BOX OFFICE: “Smile 2” underwhelms with $23, “Wild Robot” clears $100

Posted on October 19, 2024 by Roger Moore

“Smile 2” arrives in theaters to excellent reviews, a little name recognition in its cast and a proven “brand” whose previous installment opened at $22 million, but soared onward and upward and cleared $105 million in North America alone.

Paramount HAD to figure the horror audience would show uo opening night and turn this into a blockbuster, that, the fans of the first film would be champing at the bit for a pre-Halloween horror pic that isn’t generic, low-budget or what have you.

“Smile 2” doesn’t look like it’s in the same medium as the more malnourished “Terrifier” franchise, for instance. It’s on a whole other plane than “Beezel,” a no-budget witch thriller of equally recent vintage.

But the second “Smile” is opening to the same decent but not overwhelming ticket-buying response that the first film enjoyed — $23 million by midnight Sunday, according to the studio tally sent to @thenumbers.

The simplest explanation for this underwhelming turnout (big brand horror films have opened in the $27-35 range) is that they didn’t wait long enough to release it. The original film left theaters maybe 20 months ago. And it’s been streaming ever since.

Paramount needed the cash, I guess.

“The Wild Robot” continues to rake it in, more of a steady hit for Dreamworks than a season-saving blockbuster. It’s over $100 million. Finally. Big animated pictures typically reach that mark in their first week or so. It’s good enough to deserve better. It earned $10.1 million this weekend.

“Terrifier 3” continues to give hope that the horror audience hasn’t vanished, it’s just gotten more obsessed with obscure titles that they figure their peers aren’t cool enough to have discovered. It’s heading towards a $9.3 million second weekend, a very respectable “hold” considering it opened at $18, almost as much as “Smile” or “Smile 2.”

The nostalgic wallow “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is adding another $5 million, inching it closer to $300 million. It’s not half the film “Wild Robot” is, but there you go.

The Andrew Garfield/Florence Pugh A24 drama “We Live in Time” opened to a very respectable $4 million on far fewer screens than “Smile 2.” That one I’ll have to catch later this weekend, I hope.

The respectable but underwhelming Michael Keaton/Mila Kunis dramedy “Goodrich” didn’t crack the top five, even if it earned slightly better reviews than “We Live in Time.”

“Piece by Piece” and “The Apprentice” are good pictures that can’t find an audience, and are fading and will start shedding screens any minute now.

As always, I’ll update these figures as more data comes in.

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Movie Review: Dinklage and Brolin as twin “Brothers?” With Glenn Close as their armed robber Mama?

Posted on October 19, 2024 by Roger Moore

Whatever laughs are inherent in a caper comedy pairing up Peter Dinklage and Josh Brolin as twin lowlife thieving siblings caught up in “one last job” that involves their thieving mama (Glenn Close), Oscar winners Marisa Tomei and Brendan Fraser, with M. Emmet Walsh and an orangutan thrown in, aren’t so much coaxed out in “Brothers.” They’re flogged, beaten and dragged kicking and screaming from it.

Director Max Barbahow (“Palm Springs”) and screenwriter Macon Blair “(Small Crimes”) park these players and plot elements in a frenetic, slapsticky Southern (ish) farce of the “Logan Lucky” or “Masterminds” variety. As in very broad, Southern and “tries too hard.” Far too hard.

Most of the laughs in it catch you by surprise — that orangutan and its “role,” over-the-top sibling tussles, at least one of which causes a car wreck. But “over the top” is the default mode here, and the picture strains and groans from the burden of it.

The clumsy crooks can be funny. A backhoe chased by enraged golfers in carts is a laugh. Fraser as a corrupt, spitting-mad prison guard is a hoot. But what’s here doesn’t quite jell into a romp that romps.

Jady (Dinklage) and Moke (Brolin) are twins who grew up in the family stealing and armed-robbing game,” learnin’ by doin’,” Jady narrates. But Mom (Jen Landon plays her as a young strumpet) and her “cool” beau Glenn (Joshua Mikel) went wrong one time too many some 30 years before. And left on their own, Jady — how his sibling pronounced “J.T.” as a child — and Moke weren’t clever enough to keep Jady out of prison.

Years later, he gets out and tracks down his gone-straight sibling so that they can recover the Koenig emeralds Mom and the late-Glenn stole decades before.

If he doesn’t, hulking prison guard Farful (Fraser) and his equally corrupt judge-dad (Walsh, in his final film role) will have Jady’s hide.

Moke, his sibling’s belittling nickname for him, is now Mike, “gone straight” with a wife (Taylour Paige), a mortgage and a baby on the way. He has to be tricked and bullied into doing Jady this “favor,” which turns out to involve their still-on-the-lam mom (Close).

