Summer Blockbusters and Plain Old Busts
Comings and Goings at the Movies, Aug. 1
Reviewed in this newsletter: a domestic thriller with A-list stars that you probably haven’t heard of, the latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that you’ve definitely heard of, a blockbuster that could be a literal theme park attraction, and a tender cross-continental romance from Iceland. Plus a quick word on American-made saké.
Mothers’ Instinct
Coming to VOD platforms August 13.
On a recent transcontinental flight, I was scrolling through the movies available to watch and was surprised to find out that there was a new, 1960’s-set suburbia thriller that stars Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway. And I had never heard of it! This should be my catnip... but turns out, there's a reason I didn't know it existed until seeing it pop up on an Air France flight. Mothers’ Instinct was released in multiple territories overseas earlier this year. But Neon, which acquired the movie before a single frame was shot, is only just now giving the film a contractually obligated, bare-minimum release. In New York, it played on just one screen, for one week only, with one early morning showtime each day. The film’s A-list talent have done zero press for the US release. That’s a mark of confidence in a movie’s commercial potential and artistic merit.
Chastain and Hathaway are the titular mothers of Mothers’ Instinct. They’re best friends and neighbors, each with a husband and a son, living an idyllic suburban life. Then a tragedy tears their bond apart, which I won't reveal here. Suspicion ferments and the mind games begin, as their domestic lives begin to unravel. This is one of those movies that's kind of interesting to analyze why it's a failure, but it's too dull to actually be enjoyable to watch. It’s the directorial debut of Benoît Delhomme, a longtime cinematographer who has shot some beautiful looking movies like At Eternity's Gate. He lensed this film as well, and while it’s hard to judge cinematography on an eight-inch airplane screen, this appeared to be visually antiseptic. The whole movie feels airless: it feels like it's set in the suburbia-in-a-bubble of Don't Worry Darling, but without the boffo twist ending.
Anders Danielsen Lie is also in this, the standout performer from The Worst Person in the World and Oslo, 31 August. He’s Jessica Chastain's husband, but he doesn't do anything of note except comfort his wife. Delbonnel doesn't seem to be a great director of actors, as Chastain and Hathaway approach the material from such different angles that the tone becomes disjointed. Perhaps in the hands of someone like Todd Haynes, Mother's Instinct could have been campy, devillish, noirish, soapy, FUN! But this version of the movie? It's not entertaining, nor is it clear in what it's trying to say behind its story.
Deadpool & Wolverine
Currently unescapable at cinemas.
I’m just not the target audience for these movies anymore, and my opinions on these movies are kind of annoying. This Deadpool threequel is so self-referential that it ends up eating its own tail (or its own ass, as I’m sure Ryan Reynolds would prefer me to say). Hugh Jackman returns to the Marvel world as an alt-universe Wolverine, who reluctantly teams up with Deadpool to save the universe, or whatever. The script, penned by a team headlined by Reynolds and director Shawn Levy, tries to include emotional character arcs in the midst of the wisecracks, but it doesn’t fit together. It’s a pretty obnoxious movie, and the “no-homo, bro” sensibility would have been stale ten years ago. Even the needle drops get annoying. From NSYNC to Avril Lavigne to Olivia Newton-John, the soundtrack is just a flex of what songs you can buy with Disney money.
Even though there are a lot of jokes made at the expense of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which is a truly awful movie, these two films are more similar than anyone would probably want to admit. They feel less like the third part of a trilogy than as another episode in an expensive television series. The supporting cast from the previous Deadpools have been reduced to glorified extras. Taking their place within the plot are a handful of actors from long forgotten Fox/Marvel movies, fully subsuming that earlier era of superhero movies into the MCU. It was interesting to see who signed on for one last ride, and who declined the offer.
And whatever happened to the chimichangas? Deadpool doesn’t mention them once. Instead, we see him sitting on a bench eating shawarma.
Twisters
Currently in theaters, and coming back to 4DX very soon.
