Author: Kyle A. Goethe

[Early Review] Back to Black (2024)

Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson
Cast: Marisa Abela, Jack O’Connell, Eddie Marsan, Lesley Manville
Screenplay: Matt Greenhalgh
122 mins. Rated R for drug use, language throughout, sexual content and nudity.

Music biopics seem to be a subgenre that’s never really gone away, resurfacing every few years to drop a few new installments before slipping back into hibernation for a short time. In the last few years alone, we’ve seen Maestro, Bob Marley: One Love, Elvis (and, to an extent, Priscilla), Rocketman, and Bohemian Rhapsody. Add to that a new look at the life of Amy Winehouse, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson (Fifty Shades of Grey). In the ever-expanding canon of music biopics, Back to Black doesn’t have much to offer outside of its subgenre trappings.

Covering the time just before Amy Winehouse (Marisa Abela, Barbie) found the fame she didn’t want up to her death at 27 due to alcohol poisoning, Back to Black covers a lot of ground in the very notable life and death of a truly unique voice in music. Through her loving relationship with her nan, Cynthia (Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread), to her more strained relationship with lover-turned-spouse Blake (Jack O’Connell, Ferrari), we are presented with a tragic view of a life cut short.

It becomes quite obvious as Back to Black treads its narrative is that Taylor-Johnson and screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh (Floodlights) seem to have misunderstood the very words uttered by Winehouse so early on in the film. Frequently, the singer speaks about how much she wants to be remembered more for her music than anything else. Yet music seems to be the last thing on Greenhalgh’s mind as he focuses his screenplay on drugs, alcohol, and death. He seemingly remember’s this fact at the end, with the film ending on a scene of singing instead of death, but by that time, the film’s attempt at a message is too far gone. That’s not to say that the drugs and alcohol elements have no place in a story about the life of Amy Winehouse, but it seems like his script wants to bullet-point her life into view, choosing to check things off a nonexistent list of “required” standard biopic elements, making her life seem a lot less interesting. If he wanted to stay truer to her wishes, as is spoken in the film, it would have been more impressive to spend significantly more time on her relationship to the music she loves so much. Outside of the incredibly cliche early scene where she stares directly at the camera and seems to immediately conjure up a complete song, lyrics and all, we barely see her interacting with her music outside of just a lot of singing.

Now, that probably sounds like me critiquing the film I wanted instead of the film I got, but it’s also mentioned constantly in the finished film how much Winehouse leaned on her love of music as a support system, even explaining once that the music is like rehab for her, and yet there’s very little music creating in the movie. What is in Back to Black can be serviceable enough for some, but it still follows standard music biopic elements, mostly overdone and boring after so many similarly-tread films, and glosses over what made Winehouse such a memorable musician.

It should be noted that a number of performances in the film are pretty solid, including Abela’s lead performance. Apparently, she spent a long time learning to emulate Winehouse’s singing and conversational voice for the film, and while not perfect, she does better than expected, though some of the music editing in the film, notably when she’s singing not on stage, comes off unrealistically, fabricated in a booth instead of naturalistic (this happens in the opening of the film, where Amy sings with her father surrounded by her extended family). Abela is further elevated by strong work from O’Connell, Manville, and Eddie Marsan (Deadpool 2) as father Mitch. I just wish they were in a stronger film.

Unfortunately, Back to Black falls in with the more traditional faults of music biopics, trying to cover all the bases without making any one of them stand out. It doesn’t have a style that showcases the person it’s focused on, and the occasional blandness of the storytelling make for an uninspired and occasionally boring film. While it may work for those who have not seen the well-regarded documentary Amy, or for more extreme fans of this singer, it’s not something I can recommend.

2.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Fifty Shades of Grey, click here.

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[Early Review] Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

Director: Wes Ball
Cast: Owen Teague, Freya Allen, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon, William H. Macy
Screenplay: Josh Friedman
145 mins. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence/action.

At the tail end of 2019, I appeared on a few podcasts and put together a list of my ten favorite films of the entire decade, and War for the Planet of the Apes appeared on it. You could say I’ve been excited to return to this world and see what would happen next.

Many generations after the death of Caesar, Eagle clan ape Noa (Owen Teague, It) has been preparing to become a larger member of his community. When his home is invaded by another clan of apes who destroy their village and take his people hostage, Noa sets out on a path to rescue them. Along the way, he meets a human woman on her own journey and an orangutan who teaches the word of the great ape Caesar.

Kingdom has a lot of heavy lifting to do for the Apes franchise. The previous film was a perfect closure for Caesar’s journey, and the generations-long time jump make early in the film leaves the audience in uncharted territory. Have we gotten to the time of the original film yet? Or are we still somewhere in between? While not providing all the answers, Kingdom does assert itself as a new start for the franchise by introducing a character like Noa, a young chimpanzee on a coming-of-age journey. As Noa discovers the world around him, so do we. He’s likable and accessible and functions quite well as an audience placeholder within the narrative.

