“I Saw the TV Glow,” a new existential drama starring Justice Smith, and now playing in theatres, is a coming-of-age story about someone who never quite comes-of-age.
When we first meet Owen (Ian Foreman), he’s an awkward, suburban seventh grader drawn to Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), a ninth grader obsessed with a young adult TV show called “The Pink Opaque.” He’s interested in the series, an “X-Files” for teens with a villain called Mr. Melancholy, but it’s on after his bedtime.
The pair share a love of the show—he clandestinely sleeps over at her place to watch the show on the weekends—and troubled home lives.
In “The Pink Opaque” they find an escape.
Jump forward two years. Owen, now played by Smith, still can’t stay up late enough to watch the show, so he voraciously consumes it on the VHS tapes Maddy makes for him.
On the eve of the show’s cancellation, Maddy disappears, leaving Owen at the mercy of his cruel stepfather Frank (Fred Durst). Years later, she re-enters his life, with a wild tale of where she has been, as his grip on reality slowly slips away.
“I Saw the TV Glow” owes a debt to the surreal stylings of David Lynch. In their telling of the story director Jane Schoenbrun embraces Lynchian themes of appearance vs. reality, surrealism and often impenetrable storytelling. It can make for a confounding experience, as the exploration of pop culture’s effect on identity and individuality reveals itself in increasingly inscrutable ways.
“I Saw the TV Glow” is audacious in its execution, introspective in its narrative and interesting in its aesthetic, but it’s also a bit of a schlep, more ambitious than actually entertaining. It is not a feel-good movie, and has no aspirations in that direction, but as the storytelling becomes opaquer, the film loses its way, revelling in Owen’s awkwardness and mundanity rather than what makes him interesting. The result is a movie that confuses impenetrability with depth.
You don’t have to know or understand the role-playing game D&D to get the movie “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.” Those who know that the acronym BBEG stands for Big Bad Evil Guy (or Gal) or that Monty Hall doesn’t refer to the game show host, but to a type of campaign based on accumulating as much wealth/magic items as possible, will have a better chance at deciphering the in-jokes and Easter Eggs, but for non-players, it still works as a fantasy action-comedy, complete with sorcerers, trolls and dragons.
The story begins with impish single father Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and barbarian Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), making a daring escape from prison. They wound up behind bars when their planned robbery to steal the Tablet of Reawakening, an artefact with the power to resurrect the dead, went sideways. Their cohorts, Edgin’s daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman), conman Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), Sofina (Daisy Head) and sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith), escaped justice, disappearing into the wind.
Upon their “release” they discover that Fitzwilliam double-crossed them, has taken custody of Kira and is now living the high life as the wealthy Lord of Neverwinter. When it becomes clear Fitzwilliam is no longer an ally, Edgin and Holga go on a quest to find the Tablet of Reawakening, resurrect Edgin’s dead wife, bring Kira back to the family and settle a score with Fitzwilliam.
But first they must find the Enchanted Helmut, a sideline aided by Sophia Lillis as Doric, a tiefling druid and shapeshifter and the heroic Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page).
There’s more, like Red Wizards and necromancy and talking corpses, but for all the fantasy on board the movie, this is really a very earth-bound story of friendship and family. With dragons and magic.
What could have been another dull game adaption transcends the nasty reputation left behind by bombs that were not nearly as fun as the games that inspired them, like “Battleship” and “Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure.”
Co-directors Jonathan M. Goldstein and John Francis Daley roll their twenty-sided dice (look it up) that audiences will value a fantasy story that uses humor as the backbone of the movie, the same way the “Lord of the Rings” flicks used allegories on the human condition to fuel theirs.
Luckily, mostly thanks to Pine’s nimble touch, it works really well. His performance sets a lighthearted tone followed by fun work from Rodriguez et al. Page also impresses as a handsome hero who feels like a combo of Dudley Do-Right and Errol Flynn.
