New Releases:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem – After years of being sheltered from the human world, the Turtle brothers set out to win the hearts of New Yorkers and be accepted as normal teenagers. Their new friend, April O’Neil, helps them take on a mysterious crime syndicate, but they soon get in over their heads when an army of mutants is unleashed upon them.
Expectations: For the first time since 2007’s TMNT, the Turtles are back on the big screen in animated form and the anticipation for this movie is high, with some eye-popping style that is reminiscent of Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse. The voice cast around our four heroes is fantastic, including Jackie Chan, Paul Rudd, John Cena, Ayo Edibri and Seth Rogen, who also produced and co-wrote the film. Another cool thing about this film is that Leo, Donny, Raph and Mikey are all voiced by real teenagers, the first time this has been done with the characters, and, to me, that adds so much. This is going to be awesome.
Meg 2: The Trench – Get ready for the ultimate adrenaline rush this summer in a larger-than-life thrill ride that supersizes the first movie and takes the action to higher heights and even greater depths with multiple massive Megs and so much more. Dive into uncharted waters with Jason Statham and global action icon Wu Jing as they lead a daring research team on an exploratory dive into the deepest depths of the ocean. Their voyage spirals into chaos when a malevolent mining operation threatens their mission and forces them into a high-stakes battle for survival. Pitted against colossal Megs and relentless environmental plunderers, our heroes must outrun, outsmart, and outswim their merciless predators in a pulse-pounding race against time.
Expectations: Speaking of things that are going to be excellent, the first Meg film was way more fun than I expected it to be and now that we have a usually arthouse horror and thriller director Ben Wheatley helming this one, I think all bets are off. With bigger monsters, bigger stakes and Jason Statham defying all expectations, the trailer is an absolute blast and I think we will have a wild ride ahead of us. Giant shark movies for the win!
Shortcomings – Ben, a struggling filmmaker, lives in Berkeley, California, with his girlfriend, Miko, who works for a local Asian American film festival. When he’s not managing an arthouse movie theatre as his day job, Ben spends his time obsessing over unavailable blonde women, watching Criterion Collection DVDs, and eating in diners with his best friend Alice, a queer grad student with a serial dating habit. When Miko moves to New York for an internship, Ben is left to his own devices and begins to explore what he thinks he might want.
Review: The writing and directing debut of Randall Park, this film is a total win with a great script and smart and funny characters framed by great performances from Justin H. Min, Sherry Cola and Ally Maki. Meta in a lot of its delivery, the interesting this about the film is that it leads with a pretty unlikable character but one that is very unassuming of his lesser traits. This counteracts Chon’s onscreen likability as I always have enjoyed his work, especially on The Umbrella Academy.
A Compassionate Spy – Directed by two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Life Itself), the film is a gripping real-life spy thriller about controversial Manhattan Project physicist Ted Hall, who infamously provided nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, told through the perspective of his loving wife Joan, who protected his secret for decades. Recruited in 1944 as an 18-year-old Harvard undergraduate to help Robert Oppenheimer and his team create a bomb, Hall was the youngest physicist on the Manhattan Project and didn’t share his colleagues’ elation after the successful detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb. Concerned that a U.S. post-war monopoly on such a powerful weapon could lead to nuclear catastrophe, Hall began passing key information about the bomb’s construction to the Soviet Union. After the war, he met, fell in love with, and married Joan, a fellow student with whom he shared a passion for classical music and socialist causes and the explosive secret of his espionage. The pair raised a family while living under suspicion and years of FBI surveillance and intimidation. This film reveals the twists and turns of this real-life spy story, its profound impact on nuclear history, and the couple’s remarkable love and life together during more than fifty years of marriage.
Review: This new documentary is capitalizing on the fact that the Christopher Nolan-written and directed biopic was only released last week. So, with some of the Manhattan Project facts fresh in our mind, we get a story that is only slightly eluded to in that blockbuster film about leaking weapons secrets to the Soviets. The decision to do interviews along with dramatic re-enactment is one that I don’t agree with the story is interesting but that may be my residual Oppenheimer high from last week.
Blu-Ray:
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 – In the final part of their story, our beloved band of misfits is looking a bit different these days. Peter Quill, still reeling from the loss of Gamora, must rally his team around him to defend the universe along with protecting one of their own. A mission that, if not completed successfully, could lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them.
Review: Writer and director James Gunn closes his chapter in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe with a film brimming with heart and soul, so much so that if you didn’t leak a tear then I’m curious if you are a robot or not. I will contend that Guardians was the perfect trilogy contained within this expansive story and Gunn seemed to get the assignment every time and knock it out of the park. I also love that this is Rocket’s movie and every emotional beat lands with an incredible crescendo. This is one of 2023’s best, without a doubt.
