EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN - Vol. 43

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
Volume 43 - September 2022

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, MovieJawn Podcast Czar

Y’all I have the end-of-summer blues worse than I have since I was in grade school. I just feel like this summer went by so quickly and I’m not ready for the decent weather to end. That’s probably due to it being swelteringly hot for a chunk of it, combined with me just returning from a genuine vacation (much needed) and just wishing I was still gone.

We (that being myself, my partner & podcast co host Allison, and our friends and fellow MovieJawnies Ben & Rosalie spent a long weekend at the Mahoning Drive-In in Lehighton PA for their annual Universal Monster Mash, where they show a bunch of the Universal monster films over a weekend on 35mm. We stayed nearby in a nice little cabin with a hot tub. Overall, a very calming experience. I mean, there was some kind of monster that tried to break in one night, but it didn’t try very hard. There was also a weird, hairy owl, but I digress.

I’m back now, and as ready as I’ll ever be to write an installment of Everything Old is New Again for September 2022. This column covers movies & tv series debuting in a given month that are based on some previous intellectual property; an older movie/series, a book, a song, etc. I find ‘em, I watch the trailers, and I give a breakdown of what I know of the property, and what I think of the trailer. Then, down at the bottom in the SPOTLIGHT section, I’ll recommend some older movies coming to streaming services this month that count as EOINA material.

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PREMIERES - Brand new entertainments for your viewing or avoiding pleasure.

September 2nd

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (series)
Where: Prime

Last month I went off on a bit of a tirade about prequels. They kind of annoy me, but I understand (and have witnessed) how clever filmmakers can use the constraints of the prequel to have fun with a property. My biggest problem is the, I guess nearly irresistible urge to drop elbow-nudge references to the things we know are coming. Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power seems to mostly be devoid of that tendency. Sure, some of the characters in this will have been heard of or seen before but as long as we avoid gags like “I think I’ll name the baby… Legolas”, I’ll probably enjoy this.

As far as I can tell, Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) is our main character and that’s totally fine. She’s not directly involved with the Fellowship of the Ring beyond aiding them in the midst of their quest a few times. She’s a side character to their narratives whom we can infer is powerful and well-respected. Now we get to find out how she became that way by seeing her story and the changing of the landscape around her - the rise of Sauron and etc. - at the same time, a similar approach as Star Wars: Andor (see below). I think this is a smart tactic to choose.

Aside from that, the show seems to have everything you could want from a LotR series: diverse peoples, sword-and-sorcery action, scary monsters, fanciful locations; the whole shebang. I’ll probably check this out, if only to stick it to (direct competitor) Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon.

A quick tangent: How (HOW?) is the preferred hashtag to share on social media for that show #HotD? AND HOW (HOW.) has no one but me decided to run with this? What is happening? We used to be a proper country. Please, every Sunday, join me in telling HBO how you can’t get enough #HotD and wish you didn’t have to wait so long between getting more #HotD.

8th

Pinocchio (dir. Robert Zemekis)
Where: Disney+

Based on the Italian children’s character created in 1883, but clearly a rehash of Disney’s 1940 animated film, this looks - in a word - bad. This phase of Disney’s output really lacks soul. Just kicking the IP can down the road to maintain copyright is, I guess, a necessary evil (?) but the way they promote these things really sucks. This, like Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and etc. before it, is being marketed as “live action” despite being mostly CGI from what I can tell. Would I watch an actual live action Pinocchio? Hell yes! Perform Pinnochio with an actual puppet, and make Jiminy Cricket, Honest John, and etc. Muppets, do a practical effects version of Monstro the whale! The mind reels at the potential beauty and craftsmanship, especially with the money of the Mouse House behind it!!

But this is Robert Zemeckis, lately director of things like that The Witches remake no one saw, and notably for this project: The Polar Express. Like Polar Express, this costars Tom Hanks (as Geppetto) who seems to be the only wholly live character of any import in the trailer. The blue fairy (Cynthia Erivo) is probably “live” from the eyebrows to the chin with a motion capture performance augmented by CGI magic fairy dust - but that’s all just a guess. Even if I am wrong however, that would make this movie maybe, tops, 20% “live action”.

It’s the thing that makes my brain check out of the finales of every big spectacle MCU film (and similar): no matter how much I can intellectually appreciate the work that went into creating this scene out of disparate green screen elements and tons of code, it’s hard to completely dispel the unreality of it, which makes it just as hard to emotionally connect to what’s happening. Conversely, if this version of Pinocchio was a live Hanks in a half animated world à la Who Framed Roger Rabbit, I’d be here for it because actual animation isn’t trying to fit seamlessly into our reality, it creates its own. There’s just something that feels like manipulation in calling a movie “live action” for containing 1 fully human performance amidst dozens of CGI characters. Which turns me off to the whole thing.

9th

American Gigolo (series)
Where: Showtime

This actually looks decent, and seems like a better fit for expansion into a series than I’d initially thought about it. In the 1980 American Gigolo (dir. Paul Schrader), Richard Gere’s high-end male prostitute Julian is being framed for a murder and briefly goes to jail before being rescued by a married woman who sacrifices her reputation and marriage to a senator to give him an alibi. In 2022’s American Gigolo series, Jon Bernthal’s version of Julian has been in jail for 15 years. Supposedly this version of Michelle (Gretchen Mol) did not alibi him out, and it’s implied her senator husband (Leland Orser) is behind framing Julian in retaliation for the relationship with Michelle.

It seems like the series will be about Julian trying to stay alive and out of jail until he can prove he was framed, and rekindle his relationship with Michelle. The cast is a solid mix of character actors that these kinds of series allow to really shine, which is always a plus - in addition to Bernthal, Mol, and Orser, I spotted Rosie O’Donnell and Wayne Brady in the trailers. I like a good noir or neo-noir, and as a fan of casual male nudity in film (just to balance the scales) here’s hoping that Bernthal does full frontal like Gere did in the original.

13th

Clerks III (dir. Kevin Smith)
Where: in theaters

I have nothing but good will for Kevin Smith. As a child of the ‘90s, his films were an entry point that showed me I could potentially make movies! And he’s made a couple really good movies over the years, but if I’m being honest (and it feels almost mean to say this because the dude is so genuinely nice and positive) he hasn’t made anything that I’ve enjoyed since Red State. I was interested in Tusk because it had such an unusual creation but the film was ultimately disappointing.

Now, Smith goes back to his oldest well, again, and takes the aphorism “write what you know” to new lows. Clerks (1994) is the story of two cashiers working their day jobs. Dante (Brian O’Halloran) has relationship troubles, and Randal (Jeff Anderson) is just a shit-stirrer. They have some pals, some regular customers, some misadventures and they talk a lot about pop culture. Cool. In 2006’s Clerks II, Smith revisited these characters to find that Dante still had relationship woes - though he eventually settled down with manager Becky (Rosario Dawson) - and Randal was still a shit-stirrer. Also a donkey show happens.

Which brings us to now. After Randal suffers a near-fatal heart attack (the impetus for which being the one Smith survived in 2018, I imagine) he gets a wild hair up his ass to make something of himself and write and direct a movie. What movie? Well, it looks like it’s basically Clerks.

Almost out of obligation, I sat through 2019’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot which was just an exhausting experience. In that film, which is entirely about film culture being devoid of creativity and endlessly recycling content like a human centipedal ouroboros, which he acknowledges is boring and lazy unless he does it, which we’re supposed to find cute. This feels like that, and as much good will as I have for these characters and actors, I just cannot be bothered to watch him slouch his way through another production. I continue to hope he will find some story inside himself which he feels is worth telling without cloaking itself in several layers of protective irony, but as time goes on and each successive project slumps across the finish line into the public eye, that prospect seems less and less likely.