Jady starts piecing together what they’ll need to accomplish this mission by hooking up with an old flame (Tomei), which is how Moke meets her “spirit partner,” the orangutan, a “partner” with “urges.”

“Brothers” is the sort of yahoo farce that hunts for funny in character names — Crabcake, Gamma and Dad-Daddy among them.

Some of it works, too much of it doesn’t. The pacing is fast enough in stretches, the performances amusingly broad and the pratfuls and punches sometimes deliver a chuckle.

But at the end of the day, if “yahoo” is what you’re going for, you can’t skimp on the banjos. Ask Soderbergh (“Logan Lucky”) or Galifianakis (“Masterminds”). They’ll tell you.

Rating: R, violence, sexual misbehavior, profanity

Cast: Peter Dinklage, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, Taylour Paige, M. Emmet Walsh, Marisa Tomei and Brendan Fraser.

Credits: Directed by Max Barbakow, scripted by Macon Blair. An MGM/Amazon release.

Running time:1:29

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Netflixable? Anna Kendrick’s dazzling and damning directing debut — “Woman of the Hour”

Posted on October 18, 2024 by Roger Moore

In “Woman of the Hour,” an infamous piece of ’70s serial killer lore becomes a suspenseful and disheartening thriller in the hands of director and star Anna Kendrick.

It’s a pre “#BelieveWomen” tale when women were speaking-out and alerting police to the rapists, molesters and murderers among us. And men in general and the cops in particular either didn’t listen, didn’t take it seriously or were simply so slow at taking action or putting together the pieces that something awful was happening. To women.

Kendrick, working from a script by Ian McDonald (“Superman Returns”), captures late ’70s America in all its sexism and barely-under-the-radar violence. Playing an aspiring actress named Cheryl who appears on the leering, innuendo-laced “Dating Game,” Kendrick gets good advice, if not solace, from the sage and cynical makeup artist (Denalda Williams, terrific) giving her a touch-up during each commercial break.

The only real question and subtext to “today’s bachelorette” TV interrogation of three SoCal bachelors, makeup artist Marilyn advises, is this.

“Which one of you will hurt me?”

Cheryl’s on a show, trying to choose between a dolt, a womanizer and a handsome charmer (Daniel Zovatto). But in the film’s opening scenes, and in flashbacks throughout, we’ve seen “Rodney” lure young women (mostly) into posing for him so that he can photograph them, often in striking remote locations (Joshua Tree, etc.). Then he strangles them, sexually assaults them, and even revives them for more torturous abuse.

The crimes are sinister and savage and hard to watch. But in this feminist manifesto of a film, “The Dating Game” and sexist culture in general are just as cringe-worthy.

Cheryl’s struggling to get a break as an actress, enduring rude auditions where lumpy men pass judgment on her looks, make cracks about her “type” and find reasons she’s “not quite right” for this or that part.

Even the aspiring actor neighbor (Pete Holmes) is on-the-spectrum creepy, lightly hitting on her as he’s trying to buck up her confidence. Kendrick, the Queen of Awkward “date” scenes, finds it easier to sleep with him than face his reaction to rejection, in a bar and in all their probably future encounters in the hall of their apartment complex.

“Unpleasant?” Almost certainly. “Violent?” Possibly.

Meanwhile, Rodney is photographing a Texan (Kelly Jakle) in Wyoming or helping a stewardess (Kathryn Gallagher) move into a dumpy New York apartment. He charms and flatters, and when he sees his chance, he terrorizes and strangles.

We’re treated to a hint at murderous motivation, a general contempt for woman and need for “revenge” upon them.

And as Ted-Bundy-handsome Rodney bounces all over the country, even showing off some of his photography to new colleagues at the Los Angeles Times, we see a monster in plain sight whom no one wants to take as a serious threat.

Booking that “Dating Game,” Cheryl finds herself liberated (by brassy Marilyn) to ditch the scripted come-on questions, ignore the host’s order that she “not be too smart,” and take over the show by torching three “IQ of a lug nut” bachelors with references to Einstein and Immanuel Kant.

But in that audience is one female viewer (Nicolette Robinson) who recognizes Bachelor #3. Will she raise the alarm to the right people, and will they take her accusations seriously?

And what happens if Cheryl chooses Bachelor #3? Perish the thought.

Kendrick maintains suspense behind the camera as she lays on the vulnerability on camera. But Cheryl, like a couple of women seen here, has learned to be leery, learned to mistrust “men” and the patriarchy that lets them get away with being boorish, aggressively forward, unprofessional or threatening.

