This weekend, AMC is doing something it hasn’t done yet, and that is scheduling Screen Unseen’s on back to back days. Today at 1 pm, is the first, and tomorrow night at 7 pm, is the second. Both are PG films, and we already basically know what each film will be. With this situation, It does give me the opportunity to go over how this year’s Screen Unseens have gone for me. if you follow me on social media, you know that I try and predict each time we get one of these, usually every other week on Mondays. This Unseen that is occurring today is only the second of these that have happened on a Sunday. All the others have happened on Monday. These showings are good for at least two reasons: 1) They are only $5, and 2) they are always a film that has yet to be released. So far this year, going into this week, I have been to 25 of these screening, and am 21-4 on my predictions. I then went 2-0 for the two you will see reviews for down below. The only two I did not go to this year was Dracula in February (I was at Walt Disney World) and Face of Death in April. The only other two after tomorrow on the schedule right now are Sept 21st (PG-13), and Oct 5th (TBA). On to the review.
Desperate to save what is left of his family, during the height of the Great Depression a battle-scarred veteran is hired to help smuggle a fortune in gold across 100 miles of impenetrable wilderness.
Premiering back in January at Sundance, there was some serious hype behind this drama. There was a reason for that, as this was a very good film. Ethan Hawks turns in a performance that should be up for Best Picture next year as Samuel Murphy. Murphy, after a series of unfortunate happenings, find himself in jail and his daughter in the hands of the government. When presented with an opportunity by the Warden of the work camp (Russell Crowe) that would allow Murphy an early release and take back his daughter, he jumps on it. This task is to gather three other convicts and smuggle stolen gold 50 miles to where it will then be collected. The main rule is all the gold must make it to the destination, and if anything is missing, bad things will occur. This march gives us most of the tension and drama, as we are shown there is at least one in the party that can’t fully be trusted. What we have through this film is a determined performance by Hawke where he doesn’t speak a lot, but emotes a great deal. There is a constant tension through the bulk of the runtime that either betrayal or outside forces will ruin Murphy’s mission to reunite with his daughter. That tension makes for a very gripping film that moves along at a decent pace. One filming note: the wilderness shots were not done in Oregon, where this film takes place. Filming was actually done in Germany, because certainly there weren’t usable filming locations in the Pacific Northwest. That is a gripe that I have in a lot of these films that have nothing to do with the finished product, and in the is case, it doesn’t hurt the film at all. This is a film that well worth your time if you are looking for a focused adult drama that knows exactly what it is doing. Bonus points that baseball is referenced.
A mysterious discovery is made on the outskirts of the remote harbor town. The residents find themselves in a desperate fight for survival against something they have never encountered before.
This South Korean sci-fi film saw it’s world premiere at Cannes in May, which made it the first South Korean film to compete for the Palme d’Or since Decision to Leave did so in 2022 (Fjord won that prize this year). This is write-director Na Hong-Jin’s fourth feature film, and first since 2016’s The Wailing. The word from the festival was that this would be a wild, sci-fi flick that we rarely see, and for the most part after watching it, I agree. The first hour of this film is a 5/5 awesome series of events. There is a constant tension as we watch the Police Chief we are following always being a step being the chaos as he runs through the small village. We are always kept out of view from whatever everyone is shooting at for the majority of that first hour. We just see the consistent destruction in the wake of whatever monster the Chief is trying to find. The problem is the whole film is 2 hours and 37 minutes long. As that first hour was moving along, I was wondering to myself how was this film going to keep this up? The answer is that it doesn’t. That isn’t to say the film gets worse. It just means the film changes a bit. Things are given more time to settle in later in the film, and conversely, some scenes go on a little longer than they should. Once we get our first good look at the alien attacking the city, the film now needs to try and give an explanation for what is happening, which it does. The problem is we spend a lot of time really doing nothing, or going about things in a way just to extend the run time. I can point out to a story told by someone in the hospital about what he saw in the woods that goes on way too long. Also, the more we see of the aliens, the more I lightly checked out. I thought the film worked better with the constant unknown floating through everything. Once we start to get things revealed, it just turned into a standard sci-fi film at parts. It also seems to set up a sequel that I am not really looking forward to. Still, that first hour makes up for so many of the minor flaws I can come up for this film. This was just a fun time with an original film by a creator that know what story they want to tell. That is something we sadly don’t see often. We need more big swings like this. While I don’t think this was a home run, it was certainly a bases clearing double, and that is more that good enough for me to tell you to find this thing to watch if you can.
A multi generational family of witches, cursed to be loveless for centuries, attempts to break the spell by confronting dark secrets and sacrificing for each other.