16th

Confess, Fletch (dir.Greg Mottola)
Where: in theaters/Pay VOD

Heads up: this will get a wider streaming release via Showtime on Oct. 28

I’ve seen Fletch (1985) once or twice and I enjoyed it just fine. Your mileage may vary depending on your tolerance for Chevy Chase’s particular brand of humor, but my read on Fletch as a character was that he was basically that one kid in your class (or maybe it was you) who was probably a bit too smart for the room and acted out because they were bored and not being appropriately challenged (because this country has been in the midst of an educational crisis since before any of us were born). He’s very clever, finds your average person and any run-of-the-mill interactions with them boring, so he makes his own fun. He also had a penchant for disguises.

Jon Hamm has inherited the role of Fletch now (a good call I feel - he has amazing comedic timing and is handsome enough by a huge margin to get away with a lot of shit you or I could never), but the trailer doesn’t really give me a good idea of Fletch as a character. Moments shine through that feel like what I think of as Fletch, but (and this may just be a trailer thing) a lot of gags seem to lean on Fletch being dumb, which just ain’t it.

The plot is appropriately convoluted for a comedic noir: an heiress approaches Fletch about solving the theft of a piece of artwork from her family’s home. He turns her down and she turns up dead, with Fletch being the prime suspect. Shenanigans obviously ensue. There weren’t really any stand-out moments from the trailer necessarily, but I’m willing to err on the side of the humor not translating super well to out-of-context nuggets.

Comedy is hard, especially this kind, but I think I’ll check this out eventually.

Goodnight Mommy (dir.Matt Sobel)
Where: Prime

This remake of a 2014 German film from Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala looks pretty damn cool. Two young brothers go to visit with their mother (Naomi Watts) but arrive a little early, and find her recovering from plastic surgery, with her face still fully bandaged. They begin to suspect she isn’t their mother, but how can they be sure?

This trailer is so menacing! Watts lays down the rules for the kids: No running or shouting in the house, and both her bedroom and the barn are off limits. Suspicious. There’s a gnarly toe skin peeling scene, and some stray audio of Watts shouting for them to repeat “You are my mother!” after her, and generally things seem not great. Also something will be set on fire. Maybe the barn?

I’ll be finding out asap.

Pearl (dir. Ti West)
Where: in theaters

Not a long gap sequel, but rather the shortest gap, this prequel (another one!) to Ti West’s X was filmed concurrently with that film which was only released in March of this year! Wild. When the trailer for X dropped, I was unimpressed. It looked like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but if the van full of kids were all making an amateur porno. I hoped that Ti West, a filmmaker I quite like, would have something else in store that the trailers weren’t properly communicating.

Kinda not, turns out. While I liked X just fine, it lacked something for me. It just felt like pretty standard horror fare: kids visit a farm, run afoul of the landowners, and get murdered. Whatever that missing thing was, I think Pearl has it. Everything about Pearl appealed to me: the Sound of Music/Wizard of Oz vibe (the color saturation, costuming, locations, etc.), the daylight horror of it all, and most importantly Pearl as a character.

Pearl (Mia Goth) just wants to be a star, to escape the confines of her “normal” life, caring for aging and unwell family members. To that end she’ll do anything to get those goals within reach, including bumping the fam off and slaughtering (seems like) quite a lot of livestock. Now, I’m a bit squeamish when it comes to violence against animals, but as I mentioned: I quite like Ti West and trust him as a director so I’m willing to see what’s up.

There’s an odd moment in the trailer where the image of a roast being set on a table is mirrored. I wonder if this is some kind of stylistic quirk of West’s, or is explained in the film itself, OR if this was done in the trailer to hide some aspect of the shot? I find this very interesting. Could be nothing, could be a clue.

Mia Goth gave a great dual performance in X as both a wannabe porn starlet and the aged Pearl, and I’m very interested in the narrative that she and West were just so inspired by their ideas for the character that they HAD to make Pearl ASAP. I’ll check it out, but I’m already more interested than I expected to be.

21st

Andor (series)
Where: Disney+

In 2016 the mouse house entertainment juggernaut released the first of a proposed Star Wars release strategy: with entries in the main storyline scheduled to drop every other year, they felt there was an opportunity to release other ancillary stories in the off years to maintain financial momentum and interest. To that end, Rogue One was released, the story of the courageous and doomed rebels who acquired the plans that lead to the destruction of the original Death Star in 1977’s first Star Wars.

One of these doomed characters was Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) a smuggler who through the pure likeability of Luna as a person managed to feel like anything but the obvious Han Solo surrogate he was written as. I’m honestly happy that Luna will get to play in the Star Wars sandbox again but since he was, as I mentioned, doomed, Andor (the show) is a prequel.

It looks like Andor (the character) was from a more primitive planet, before a ship crashed presumably drawing intergalactic attention. The show will presumably follow his path from average guy to freedom fighter by contrasting his story with that of a young Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) who will eventually become the leader of the rebel alliance by the time of Star Wars (1977). This actually makes the concept of it being a prequel work better for me because it’s *potentially* not just the same beating a dead horse logic following one character, but rather, using them to tell stories about a specific time in the Empire’s reign.

Rogue One worked very well for me as a movie for a few reasons (aside from Diego Luna and the rest of the cast) not the least of which was that there were no force users, it was a purely espionage heist story, and had a by-default fatalistic ending. It just felt different enough from all the other Star Warses, while still obviously being one. The trailer for Andor seems to also be leaning more heavily on civil unrest, political cloak-and-dagger shenanigans, and boots-on-the-ground characters, which is way more interesting to me from a storytelling point of view.

27th

The Munsters (dir. Rob Zombie)
Where: in theaters

I don’t get it, y’all. You tell me that The Munsters are going to be getting rebooted in 2022 for some reason and that the director will be Rob Zombie. Ok. First thing that happens is I see everyone worrying that Rob will Zombify The Munsters. I too shared this concern: Would the Munsters live down the street from an abusive white trash drunkard, his foul-mouthed stripper wife and promiscuous step-daughter? Would The Munsters themselves be Hellbillies? Nobody wants that.

Then, the trailer drops and we all see what looks like the Batman 1966 version of The Munsters: color, goofy costumes, corny gags! The thing was practically begging for a canned laugh track! And everybody is just as- if not somehow more- dismissive of it. I. Don’t. Get. It. What do you people want?

The Munsters is a particular kind of corny inherently. It’s a sitcom monster family living a sitcom life. In comparison to The Addams Family, who are themselves sinister, The Munsters are completely earnest and benign. So what do you want noted musician and horror movie director Robert Zombarelli (not his real name) to do with this set-up that would make you happy?

I actually think it looks cute. The plot centers on Lily (Sheri Moon Zombie) meeting, dating, falling in love with, and marrying Herman (Jeff Daniel Phillips), which her father the Count (Daniel Roebuck) objects to. This will be spooky and corny and cute. And what’s wrong with that?

30th

Hocus Pocus 2 (dir. Ann Fletcher)
Where: Disney+

Have I seen the original Hocus Pocus (1993)? You betcha. Can I tell you really anything about it? …Not so much. I know a young girl in Salem Mass. awakens three witch sisters (Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker respectively) and there’s a dead boy from the witch trials (right?) and a cat. But plot-wise I just cannot remember a damn thing. To that end, this looks like the same exact movie.

The young girl is now sixteen, but other than that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Part of that is due to only a teaser trailer being available, which gives away almost nothing (though there is a neat black flame visual effect). I dunno. I was never super hot on Hocus Pocus, but now, as I actively try to recall the film and cannot, I wonder if I should give it another go? For (unrecalled) old times sake? I guess that’ll help me make up my mind whether to watch this one or not.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism (dir. Damon Thomas)
Where: Prime

Grady Hendrix (author of the novel this is based on) writes great, poppy, scary, funn, inviting horror. People online like to talk about what makes good “gateway horror” - something you could show to someone who is maybe on the younger or potentially more delicate side who is actively interested in getting into horror movies - and, having never seen this nor having read the book (though I have read others from Hendrix) I’m willing to bet My Best Friend’s Exorcism is great gateway horror.

