Category: 2024

Dub’s Take: Red One (2024)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

1.5 out of 5

Al Pacino’s been in the press promoting his new autobiography, and in a Variety interview, he discussed his divisive work choices in the 2000s: “…When you make $10 million dollars for a film … it’s $4.5 million (net) in your pocket. But you’re living above that because you’re high on the hog. And that’s how you lose it.”

I hadn’t seen a single trailer for “Red One” (aka. RO) before release: not in theatres, nor on any of my subscribed streaming services. All I had was what I’d read in the press: two conflicting pieces about producer/star Dwayne Johnson being unprofessional & overly generous on-set (despite floating the idea of RO in the first place); and an opinion piece about Chris Evans’ post-Avengers career torpedoing his “Captain America” legacy.

It’s unlikely Dwayne & Chris’ NDAs will let them admit the truth anytime soon. But this all created an interesting convergence of critical opinion & celebrityism in the public sphere, into my own assumptions as a potential viewer: I saw one leading man working to cultivate his image, and the other his lifestyle.

But RO’s first act played better than reviews suggested: a campy take on the action buddy-comedy through a Christmas lens. There was even a point I was prepared to put it on my 4-star Shelf Of Shame along with “Madame Web” & “The Crow”: two other widely-panned 2024 releases that I kinda, sorta liked a lot. How could you not like a movie with the line, “her ass punished us with its obscene wind”?

But whether it was the behind-the-scenes controversies, a creative lapse by director Jake Kasdan, or a masochistic storm of both, Kasdan can’t help recalling the airy, non-directional pacing of his 1998 debut “Zero Effect” instead of the manic, feature-length energy of his two “Jumanji” sequels. Rather than jumping systematically point-to-point like a tentpole picture should, Kasdan’s textured beats eventually sabotage the blockbuster nature of the two-hour film, for which the ultimate goal should be to get audiences in and out of the theatre as quickly as possible.

Don’t get me wrong: I love Zero Effect – so much so, I plagiarized part of it for a high school English assignment. But ZE is about characters with no social skills, and Red One is supposed to be a madcap, high-concept Holiday smash. What it is, is boring, and that’s low-key devastating.

Poster sourced from impawards.com. What do you think? Are audiences headed for a new renaissance of Holiday pictures, or is the Golden Age over and all Christmas movies after 2010 forgettable filler? Aren’t seasonal movies filler by definition, or are there some like “Home Alone” that you can watch all year long? Do you side with my wife and think the talking polar bear & Krampus were enough to make Red One a classic? Leave your opinion in the comments below!

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Dub’s Take: Venom The Last Dance (2024)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

2 out of 5

Celebrityism sucks – when you ignore the money, the fame, and the opposite sex throwing themselves at you.

There’s no privacy. People Magazine’s website dedicates entire articles to single quotes, ensuring that everything you say stays digitally preserved. Pundits will scrutinize your choice of work as it correlates to your personal life like they’re connected or something.

And any old creepazoid will make unsolicited comments about your appearance. The most riveting thing about “Venom 3” is the disconnect of seeing actress Juno Temple as an adult: she looks completely different from the little chubby-cheeked girl I remember from 2009’s “Year One” & 2011’s “Killer Joe”. But time moves perpetually forward for everyone and, eventually, we’ll all look the same in a box.

Nope, V3 isn’t great. As much as I was entertained by the other movies in the series (particularly Andy Serkis’ blisteringly-paced second instalment), it was contemptuous of the filmmakers here to assume viewers remember the mythos without a recap, or binge-watching both entries again beforehand.

In this way, V3’s values align more with the MCU than either of Sony’s other entries: a canon-heavy plot is inched along without adding anything significant to the continuity, and – while actor Tom Hardy’s time with the series is indeed over – things are left open for a fourth film, possibly with a female lead. That also means there’s ‘sexy’ symbiotes with boobs here, if you care. I didn’t.

Speaking of Hardy, I don’t remember his Eddie Brock being so stiff. As he’s a co-writer (along with writer/director Kelly Marcel, who penned the other two films), Hardy is probably just visually communicating how ‘in charge’ Venom is over Brock’s body. However, when paired with Eddie’s disquietude, Hardy’s live-action work in V3 degenerates into a mumbling, shuffling mess: he sounds like he’s having more fun with his Venom voice than he looks acting as Eddie. It’s probably the worst performance Tom has ever given.

I like V3’s comedy sidebar in Vegas, and the pacing is surprisingly good here also, mercifully ending at the perfect point – though it’s not as jet-propulsioned as V2. And Juno Temple is a treasure at any age.

But here’s a more-kosher critical opinion: Venom 3 was pulled out of the oven too early, or maybe shouldn’t have been made at all. How many times have I said that this year? Too many.