This one was a slog for me to get though. I guess I will start this by saying I wasn’t a real big fan of the 1998 original. It was too romantic comedy for me, but I understood how it became a cult classic. It just was one of those films that weren’t for me. One would think that would be my issue with this legacy sequel. It really isn’t though. Returning for this sequel of course is Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, but there is also Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing back as the Aunts. Adding to the cast were Joey King and Maisie Williams as Sally’s daughters, and Lee Pace as Sally’s love interest. As you could probably guess, this film centers mainly on Bullock’s Sally, and that brings me to my main problem. We begin the film seeing Sally has cast a spell to make herself (and her daughters) forget they are witches, due to their curse of anyone they love dying claiming another life. So, for at least the first half we are left with a Bullock that has none of the charm that makes her so wonderful to watch. She just comes off so cold at points, and it really is jarring when Kidman is coming in guns blazing in most of her scenes. They play as a bickering couple rather than the close sisters they are supposed to be, and it isn’t fun to watch. It just makes the film feel long. What else makes the film fell long is this film seems like two different stories mashed together. This film has to act like a reunion (like a normal legacy sequel), but also it needs to have a conflict. Ideally, these one of these would gel into the other, but they really don’t here. King’s Kylie is on a quest to save her boyfriend from being another victim of the curse, so that plot takes up the second half of the film. What makes this film seem so long is that when our characters are looking for something or someone, they find them almost immediately, then proceed to talk about it for a considerable time. The progression of the story just seems to start and stop, and I felt that. Did I think this film had to be made? No. Am I sure it will probably find that cult audience like the original did? Probably. I just know, more than the 1998 original, his wasn’t for me.
Based on the true story of the uprising that inspired the legend of Robin Hood, Andrew Garfield stars as the leader of a rebellion against the tyranny of King Richard II in a fight for justice.
Paul Greengrass has directed some of my favorite films. He is responsible for three of the films in the Jason Bourne franchise, Captain Phillips, and last year’s The Lost Bus to name a few of his films. He also directed a film that is especially relevant this weekend: United 93. His films tend to have a common filming technique, and that would be the Shaky Cam. It is what makes his films work so well for the most part. That style is part of what makes this film so effective at points. On a macro level, this film is trying to do two things: tell a story about the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt in England, and also a shadow prequel to the legend of Robin Hood. I’d say this is something the film was trying to hide a bit, but Focus Features was the one who very briefly marketed this as “The Unprising: The Rise of Robin Hood”. In the film, Andrew Garfield is the standout, but that isn’t a shock. His Ploughman is a man whose life has not been great, having lost his wife and daughters to the Black Death. This in part leads him to snap when the council of King Richard II advise him to raise the taxes on the peasants, because they can’t tax the wealthy or the Church. Among the rest of the cast, perhaps the only one that really works in this is Jamie Bell as John Ball. Johnny Lee Miller just kind of pops in halfway way through as the Mayor of London, and becomes kind of the main lackey to the Crown for the rest of the runtime. I thought this was pretty good up until the point the peasant mob reaches London. The Ploughman just seems to be in his own film for the most of the third act, and I don’t think we got enough to justify how the film reaches the endgame. I mean, it makes sense when it is happening, but when you think back on it, there isn’t much to get us to that point. It doesn’t help that the timeline we are told many times turns out to be unreliable. This is a story based on a historical point, and we don’t live in a world where the lower class ever really gets a win, so this film was never going to have a happy ending. It just seems like a waste of time to make it seem like the win is coming, where it only makes the peasants look like simpletons in the end. As far as that Robin Hood part. Well, that is the final scene, and it just doesn’t work. However, the first hour and 45 minutes works for the most part, and that’s all that I needed with this film.
On Halloween Eve at Mossy Bottom Farm, excitement turns to dismay when the clumsy Farmer ruins the pumpkin patch. Shaun tries fixing it with science experiments, but things go wrong when a wild beast appears in the woods.
The art of Stop-Motion is one that I greatly enjoy, but it is becoming a rare form. We only really have two studios that produce those types of films: Aardman and Laika. As luck would have it, we are getting a film from both studios withing these next two months. The first to theaters is Aardman with their third Shaun the Sheep film. This series has always been viewed by me as the one the studio puts out when they don’t have a Wallace & Gromit story to tell, as this was a spin-off from that series. I don’t mean that in a bad way as these films are delightful. By setting this one on Halloween, it leaves the possibility that this could be one people revisit each year as it is a really nice film for the kiddos. It isn’t by any means a scary film, but there is enough in here that is clever that the adults will find something to enjoy, and silly enough that the kids will have fun. There isn’t a whole lot to say about this one. I really enjoyed my time with it, and will be there if/when Aardman releases another film. The rumored Pokemon film from them seems promising. At least Wooloo will look good. That’s a sheep Pokemon for those not in the know,
Next weekend, Raccoon City enters the chat. Early tracking has Resident Evil at $40-50 million, so it should easily take the weekend win. The real question is what will Practical Magic 2’s hold look like.
- Resident Evil
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day
- The Odyssey
- Practical Magic 2
- The Weight
After the second of back-to-back Screen Unseens Monday night, it’s only a few days left until Resident Evil on Thursday. Hopefully that lives up to the hype, as I might need the pick-me-up if I don’t get the tickets I want for Chicago on Friday.
Mitten Film Nerd 
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