Set in the ‘80s, on the eve of a small group of friends going their separate ways post-high school, they trespass in a spooky cabin with a spooky backstory (“One last adventure?”) and Gretchen (Amiah Miller) gets possessed, leaving Abby (Elsie Fisher) to save her and her soul. There’s some good creepy imagery (spooky animate eyeball in the haunted cabin), some classic possession shtick (demon tongue, fire breath, vomit) and some comedy (after being vomited on: “Hey! This is a Lacoste!”) so I think this will appeal to many, many people preparing for the Spookiest Month.

SPOTLIGHT - Not new, but recommended EOINA-friendly fare.

Sep. 1st

10 Things I Hate About You (dir. Gil Junger) (1999)
Where: Hulu

We covered this one on the Hate Watch/Great Watch podcast back about a year ago and even though I had fond memories of it, I was pleasantly surprised how well it held up (you can listen to the episode HERE, if you’d like). An adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew but set in a late-1990s California high school, the characters are all well-defined and fun, the performances are great - the standouts being Larry Miller and Heath Ledger - and the soundtrack is bop after bop. Silly, fun, and with just the right amount of high school melodrama, it’s a perfect flick for back-to-school season

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There you have it. I hope I’ve brought your attention to something you might’ve otherwise missed. I’ve been seeing a lot of people lamenting that they didn’t know George Miller’s 3000 Years of Longing was coming to theaters. These people obviously don’t read my column; I not only mentioned it, but gave it a positive write-up (I still have yet to see it), so if you *did* see something you find interesting, why not mention it on social media? Raise awareness for projects that might otherwise fly under most folks’ radars?

And hey, as long as you’re on the socials, why not share this column? Maybe recommend it (and MovieJawn in general) to anybody you can? It helps us all out tremendously to get more eyes on the site. And as long as I’m asking for stuff, mayhap you’d like to listen to some episodes of Hate Watch/Great Watch. This month we’ve got episodes on the board game-whodunnit comedy Clue (1985) with many-time guest Krystal Brackett and her boo, first-time guest Sean Brady, and a guestless episode on Austin Powers (wait for it) in: Goldmember (2002) which I had never seen before.

Thank you for reading, thanks for sharing/commenting/etc. if you do, and thanks as always to MJ for hosting and posting. Consider supporting the MovieJawn Patreon if you’re able. You’ll be rewarded handsomely.

Until next time - Long Live the Movies!

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This piece was written for MovieJawn, a fabulous site where you can find tons of other excellent movie-centric writings, a shop where you can subscribe to the quarterly physical zine, or listen to me on the  Hate Watch / Great Watch  podcast! Support the MovieJawn Patreon here!
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"GLORIOUS" (2022)

Glorious (2022)
Directed by Rebekah McKendry
Written by Joshua Hull, David Ian McKendry, Todd Rigney
Starring Ryan Kwanten, J.K. Simmons, Sylvia Grace Crim
Running time 79 minutes
Currently unrated but contains violence, malevolence, existential dread
Glorious is available on Shudder beginning August 18th

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, Podcast Czar

The concept of a Horror/Comedy is to be a hard one for some people to pin down. They seem to want to know what one definitively *is* and *is not*. The problem with that is how easy it is to slip off of that razor thin forward slash separating the two categories. Then you have people arguing that a film isn’t a “Horror/Comedy” as much as a “Comedy with Horror elements” or conversely “a Horror movie that is funny”. The thing is, these are all just degrees of Horror/Comedies. Shaun of the Dead, The Wolf of Snow Hollow, Scream, Idle Hands, Scooby-Doo; they all qualify. The argument for any of them could be made. It’s just a matter of degrees where they fall on the spectrum, and a matter of taste as to what a viewer personally enjoys.

The overall success of a Horror/Comedy in my eyes mostly depends on how well it establishes and maintains its tone. Glorious, I’m happy to say, does a pretty damn good job of maintaining its tone once it has laid the foundation for it, though that takes a minute. The film starts with Bing Crosby and the Bell Sisters singing “Wait ‘Til the Sun Shines, Nellie” which, while idiosyncratic for a film set in the current day about a cosmic horror inhabiting a truck stop bathroom, doesn’t in and of itself scream “comedy”. We then see Wes (Ryan Kwanten) emotionally distraught over an apparent breakup, pulling over at said truckstop and having a brief interaction with a state trooper (Tordy Clark) who serves as the harbinger, saying enigmatic things that make you question Just What Is Going On Here?, before watching Wes get blackout drunk and burning a bunch of stuff in a nearby fire pit.

The film firmly sets its tone the next morning, once Wes uses the men’s room and begins his interaction with “Ghat” (J.K. Simmons). A lot of the humor in Glorious comes from the absurd and when you really think about it, that absurdity is compounded. An ostensibly normal human man having a conversation with a creature so fundamentally alien and unlike mankind that it may as well be a god - there’s nowhere in our world where that meeting doesn’t feel completely insane. However, there are certain places that would make just a hair more sense than others. Places long unventured by mankind, like an abandoned church reclaimed by nature, a cavern in the sea so deep it has never seen sunlight, or Quibi headquarters. The fact that Glorious’ meeting takes place in adjoining stalls of a rest stop men’s room makes all the forthcoming conversations about cosmic destiny and the fate of mankind even more ridiculous.

Just as none of us can decide where and when we are born into the world, Ghat has no control over where he has begun to manifest a physical form. He also has no say in his nature: he is fated to destroy everything; was created specifically for the job. Of course, there may be a way for Wes to prevent it, or else why would they be talking? On top of that, Wes has to wrap his head around this while recovering from a hangover on the heels of a pretty serious seeming breakup. It’s not an enviable position, and Ryan Kwanten projects just how miserable and out of his depth Wes is at any given time. He’s irritable, desperate, afraid, scheming, and hurt all while being given a perverted version of the hero’s quest ultimatum in order to save the world.

J.K. Simmons has shown across pretty much his entire storied career that he can handle different tones. He can be stern, cold, mean, or downright evil just as easily as he can be sympathetic, despondent, supportive, or genuinely loving. He draws on all these emotional states in a performance that is purely vocal here, as it would break Wes’ - and likely our - brains to look upon Ghat’s form in our world. And I have to say: J.K. Simmons makes a great eldritch deity. He’s surprisingly warm and friendly for an unknowable beast destined to smite all of existence.

Working with a slim budget, especially when tackling a concept that could lend itself to a huge one, is always going to be a challenge. Glorious is helped somewhat by its single main location, but I’m sure that was an additional challenge for director Rebekah McKendry. She makes the most of it with interesting visual asides that break up the monotony of the setting: shots focusing on details present in the bathroom like grimy surfaces, a cracked mirror, and later, blood on the tiles. These visual breathers when combined with the occasional flashback, vision, and even animated sequence (!!!) help keep viewers invested in what mostly boils down to a dialogue-heavy two-hander.

Glorious kept me guessing, kept me off-base, and kept me smiling for its entire (relatively short) runtime. It builds to a very intense climax, both emotionally and viscerally, but in a way that feels inevitable, and not like a cheap bid for shock value. Along the way it plants seeds in your mind that you’ll be turning over in your head afterwards, all while falling firmly on the much debated spectrum of Horror/Comedy. Exactly where it falls is up to you.

Below I’ve included my version of a popular iceberg meme to help give you some idea of what I view as the spectrum of the Horror/Comedy genre. I encourage you to make your own! It’s fun!*

*Note to self: Remove this line if it is not, in fact, fun to make.

