10 Best Movies To Watch After Bratz (2007)
The Fabulous Four
While the general world of theatrical comedies remains elusive at multiplexes everywhere, one strain of the genre keeps on chugging in theaters. The Last Vegas/Going in Style/Book Club-style comedy is still going strong. Titles focusing on a wacky trio or quartet of famous actors over 60 persist at Cinemarks everywhere. Even Book Club 2: The Next Chapter’s box office failure last year couldn't stop this subgenre. On the surface, The Fabulous Four looks like another breezy summertime entry in this domain. In many ways, including its flat third act, it totally is. Yet, some distinctive and even downright weird touches keep it from being another Wild Hogs pastiche. Back in the day, Marilyn (Bette Midler), surgeon Lou (Susan Sarandon), singer Alice (Megan Mullaly), and botanist Kitty (Sheryl Lee Ralph) were best friends growing up in New York City. After a few decades, though, those friendships have grown complicated. Lou and Marilyn, specifically, are no longer on speaking terms. However, that frayed dynamic is about to get “repaired” now that the latter character is getting married. While preparing for a lavish wedding in Key West, she yearns for her best friends to be her bridesmaids—all three of them. Alice and Kitty tricking Lou into traveling to Key West was only the beginning of their struggles. Once these former pals reunite, tensions clearly haven't frayed between the duo. Unresolved conflict looms over every pre-wedding celebration, even once Lou begins a flirty rapport with local DILF Ted (Bruce Greenwood). Can this quartet reunite and become “the fabulous four” again? Or will yesteryear’s turmoil capsize a once beautiful friend group? Continue Reading →
Inside Out 2
Save for that movie where Larry the Cable Guy supposedly urinated in public, Pixar sequels are rarely terrible. Finding Dory, Incredibles 2, and Monsters University are vastly preferable to the average Minions or Hotel Transylvania follow-up. Even Cars 3 wrung more pathos than expected out of its ill-conceived universe. The greatest problem with these sequels has been that they’re merely competent. They’re serviceable watches, but many are safe retreads of the familiar. Risks are minimal, idiosyncratic animation flourishes are scarce. When absorbing these follow-ups, it's hard not to yearn for more challenging original Pixar titles like Turning Red, Ratatouille, or WALL-E. Still, details like the unexpected third-act detour of Monsters University or the charming new characters in Finding Dory are absent from your standard Ice Age or Illumination sequels. If we must live in this franchise-dominated pop culture landscape, Pixar has delivered more hits than most. Goodness knows the Toy Story sequels are outright masterpieces of long-form cinematic storytelling. The newest example of the label’s pleasant, if far from groundbreaking, sequels, is Inside Out 2. Directed by Kelsey Mann (a new feature film helmer taking over for previous director Pete Docter), the sequel expands on the world of Riley’s mind established in 2015’s Inside Out. Continue Reading →
Ultraman: Rising
Big old monster brawls are a delight. They're one of the great pleasures of the Ultra series, the Eiji Tsuburaya-created science fiction series that's brought joy to folks worldwide for 58 years and counting. While the series kicked off with the monster mystery series Ultra Q in 1966, it was Ultraman (launched in July of that year, shortly after Ultra Q wrapped), the tale of a benevolent alien superhero who lived among humanity and fought aliens, giants, and giant aliens alongside a human Science Team (in capital letters). In the decades since Ultraman broke out, the series has proven flexible. It's first and foremost a kids' superhero show, but it's made space for experimentation and idiosyncrasy. See, for example, the great Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno's 2022 film Shin Ultraman, a loving tribute to and riff on the original 1966 series that embraces kaiju wrestling and contemplation of humanity's place in the cosmos equally. Or, heck, head back to 1966 and dig into the episodes of the original series directed by acclaimed filmmaker Akio Jissoji. At its best, the new animated feature Ultraman Rising proves the strength of the Ultra series' core ideas—right good monster mashing mixed with a journey into humanity—with loveliness and style. Unfortunately, it's not at its best often enough to clinch the game. Rising is a messy, disjointed picture. Continue Reading →
Unfrosted
I will give Unfrosted, director/co-writer/star/breakfast aficionado Jerry Seinfeld's heavily fictionalized, would-be-gonzo take on the invention of the Pop-Tart, this: I did laugh, albeit mirthlessly. For one sequence, Seinfeld and his creative collaborators push past stale, semi-affectionate satire and into the rarefied realm of "Yes, we're going for it." It's a funeral. The deceased is laid to rest with the highest honors a breakfast food developer may be accorded. Why is he dead? An office culture that prioritized the appearance of safety (testing the revolutionary self-stable fruit pastry in a full space suit, complete with isolated oxygen supply) over actual safety (keeping said oxygen supply next to an overclocked toaster). After all, beating Post to market is far more important than protecting your staff from violent immolation. The Corn Flakes rooster, Toucan Sam (Cedric Yarbrough), Tony the Tiger (Thurl Ravenscroft, as played by Hugh Grant), and Snap, Crackle, and Pop (Kyle Mooney, Mikey Day, and Drew Tarver), among others, perform the rites. As the deceased's widow (Sarah Burns) looks on in increasingly horrified bafflement, these priests of the breakfast table lower the coffin into the ground and then dump cereal and milk into the grave, topped with fresh fruit laid by professional mourners. A cereal box prize is presented like the flags given to the family of slain soldiers. It's an audacious, out-there scene, a moment of distinct, morbid silliness that reminds me of when Barry B. Benson had Winnie the Pooh sniped. In a world where rival cereal companies seek the aid of Kennedy (Bill Burr) and Kruschev (Dean Norris) and the head of Big Milk (Peter Dinklage) can have someone tortured for daring to suggest that breakfast might not always need cow juice, Full Cearal Honors feels like Seinfeld and company cranking up the dial to eleven and jamming while dancing around Stonehenge. What is there to do but laugh? Continue Reading →