The inclusion of Raka (Peter Macon, Friendship!) catches us up to speed while introducing the central conflict and exploration of the film: the perversion of great words for terrible deeds. It’s tragic and heartbreaking to see the way that Caesar’s words are used to commit horrific acts. While the previous film’s showcased Caesar’s wanting to see “Apes Together Strong” and a united front of protecting one’s people, our new antagonist, Proximus (Kevin Durand, The Butterfly Effect) seeks more power and effectively convinces his clan that he is the Next Caesar, the next leader who will bring them safety and security through the subjugation of others. How often have people used their religious ideology to impose limits, take power, and commit violence on others in the past and present? Director Wes Ball (The Maze Runner) asks if we will continue on this path into the future. Ball circles around to the failure in understanding history, keeping a living document of truth in all its messiness, to showcase that even the apes are making the same damn mistakes that humans have made, creating strife and conflict to give the upper class more power.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is able to continues on its predecessor’s path of pushing the envelope for computer-generated imagery and motion capture performance. The movie looks absolutely astonishing, and the performance are seen through the CG. This is done through the use of real sets and locations as opposed to a big blue screen background to figure out later. Ball has spoken about his preference for getting his actors into tangible places to get the best from them, and it helps.

There are a lot of great ideas and questions being posed in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, but it does let down a series of increasingly frightening villains with Proximus. Durand puts everything into his performance, but the writing tends to undercut his character’s motivations once he’s introduced in the latter half of the film. Our characters keep hearing that he’s misusing Caesar’s legacy, but we never really dive into it when Noa arrives at Proximus’s village. The narrative shifts to more “villain being villainous” sequences instead of diving further into the film’s thesis statement.

While not as strong as the previous few installments, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a powerful new jumping-off point for the franchise that left me wanting more while evolving this consistently incredible franchise for the future. It has some solid performance and great ideas mostly executed well about the nature of mankind’s fault through the lens of the apes, and I was consistently entertained. If this is what the future of the Apes franchise is, I’m all here for it.

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, click here.
For my review of Matt Reeves’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, click here.
For my review of Matt Reeves’s War for the Planet of the Apes, click here.

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[Early Review] The Fall Guy (2024)

Director: David Leitch
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham, Teresa Palmer, Stephanie Hsu, Winston Duke
Screenplay: Drew Pearce
126 mins. Rated PG-13 for action and violence, drug content and some strong language.

There’s a moment in The Fall Guy where Colt Seavers, played by Ryan Gosling (Barbie), is asked if stunt actors can get Oscars, and I half-expected him to turn directly to the camera for his response: No. The scene could almost work as the thesis statement of the new action-comedy from stuntman-turned-director David Leitch (Bullet Train). Leitch and Gosling have frequently sited throughout the marketing that The Fall Guy is their love letter to the Stuntman, and it’s the perfect property to resurrect for this venture.

Based on the 1981 TV series, which ran for five seasons and starred Lee Majors, follows Colt Seavers, a stuntman who has been pulled back into the game by intense film producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham, TV’s Ted Lasso) to find the missing star of the film, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Tenet). Colt takes on this ridiculous task to impress the film’s director, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer), his old flame and one he hopes to rekindle.

One can always expect Leitch to direct fantastic action. He’s done it time and time again with recent efforts Bullet Train and Deadpool 2. Even when the collective film hasn’t entirely worked for me, as in Atomic Blonde, I’m still monumentally impressed with the choreography and sheer scale of his vision, and The Fall Guy is no exception. Each set piece stands on its own and feels necessary to the thesis while also continuing to develop the mystery and the characters involved. Outside of the finale, which felt overstuffed, The Fall Guy has a solid mixture of punches and character, and it feels like Leitch has become more assured in translating his vision in the director’s chair.

I was also impressed with the chemistry from the two leads. As much as I love both Gosling and Blunt, I wasn’t entirely sure if their individual energies would work so well together, but I found they both had a naturalism to their performances that made for an entertaining love story that felt worth rooting for.

Screenwriter Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3) has consistently crafted great popcorn experiences at the movies from his work with the MCU and the Fast and Furious spin-off Hobbs & Shaw, and his screenplay for The Fall Guy has plenty of moments that got a great kick from my theater, specifically from Pearce’s use of clever dialogue that always comes across witty without being overindulgent. He also seems to capture the spirit of the original TV show in relation to the state of action and stunt cinema. The 80s series was fairly in line with the action cinema of the time, and the same can be said of this new iteration, so while they may not be that similar to one another, both interpretations match the energy of their respective time periods, and this version of The Fall Guy finds itself in good company with the adaptations of 21 Jump Street and Starsky and Hutch as they eschew and reconfigure their source materials for newer generations.

To be fair, The Fall Guy likely would’ve won me over strictly for the love and admiration it gave to Miami Vice (the best cop show of the 80s), but beyond that, it’s a very crowd-pleasing action-rom-com that excels in equal measure. The pacing, while imperfect, is better than most recent major releases, and its humor left me with a smirk on my face for the entirety. I have no doubt that this one will win over audiences. Let the fight for the Stunt Oscar continue!

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of David Leitch’s Atomic Blonde, click here.
For my review of David Leitch’s Deadpool 2, click here.
For my review of David Leitch’s Fast & Furious presents Hobbs & Shaw, click here.

