We dedicate this week’s episode to, in all evidence, a real angel that has left the earth this week, the legendary Dolly Parton. If you haven’t seen 9 To 5, get on it now! As for the episode itself, we look at a live action and animation hybrid that was saved from the shelves of Warner Bros. by fan support, Jason Statham doing Jason Statham things and I get caught up with the Lamberts before jumping into the newest installment of a certain Sony franchise for next week’s show.
Kicking everything off, Coyote vs. Acme does good on being a fresh and funny film for all audiences which is great because cartoonish villain David Zazlav almost made sure it was for NO audience. Will Forte and John Cena lean into their comedy chops well and do I compare the Wile E. Coyote performance to Buster Keaton? Damn rights, I do!
Then Jason Statham is taking down human traffickers at sea in his new film, Mutiny, the follow up to Plane for director Jean-Francois Richet. Expecting a straight forward Statham style actioner, which it is to the core, this one impressed me for all of the shallowest of reasons, namely the gory and brutal ways in which our hero dispatches the bad guys. It’s truly glorious sometimes.
Then we head back twenty five years to take pink slips and deliver ten second cars. That’s right, it’s the quarter century mark for the film that kicked off a billion dollar franchise but this is a reminder of how simply it all started. Ripping of trailers of DVD players and TV/VCR combos and competing in drag races seems such a far cry from where they are now at the conclusion of Fast X and the start of production on Fast Forever, should the money show up for it to happen.
Then we pivot to streaming, starting with a new mall based horror film that feels like the love child of The Craft and Mean Girls. Equipped with a solid script, based on the original play, a game cast and a bright pink aesthetic, Forbidden Fruits is a well reviewed hidden gem and kind of a must see for any fans of the horror genre. Plus, Lili Reinhart and Victoria Pedretti are too great to ignore in this.
Then, sadly, I bring the mood down by finally checking out James L. Brooks’ new film Ella McKay, a film that boasts a pretty impressive cast. Brooks, a legendary filmmaker and producer of The Simpsons, has given us films like Terms Of Endearment and As Good As It Gets so the bar is set at a solid level. This might have killed it for me because WOOF, what the hell is this movie? Who was it made for? How much money did it waste? Stuff like this bothers me.
Finally, in order to be caught up enough to watch Insidious: Out Of The Further, I watched the last installment of this franchise, Insidious: The Red Door. Patrick Wilson makes his debut as a filmmaker, bringing the repressed memories of the Lambert family for a final showdown with that creep lipstick demon guy. Is the film worth it or is Sony just ringing that Tiny Tim money bell every few years?
Coming up next week:
The Dog Stars
Idiots
Buddy
Colony
Legend Of The White Dragon
The Whisper Man
New episodes of What The Hell Should I Watch? drop every Friday at 9 a.m. Pacific.
Steve Stebbing 