The Fall Guy
"Delightful." That's the best word for The Fall Guy. It's a movie about moviemaking that loves moviemaking. It's a Tinseltown fairy tale. In The Fall Guy's world, going big at San Diego Comic-Con ("Hall H!" is a repeated refrain) guarantees that a nerdy, bombastic film will go big with general moviegoers. (Mr. Pilgrim would like a word.) The Big Bad Wolf is Tom Ryder, a gormless hunk with a smoldering gaze (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). He's the biggest action star in the world despite stealing credit from a stunt team he treats, at best, with disdain. The Heroic Lumberjacks are the passionate, the driven, the caring. For instance, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), a director pushing through writer's block to capture what she's carrying in her heart. Or Dan Tucker (Winston Duke), a stunt coordinator who knows the angles, timing, and how to bring out the best in his crew. And, of course, there's Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling), a stuntman willing to get set on fire or launch himself into a wall until the illusion looks like truth. Moviemaking is, in part, an act of love. The Fall Guy knows this. Colt may be a ragged goofball who's fallen off his horse (not literally, though given his skills, he could), but he's still a knight. He cares deeply for first-time director-and-one-time-lover Jody. That's why he comes out of a self-imposed retirement triggered by the same accident that led him to ghost her. He wants to ensure the science fiction western war epic Metalstorm isn't her last film. Or that a conspiracy, gun-toting goons, and potent hallucinogens don't prevent it from seeing the light of day at all. Continue Reading →
Trolls
The Trolls movies continue to indulge in their best and worst impulses in a third installment. The poster for this past summer's R-rated comedy No Hard Feelings had a reasonably clever tagline to explain the strained dynamic between the film's two leads. Against an image of Jennifer Lawrence squeezing Andrew Barth Feldman's cheeks, a single word is placed on top of each person's face: "Pretty" and "Awkward." Nothing revolutionary in design, but it gets the job done. Best of all, that tagline also makes for an apt descriptor for Trolls Band Together. The third entry in the Trolls trilogy (based on the popular 80s dolls), Trolls Band Together does indeed live up to the phrase “Pretty. Awkward.” The animators at DreamWorks keep coming up with gorgeous-looking environments for the titular critters to inhabit that look like they emerged from the wreckage of a craft store explosion. Unfortunately, the writing remains as stilted as ever. Continue Reading →
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
An overview of the diverse features selected to screen at this year's Austin Film Festival. This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the work being covered here wouldn't exist. A cycle rickshaw, adorned with a Texas flag billowing in the wind, whizzes by while blaring a Luke Combs tune. Massive murals of Willie Nelson and Post Malone gaze down on passersby like the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg. A man in a Blue Lives Matter shirt waltzes past a "PROTECT TRANS KIDS" sign planted on the lawn of a Catholic Church. Welcome to Austin, Texas, a Southern hotspot that, for the final weekend of October 2023, wasn't just home to these and other oddball sights, but also the backdrop for the 30th edition of the Austin Film Festival. Though not as world-famous as the Toronto International Film Festival or Cannes, Austin's annual ode to cinema is still a much-ballyhooed event attended by freelance journalists, aspiring screenwriters, iconic filmmakers, and everyone in between. Continue Reading →
TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR
Make no mistake, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, the highly anticipated film version of the career-spanning spectacle the singer-songwriter-popstar toured stadiums with this summer, is essentially a victory lap for her in the wake of massive critical and commercial success. Despite that, it still works because it never feels like what it could have been—a final cash grab for a show that already pulled in enough money to rival the GNP of several developed nations. Instead, it plays like a summation of Taylor Swift and her ever-expanding artistic ambitions. It makes a definitive case for her as one of the most significant musical artists of these times. And it has a lot of sparkly, sassy fun while doing it. Continue Reading →
MacGruber
In the age of streaming, any movie, short of maybe Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, can become a TV show. It doesn’t matter if your original film was a box office turkey, these channels just want “content” and any previously established brand name will do. Through this phenomenon comes MacGruber, a continuation of a Saturday Night Live character and the star of a 2010 movie that crashed and burned financially. But when Peacock desperately needed something, anything, to release over the holidays, MacGruber rose from the aches like a conceited phoenix. Continue Reading →
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
If you’ve ever heard the phrase “May you live in interesting times,” understand this: we’re living in them right now. It’s a historically awful time of racial unrest, an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor, and a global pandemic that’s coldly highlighted how little many of us care about our fellow humans. Optimism is in very limited supply at the moment, and so we cling to the little things that give us joy, and a reason to keep going the next day. Things like Lil Nas X’s Twitter feed, or Ted Lasso, or Lady Gaga branded Oreo cookies. Things like Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar, which in better times might have made barely a blip on the pop culture radar, but right now feels like a cool drink of water on a very hot day, and is a cult hit in the making. Continue Reading →