Do yourself a favor and don’t go to the Wikipedia page history of this “true story” until you’ve finished watching Kendrick’s chilling, damning thriller about it.

The performances are generally fine, but casting Tony Hale as the renamed “Dating Game” host was a mistake and a missed chance. Jim Lange was an unflappable veteran DJ who gave that show some personality, and several signatures and catch phrases. Hale’s a fine actor, and often a funny one. But vocally and tempermentally, Hale would have a hard time passing for a public radio host, much less the seemingly square but droll and outgoing Lange.

Sure, give him a wig and play the guy as another sexist jerk. Rename him if you’re afraid of lawsuits. But put a PERSONALITY who knows how to use his voice in that role.

That’s the only quibble I have with this otherwise dazzling directing debut. We can wonder why this hasn’t led to a stream of directing offers from our acclaimed “smart cookie” behind the camera. But considering the tone and messaging of “Woman of the Hour,” I’m guessing Kendrick is the only one who isn’t surprised that hasn’t happened.

Rating: R, graphic violence, sexual assault, substance abuse, profanity

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Nicolette Robinson, Autumn Best, Kelly Jakle, Kathryn Gallagher, Denalda Williams and Tony Hale.

Credits: Directed by Anna Kendrick, scripted by Ian McDonald. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:35

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Movie Review: The last word in horror sequels — “Smile 2”

Posted on October 18, 2024 by Roger Moore

“Smile 2” is a genuinely horrific plunge into terror.

Writer-director Parker Finn revives his 2022 creation with a sequel of real ambition. Dude spent a LOT of Paramount’s money on production values for an authentically artistic, high-minded, lowdown and gory fright fest so good it makes you ponder why everybody else in this justly maligned genre doesn’t try this hard.

And “Aladdin” co-star Naomi Scott gives herself over to this “universe,” this role and this experience with a career-making commitment that should make other filmmakers casting roles in any genre sit up and say “Why not Naomi?”

The picture’s so polished and cleverly executed that one does wonder how this franchise will top it. It’s kind of the last word on movies about the demonic presence that once you see its latest victim smile, you know you’re next and that you’re doomed.

Scott plays Skye Riley, a pop starlet set to come back from an accident that should have finished her physically, emotionally and professionally. She and her equally-stoned boyfriend had a car wreck and he was killed.

A year later, she’s got a new LP — “Too Much for One Heart” — to promote, complex dances to rehearse, lingering injuries to “power through” and damage control to do on Drew Barrymore’s chat show.

Skye doesn’t have rehab or twelve-step sponsors. She’s got her taskmaster mom (Rosemarie DeWitt of TV’s “Mad Men” and “The Boys”). And Mom is here to remind her of all her “responsibilities.”

Skye has been taught to gulp pricey Voss water anytime she’s stressed enough to figure she could use a chemical pick-me-up or calm-me-down. It doesn’t work. But checking in with her old drug dealer (Lukas Gage) turns out to be the mistake to end all mistakes.

Lewis is manic, hallucinating and dangerous. He pulls a samurai sword on her at the door. Perhaps the least believable moment in the movie is when Skye doesn’t flee the instant that blade’s not on her neck.

But that’s addiction for you. Maybe she’ll give him a bad Google review later.

Seeing Lewis smile before he bashes his own skull in seals Skye’s fate. Not that she knows this. Not right away.

“Smile 2″ tracks through over an hour of letting us see the problems this new smile” terror has to compete with in Skye’s harried mind.

Mom’s always reminding Naomi of all the people — dancers, backup singers, bookers, venue owners, road crew, her record company — “counting on you.” She’s loaded with guilt about her addiction, the accident, the fans she has to meet and greet and the best friend (Dylan Gelula of TV’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Loot” and “Hacks”) she cussed-out and dumped.

And now she’s having hallucinations — about Lewis, about Paul her actor-beau, about the end game some demented fan may have planned for her.

A prologue has shown us one man’s efforts to outsmart this curse by passing it on to drug dealers. We wait for the third act for Skye to have this threat explained to her by a stranger (Peter Jacobson), forcing her to ponder her fate, her responsibilities and just what she can do to change her dying-young-destiny.

Scott lets us see more than a pretty face with great dance chops. We see the insecurities of a short-shelf-life career, one marred by physical and emotional scars she’s got to hide to be a success. We drop into the loneliness of stardom, the pressures and limited options for people you can truly call on when the chips or down or you just need a real shoulder to cry on that doesn’t belong to someone on your payroll.