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[Early Review] Civil War (2024)

Director: Alex Garland
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Nick Offerman
Screenplay: Alex Garland
109 mins. Rated R for strong violent content, bloody/disturbing images, and language throughout.

I can’t believe this movie exists. Civil War is easily the most uncomfortable movie I’ve watched in quite some time.

Set some time in the future, the United States is deep into the Second American Civil War as multiple state factions plot to take control from the dictatorial President (Nick Offerman, The LEGO Movie), currently serving his third term. War photographer Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and her colleague Joel (Wagner Moura, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish) have teamed with a veteran reporter and another young photographer to travel to DC and interview the President before he is forcibly removed from office.

As a director, Alex Garland (Ex Machina) has been able to access a strong level of nihilism that tends to pervade each of his projects with a dour tone, and Civil War is very much the next tier of that journey. This is a very hard to watch film. While I expected that from the trailers, I didn’t expect to be so tense and anxious for the entire run time that I actually left the theater with a stomachache. It certainly won’t be a film for everyone, and I think that should be noted. It’s an extremely unpleasant film.

All that aside, it’s also an incredibly powerful and thought-provoking experience about the state of our society, unchecked power, political accountability, and the danger lying in our potential futures. There are so many lenses with which to view the events of Garland’s film that I feel each viewer will take something else away from it (Texas and California together?), and yet it never feels bloated, as full of its ideas as it is. It was a clever choice to reduce specific correlation between this film and the tense political climate of recent years. I feel like anyone from either political extreme could find something to connect with here.

Kirsten Dunst’s performance is the absolute standout here (though husband Jesse Plemmons certainly vies for the spotlight for his limited amount of screen time). Dunst’s work here is so reserved, made by specific tugs or twitches of the face, limited dialogue, and her stoicism in the face of unspeakable atrocities really shows how this job has forever altered her perception of reality. I should also mention the incredible work of Wagner Moura throughout the entire film, but there a few notable scenes that display his range, specifically as they get closer to DC and the reality of the situation finally sets in.

Garland uses a number of techniques in his directing arsenal that perfectly suit the story he’s telling. Under other circumstances, the uses of camera footage, shutter clicks, and focus wouldn’t work so well, but in the sense of war photography, it matches the tone and subject matter involving the distance between the photographer and their subject, and each picture that’s taken says as much about the cameraman as the subject.

One final note on the film’s musical selections: I can’t tell for certain, but it seems that songs were chosen for the film that seemed to evoke the kind of music popular in classic Vietnam war films. Nearly all of the musical cues in the film were ones I didn’t know, but they frequently had a similar musical cadence to a number of notable songs frequently associated with the Vietnam war, like Fortunate Son, but made today. It isn’t on-the-nose, but it works.

Civil War is a truly American horror tale. It severely affected me, and it’s not exactly a movie I’ll recommend to everyone, but if you saw the trailer and the very conceit interested you, then I’m confident that the film will have the impact you are looking for. This movie fan will certainly be discussing it for months to come, as I’m certain it will be one of the year’s absolute best.

4.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Alex Garland’s Annihilation, click here.

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[Early Review] The First Omen (2024)

Director: Arkasha Stevenson
Cast: Nell Tiger Free, Tawfeek Barhom, Sonia Braga, Ralph Ineson, Bill Nighy
Screenplay: Tim Smith, Arkasha Stevenson, Keith Thomas
120 mins. Rated R for violent content, grisly/disturbing images, and brief graphic nudity.

It isn’t too often that a long-forgotten franchise gets resurrected with a prequel film of all things, and it’s even less likely that the finished product would actually be good, but director Arkasha Stevenson (Brand New Cherry Flavor) has seemingly accomplished that very feat with The First Omen, a graphic, disturbing (it’s there in the rating) and mean horror tale that adds something new to Richard Donner’s original horror classic.

When Margaret (Nell Tiger Free, Too Old to Die Young) arrives in Rome, ready to take her vows and commit her life to the church, she unknowingly stumbles across the most ancient and powerful of evils and a villainous sect planning to bring forth the Antichrist.

I’ve been a fan of the original Omen films (the fourth film notwithstanding) since I was a teenager, and one element that allows them to mostly stand apart from other horrors of the time is that a number of them found something unique to add to the narrative, a new take, a new look. The original film asks what a father would do when he discovers the most horrible secret about his child, while the first sequel asks Damian himself to reckon with the perceived knowledge of his parentage. The third film sees Damian as an adult, entrenching himself within the government vying for power. While the aforementioned fourth film, made for television, and the 2006 remake both didn’t make good on this promise, the franchise as a whole has been successful at recreating itself, and that continues with The First Omen.

I hadn’t really seen Nell Tiger Free since her stint on Game of Thrones, playing the young Myrcella Baratheon, but she really holds her own in the lead role here, giving notes of innocence and a motherly touch to Margaret. Her interactions with the troubled young Carlita, a young girl living at the orphanage, allow Margaret to serve as both protective parent and lost child as she navigates the confusing world she’s found herself in.

