NateWatchesCoolMovies
Joined Feb 2008
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People throw around the expressive praise "the most fun you'll have at the movies this year" quite a lot and it can be hyperbolic screaming off the front of movie advertisements but in the case of Steven Kostanski's Frankie Freako it just might be true. This is a Midnite Movie blast of endearing satirical schlock, a genuinely sweet creature feature in the tradition of stuff like Gremlins and Critters and while it's specific brand of oddball deadpan humour won't be for everyone, I was utterly transported. A relatively buttoned down family man/office worker (Conor Sweeney) has a tame, safe existence to the point that his own wife (Kristy Wordsworth) calls him a 'square.' One day a troupe of howlin' mad little creatures from a maniacal TV ad invade the sanctity of his conservative 1980's yuppie domain and throw an extended, very chaotic house party that more than threatens his benign daily routine. What's a guy to do? Get swept up in an adventure that plays like Troma meets Amblin and surrender to the good times, that's what. Filmmaker Kostanski also previously helmed The Void (2016) and Psycho Goreman (2020) which are already in my personal all time favourite collection. He pulls off a hat trick here with a film so raucously charming and mischievously effervescent it could wipe anyone's bad mood slate clean. Frankie and his adorable band of tiny little goons are all brought to life using lovingly kitschy practical puppet effects that are assured enough to be believable and deliberately creaky enough to pay homage to the films that clearly inspired them. Kostanski has a deep love for everything 80's horror from Lovecraftian cosmic angst to madcap creature feature irreverence and tips his hat while finding his own distinct groove in the genre. Quite literally the most fun you may have at the movies this year.
What is the deal with networks and streaming kingpins cancelling great shows after one season and keeping putrid dog-s***t going on for year after year? Such is the case with CBS's Rabbit Hole, an exemplary espionage thriller drama that just dropped its single season onto paramount plus, never to be renewed again. This is a vehicle for people who like Kiefer Sutherland, and lots of him. Front and centre and constantly on the run from nefarious shadow organizations (this should please fellow 24 fans like myself), he plays John Weir, a freelance black ops contractor forced into hiding with his former spy father (Charles Dance, stealing scenes with charming vivacity) and a civilian turned ally (Meta Golding). They've been collectively targeted by an all powerful mega villain called Crowley, a vicious rogue asset who kills indiscriminately, blackmails just about everybody, rigs elections, stages assassinations and uses the almighty algorithm of today's internet to his incredibly sinister benefit. John and his team must find a way to use his weapons against him, clear their names and prevent America from spilling into outright chaos. It's such a fun story with tons of deft humour in the writing, a wonderfully nervy electronic score and a sense of surging forward momentum in the narrative that almost never lags. The show-runners understand the genre they're foraying into and cast accordingly; the great Peter Weller shows up as one of the baddies pulling strings for Crowley and the man himself is played by none other than Lance Henriksen, relishing every nasty, sociopathic syllable of his arc. I'm not sure why they cancelled it, but it kind of wraps itself up more or less by the end and can function as a miniseries, one that I'd highly recommend.
Ridley Scott follows up his bloody yet soulful epic Gladiator with a sequel over two decades after the fact, and the result feels like too little, too late. It's one of those ones where it really didn't need a sequel, it's a legacy thing where all these classics are getting resurrected for follow-ups that often feel forced rather than organic or even necessary really. The issue here starts with the lead actor, this Paul Mescal dude, who just isn't magnetic or grounded enough to be as compelling as Russell Crowe was, here once again a slave turned gladiator looking for revenge against all of Rome for the sins of the past. It's on Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal then to carry the charisma cloak and each do their best in roles that feel oddly thin and not as impactful as they should be. Denzel is a doggedly ambitious slave owner who trains gladiators but secretly lusts for the power of Caesar, and Pedro a conflicted general who seeks to righteously dethrone the two piss ant emperors, played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger who both try really hard to chew scenery like the old pros around them, and fall embarrassingly flat. Token familiar faces from the first film like Connie Nielsen and Derek Jacobi once again return, in diminished capacity and the story just feels like a scattered, overwrought afterthought agains the mighty, almost biblical proportions of the first film. Scott does a journeyman's job staging battles but they lack the propulsive grit of the first and Hans Zimmer's swashbuckling score, here replaced by an uncharacteristically dim offering from Harry Gregson-Williams, oddly not on his usual game here. Filling the Roman coliseum up with water like a big bathtub to recreate an ocean-bound battle isn't quite the flex that Sir Ridley thinks it is, and feels strangely childish compared to the sweeping mayhem of his first film. As far as 'legacy sequels' go this just didn't cut it for me, instead of pioneering new avenues in the lore it felt tired, awkward, over-lit and bereft of the atmosphere and melancholic spirit that gave the first its soul, and its ultimate success.