While the movie summons up memories of Britney and Demi and other pop stars troubled by their “success,”{ I found the middle acts in “Smile 2” to be a tad too indulgent and teasing. Suspense builds as Skye melts down, but writer-director Finn gets a little lost in the “Star is Reborn” aspects of Skye’s experience.

And twists and jolts aside, when the time comes to wrap all this up, Finn’s own options are limited by the genre he’s thriving in and the corner his story and universe’s “rules” have painted him into.

It’s still a good, grim and pitiless parable masquerading as a horror movie. It makes you remember to be good to those close to you. Show a little empathy, leave time for mental health days and distance yourself from people who can’t grasp that. Because all that taking care of your teeth does is ensure you have a killer smile.

Rating: R, gory gory GORY violence, drug abuse, profanity

Cast: Naomi Scott, Lukas Gage, Dylan Gelula, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Peter Jacobson and Rosemarie DeWitt.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Parker Finn. A Paramount release.

Running time: 2:07

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Movie Preview: Canadians go Ghost Busting…again — “Don’t F*#k with Ghosts”

Posted on October 17, 2024 by Roger Moore

Kevin Hart produced this Canadian mockumentary, which played Up North and comes to Prime Video on Halloween.

Looks cutesy, and sort of mockumentary ish.

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Movie Review: “Found Footage” gives us a glimpse of the witch they call “Beezel”

Posted on October 17, 2024 by Roger Moore

The 60 year witch-haunts-a-house story “Beezel” seems to have been kicked around a bit before Epic got hold of it and gave it a streaming release.

That’s a shame, because this creepy, low-budget horror tale certainly passes the “Well, I’ve seen Lilworse” test.

It’s a “found footage” thriller where the footage changes as decades pass and grainy video replaces grainy home movie film stock, making its way to the HD video in standard use today.

We see horrific goings-on in a suburban Massachusetts ranch house, first in the 1960s, then in the ’80s, early 2000s and 2013.

A New York documentary filmmaker (LeJon Woods) is summoned in the ’80s by the owner of the house (Bob Gallagher) who lets on that he wants to “clear my name” about the family murdered there decades before. He’s quick to dismiss the myth surrounding the house. And his wife even “acts the part” of a witch, scaring off annoying, taunting kids who harass them.

“Beneath the house, inside the room, the blind witch waits anon, to sniff and crawl and feast on all,” Harold Weems (Gallagher) recites, claiming that’s a rhyme local children made up. As if any child of the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s would use “anon.”

As we’d expect, first act Apollo (Woods) hears more than he should and faces his doom, with a twist or two in that.

Caroline Quigley plays the latest hospice nurse to come in to care for the widow Weems (Kimberly Salditt Poulin) and freaks out about what must have happened to the nurses who preceded her.

And screenwriter Victoria Fradkin plays a young woman who married a Weems offspring (Nicolas Robin) and lives with him in Paris. She comes to the house in 2013, camcorder in hand, to talk about “the murders” and grumps that “The worst part is, now nobody wants to buy” the place.

The frights are standard issue jolts, heightened by the strident strings of the truly alarming musical score (can’t find who composed/performed it). The pall of creepiness sets in from all these wintry, underlit scenes, some of them shot in the “found footage” element of the story.

“Beezel” won’t surprise anyone who has seen more that three or four horror films. But it’s far from awful, with decent performances, makeup, effects and “shock me, baby” editing.

Rating: unrated, graphic violence, explicit sex and nudity

Cast: Bob Gallagher, Victoria Fradkin, LeJon Woods, Caroline Quigley, Nicolas Robin and Kimberly Salditt Poulin.

Credits: Directed by Aaron Fradkin, scripted by Aaron Fradkin and Victoria Fradkin. An Epic release.

Running time: 1:22

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Movie Preview: A Serial Killer Thriller with an “on the nose” title — “The Man in the White Van”

Posted on October 17, 2024 by Roger Moore

Ali Larter, Madison Wolfe, Sean Astin and Brec Bassinger are the stars of this “true story” of a Florida serial killer NOT named Ted Bundy.

“I think he’s following me.”

“You have to stop over-exaggerating.”

Not often we get that kind of butchery of English grammar in a movie trailer. But hey. “FloriDuh.”

Dec. 13 this hits theaters.

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Movie Review: Keaton reconnects with his kids, including Mila Kunis, as “Goodrich”

Posted on October 17, 2024 by Roger Moore

There’s no heavy lifting in “Goodrich,” the Michael Keaton/Mila Kunis dramedy about a workaholic second-time-around dad forced to reconnect with his kids, including the one old enough to be pregnant.