Glorious is available on Shudder beginning August 18th

"BULLET TRAIN" (2022)

Bullet Train (2022)
Dir. David Leitch
Written by Zak Olkewicz, based on a novel by Kôtarô Isawa
Starring Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, (Michael Shannon)
Running time 2 hours, 6 minutes
Rated R for bloody violence, pervasive language
In theaters August 5th

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, Podcast Czar

Boy howdy did I have a good time with Bullet Train! While it’s not going to leave any lasting emotional imprint on you, or win accolades for its stunt work or choreography, David Leitch’s latest is a big, candy colored actioner with hit after hit of instant gratification, like pumping dollar after dollar into a gachapon machine. It does some really interesting things with music, and running gags and in its best moments genuinely approaches the avant-garde. BUT. Fair warning (and my biggest point of criticism) There’s not enough Michael Shannon. Not by damn sight.

Brad Pitt plays a mercenary returning to the job after some time off while he’s been seeing a therapist and generally trying to self-actualize past his belief that he is cursed with unending bad luck. To that end, his handler has christened him Ladybug as his new codename, drawing on the belief that Ladybugs are lucky. He’s non-violent and only took this particular job because A) it’s supposed to a basic Grab-The-Briefcase-And-Leave job, and B) the other guy called out sick.

Unfortunately for him, the briefcase is located on the titular bullet train traveling to Kyoto which is positively bursting with other, much less pacifistic mercenaries. As they make themselves known to the audience, and/or Ladybug, the film jumps around in time explaining how and why they’re all unknowingly convening on this train. Some are working, some are seeking revenge. The twins, Lemon and Tangerine (Brian Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor-Johnson respectively) are escorting the son of a crime boss, recently rescued (by them) from kidnappers. The briefcase Ladybug is after was the ransom money, but he doesn’t exactly know that.

Also on the train is Kimura (Andrew Koji), a father whose son was pushed from the roof of a department store. He was lured to the train by the person responsible, who intends to use Kimura as a weapon against the same crime boss whose son is now on board. This crime boss is Michael Shannon, a Russian who rose through the ranks of a Japanese crime family due to his sheer brutality, despite his outsider status. His name is White Death, and his shadow looms large over the entire film but, despite getting a bunch of his backstory early on, Bullet Train is disappointingly light on Shannon.

Michael Shannon, as the folks at the bus stop are tired of hearing me say, is one of our greatest living actors. He chooses projects sparingly, so any time he shows up in something, I crave a full film’s worth of the man some call “Big Chicago”. By that metric Premium Rush, The Shape of Water, and Take Shelter are all great Michael Shannon movies while Bullet Train is a great movie with a Michael Shannon deficiency. And hey, I get it: White Death is a great, extremely fun role to see Shannon play and the story is structured in such a way that he shows up the perfect amount for the character. It’s also just not the right amount of Mike Shannon. Both of these things can be true.

The flick isn’t lacking in characters by any means, and they’re of the big, colorful variety that all but demand trading cards. As opposed to something like Atomic Blonde (also directed by David Leitch) where the characters are a little more grounded in a reality, everyone in Bullet Train could almost have wandered out of the world of The Venture Bros. The Wolf (Bad Bunny, né Benito A Martínez Ocasio) for example, is a Mexican knife pervert still wearing the bloodstained suit from his wedding, seeking revenge on the persons responsible for the death of not only his wife-to-be, but the entire wedding party. He has about ten minutes total screen time, yet I have a good handle on his character and motivations. There doesn’t need to be any more of him in the movie than there is, but he’s such a fun character that I wouldn’t have minded if there was.

The same goes for pretty much all the characters. Some get more development and screen time than others, but only one feels underserved - Zazie Beetz as The Hornet. She serves more as a plot device than a character which would be a problem in any case but here, it’s doubly so for wasting Beetz, though I presume that her cameo is more of a favor to David Leitch who directed her in Deadpool 2.

There’s a certain visual flair to Bullet Train that really works. It’s not something wholly original, it’s just being done here better than in a number of similar films that attempt it: the totemizaton of objects. Certain items become tied to the characters and can be tracked throughout numerous interactions and fight scenes so much so that, late in the film, there’s a ten second break where we follow the adventures of a particular inanimate object from its boarding the train to the then-current moment. It’s a sequence that really shines and feels like something you’d expect from more narratively experimental directors like Daniels, for example. And somehow, despite happening in the middle of a semi-climactic battle, it doesn’t do anything to upset the flow of the movie or the dramatic build of the scene.

If there’s one thing that I can say Bullet Train did better than most any other film I’ve seen this year, it’s creating pleasantly modular action sequences. In an era where big, messy, sprawling (heavily CGI) fights are the soup du jour, Bullet Train relies on clever choreography and contained spaces. For example, Ladybug and Lemon have a fight where they never leave the booth they’re sitting in on the train’s quiet car, but it’s fun, and inventive, and the action is easy to follow and unpredictable. The geometry of the train lends itself perfectly to choreographic reinvention and creative camera work.

Perhaps it’s a reaction to the gravity of the last few years, but 2022 has already had so many Big Fun movies released. With that as a barometer, Bullet Train fits nicely alongside things like Everything Everywhere All at Once, RRR, The Princess, The Lost City, and even Elvis. Regardless of their differing aims as far as meaning, you’ll find yourself smiling and engaged the entire time. In execution, Bullet Train comes off somewhere between James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (2021) and any of John Woo’s ‘90s output (Face/Off, Broken Arrow, etc.). I’m a physical media supporter, so when I tell you I can’t wait to own a copy of this, I hope you know how much I mean it.

Bullet Train is in theaters Friday, August 5th

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN, Vol. 42 - August 2022

Everything Old Is New Again
Vol. 42 - August, 2022

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, Podcast Czar

Howdy everyone, and welcome to Everything Old Is New Again, my monthly column covering Adaptations, Remakes, and Legacy Sequels coming to screens great and small! This month we’ve got a few streaming series, another attempt to make the Predator “a thing” again, and my sweet Satan - so many prequels. Ugh.

It’s oppressively hot here in Philadelphia, so there’s no better time to stay indoors with icy drinks and check out a new show, or retreat to the air conditioned sanctuary of a darkened theater - but please do so safely as we’re not even close to out of the pandemic woods yet - and spend the afternoon taking in a film (or two). In this column, I round up an assortment of appropriate projects, check out their available trailers, and try to give a run down of my thoughts on them. What are they based on? Do they look interesting? Will I see them?

Find out below! I’ll also include a SPOTLIGHT near the bottom on some films or series that aren’t necessarily new but do meet EOINA criteria and will be streaming this month, in case you haven’t seen ‘em.

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PREMIERES
New content coming to theaters and streamers new you!

August 5th

Bullet Train (dir. David Leitch)
Where: in theaters

Based on the novel Maria Beetle by Kôtarô Isaka, it was a done deal that I’d want to see this because: Michael Shannon is in it. True, he’s not the lead. That would be Mr. Brad Pitt playing a former mercenary (in a bucket hat!) returning to the job with a new, non-lethal outlook on life: “If you put peace out into the world, you get peace back”. Of course, despite this being a seemingly easy job for his return - retrieving a briefcase from the titular bullet train - things quickly spiral out of control when a whole rogue’s gallery of also mercenaries seem just as dead-set on collecting the case. Joey King, Karen Fukuhara, Zazie Beetz, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Logan Lerman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Brian Tyree Henry, Masi Oka, and Bad Bunny all seem to be playing various contract killers with codenames based around mostly bugs and fruit, with Sandra Bullock as the voice in Pitt’s ear, his “guy in the chair”, the Maria Beetle of the film’s source novel’s title.

And then there’s Our Boy, Mike Shannon. “Big Chicago” some call him, or “One of our best living actors”. All I know is: his character is named White Death, he is covered in Yakuza style tattoos, he wields a katana, and he’s barely shown in the trailer. This could either be good or bad: either they’re burying him in the edit so as to not give away that he’s the Big Bad -OR- he gets taken down without much fanfare, perhaps in the style of the flashy swordsman unceremoniously shot in the market in Raiders of the Lost Ark (allegedly because Harrison Ford had food poisoning, but I digress). Either way, If You Put Michael Shannon In Your Film, I Will See It. On top of all that, this is very colorful, looks silly (and vaguely surreal) and action packed, and overall feels like a good time.