It benefits Free to be surrounded by so many legendary performers that help to uplift her, notably Bill Nighy (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1) as Cardinal Lawrence and the often overlooked but frequently exceptional Ralph Ineson (Guardians of the Galaxy) as Father Brennan, who knows more about what’s going on in Rome and needs Margaret to aid him in stopping it. It’s great to see Ineson get some time to shine here as well as play a more heroic character than he tends to get. His is the standout performance of the entire film.

The First Omen’s greatest strength lies in its ability to match the original film on several visual levels through some excellent production design and lighting. This prequel feels very much in step with The Omen. I went home following the screening of the film and popped in Richard Donner’s film and found that Arkasha Stevenson was able to match a visual language rather nicely without directly cloning it.

Stevenson’s film is also…a lot. I cannot remember a recent studio film that felt as graphic as The First Omen. In the weeks leading up to release, The First Omen has been in discussion over the multiple attempts to skirt the film past the MPA with an R-rating, and I can understand. In fact, trimming some of the graphic sequences likely added to their impact, with rather fast cuts accentuating this quick looks that allows the audience to keep adding elements from their own minds.

The First Omen is far more impactful as a horror prequel than I could have ever guessed, but it’s not without its faults, including a lagging 2nd act and a few too many callbacks in its deaths. The original Omen was notable for its almost-Rube Goldebergian death sequences, causing the viewer to question if that death was an accident or due to a sinister force, a precursor to the popular Final Destination franchise. There’s a lot of room within those confines for some real creativity, but most of the deaths in The First Omen are merely variations on those from the original film. While often still effective enough, they missed out on an opportunity to infuse the film with its own flavor.

There are some excellently moody scares in the film, but it does tend to fall back on more traditional jump scares, especially the kind that come from a random scary hand on our protagonist’s shoulder as she walks through a dimly-lit room. Some of these scares are well-timed and prepped, and others are a little too easy. There are also a few moments of CG violence that is noticeably CG’d, but these are rare within some of the great effects at play.

When Disney bought up 20th Century Studios, many lamented the possibility that we’d never see new entries in our favorite adult-skewing franchises (a silly notion), but in the past few years, we’ve gotten new installments of the Predator franchise and now The Omen, as well as original films like Barbarian, with another Alien on the way. It’s safe to say that 20th Century Studios has been taking on the monumental task of mining their best horrors for new terrain. The First Omen has a few stumbles to it, but director Arkasha Stevenson commendably swings for the fences, and this newest installment will definitely make its rounds in my home in the future. This is a mean and scary shocker worth your time.

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

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[Early Review] Dune: Part Two (2024)

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Lea Seydoux, Souhelia Yacoub, Stellan Skarsgard, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem
Screenplay: Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts
166 mins. Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some suggestive material and brief strong language.

There’s a shot in the first five minutes of Dune: Part Two that features the burning of Atreides garb, echoing a similar shot from the first film, a dream or vision of Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet, Interstellar). Seeing something as simple as the fulfillment of our lead’s vision in such tragic display as the ruination of his family and people caused the hair on my arm to stand up, and that feeling of goosebumps lasted for the next three hours.

Picking up immediately following the events of the 2021 film, Paul and his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning) have joined the Fremen and are taken under the protection of Stilgar (Javier Bardem, mother!). Paul takes every opportunity to ingratiate himself within the Fremen lifestyle, while Jessica embraces the very prophecy her people helped to propagate. As the Fremen continue their attacks on the Harkonnen spice-mining process, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard, Good Will Hunting) turns to his psychopathic nephew Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) to bring his special set of skills to remove and shatter the Fremen people once and for all.

There have already been a number of extremely positive reactions all over social media concerning Dune: Part Two, and I can only continue to echo my love for this follow-up. My issue with the first film was always about the way in which director Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049) elected to end his film, creating what I believed to be a Part One problem (a film I wouldn’t want to watch again without a follow-up), but as soon as I knew he’d be able to complete his vision of Frank Herbert’s novel brought me a sense of relief. To put it simply, I have had faith in Villeneuve since the double-punch of Prisoners and Sicario, where I first became aware of him. Here, Villeneuve is able to pay off every piece of set up and world-building he began with his first film while providing some new visual flourishes and some truly powerful and cheer-worthy moments of action and climax.

Timothee Chalamet’s performance as the young Duke without a home, finding himself further entrenched in the stranger in a strange land of Arrakis, is something I hadn’t quite seen from the excellent young performer. Here, Paul embraces his new environment in an effort to survive, beginning with the appearance of a lost puppy attempting to feign bravery and elevating to the hero he is believed to be. This is a greater turn for our protagonist, adding the knowledge of his perceived visions and future to his ability (or inability) to change his fate and his concern over these choices which may not be entirely under his control.

Zendaya (Spider-Man: No Way Home) also has way more to do this time around after her minimal introduction in the first film as Chani, a member of the Fremen who Paul is drawn toward after dreaming about her prior to their meeting. Chani’s character is the one we are best able to view Paul through as he undertakes several transformations and reinventions in the narrative. She is our access point for the Fremen, and she and Chalamet have terrific chemistry.

