SYNOPSIS: In “Blink Twice,” a psychological drama directed by Zoë Kravitz, and now playing in theatres, disgraced tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) invites cater waiter Frida (Naomi Ackie) to join him and his friends for an idyllic get-a-way on his private island. “Are you having a good time?” he repeatedly asks her as champagne flows, and she is… until, in the blink of an eye, she has a startling revelation.
CAST: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment, Kyle MacLachlan, Geena Davis, Alia Shawkat. Directed by Zoë Kravitz.
REVIEW: A dark psychological thriller with elements of rage, humour and danger, “Blink Twice” is a confident, if scattered, directorial debut from Zoë Kravitz. A violent riff on “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s” memory erasing, it asks the question, Is it best to live with only good memories, burying the bad so deeply they never resurface?
A fantasy island trip gone wrong, “Blink Twice” takes a while to get where it is going, to let the Twilight Zone-ness of the situation sink in. It’s decadent and drug fueled, set to a soundtrack of dance tunes and King’s constant query, “Are you having fun?” Nothing matters except hedonism, and soon (NO SPOILERS HERE), but not soon enough, we find out why.
At this point “Blink Twice” flicks the switch. What begans as Jordan Peele style exploration of the ultra-wealthy, of the lingering, intergenerational effects of trauma and violence against women, becomes a revenge drama tinged with horror. After a long lead up, however, the transition feels rushed as the true cruelty of the party island, and the men who run it, is revealed.
Kravitz and co-writer E.T. Feigenbaum have a lot on their minds, but more isn’t always better. From the apology tours of cancelled celebrities and sexual violence against women to the price of trauma, white patriarchal privilege and gender disparity, it touches down on a litany of hot button topics. Add to that a private island with a Jeffrey Epstein vibe and a misbehaving billionaire and you have an overload of Twitter/X trending topics. With so much happening, “Blink Twice” feels like it is hop-scotching around its themes and doesn’t add much new to the discourse of any of them.
Still, as tightly packed as the movie is—no shrinkflation here—Kravitz keeps the pace up, nimbly navigating her way through to the film’s finale with style to burn. The direction trumps the storytelling, as Kravitz knows how to stage effective scenes that will entertain the eye and, perhaps even move you toward the edge of your seat.
She is aided by strong performances from the three leads, Ackie, Tatum and “Hit Man’s” Adria Arjona. Tatum is all charm as the romantic lead (for a while anyway) before revealing his true nature in a terrific turn-around for the character.
Ackie and Arjona enjoy the best-written roles and make the most of them. As Frida, Ackie (last seen playing the title role in “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody”) is relatable as someone who finds themself in an unimaginable situation, before tapping into a newfound iron will.
Arjona takes a role that could have been one-note—a reality show warrior with her eye on the billionaire’s affections—and makes her multi-faceted, kick-ass and very funny.
“Blink Twice” doesn’t entirely work, but as a story about the nature of memory, it is memorable enough to earn a recommendation.
“Unfrosted,” a sweet new slice of Boomer porn now streaming on Netflix, is a one joke wonder about the corporate shenanigans behind the creation and marketing of Pop-Tarts®, the first successful shelf stable fruit jelly pastry product.
Writer/director Jerry Seinfeld stars as Bob Cabana, the product developer behind some of Kellogg’s greatest hits. When we join the story it’s 1963, in cereal’s ground zero, Battle Creek, Michigan, home to Kellogg’s and their largest rival Post.
Breakfast is defined by milk and cereal—”The magic of cereal is that you’re eating and drinking at the same time,” Cabana says.—but change is in the air. “It’s the 60s, “ says Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer) head of rival Post, “things are moving fast. There’s always a surprise in the box.”
When Cabana discovers two kids dumpster diving for discarded Post “goo,” a syrupy sweet treat they are developing for their new product, the holy grail of breakfast foods, a handheld fruit pastry.
As a corporation, Kellogg’s owns breakfast in America. They outsell Post and regularly clean up at the Bowl and Spoon Awards where they dominate the competition, winning statues in categories like “Easiest to Open Wax Bag.”
Fearing Post will get the jump on the new market, that they have “broken the pastry barrier,” Cabana flies into action. He recruits Donna Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy) a NASA scientist-turned-breakfast-food-designer to create a new breakfast treat.
But getting it to market is a long, convoluted process that involves everyone from Nikita Krushchev (Dean Norris) and President John F. Kennedy (Bill Burr) to Chef Boyardee (Bobby Moynihan) and Tony the Tiger (Hugh Grant as mascot actor Thurl Ravenscroft).