Funny that the same social media hivemind that supportively shared a Martin Scorsese quote where he compared Marvel movies to theme parks is now suggesting that you see Twisters in 4DX, which turns the hit blockbuster into an amusement park attraction. Nothing wrong with that, and I probably would have had a lot of fun had there been wind and fog and rain machines in my theater. Twisters doesn't offer anything that's formally or narratively groundbreaking, but it accomplishes its goal of making an entertaining summer blockbuster. There's charm to spare and a strong thematic backbone that keeps it from being a full "turn your brain off" movie, even if that might have been the wiser choice.
The first Twister, essentially a stealth remake of screwball classic His Girl Friday but with tornadoes, was fun romp buoyed by the sizzling chemistry between its leads. But you can tell that the nineties classic was directed by Jan de Bont, best known for Speed, and this sequel from Lee Isaac Chung, whose prior picture was Minari. The nineties classic was super fun but at the expense of emotion, whereas this legacyquel/reboot delivers on pathos at the expense of thrills.
The script, penned by Mark L. Smith (from a story by Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski, which isn’t surprising once you see the movie), does a better job than the prior film at immersing us within storm chasing culture and giving us an emotional connection to the lives affected by these destructive tornatoes. And advancements in visual effects makes all these tornadoes far scarier than what we saw in the first movie. Glen Powell puts in yet another movie star turn, and Daisy Edgar-Jones is decent, even if her southern drawl is iffy at best and her character is laden with a trauma plot. The chemistry between the two is solid, but they’re no Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt.
For all the money that went into this, there’s some baffling directing choices. Did Chung forget that medium shots are a thing? I'm not sure what the deal was with all the close-up shots, as Dave Poland points out in his review. Felt like I was watching the movie zoomed in, where you’d only see faces between the forehead and the chin, and it only serves to divorce the characters from their surroundings.
And of course, that one deleted scene that everyone's been talking about ABSOLUTELY needed to be in this. They cut the moment that would have generated a ton of applause in the theater. There’s an obvious romance blossoming between our two leads, but Twisters doesn’t stick the landing. If you’re gonna make a movie that wants to take us back to an earlier era of blockbuster entertainment, you’ve got to commit.
Touch
Currently in theaters and VOD platforms.
This globe-trotting romantic tearjerker, unfolding across two timelines, has its moments of poignancy. Particularly when we're in the near-present day, at the onset of the COVID pandemic. That story follows an elderly Kristófer (played by Egill Ólafsson, who is basically Icelandic Brian Cox), who travels from Iceland to England in search of a long lost love. It’s a very touching, charming story, and it’s quite funny when depicting the awkwardness of the pre-lockdown era of COVID. But director and co-writer Baltasar Kormákur bogs down his film with flashbacks that recount a rather generic love story between an Icelandic boy (Pálmi Kormákur Baltasarsson, looking like an Icelandic John Lennon) and a Japanese girl (Kōki, who is much prettier than Yoko Ono). The sepia-tinted nostalgia of scenes set in 1970s London lacks the maturity and grace of the latter day scenes. There's a lot of interesting elements in Touch, but it could have used a touch more streamlining.
On the page, neither of the romantic leads in those flashbacks have much of a personality, and Kormákur's direction is the opposite of erotic. Which leaves the girl's father (a very good Masahiro Motoki) to charm us with his industrious work ethic and knowledge of Japanese cooking, whose measured affability hides a traumatic past. He and young Kristófer bond over their cultures’ shared affinity for monkfish.
However you feel about this movie, you'll probably feel like going to an izakaya afterwards. Izakaya Toribar has been a frequent spot of mine, where I usually go with friends after catchig a film at the MoMA. It’s open late, not too expensive, and very good, which is a rarity in that section of midtown. (I’ve written about Toribar in a previous dispatch.)
No surprise that Touch also features some good saké, with Hakkaisan’s junmai daiginjo making a guest appearance. But saké is no longer exclusively Japanese: there’s been a blossoming saké scene in New York, with Brooklyn Kura and Kato Sake Works producing innovative brews. The former has a gorgeous taproom in Industry City, where you can sample some of their offerings shiboritate (“fresh from the press”). Start with the “Number Fourteen,” their flagship offering, then try the “Greenwood Kimoto” if they have it. Famed Japanese brand Dassai has joined the party too: last year, they opened a brewery upstate to expand into the American market. Dassai Blue has a slightly lower ABV that pairs better with Western cuisine, but there’s no sacrifice in quality.