Note: I will be covering this for MovieJawn, so keep an eye out for that if it hasn’t dropped already.

The Sandman (series)
Where: Netflix

Based on the classic comic books series from DC’s alternative imprint Vertigo, this original series from netflix will run for 2 seasons, fail to “make Stranger Things numbers” and be canceled leaving a sub-Stranger Things amount of fans flabbergasted in its wake.

And that’s fine. It’s fine. Because you know what? There’s no way any adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s magnum opus could have the effect that reading the thing would. I know this. I’m not precious about things like that, but the important legacy of The Sandman isn’t what happens in the story, it’s how all of it makes you feel.

It’s entirely possible that this series, which will undoubtedly stray from the source material, as it should, will be able to evoke similar feelings in a whole new swath of people, but for me personally - I’m fine. I’ll give it a spin, and will most likely enjoy it, but with the dusty, washed out visuals I’m guessing it won’t grab me quite the way I want it to and I’ll just have to go visit my mom’s to pick up my collection and re-read them. And that’ll be magical.

8th

Prey (dir. Dan Trachtenberg)
Where: Hulu

This latest attempt to keep the Predator franchise in folks’ minds comes from the director of 10 Cloverfield Lane, a modern masterwork of tension AND franchise structure (that has somehow fallen by the wayside, I feel?) which is a good sign, right? That combined with the unique take on what could be thought of as “the traditional Predator narrative” could mean we’re in for something really fun! And this *does* look fun!

A Native American woman (Amber Midthunder) sets out to prove she can hunt as well as anyone, and encounters the Predator, a huge space alien with advanced technology that allows it to become invisible (well, mostly), track heat signatures, shoot lasers, and (famously, climactically) self destruct when necessary. As the text in the trailer says, Predators “Live to Hunt” while Naru (Midthunder) and her tribe “Hunt to Live”, so it appears that they all unite to hunt down this intergalactic menace and kill it.

Why, though? That’s the question. Traditionally the Predators being the intergalactic big game hunters they are, come to Earth for a challenge: a bunch of soldiers in a jungle, or one of the guys from Lethal Weapon in New York. Occasionally they even abduct folks from Earth and take them somewhere else to hunt them, like when you kidnap a homeless man and then let him loose on your property with a 20 minute head start and the promise that if he makes it to sun up, you’ll let him go free. What’s that? You don’t have The Most Dangerous Game parties? Hm. Your loss. Before you ask - no, you’re not invited to mine.

10th

Locke & Key (series)
Where: Netflix

The third season of Netflix’s honestly quite engrossing adaptation of the Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez comic series looks… I mean it looks very good, but it’s been a little while since I’ve watched L&K so, I’ve gotta be honest with you, I completely forget where we left things. Was Kevin Durand in the last season? I don’t recall Kevin Durand.

The story follows a troubled family and their lineage involving a mysterious house and an array of magical keys found within. This is the final season of the series and it looks like we’re primarily getting the history of the keys and/or the house and/or the family - or more likely we’ll see how all of those things are intertwined. If the series wraps up anything like the books, expect a bittersweet ending.

I’m very excited. I’ve really enjoyed Locke & Key and can’t wait to see how the show ties things up. And I’ll definitely be rewatching some episodes as a refresher first.

I Am Groot (series)
Where: Disney+

In the Marvel MCU films, Groot is the sentient tree-creature alien voiced by Vin Diesel that pals around with the Guardians of the Galaxy. In the first GotG flick, he sacrificed himself to save the rest only to reveal that: being some kind of plant alien, he didn’t exactly “die”, and we were collectively gifted Baby Groot. At some point between movies he matured somewhat into a sullen, moody teenager who had to relearn to be a team player. Which he did (spoilers).

This series seems to take place in that gap space between pocket-sized Baby Groot, a pouty teenage jerkoff Groot. There aren’t any proper trailers for this yet but the only footage I think is new to this project is of Baby Groot in a car driven by a lady and they are both being pursued by some kind of technological drone things that look like- remember when the iMac came in different candy colors in the ‘90s? The orange one of those.

I’ve seen some things saying this is a short and NOT a series, but I’m also seeing a series listing. It could be that both things are true and the series and short are both named after Groot’s catchphrase. Either way, I guess we’ll see where this falls on the “Fun” v “Required” scale that the MCU’s side projects have necessitated.

12th

A League of Their Own (series)
Where: Amazon Prime

I love Penny Marshall’s 1992 film upon which this series is based. It’s a masterpiece. The story of the WWII era All-American women’s baseball league, told via the trials and tribulations of the Rockford Peaches, it’s also about sisterhood (biological and otherwise), friendship, determination, and love. The storytelling, characters, performances, and most magically the editing are all top notch. It should feel manipulative in how it vascillates from tear jerking to rib tickling, but it doesn’t. It works. I’m very excited for it to get a full series treatment.

The teasers don’t offer a ton of details, but one thing I’m quite glad to see is that it looks like the series is really elaborating on moments from the movie. Notably, there’s a scene in the original where a ball rolls to the feet of a black woman watching the Peaches practice (baseball was still segregated at that time) and when she throws it back, the pitch has some real heat on it. It’s the movie acknowledging that, while it is spotlighting women it wasn’t spotlighting *all* women.

In the teaser there are a few brief shots of Chanté Adams in a non-Peaches uniform, and one of her sharing a beer with Abbi Jacobson (in a Peaches uniform) so the series might be following more than one team, or perhaps Jacobson’s and Adams’ teams will play against each other. Either way, a wider spotlight is a welcome addition. I can’t wait to watch this.

17th

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (series)
Where: Disney+

She-Hulk is the Hulk’s cousin. In the comics, she was injured in an attempted mob hit and needed an emergency blood transfusion, which Hulk could provide… BUT AT WHAT COST? Well, I’m glad you asked: after recovering (faster than usual, if I remember correctly) Jennifer Walters also can turn into a Hulk, but like, a sexy lady Hulk. In the mid-2000s, writer Dan Slott reintroduced She-Hulk as a top lawyer in the Superhuman Law department of a prestigious law firm who had to learn, essentially, proper work/life balance (but also Jen/Shulk balance). The tone of that series was funnier, more self-aware and comics-literate than the usual Marvel fair and featured a character actively embracing her sex appeal

That seems to be the approach this MCU spin-off is taking: a super hero-y twist on the half hour legal drama, with Jen taking on a new case each episode. There’s a car accident in the trailer, but it’s not clear if this is the event that necessitates a blood transfusion or if she comes by her She-Hulk powers through some other means.

There are a bunch of quick cut shots of characters scattered throughout the trailer including Frog Man (who has a suit that allows him to jump quite high), Titania played by Jameela Jamil (who has powers that rival She-Hulk but come from alien science/magic), the return of Abomination played by Tim Roth (an also giant brute who appeared in the original Hulk MCU movie in 2008), and a few allusions to the Wrecking Crew (a group of super criminals who used to work construction and utilize those types of tools - wrecking ball, crowbar, etc - for crime). This could be not only a lot of fun, and feature a sexually empowered character in the largely sexless MCU, but a great way to backdoor pilot a bunch of characters to expand the universe a little bit.

19th

Orphan: First Kill (dir. William Brent Bell)
Where: in theaters, Paramount+ (pay tier)

Based on the 2009 film Orphan from (more recently) Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra, this prequel (cuz as of the end of the original, she dead) follows a previous, murderous misadventure starring Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman - returning to the role). If you haven’t seen Orphan I recommend it, but the gist of it is that Esther is not quite the sweet little girl that her adoptive family thinks.

This is a problem with making a prequel to a perfect little one-off horror movie: you can’t do anything too radical with the character because she has to end up exactly where she started the original flick and to that end, they seem to be treading exactly the same ground here as in the original.