We are so used to serious, heavy fantasy that the rambunctious “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” feels like a breath of fresh sir. It is old-fashioned, an old-school action adventure that aims to entertain above all else. It doesn’t take itself seriously—although it is respectful to the world that inspired it—but does handle the action scenes, the world building, the characters, and the story with care.
The new Apple TV+ movie “Sharper,” starring Julianne Moore, Justice Smith and Sebastian Stan, is a story of love and lies, of swindles and avarice, of plot twists and, unfortunately, despite the zig-zaggy story, predictability.
The film opens with a rom-commy meet cute between book store clerk Tom (Smith) and Sandra (Briana Middleton), a student at NYU studying Redefining Radicalism the Rise of Black Feminism in American Literature. He asks her out for dinner, she demurs, but, like all good New York City romances, fate intervenes and they fall deeply in love.
But soon into the relationship it appears that Sandra isn’t as buttoned down as she first appears.
Welcome to the no-spoiler zone.
At this point director Benjamin Caron, best known for helming the acclaimed Benedict Cumberbatch “Sherlock” series, “The Crown” and “Andor,” goes episodic, breaking the film into sections to provide backstories for the characters and insight on their interconnecting relationships.
We meet Max (Stan), a shady character who always comes prepared with a quick line and a plan for parting some poor unsuspecting sucker with their hard-earned cash.
Moore and Lithgow play high society types Madeline and Richard. He is a self-made billionaire; she is a trophy wife with a troubled son.
Other chapters fill in Tom and Sandra’s comings-and-goings.
These seemingly unrelated characters are, of course, all closely related in a high stakes game of deception and duplicity where there will be big time winners and losers, cast aside to be forgotten about.
The film’s title refers to someone who is a gambling cheat or confidence man, and there is certainly enough of that on display, but taken in a different context, the story of “Sharper” isn’t as sharp as the literal meaning of the title might suggest. The structure is interesting, the characters compelling, if a little by-the book—there is the rich old man who falls for a beautiful younger women, the cold-as-ice conman and his emotional victims—but the multiple, crisscrossing con games on display aren’t clever enough by half to provide the payoff necessary for the movie to make an impression.
The script offers a few surprises (just don’t watch the trailer before watching the film) but the big game, the elaborate scams, feel a bit shopworn, especially if you’ve ever seen “The Sting.”
“Sharper’s” biggest con isn’t perpetrated by the characters, but by director Caron, who skillfully finds a way to string along the audience for almost two hours before leaving them empty handed in the finale.
“Bigger,” says Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) in the trailer for “Jurassic World Dominion.” “Why do they always have to be bigger?”
It’s a legit question. The good doctor is, of course, referring to the dinosaurs that, once again, are causing problems in our modern world.
But the question might also apply to the movie itself.
The follow-up to “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” and the sixth and final film in the franchise, is bigger and louder than the movies that came before it, but as a viewer you may ask yourself, “Why?”
Set four years after Jurassic Park was destroyed by an erupting volcano, “Jurassic World Dominion” begins with dinosaurs let loose worldwide, living among humans.
Dino whisperer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and girlfriend, founder of the Dinosaur Protection Group Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), are in hiding, protecting Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon). As a teenage clone of Jurassic Park co-founder Benjamin Lockwood’s daughter, her DNA is of great interest to Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), the villainous CEO of Biosyn. When she is kidnapped, Owen and Claire give chase.
At the same time, locusts with prehistoric DNA devastate the globe’s grain supply, prompting paleobotanists Ellie Sadler (Laura Dern) and Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to launch an investigation. Their search for answers leads them to Biosyn and a familiar face, chaos theory mathematician Ian Malcolm (Goldblum).
The dinosaurs and the story may be bigger than the last time round, but remember, bigger is not always better. The original “Jurassic” franchise worked because if a streamlined simplicity to the storytelling mixed with masterful execution. Oh, and lots of dinosaurs.