It was surprising for me to find a solid amount of the film’s more comedic moments (that’s not to say it’s riddled with LaughOutLoud hijinks by any means) come from Bardem’s Stilgar, another character with a pretty small amount of screen time the first go around. His is an archetype character who believes there is more to the prophecies than lies, similar to Qui-Gonn Jinn or Morpheus, two characters who likely got inspiration from Stilgar’s character in the novel, and it is only in the moments of liveliness that Bardem’s performance is able to sidestep a number of the comparisons that could be made.

Dune: Part Two also introduces a number of new characters, including Austin Butler, who continues his chameleonic series of performances as the psychopathic nephew of the Baron (starkly distancing himself from Sting’s version of the character in Lynch’s adaptation), and also Florence Pugh (Midsommar) as the Princess Irulan Corrino, daughter of Emperor Shaddam (Christopher Walken, Pulp Fiction). Pugh and Walken share some of the most interesting scenes of dialogue in how they, like a tennis match, comment back and forth on the struggle for order on Arrakis. Pugh’s questioning of her father’s decision-making plays nicely with Walken’s stoicism.

From a technical standpoint, Oppenheimer and others should be thankful they won’t have to compete at this year’s Academy Awards. For everything that the first Dune accomplished, Part Two adds and builds upon what worked. Greig Fraser’s cinematography is lush and gorgeous, capturing the dry and arrid Arrakis and also introducing the Harkonnen world of Geidi Prime with its unusual outdoor color scheme due to its unique sun, casting a shadowy shades-of-gray aesthetic to the planet, punctuated by ink blot fireworks (furthering the importance of deals and inked contracts to the politics of the Imperium).

Hans Zimmer also adds a few upgrades to his score, continuing and evolving upon the themes introduced in the first film, highlighting the more emotionally devastating journey that Paul finds himself on this time around.

I won’t consider myself an extremely knowledgeable Dune diehard (I’ve read the initial novel and seen Lynch’s film prior to Villeneuve’s take), but Dune and its sequel have done what many considered to be near-impossible by adapting a book considered by many as unadaptable. I could tell this was Villeneuve’s Star Wars growing up, the story he’s been leading to his entire career. His adaptation with co-screenwriter Jon Spaihts expertly changes what is necessary in order to the make the story palatable for the language of cinema, even though it does cut a few characters and change a few story beats in doing so (and I still don’t know where Tim Blake Nelson is in the finished film). None of the changes made with this screenplay take away from the impact of the story in any real way.

Dune: Part Two is a triumph for Denis Villeneuve and everyone involved. Not since Peter Jackson tackled The Lord of the Rings has a genre series had the level of care and attention given that it re-contextualizes how fantasy and sci-fi will look for years to come. It’s an excellent experience full of all the payoff necessary to elevate its predecessor and become a perfect complete story, one that I’ll be thankful to watch for decades to come. While it likely won’t win over moviegoers who didn’t like the previous installment, Dune: Part Two comes with my highest recommendation. I loved this movie.

5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, click here.
For my review of Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, click here.

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Fitting In (2023)

Director: Molly McGlynn
Cast: Maddie Ziegler, D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai, Djouliet Amara, Emily Hampshire
Screenplay: Molly McGlynn
105 mins. Rated R.

It’s always great to see smaller films from the festival circuit find a distributor, especially when those films tackle a subject matter that I’d never even heard of. Such is the case with today’s film, a Shoes Movie if I’ve ever seen one, a coming-of-age teen sex comedy with a unique character journey throughout.

Lindy (Maddie Ziegler, West Side Story) is your average teenager just trying to keep a handle on her hormones long enough to survive High School. On the eve of losing her virginity, Lindy discovers a disastrous development: she has MRKH syndrome, a congenital malformation which results in a missing uterus or vaginal hypoplasia. To put it simply, she can’t have vaginal sex. As Lindy weaves her way throughout understanding this new wrinkle to her life at the very time she is experiencing her sexual awakening, she has to find acceptance in her body in all of its unique ways.

If you haven’t followed me for long, I have a personal fascination with Shoes Movies, films that feature stories about people nothing like me. For most of my youth, I watched movies led by Straight White Males (and there were lots of movies like that), but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found my interest lining up with people don’t share my race or gender or sexual orientation. These movies allow me to step inside the Shoes of people whose experiences I’ll never fully know. In many ways, Fitting In is a Shoes movie for most people, a story that many will never fully experience.

Originally titled Bloody Hell when it premiered at SXSW, Fitting In is a semi-autobiographical story from writer/director Molly McGlynn (Mary Goes Round). I feel like McGlynn was able to imbue a lot of her own style into the narrative and the characters, even if she still leaned a little too much on the classic tropes of coming-of-age films. There’s a definite twist to the subgenre with the MRKH diagnosis, and that area of the narrative is informative, interesting, and provides the strongest elements of the film. It’s in the unusual circumstances of Lindy’s journey that allows for the best comedic moments and emotional resonance.

On the other side of things, there are certainly a few instances, especially in the film’s climax (to protect the film’s finale, I won’t reveal specifics, but when you see it, I think you’ll understand), where the story falls into overly-familiar trappings that audiences have seen too many times. When the film focuses on the MRKH and how it changes Lindy’s perspective and journey, it’s a winning formula, but when it leans on familiar trappings, it loses momentum.

