It appears that AMC has finally followed through on their promise to shorten the preshow. It looks like they did this through re-editing the AMC welcome/Stubs/no talking sections to be maybe half its length. We still have the too long Coke commercials before Nicole tells us how movies are magic, but on the whole, it is shorter. AMC is one of the major chains, so we are always going to have the chain fluff during the preshow, but this new version mss as he’s this flow a little better. At least I think that now. I reserve the right to take this all back in July if/when things stretch out again. On to the reviews!
A group of friends’ tropical vacation turns into a terrifying, primal tale of horror and survival.
To start, a fun fact: It is actually illegal to own a pet chimpanzee in Hawaii. With that in mind, let’s talk about the film that opened Fantastic Fest in September. I have made it no secret how much I loath the trailer for this film. It appeared before nearly every film for months. Paramount’s marketing team will not get a Christmas card for me. Due to this, I went into this one with the lowest of expectations, and as luck would have it, it was better than I thought. I think going all the way and grabbing the R rating was the good call here. The deaths Ben, the chimpanzee in question, deals out in this are gory and brutal. Squeamish me winched a couple times. Stepping back a little, the plot is pretty simple. A family’s pet chimpanzee is bitten by a mongoose with rabies and starts to kill people. He does this in a kind of malevolent way too.
Five years after the Clarke interstellar comet destroyed most of Earth, the Garrity family must leave the safety of the Greenland bunker and embark on a perilous journey across the wasteland of Europe to find a new home.
2020’s Greenland was an ok movie. It was better than most disaster movies we get, but my bloodlust for destruction was kind of let down. Sure, the poor people of Tampa (in the film) would disagree, but I just was left wanting more. That brings us to its sequel. I had the same issue, but in a different way. The dangers are there from the beginning, and we are shown and told of them and their danger many times. However, our characters manage to stay just in front of them for the duration of the runtime. At points it seems like the film wanted you to think people were the main danger, but those moments are fleeting. If anything, most of the characters we meet are there to help the Garritys. This isn’t a boring film by any means, and it does serve are a good follow up. It’s just that there is a feeling in me that something was missing and the plot seems stretched out to reach the 100 minutes, while not blowing the budget too much on set pieces. The cast does a good job here, and I really did care that they made it to the crater. I knew they would because this kind of film isn’t bold enough to have them fail. The film is more about the journey, and that journey worked to a certain extent. I don’t think we need to have a third entry of this series, and seeing how this film ends, I don’t think we will get one. All that to say this film was ok just like the original. Just a lighter shade of ok though.
Estranged siblings reunite after years apart, forced to confront unresolved tensions and reevaluate their strained relationships with their emotionally distant parents.
As a film that really is collection of three separate stories, I really wished that this was more even. What I thought though was that one of the entries was great, one was ok, and one didn’t work for me. That the order was Great, Ok, Meh meant this film just felt like a balloon that was slowly deflating. To properly explain what I mean by that, I’ll very briefly discuss the three short stories. The first is “Father”, and in it we see Jeff (Adam Driver) and Emily (Mayim Bialik) going to visit their father (Tom Waits). What we watch is just the visit that day and it works so well. I also loved how the segment wrapped up. All three in this play their parts greatly, and the section just feels lived in. Moving on to “Mother”, we again watch a visit by siblings and a parent. This time it is Timothea (Cate Blanchett) and Lilith (Vicky Krieps) having their annual tea party with their mother (Charlotte Rampling). This section, while basically being a repeat of “Father” in many ways, just felt less meaningful as the first section. The party we are watching just kind of happens with nothing really of note going on, and the section ends uneventfully. Finally, in the third section “Sister Brother”, we are with Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) as they visit their old apartment in Paris shortly after their parents die in a plane crash. This section just didn’t work for me and I was left patiently waiting for the end to arrive. This has even less to do as the “Mother” section, and even less of a resolution. After getting to the end of the film, I think how much I enjoyed “Father” really made up for how much I didn’t care for “Sister Bother”. This film was the winner of the Golden Lion at last August’s Venice Film Festival, its highest prize given. Having now seen it finally, I am left with a question: How did it? No Other Choice was among the other films in the competition, and I would have chosen that one over this. This film, while very good as a whole, just seems too uneven to me to get to that level of greatness. It is just a film where if/when I watch it again, I only watch 2/3rds of it.
Greenland 2 and Primate both had disappointing showings last weekend, so Avatar won for the 4th weekend in a row. That run should certainly end this next weekend when 28 Years Later hit screens.
- 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
- Avatar: Fire & Ash
- Primate
- The Housemaid
- Marty Supreme
The previously mentioned 28 Year Later is on Thursday for me, but before that this week are two films streaming for me. Also this week is the start of the Champions Tournament on Wednesday.
Mitten Film Nerd 
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