent memory. The film here is incredibly predictable, with some bone-crunching action in between to pass the time. The rest of the film, like the scene described above, is plot-induced incompetence, idiot logic, and artificial jeopardy.
A handful of scenes are like the one described above. For one, after Cole rescues a group of human-trafficking victims, he tells them not to wait for him and to leave immediately. He takes off, and at least ten minutes pass. Yet, in a later scene, no more than 20 people are somehow still piling into a lifeboat, allowing the villains to catch up and recapture them.
By then, the group could have floated by the Statue of Liberty. But again, Mutiny is that kind of film, one that asks you to ignore cinematic incompetence to watch Statham break bones and end lives. Yes, the genre is deliberately formulaic, but for a Statham film, this has a remarkable blind spot for polishing all the absurdity.
You can watch Mutiny exclusively in theaters starting August 21st!
On this episode, Megan is joined by Maxance Vincent to discuss David Robert Mitchell’s long-awaited new film The End of Oak Street! Mitchell is such a fascinating filmmaker that has been polarizing so far and The End of Oak Street does nothing to squash that reputation. Some people love it. Others despise it. And for the reasons we mention, the film’s divisiveness is quite understandable.
Review:The End of Oak Street
Director: David Robert Mitchell Writers: David Robert Mitchell Stars: Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery
On this episode, Megan is joined by Dave Giannini to discuss Andrew Patterson’s new film The Rivals of Amziah King, starring a phenomenal Matthew McConaughey and Angelina LookingGlass! We’ve been looking forward to Patterson’s follow up as The Vast of Night was one heck of a debut and he did not disappoint with this one. There is a ton to discuss with The Rivals of Amziah King and boy did we have fun with this conversation.
Review:The Rivals of Amziah King
Director: Andrew Patterson Writers: Andrew Patterson Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Angelina LookingGlass, Tony Revolori
Synopsis: Fleur and Julian fall madly in love and decide to get married in all countries where they, as two women, are allowed to do so. After only four marriages, their journey comes to a painful and unexpected halt.
It has only been 25 years since the first nation, the Netherlands, legalized same sex marriage. In the United States, federal recognition, not just individual state recognition, has only existed for 11 years. Since the year 2001, of the 195 recognized nations of the world, 38 recognize legal protections for same sex marriage. It’s heart breaking to know that the majority of the world views the commitment of two people as a political or heretical act more than a human and philosophical right. It’s heart breaking to see that, in spite of their efforts, Fleur (Nina Meurisse) and Julian (Laurence Roothooft) never got to realize their goal of fully raising awareness of marriage equality by getting married in each country that would allow them to do so.
The film, Julian, is based on the book of the same name, written by Fleur Pierets. While the book is about the endeavor of a real project, the film never feels more like a civil rights drama than a love story. For drama’s sake there are mentions and moments of the news and progress of the project, but the story of Julian and Fleur is the most important piece and it shows throughout. This is thanks to the script by director Cato Kusters and Angelo Tijssens, which leaves room for deep breaths and long drinks of a happy couple.
We feel the love of these two in the pauses and in the quiet moments. Some of the best filmed scenes have little to no dialogue at all. Kusters, along with cinematographer Michel Rosendaal, find beautiful moments of light and shadow to linger on our couple. So much of the film is in close up or in a cozy hug of nearness. It feels like we’re being held and like we’re searching our lover’s face and finding nothing, but yearning and joy in it. It’s a beautifully shot film that drives right to our hearts.
In a quiet, but impactful scene, we have our couple at the waterfront in New York City. They’re there for wedding number three and it’s a bit of a logistical nightmare. Fleur, the workaholic, is formulating, tabulating, and ruminating on all that has to be done. Julian, the romantic, gets Fleur to see that work can wait because they are together in a beautiful city and they’re allowed to enjoy it. The two of them stand at a railing, Fleur in front, Julian behind. The light of the sunset plays on their faces and Julian motions toward another couple and expounds on how much she hopes for a love like that. Fleur laughs at being compared to a duck. The camera lingers on them as they laugh and snuggle together.
Julian is a film that captures a relationship so beautifully and the way in which a relationship will play in our minds afterwards. This play on memory lends itself to non-linear storytelling. We begin with the first meeting and fast forward to preparations for Fleur’s solo lecture after Julian’s death. The film weaves us through memory and time not as a device that makes the story more interesting than if it were linear, but in a way of Fleur reckoning with her own understanding of her relationship with Julian. It helps us understand too that Fleur’s words to a dying Julian weren’t just lip service. She is honoring, remembering, and loving Julian, but in a way that makes logical sense to her, as her memories flood in like the clips from the camera they used to film parts of their life together.
Julian is heartbreaking at the same time as it is heart lifting. The project, even unfinished, is a testament to what these two women firmly believed in. Yet, it’s also so much about love, pure and simple. The deep affection and need is palpable in every second of this film. It doesn’t wallow or sit still, but it breathes with us, communes with our hearts, and keeps us in a daze of light and happiness even amongst the tears. Julian is a beautiful film in every way imaginable.