From what I can gather, four years ago a little girl named Esther disappeared. She returns, but needs to reacclimate to her family. “Four years is a long time” some child psychologist or another says, which will be used to explain away all her weird behavior for at least the first ⅔ of the film. But slowly the family realize something’s up: “Esther” (read: definitely not actually Esther) is much better at art than she oughta be, and she’s making green smoothies for her mom (Julia Stiles) that are laced with something or other. Somebody definitely knows this girl is Wrong, so there’s someone doing a fingerprint analysis and yadda yadda yadda

I’m torn on this one. In general, prequels rarely do it for me because they have a foregone conclusion which can dampen tension, but I am staunchly in favor of new horror franchises. I’ve previously gone to bat for the long-gap sequel to The Boy (which shares director Willaim Brent Bell with First Kill) with this same logic: Give me long term horror characters à la Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, etc., but with The Boy, Ma, The Empty Man, and sure Esther from Orphan, why not. I just don’t know if a prequel is the best idea.

The filmmakers seem to be playing Esther’s greatest hits a little bit, notably aping a reveal from the first Orphan involving her disguising her more deranged artwork by painting in black light reactive paint that is otherwise invisible, which leads to a reveal that works just fine in the first movie. But if the black light paint trick gets discovered in First Kill, why would she do it again later on? It would make more sense for her to have hidden these drawings in a different manner (even as simple as just drawing on the back of her more family friendly art, or drawing on a separate sheet of paper and pinning it up behind the cutesy stuff) which, upon getting found out would necessitate her coming up with a new strategy.

Overall I’m a little lukewarm on this conceptually, but I have an affection for Esther as a character (again, in the same way I feel about someone like Jason Voorhees) and the presence of William Brent Bell is notable to me. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Orphan: First Kill has half the wild left turns that Brahms: The Boy 2 did, which would truly be something.

21st

House of the Dragon (series)
Where: HBO

In what can’t be a coincidence, this Game of Thrones spin off prequel series drops a few short weeks before Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel series. It’s the battle of who can make me care less! Seriously, and not to yuck anyone’s yum but I just find it hard to give a damn about a lot of prequel things (see above). If the backstory to Game of Thrones was so interesting that it deserved adaptation, then that’s where the adaptations should have started. Same goes for LotR. Same went for Star Wars, but - like Star Wars - I’m sure this series will be some folks’ jumping on points for getting into GoT, and as such it’ll be someone’s favorite thing for opening the door for them. I’m not saying it’s never a good idea, but rarely.

On top of that, since the San Diego Comic Thing is happening, all the creators for these various films/series are giving interviews and someone attached to HotD dropped a doozy the other day. Apparently this series will be “dialing back” on the sexuality, BUT NOT on the sexual assault, which whomever it was said shouldn’t be shied away from. That’s a fucking disgusting decision and honestly my already somewhat low interest in this project is now fully in the toilet. Obviously “dialing back” doesn’t mean showing none, but even if one of every five instances of sexuality is consensual, that means the other four aren’t. And there’s no puritanical, prudish hand-wringing over that?

Who is this series aimed at? What is the target audience that can mentally and emotionally handle depictions of sexual assault but not of consensual sex? And that’s not even to mention the general swords-and-such violence. Who do they think they’re protecting by only showing the worst aspects of entertainment? Also, as the show goes on, wouldn’t this edict be a constraint upon the writers as well?

Entertainments like this are supposed to be an escape from the problems of the larger world, but when I can see the creators catering to the priggish moralistic pearl-clutching of that world, it stops being an escape and starts feeling like a trap.

It is fully possible that this quote was taken out of context or otherwise manipulated (I was not privy to the actual interview, just selective recounting of talking points) or that it could be walked back by the time this column drops. They might say “We’ve heard your disappointment, and luckily we happened to film a bunch of really hot consensual sex scenes before that decree came down, so we edited them back into the series! Huzzah! Three cheers for consent!”. In that case I might be slightly more interested, but as of now, I’d rather watch a show where people enjoy fucking.

I hope there’s a lot of steamy lovemaking in that Lord of the Rings series. And as long as I’m on my sexual soapbox (sexual sopabox - new band name, called it): There should be more cunnilingus in entertainment. Not explicit, or at least not any more explicit than your average blowjob scene, but: c’mon. Don’t be a killjoy.

31st

Three Thousand Years of Longing (dir. George Miller)
Where: In theaters

Based on the short story The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A.S. Byatt, this looks w-i-l-d! The story of a lonely woman (Tilda Swinton) who brings a trinket home from a trip to Istanbul and accidentally releases a djinn (Idris Elba - now with elf ears!) who, wouldn’t ya know it, offers her three wishes. But Tilda’s no dummy. She knows how these things tend to go, saying “There’s no story about wishing that isn’t a cautionary tale.”

The majority of the trailer is the two of them in bathrobes in what is presumably her apartment, though hilariously when he is first freed, the djinn is enormous and has to resize down to almost-normal human scale (he still towers over Tilda). There’s a lot of imagery from, if I had to guess, his past? Maybe his djinn origin story (oridjinn story?) or possibly he’s telling her fables? I would assume they were from some wish-related misadventure she goes on but I couldn’t catch Tilda in any of those clips, which are full of mystical, magical imagery. There’s a man hanging upside down at the end of a corridor whose head falls off and becomes a weird spidery critter, there’s a giant bird (a roc I would guess), and some infinite seeming tower? It looks rad!

The combination of what is undoubtedly a love story starring two fantastic actors, directed by the great George Miller (director of your assorted Mads Max) and with the kind of scope and visuals that really appeals to the D&D nerd inside of me, this one is a foregone conclusion. I cannot wait for this!

SPOTLIGHT
Older stuff, but still EOINA friendly material.

August 1st

The Devil Wears Prada (dir. David Frankel)
Where: Hulu

This flick, based on the 2003 novel from Lauren Weisberger about an aspiring fashionista (Anne Hathaway) struggling to Have It All while working for a real beast (Meryl Streep) in NYC has no right to be as crowd-pleasing as it is. I’m not usually interesting in the fashion world, or NYC really, but watching soft-hearted Hathaway have to find the steel inside of her to stand up for herself, as well as watching Meryl chew scenery like the world’s most beautiful termite, not to mention the occasional pitch perfect interjection from Stanley Tucci; it all just works. It’s absorbing, engaging, funny, sweet, and a joy to watch. If you haven’t seen it - check it out. If you have - aren’t you due to rewatch it?

19th

Uncharted (dir. Ruben Fleischer)
Where: Netflix

This adaptation of the quadrilogy of Indiana Jones-esque treasure hunting video games from Nuaghty Dog Studios came out earlier this year and I’ll be honest: I haven’t seen it. I love the games (the three that I’ve played) but think Tom Holland of current Spider-Man fame is not a great casting choice for the lead role of adventurer Nathan Drake. Of course, his casting was more motivated by potential box office numbers and franchisability than character, so: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Regardless, I’m curious to actually see this one, and hope that at least it’ll be big, dumb fun watching Holland pal around with costar Mark Wahlberg, solving ancient puzzles, avoiding a primordial traps, and seeking treasures of yore! Also Antonio Banderas is in it? How bad could that be? Probably kinda bad maybe.

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This was a pretty well-packed month, but as I mentioned above: in this weather I’m glad for the wealth of things to keep me entertained that don’t require actively being outside. Thanks for reading, and thanks as always to MovieJawn for hosting and posting. If you’d like some more from me, you can find my various articles on MJ of course, but I also cohost the Hate Watch/Great Watch podcast with my fellow Jawnie and partner Allison Yakulis. This month we’ve got an episode on Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) with special guest my mom, Lynette Notte, where we discuss aliens and similar conspiracies. A lot. We’ve also got a special episode that drops on Allison’s birthday! She chose to discuss one of her favorite pictures, the 2016 feature debut from Daniels (of Everything Everywhere All At Once fame) Swiss Army Man, and invited our frequent guest Bryan Bierman on for the chat!