Fitting In has a unique perspective on the coming-of-age story, one that its director is able to imbue with her own personality and style. It presents a main character whose already chaotic youth experience is further complicated by health revelations, which makes for a compelling take on this subgenre. Though occasionally familiar, Fitting In makes for an experience worth checking out.

3/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

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Kyle’s Top Ten Films of 2023!

2023 was a horrible year for this writer, but at the very least, it was a great year at the cinema. Outside of the constant concerns over the future of movies in the wake of two separate but very daunting strikes for the industry’s writers and actors. Sure, there were times when it felt like 2020 again, with possibilities of movie shuffling (and breaking my heart over the pushing of Dune: Part Two), but we’ve arrived on the other side of the year. As always, this is the time to celebrate the wins and the movie moments that lifted us, changed us, and stayed with us. 2022 was more front-loaded, with a number of my favorite films coming from the early part of the year, while 2023 seems to have surprised me in the latter months with some real winners.

Before we begin, a few caveats that I must always bring up:

-I did not see every single movie in 2023. While this is the year I’ve recorded the most new releases of my entire life, there are still some things that escaped me. If you see note a movie I didn’t mention, it’s entirely possible I may have missed it. Go down into the comments and let me know why it made your list!

-On the flipside, this is my personal list of the Best Movies of 2023. It’s not a list of your favorites, and there’s no such thing as an objective list of the Best Movies of the Year. It’s merely the films that connected with me the most. There may be other films not in my list that were “better made” or perhaps your favorite film has a highest Rotten Tomatoes score, and that’s okay. This is just my list, and I’m excited to hear yours, so share them in the comments section and we’ll discuss.

-Lastly, I crave discussion, dissection, and (respectful) disagreements, so keep your “hate” out of this place.