“Unfrosted” is a silly ode to Pop-Tarts®. Slaphappy and over-the-top, it does not allow facts to sully the storytelling. Seinfeld pitches the performances and story at a very heightened level, like an “SNL” sketch stretched to feature length. He has nothing on his mind other than a scattergun approach of going for the jokes. The result is a hit and miss joke-to-laughs ratio, but Seinfeld has assembled an all-star comedic cast who know how to squeeze the laughs out of the material.
Gags about the Zapruder film and an unusually playful Walter Cronkite may fly over a younger audience’s collective heads, but should hit the mark with Boomers.
Ultimately, like the snack it is based on, “Unfrosted” is empty calories but may provide a sugar rush.
In “Freelance,” a new action comedy now playing in theatres, John Cena plays a man fighting back against a life of quiet desperation, a feeling audiences will be familiar with by the time the end credits roll.
Cena is Mason Pettits, a do gooder trying to find his place in the world. After few miserable years of practicing law left him wanting more—”I thought it would make me feel normal,” he says, “but it made me hate myself.”—he joins the Special Forces. Fulfilled, he says the job allows him to find a much-needed purpose to his life.
That is, until a mission to assassinate dictator Juan Arturo Venegas (Juan Pablo Raba) goes south. Wounded and disillusioned, he leaves behind the life of adventure, and settles down, returning to law and marriage and a safe suburban life.
Bored and unhappy, he accepts a job from Sebastian (Christian Slater), a former Special Forces colleague now running Contractual Defense Industries, a one stop shop-and-shoot mercenary business. “We sell security,” he says.
The job is sounds simple but there is a catch. He will accompany journalist Claire Wellington (Alison Brie) to South America and keep her safe as she interviews Juan Arturo Venegas, the very dictator at the heart of the mission that ended Pettits’s Special Forces career.
“Freelance” is the kind of movie that once gathered dust in direct-to-DVD bins at Blockbuster.
Not even the considerable charm of the leads, Cena and Brie, can overcome the generic action, the weird shifts in tone from bloody gun battles to light comedy, a forgettable villain (played by the usually reliable Marton Csokas) and a goofy dictator who, on one hand speaks about the exploitation of poor countries by corrupt international corporations, while on the other delivering silly lines like, “I believe when one encounters danger, one must sing to it.”
With very few exceptions, “Freelance” feels very been-there-done-that, as if director Pierre Morel tried to pay tribute to the direct-to-DVD genre, but forgot to bring the fun.
Emilio Estevez became a Brat Pack star hanging around in a library in 1985’s “The Breakfast Club.” Years later he returns, this time as a grown up with grown up concerns. As writer-director-producer-star of “The Public” Estevez presents the socially aware story of what happens when people stand up for themselves and speak truth to power.
“The Public” sees Estevez play Stuart Goodson, head librarian and de facto social worker at the Cincinnati Public Library. Inside the library is an oasis of warmth for the city’s homeless community who use it as a drop in centre during the cold winter months. Outside, when the frigid weather claims one of the library regulars, the patrons, led by Jackson (Michael K. Williams), turn the building into an emergency homeless shelter. “There’s some situation at the central library,” says Detective Bill Ramstead (Alec Baldwin). “Probably somebody had a melt down over an overdue book.”
Behind the scenes the stand-off escalates as the sensationalist media, in the form of a TV news reporter played by Gabrielle Union, misrepresents the act of civil disobedience as a possible hostage situation or active shooter. A self-righteous mayoral candidate (Christian Slater) stokes the fire while library administrator Anderson (Jeffrey Wright) tries to keep the situation from boiling over. “Wat’s the downside to having them stay there for the evening,” he asks.
“The Public” takes a long hard look at pressing social concerns. Estevez based part of this story on a Chip Ward essay about public libraries as asylums for the homeless and drives home the point with all the subtlety of one of Cincinnati’s icy winters. Lack of shelter space for the homeless population coupled with governmental cutbacks to social programs are urgent needs brought to life here in a colorful if somewhat cliched way.
The idea that, as Anderson says, public libraries are the last bastion of democracy, truly a place for everyone and anyone, is an important one but delivered with a heavy hand. By the time Goodson reads a long excerpt from “The Grapes of Wrath” to a reporter the noble efforts of the screenplay give way to the stagier aspects of Estevez’s vision.
“The Public” features good performances from Slater, Baldwin, Estevez and Taylor Schilling as a flirtatious building manager but is weighted down by the burden of its good intentions.