Until next time - Long Live the Movies! 

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN, Vol. 41 - July 2022

Everything Old Is New Again
Vol. 41 - July 2022

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, Podcast Czar

Howdy everyone. I had originally written a different introductory paragraph but decided to scrap it in light of recent events so that I can - unfortunately once again - offer my condolences to anyone and everyone affected by the state of the country. I try to walk a line between not being preachy or condescending while still standing for what I believe in and, in what should not be a polarizing statement at all, I believe in human rights. It’s that simple.

But I am not here to bum you out (any further), in fact I’d like to do the opposite! My personal opinion is that, when things are awful and you feel like doing nothing, you should try to make something that could bring a little joy into the lives of someone else, someone who might be feeling like you are. So I keep putting out these silly columns in the hopes of giving y’all something fun to read, and maybe bring your attention to a movie or show you might not have been aware of, and maybe THAT will bring you some joy. To that end:

Hello again and welcome to Everything Old Is New Again, my monthly column where I search out all the entertainments coming to screens big and small in the coming month and focus on those that are based on some previous intellectual property or another. This means Remakes of older films, Adaptations of books/comics/etc., and Legacy Sequels that pick up where a movie or franchise left off a while ago. Also down at the bottom I’ll have a Spotlight for something that meets EOINA criteria but is available at home if like me, you’re not comfortable to be back in theaters just yet.

Alright? Let’s do it to it.

PREMIERES
Brand spankin’ new and awaiting your attention

July 1st

Minions: The Rise of Gru (dir. Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson, Jonathan del Val)
Where: in theaters

Let’s talk about things that everybody knows for a moment. The minions first appeared in 2010’s Despicable Me as henchmen in the service of Gru, a bumbling megalomaniac voiced by Steve Carell. Much like Nuprin, they were little, yellow, and different. Unlike Nuprin however the minions took the pop cultural landscape by storm and the world was never the same I guess. People seem to love the little gibberish-speaking, occasionally buttock-bearing creaturoids, enough to warrant their returns in two Despicables Me follow ups in 2013 & 2017, and their own spin-off in 2015 which explains their very odd origins. Specifically the fact that they’ve always existed alongside “normal” humans, for some reason always finding the most evil of masters to serve.

Which brings us to something everyone may not know: the sequel to the Minions spin-off is coming out July 1st! This entry, subtitled The Rise of Gru will apparently answer the question that we’ve all been just frothing at the mouth to ask: What were the early misadventures of Gru and the minions like? Well if the trailers I’ve seen are any indication (and they aren’t always, let’s face it) they look actually pretty fun. Fart bombing packed movie theaters in the ‘70s, using cheez-whiz guns, etc. Then young Gru, who the minions refer to as “mini boss” - showcasing a metatextual awareness that borders on a truly mind-shattering understanding of their place in the world - is kidnapped by a group of I’m guessing also villains for some reason and the minions must learn karate to save him. There’s shenanigans, animal transformations, training montages, and kaiju so all in all I’m probably solidly on board for this. I’ve always had a good time with the Despicable Mes even if all the sequels and spin-offs have left very little lasting impression on my life (more like Disposable Me, amirite?)

My big qualm with these trailers is the use of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” - or more accurately a remix of it - a music choice that is not only bafflingly anachronistic, but also feels …wrong? That song was written for and made famous via Eight Mile. It is specifically tied to that film. So unless you’re parodying or referencing it, you shouldn’t use that song. They might as well have scored the trailer to the song Eminem did for Venom, the lyrics of which as far as I recall are “Venom… ren-ren-ren-ren-renom” and then something about “denim”. But I digress.

Now very quickly let me tell you something that almost no one knows about: The secret origins of the minions! They were obviously inspired by one single moment in Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho which finds infamous character actor Udo Kier wearing big goofy goggles and riding a cyclopic yellow motorcycle in the desert. Here I present to you the genesis for minionkind:

Is this a coincidence? A mere echoing of form and design that would, on a long enough timeline, all but HAVE to reemerge? Maybe. Or maybe Udo Kier is the alpha minion; the omega minion. Cut me a check, Universal/Illumination!

8th

Thor Love & Thunder (dir. Taika Waititi)
Where: in theaters

Picking up where we last left him, Thor has shed his Avengers Endgame weight (a second training montage!) and found that his once kinda-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is now actually Thor, or at least she’s the current wielder of the mighty magical hammer Mjolnir and therefore now possesses all of its powers and responsibilities. Weird timing because who should show up but some yassified Uncle Fester named Gorr (Christian Bale) who’s got a grudge against all gods (in the comics, his sobriquet is “the God Butcher”) and is going to endeavor to wipe them all out.

Marvel Comics have always had an odd, anything goes approach to theologies, with most being explained as “they were aliens who primitive humans worshiped and called gods” so it’s not surprising to me to see that other pantheons of space-gods will be showing up. Notably, Zeus as played by Russell Crowe. Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie and a bunch of the Guardians of the Galaxy also seem to be appearing. This God Butcher storyline comes from a comparatively recent run of the Thor comics that was pretty well received but will obviously have to be handled a little differently in the movie for brevity of both time and content.

I like Taika Waititi. He seems like a decent guy, he’s a snappy dresser, he stands up for marginalized people, and he makes fun movies. He kind of single handedly revived the MCU’s Thor franchise after the floundering of The Dark World by injecting color and humor into things (and not just the snarky, tryhard cleverness that has become Marvel’s house style). Therefore I look forward to seeing Love and Thunder.

13th

What We Do In the Shadows: Season 4 (series)
Where: Hulu

Returning for its fourth season, What We Do in the Shadows promises to somehow be even crazier than in previous seasons. This show, based on the 2014 faux documentary horror comedy from Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, has only gotten more complex and it builds on centuries of (often conflicting) vampire lore, while also creating its own. That’s not a bad thing by the way, because of the show’s breezy tone and deft hand at catching the audience up (the faux documentary format allows for characters to directly address the camera, which helps).

This season promises horndog Laszlo (Matt Berry) attempting to raise the now toddler-aged energy vampire Colin Robinson (played by Mark Proksch as an adult, and maybe also by him as this kid?) and make him “the most interesting adult there has ever been”, which is just patently not how it works for energy vampires. Meanwhile Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), who I believe is still head of the vampire council (?), opens a nightclub in an attempt to lure wealthy humans to feed on because “(they) are like veal; conceptually repulsive but so buttery on my tongue”, and warrior/wife-guy Nandor (Kayvan Novak) is on his quest to find a new wife that includes magically resurrecting his previous 37 wives, aided by his manservant and default bff, the great vampire killer Guillermo (Harvey Guillén).

This is a favorite show of my house, Mt. Mausoleum. We will be watching.

15th

Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank (dir. Mark Koetsier, Rob Minkoff, Chris Bailey)
Where: in theaters

Though this computer animated samurai tale starring anthropomorphic animals voiced by some of Hollywoo’s most notable voices isn’t directly adapting any one thing, it further underlines the connection between the so called far east and wild west by being inspired by Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles! That’s right. Westerns have always shared a lot of DNA with tales of samurai or ronin - they’re both about dangerous warriors, sometimes loners, who have strict moral codes and are guided by honor, usually in contrast to the villains of their tales, who hunger for power and money.

But it’s still w-i-l-d that Brooks’ 1974 parody of the western genre is the basis for this story about a wimpy dog (Hank, voiced by Michael Cera) who must train (a THIRD training montage!) with a once great samurai (Samuel L. Jackson) to defend his town against bad dogs. It brings to mind (MY mind, anyway) the problem of video game movies. The draw of a game like Tomb Raider was that it was LIKE Indiana Jones, but you could play it at home, the same way Mortal Kombat was similar to something like Bloodsport. But then when you try and translate these things back to the format that inspired them, they just feel trite. I guess we’ll see how universal the tropes and clichés of film westerns are when applied through the milieu of samurai story AND animated talking animal farce. Well, somebody will see, but I’m not personally very excited for this beyond the oddity of its origins.