Now, let’s get on with it…

  1. The Holdovers
  • Alexander Payne won me over with his film Nebraska a few years back, so it’s safe to say I was excited for The Holdovers, a film with a similar tone and flavor, and I’m always interested in the chance to find a new Holiday classic. His latest follows a struggling student staying over at school for the holiday with his least favorite teacher and a cook, forced to spend time with people that aggravate him the most, and the gradual understanding that these characters find within others. It’s an excellent looking film with three defining performances that work their best in league with one another, and Payne’s writing finds moments that could fall into cliche and he instead elevates them into a heartwarming…new Holiday classic. There, I said it.
  1. American Fiction
  • Knowing very little about the plot of American Fiction, the driving force of my interest was Jeffrey Wright, a criminally-underrated actor who deserves to lead more films. As expected, Wright’s performance is incredible as a burnt semi-successful writer frustrated with what is considered Great Black Writing in the zeitgeist. Where American Fiction rises above is writer/director Cord Jefferson’s scathing screenplay and his deft touch as a director. Half the film is a satire on society and the other half is a more simplified family drama. That back half shockingly works as well as the satire even though these two halves of the film seem to be in contradiction. Jefferson’s able to control both narrative pieces equally and American Fiction’s strong editing allows them to breathe on their own and complement each other wholly.
  1. Past Lives
  • Word of mouth drove me to Past Lives, and the strength of the writing and performances has kept it in my head all year, becoming the film I’ve recommended more than any other from 2023. When Nora and her childhood friend Hae Sung meet up again decades after last seeing each other, there’s a shaky uncertainty from both, as well as Nora’s husband Arthur, who supports his wife while maintaining a level of concern over the events. Much like The Holdovers, this is a character collision piece resting on three performances that stand out, especially Greta Lee as Nora. John Magaro hasn’t received as much praise as Arthur, but I think his is the most difficult role, one that he pulls off expertly. It’s also the kind of movie where navigating the ending is rather tricky to pull off, and director Celine Song is able to make it work in all its uneasiness.
  1. Beau is Afraid
  • While Hereditary was a film that I loved back when it came out, I was more of less “meh” when it came to Ari Aster’s follow-up Midsommar. I’m been meaning to revisit it because it worked for a lot of people and should’ve worked for me, but I just didn’t connect with the material, so mark me back on Aster’s good side with his newest film, a Jewish nightmare called Beau is Afraid. The story of the neurotic and unstable Beau as he makes him way home to see Mom and ends up on a nightmarish panic-attack odyssey, this film came and went rather quickly early on in 2023, and I waited a great amount of time before subjecting myself to it. It’s the kind of film that requires a bit of understanding to fully enjoy. Had I not know that Aster was aiming for the visual representation of a Panic Attack, I perhaps would’ve felt differently because this is a film where I feel you need to be in the right headspace. I have enough anxiety already, thank you very much. That being said, understand Aster’s aim allowed me to be in on the joke, and I was enthralled with Beau’s insane journey. It doesn’t all work but the sheer swing that Aster and Joaquin Phoenix take in this story absolutely works.
  1. John Wick: Chapter 4
  • The latest, and potentially last, John Wick film is the first movie of 2023 that I remember loving, and for a good amount of time, it was my favorite film of the year. Like Mad Max: Fury Road, the actioner is light on plot but heavy on story. Keanu Reeves does so much with so little dialogue in his fourth outing as the titular assassin, and director Chad Stahelski takes on a near 3-hour run time and never takes his foot off the gas, leading to a movie that should feel bloated but never does, one I’ve seen a few times since release and still believe it might be the best one yet, not an easy feat for this franchise. This time around, John is taking on the High Table once and for all in order to clear his mark, and it contains the two best action set pieces of the entire franchise…so far.
  1. Oppenheimer
  • Christopher Nolan’s latest is a film that I was excited for, but less excited than his science fiction works. While I enjoyed Dunkirk, I love Nolan’s big narrative swings in the sci-fi realm, but a new Nolan is a new Nolan, and this is perhaps his best work as a writer and a director in terms of visual language. Nolan made strides in some of his more clunking writing flaws here and also seemed to fix his sound issues, at least for me, which is a good thing in a 3-hour narrative of mostly talking. This is not a traditional blockbuster, but Cilliam Murphy’s lead performance and a stunning array of supporting players littered throughout add up to a thought-provoking and horrific film about the potential architects of our own demise.
  1. All of Us Strangers
  • All of Us Strangers snuck up on me while I sat in the theater. Following a near-future man revisiting his childhood home to find his parents are still there, looking exactly as they did decades earlier before they died, Andrew Haigh’s kinda-ghost story started off rather simplistically, and it was until about halfway through that I realized how emotionally invested I was in the film. From that point on, I knew the ending of the film and I knew that it would shatter but still I had to keep watching, keep spending time, keep holding moments until the inevitable finale. As someone who has experienced loss and depression in 2023, I completely understood Adam, played by Andrew Scott, and his motivations for moving backward into past events instead of forward into the future. It’s a beautiful and destructive film that brought me joy and sadness in near-equal measure.
  1. Talk to Me
  • My horror movie of the year is Talk to Me, made by the Philippou brothers. Talk to Me is an injection of life into this year’s so-so horror landscape, a pretty standard story told really well. When a group of teens get ahold of a strange ceramic hand that has the power to connect the living with the dead, Mia finds herself mystified by what the hand can do and begins a journey that leads her and friends to a realm of traumatic horror. The way these filmmakers use a standard tale of ghosts to make a statement on addiction and grief is a powerful way to begin as feature-film directors, and I can’t wait to see what they do next, including the upcoming sequel.
  1. Barbie
  • I had a feeling Barbie would be a lot of fun, and I have a lot of faith in both Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, but Barbie seemed to understand what I wanted as a viewer better than I did. This movie was loads of fun, and it also managed to have a lot more to say about Men and Women as it did. I also did not expect to see it both praise and skewer the very toy its based on, but here we are. Bravo to Robbie, Ferrera, Gosling, Gerwig, and Mattel for such a bold risk that paid off with the highest-grossing film of the film and an terrific experience that I adore and have watched multiple times. I’m so thankful this movie exists. It’s the kind of blockbuster that I hope to see more of, even though studios will now likely just make a bunch of subpar toy movies instead, but here’s hoping it inspires viewers everywhere for many more years to come.
  1. Dream Scenario
  • You probably didn’t see Dream Scenario in 2023. Not many people did, but I’ve been praising it for over a month now, because its the best movie of the year, obviously. Nicolas Cage plays one of the most boring people in existence, a professor who suddenly starts appearing in dreams of people all across the world. I won’t say anything more than because Dream Scenario deserves to be seen to watch as director Kristoffer Borgli squeezes everything out of this concept that is possibly and still managed to surprise me frequently throughout. It’s a movie that kept me laughing and wincing all the way through, and it somehow find a way to my heart by the end. It’s a special movie, one that deserves way more eyes on it. Dream Scenario is worth your time, it was worth mine, and its the best movie of 2023.

So there you have it. My Top Ten of 2023. Now you know mine, what are your favorite films of the year? Share them with me, and let’s have a discussion. Thanks for joining me, and we’ll look forward to 2024 together.

-Kyle A. Goethe

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My Last Best Friend (2023)

Director: Filippo M. Prandi
Cast: Eric Roberts, Carol Alt, Rico Simonini, Brian Byus, Adrienne Lauren, Ken Dresslein, Nathaniel J. Ryan, Christopher Romero
Screenplay: Filippo M. Prandi
105 mins. Not Rated.

Filmmakers have had a difficult time in recent years to try and figure out how to handle COVID in filmic storytelling. For over a year, people all around the world were masked up and frequently testing themselves. The films that seemed to recognize COVID really struggled in their portrayal of the virus and the response. While films like Host really captured the vibe of stay-at-home orders, other films like Songbird turned COVID in a horror tale with an incorrect and inappropriate take on the future of the Coronavirus. Along comes My Last Best Friend, a film partly shot during the shutdown (with additional photography throughout 2021), which seems to access the confusion of the time quite well while using the fear of the time to showcase a tale of mistaken identity.

It’s March of 2020, and COVID has begun its shutdown of the entire country. Two men living together, both going by the name Walter Stoyanov (Eric Roberts, The Dark Knight), looking very similar, are dealing with the new changes to their lives. When one of them starts getting sick and the other is being investigated by an FBI Special Agent who believes he is hiding his real identity.

