‘Blue Beetle,’ the DCEU’s death rattle

Posted on October 19, 2023 by reelentropy
They really needed this cleaver to be cooler than it is, didn’t they. Images courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.

Warner Bros. began development on Blue Beetle in November 2018 after Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians had spent eight collective weeks at the top of the box office, each accompanied by weeks on end of stories about how the market of non-white American filmgoers remains largely untapped. By my counting, that made it the 17th movie “in development” at the time for the DCEU, which was arguably already dead by this point, and it’s a small miracle that it’s the eighth of that group that made it to theaters. The film adapted for several company-wide changes in direction, most notably being greenlit as a direct-to-streaming project and then being reassigned for theatrical release, the same change that famously killed Batgirl.

It’s the saddest thing that underneath all the ambition that does shine through, the film still falters under the weight of the DCEU’s history. It wants to be something new and exciting, but it can’t, because it’s buried under Warner Bros.’ battered, terrified-to-fail understanding of a 2023 superhero movie, a skittish attempt to be completely unobjectionable.

Well, it’s not like it was some kind of masterpiece anyway.

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Yet another TMNT movie, but this one’s pretty great

Posted on October 19, 2023 by reelentropy
Awesome. Images courtesy Paramount Pictures.

8/10 On an early August Wednesday, a new update of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” slipped quietly into theaters underneath the Barbenheimer apocalypse, sparsely advertised as a labor of love from “permanent teenager” writer/producer Seth Rogen.

TMNT media always seems to fill a sarcastic, post-popularity role in superhero media, arriving to the ecosystem well after the late-arrivers, in this case Paramount arriving several years after Sony and Warner Bros. I have a hard time wrapping my head around a new, low-budget TMNT movie in 2023, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem! counts among the best movies of the year and has a strong case to be Rogen’s and creative partner writer/producer Evan Goldberg’s best work.

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‘Talk to Me’ another indie horror smash

Posted on October 2, 2023 by reelentropy
Images courtesy A24.

8/10 As I grow to hate brands as a concept more and more, it’s hard not to still love A24. For as uniform as some of their films can feel, the indie studio’s brand is talent-seeking and celebrating the talents they find, and after years of slow, low-budget, character-driven horror films, their selections still feel fresh. 

Well, it’s a cute trick – low-budget, character-driven films will always feel fresh. 

Adelaide, South Australia- two years after the death of her mother, 17-year-old Mia (Sophie Wilde) finds a new distraction in the high school party scene – a statue of a hand, reputed to be the severed hand of a medium encased in stone, that allows anyone who grips it to be possessed by a dead spirit, though the connection must be severed after 90 seconds or part of the spirit will remain. The possessing spirit appears to be random, and they all frantically act out to enjoy having a body as much as they can for the limited time, so it’s mostly useful for funny home videos and a quick high. Predictably, things go south very quickly. 

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‘Haunted Mansion’ sold at auction, leaving viewers with the leftovers

Posted on October 2, 2023 by reelentropy
Images courtesy Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

2/10 Disney’s Haunted Mansion, brought to you by Uhaul, Zillow, Amazon, CVS Pharmacy, Costco, Baskin Robbins, Burger King and many more, is the product of a business model at the end of its life cycle. It wants to be Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, but it can’t, because CGI drained the budget at the expense of things like sets, music and getting all of the actors together to perform their scenes. Comparing the two is absolutely ludicrous, because they were made under such fundamentally different production principles and sets of priorities that they register as completely separate categories of product.

New Orleans- Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) rolls up to a massive, clearly haunted former plantation, her entire life packed into a utility trailer, and the story writes itself – obviously, she inherited the mansion unexpectedly, maybe from a relative she has to learn about in the process of fixing the place up, it’s her only asset and she’s forced to flip it by herself, but in a shocking twist, the mansion is haunted. She has to call in several fun, kooky experts, and the real inheritance is the friends she makes along the way. The whole thing easily builds out into a metaphor for reconnecting with lost family and/or coming to terms with the U.S.’ horrific past manifested in the form of ghosts. 

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The Barbenheimer Apocalypse

Posted on September 14, 2023 by reelentropy

August may have been the best time to go to the movies in my life.

For the past months, movie news has been dominated by anticipation for and tracking of “Barbenheimer,” the release of both Barbie and Oppenheimer on July 21, and their results. Barbie stayed at no. 1 at the box office for four weeks, and Oppenheimer dropped to no. 5 only over Labor Day weekend, though this is partially due to the traditionally weak August release schedule.

Well, “dominated” is a strong term – this double-feature has shared the news cycles with the double strike, as both the Writers’ Guild of America and the Screen Actors’ Guild had begun striking by the time of release. The two news items collided dramatically when the actors walked off of Barbie and Oppenheimer’s star-studded press junkets a week before the twin premier, canceling what would have been an unconscionably fashionable red carpet premiere for Barbie.

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