“Jurassic World Dominion” has lots of dinosaurs and some fan service but misses the mark otherwise. It is a talky dino-bore with none of the suspense that made “Jurassic Park” edge of your seat stuff. The action scenes are murky and few-and-far-between, there’s lots of dodgy CGI and unlike the reconstituted dinosaurs, it feels lifeless. Luckily Goldblum reappears after a quick cameo off the top to shake things up with his trademarked droll wit in the third act.
Near the beginning of the film Dern’s character Ellie sees a small dinosaur and coos, “this never gets old.” She clearly hasn’t seen “Jurassic World Dominion.”
Someone you know spends far too much time playing the adventure videogame “Detective Pikachu.” The enormously popular Nintendo game is a time waster of epic proportions, eating up minutes faster than old school Pac Man gobbling up Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. Now a live action movie, “Pokémon: Detective Pikachu” starring Ryan Reynolds as the title character, a little yellow rodent-like creature with soulful eyes, vies for your time at the movies.
Set on the day-glo neon streets of Ryme City, “a celebration of the harmony between humans and Pokémon,” the movie begins with the disappearance of police detective Harry Goodman at the hands of a ruthless Pokémon.
Looking to get to the bottom of the case Harry’s insurance salesman son Tim (Justice Smith) joins with his dad’s Pokémon partner, the wise-cracking but amnesiac Detective Pikachu (Reynolds). The two have a connection that goes beyond words… sort of. Only Tim can understand what the little pocket monster is saying. “People try and talk to me all the time and all they can hear is ‘Pike, pika.’” They’re a natural fit. One can talk to humans, the other to Pokémon. “If you want to find your Pops we’re gonna need each other.” With the aid of investigative journalist Lucy Stevens (Kathryn Newton) they uncover a criminal conspiracy that threatens Ryme City’s human/ Pokémon harmony.
The worldwide popularity of Pokémon pretty much guarantees an audience for “Pokémon: Detective Pikachu” but it’s hard for me to imagine anyone who hasn’t spent hours whiling away the time with the game to enjoy this as much as already established fans. It is probably the cutest crime noir film ever made but it’s also a slog that should be a lot more fun. Not even Reynolds’s trademarked way with a one-liner can liven up this convoluted script.
“Pokémon: Detective Pikachu” feels like a retro kid’s flick. Echoes of “Gremlins,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and even “Howard the Duck” reverberate throughout, but with an emphasis on spectacle rather than charm and story.
One thing is for sure, the “Jurassic Park” movies are not an endangered species. The film series, now entering its fourth iteration since 1993’s prehistoric original, has outlived most other monster movie franchises of its vintage. With another one already scheduled for 2021 the dinos-gone-wild-movies show no signs of extinction. It seems audiences have an endless appetite to see people become dinosaur snacks.
The new one, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” picks up three years after the “de-extinct” dinosaurs destroyed Isla Nublar, the island paradise where “Jurassic World” took place. Now abandoned and overrun by dinosaurs, the former theme park and its inhabitants face a new threat—“the flashpoint animal rights issue of our time,” we’re told—in the form of a volcano poised cover everything in a thick layer of molten lava.
Some people, like Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), feel nature should be allowed to take its course even if that means the end of the dinosaurs. Others, like Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), John Hammond’s partner in developing the dinosaur clone technology, want to see them rescued. Enter two former park employees, dinosaur trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt)—the Cesar Millan of the dinosaur world—and former park director Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and small team of helpers, computer whiz and comic relief Franklin (Justice Smith) and paleo veterinarian Zia (Daniella Pineda) who spearhead a campaign to relocate the creatures to a newer, safer sanctuary. “Save the dinosaurs from an island that is about to explode,” says Owen. “What could go wrong?” Lots. There’s more, like a nefarious plan to sell the rescued dinosaurs and a “creature of the future made from pieces of the past” but who cares as long as the creatures are let loose.
