‘Blazing Saddles’ remake!

Posted on August 20, 2022 by reelentropy
Just about everybody is audibly 20 years too old for their roles, including the suddenly 34-year-old Cera. Images courtesy Nickelodeon movies.

8/10 For several years, “you couldn’t make a Mel Brooks movie today” has been a common refrain among people who think American culture has gotten too sensitive, with arguments particularly revolving around his 1974 classic Blazing Saddles, which slung racial slurs like breakfast joints sling pancakes in many of its most iconic moments. Well, Mel Brooks has made a movie today, particularly an animated Blazing Saddles remake called Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank. We get to see and know what that looks like.

In a land inspired by feudal Japan inhabited entirely by cats, a Somali lord called Ika Chu (Ricky Gervais) desperately wants to seize property in village of Kakamucho, and only one thing stands in his way: the rightful owners. After failing to scare out or drive the townsfolk off by hiring mercenaries to wreck the place, he tries a legal option, assigning a beagle scheduled for execution called Hank (Michael Cera), someone who so offends the citizens of Kakamucho that his very appearance may drive them out of town, as the town’s new samurai. Set up to fail against these prejudices, Hank trains to fulfill his role under a new sensei, Jimbo (Samuel L. Jackson).

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‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ Marvel’s most happy-go-lucky romp, but who cares anymore?

Posted on August 20, 2022 by reelentropy
Images courtesy Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

7/10 It’s really hard to care about post-Endgame Marvel movies. The point of these things, particularly post-pandemic, seems to be that of a soft blanket, comfort food ad infinitum. Thor: Love and Thunder could be one of the series’ most enjoyable films, but as it becomes more and more clear that the series was never really about enjoyment, how much does that really matter?

After Avengers: Endgame, Thor, God of Thunder (Chris Hemsworth) has lost his enthusiasm for life drifting through the universe with the Guardians of the Galaxy. He springs back into action after learning Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who has pledged to kill all gods in revenge for their silence, is headed next to New Asgard, Norway, where Thor’s people settled after Thor: Ragnarok. Thor journeys back to Earth to discover his ex-girlfriend, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), has restored his shattered hammer and become a rival god of thunder. Together, they journey to a super-cool black and white planet called the Shadow Realm to confront Gorr.

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Shock-jock horror makes unwelcome return in ‘The Black Phone’

Posted on July 28, 2022 by reelentropy
We never get to learn what this guy’s deal is, and that’s just fine – he gives off a clear impression that there’s not much to him anyway, the problem is I don’t want to know any more about him. He’s not just horrible, he’s horribly boring, even with Hawke giving everything he has to the role. Images courtesy Universal Pictures.

2/10 The Black Phone is this year’s Malignant, and that is not a compliment. It is a bizarre, incoherent mashup of several other movies and archetypes it admires but can’t come close to imitating. As a macabre circus-freak of a film, it’s required viewing, but for anyone just wanting to enjoy a movie, steer well clear.

North Denver, 1978- A serial child abductor known only as “the grabber” (Ethan Hawke) roams the gloomy North Denver suburbs, and as a new school year begins with noticeably fewer classmates, police are no closer to finding him, even though his hunting grounds are limited to a single elementary school zone. Finney Blake (Mason Thames) shelters from bullies and an abusive father as the grabber diddles all his classmates in the background until at long, long last, he’s kidnapped himself and locked in the grabber’s basement. His only resource is a disconnected black phone through which the grabber’s prior victims contact him from beyond the grave. Also, Blake’s little sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) has psychic powers, and the completely incompetent Denver police feel the need to enlist her help finding the grabber. Also, there is a coked-out dude named Max (James Ransone).

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‘Elvis’ reveals, revels in flaws of musician biopic mantra

Posted on July 28, 2022 by reelentropy
Austin Butler beat out several higher-profile actors for the right to a revelatory performance as Elvis. Images courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.

7/10 I usually can’t stand biopics or the work of writer/director/producer Baz Luhrmann, but the pair of formulas complement each other perfectly in Elvis.

Las Vegas, Jan. 20, 1997- Lying in his hospital bed in the hours between a stroke and his resulting death the following morning, “Colonel” Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) remembers his career managing Elvis Presley (Austin Butler), all the way from first meeting and signing him in the Deep South in 1956 until he had to return to his home planet in 1977.

Parker’s memory is a celebration of Elvis, one that frequently bumps against the walls of his infamous mismanagement. He calls attention to the ways he impeded Elvis’ career with his preemptive excuses for them, and the film becomes his unintentional confession.

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First new kid Cha-Cha slides into town

Posted on July 21, 2022 by reelentropy
There’s a knack in Cha Cha Real Smooth’s iconography for being dweeby and Jewish, but also rave-appropriate. Images courtesy Apple TV+, obviously.

7/10 Time is doing its thing. Cooper Raiff is a Dallas native who’s five years younger than I am, I drive past his high school a few times a week, and he made one of the biggest deals in Sundance history this year when he sold his second feature, Cha Cha Real Smooth, to Apple TV+ for $15 million. This is the first up-and-coming director of the TikTok generation, and this is what he’s making.

Livingston, New Jersey- Fresh college graduate Andrew (Raiff, who writes, directs and produces) moves back into his step-father’s house. Knowing nothing about what he wants to do with his life, Andrew enters the apparently cutthroat underground world of bar mitzvah DJing, where he meets Domino (Dakota Johnson, who also produces) and her autistic daughter, Lola (Vanessa Burghardt). Andrew resents his step-father, Greg (Brad Garrett), advises his younger brother, David (Evan Assante), as he develops interest in girls, pines for his college girlfriend moved on to bigger and better things and navigates his quickly developing attraction to the engaged Domino.

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