It’s difficult to competently have two characters played by the same actor, especially when they share so much screen time together, and in a film that has to juggle budget constraints as well, and Eric Roberts is able to more-than-competently give both characters life and personality. One is a more reserved and stern manner, the other a more lively, friendly, perhaps even gullible but soulful type. Roberts is able to imbue both with a level of humanity that is heightened but fitting.

As I mentioned above, it’s a rather difficult conversation to have about how to present COVID in the current pop culture landscape, but My Last Best Friend handles the subject rather capably. As it is part of the narrative, there’s no avoiding it, but Prandi is respectful and poignant in his portrayal, both in writing and directing the subject in his narrative debut.

Beyond that, My Last Best Friend is rather lacking in story. The COVID elements are strong, but so much of the story is dedicated to Walter’s family problems and the police investigation, both narrative pieces being so underwhelming. Prandi’s screenplay is lacking and his directing is rudimentary, something that happens with a lot of directing debuts. There are great kernels in the film, but outside of the scenes with Roberts acting across from himself, there isn’t much in terms of memorable dialogue or storytelling here.

Eric Roberts gives a lot of gravitas to My Last Best Friend, a film with some floundering storytelling and direction that is limited in style. While it covers COVID in an interesting way and features two good performances from one good actor, it just can’t maintain it’s run time.

2/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

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Next Goal Wins (2023)

Director: Taika Waititi
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Oscar Kightley, Kaimana, David Fane, Rachel House, Beulah Koale, Will Arnett, Elisabeth Moss
Screenplay: Taika Waititi, Iain Morris
104 mins. Rated PG-13.

For my money, the best in sports movies tend to lean toward underdogs and the amazing stories that I’ve never known. That’s easy for me, because I don’t follow sports enough to know most stories. It’s one of the reasons I love ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, and it’s one of the reasons I was so taken with Taika Waititi’s (Jojo Rabbit) newest film, Next Goal Wins.

In 2001, the American Samoa football team lost 31-0 to opponent Australia, becoming the worst loss ever in international football. In an effort to elevate the team’s status, or at least score a single goal, they hire the Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender, Inglourious Basterds), a Dutch American coach who’s been given an ultimatum, to coach them to a victory, or just one goal. Just one goal. Just one goal. Can Rongen motivate this unusual team to score, or where they unravel his very psyche in the process?

I’ve never seen the original 2014 documentary that this film takes its title from, but in the years since its release, I’ve been hearing the whispers of Waititi’s involvement in a feature adaptation. It stayed in the background while he made a little extra cash directing two Thor films, and finally dropped this year after filming reshoots to eliminate social pariah Armie Hammer out of the role that eventually went to Will Arnett (Ratatouille). For this viewer of sport films and not real sports that much, I can attest that Next Goal Wins was an absolute delight, something that I needed in my life considering all the stress that I’ve felt in the past few months. Waititi’s film lifted me up and inspired me that anything is possible with baby steps. After all, Rongen’s goal isn’t to win the World Cup. It isn’t even to win a game. His goal is to score a single goal. That generally silly premise lays a foundation for Waititi to introduce his colorful characters to the mix and create an exciting narrative that’s more focused on relationships than gameplay.

To be fair, I do have a type when it comes to sports films. My favorites include those oddball character underdogs like Eddie the Eagle or The Phantom of the Open, and Next Goal Wins sits firmly in that group, films that are more about the game than the wins and losses. All throughout my youth, I was taught that winning is the most important element and it caused me to lose interest in sports because I was never very good at them. Waititi’s film showcases the importance of enjoyment in the game, and how it brings the team closer. Sure, it’s a rudimentary notion, and some elements of his script, co-written with Iain Morris, tend to lean in on the schmaltz and simple sport film cliches, but when it’s working, I was enthralled with laugh-out-loud moments and football excitement.

The strongest relationship dynamics in the film come from Fassbender’s Rongen himself and the team’s manager Tavita (Oscar Kightley, Moana) as well as its center-back player Jaiyah (Kaimana), who eventually became the first transgender national footballer to play in the FIFA World Cup qualifier. Rongen’s interactions with Tavita are usually more joyful and funny, but Kightley and Fassbender have great chemistry and a lot of heart. Rongen and Jaiyah, however, create a lot of friction and conflict in the film, specifically in how the coach views his trans player, referred to by the team as a fa’afafine. Their scenes together are heated, angry, and they serve to make Rongen look like an asshole, specifically when he deadnames Jaiyah. It’s a painful scene and one that truly shocked me, even though the film is set a decade ago when society treated trans people even shittier than they do now. While we’ve made (small) strides, this scene highlighted Rongen’s uneducated character and his inability to recognize the humanity of others. Juxtaposing this scene with the later growth in both Rongen and Jaiyah (who also struggles with listening to others and showing focus on the field) really captivated me.

Next Goal Wins was a delightful experience, and one that I’m so excited to see again. Writer/Director Taika Waititi has crafted a film full of joy, a sports movie that I wish I had as a kid. I’m surprised that it’s not getting more universal acclaim, but this movie fan can tell you its one of the most fun experiences I’ve had in a theater all year.

4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

For my review of Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s What We Do in the Shadows, click here.
For my review of Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, click here.
For my review of Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit, click here.

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