Where the Crawdads Sing (dir. Olivia Newman)
Where: in theaters

Though I’ve never read Delia Owens’ 2018 novel on which this film is based, it was covered on a special bonus episode of the Disney Deviants podcast, which I’d be remiss not to mention (I *am* podcast czar afterall). The story follows Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones) a.k.a. The Marsh Girl who, as some narration from David Strathairn informs us, was abandoned by her family and lived alone in the marsh, shunned by the local non-marsh townies. Despite this, she grows up to be very clean and pretty with all her teeth and whatnot and she even has a potential romance with some generic handsome guy. BUT. A murder happens in the swamps and she’s to blame, since she’s a weirdo outsider.

This looks perfectly fine. I love the uncommon setting for this kind of thing; it looks like it’s set mostly in and around the actual swamp, as opposed to being swamp-adjacent and the direction/cinematography in the trailer is very lovely, so if you see this at least it’ll be nice to look at if nothing else. The trailer has a song called “Carolina” playing throughout that, despite sounding like Lana Del Rey to me is apparently a brand new track from Taylor Swift. I’m bookmarking this flick mentally and eagerly await its arrival on a streaming platform, because while I think I’ll enjoy this one, it’s not enough for me to actively seek it out.

Also, I am disappointed to announce that there does not seem to be a training montage of any kind (in that Kya seems to learn how to do stuff on her own, without the aid of a mentor) thus breaking the streak (WWDIS got a pass because it’s a series).

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris (dir. Anthony Fabian)
Where: in theaters

Y’know what I hate in a movie trailer? When a character makes a joke that’s (probably) funnier in the context of whatever scene it’s in, and then the trailer editor cuts to characters laughing in some completely different scene. It’s fucking insulting. As though whoever has final trailer approval thought “if we don’t show people laughing, the audience won’t know it’s ‘funny’”. It’s the same theory as those sitcoms that use pre-recorded laugh tracks and fuck them too.

That’s how the Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris trailer (based on the 1958 novel by Paul Gallico) ends, with the titular cleaning woman from London (played by Lesley Manville) saying that Mr. Dior (of the Dior clothing empire) “looks like (her) milkman”. Presumably whoever had final say on the trailer thought “We better add laughs or else they’ll think that’s a dramatic reveal?” as though we’d think that maybe there would be a third act reveal that Christian Dior (again - French fashion designer) was moonlighting as a milkman in London, a distance of 520+ miles. Because we’re idiots?

Anyway, the plot of this movie is essentially that episode of Simpsons where Marge finds a Chanel suit on a crazy discount and her chic look helps get her and her family invited into Springfield high society. Mrs. Harris (Manville) is a cleaning woman in London during WWII patiently awaiting the return of her husband from the war. One of her patrons has a beautiful and very expensive Dior dress which ignites a fanaticism in Mrs. Harris, so when it is revealed that her husband had died and that she should have been notified long ago, and been collecting her war widow benefits, she decides to use the money (a gift, she feels, from her beloved dead husband) to go to Paris and buy a Dior dress.

Of course the hoighty toighty French Dior employees try to upper crust her right out on her ass before a gentleman (who I believe is played by Lambert Wilson, but don’t hold me to that) invites her to be his personal guest. Things after that seem to get a little bit The Devil Wears Prada, with Mrs. Harris being privy to the inner workings of the Dior company while also doling out life advice and maybe finding love?

This looks super cute and, similarly to Where the Crawdads Sing, I’ll be awaiting the day I can watch it from my couch but I’m not itching to get my Mrs. Harris on.

29th

DC League of Super-Pets (dir. Jared Stern, Sam Levine)
Where: in theaters

In the comics, last I checked (admittedly not that recently) the Legion of Super-Pets were a group of DC animals that were connected to the Superman family of titles and characters. There was Krypto the super dog (Superman’s dog on his home planet of Krypton who Superman’s scientist dad shot into space to test the escape rocket that would eventually save baby Superman’s life), Beppo the super monkey (who had stowed away in baby Superman’s rocket), Streaky the super cat (Superman’s cousin Supergirl’s pet cat who was exposed to some rare kryptonite that gave it superpowers) and Comet the super horse (which, strangest of all was a former centaur now in an all horse body). Later there was also a shape-changing alien named Proty 2.

When I first heard that they were planning on making an animated family comedy with Rock ‘The Dwayne’ Johnson voicing Krypto, I was (no pun intended) super excited because: c’mon! Go re-read all that crazy shit I typed above! There’s so much goofy/weird Superman lore in there and THEN there’s a horse that used to be a centaur! I couldn’t wait to see them explain all this and work it into some kind of continuity (even if it was just for its own sake and wouldn’t be part of a larger DC cinematic universe).

But alas, they have elected to instead create a bunch of easier to understand new characters, all from the same pet store and with the same origin (something also involving a kryptonite shard). They all get discrete superpowers: a turtle that’s ironically fast, a pig that gets big, a different dog that is also indestructible, and an electric squirrel. The plot appears to be a guinea pig (in both senses of the word: a rodent from the species which originated in the Andes that has apparently been used in scientific experimentation) named Lulu which has used kryptonite to weaken and kidnap Superman and only faithful dog Krypto (Johnson) and his ragtag group of pet shop refugees can save him.

Good voice cast in this one, though. Aside from The Dwayne, there’s his ubiquitous real life buddy Kevin Hart, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, and Diego Luna as the Super Pets, Kate McKinnon as Lulu, John Krasinski as Superman, Keanu Reeves as Batman, and apparently Marc Maron as Lex Luthor (who I would presume to be behind the who Lulu kidnapping Superman plot).

This looks fun enough, but I’m not gaga over it. It is unclear from the trailer if there will be a training montage, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. And hopefully if this gets a sequel, they’ll introduce Supergirl and her weirdo pets. I want to watch them to explain that Super horse to kids.

SPOTLIGHT
Raves from the EOINA grave

What We Do In the Shadows (seasons 1 - 3) (series)
Where: Hulu

I can’t recommend WWDIS enough. If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out. The movie from 2014 seems to only currently be streaming through Kanopy, but it really isn’t a necessary part of the prep for the series. It’s great and I love it, but very little of it carries directly over. Instead watch the first 3 seasons, all available on Hulu, and get to know the ever-expanding cast of characters. Aside from the main stars, last season added Kristen Schaal as an aid to Nadja in her vampiric council duties and previous seasons have featured tons of guest stars and strange characters including vampire dogs, sentient puppets, and half a Doug Jones ancient vampire Baron. It’s wild, funny stuff that is also quite sweet. I literally can’t recommend it enough, but it does get a little complicated as the series rolls along, so I strongly recommend a series re/watch to prepare or refresh yourself before the new season hits.

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Thank you as always for reading and thanks to MovieJawn for hosting and posting. If you’d like to check out the Hate Watch/Great Watch podcast, which I co host with fellow Jawnie Allison Yakulis, we have two episodes which exemplify the diversity of the films we are willing to cover. First on July 13th we have an episode on the truly abysmal Foodfight! (2012) famous for its troubled production, followed by an episode on Gus Van Sant’s 1991 Shakespearean update My Own Private Idaho (the origin of the minions!) dropping on July 17th!

I hope July is a better month for us all than June was but no matter what happens, I’ll be back with a new column next month for August’s releases. See you then!

Until next time - Long Live the Movies!

This piece was written for MovieJawn, a fabulous site where you can find tons of other excellent movie-centric writings, a shop where you can subscribe to the quarterly physical zine, or listen to me on the  Hate Watch / Great Watch  podcast! Support the MovieJawn Patreon here!