The Great Summer Catchup
What a weird past few months! Between our household’s first bouts with COVID-19 and moving within West Asheville, I’ve only made it to the theater for Jordan Peele’s Nope over the past few weeks. But prior to and since the fatigue and the brain fog and the stacks and stacks and stacks of cardboard boxes, I’ve accumulated a backlog of notes on recent releases that haven’t quite grown into even capsule reviews.
And so, without further ado, I present…
The Great Summer Catchup!
Wisely taking her cues from Grizzly Man, documentarian Sara Dosa meticulously assembles footage taken by the late French scientists Katia and Maurice Krafft into the visual and emotional feast known as Fire of Love. Imagery of the couple bravely coexisting with active lava and making the talk show circuit never grow old, but as the film’s narrator, Miranda July is no Werner Herzog, and her comatose readings clash with Dosa’s otherwise terrific tribute.
Grade: B. Rated PG. Now playing at the Fine Arts Theatre
(Photo: Neon)
One of the most reliably solid sci-fi/action series, the Predator saga expands in moderately successful ways with Prey, which finds one of the alien invaders on a quest for the top of the food chain on the Great Plains in 1719. Director Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) combines gorgeous natural scenery with Comanche heroics to reasonably sharp ends, but the decision to have characters who wouldn’t know English speak it as their main language proves increasingly distracting and just feels wrong. Though well-intentioned, the sloppy Comanche dub option on Hulu adds insult to injury, but even if Prey had been filmed in that indigenous language with English subtitles, its reliance on CGI over practical effects still would have resulted in an oddly diluted Predator.
Grade: B-minus. Rated R. Available to stream via Hulu.
(Photo: David Bukach/Searchlight Pictures)
A feature-length expansion of the popular stop-motion short films by real-life couple Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On combines just enough heartwarming moments and laugh-out-loud comedy to sustain its flimsy premise for 90 minutes. As the titular entity (voiced by Slate) copes with the decline of her grandmother Connie (Isabella Rossellini), befriends AirBnB guest Dean (Fleischer-Camp), and uses his technical know-how to try and locate her missing family, the film sustains momentum through Marcel’s purity and innocence — and gifts viewers a much-needed dose of positivity.
Grade: B-plus. Rated PG. Now playing at the Fine Arts Theatre and Regal Biltmore Grande.
(Photo: A24)
From its synthesis of action and comedy to its appealing cast to its borderline ridiculous twists and turns, The Gray Man feels like it was written by an algorithm, built to satisfy moviegoers’ base desires. A successful algorithm, that is — one that avoid the pitfalls of such Netflix action/comedy duds as Red Notice and 6 Underground, and lets Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana De Armas, Billy Bob Thornton, and Alfre Woodard exude Bourne Identity-esque charisma under Anthony and Joe Russo’s entertainment-first direction. If this series continues, I certainly will not complain.
Grade: B-plus. Rated R. Available to stream via Netflix.
(Photo: Netflix)
Hindi-language films have long seem poised to break through with U.S. audiences, but it took something as audacious and ridiculously fun as RRR (Rise Roar Revolt) to finally transcend cultural roadblocks — and runtimes long enough to necessitate intermissions. Writer/director S.S. Rajamouli packs the epic 1920s bromance between Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) and Alluri Sitarama Raju (Ram Charan) with exaggerated, physics-defying set pieces, but sprinkles in enough humor, melodrama, music, and jaw-dropping dance sequences to extend the appeal beyond merely action fans.
Grade: A-minus. Not rated, but with extreme violence. Available to stream via Netflix.
(Photo: Netflix)
B.J. Novak makes an impressive feature-length debut as a writer/director with the crime comedy Vengeance, and also brings his distinct deadpan charms to the role of Ben, a NYC-based podcaster who gets pulled into investigating the murder of a former hook-up in her Texas hometown. The culture-clash humor consistently hits and Ashton Kutcher gives arguably a career-best performance as a humorless and immensely talented music producer, but Novak doesn’t know how to end the damn thing, resulting in a head-scratching final five minutes in need of significant revision.
Grade: B. Rated R. Now playing at Carolina Cinemark and Regal Biltmore Grande.
(Photo: Patti Perret/Focus Features)
From The Lady in the Van to Finding Your Feet, cozy British dramedies remain consistently delightful, but in the hands of writer/director Anthony Fabian and his team of scribes, the adaptation of Paul Gallico’s novel Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris plays like an unintentional parody of this sub-genre. The film relies far too much on the appeal of Lesley Manville’s eponymous maid and WWII widow awkwardly speaking her mind in ill-fitting situations, and her yawn-inducing continental adventure to obtain a custom Dior dress isn’t helped by stock supporting characters navigating surprise-free conflicts.
Grade: C-minus. Rated PG. Now playing at Carolina Cinemark.
(Photo: Dávid Lukács/Focus Features)