About My Father – The film centers around Sebastian (Sebastian Maniscalco) who is encouraged by his fiancée (Leslie Bibb) to bring his immigrant hairdresser father Salvo (Robert De Niro) to a weekend get-together with her super-rich and exceedingly eccentric family (Kim Cattrall, Anders Holm, Brett Dier, David Rasche). The weekend develops into what can only be described as a culture clash, leaving Sebastian and Salvo to discover that the great thing about family is everything about family.
Review: I have to say that my feelings for this comedy may come from a low bar being set for it, given De Niro’s comedy choices recently and the “comedians-centric” movies that have always been hit or miss. The film has to fight through its cliches and plot points that are completely predictable but there are some genuine laughs to be had in this movie and enough to elevate it to being a solid watch. Much like Jo Koy’s Easter Sunday, there was something about this movie that just won me over.
Steve’s Blu-Ray Geekouts:
Best Seller – Police detective and successful author Dennis Meechum (Brian Dennehy) has not been able to write since his wife’s death and owes an overdue manuscript to the publisher. When corporate hitman Cleve (James Woods) proposes his life story as a book, Meechum suspects he is a fraud. However, Cleve has proof of his hits for executive David Madlock (Paul Shenar). While this convinces Meechum, it also endangers his daughter (Allison Balson), whom Madlock kidnaps to stop the story from coming out.
Review: It’s cool that Moviezyng.com hooked me up with this 1987-made action flick as it just celebrated its thirty-fifth anniversary and it is a time portal to a different time of movies with very different ideas of a genre star. Yes, James Woods was at his early career peak and Brian Dennehy was in his F/X phase and the action section was filled with great gritty films. Both actors make this Larry Cohen script a hell of a lot of fun and it inadvertently led to Stallone calling director John Flynn to make Lock Up, another action favorite of mine at the time.
City Of Ghosts – Waiting for the heat to cool from a failed U.S. insurance scam, Jimmy (Matt Dillon) grows restless in Bangkok. When he hears rumours that his partner and mentor Marvin has surfaced in Cambodia, he sets off to get his promised cut. What he finds there is a mysterious and hostile environment where even the most polished criminal can end up on deadly ground. The further Jimmy gets in his search for Marvin, the deeper he plunges himself into a predicament from which he may not return.
Review: Matt Dillon’s debut as a writer and director in a feature film makes its debut on Blu-ray and I remember checking it out on DVD when it was originally released twenty years ago. Featuring a solid cast around him with James Caa, Stellan Skarsgard and Natascha McElhone, Dillon tells a pretty well-told story against an exotic and interesting backdrop. The cinematography is the true MVP here, done by Jim Denault, the eye behind Boys Don’t Cry and The Grizzlies.
Diary Of A Hitman – A veteran hitman, Dekker (Forest Whitaker) is ready to call it quits and leave the profession. Dekker’s final job, however, proves to be trickier than expected when the sadistic Zidzyck (Lewis Smith) recruits the assassin to kill his wife, Jain (Sherilyn Fenn), along with the couple’s baby. While Dekker has a change of heart and resolves not to shoot Jain and her child, his decision places all their lives in danger, since Zidzyck has dispatched another killer to perform the task.
Review: Dipping back to an action drama from 1991, this was also a Forest Whitaker blindspot for me, as well as a Sherilyn Fenn one as I’m a huge Twin Peaks fan as well. The film has that early 90s noir grit to it that benefits from having Forest’s gravitas, as well as a solid performance from Sharon Stone, just a year before she hit it big with Basic Instinct. I also like the added Twin Peaks connection of a quick cameo from Jim Belushi.
Television:
Physical: Season 3 (AppleTV+) – Set in the idyllic but fragile beach paradise of sunny 1980s San Diego, the show is a half-hour dark comedy following Sheila Rubin, a quietly tortured, seemingly dutiful housewife supporting her smart but controversial husband’s bid for state assembly. But behind closed doors, Sheila has her own darkly funny take on life she rarely lets the world see. She’s also battling a complex set of personal demons relating to her self-image; that is until she finds release through the unlikeliest source: the world of aerobics. At first, hooked on the exercise itself, Sheila’s real road to empowerment comes when she discovers a way to merge this newfound passion with the burgeoning technology of videotape to start a revolutionary business. The series tracks her epic journey from a stifled, overlooked enabler to a powerful, confident economic force, as Sheila transforms into someone we take for granted today but was entirely radical at the time- the female lifestyle guru.
Expectations: Rose Byrne is an absolute treasure, especially comedically, but this show loves to dabble on the razor’s edge of dark comedy. That said, I think it still plays to Rose’s dramatic side and her portrayal of Sheila is biting, pragmatic and oh-so awful to herself. This show, in a sea of other shows that seem plucked from other networks, is a crown jewel in quality from AppleTv+ and I think it is the show that is being seriously overlooked on a grand scale. If you love character-centric dramas with a funny bite to them, this is your bag for sure.
Steve Stebbing 