Sure enough, half-an-hour into “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” after some call backs and set up, dinos are chasing humans, summing up the two most important elements of the Jurassic franchise—giant dinosaurs and people for them to eat. Other stuff, like narrative logic, plain old common sense and interesting characters, come a distant second to gnarling teeth and big action set pieces.
The usual franchise mumbo jumbo about science tampering with the natural world is in place but it’s even more cursory than in the first “World” film. Instead it embraces the thing that has always been at the rapidly beating heart of these movies, monster mayhem and on that level it succeeds.
Ultimately, however, the stakes are very low. It is obvious who will become a dinosaur entree and who won’t. Also much of the danger has been replaced by more family friendly light moments—i.e. Owen doing a tranquilized acrobatic act to escape molten lava or Franklin’s ladder gag. There is some suspense, but it’s not subtle like Alfred Hitchcock style suspense. Instead it’s will-Owen-get-eaten-by-a-dinosaur-as-Claire-and-Franklin-roll-away-into-a-giant-motorized-orb suspense.
By the end credits what do we learn about “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”? Chris Pratt could probably outrun Tom Cruise without breaking a sweat. The rules of physics and do not apply in Dino Land. When you have dinosaurs you don’t need much else and some sequels are easier to set up than others.
“Paper Towns,” the new teen movie from the writer of “The Fault in Our Stars,” is a coming-of-age-mystery-love story-road trip-romance about a teenage boy and the mysterious girl of his dreams.
Nat Wolff is Quentin, an Orlando, Florida A-student just weeks away from graduation. His childhood crush, Margo Roth Spiegelman (Cara Delevingne), lives across the street but they haven’t spoken in nine years. He’s a nerd, she’s an exotic beauty who looks like she just walked out of a Victoria Secrets catalogue—because, in real life, Delevingne was a VS model—and he still loves her. One night, out of the blue, she appears and asks a favour with her husky voice, like a young Brenda Vaccaro.
“I have nine things to do tonight, and I need a get-a-way driver.”
It’s a mission of revenge against her cheating boyfriend and BFFs who have betrayed her. “It’s a night to right some wrongs and wrong some rights,” she tells him. “Basically it will be the best night of your life.”
Among other things they cloak a car in Saran Wrap, complete with a note that reads “That’s a wrap on our friendship,” and share a quick tender moment. The next morning, she’s gone.
Her parents are unconcerned. “She’s not missing,” says her mother, “she’s gone. There’s a difference. She’ll come back when people stop talking about her.”
Quentin isn’t so sure, and soon begins to find clues Margo left behind. Convinced she wants him to find her, he becomes a teenage Columbo, piecing together a series of obscure clues that would give Sherlock Holmes a headache. The clues lead him and a car load of friends (Halston Sage as Lacey, Austin Abrams as Ben, Justice Smith as Radar and Jaz Sinclair as Angela) to a tiny “paper town” (a fictional place on a map used by cartographers as copyright protection) in New York State.
Whether or not Quentin finds her is irrelevant. It’s the journey, not the destination that counts. Margo is the McGuffin, an impossible pixie dream girl who, despite reading Walt Whitman and being the only millennial who knows who Woody Guthrie is, is the least interesting part of the story. She exists simply to put everything in motion.
Is the journey worth your time and money? Sure, if you consider pop psychology like, “You have to get lost to find yourself,” to be a deep insight to the human condition. It rides the line between existential teen drama and the above-mentioned mishmash of styles (coming-of-age-mystery-love story-road trip-romance) that never exactly dins its tone. For a movie whose mantra is, “Take a risk,” it certainly plays it safe with the storytelling.
Keeping that in mind, “Paper Towns” is populated with likeable, compelling characters. Delevingne is a charismatic catalyst, and the trio of boys have the genuine chemistry of friends who have “known one another since they were foetuses.” They bring the material to life, breathing life into a story that is simultaneously overwritten and under realised.