Theaters... What's In Theaters

Oct 06, 2021

"Dude, I'm telling you, it's jobs.
We gotta get jobs.
Then we get the khakis,
then we get the chicks."

PINNED: this newsletter started as a way to highlight movies coming to theaters (see: the name). Then, "the bullshit" happened. And I started featuring movies in theaters, VOD or streaming (see: the +). Point is, if there's a movie worth checking out, you'll probably find it here.

No real "column" this week, except to follow up on the note I made last edition about Sony giving Venom fans what they wanted. Turns out that was an extremely smart move as the Tom Hardy sequel made the most of any movie since the "the bullshit" began ($90 million domestically). It should bode well for No Time to Die this weekend, since people seem to be quite stoked on Daniel Craig's final turn as Bond.

Can't say the enthusiasm translated to The Sopranos sequel The Many Saints of Newark though, which only made $4.7 million.

Maybe it should've been a TV show.

Extra Credit Movies: Two that are two additional movies opening in limited theaters this weekend, besides Lamb (which I'm featuring). They're likely to see a smaller distribution so calling them out here instead of a full nod (don't want to tease you and not have them available to watch). But hopefully they go to streaming quickly, cuz they both look excellent.

First up is The Rescue, another documentary from the wife and husband directing duo Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi / Jimmy Chin who made the climbing doc Free Solo. This one tracks the rescue of the Thai soccer team trapped in a cave after a monsoon. Reviews are fantastic, saying it follows the play by play, but gets at more as well.

There's also Mass, a play-like movie about two sets of parents who come together to try and heal after their respective children are involved in a murder, on opposite ends of it. Looks emotionally tough, but great. Reviews say it is. Hell, this one scene has more emotion than some entire movies.

NO TIME TO DIE
Seventeen.

That's how many times it feels like this movie has been delayed from its original November 2019 release date. When in actuality, it's "only" been five - twice due to a change in director (Danny Boyle --> Cary Joji Fukunaga) and three times due to "the bullshit."

But release dates weren't the only thing the movie had to overcome. After the last Bond movie, Spectre, came out, Daniel Craig was not a sure thing for this latest endeavor. When asked then about doing another, he told the interviewer "Now? I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrist." But come on, he's an actor, he's bound to be somewhat dramatic.

But he did come back, and with No Time to Die, became the longest tenured actor hold the 007 moniker by time in the role (15 years), if not by amount of movies starred in.

And how about one more number for you. Twenty five. As in there are now twenty five entries in the venerable spy series; the same as there are in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Except the Bond franchise has been around for 59 years and the MCU, a mere 13 (starting in 2008 with Iron Man). But even if the series started by writer Ian Fleming is older, it's also been ageless. That is until Craig took over the role. The producers essentially started at the beginning of the character - using Fleming's first book Casino Royale to create a bit of an origin story for a character who really didn't need one. But it worked, the movie was a hit and Craig's Bond evolved into a mini series within a series. NPR, like many outlets, did a write up about the movie and phrased it quite well...

"James Bond, so long a legend, is just a story now. He has, for the first time on screen, a beginning, a middle, and an end. He has a timeline. All he used to have was all the time in the world."

An implication I read in that is that there's a risk in making people care too much about this, the Daniel Craig Bond. But there's a risk in people not caring enough too. You could say the world changed and Bond changed with it. Craig told The New York Times last year that, “Maybe I’ll be remembered as the Grumpy Bond. I don’t know. That’s just my Bond and I have to face up to it, that has been my Bond. But I’m quite satisfied with that.”

And so what? The next Bond will be different, just as the previous Bond's were different than Craig's. But even if Bond changes, what will surely stay the same is the overall fantasy - saving the world, defeating the baddies and looking handsome as hell while doing it. I have a hard time imagining that part going away. Cuz it's still Bond... James Bond, no matter who plays them.

And however No Time to Die ends, you can bet that James Bond will return.

Vibe: an ending of sorts to a never-ending story

Out Friday
Watch Theaters Only
The Trailer | 2 hrs 43 mins | R | 🍅: 83%

LAMB

Horse. Frog. Platypus.

........?

Oh. Sorry. Based on the trend of recent movie titles, I thought it was hip to randomly name animals - see: this movie, the recent Nicholas Cage starrer Pig and the upcoming Wolf, which is featured in this week's trailer section.

But I kid. Lamb is certainly not "randomly named." In fact, it looks to be incredibly poignantly titled, as well as forthrightly, with the latter adverb evoking the tone of the movie. Which is important, because the premise of the movie is one which necessitates buy in. Now, I'm tip-toeing a bit around what that premise is, because well, I kinda want to leave you with a sense of surprise. It's easy enough to find out some of the movie's twists in reviews or interviews, but I'd encourage you to go in as fresh as you can, because it looks like the kind of movie that benefits from innocence of its story more than most.

What I will say is the movie stars Noomi Rapace (the original Lisbeth Salander) and Hilmir Snær Guðnason as parents who recently lost a child and are still grieving that loss. They're farmers in the rural mountains of Iceland so their lives are focused on the functional, until one day a sheep on their farm births... Yeah, I'm just gonna stop there. Go watch the trailer if you want more, or better plan, just go watch the movie.

Lamb is being called things like, "ridiculous" "disturbing" "unsettling" "visually striking" and plenty more by critics. But they're also calling it a very worthwhile watch. There are numerous comparisons to other A24 (the studio behind it) horror movies like The Witch.

Now, this is an Icelandic movie, so you can expect subtitles 😳, but you just watched Squid Game, so you're all good with that. Right? Although, the language is less important than the sort of Scandinavian austereness and slightly more, shall we say, harsh lesson learning of fairytales, or better yet, folktales, that are more common in Europe than it is in the United States. In short, I don't know if I would expect what one might call, a happy ending.

But then again, maybe it's a matter of your point of view.

Vibe: austere Scandinavian horror with a large thread of sincere oddness

Out Friday
Watch Theaters (Limited)
The Trailer | 1 hr 46 mins | R | 🍅: 91%

(called out from top, left to right)

How much do I love Peter Dinklage, ah, let me count the ways... Don't worry, you'll get way better poetry writing in Cyrano, a new musical take on the old tale starring Dinklage, written by Erica Schmidt (Dinklage's wife who also wrote the off Broadway show this is based on) and directed by Joe Wright - who made Atonement and Pride and Prejudice. Reviews are already coming in and they're quite good.

A movie about people who believe they're animals trapped inside their human bodies might seem like something that might not work, until you watch the trailer for Wolf. Note: it is not just another werewolf redo.

When you hear the words Red Rocket, you might think of the thing that goes to space and is colored red. Or... you might think of something, else. Assuming you are a (wo)man child, like me ->🙋‍♂️. But this is all fitting for a movie directed by Sean Baker of Tangerine / The Florida Project fame, and starring Simon Rex as a retired(?) porn star returning to his Texas hometown. Because this movie seems far more rooted in the silliness we engage in on earth than any outer space activity. Note: Rex is a former MTV VJ who himself did a turn in some adult videos.

In the full playlist, you'll also find a second trailer for Netflix's tick, tick... BOOM!, the first movie directed by Lin Manuel Miranda. It's based on stage show by Jonathan Larson, the creator of Rent (who unfortunately passed away before that show became the hit it is). TTB! is essentially a rock opera musical, about making musicals. So meta(L).

What's In Theaters +

Discussion about this post