The jokes about trying, after 60, to learn to be a dad, are easy to reach to the point of cute and mostly low-hanging fruit. The formula in play is another “I did my best” parent facing a sometimes comic, sometimes sad reckoning.

At its most somber, it reaches for “Kramer vs. Kramer.” In lighter moments, one can wonder if all involved could have just turned this into a sequel to one of Keaton’s earliest hits, “Mister Mom.” The edgiest thing about it is its rating, “R,” for profanity. It would have reached a wider audience as a PG-13.

But this it’s well-acted and it plays. More or less.

Writer-director Hallie Meyers-Shyer was an actress before getting that first writing-directing (Reese Witherspoon’s “Home Again”), but is still most famously the daughter of writer-director couple Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer, who remade “The Parent Trap” and “Father of the Bride” before divorcing. She doesn’t embarrass herself and give Hollywood “nepo babies” a bad name here any more than she makes her name with this slight, derivative star vehicle.

Keaton has the title role playing the embattled owner of a tony, boutique art gallery struggling to stay afloat by surfing the ever-changing tastes of Left Coast art lovers, the ups and downs of “the market” and the mercurial moods of artists he needs to please.

Goodrich Gallery may be going under (Kevin Pollack plays the not-so-silent “business” partner) if he can’t land The Next Big Thing. But that’s not what wakes owner Andy up in the middle of the night. His wife is calling. From rehab. She’s checked herself in to shake her pill addiction.

“The woman that I live with doesn’t have a drug abuse problem!”

He’s the last to know, she tells him, because “We live totally separate lives.” And by the way, she’s leaving him.

Sixty-something Andy might be on his own with those two late-life nine-year-old twins, Billie and Mose (Vivian Lyra Blair, Jacob Kopera). He can only lie to them about where Mom went for so long. Maybe his 36 year old daughter (Kunis) can pitch in, as he’s “got a thing” pretty much every night, wining and dining artists and buyers.

The movie is about Andy’s belated transition to attentive father, and his oldest daughter’s resentment that this transition didn’t happen thirty years sooner.

The jokes are of the Dad-doesn’t-know-which-grade-his-kids-are-in variety. That drone Mose is playing with in their expensively-decorated house in the Hollywood hills?

“Who GOT you that thing?” “You and Mom got it for us last Christmas!”

The father/oldest-daughter banter may not be original, but Keaton and Kunis make it work.

“This is me begging you. How often do I do this?”

“Do you want me to answer that?”

“LATELY. I was going to say ‘lately.'”

The script doesn’t do a great job of zeroing in on that relationship, as it drifts off into gallery concerns, with the daughter (Carmen Ejogo) of a just-died famous artist to charm and a divorced gay dad (Michael Urie) of a sickly child at their kids’ school to, um, bond with.

Honestly, the picture teeters on the edge of “hackneyed” more than once, although at least some of that is recognizing comic crutches and “types” we’ve seen in plenty of screenplays by our writer-director’s Mom Nancy Meyers and to a lesser degree Dad, Charles Shyer. That new gay friend, his no-nonsense Israeli babysitter? Vintage Nancy and Charles. Did they offer their daughter tips?

But Keaton still has the timing, and aiming for “sweet” as his career veers towards repeating himself (“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice”), TV, B-thrillers (“Knox Goes Away”) and lesser superhero fare wasn’t a bad choice. Kunis gives her pregnant, resentful daughter some edge.

And Ejogo and Andie MacDowell (as Goodrich’s artist “first wife”) make decent impressions.

There’s nothing about “Goodrich” that would scare producers away from working with a filmmaker whose only goal might be to become “Nancy Meyers: The Next Generation,” even if there’s little original to lure them in either.

Rating: R, for profanity

Cast: Michael Keaton, Mila Kunis, Carmen Ejogo, Kevin Pollack and Andie MacDowell.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer. A Ketchup Entertainment release.

Running time: 1:50

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Movie Preview: A Monster who is Gremlins cute — ” The Legend of Ochi”

Posted on October 16, 2024 by Roger Moore

Willem Dafoe’s presence gives away the A24 take on a vampiric Gremlin monster rescued by a tweenage girl.

A Scandinavian music video director brings this tale to the screen next spring.

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Movie Preview: A New Mexican-Californian tale of kids from two worlds — “In the Summers”

Posted on October 16, 2024 by Roger Moore

Mom’s raising the kids in California, but “In the Summers” they go to Las Cruces, New Mexico to stay with their troubled but loving father.

This saga about kids growing up with and without their dad did the festival circuit, got a limited release in Sept. and hits streaming Nov. 5.

Looks brittle and lovely.

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