Poster sourced from impawards.com. What do you think? Are you a fan of Sony’s “Venom” series, or do you, too, think it’s a series of diminishing returns? Would you buy tickets to a fourth film led by live-action Juno Temple & Clark Backo? Are you disappointed there’s no word yet whether Venom will make an appearance alongside the MCU’s Spider-Man? Let us know in the comments below!

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Dub’s Take: Candyman (2021)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

1.5 out of 5

In its scant ninety-minute running time, “Candyman 4” tries to be:

BOOM: a direct sequel to the original 1992 movie;
BAM: a reimagining of the central villain & his lore (fans of late Tony Todd should look elsewhere: he cameos for 30 seconds as a visual bookend);
C: a commentary on gentrification & a nouveau generation of Black yuppies;
4: a satire of the Chicago arts scene;
– full-on body horror à la 1986’s “The Fly”;
a rallying cry for ‘Black Lives Matter’;

and more I may have missed. It even employs a shadow-puppet aesthetic for its flashbacks in a quirky touch that wouldn’t be out of place in a Wes Anderson joint.

Phew! It’s a lot, but Candyman 4 isn’t done yet. Its themes draw parallels to “Pontypool”: a 2008 Canadian horror where miscommunication itself breeds zombies. C4 recontextualizes Todd’s Daniel Robitaille so that all instances of White-on-Black violence in Cabrini-Green fall under the discourse of ‘The Candyman’.

It’s a fascinating narrative pivot: probably the contribution of consistently-creative producer/co-writer Jordan Peele. The film is also wickedly shot, and certain set pieces independent of one-another do play well (the opening titles; the murder of two gallery owners; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Anthony interacting with a reflection).

However, in corking Todd’s time with the series, C4 spoils the wine. Partial blame falls on director Nia DaCosta’s pacing, which recalls the extended takes & quiet character pensiveness of the most leisurely, self-aware 10-episode streaming series when she should be hitting us with the goods fast & hard to justify the short duration.

Other demerits go to poor Abdul-Mateen II who – between this, “Matrix 4”, and the DCEU reset – may have a hard time finding franchise work moving forward: his is an uninspired performance of a derivative hero’s journey.

For all the posturing of the neurotic, unlikeable one-percenter protagonists at the heart of the protracted first act, it, too, contributes nothing new to the discussion around the periodicity of racialized violence. Since C4 seems comfortable dropping references to the first film without context, viewers unfamiliar with the original will tell immediately where this story’s motives lie in its most meandering sections, and the heavy-handed finale.

Candyman 4 is guilty of overextending, but it gets a half-point for the chutzpah it takes to swing this hard and miss.

Poster sourced from impawards.com.
The film’s script left me with plenty of leftover questions: why did Sherman choose to stay in the complex when he knew he was being targeted as a pedophile? Why did it take Anthony so long to go to the hospital with the bug bite, let alone have it noticed by his live-in girlfriend? What did underlining his father’s suicide have to do with anything? In the high school bathroom, why wasn’t the Black girl blamed for the deaths of the White girls, keeping in theme with the rest of the story? Have your say in the comments below!

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reminiscing about the fence

A poem about the periodicity of
celebrity ogling.

i had a dream about Chappell Roan


full stop.


okay not about her, but one in which
she appeared.

pretty sure it was her.
i feel i should be throwing confetti in the air.
blow a kazoo


and it wasn’t a sex dream,
don’t believe me?

and there wasn’t any reactive,
MS Paint-quality nudity.
calm down –
it was actuated by a photo
i saw of her without
too much makeup on

standing alone in profile on a press go-around
with a wallpaper of watermarks like you’d see
in the background,
no wig, dyed hair luminescent
and wearing what some call a ‘normal’ top
with thong straps,

staring straight ahead like i was the skeez
peering over her property line,
standing at that precipice with my hands on its ledge

when really i’m thousands of miles away
on a screen

*

how, then
to describe my dreams?

in repetitious themes.
always searching for something the most
difficult, illogical way i can

so just like the rest of person
& animal kind.
i had the ‘A’ tattooed on my hand –
the sign for ‘Awake’, to help with lucidity –
but i still close my eyes at the bottom of a hill
looking up –
Kate Bush can run if she wants to, i’m not with her group

or driving through a backwood overhung
so i can get to something parochial and dumb,
like a locker with a combination i can’t remember
at the middle school i went to more than twenty years prior

you following?
because it’s the last day to hand in the essay
worth 80% of my grade?
just like the all-nighters i would pull in university,
and of course there’s no parking
’cause it’s Activity Day
so everyone can see me coming up the roadway
but it isn’t vice-versa with their skinwalker outlays
and the halls are empty;

all these fucking corridors look the same –
Chappell ain’t here, she would’ve just started Primary;
there’s no receptionist, no aids –
a challenging intention
devolves into simple wandering,
and so it goes again and again.

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